by Lisa Jackson
“Too late for that. Sacrifices had to be made.”
“Sacrifices? I don’t under—” But she did. Her stomach turned over. She thought she might throw up. God, how she hated this man. How, how, how had she ever remotely thought she loved him? Why in the world did she marry him? Because her own home life hadn’t been the picture-perfect postcard everyone had believed. And she’d been duped by him. If given the chance, she’d blow him away and not think twice about it.
“They needed to die, so that you would be blamed.”
“Me? But how? I had nothing to do with them.”
“Didn’t you?”
“Of course not.” She inched backward, still trying to figure out how to save Ryder, save herself. “I didn’t even know them.”
“Oh, but Anne-Marie, there’s the problem.” Calderone wagged the gun a little and her eyes were fixed on the muzzle. Was it her imagination or over the whistle of the wind did she hear the faint shriek of sirens?
The police!
Ryder had called 9-1-1!
Had they come up with the right location?
Hurry, hurry, hurry!
“You can’t prove it though, can you? That you’d not met those women,” Calderone was saying, so caught up in his own story, in his bragging, that he hadn’t heard the sirens as he stood confidently behind her SUV.
He couldn’t prove it—yet. But he would. He wouldn’t be so outwardly cocky if he hadn’t made certain of that fact. Oh, how her fingers itched to grab Ryder’s Glock.
“You know, it looks very suspicious that those women happened to die just about the time you arrived in town, don’t you think? And then, oh dear, evidence points to you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your fingerprint, Anne-Marie. Your fucking telltale print showed up on the victims’ personal effects.”
“But I never—”
“I guess you just got careless.”
“What? No! You’re bluffing,” she accused. But she knew him too well to believe her own words.
The glint of satisfaction in his eyes, and his cold, cold smile convinced her he wasn’t lying. To prove his point, he kept the gun trained on her with one hand, while with the other, he unzipped his jacket to expose a chain that he lifted and she saw something withered and dark and . . .
Her stomach dropped and she retched, fighting the urge to throw up. “Oh, God.”
“That’s right. A little keepsake from my dear whore of a wife.”
“You shit!”
His eyes flared. “So let’s end this,” he said harshly.
The sirens were getting closer, but Calderone didn’t seem to notice the noise over the wind, so intent was he on killing her. “Go ahead and try for the gun,” he said smoothly. Confidently. Always the supercilious egomaniac. “I know you’ve got one, but, trust me, Annie-girl, you’ll never reach it, aim it, and fire before you’re dead.”
So much for the element of surprise. She saw him level the gun straight at her heart and threw herself backward into the open doorway.
Blam! Calderone fired.
Wood splintered.
She hit the floor, rolled over, reached around her back.
A big engine roared to life.
What the hell?
Blam! Another shot, the bullet whizzing into the cabin.
The engine raced louder, a truck spinning its tires in the snow.
Looking through the doorway, she saw Calderone turn, his face a mask of horror. Suddenly his aim was no longer on her or the open doorway, but on the huge truck, Ryder’s Dodge, churning forward, gathering speed, heading straight at him.
Blam! Calderone fired again.
The Dodge’s windshield shattered.
Ryder’s body jerked.
Blood sprayed.
The horn blared.
“Nooooo!” Anne-Marie screamed, rolling to her feet, yanking out her weapon from the back of her jeans and swinging her arm around. “No! No! No!” She started firing wildly, all of her pent-up rage forced into pulling the trigger.
But the truck didn’t stop.
Calderone stepped back, a bullet grazing his shoulder. For a second, he forgot the truck. When he looked up again, it was too late. The Dodge slammed into him, pinning him against the back of her SUV. In a mash of shattering bones and crumpling metal, he howled in agony. His voice rose to the heavens. Writhing. Screaming. To no avail. Calderone dropped the gun and frantically pushed on the hood of Ryder’s truck as if he could shove it off him. But the wheels kept grinding, churning in the snow, mangling him, twisting the lower half of his body into a pulp of bone and tissue and blood.
“Oh, God!” Horrified, Anne-Marie threw herself off the porch and ran to the truck. Snow was blowing inside the cab. She yanked open the door as the engine continued to turn over, trying to drive the Dodge’s spinning wheels forward, still crushing the man pinned in the contorted metal.
“Troy. Ryder!”
His body spilled into her waiting arms, blood everywhere.
“Don’t die,” she said to him, though he was obviously unconscious. “Don’t you dare die on me!” With all her effort, she reached across him and yanked out the keys. The engine died, the wheels stopping suddenly.
Tears filled her eyes and she didn’t bother dashing them, just fumbled with the damn key ring until she found the smallest key and unlocked the cuffs. As the cuff sprang open, he slithered out of the truck and his weight pulled them both onto the frozen ground.
Blood spilled, and she tried frantically to stanch it.
She had done this. It was her fault that he lay dying in her arms.
For a second, everything seemed to go quiet. The engine no longer ground and Calderone’s voice had been stilled, probably forever. She felt that in that one suspended second, she and Ryder were alone in the universe.
“Don’t you die on me,” she said to him again, sobbing, holding him close. Blood covered her hands, smearing on her clothes. So wrapped up in saving him, she barely heard the sirens or the wind or the sound of anxious shouts. “Do you hear me, Ryder? Don’t you dare die on me.” She heard him expel a rattling breath.
Then he opened one eye. Looking up at her, his lips barely moved as he said, “Wouldn’t dream of it, darlin’. Wouldn’t dream of... it.”
Epilogue
Las Vegas, Nevada
February
Never in her life would Pescoli have dreamed that she would be standing next to Santana, saying “I do” in a tiny chapel in Las Vegas, but here she was, her kids at her side, witnessing their mother getting married again.
Surprisingly, it felt right.
As if she’d been destined for this moment for all of her life.
Okay, she knew that was the stuff of romantic dreams she didn’t believe in, but just for the day, wearing an off-white dress that almost touched her knees, Santana looking handsome as as hell in a black suit, she went with the fantasy.
It wasn’t February fourteen, but the day after. Bianca and Jeremy, if not thrilled at the hasty marriage, went with it. Santana had promised to take Jeremy target shooting in the next few days and Bianca was able to sunbathe in the bikini she’d received from her father and stepmother last Christmas. So it was a win-win situation, or as much as it could be, considering.
Less than two weeks ago, she and Alvarez had wrapped up the Anne-Marie Calderone case. Bruce Calderone had died at the scene. No big loss there. The finger found dangling from his neck matched the prints they’d found on Calypso Pope’s purse and Sheree Cantnor’s shoe and was the ring finger he’d sliced off his wife’s left hand, the proof of which she bore as a stump on her hand.
Troy Ryder had survived a bullet wound to the neck, though he’d lost enough blood to kill a lesser man. However, he was out of the hospital and in New Orleans where he, Anne-Marie, and Detective Montoya were sorting things out.
The last Pescoli had heard, Anne-Marie’s grandmother wasn’t pressing charges, but that was just the first and foremost of Anne-Ma
rie’s crimes, now that she’d been cleared of murder. She had other nasty details, like false passports and IDs, to deal with.
Again, Pescoli was glad that was all part of the New Orleans Police Department’s problems. She had heard that Anne-Marie’s parents were filing bankruptcy and had disowned her after being exposed as trying to profit from their daughter’s notoriety.
The true killer of Sheree Cantnor and Calypso Pope had been exposed, all part of Calderone’s twisted plan to get back at his wife. Sometimes, marriages weren’t exactly made in heaven, which was a weird thing to think on her wedding day. Then again, it was her third time down the aisle, so she could be a little cynical.
She wasn’t going to think about the whole Calderone mess another minute.
That case was closed.
At least for her.
And from this moment forward, she was a bride. Again. God knew what the future had in store for her. Bianca, in a short pink dress, the maid of honor, blinked back tears. Jeremy stood tall and solemn, a man who had given his mother away to a new man he didn’t quite trust. In a suit, he resembled his father on that long ago day when Pescoli had married Joe Strand.
But that was the past. Santana was the future.
As she held Santana’s hand and thought of the baby that was growing inside her, the infant her other children knew nothing about, she felt a wellspring of hope that was unlike her. The pseudo clergyman, grinning widely, proclaimed them man and wife and Santana leaned down to kiss her.
“Just one thing,” she whispered before his lips met hers. “I’m not changing my name. I’ve done that enough.”
“You think you might have mentioned that a little earlier?”
“Probably.”
He winked at her, and she wondered how it was possible to love someone this much, especially a man she’d once considered just a fling. “It’s fine,” he assured her.
“Really? You don’t care?”
“Don’t you know me by now?” His dark eyes flashed in that sexy way that always made her throat catch and she couldn’t help but grin. “I’ll take you any way I can get you, Regan Pescoli. Any damn way you want.” And then, to seal the deal, he kissed her so hard, she nearly swooned.
Yes, she thought, this time I finally got it right.
HOME
Along the shores of Oregon’s wild Columbia River,
the Victorian mansion where Sarah McAdams grew
up is as foreboding as she remembers. The moment
she and her two daughters, Jade and Gracie, pull up
the isolated drive, Sarah is beset by uneasy
memories—of her cold, distant mother, of the half-
sister who vanished without a trace, and of a long-ago
night when Sarah was found on the widow’s walk,
feverish and delirious.
IS WHERE
But Sarah has vowed to make a fresh start and renovate
the old place. Between tending to her girls and
the run-down property, she has little time to dwell on
the past.... Until a new, more urgent menace enters
the picture.
THE FEAR IS
One by one, teenage girls are disappearing. Frantic
for her daughters’ safety, Sarah feels the house’s walls
closing in on her again. Somewhere deep in her
memory is the key to a very real and terrifying danger
And only by confronting her most terrifying fears
can she stop the nightmare roaring back to life once
more...
Please turn the page for an exciting sneak peek of
Lisa Jackson’s
CLOSE TO HOME
on sale in September 2014 wherever print and e-books are sold!
Chapter 1
October 15, 2014
Blue Peacock Manor
“God, Mom, you’ve got to be kidding!” Jade said from the passenger seat of the Explorer as Sarah drove along the once-gravel lane.
“Not kidding,” Sarah responded. “You know that.” Winding through thick stands of pine, fir, and cedar, the twin ruts were weed-choked and filled with potholes that had become puddles with the recent rain.
“You can’t actually think that we can live here!” Catching glimpses of the huge house through the trees, Jade, seventeen, was clearly horrified and, as usual, wasn’t afraid to voice her opinion.
“Mom’s serious,” Gracie said from the backseat, where she was crammed between piles of blankets, and mounds of comforters, sleeping bags, and the other bedding they were moving from Vancouver. “She told us.”
Jade shot a glance over her shoulder. “I know. But it’s worse than I thought.”
“That’s impossible,” Gracie said.
“No one asked your opinion!”
Sarah’s hands tightened over the steering wheel. She’d already heard how she was ruining her kids’ lives by packing them up and returning to the old homestead where she’d been born and raised. To hear them tell it, she was the worst mother in the world. The word “hate” had been thrown around, aimed at her, the move, and their miserable lives in general.
Single motherhood. It wasn’t for the faint-hearted, she’d decided long ago. So her kids were still angry with her. Too bad. Sarah needed a fresh start.
And though Jade and Gracie didn’t know it, they did too.
“It’s like we’re in another solar system,” Jade said as the thickets of trees gave way to a wide clearing high above the Columbia River.
Gracie agreed, “In a land far, far away.”
“Oh, stop it. It’s not that bad,” Sarah said. Her girls had lived most of their lives in Vancouver, Washington, right across the river from Portland, Oregon. Theirs had been a city life. Out here, in Stewart’s Crossing, things would be different, and even more so at Sarah’s childhood home of Blue Peacock Manor.
Perched high on the cliffs overlooking the Columbia River, the massive house where Sarah had been raised rose in three stories of cedar and stone. Built in the Queen Anne style of a Victorian home, its gables and chimneys knifed upward into a somber gray sky, and from her vantage point Sarah could now see the glass cupola that opened onto the widow’s walk. For a second, she felt a frisson of dread slide down her spine, but she pushed it aside.
“Oh. My. God.” Jade’s jaw dropped open as she stared at the house. “It looks like something straight out of The Addams Family.”
“Let me see!” In the backseat, Gracie unhooked her seat belt and leaned forward for a better view. “She’s right.” For once Gracie agreed with her older sister.
“Oh, come on,” Sarah said, but Jade’s opinion wasn’t that far off. With a broad, sagging porch and crumbling chimneys, the once-grand house that in the past the locals had called the Jewel of the Columbia was in worse shape than she remembered.
“Are you blind? This place is a disaster!” Jade was staring through the windshield and slowly shaking her head, as if she couldn’t believe the horrid turn her life had just taken. Driving closer to the garage, they passed another building that was falling into total disrepair. “Mom. Seriously. We can’t live here.” She turned her wide, mascara-laden eyes on her mother as if Sarah had gone completely out of her mind.
“We can and we will. Eventually.” Sarah cranked on the wheel to swing the car around and parked near the walkway leading to the entrance of the main house. The decorative rusted gate was falling off its hinges, the arbor long gone, the roses flanking the flagstone path leggy and gone to seed. “We’re going to camp out in the main house until the work on the guesthouse is finished, probably next week. That’s where we’ll hang out until the house is done, but that will take . . . months, maybe up to a year.”
“The guest . . . Oh my God, is that it?” Jade pointed a black-tipped nail at the smaller structure located across a wide stone courtyard from its immense counterpart. The guesthouse was in much the same shape as the main house and outbuildings. Shingles were missing, the gutter
s were rusted, and most of the downspouts were disconnected or missing altogether. Many of the windows were boarded over as well, and the few that remained were cracked and yellowed.
“Charming.” Jade let out a disgusted breath. “I can’t wait.”
“I thought you’d feel that way,” Sarah said with a faint smile.
“Funny,” Jade mocked.
“Come on. Buck up. It’s just for a little while. Eventually we’ll move into the main house for good, if we don’t sell it.”
Gracie said, “You should sell it now!”
“It’s not just mine, remember? My brothers and sister own part of it. What we do with it will be a group decision.”
“Doesn’t anyone have a lighter?” Jade suggested, almost kidding. “You could burn it down and collect the insurance money.”
“How do you know about . . . ?” But she didn’t finish the question as she cut the engine. Jade, along with her newfound love of the macabre, was also into every kind of police or detective show that aired on television. Recently she’d discovered true crime as well, the kind of shows in which B-grade actors reenacted grisly murders and the like. Jade’s interests, which seemed to coincide with those of her current boyfriend, disturbed Sarah, but she tried to keep from haranguing her daughter about them. In this case, less was more.
“You should sell out your part of it. Leave it to Aunt Dee Linn and Uncle Joe and Jake to renovate,” Jade said. “Get out while you can. God, Mom, this is just so nuts that we’re here. Not only is this house like something out of a bad horror movie, but it’s in the middle of nowhere.”
She wasn’t that far off. The house and grounds were at least five miles from the nearest town of Stewart’s Crossing, the surrounding neighbors’ farms hidden by stands of fir and cedar. Sarah cut the engine and glanced toward Willow Creek, the natural divide between this property and the next, which had belonged to the Walsh family for more than a hundred years. For a split second she thought about Clint, the last of the Walsh line, who according to Dee Linn and Aunt Marge, was still living in the homestead. She reminded herself sternly that he was not the reason she’d pushed so hard to move back to Stewart’s Crossing.