“What do you think you’re doing?” Pearl asked, waving the gun in her direction.
“Nothing.” Jamie held tight to the syringe. She pulled harder on the rope, feeling it slide over the knuckles of her back hand. The knots loosened enough to slip past them at last. Jamie pulled one hand free and held the syringe in that hand while pulling free the other one and concealing the rope in the back pocket of her shorts. “I…I was just trying to get more comfortable.”
“The hell you were. Now scoot back away from him. Nicky boy isn’t going to be any help untying you.”
Nick gave Jamie a puzzled look and quickly looked back to Pearl. Jamie saw a gleam in his eyes. Her heart beat wildly. He was going to try and rush Pearl. Nick, please don’t. He didn’t have time to get to her. She’d shoot him first. Pearl must have seen it, too. She swiveled the gun back in his direction.
“Don’t go getting any delusions of heroism, lover boy. I can shoot you both before you can cross the length of this room.”
It was up to her, Jamie realized. Pearl didn’t consider her a threat, and had turned her full attention back to Nick. Facing Pearl, she continued moving in a crouched position, barely an inch at a time until she was within an arm’s length of the woman’s calf. She gripped the syringe, inching toward Pearl.
Pearl noticed her at last. “What are you doing?” She motioned toward the back wall. “Get back over there.”
Jamie swung the syringe in the direction of Pearl’s calf and plunged it deep into the muscle, pressing down on the plunger. Startled, Pearl screamed, jerked the gun and pulled the trigger. The shot split the air with a deafening bang. For an instant, Jamie couldn’t hear. Her ears rang and the world moved in slow motion.
Nick gasped and a splotch of blood appeared on his upper bicep, about the size of a dime and steadily growing larger. “Oh shit!” He staggered backward, eyes wide, and sank to the ground.
“No.” Jamie rushed toward him.
Pearl fell to the floor, her gun dropping from her hand.
The door burst open. “Police! Don’t move!”
A swarm of blue uniforms entered the room, but Jamie’s gaze remained focused on Nick, slumped on the floor, heavy breaths laboring from his chest. She knelt beside him, unable to tear her gaze away from the ever-growing splotch of blood soaking through his shirt sleeve. “Oh, Nick. I’m so sorry.” Tears tumbled down her face. Blood streamed out of the wound. “You’re going to be okay, aren’t you?”
He looked up at her and winked, still breathing hard. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. A gunshot’s a small price to pay for the woman I love.”
Chapter 79
Daydream Believer by the Monkees soared from the oldies station on Marianne Clarke’s car radio. She sang along at the top of her lungs, feeling like this was the day all her dreams were finally coming true. Getting the empty vodka bottle from Peter Arnold’s house had been ridiculously easy. The stupid idiot had been so drunk when he answered the door, he’d never thought to ask why she’d want to see Lisbeth, nor did he ask why Marianne didn’t know Lisbeth had moved out, despite it being trumpeted all over the papers and on the news. He’d simply let her in to use the restroom and gone back to drinking in his study. She hadn’t even had to go through the pretense of heading for the powder room, just walked into the kitchen, fished the empty bottle, destined to be found with Nick’s corpse, from the garbage can and left without another word.
She laughed. It would be nothing short of a miracle if Peter even remembered her being there. She went back to singing. Reliving her glory days, when she had been the homecoming queen and caught the eye of a Harvard student with a promising future.
That dream had ended badly, turned into a nightmare by that ruthless moron Nicholas Beck. Her new dream, however, was going to turn out much better. With Nick dead and that pervert Peter Arnold going to jail for the crime. Better still, Nick would die without his wife’s killer having ever been caught, and the speculation he had been responsible for her death would become the stuff of urban legend.
Which made having caught Jamie Jennings all the better. She didn’t know if Nick had been having an affair with the girl or not, but for her purposes it didn’t really matter. Thanks to Peter’s smear campaign, most of the world did believe it, and their bodies being found together would just add fuel to that particular fire, and give motivation to the rumors she would often repeat about why Nick had his wife killed.
The Monkees song ended just as she turned down the dirt road leading to her rented cottage. Taking her good spirits with it. Cop cars filled the driveway to the house. She counted five of them, including the one she saw parked off to the side.
Marianne took her foot off the accelerator, hitting the brakes and slowing the car to an idle. Had anyone seen her? She studied the scene more closely, but saw no movement outside the house. The windows in the second story room where the prisoners were kept had been taken out. But that room faced the waterfront. The windows visible to the street had all been fashioned with dark, heavy drapes to keep anyone on the outside from looking in. Which meant there was little likelihood anyone inside the house had seen her car start down the road.
Shifting the car into reverse and stomping on the accelerator, Marianne looked in the rearview mirror, and too late, caught sight of the two cruisers now blocking her path. Her beloved Rolls plowed into the side of one. A loud popping sound exploded in her ears. Her face buried into an erupting air bag. A slapping sensation burned her cheeks, jerking her to an abrupt stop as her head snapped first forward and then back.
“Hold it right there!”
Dazed, she looked up to the barrel of a gun pointed through the driver’s side window. The world spun in front of her. The tall, black police woman opened her car door and motioned her outside. She shook her head, stumbling out the door, nearly falling. The lady cop jerked her arms roughly behind her, clamping metal bracelets around her wrists.
“Marianne Clarke, you’re under arrest for the murders of Janelle Beck and Patrice McKenzie, and for the kidnapping and attempted murders of Nicholas Beck and Jamie Jennings.”
Rage ripped through her. “Attempted murders? Attempted? You mean to tell me that bastard’s still alive?”
“Hate to break it to you, lady, but the guy’s got more lives than a cat.”
Marianne shook, glaring at the skinny, older man, wishing she had thought to kill him, too. “Danny Ventura. The Tattletale’s star mudslinger.”
“You got it.” He grinned good-naturedly and started taking pictures of her in handcuffs. Then he slapped the police woman on the shoulder. “Nice work, Sarge.”
Damn man didn’t even have the decency to take offense at her insult. Under her breath, Marianne began singing the Monkees’ song again. She was no longer the homecoming queen and she had no idea what anything could mean.
Chapter 80
Nick adjusted the sling on his shoulder, ignoring the throbbing in his arm. Bullet wounds hurt far more than movies and television would have a person believe.
“I wish you’d stop acting like Superman and let me take charge of my suitcase,” Jamie said. “I can manage it, you know. I’m not the one recovering from a gunshot.”
He looked at her, already weighed down with her purse over one shoulder and her camera bag over the other, and shook his head. “You’re pregnant, remember?”
She raised an eyebrow at him. “I’m pregnant, not an invalid.”
He didn’t care. He wasn’t letting her roll the heavy bag, too. “I wish you’d let me come with you.” They’d debated the point for three days already, but he couldn’t change her mind. Allowing him to see her off at the airport was the only concession she would give.
“It will look more professional if I show up by myself.” She smiled and kissed him on the cheek. “But I do love that fiercely protective streak of yours.”
He rolled her suitcase up the line, glancing at the hustle and bustle of the busy airport terminal, and counting five passengers left in li
ne ahead of them. Before long, she’d be off through the security check-point and he’d be left missing her. “I suppose you’re right.”
The next passenger stepped up to the check-in desk and Nick wheeled Jamie’s suitcase farther up the queue. The tugging motion hurt his arm, but he had no complaints. As much as it sucked to be shot, it had brought Jamie to the realization she didn’t want to lose him anymore than he wanted to lose her. “I’m going to miss you,” he said. “I’ve barely had time to spend with you since I got out of the hospital.”
She gave him that knowing smile of hers, the one that said she knew what kind of time he meant to be spending. “Don’t worry. I’ll finish the E! special on Darla and be home in two weeks. Just in time for our wedding.”
They’d agreed on a simple, low-key affair. She wanted to exchange vows on the beach, with her family coming down from Michigan and a few friends. He didn’t care where they got married, just as long as she was his.
“I’ll be keeping my lens aimed at Earl Grayson and Mindy LePage while I’m out there, too,” she said. “I have a feeling that situation’s about to explode.”
“You’re instincts always were the best.” He pulled her into a kiss, so long and fierce and passionate, he expected to hear someone tell him to get a room before he reluctantly pulled away. “Make sure you give me first crack at buying your pictures.”
She snuggled into the embrace of his good arm. “Anything for the man who helped me believe in happy endings.”
The end.
Other Books by Clara Grace Walker
Gratification - Book # 1 of the Desire Never Dies trilogy
Redemption - Book #3 of the Desire Never Dies trilogy
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Gossip (Desire Never Dies) Page 32