by Nancy Bush
That voice.
“Julia?”
Oh, God. Was it Uncle Paul? Was he still alive? Was he the man she’d seen who had spiraled her into such a panic that she’d blocked it from her memory?
“Julia?”
And then she knew. She knew.
She gripped the knife and threw the door open wide. Not Uncle Paul . . .
“Hi, Dad,” she greeted him in a bitter, brittle voice.
Chapter Twenty-One
Braking hard, Sam started to turn onto the street where he thought he’d seen the SUV disappear. In his peripheral vision, he caught a glimpse of a black vehicle nose out from another side street. A Trailblazer. It had turned right, then left, then left again, and then a final left on Fifth Street again, heading back toward the highway.
Except Sam was in the way.
Jamming his truck into reverse, Sam hit the gas and backed across Fifth Street, angling his Chevy so no traffic could pass, but facing toward where Ezra would come. Then he waited, eyes focused down the street, his blood running cold as he thought about Stuart Ezra and how he’d killed Joe and nearly killed Julia.
Now, it was over.
Gotcha, asshole.
His gaze narrowed on the street as the Trailblazer had started his way and then stopped, fifteen feet away.
Stuart Ezra stared at him through his windshield, and Sam stared back. Sam desperately wished for his gun, but he hadn’t carried it since he quit the force. He snagged his phone from the cup holder, intending to call Griff.
Ezra raised a small pistol, the barrel visible.
Sam ducked just as the gun went off, a flash of light, his windshield shattering. The bullet hit the headrest with a loud pfft sound.
Well, shit.
A squeal of tires and Sam risked a quick glance above the dash. The Trailblazer was zigging, aiming toward the road past Ryan Mayfield’s apartment and on toward Summit Ridge. A boxed canyon.
“Perfect,” Sam ground out, and trod on his accelerator, slewing after him.
* * *
Jules held the butcher knife in her left hand. Her right hand was no use to her, her arm tied up in its sling. Didn’t matter. She could do quite a bit of damage with her left if need be.
Her father . . . who’d taken a swan dive? into the Columbia. . . the man who couldn’t swim . . . Her father, who loved her, or at least had pretended he had.
She’d seen him on Wednesday, she knew now. Had felt like she was going to pass out in that first shock of recognition. Had heard the urgency in Joe’s voice as he yelled at her to get to the boat. She’d stumbled, fallen down, hit her head.
She’d seen her father lunge for her—to help her or hurt her?—and Joe grabbing him and forcibly pushing him out of the house. Joe yelling at him to stay away, that he was turning her father in, that he’d always planned to but had to tell Julia first, that Peter St. James’s embezzling was going to come to light. No way was Peter St. James pretending suicide . . . pseudocide . . . and assuming deceased P. J. Simpson’s life.
“Julia,” her father said to her now, his voice cracking as he stepped inside.
You’re dead, she’d said to Sam on the beach. She’d meant her father, she realized now.
“I’m—” he started to say, but she cut him off.
“Don’t come an inch closer. Sit in that chair. We’ll wait till Sam gets back.” Her voice was cold and hard. Didn’t sound like her. Or maybe it did. The true Jules who’d never forgiven him for leaving her, saddling her with her dying mother who didn’t recognize her anymore and needed constant care. She shut the door and steeled herself for what was sure to be an emotional roller coaster. Dad was alive. Alive! After all these years. Showing up now . . . Her stomach turned in on itself at what that could mean, the only thing it could mean—that he was involved. Oh. Dear. God.
“I left you some money for Lena. I didn’t take it all,” he said, before obeying her order and dropping into the nearest side chair.
She laughed harshly. “Oh, thanks very much.”
“Sit down,” he suggested.
“I’ll stand.” And she didn’t let go of the knife.
He appeared about to argue, then cast a glance around the living room, the one she and Joe had shared. Almost imperceptibly, he shook his head. “Look, I messed up. I know it, but I couldn’t deal with your mother’s illness, Julia. You know that. I was weak, I admit it.” He reached up and peeled off his dark mustache. With it, he’d looked almost clownish; without it, he was a gray, tired, old man. Dad. The traitor. And what else? Inside, she was shaking, hurt, incredibly wounded that he would let her believe he was dead, leave her with Mom, but she forced herself to outwardly be strong, not let him know how much it killed her to know that he’d lied to her and kept it up, letting her think he was dead.
“How did you take Uncle Paul’s identity?” she asked tightly.
“He died in his cabin. You know he was a hermit. Barely anyone knew of him when he was alive. Then he stopped checking in at all. Became a total recluse. Your mother hadn’t heard from him for nearly a year, and she was losing it, so I didn’t listen to her fretting about him. But then time went on. Still no word. Your mother couldn’t recall anything anymore, and she forgot about him, but I wondered about P. J., so I went to his cabin. All that was left were bones and ragged skin when I found him. Lying on the kitchen floor. Rats had found him, too.” His features tightened at the memory. “Ugly scene. I—I don’t know what he died of. I buried him under the cabin floorboards, and left. But his death made me think about things in a different way. How short life is. How you struggle so hard and never get anywhere, and then you’re gone. It’s all over and your life’s worth nothing. Except . . .” He smiled faintly, sadly almost, a smile Jules didn’t trust. “P. J. gave me a way out. It just seemed so . . . providential.”
“Providential?” she snarled. “Such a grand word instead of cowardly.”
He flinched, but she didn’t care about his feelings, not now. “You know, Dad, you left everyone who cared about you, just up and pretended to die, never once checked in.” She took a step forward, suddenly furious for all the years she’d grieved for a man who cared so little for her. Involuntarily, her fingers clenched over the handle of the knife. “But Joe found you out. That’s what happened.”
“I went to his office. I had to see him. I’d been living at the cabin for years, being P. J., living alone, dreaming of the day, very soon, when I would cash in and start the next phase of my life, knowing my nest egg was growing and accumulating in Joe’s capable hands. I practically gave him my business, if you remember. He owed me.”
“Owed you?” She choked. “You killed him!”
“I came here to reason with him!” he declared with a flash of emotion. “Only to reason with him. He was your husband. My only daughter’s husband. And he owed me!”
“You hired Stuart Ezra to kill Joe, burn the boat . . . kill me.”
“No!”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I’m telling you the truth!”
“You’ve never told me the truth!” she charged. She was shaking all over. Her knees were jelly, threatening to collapse. She locked them in place, needing to stop the emotion, stay in complete control. “I recognized you, but then I couldn’t remember. I wouldn’t let myself remember because it was too terrible!”
“I never meant to hurt you,” he insisted, his voice low. “You’re my daughter.”
“Go ahead and tell yourself that, all the way to prison,” she snarled. “You don’t care a lick about anyone but yourself, and that’s the way it’s always been.”
“That’s not true. I was devastated when Clem died.” His face contorted with pain, fake or real, she couldn’t tell. “Your mother had spells even then and she blamed it on you, when it was really her fault.”
“You say that, but you almost believed her,” she realized dimly. “You wanted to blame me, too.”
“Not true.” He dolefully shook his head.
He was telescoping away from her in her eyes. She was mentally putting distance between them. “How did you manage to survive the fall into the river?” she asked, feeling like she was losing control. She was worried . . . worried about Georgie . . . worried for Sam.
“Julia?” His voice sounded watery in her ears.
Was that a sound on the porch? Someone coming? Her imagination?
“You can’t even swim . . .” she whispered.
And then she remembered the movie, Sleeping with the Enemy, where Julia Roberts’s character, who couldn’t swim, taught herself to swim on the sly in order to pretend to be dead to escape her abusive husband. Pseudocide. Jules had been trying to remind herself of that since the accident, but her mind had been protecting her from the truth.
Now her vision had narrowed to where her father was all she could see. And he was looking at her in a hard way. “I need you to help me get my money back,” he said.
Was that a threat?
In slow motion she saw him rise from the chair, come at her.
“I’m sorry, Julia, but you need to help me.”
He grabbed at her arm, and she slashed down with the knife, but missed. “Get away from me!” she yelled.
And then Georgie’s voice, shrieking behind her. Her father lunged at her, grabbing her hand, twisting her wrist, her fingers losing their grip on the knife. She caught a glimpse of Georgie frozen with fear, her mouth open, then the sound of the front door banging open.
“Run, Georgie!” Julia yelled, “Run!” But the kid couldn’t move.
BLAM, BLAM, BLAM!
Gunshots thundered through the house, the smell of cordite filling the air.
Barking madly, two dogs rushed through the open door, leaping, snarling, and growling. Georgie screamed again as one shepherd clamped vicious teeth around Peter St. James’s left leg, the other his arm. Growling, they held him fast, two muscular, furry, black and brown animals who wouldn’t let go. Screaming with pain, he turned terrorized eyes on his daughter. “I’m shot . . . I’m shot,” he muttered in disbelief. “Get them off me!”
“Georgie, get out of here. Get help!” Jules ordered, and turned toward the doorway, where the shooter was in silhouette. Oh, God. A knife against a gun. She was a dead woman.
“Julia!” Bette Ezra cried as she stepped into the room. Holding a gun at arm’s length, she stared down at Peter in horror. “He was threatening you. Attacking you. I couldn’t let him hurt you.” Her hand was beginning to shake like mad as she still held the gun on him, as if there was any chance he would get up.
“Bette, please put the gun down.”
“Who is he? Oh, God, I’ve shot him.” Coming to herself, she called, “Less! More! Release! Back!”
As if by magic, the dogs let go of the wounded man and slunk to a spot behind Bette, near the door. She lowered the gun and gazed at Jules in shock.
Jules’s eyes dropped to the man who’d betrayed his whole family.
Peter St. James stared right back at his daughter. For a moment it seemed like he was about to say something more, but then he passed from this world.
* * *
Sam opened the door to his truck, standing behind it for protection, his gaze fixed on Stuart’s empty Trailblazer. Ezra, running out of a road to escape on, had stood on his brakes, letting the SUV slide sideways, and before it had stopped completely, bolted from behind the wheel, leaving the Trailblazer running.
As Sam had ground his pickup to a stop he’d spied Stuart dashing madly between two of the partially finished homes.
He has a gun and you don’t.
Sam hesitated, but couldn’t run the risk of losing the bastard. Too much was at stake. For now he was running on instinct. He’d never wanted to kill someone before, but he wanted to kill Stuart Ezra. He believed Jules one hundred percent. This man had premeditatedly murdered his brother. He wanted him to pay.
Crouching, using construction equipment and piles of lumber as cover, he darted toward one of the houses and slipped through an open window. Along with an empty box of nails and used cylinders of caulking material, there was scattered debris on the floor. He found a piece of two-by-four framing and picked it up, weighing it in his hand. Small enough to carry easily, strong enough to do serious damage.
He wanted to do serious damage.
Hearing the scrape of a shoe against the bare subfloor, he realized Ezra had just stepped into the same house. Perfect. He felt a savage urge run through his blood, tightening his muscles, getting him ready.
Silently he crept along a wall that was sheet-rocked, careful with each step.
I’m coming for you, you bastard!
Ears straining, fingers holding the two-by-four in a death grip, he edged along the hall wall to tuck himself into a shallow corner. If Ezra came from either direction, there would be a split second when Sam could launch forward and attack him before he could get a shot off.
At least he hoped to God that’s the way it would play out.
* * *
Georgie’s face was buried in the rough fur of one of the German shepherd’s necks, Less or More, Jules couldn’t say. The dog stood beside her like the guard dog it was. The other one sat a few paces away. They both were protecting Georgie as if she were their master, not Bette.
Bette was in a state of delayed shock. The gun clattered from her fingers and she collapsed on the floor. “He was trying to kill you. He was trying to kill you. And Sam . . . ? He tore out after Stuart. What’s happening? Julia, what’s happening?”
Jules was looking for her phone, completely discombobulated. She felt she was on the verge of passing out, but she couldn’t. “I need to call Sam.”
They heard a car arriving outside and all tensed. Bette walked to the open door, and Jules saw her tense body nearly collapse. “It’s Sadie,” she said.
Sadie. God. Sam had called her.
Sadie greeted Bette suspiciously, “Well, hello. What are you doing here?”
“I’m . . .” Bette looked behind her to where Peter sprawled on the floor, his eyes open and staring.
“Holy Mother of God,” Sadie said in shock. Her gaze flew to Jules. “You okay? What happened? You okay?”
“The phone . . . I’m . . . I need to call Sam.”
Without further ado Sadie whipped out her own phone and dialed 911. “Who is he?” she asked before the dispatcher answered.
“My father,” Jules responded, then she wobbled to the couch and collapsed.
* * *
“I know you’re there, Ford.”
Stuart Ezra’s half-amused voice sounded to Sam’s left, not far from the edge of his hiding niche.
Sam remained silent.
“I know you’re hiding from me, but there’s really nowhere to go. You might as well come on out now.”
Sam tested his grip on the two-by-four. He couldn’t make any noise. Not a breath. He needed one good shot.
“Joe shoulda kept better care of all our money, y’know? Shoulda warned us about Cardaman.”
He did, asshole. You can’t bait me into revealing myself.
Ezra’s voice was coming closer. “Everyone thought he was so great, but he was a bad guy. Just like the Hapstells and the Montgomerys and that fucker Ike Cardaman. Bloodsuckers. That’s why it had to be done. Why I took the job.”
A few more steps. Sam started counting in his head. One . . .
“P. J. Simpson promised a lot of dough, but he turned out to be just like the rest of them. He’s the one who went after Phoenix. Don’t blame that one on me.”
Two . . .
“But you don’t know who you’re dealing with.” He chortled. “You think your brother was the first? Tom and Bridget have been ridding the world of assholes for a long time. The tourists were first . . . and then that guy we choked to death—Bridget really got off on that one.... And then Monique.” Ezra paused in his measured steps and Sam held his breath. “Mulhaney too. Your brother’s lackey. Got him at a run-down bar in Laurelt
on. He was a paid kill. Buried him where you’ll never find him. And now he’s got a friend. . . .”
Something sounded in his voice. Regret? Sociopaths didn’t feel regret.
Ezra took another step. He was right on the other side of the short wall. Sam readied the two-by-four.
“I’m going to get that little girlfriend of yours,” Ezra said softly. “You’ve been with her, haven’t you? Your brother’s wife? My, my. Well, it’s my turn next, just before I kill her. We’re gonna have an awful good time.”
Sam could see the toe of Ezra’s black sneaker edging forward.
Three!
He leapt forward and swung the two-by-four blindly, but Ezra had leapt forward in the same moment.
BLAM!
The shot rang out and Sam shuddered, wondering where he’d been hit. He couldn’t feel it.
Ezra looked at him in surprise, lifted the gun again, ready to take another shot.
BLAM, BLAM!!
The shots came from behind Ezra and Ezra turned, practically pirouetted on a toe, and fell over.
Sam stayed perfectly still, his hands in the air, as Officer Bolles, as jumpy as ever, slid into view, his Glock aimed at Sam.
Ezra had never gotten a shot off, Sam realized. It was all Bolles.
He stared at the officer, and Bolles stared back. For half a heartbeat, Sam wondered if Bolles was somehow involved as well, but then the officer relaxed his stance and wiped his brow.
“Never shot anyone before,” he admitted, then, with a nod toward Stuart, “This the guy who killed your brother?”
“That would be the one,” Sam said.
Chapter Twenty-Two
It was a blur to Jules until Sam got back to the house. It felt like hours had passed, and it had been a while, though maybe not as long as she thought. Relieved, she practically fell into his arms upon seeing him again, and once she’d finally calmed down, she could finally listen. To her horror, she learned that Sam had been embroiled in a gun battle of sorts of his own, although he had only been armed with a piece of wood. Her heart had turned to ice at the thought that she had come so close to losing him. But he was here. Alive. For that she was grateful.