by Lisa Jackson
Bernadette hesitated, so Naomi pointed the nose of the pistol at Annette’s unmoving form again, as if she really were going to shoot her in the back of the head.
“Okay, okay! Just don’t. Okay? I’ll . . . I’ll do it.” She was panicking inside, all of her senses on alert, her muscles tense, her mind screaming that the madwoman was going to kill both Annette and her.
Unless Bernadette could somehow outsmart her until the damned cops arrived. Where the hell were they?
“Let’s go, then.” Naomi pointed the gun at Annette again. “Pick her up.”
Steeling herself, forcing her brain to remain calm and functioning while expecting a bullet to hit her square in the face, Bernadette obeyed, but she kept her eyes focused on Naomi as she made her way to Annette’s side.
Remarkably, her sister was still breathing, though the spreading stain on the back of her shirt was more than worrisome. “She needs a doctor!”
Naomi snorted a laugh. “I think it’s a little too late for that.”
“No, you have to give yourself up. She’s alive. You haven’t committed murder yet . . .” But she didn’t know that. What about Elle? Or someone else? “It . . . It will go easier on you if you turn yourself in.”
“Oh, sure. Like maybe to Lucas?” she said, her smile twisting into an ugly snarl, blood smeared from her eye where the keys had hit her. “You think he’d help his ex-stepmother out? The woman he dumped for you?” And there it was: the hatred. Aimed straight at Bernadette. “Give me a break.”
Oh, God. Annette, I’m so sorry. So, so sorry.
“Haul her to the rec center,” Naomi ordered. “Now.”
Wondering if she were causing Annette more harm than good, still trying frantically to come up with a scheme to save them, Bernadette leaned down and pulled her sister to her feet. Unconscious, Annette collapsed, and with an effort Bernadette caught her and carried her fireman-style through the forest. Sunlight was piercing the shadows now, chasing away any lingering patches of fog that still lay near the ground. Morning birds were starting to chirp, the rush of the sea ever present, but Bernadette barely heard anything other than the wild beat of her own heart and the footsteps walking steadily behind her, snapping twigs and scuffing at gravel as they crossed the parking lot to Columbia Hall, a place they’d gathered a lifetime ago, a warm building where they’d sung songs, told stories, gossiped, and listened to sermons . . . and a place where she would catch a glimpse of Lucas, feel his gaze on her back, catch him looking at her. God, how she’d loved him.
Now, she had to push any sense of nostalgia aside. She had to concentrate. Couldn’t let Naomi win. Staggering under Annette’s weight, she played up how difficult the task was, gasping for breath, stopping every once in a while, stalling for time.
Where are the police?
Where is Lucas?
God, how long had it been since she’d made the call?
Isn’t anyone coming?
No! Bernadette, you’re on your own. It’s up to you to save Annette and save yourself.
How? Oh, God, how can I get us out of this horror?
She nearly tripped with the immensity of the burden.
Think, Bernadette, think. You can’t let this bitch kill you and Annette in cold blood. You can’t. There has to be a way out.
“Up. On the porch,” Naomi yelled.
Bernadette pushed herself. Up the first step, then the second, the rotting boards giving a little as she carried her sister toward the main door of Columbia Hall. She was on the porch when she smelled it: the distinctive scent of gasoline.
Her heart nearly stopped and she fell against the building, the terrifying odor filling her nostrils. “What have you done?” she asked, but the question was rhetorical. Obviously Naomi had doused the old rec center with gas.
Dear God, this monster meant to burn them. Alive? Dead? Either way, Naomi was going to torch the place with the Alsace sisters trapped inside.
As if she’d read Bernadette’s mind, Naomi said, “You see the beauty of this is that I used Jeremiah’s gas can, his fingerprints are all over it. And I’ll hide it, but not too well, so the police will find it.”
“This is crazy! Naomi, you can’t do this!” She turned to face the woman holding the gun. There had to be a way to wrench it from her, to save them. “The police,” she said, stalling for time, hoping beyond hope to reason with her, to get through to her sense of decency or at least self-preservation. “They’ll figure it out and you’ll go to prison for the rest of your life.”
“Oh, no, no, no.” She was shaking her head, so damned sure of herself. “All they’ll know is the fire was set by arson, and it will make sense that he set it as his investors, thanks to my scheme, have backed off and the place is heavily insured. And then there’ll be the murder charges when two bodies are found in the rubble. As for this gun?” She held it up in her gloved hand. “Registered to Reverend Jeremiah Dalton.” She laughed. “Such a man of God. Did you know that he knocked up Eleanor Brady, then tried to kill her? That’s why she jumped off the ridge.”
What? Elle pregnant? With Jeremiah’s baby? And dead . . . No, wait, she’d said ‘tried’ to kill her. His attempt was unsuccessful?
Bernadette’s head was spinning, her legs threatening to give out.
Naomi, waving the gun, prattled on. “But Jeremiah didn’t count on the fact that Eleanor survived. Not only that, but she came back here with her daughter to haunt him. Such good payback,” she said, while Bernadette listened and tried to find a means of escape, the scent of gas nauseating. “Karma. What goes around comes around and all that . . . Okay. Enough. We’re wasting time.” She opened the door of the rec center, a door she must’ve unlocked when she’d poured the gasoline over the porch. “Inside!”
At that second, Bernadette thought she heard the distant scream of sirens. Faint, but distinctive.
Naomi froze. “What’s that?” And a bit of panic appeared in her eyes. “Sirens?” Sure enough, high and reedy, the sirens were getting louder.
“But it’s too soon . . . Maybe there was an accident.” But she was starting to get nervous. “On the highway, it happens all the time . . .”
Bernadette shifted while Naomi’s attention was split.
“Oh, God . . . how do they know?” she asked.
As if she suddenly understood, Naomi’s eyes widened and she glared at Bernadette. “You called? But how? Your purse and your phone . . . in the car.” She glanced at the Honda. “I saw it!” Agitated, she stepped behind Bernadette and shoved the muzzle of the gun into her back. “Inside. Now!” Naomi pushed hard and with the added force and the weight of her sister, Bernadette stumbled forward, landing on the old wood floors, Annette moaning as she fell.
With a horrifying click, the lock was engaged.
She and Annette were alone.
Move! Get out of here.
She scrambled to her feet just as she heard another sickening snap.
Oh, God. A lighter? Oh, God, please, no!
“Annette, get up!” she screamed, terror riddling her body. Her sister groaned.
Whoosh!
The sound seemed to echo to the rafters as the gasoline caught fire.
Oh, dear Jesus. “Come on!” Bernadette cried, as if her sister could hear her. She raced to the door and twisted the handle. Nothing! The deadbolt! But its handle had been removed. Couldn’t be twisted. “Damn!” They were locked inside!
No way! She couldn’t give up. Just let them burn to death.
Flames crackled as the old wood ignited.
No, no, no!
The smell of smoke seeped through the cracks and she witnessed flames licking hungrily at the walls.
Frantically she dragged Annette across the dusty floor, past the old conversation pit and soaring fireplace, toward a back entrance. Maybe Naomi had forgotten one of the locks. If only!
The first door, the one that opened to a hallway leading to the dining area, was locked fast.
More fire. More smoke.
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The room was getting hotter and hotter. Darker and darker. Bernadette was coughing, sweating, praying to find an exit. She checked the French doors leading to the back of the building, facing the stables, but they’d been boarded over years before and now flames were burning through the plywood.
Annette moaned and coughed.
She was still alive!
“God help me,” Bernadette said, and crawled along the floor, smoke filling the cavity of the hot rec center. Over the growing roar of the fire she thought she heard sirens screaming, closer now. If only.
Please, please, please.
But even if the fire department was on its way, it could be minutes before they arrived and broke through the walls and . . . no, no, no. She had to save them both. Somehow! Through the smoke she spied a window that was broken, but not completely boarded, a small window on the side of the building. Reeling, blinking through the smoke, unable to draw in a breath without coughing, she found a café chair near the old fireplace. Leaving Annette, she used all of her remaining strength to pick up the chair, then as fast as she could, she ran with the back of the chair pointed in front of her and charged at the window.
Bam!
Craack!
The glass splintered, jagged pieces still sticking to the frame. She fell backward with the force; then, using one of the chair’s legs, she kicked out as many of the remaining shards as possible, though the fresh air only seemed to feed the fire. More flames surrounded the window! Licking, roaring, eager to burn.
Barely able to see through the smoke, her eyes running with tears, she found her way back to Annette and started dragging her sister. Her legs threatened to give out and her lungs burned. Annette groaned as Bernadette, fighting smoke inhalation and the urge to pass out, hauled her sister closer to the window, their only chance of escape.
“Come on,” she ground out. “A little help here, Annette.”
But her sister was dead weight and the temperature in the room was searing, her skin seeming to curdle as she reached the window.
Rather than risk Annette being cut, Bernadette propped her up and flung herself through the opening. Feeling the scrape of glass, shards penetrating her flesh, flames singeing her skin, she landed on the porch, felt it tremble. Fire climbed up the posts to the roof.
Still she reached back through. “Come on, Annette,” she said, leaning against the searing window ledge, grabbing Annette beneath her arms with both of her own hands and dragging her sister through the window, tugging her body across the porch and onto the gravel parking lot. Her nose was filled with smoke and she was still coughing, but she forced her legs to move toward the woods, faster and faster, away from the raging inferno as it roared and rushed, threatening the surrounding woods.
All the while she expected to see Naomi, pistol raised, ready to shoot her dead.
Instead she noticed headlights cutting through the forest. She went weak in the knees. At last! The police! Thank God! She wilted against the side of a tree only to see through her tears and coughing fit that it was not a vehicle from the sheriff’s department arriving. It was a huge silver SUV speeding into the lot, spraying gravel.
“No!” she whispered aloud as she recognized Reverend Jeremiah Dalton behind the wheel. “Oh, please, God, no.”
“What the hell’s going on here?” he roared, staring in horror at the growing conflagration. The rec center was totally engulfed, heat radiating from it in waves, flames climbing through the charred roof, black smoke billowing to the morning sky. “Oh, dear God, no! No!” Frantically he looked around, as if he could find some hose or fire extinguisher to futilely battle the blaze. His gaze landed on his ex-wife, who stood only steps away from the inferno. She was staring at the blaze as if mesmerized, appearing unafraid of the heat, unconcerned about the smoke.
“For the love of God, Naomi, what have you done?” he yelled over the crackle of flames, roar of the fire, and scream of ever-approaching sirens. “What the hell have you done?”
“Just giving you what you deserve,” Naomi said, turning to face him, as if she’d known he would arrive. The blood on her face had dried, but her eye was swelling shut as she raised her arm to show the pistol in her grip.
“Are you insane?” he cried, and started to turn away from her just as she fired.
Pop! Pop! Pop! Shooting in rapid succession, she managed a cruel smile that widened as his body jerked with each bullet’s hit. “Go to hell, Jeremiah,” she said, the flames behind her shooting to the sky while a cop car skidded, siren blasting, lights flashing, and ground to a stop, spraying the thin gravel. “Go straight to hell!”
Behind the cruiser Lucas’s Jeep slid to nearly plow into Bernadette’s Honda. He was out of his SUV in a second, waving wildly at her. “Get back—get back!”
Two deputies, weapons drawn, opened the doors of the cruiser and, using the doors as shields, yelled at Naomi. “Police! Drop your weapon! Ma’am, put the gun down!” a burly, red-haired deputy ordered.
As Lucas made his way to Bernadette, Naomi, still in whatever weird trance had overtaken her, stared at the cops, the fire growing and shifting like a great crackling curtain behind her.
“Drop your weapon!” the deputy ordered again.
“What?” she said as something inside the old building exploded. The earth shuddered, smoke and debris spit from the rec center, and with the crack of ancient timbers, the roof collapsed. Naomi was knocked off her feet by the blast. She flew through the air screaming.
Craaack!
She landed on the parking lot, her head hitting with a sickening thud, her body crumpling not five feet from her dead ex-husband.
As fire trucks roared through the trees, rumbling, deep sirens bleeping, the timbers of Columbia Hall gave way. One heavy, charred beam tumbled from the building and landed hard, pinning the bodies of both Jeremiah and Naomi Dalton.
Lucas reached Bernadette. Shielding the sisters with his body, he wrapped one arm around Bernadette. “It’s all right,” he said. “Everything’s going to be all right.”
“Never,” Bernadette whispered, watching the shallow rise and fall of her sister’s chest. “It’ll never be right again.”
“Trust me,” he whispered, and kissed her temple. She melted inside, wanting to believe him, to think that this terror would somehow be banished.
“Get back!” a fireman yelled, screaming at them and waving an arm frantically.
“Come on.” Lucas picked up Annette with one arm and led Bernadette quickly away from the inferno, down the lane, past emergency vehicles. Other trucks and ambulances arrived, the firemen fighting the blaze, the wounded carried off by EMTs.
Bernadette’s last image of Camp Horseshoe before she, along with her sister, was hauled into an ambulance was of the blackened, skeletal frame of Columbia Hall, flames reaching skyward being doused by geysers of water, and she realized that the nightmare, should she and Annette survive, was finally over.
EPILOGUE
Averille, Oregon
Now
Bernadette
Bernadette was at a crossroads.
As she stood on the porch of the Hotel Averille with Lucas at her side and watched the women she’d become reacquainted with pack up and leave, she wasn’t certain which path she would take.
Thankfully Annette had survived, the bullet from Naomi’s gun miraculously missing her spine and every vital organ. She would be laid up in a Seaside hospital for a few more days, but Bernadette, treated for superficial burns and abrasions, had been released and had decided to stay in Oregon until she could haul her sister home.
Both Naomi and Jeremiah had perished, which was no surprise and, Bernadette thought, well deserved. They had been miserable people who had been hell-bent on destroying each other. None of Jeremiah’s children—Lucas, Leah, or Rebecca—seemed too torn up at his passing, though Leah, according to Lucas, was struggling with reconciling her mother as a cold-blooded killer. Her sons, David and Ryan Tremaine, appeared unfazed as to Naomi’s ho
micidal tendencies and were already checking into the legalities of regaining the title to what was left of Camp Horseshoe.
But Bernadette felt her own future was uncertain. As she observed Jayla pile into her car to drive back to her family in Portland and Nell head out in her Subaru to Bend, where her fiancée, Tasha, was waiting, Bernadette saw no reason to hurry back to Seattle and her empty town home. Her job was waiting of course, and she had responsibilities. Still, she lingered.
Because of Lucas?
Absolutely.
Sosi had already taken off and was reuniting with her husband and kids. Reva, too, had left, though there were rumblings that a case involving a car accident from years before, where a woman died, was being reopened, and Reva might be charged with some kind of manslaughter.
Kinley Marsh had recovered. Fully. And no way was she surrendering any of her footage or Annette’s diary. “Try a court order,” she’d advised Bernadette when she’d broached the subject on Annette’s behalf.
“It’s my sister’s diary,” Bernadette had reminded her. She’d run into the reporter while Kinley was simultaneously checking out of the Hotel Averille while reading some text on her phone.
“Since when?” She’d looked up and her smug smile had said it all: Kinley Marsh, NewzZone reporter with more prospects in the wings, was back. Big-fucking-time. Her blog and stories had gone viral, and she wasn’t about to let go of the fame she’d chased all of her adult life.
Now, Kinley, too, had driven off and Bernadette was finally alone with Lucas. “I was thinking,” he said, taking her hand, “that you might want to stick around a while.”
“Until Annette’s released?”
“No, longer.”
She glanced up at him and arched an eyebrow, but before she could respond, another car wheeled into the lot, a cruiser from the sheriff’s department with Maggie Dobbs at the wheel. Spotting Lucas, she parked and headed up the flagstone walk to the porch.