by Lisa Jackson
With the gun pressed hard to her head, Derek leaned in and licked her face.
* * *
Beth . . . Beth . . . Someone killed Beth.
Derek killed Beth . . .
Liam felt like he was living in a dream. A nightmare.
Dully, he remembered, She called you . . . you didn’t pick up.
He pulled out his cell phone, stared at it, said to the room at large, “I think Beth left me a message.”
He pressed the buttons to access voice mail. Mickelson’s message was first, which he deleted. Then Beth’s voice: “Your brother sexually attacked your mother. I saw them in the back hallway of your parents’ house. I didn’t say anything because both of them begged me not to, especially Stella. Your brother’s sick, Liam. Sick. Maybe your whole family’s sick! I’m glad to be out of it!”
Liam’s stomach curled in a knot. All that he’d denied came crashing in on him as the truth was laid bare.
“We need to pick up Derek Bastian,” Grant stated firmly.
“I’ve got to call Rory,” Liam said, dazed.
* * *
Rory’s phone rang in her pocket.
Derek immediately whipped the gun away and patted her down, digging into her pockets. “Which one?” he demanded. “Where is it?”
“My . . . back pocket . . .”
He was frantic. He knocked Rory off her feet in his attempts to get it, and by the time he’d ripped the phone from her jeans she was scrambling backward on her hands and feet. Fast. Toward the woods.
Move, move, move!
“It’s Liam!” Derek shrieked almost gleefully, staring at the screen. “Should we answer, let him know what we’re doing?”
“You’re out of your mind,” Stella said in horror.
Derek laughed and threw down the phone. With his heavy construction boots, he stomped up and down, grinding the cell into the dust and pebbles. “Maybe I will have to kill him next, Mommie dearest,” he said, breathing hard from excitement.
“Over my dead body.”
He turned his razor-sharp attention on Stella. “You’re getting me hard.”
“Fuck you,” she said, daring him in a sexual way
Rory turned away from the perverse chemistry to find her cell. Her phone was there, inches from her hand. All he had to do was move a few feet toward Stella, and she could grab it, pray that it still worked.
“I’m leaving,” Stella rasped.
She turned toward her Lexus and Derek jumped forward, intent on stopping her. This was her chance. Sliding across the ground, Rory reached over and snatched up the phone, then she vaulted to her feet. Up and running, she took off for the thicket of trees—her only chance of escape.
Run, run, run! Faster, Rory, move it!
She was flying and heard Stella shriek, “Let go of me! Let go of me! Oh, hell, she’s getting away!”
Derek let out an echoing, furious roar.
Rory sped up. Adrenaline fired her blood, fear propelled her.
Bang!
Zzzpt! The bullet zipped past her. Rory stumbled, kept moving, fighting tears and fear. She zigged to the left, scrambling into berry vines.
Bang!
Another shot.
Another miss.
She pressed redial. Her arms and legs were on fire as thorns sliced into her exposed skin. She kept moving and rolled out of the blackberries, though their leafy vines clawed after her.
“Shit! What the hell?” Derek, too, had landed in the brambles.
Liam answered, sounding strange. “Rory, I—”
“I’m at Flavel! Derek’s trying to kill me. Your mother—”
Bang!
Rory screamed as the bullet zinged into the tree just to her right. She dived left and landed in bushes at the edge of the small grouping of Douglas firs. She scrambled quickly behind the trees, hazarding a glance backwards. Stella was clinging to Derek’s arm, making it difficult for him to aim.
Rory took off, charging into the trees, branches catching at her hair, as she hoped against hope that the copse was larger than it looked and that she wouldn’t be running into an open area. Pausing behind a tree, she realized the cell phone was still in her hand, but Liam was no longer there. With shaking fingers, she tried to call him back. Failed twice. Sobbed. It wouldn’t turn on. No lights, no apps. Derek’s stomping must have killed it.
* * *
Liam was at his Tahoe. The cops were behind him, yelling at him. He’d run out of the room and through the station. “Wait!” someone had yelled. Maybe Mickelson.
“Derek’s at the Flavel building with Rory!” he screamed. If they tried to stop him he didn’t know what he’d do. Fight them. Wrestle them all.
He drove fast with fierce concentration, trying repeatedly to call Rory back but she wasn’t answering. God, oh, God. Let her be all right.
His brother. His older brother.
It wasn’t real. None of this was real.
He heard sirens in the distance behind him.
The cavalry.
He couldn’t wait for them. He gripped the wheel, pressed his toe to the accelerator and swerved around a sedan moving at a snail’s pace.
* * *
“Rory?”
Derek’s voice, trying to soothe, too high with excitement to get the job done.
The bole of a tree was at her back. Ahead of her, thinning trees. Nowhere to go. If she ran he would shoot her in the back. No Stella to distract him.
“Aurora?” he said softly.
She tried to still her breathing.
“You know I don’t want to hurt you. I’ve always liked you. Saw you in Point Roberts that time, and well, I’ve had a few dreams about you since then. Good dreams.”
He was growing closer. Thirty feet behind her? Twenty? Was the fir really hiding her? Could he see something? A scrap of her blue shirt? Her jeans?
“It’s that red hair. When I saw Teri, I saw you. You know what I mean?”
There was a fallen branch on the ground in front of her. Looked about the right circumference for her hand. Where was he? Ten feet?
She started counting in her head.
* * *
Traffic. Liam blasted his horn, running a red light. A chorus of angry horns blasted right back at him, but he made it through.
How far was he? How much time?
At least ten minutes.
“Shit!”
* * *
Rory stared at the branch. One, two—
“Gotcha!” Derek declared, jumping from behind the tree, gun leveled at her.
Rory emitted an aborted scream and then he was pinning her to the tree, rubbing up against her.
“Where’s . . . Stella?” she gasped. She needed time. Time for Liam to get here. If he got the message . . . If he heard her before the phone gave out.
“You shouldn’t care about her. She’s the one who wanted you dead. DeGrere was supposed to wait for you, then kill you, then dear old Dad. Stella signed off on that.”
“You killed DeGrere?”
“Had to. He was just too damn untrustworthy. Beth, too, as it turned out.”
“But Teri was because she had red hair.”
He picked up one of her curls, moving it between his fingers as somewhere overhead a crow let out an unworldly cackle. “True,” he said meditatively. “Didn’t know how much I liked it till Liam took up with you. It just seemed to grab me, you know? Recognizing those times in life when you’re made for something . . . you know what I mean?”
She shook her head.
“Those moments that matter. I knew I was supposed to be with someone like you. But Liam got there first. He was always the good boy. Always knew how to play that role. But did he ever tell you about the time he got me in trouble? Stole Dad’s liquor and I took the beating. Didn’t tell you, did he?”
“No.”
“I want you to kiss me. Do it like you mean it.”
“What about Stella?”
He sighed. “I think it might be over with Mommie dearest now
. What do you think?”
“I—don’t know.”
“We stayed away from each other after the wedding. Really difficult for her. But it started up again, about the time Jacoby found you. Couldn’t keep my hands off her, and she’s just the same. Don’t let her fool you. But I wanted more.”
“What about—”
“Shhh.” He put his finger over her mouth. “You’re stalling.”
“No, I’m—”
He ground his mouth down on hers and pressed her into the tree, the bark hard against her. “Kiss me back, or pay the price,” he warned.
She didn’t have to ask what the price was. It was her life.
* * *
Liam bumped down the drive to Flavel with its traces of graffitti and broken windows. He drove around the back and there was his mother’s car. Stella was on the ground, kneeling forward, sobbing.
When she saw him she stared at him with a tearstained face. “It’s not my fault. I tried to save you.”
“Where’s Rory?” he clipped out.
She looked toward the stand of Douglas firs. “He’s got a gun,” she called after him as Liam raced away.
* * *
Derek pulled back, cocked his head. “Someone’s here.”
Rory saw her chance. Her subdued urge exploded and she let it rip, gouging and clawing and screaming. Her knee slammed into his crotch.
Derek howled and staggered and she pushed him away. In one swift movement she swept up the branch, leveled it at his head. He feinted at the last second and she got his shoulder, knocking the gun. They both reached for it. Rory got there first but he pulled it from her grasp.
He held it on her as they heard pounding footsteps and Liam yelling, “Derek! No! Derek!”
Then he turned the gun on himself and fired.
Epilogue
Rory sat by the pool, watching Charlotte, Landon, and Estella, her thoughts far away. Her mother sat beside her, a solid presence. Darlene was constantly grabbing Rory’s hand and patting it, watching her with worried eyes.
The police had questioned her and Liam and Stella throughout the past few days, and Pauline Kirby had worked a deal with Candace, who knew enough to be dangerous. It was Geoff who’d finally met with the reporter and set her straight. Learning that Derek and Stella had plotted his death had had a profound effect on him. He was now grayer, quieter, even seemed thinner, though it had been less than a week since Derek’s death.
Vivian stood at the edge of the pool near the children. She’d been quieter, too. Tears came and went as she processed. She was keeping her children as close to her as possible. Javier had been around almost constantly. Maybe they would reconcile again. Maybe they wouldn’t.
Liam walked out to the pool. He was looking more haggard as well, but it did nothing to curb his appeal. She loved him. Always had. It was just a shock to learn how his mother and brother had plotted so viciously against them.
“How’s your mother?” Darlene asked as he came near.
“Still professing her innocence. Still having no one believe her.” He looked over at Charlotte, his expression softening.
“Her lawyer will help her,” Darlene said.
“Maybe.”
Rory knew Liam didn’t know what to think about his mother. Didn’t know what to wish for her.
“I spoke with another lawyer in their firm who’s going to help straighten out all our legal problems.”
Charlotte’s citizenship . . . Rory’s use of fake identification. Rory gazed at him gratefully.
“You okay?” he asked. Like he always asked since Derek had kidnapped her.
“Doing better,” she answered, like she always did when he asked. Only this time she smiled.
He smiled back.
“You know I talked to Laurie, and she said that you would both rise from the ashes together,” Darlene said. “Like the phoenix that—”
“Mom!” Rory cried.
Darlene grinned at her. “Well, am I wrong?”