This Side of Murder

by Anna Lee Huber

  My hands curled into fists, revolting against the idea of doing her bidding.

  “Go on,” she coaxed with an arch smile. “I’m sure he won’t mind.”

  I glanced at Max, whose entire body vibrated with rage. He nodded once and I knelt to pick up the rope Felix tossed at my feet. As I did so, I spared a glance at Sam, who seemed to be struggling to remain conscious. His eyes were bleary and his skin pale. I wondered if he’d suffered more than that nasty blow to the head.

  Rising to my feet, I turned so that my back was to Helen and Felix, but she would have none of it.

  “Ah, ah, ah,” she scolded in singsong. “So that we can watch you, please. And no slipshod knots either. I would so hate to punish him for your lazy handiwork.”

  I glanced up at Max through my eyelashes, and we pivoted as one to obey her directives. His eyes softened a fraction, telling me he understood I had no choice. He even gripped my right wrist, the hand farthest from their view, trying to offer me some sort of reassurance.

  Inhaling deeply, I performed the task before me while concentrating on figuring out a way to get us out of this precarious situation. Helen and Felix each had at least one gun. Sam and Max both had their hands bound, and Sam seemed barely cognizant of what was happening around him. If we were going to escape with our lives, it was going to have to be a matter of brains, not brawn.

  Once I’d finished, I turned back to face them, expecting Helen to send Felix closer to check the bindings, but she was too shrewd for that. Instead she ordered Max to lift his hands and then attempt to maneuver them in several ways. Max’s scowl darkened at his being treated like he was some sort of trained monkey.

  Sensing this, Helen’s pink lips curled into an amused smile. “Excellent. Now”—her gaze shifted to meet mine—“if Verity would be so good as to tell us where she’s hidden that coded missive.”

  I could feel Max’s eyes on me in confusion, but ignored him. “It was you,” I stated somewhat unnecessarily. “You were the one who searched my room.”

  “I was already suspicious of you, but once I saw you scribbling on that scratch paper in the parlor earlier, I realized you and Sam must have found something.” Her eyes narrowed, considering Sam where he sat hunched beside a pile of crumbled masonry. “Maybe he found it in your dear husband’s belongings or maybe your husband mailed it to you himself.” She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter now, does it?” Her voice turned cold. “But I want that letter.”

  She arched her eyebrows expectantly as if I wouldn’t dare defy her. It was evident she had grown accustomed to being obeyed in her every whim. I flicked a glance toward Felix, where he stood several steps to her right, his gun dangling at his side, at the ready. He had allowed her to do all the talking, but I could tell from his scowl he was not best pleased by it. What she held over him, I didn’t know, but it must be significant.

  Unwilling to lose my best, and possibly only, bargaining chip, I lifted my chin in defiance. “I’ll tell you what you want to know if you explain why you decided to betray your country. Why a young woman like you, with every advantage in the world, would choose to sell secrets to its enemies? And how on earth you convinced Walter and the other men to help you?” I gestured toward Felix, recalling his earlier statement about Jimmy, and hoping to spark his temper. “I mean, clearly they’re weak.”

  His nostrils flared and he took a step toward me, but Helen lifted a hand, stopping him with just one icy look.

  “But how did you do it?” I continued, not just stalling for time now, but genuinely wanting to know. I studied her flawless, innocent appearance. “It must be eating you alive that no one knows the truth about how clever you are.”

  Far from being goaded, Helen’s eyes only laughed at me. “Oh, Verity. Perhaps the men you’ve interrogated in the past have fallen for such an obvious ploy, but I am not so dumb.” Her good humor vanished at the implication that I had just insulted her intelligence. “The only thing I will tell you is that it had nothing to do with money. And though you may hedge all you like, by the end, you will talk.”

  The cruel certainty behind her words made my chest tighten in dread.

  “Now, your lordship,” she taunted, turning to Max and all but dismissing me. “It seems you have a decision to make.” She began to pace a tiny circle before the doorway, for all the world as if she didn’t care what his answer would be. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she lifted her hand to examine her manicure, such was the amount of interest she showed. “How would you prefer to die? As the hero or the victim?”

  CHAPTER 23

  Unlike me, Max did not react to this startling question, not by the quiver of a single muscle. He just continued to stare Helen down with a tightly restrained fury that didn’t seem to bother her one iota.

  “Either way, I’m afraid Sam is going to have to take the fall for Jimmy’s and Charlie’s deaths, and Walter’s attempted murder.” She tsked. “Such a sad case of shell shock. He’d deluded himself into believing all those men had arranged for his brother to die, and that he needed to avenge him.”

  Her words sickened me. Even more so because I had entertained a similar suspicion such a short time ago, minus the taint of shell shock. It didn’t take any great leap to imagine the authorities would believe it as well. Even Sam seemed to accept such a thing, allowing his head to sink back against the wall behind him. Or perhaps he was merely overcome by his injuries.

  I wished they would allow me to examine him, but I already knew without asking that such a request was foolish. They intended for him to die, for all of us to die. What did it matter if it happened a bit sooner than they planned?

  “The real question is whether Verity helped him.”

  My gaze snapped back around to meet hers, seeing that she’d enjoyed shocking me.

  “Either she confronted Sam about his actions, forcing him to kill her. In which case, Max, you then killed Sam, receiving a fatal gunshot wound in the process and dying before you could reach help. Such a heroic act,” she murmured in breathless mockery. “Or Verity and Sam killed you because you knew too much and then fled the island together. Though, in actuality, they’ll be sunk in the lagoon, never to be seen from again. All of our problems tied up in a nice, neat bow.”

  Except Helen didn’t realize Mabel was also privy to part of the truth. Or that Sidney was alive.

  I glanced toward the door and then the window, wishing my maddeningly tardy husband would appear. Surely he would notice that all of the key players save Walter were absent from the castle. Surely he would sense something was wrong. But would he reach us in time? He had just been returned to me, and now I might be snatched away before we’d ever had the chance to really reconcile. Before I could tell him I still loved him.

  Both of the scenarios Helen laid out were horrifying. If Max chose the first one, then I would be the first to die, but it would give Max more time to find a way to break free. However, if he chose the second one, then he would die first and bargain that Sam or I could find a way out of this mess.

  “So which is it?” Helen asked brusquely, her patience growing thin. “Are you a saint or sap?”

  I already knew which one Max would choose, and I couldn’t let him do it. “Don’t choose, Max,” I interrupted.

  But he was already informing her of his decision. “Sap.”

  I stared up into his eyes, furious that he was sacrificing himself for me, and also touched beyond belief. I shook my head in denial, in disbelief. “Max.”

  His expression was resolute and unruffled by the choice he’d made.

  Helen glanced between us, the gleam in her eyes telling me she was enjoying our torment. “I suspected as much. Couldn’t resist the dashing, young widow, could you?” Her mouth twisted in malicious approval. “Well done, Verity.”

  Her comment stung, as I’d known she’d intended it to.

  Helen sighed. “Then I suppose we should adjourn this little gathering to the pier, where Max will be shot trying to stop the two young
murderers from fleeing.”

  I darted a surprised look up at Max, realizing he’d expected this move. Evidently he’d been thinking farther ahead than I had. He had been playing for more time for all of us all along, trying to get us out of the close confines of this building and its lantern light. At this point, the darkness was our best ally.

  “On your feet,” she ordered Sam.

  He looked up at her dazedly, and I wondered if he could even comprehend what she was saying. However, when Felix lifted his pistol to level it at him once again, Sam blinked blearily and tried to push himself upright. His first attempt was not successful, and neither was his second.

  Helen huffed in exasperation. “Verity, if you would.” She gestured toward Sam with her gun.

  I quickly moved to help him, less from fear of what Helen and Felix would do and more from compassion. “Easy does it, Sam,” I murmured, so the others couldn’t hear.

  He looked up into my eyes, and I offered him a smile of encouragement. The right side of his face was obscured by dried blood, even crusting over his eyelid.

  I looped my arm underneath his and coaxed him to bend his knees beneath him. “Are you hurt anywhere else?” I took the opportunity to ask, unable to tell in the dim lighting against his dark clothing.

  “My side,” he croaked. “Took a jab to the kidney.”

  Taking most of his weight on my shoulders, I was able to hoist him to his feet, though I wished I could have left him where he was. His low groan was agonizing.

  Had he ruptured a kidney or possibly his spleen? Or was he just badly bruised and reeling from a concussion? Either way, he needed medical attention sooner, not later.

  I was encouraged when he staggered forward a few steps and then seemed to regain his balance to walk on his own, clutching his left side. With a gentle nudge, he lifted his arm from around my shoulders.

  “I can make it now,” he told me gamely.

  I wanted to argue, but it was clear he was trying to give me the best possible opportunity to escape, and attempting to do so while being hindered by an injured man was undoubtedly not it. That drove home the haunting realization that even if Max and I could somehow evade Helen and Felix and dart off into the darkness, we would have to leave Sam behind. In his current state, his ability to defend himself was limited. They would almost certainly kill him, but he seemed resigned to such a fate. I wanted to beg him not to surrender so easily, but Helen had had enough of our commiseration.

  “Max, why don’t you lead our merry parade,” she said, nodding to Felix to follow him. “Then you, Sam. And last, but not least, Verity.”

  I fell in line behind Sam, keeping a worried eye on his trudging form and another on my surroundings as we exited the old cottage. Helen bent to pick up the lantern, bringing it with us, but I was certain she also held her gun in the other hand pointed at my back. All we needed was some sort of opening, some sort of distraction to break their concentration long enough to keep Felix and Helen from shooting us before we could scramble into the relative safety of the dark night. Preferably placing a building or two between us and those bullets as well.

  I considered lashing out at Helen, but all of my experience had taught me to be patient, to never presume even a witless opponent would not get off a lucky shot. Helen was far from witless, and she seemed quite comfortable holding that pistol, but was she pretending or was she more skilled than I’d presumed? I wasn’t certain I wanted to test that notion. I’d already been proven wrong in my other assumptions about Walter’s pretty little fiancée.

  As if aware where my thoughts had turned, Helen laughed delightedly. “Poor Verity. Didn’t expect any of this of someone like me, did you? I could see it in your eyes, you know. When you first arrived and even this afternoon. You were worried I was too young and naïve for Walter. You never guessed.”

  I didn’t dignify this with a response, and she didn’t seem to require one.

  “And now you’re about to watch a man who obviously cares for you be killed in cold blood,” she continued mercilessly. “How painful that must be.”

  I bit down on my tongue, tasting blood in my effort to restrain myself from lashing out, just as I was certain she would love for me to do. She couldn’t have known how sharply her words stung my conscience, for I never should have taken Max into my confidence. Had I known my husband was still alive, I would never have allowed myself to get so close to him, and maybe he would not have ended up in this predicament.

  Or maybe he would have. Maybe his own conscience, his own guilt over his failure to protect his men at the front would have driven him to investigate with or without my assistance. It was useless to speculate. Not when I should be focusing on how to extricate us from this with our lives.

  I scowled, furious with myself that I’d allowed Helen to distract me. The world beyond the lantern’s glow was still steeped in darkness, and the wind howled strong enough to make the gas lamp flicker. It whipped my hair about my face and cooled my heated cheeks. I could hear the lapping of the sea against the rocky shore, then out of the inky blackness to our right appeared the pier.

  At that moment, there was a temporary break in the clouds, and I spied the brilliant white decking of a small motorboat tied up at the bend in the pier. Where it had come from and how they’d managed to keep it concealed from the others during their search, I didn’t know, but there was definitely one bobbing on the waves slapping the warped wood of the dock now. I stiffened in alarm, understanding now that was how they intended to transport me and Sam to the lagoon at the opposite end of the island, where we would be sunk. But not before killing Max first.

  We had run out of time.

  Where are you, Sidney? I wondered desperately, scanning our surroundings for any sign of movement.

  And then, almost as if my plea had conjured him out of thin air, he appeared.

  At first, I thought maybe I was deluding myself when a figure detached itself from the shadows clinging to the rickety remains of the boathouse at the end of the pier. That is, until Felix uttered a foul curse and yanked Max to a stunned stop.

  “Halt right there or I’ll shoot,” Felix yelled.

  But the figure did not obey, and somehow I knew without yet being able to really see him that it was Sidney. Perhaps it was a simple matter of deduction, for who else could it be? Or perhaps it was the cocksure walk. Regardless, it vibrated through me with a certainty I couldn’t deny. His silhouette, his stride, his arrogant disregard for Felix’s threat—they all shouted my husband’s name.

  “Halt!” Felix yelled again, swinging his gun around to aim it at him.

  I wanted to scream at Sidney to stop, to not be a blasted fool and take cover. But I swallowed the panicked words, not wanting to distract him.

  When he was near enough for the moon’s glow to illuminate his features, I felt the collective impact of everyone’s shock—the gasps, the startled steps backward as if they’d been struck.

  Felix inhaled a strangled breath, rather like he’d swallowed his tongue. “It can’t be,” he protested, finding his words. “Y-You can’t be here. You’re dead!” He jabbed his gun in the air toward Sidney. “Stop! You’re dead.”

  But Sidney kept coming, raising his own arm in front of him so that the moonlight glinted off the cold metal of his weapon.

  Max seized the opportunity Sidney’s sudden appearance afforded us and lowered his shoulder to slam into Felix, knocking him to the ground. As he did so, I recalled myself in time to note that Helen’s concentration and aim had also wavered. I darted around the barrel of her gun, backing up to drive an elbow into her gut while grabbing the pistol with my other hand.

  But, unfortunately, although she staggered under the blow, she did not loosen her grip on the weapon. We grappled for it. I pushed it over our heads, trying to land another blow to her midsection with my knee, but Helen proved not to be a weak flower. She twisted her torso to block my knee and swung her elbow inward, striking me in the cheek. I stumbled to the right, main
taining my grip on the gun, and managed to hook my foot around her ankle, nearly taking us both down. We lurched to the right, but somehow remained upright.

  All things considered, we were quite evenly matched. We traded a series of blows, and I was certain I would have eventually bested her if it hadn’t been for the stray stone that had fallen off one of the buildings which rolled my ankle, crumpling my leg beneath me. I dropped to my knee, losing my grip on the pistol, and Helen took full advantage of my blunder.

  Grasping a hunk of hair in one hand and wrenching my head back, she pressed the pistol to my temple with the other. I sucked in a harsh breath.

  “Stop!” she shouted. “Stop or I’ll put a bullet in her brain.”

  I blinked through a haze of pained tears to see that Sidney stood less than three steps away. His face was a mask of fury. I could almost feel the heat of his anger radiating off him as he glared down his own pistol at Helen.

  “Drop your gun,” she ordered him.

  He hesitated, and I thought for a moment he wasn’t going to do it. That he was going to shoot Helen and ignore the consequences if his bullet didn’t kill her before she could pull the trigger on her own gun.

  “Do it!” she shrieked, pulling my hair harder.

  I tried not to make a sound, but a whimper must have escaped, for I opened my eyes to find him staring down at me. His fingers slowly loosened and he allowed his weapon to fall from his grasp.

  “You too,” she snapped, and I realized she must be speaking to Max.

  I heard the thud of something hitting the ground and the irate grunt of someone rising to their feet, but my eyes remained locked with Sidney’s. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, whether he was furious with me or merely disappointed. After all, because of me he was about to watch the traitors he’d been searching for, that he’d sacrificed nearly everything to find, slip through his fingers. If I could, I would’ve told him I was furious with myself, too. That I hadn’t been quicker, stronger, that I’d underestimated Helen’s capability, her viciousness.