The Pretender

by HelenKay Dimon

  Harris was the one who answered. “She drew the map for the kidnappers.”

  “Shut up.” Ted turned on Harris. Lifted that shovel slightly, just enough to suggest he’d use it. “You are a liar.”

  “Gabby?” Harris called out her name. “It’s now or never.”

  Never. The word echoed in her brain. She’d always thought the answer would be never. Then she’d fallen for Harris—full on tripped and fell for him—and things that once seemed impossible no longer were. He believed her from the start. He was the only one who ever did. She engaged in weird behavior, snuck out with the shovel, and still he supported her.

  He gave her back something she was sure she’d lost—a chance.

  Her heartbeat thundered in her chest. The sound thumped in her ears, making it difficult to hear. Her stomach rolled and her knees grew weak. In every way possible, her body tried to hold the secret in. It was as if every muscle abandoned her and her breathing stopped.

  “Tabitha was young and got caught up in something she didn’t understand.” The second the words came out her body calmed. Her heart still raced, but the need to sit down, fall over and hide vanished. It was enough to keep her talking. “I made a joke, a stupid remark to my friends about a staged kidnapping one night when I was angry with my parents and drinking. Some of the people I was partying with at the time, most of whom I didn’t really know and one who I thought was my friend, ran with it.”

  Harris nodded in Ted’s direction. “And you.”

  “No, I didn’t—”

  “Stop lying!” She’d never screamed so loud in her life. She poured every ounce of her frustration and anger into it. The words carried on the breeze.

  “You’re done, Ted,” Harris said as his fingers slipped over the end of the screwdriver.

  “I was a kid, too. I got caught up in the fun of it, never thinking anyone would get hurt. It was a mistake. That’s all.” By the end Ted’s voice lost its power. The words barely rose above the lapping of the waves.

  The admission nearly knocked her to her knees. She knew the truth now. He didn’t have to say the words, but to hear them changed everything. To watch him stand there with that shovel, blaming her, when he was the one who’d stopped Tabitha’s heart.

  Pain shot through Gabby, threatening to double her over. She stood taller instead. “You were friends with Tabitha. You lived on our family’s property.”

  “Don’t do this,” he begged.

  “Why should you get off the hook?” The words tumbled out of her now. “You were in on it. You, not me. You let me suffer and had Tabitha cover for you. What kind of person does that?”

  Ted held up a hand as if he were trying to block her words. “It was a mistake.”

  “Oh, my God.” The reality of it all had her moving closer to Harris, pressing her arm against his. She needed contact, his touch. He was on high alert, but everything inside her shattered. She could feel every defense break.

  She’d trusted Ted. Thought of him as family.

  “None of this was supposed to happen.” Ted shrugged, but his hands shook. Whatever was going on inside him didn’t match the it’s-okay tone to his voice. “Back then it was tough talk. I never thought it would escalate.”

  Harris took a threatening step forward. “You’re a piece of shit.”

  “I didn’t know what to do,” Ted pleaded.

  He could have stopped it. She wanted to scream that truth but she couldn’t get the words out. But she could say one thing.

  “You killed Tabitha.” He could maneuver and lie and make up whatever he wanted about the past, but that fact happened. “You weren’t a kid fourteen months ago. You were an adult and you made a horrible decision that took my sister’s life.”

  “Why, Ted?” Harris asked.

  “We were arguing. That’s all.” Ted glanced at Stephen, who hadn’t moved since the conversation took such a vicious turn. Ted looked at Gabby again. “She tripped and fell. Her head bounced off the edge of the desk. There was so much blood and I panicked.”

  “She knew you were in on the kidnapping all the time.” Knew and never said anything. Not even in confidence. Not as a secret between sisters. Tabitha protected Ted.

  That thought became clear in Gabby’s mind. While she’d stumbled through the last decade, her parents had put Ted through college and supported him. They all cheered when he opened his business and settled into a stable life.

  Tabitha never said a word. She let him move on even while Gabby couldn’t.

  “I got trapped just like she did.” One of Ted’s arms fell to his side. “She told me she’d destroyed the map, but then . . .” The metal end of the shovel scraped against the ground. “She started doing all this investigating on that crime site. She met people. She fucking fell for someone and thought she should be honest with him about what happened in the past.” Ted scoffed. “It was ridiculous.”

  Harris nodded. “It was Craig. But I think you know that. Is that what all this bar hopping with him is about? Befriend Craig and make sure he doesn’t know anything?”

  “I figured out that Craig and Tabitha were talking online and Tabitha didn’t even know it. Craig moved back to the area and started his business. We started running into each other. At first it was fine but then he started talking about this woman.” Ted laughed but there was no amusement in the sound. “Hell, he and Tabitha would quote the same damn conversations to me as each told me about their big loves.”

  Even through the anger Gabby ached for Tabitha. She’d finally found some real joy with another person and Ted had destroyed it.

  “You thought Tabitha would figure out she was dealing with Craig and then tell him the truth.” Gabby didn’t know if it was irony or just horrifying that Tabitha had finally found love and it led to her death.

  “She said she couldn’t hold the secret anymore.” Ted shook his head. “The guilt never ventured far away for her. Every time she saw you, Gabby, it got worse.”

  Gabby always thought she was the unlucky Wright sister. Now she wasn’t so sure.

  Ted pointed at Harris. “I looked all over for those papers. The guesthouse, the pool. That stupid library.”

  “You killed her.” Nothing in Harris’s tone said he had one ounce of sympathy for Ted.

  Ted shook his head. “It was an accident.”

  “You stabbed her eleven times.” Harris took a step toward Ted then. He held the screwdriver by his side, but Ted didn’t seem to notice. “You slashed her chest so deep it was impossible to perform CPR.”

  Gabby’s mind rebelled. She wanted to slam her hands over her ears and wipe her memory clean. She’d never heard every terrifying fact. The police had kept that all a secret. Even the records held back certain aspects in the hope of finding the killer. But now Harris was making her live through it.

  Eleven times.

  “That came after. It was an attempt to cover up the fact she was already dead.” Ted sounded frantic now.

  “But she wasn’t,” Harris shot back. “She was alive and wheezing and you left her there to bleed out on that gray carpet.”

  The roar came out of nowhere. One minute the waves of blue water provided the only background sound. That and the slight rustle of the tree branches from the wind. Then Stephen let out a howl that sounded as if it had been ripped from his soul.

  “I’m going to kill you.” He launched his body at Ted.

  Ted pivoted just in time. His arms rose and the shovel’s edge left the ground. The nightmare of possibly watching one more family member die spurred Gabby to move. Disconnected thoughts ran through her head. Something tickled at the back of her mind but she pushed it away. Her only goal was to get to Ted, shove him in the water if she had to, before he swung that shovel.

  Harris took off at the same time. The first whack of the shovel missed him and slammed into the dock. The next time Ted lifted it, Harris rammed right into his stomach and they both took flight. Bodies flashed in front of her and she kept going. Her uncle sat
on the dock and she had no idea why he’d landed there. She just knew she had to get to him.

  Two more steps and she was there, pulling him down to the deck as a shovel flew over their heads. She covered his body with hers and held on. The metal part of the shovel clattered on the wood deck beside her head. The noise had her looking up.

  Harris and Ted rounded on each other. Ted had broken the shovel and held the jagged wooden end, stabbing it toward Harris. Harris had the screwdriver and a look of determination on his face. At the last second, Ted shifted and headed for her. His face was a mask of fury as he lunged. The frayed wood came toward her. Harris knocked into Ted one last time, taking them both down to the dock hard enough to shake the pylons anchoring it.

  Ted yelled as the handle fell from his hand. She heard a pinging sound and looked up to see her uncle had batted the handle away from her face with the metal part of the shovel.

  He’d protected her. She was so stunned all she could do was stare.

  He pointed toward Harris. “Stop your boyfriend before it’s too late.”

  She looked over to see Harris straddling Ted with the sharp end of the screwdriver jammed into his neck. He didn’t break skin, but it wouldn’t take much.

  Shouting sounded all around her. She made out Damon’s voice and thought she heard Kramer. None of it got through as she scrambled to get to Harris. Out of breath, she collapsed against his side. “Let him go.”

  “He’s going to lie.” Harris shook his head. “He’ll say all of this was your fault and people will believe him.”

  “I won’t,” her uncle said as he stood up on shaky legs.

  “Harris, please.” She ran her hand along his arm, feeling the stretch of every muscle. This boiling anger was for her. He was fighting for her and she loved that, but this was the wrong battle. “Don’t do this. I need you, but not to do this.”

  Harris eased his hold on Ted. He started to squirm until Damon aimed the gun at his head. “Please move. Just give me any reason to put a hole in you. A sneeze will work.”

  The sound of a boat engine grew closer as Harris rolled off Ted and sat down next to her on the dock. His body shook. She guessed the adrenaline still had him in its grasp.

  “We got him.” She put an arm around his broad shoulders and hugged him.

  He finally looked at her then. The stark look in his eyes was too obvious to miss. “I’m sorry.”

  Chapter 25

  The police and forensic units walked the yard. Every first responder imaginable roamed over the island. Two hours had passed and there was no sign of the action slowing down. Damon thought the investigation would continue into the night.

  News helicopters flew overhead. Every now and then they’d pass close to this side of the island and drown out any other noise. Kramer sat stunned and unmoving as two medics looked him over. Hearing the truth about Ted had driven Kramer to his knees and it took several men to get him back up again. Craig sat a short distance away from Kramer with his head in his hands.

  So many lies and so much devastation.

  Damon motioned and pointed as he talked with a detective and Stephen. A man Harris didn’t recognize except that he worked for Wren walked around. Harris didn’t know who was on a legitimate law enforcement payroll and who had gotten here in record time at Wren’s insistence. Harris didn’t feel anything except for the harsh buzzing in his brain.

  “Who are you?”

  He closed his eyes at the sound of Gabby’s voice behind him. He sat on the porch banister, looking out over the property. She came out the front door. He knew because he heard the bang of the screen door.

  This confrontation was inevitable. Hell, he invited it when he went after Ted. He’d said too much, giving away too many details. It was no surprise Gabby picked up on that. Her intelligence was one of the reasons he loved her . . . and that might even be the right word. Watching her handle Ted, stand up when almost anyone else would have broken down, filled Harris with pride.

  In such a short period of time he’d fought with her, ached for her, cheered her on and protected her. That was more commitment than he’d ever given any woman. The sick thing was he wanted more. Being with her made him want to stick around. The talking, the sex, just being together. It all fueled him.

  He’d fought it for days. Used reason. Told himself he felt admiration and nothing more. Not enough time had passed and he didn’t have the ability to care about anyone else. Not on that level. But it was all bullshit. One more story he told himself to get through the day. The truth was he’d been falling for her since he started reading about her in the news. Fourteen months ago she’d screamed and it shot through him. They’d been connected ever since.

  And now that her initial shock had worn off it was judgment time.

  “You knew about the stab wounds.” There was no emotion in her voice.

  He refused to turn around to see the hate in her eyes. He looked down at his hands instead. “They’re in the report.”

  “You said she was alive when Ted left. You talked about wheezing and the carpet. The same carpet that’s no longer in the room. It was like you were there when she died. Only a person in that room would know those details.”

  His mind shot back to that day. He’d listened to Tabitha’s last words. Watched her die.

  He looked up at Gabby then. “Listen—”

  “Tell me the truth right now or I will march out to the police and hand you over.” Her voice rose but it still didn’t reach past the two of them.

  All the fight had gone out of him. He didn’t intend to deny this any longer anyway. He’d run out of room and out of chances. This was it for them, and he owed her as much of the truth as she could take. “Max Beckmann.”

  She frowned. “What?”

  He spun around, straddling the banister and facing her. “I came to the island to take the Beckmann painting.”

  “Take?”

  While he owned up to the rest of it he had to tell her the truth about this, too. She knew he wasn’t a detective. Now she would know what he was. It would be easier for her that way. She could run and not look back. Write him off as a bad experiment.

  “Steal.” An ache started deep in his gut and moved up to his chest. “I’m my mother’s son.”

  “A thief.” She shook her head. “I asked you directly if you were and you lied to my face.”

  “I’ve never robbed a bank. That wasn’t a lie.”

  “Convenient how you hold on to the tiny details when it comes to saving your ass.”

  He took a deep breath and pushed on. “I planned to reappropriate the Beckmann, but the why doesn’t matter. The explanation doesn’t change what happened that day or anything between us. The point is I walked in on the crime scene. Your sister was on the floor. I realized she was still breathing and tried to perform mouth-to-mouth but it was too late.”

  Gabby’s hands opened and closed at her sides. “But she was alive.”

  He tried to find the right words but he didn’t know what those were. “I tried to save her.”

  “Shut up.”

  “I never would have let you be charged.” He was begging now. He could hear it in his voice. “I vowed to step forward if that happened. I’ve been watching . . .”

  God, that sounded worse. As if there was a worse in this situation. Every act, every mistake he made, piled up until they choked him.

  “Stop talking.” She held up a hand as if she could halt his flow of words.

  The defenses and explanations rushed up his throat. He beat them all back. “Gabby.”

  “You were with her when she died.” She said the words nice and slow, as if she was turning them over in her head as she spoke. “She didn’t die alone.”

  He had to get the rest of the details out now. Listening to her, being this close and not touching her, killed him. It sliced him open and left him raw and destroyed.

  “I waited as long as I could after I heard your voice. As soon as you were in the hallway I wiped do
wn what I touched, which for the most part was Tabitha, and ran.” He took a deep breath to get through that memory. “That’s why there wasn’t DNA around the body and the rest of the evidence appeared to be corrupted. No one was trying to throw the police off, as the news said. It was me saving my own ass.”

  She didn’t break eye contact with him. It was as if she thought if she looked away he’d run again. “The laptop?”

  “I hacked it. Used the camera on it to track her movements. It’s how I stake out a place I plan to . . . rob.” God, he never said that word. Even now he’d had to spit it out. “I didn’t take it but people did do things on my behalf to cover my tracks.”

  “Unbelievable.”

  He didn’t even fight it. She deserved to know, even if it cost him everything. With the police right here on the grounds, he fully expected to leave in handcuffs. “It was me, Gabby. I fucked up the scene. Not on purpose, but it happened. I was the one who stepped in the blood pool and tracked it onto the lawn. I really did stop and try to save her, but it wasn’t enough.”

  “No one believed me.”

  “I know.” He wanted to get up and go to her but nothing in her body language said she’d welcome that. She was almost frozen except for the slight tremor that moved through her every few minutes.

  She shook her head. Her mouth opened and closed a few times before she said anything. “You let me take the blame.”

  The words slammed into him. All that guilt he’d been trying to hold at bay for days swamped him.

  He had so many reasons, most of which had to do with making sure he could keep the life he refused to give up even now that he’d supposedly gone straight. He refused to hide behind that or Wren’s protection right now. “I watched from a safe distance to make sure the accusations against you never got past the allegation stage.”

  Her head shot back as if he’d slapped her. “How is that an answer?”

  “I came back because this time I thought you were going to be arrested. That’s why I showed up on the island. I had a cover and stuck with it.”