by J. S. Marlo
“Bella? Jealous?” Conniving, unscrupulous, and tasteless were all adjectives that applied to Bella, but murderous? “She collects more men in a month than most women in a lifetime. I’m a fad, Shamrock, and the only reason she’s persisting is because she can’t accept rejection. If I’d gone on a date and slept with her, I’d already be history.”
“Did she hit on you at that Halloween party while Claire was trapped with Paul?”
“No.” Bella hadn’t shown interest in him until months after Claire’s shooting. “She attended the Halloween party with two boys and left with a third in tow.”
“A third? Whose boyfriend did she steal?” As she asked questions, they continued their progression toward their cabin.
“A make-up artist’s fiancé.” Heart-broken, the young artist had quit the following day. “For a few days, it created a stir among the crew, but like all her conquests, the unfortunate fiancé faded into obscurity before he realized what hit him.”
“How nice of her. She should hook up with Paul. They belong together.”
If the rumor mill was to be believed, Bella and Paul had engaged in a tryst a year or so ago. “He may already be in her little black book.”
“Really? That’s disconcerting. By the way, what did he say to deserve a shower?”
“He said I’d regret making accusations against him.” The little weasel just didn’t know when to quit.
“Did anyone overhear him?”
“No.” And the police hadn’t found it necessary to fasten microphones to their vests.
Around the next curve, a lantern attached to the front of the cabin welcomed them into their secluded paradise.
Once they entered, Blythe closed the door, but he refrained from slipping the lock into place. After their little performance, they didn’t want to stop anyone from stumbling in on them.
A fire burned in the belly of a brick fireplace, and two candles flickered on the mantle. In the corner, a set of black iron tools were wedged between a stack of dry wood and an empty aluminum bucket.
“This is cozy.” She bestowed a tender kiss on his cheek before retreating to the couch.
The shadows from the flames danced on the walls of the cabin.
“Are you going to join me?” Curled up in the middle of the couch, she hugged her knees to her chest. A blue afghan was discarded on the back cushion, inches from her hair.
He sat beside her, and as she turned, she leaned into his arms. “I was thinking about the new ranch.” Her fingers intertwined with his over her stomach. “Do you like lavender?”
“Depends.” His lips grazed the lobe of her ear. “Are you talking flower, color, or scent?”
“I want to paint the bedroom walls blue and lavender.”
Perplexed over her choice of colors, he laid her on the couch, rolled halfway over her, and met her gaze. “Blue and lavender?”
The glow in her eyes ignited a fire under his skin. “Don’t you like it?”
“I’d prefer green.”
“Green?” She wrapped her arms around his neck and teased the hair on the back of his head. “When we first moved in, Chad painted the walls green. After he died, Ollie repainted the walls a different shade of green.” A mischievous smile played on her lips. “You’re not getting green walls. Not anywhere inside the house.”
From the sound of it, her husbands hadn’t been immune to her lovely shamrock eyes either. “What about teal?”
Her laughter resonated inside the cabin. “You’re impossible. What am I going to do with you?”
“I have a few ideas.” And he captured her mouth to demonstrate. Her tongue sparred with his, chasing paint colors out of his mind.
The vests Jackson forced them to wear under their thick cotton shirts prevented him from feeling the warmth of her body but not the taste of her lips, and for a while he forgot why they were there.
The door slammed open.
“You-you’re done messing-messing with my li-life.”
***
Jolted out of her skin, Riley bolted from Blythe’s arms as he leaped to his feet. Staggering into the room, Paul pointed an accusatory finger at her.
“It’s all-your fault. Should’ve gotten-rid of yooou-soo-sooner.”
She didn’t need to smell alcohol vapor to realize he was drunk, but if he wanted to pick a battle over the spilled drink, he’d chosen the wrong night. A killer was on the loose, and if he didn’t leave, he might spoil the entire operation.
Blythe pushed past her and shielded her from Paul. “You’re drunk, Paul. Go back to your cabin.”
“Want her…gone.” As he took another wobbly step forward, his hand disappeared inside the pocket of his jacket. “For good.”
The threat, like all the other ones he’d previously made, didn’t impress her much. “Go sober up somewhere else.”
He jerked his hand out. “No more…messing.”
At the sight of the pocketknife Paul wielded toward them, she stifled a yelp and gripped the back of Blythe’s shirt. He couldn’t be the killer. He had an alibi.
“Paul, put the knife down.” Blythe’s steady voice offered a sharp contrast to Paul’s slurs. “You don’t want to hurt yourself.”
The door of the bedroom creaked, and Jackson barged in with two officers. “Police. Drop your weapon.”
Paul spun around, tumbling to his knees. The knife clattered on the floor.
“Don’t move, Winchester, or I’ll shoot.” Jackson pointed his gun at Paul. “You’re under arrest for the murder of Claire Huxley and the attempted murder of Riley Kendrick.”
One of Jackson’s men retrieved the knife while the other cuffed Paul. “Got him, sir.”
Only then did Jackson holster his weapon. “Take him to my car and read him his rights a couple times to make sure he understands.”
Still not knowing when to quit, Paul garbled more insults as the officers dragged him away.
A draft of cold air swept through the cabin when Jackson opened and closed the door behind his men. Seeking warmth and comfort, Riley reached for the blue afghan discarded on the back cushion and wrapped herself in it. Until meeting Paul, she’d considered herself a good judge of character. To think he’d snuck into her hospital room with her computer and threatened her if she didn’t work on the finale rattled her. She could have met Claire’s fate that night.
Blythe wrapped her in his arms. “I thought he had an alibi, Jackson.”
Through his earpiece, the detective summoned the men keeping watch outside the cabin to stand down. “The obstetrician changed her story this afternoon. She said Winchester wasn’t in her office more than twenty minutes the day Mrs. Kendrick was shot. While Winchester was in the cafeteria having dinner, one of my men searched his car. He found a box of ammunition in the glove compartment. The bullets had silver stars on them. It’s over, Mr. Huxley.”
After the detective left the cabin, Blythe nudged her head against his shoulder and held her tight. “I thought his arrest would make me feel vindicated, but it tastes like a hollow victory. What would you say if we went back to the bed and breakfast tonight?”
“I’d say it’s a brilliant idea.”
He kissed her forehead. “Let me get the duffel bag from—” A furtive knock on the door interrupted him. “Come in.”
The door opened.
“Hello, honey.”
Chapter Forty-One
Bella stepped in, pointing a gun at them. “Miss me?”
The icy edge in her voice combined with the deadly weapon nestled in the palm of her right hand twisted Blythe’s guts. In his arms, Riley tensed like a coiled spring.
“It was you?” Riley had seen through Bella, but like a blinded fool, he’d dismissed the obsessive actress as a threat.
With her foot, Bella kicked the door closed. “Paul makes such a good patsy when he’s drunk, and when the police find the bullets in his car, he’ll go down for your wife’s shooting.” She waved the gun sideways. The weapon was of a different caliber th
an the one Jackson had said was pulled from the pond, but it featured a silencer. “Move toward the fireplace. Both of you.”
The cabin wasn’t large, and it offered little room to maneuver. On his left the couch was pushed against the wall, on his right was the fireplace, and somewhere behind him was a stack of wood next to a set of iron tools.
To protect Riley, he needed a weapon, and he needed to shield her from the bullets.
If he could reach the tool stand, he might be able to grab the poker or the shovel, but first, he wanted to move Riley out of Bella’s line of fire.
With each short, backward step he made, he slowly nudged the woman he loved behind him. “Are you going to tell me why, Bella? Or do I need to guess?”
“I can’t believe how obtuse you are.” The face of the most admired actress at the studio contorted into a hideous grimace. “Claire chose her work over you. All those evenings she called you at the studio to tell you she’d be late… I could see how lonely you were, how much she hurt you. You needed me, Blythe. I could sense it in my soul.”
Bella had no soul. “You’re right,” he lied. “Claire was never home.” His wife had worked late, but not as often as he had. He couldn’t undo Claire’s death, but he could still save Riley. “You let Riley go, and we can be together.”
“I didn’t want to hurt Kendrick, but she didn’t listen when I told her it wasn’t a game she wanted to play.”
“Riley doesn’t mean anything to me.” The deceptive sentence speared his heart. Those weren’t the last words he wanted Riley to remember should Bella kill him. “We never had an affair.”
Something halfway between a snarl and a chuckle scratched Bella’s throat. “Don’t insult my intelligence, Blythe. You didn’t buy her that green gown without claiming the prize underneath.”
By not guarding his heart, he’d placed Riley’s life in jeopardy. It was all his fault. “Let her go, Bella. Please.”
“Don’t you see it’s too late? I tried to get rid of the little piece of trash without killing her, but—”
“Trash?” Riley’s body tensed against his back, and her head peeked from around his shoulder. “Have you looked into a mirror lately?”
The insult offended him as much as, if not more, than it offended Riley, but Bella was insane. Incensing her would only make things worse.
Bella’s aim shifted from his chest to his shoulder—to Riley’s head. “Your husband should have reeled you in after I sent him the picture. It’s his fault I had to shoot you.”
Had Blythe believed in ghosts, he would have invoked the spirits of Oliver and Chad to help him deflect Bella’s attention from Riley.
“Really? And whose fault is it you didn’t kill me in the park? Did you shoot with your eyes closed?”
Easy on the taunting, Blythe wanted to warn, as they approached the corner of the room.
“Back then I didn’t care if you lived or died as long as you went home and never returned.” Bella’s arm straightened. “But no, you had to get rid of your husband and draw Blythe back into your clutches.”
He was the one who’d insisted on spending time with Riley, but Bella seemed to blame her, not him. “If you were mad at Riley, why did you sneak into Claire’s room and kill her with a pillow?”
“You don’t get it, do you?” Like the eye of the storm, Bella’s voice had dropped to an eerie calm. “After I killed Claire, I should have been the one comforting you, not Kendrick. She had no right to be in your apartment when I buzzed you.”
“That was you that night?” He’d mistaken her for a drunken tenant and dismissed the incident as irrelevant. How careless of me.
“Yes, it was me, but before I sneaked into the hospital, I gave you one last chance to redeem yourself. When Kendrick answered your cell phone, she signed Claire’s death warrant. How does it feel to know you were making love to her while I was suffocating your wife?”
***
The actress wasn’t insane, she was evil, and Riley wanted to pounce and rip her throat out. Instead, the backs of her legs hit the stack of wood, and she gripped Blythe’s belt for support.
The shot was fired without warning or provocation, and Blythe collapsed at her feet. A scream rose from inside her belly and roared through her throat, scaring her with its intensity.
“Move away from him.” Deadly determination marked Isabella’s features.
Wincing in pain, Blythe clutched his side with one hand as he fought to sit up.
“I said move, Kendrick, or I finish him off.”
“Listen to her,” he whispered as blood seeped through his fingers.
No. It can’t be blood. The vest was supposed to protect him. Her heart ripped apart, but rage held the pieces together. She could not lose him, and she would not lose him. To deflect Isabella’s attention away from him, she stepped sideways toward the couch.
“Did you know it takes hours for someone to die of a gunshot wound to the stomach?” Isabella’s attention and gun were pointed solely at her, and slowly she turned her back to Blythe, as if she’d dismissed him as a threat. “Stop there. He can watch you beg for your life.”
Behind Isabella, Blythe inched closer and closer to the iron tool set.
“The police found the gun you used to shoot Claire and me. You won’t get away with it.”
“Nice try.” A sinister smile added years to Isabella’s age. “My mother’s gun is at the bottom of the pond. A trusted friend bought this one for me, using Blythe’s name. When the police find your bodies, they will conclude it a murder-suicide, resulting from a lovers’ quarrel.”
“A lovers’ quarrel? That’s your story? I hope you’re not planning on quitting your day job. You’d have no future as a writer.” The jibes kept Isabella’s focus on her and away from Blythe as he closed his hand on the iron poker rod.
“I have Blythe’s suicide note in my pocket. In it, he confesses to both yours and his wife’s murders. I was going to leave it in his car, but I couldn’t unlock the door. It’ll be found in his jacket, unless you prefer to go up in flames like your dear husband. I can arrange for a spark of fire to burn this cabin to the ground.”
The actress glanced at the fireplace at the same time Blythe flung the poker in her direction. Flying swift and low, the makeshift weapon swished in the air. Isabella leaped out of harm’s way, and as she did so, she lowered her hands. Seeing the gun pointing at the floor, Riley lunged at her. They tumbled down, punching and kicking. Riley landed on her back with Isabella on top of her. The weapon fell from the mad actress’s grip and skidded toward the couch. Isabella seized Riley’s wrist. Nails as hard as diamonds dug into Riley’s skin. Stifling the pain, Riley retaliated with a jab to the woman’s midriff. In the midst of gasps and groans, Isabella scrambled to her knees. Untangled from her attacker, Riley rolled onto her belly and crawled toward the gun.
“Shamrock!”
The warning spiked her reflexes. She snatched the weapon, rolled back, and aimed directly in front of her. Towering over her, the actress wielded the poker rod with both hands. A door banged open.
“Police. Drop the weapon.”
The black iron rod plunged toward her chest. Riley pulled the trigger.
A gunshot resonated in the cabin.
Chapter Forty-Two
Connected to an IV pole after his short surgery to remove the bullet, Blythe sat in a hospital bed awaiting the doctor’s visit and Riley’s return from his apartment.
In the hallway, steps grew closer to his room and culminated with a beautiful face peeping around the doorframe. “Would you like a visitor?”
“Always.” Garbed in his favorite blue dress shirt, a pair of black leggings, and wearing hiking sandals, Riley looked fabulous. “I see you rummaged through my closet.”
“I’m starting to run out of clothes. You don’t mind, do you?”
“Not at all.” That was one shirt he’d never be able to don without grinning like a fool.
She sat on the edge of the bed and stroked his
arm. “How do you feel?”
“Right now, fine, but I’m sure I’ll be sore when the painkillers wear off.” A knock turned Blythe’s attention to the doorway. “Come in, Jackson.”
The detective entered and took a seat by the window. “I was hoping to catch the both of you before the media ran with the news. Isabella Neuville didn’t make it out of surgery alive.”
“Was it my bullet?”
Afraid the answer might distress her, Blythe slipped his arm around her waist and stroked her thigh.
“No. You hit her right arm. I shot her in the chest. You’re not to blame for her death, and you won’t be facing any charges for firing a gun in self-defense.”
Bella’s blood hadn’t belonged on Riley’s hands, and despite his hatred toward the actress, he was relieved Riley wasn’t the one who had killed her. “Why did you come back to the cabin?”
“In the parking lot, Winchester blamed Neuville for his drunken state. When the officer acting as the parking attendant overheard him, he told me he’d seen Neuville lurking around your car shortly after dinner. I didn’t like the coincidences, so I returned.”
Riley snuggled closer to him. “She couldn’t possibly think she’d get away with murder, could she?”
“She almost did, Shamrock.” No wonder Bella kept asking him about Claire’s investigation. She’d wanted to know if the police were closing in on her. “I should have mentioned her infatuation, Jackson, but it seemed so trivial.”
“After the fiasco with Roswell, I should have been more cautious, but the evidence pointed toward Winchester, not Neuville. She’d done a great job framing both of you.”
“As despicable as Paul might be, she used him as a patsy. What will happen to him?”
Riley’s concerns about Paul’s fate showed the kind spirit inhabiting her soul, the same spirit that had inhabited Claire’s soul. He’d been destined to fall in love with her.