“Now read the first page,” he said.
I opened the book and felt the skin crawl on the back of my neck as I read. “Drenched in oil and blinded by blood, she held her breath and jumped.”
My heart did somersaults in my throat. Dear god, I was alone in a little basket way up in the sky, with the man who had been trying to kill me. Had it been Owen all along? Trying to safeguard his investment? In cahoots with his sister? Did he know it was a book that had already been published? Sweet revenge that.
“Is that why you tried to kill me?”
He smiled at me and said, “You ruined everything the minute you picked up the manuscript on the plane and I saw you reading the first page. Unfortunately, I couldn’t know how much or even what pages you’d read.” He reached out and took the book from me. “You know, you’ve been particularly difficult to kill. When I visited your cabin on the ship I was sure that I could knock you out and throw you overboard. And that polar bear was a gift that didn’t quite work out.”
“And the Zodiac?”
“You are so impressionable, but you were barking up the wrong tree when you thought someone had cut the ropes. They really were frayed.”
“So you had no hand in the Zodiac fiasco?”
“I didn’t,” he said. “But Terry did.”
I waited impatiently for him to continue.
“I’d told her about you reading the manuscript and she was livid, with me and with you. When she stood up in the Zodiac she was aiming directly for you.”
“To knock me overboard,” I said slowly.
Owen nodded.
“And what about the dog?” I said.
He smiled. “Everybody just thought you were nuts. I played into that and took advantage of circumstances.”
“And the fire?”
“Yeah, well, that took a little more thought.”
“I’m glad you’re so lousy at murder,” I said, keeping my distance, trying to formulate a plan, any plan at all. “Why did you stop trying?” I was playing for time.
“Because I could afford to wait for the perfect oppor–tunity. I never had to be good. If it worked, it worked. If it didn’t there was always another time. It just had to look like an accident and happen sometime before the book came out.”
“But you told me you didn’t stand to gain anything from Terry’s death.”
“The book contracts were in both our names and I earned every penny. She agreed to it before she started making money because she was so grateful that I ghost–wrote her book. She tried to renege but our agreement was solid.”
“What happens to her share now?”
“It goes to her estate.”
I kicked myself for not getting back to Derek but I hazarded a guess. “Which, since she has no will, will go to you.”
He shrugged and waved the book in my face. “This book is due out in a month and it stands to make me a pretty penny now that she’s well-known. This is just an advance copy. So you see, I can’t have you bouncing around like an out of control bowling ball.” He looked at the book in his hands and then dropped it on top of a packsack.
So he didn’t know. That gave me some much-needed courage. “Your so-called book was already published in 1927,” I said, then paused to look at him. “By an Archibald Graham. Sally just copied it to get you to show your hand.”
His jaw had dropped and I knew I’d hit a very raw nerve. But he recovered his cool frighteningly quickly. “A doomed woman will say anything to save her skin.”
He smiled as if he had some secret he wanted to tell me. And then, with no warning, he lunged at me. I didn’t even have time to put up my hands as his body slammed into mine. As I felt myself going over the edge of the basket I saw the line snaking down from the crown of the balloon. I reached out and grabbed it just as Owen pitched me overboard. I went into a dizzying drop as I swung out and away from the basket, slipping a few feet down the rope. I managed to stop my fall with clenched hands and a prayer as the end of the rope fell out of the basket and tumbled past me. I looked up and saw the underside of the basket and the balloon soaring far above it.
Of all the thoughts that tumbled through my mind as I hung suspended, the last thing I expected was anger that I’d die without answers. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to hang on for long. I tried to grab the rope with my legs, but it was swaying wildly and I couldn’t get a grip. I had to get to the wicker ring and give my hands something more concrete to grasp. It would buy me time. I glanced down quickly and looked up again, my mind and my body fighting over control of me. There was only five feet of rope below me and I cautiously moved down, hand over hand, to grab hold of the ring with both hands. But the psychological loss of the extra length of rope was unnerving. Nothing stood between me and Mother Earth.
I glanced down again and sucked in my breath. We were awfully close to the trees. If Owen dropped much lower maybe I could let go and chance getting skewered. We seemed to be going quite fast though.
My body was starting to tell me that I couldn’t hold on, that I had to let go and everything would be okay. My head was in a screaming match with my body. It hor–rified me that my body might win, no matter how good an argument my mind had.
At about that point my brain finally registered what was happening on the basket end of the rope. Why hadn’t he cut me loose? Surely there was some way a pilot could secure an errant line he couldn’t reach by hand? I tried to remember what had been in the basket, but my mind was too traumatized to concentrate. I looked down again and saw that the trees were closer, looming up like little pointy umbrellas, and suddenly I realized what he was doing. He was going to drag me through the trees until I let go. Nice and clean. Of course, he could just wait for me to fall, but maybe he was just impatient to be rid of me.
I was on the verge of panic and my arms were throb–bing from holding on. The urge to let go was almost over–whelming. I looked up but he was busy doing something.
We were dropping and suddenly the trees were right there.
As they raked my legs I tried to climb back up the rope, but there wasn’t a hope with the condition of my arms. I brought my legs up as the treetops bent past me.
Suddenly the trees gave way to a lake. I looked down at the water and found it hard to judge the dis–tance. We were almost level with the trees on the shore–line so we couldn’t be that far from the water. I weighed my chances. A fall from, say, thirty-five feet into water would be okay if I fell the right way. Those Olympic div–ers dive from heights like that, don’t they? Of course, I wasn’t an Olympic diver, but it seemed like a better bet than being slammed into a forest.
By now I was hanging at least twenty feet from the basket; plenty of space for him to smash me into the trees on the far side of the lake and still control the balloon.
I clung to the rope, my body feeling numb and surreal
— my mind foggy and dozy. It happened suddenly. My mind and my body let go as one and I concentrated on making my entry to the water as straight as possible, my body rigid through fear, not design. I hit the water feet first, the impact took my breath away as I plum–meted deep beneath the surface. I crawled my way back up, fighting for air and retching as I treaded water and watched the balloon languidly float over the trees and out of sight with Owen staring back at me.
I was in the middle of the lake. Fortunately, the weather was still warm so I didn’t have any heavy clothes on. I kicked off my shoes and swam towards the nearest shore, confident that Owen would not be there to greet me.
I crawled out of the water and lay there for a while, thinking about nothing, looking up at the trees and lis–tening to the birds twittering.
I didn’t hear the man coming. All of a sudden he was just there, looking down at me, puzzled. I sat up and he immediately drew a gun on me. He couldn’t have been more than twenty-five years old and since I was all out of adrenaline I eyeballed him with some curiosity, wonder–ing if Owen had hired crew to follow my descent.
“Wh
o are you and what are you doing here?” he asked gruffly.
I could have asked the same of him but I didn’t. Instead I said, “I just fell out of a hot air balloon.”
He looked skeptical and asked for my ID. That was a relief — he wouldn’t ask for ID if he was one of Owen’s minions. But that’s when I got skeptical and asked who he was.
“I patrol the grounds for the Prime Minister.” Har–rington Lake. Of course; I’d landed in the Prime Minis–ter’s summer retreat.
I fished through my wet jeans pocket and handed him my wallet. He eyeballed it and then offered me a lift back to his station where he said he had to fill out a report.
I didn’t get to meet the Prime Minister, but I guess I couldn’t complain. After all, I was alive.
I told my story about Owen and the balloon to the secu–rity guards and again to the police. They were very polite and didn’t question my sanity, but the cards were stacked against me since apparently no one had noticed the bal–loon with a person dangling from a rope flying over Har–rington Lake. Something about a change of shift was mentioned. They told me they’d look into it and get back to me. The fact that someone had tried to kill me didn’t seem to merit immediate attention. A bodyguard would have been nice.
I called Patrick and told him there was a change in plans and could I stay at his place? It was a mess of packed boxes, he said, but I could tell he was happy for my call.
I didn’t dare go home for a change of clothes for fear of Owen, but I did call Ryan and let him know the situation.
I arrived at Patrick’s still wet and bedraggled. I showered and changed into some spare clothes with many caressing interruptions from Patrick and a back–rub in the shower. It had been what I had wanted to avoid and not avoid. The last time. So final. The last time remembered as the last time, as it was happening, was worse than remembering the last time in retrospect. I told Patrick about the balloon incident and he was really upset.
He grabbed me by the arms in the bathroom and I winced. They still felt like pulled taffy wrapped in one big ache. He tightened his grip, staring straight into my eyes. “You can’t keep putting yourself in danger like this; you’re going to get killed. It’s not worth it, Cordi.”
But I actually thought it was very much worth it. Jus–tice; plus, if I had to be truthful, it was a real adrenaline rush to be put in situations where I had to test my own strength and courage. And even more of a rush when it worked. I felt invincible, which probably wasn’t a good thing — I thought of all the invincible people now lying six feet under. I changed the subject. “Patrick, Owen showed me the jacket cover from Terry’s new book. He’s obviously publishing it posthumously.”
He waited for me to go on.
“The back cover has an excerpt from the book.” I paused for effect. “Word for word, it’s what I read on the plane.”
I waited for his reaction but there was none.
“Don’t you see? Terry stole Sally’s book, although it wasn’t actually Sally’s. It was written by a guy in 1927. Anyway, the manuscript was handwritten by Sally and the suicide note was identical to a scene in the book.”
Patrick whistled. “So you think that’s why he was trying to kill you on the ship? Because you would know as soon as you saw the book that Terry had stolen the manuscript.”
“And that I might recognize the suicide note.”
“So now I’m leaning away from the murder-suicide theory.”
“And leaning towards?”
“Double murder.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
The next day I awoke with the stomach flu and spent the day in Patrick’s bed, hoping he wouldn’t catch it. I was well enough to go into work the following day, and left before Patrick woke up — was I a coward? You bet. All morning and afternoon I found it impossible to work, but of course I had to.
I kept thinking about Owen. I needed to find out more without getting killed. I couldn’t just let him control my life and then waltz in and end it. On impulse I packed up my things and glanced at my watch: 5:30. I still had an hour before our dinner and three hours before Patrick had to be at the airport. I took the Parkway to Parkdale, then went along Carling, past the high school, to Bank. I drove to within a block of Owen’s garage, not really knowing why I was going, just knowing that I had to — offence rather than defence.
I walked the rest of the way on the other side of the street and studied the building. It was a large factory-type place, extending back from the street about a hun–dred feet. I remembered that the offices were in the front, but I’d never seen what was in back. I had no plan and no certainty that looking around his place would bring me any kind of information or proof of his theft — like a pile of Terry’s new books. The police would believe that.
But I didn’t want to be just a sitting duck.
The storefront looked closed. I crossed the street and walked toward the building, deciding to duck down the back lane and see if there was any way in from the back. I needn’t have worried. The two large back doors were wide open. I looked around me and then inside the building. Seeing no one, I entered the building; a typi–cal boxy warehouse with off-white siding on the out–side and unfinished plywood on the inside. It was full of cars and motorcycles, seemingly parked at random throughout the one room space. I was sneaking in along the sidewall, behind a dark grey BMW, when I was sud–denly jerked to a standstill. My heart thumped around my body for a while until I realized I’d just caught my jacket on a blue Subaru. I yanked it off and it tore, the rip sounding like a canon going off in a Quonset hut. I stopped dead in my tracks and waited, but there was no hue and cry. I picked my way down past a blue Camaro, a lemon yellow VW, and a really nice old BMW motor–cycle in pristine condition, with the keys in the ignition.
Suddenly I heard voices raised in anger coming from the doors I had just entered. I ducked down behind the VW to watch.
“You’re Michael’s wife? Jesus.” The man looked about and then said, “Look, it was a tragic accident.”
“How can you defend your sister? She was a cold-blooded murderer and you know it.”
The man and a woman stood in the doorway and I had a clear view of both of them. One was Owen, hands in his pockets and scowling at Elizabeth, who was wav–ing her arms about in anger.
“I don’t know it,” said Owen. “My sister walked in her sleep from the time she was five years old. All the experts agreed that it was a tragic accident. That’s all. If you’d been at the trial you would have known that.”
Elizabeth reached out and grabbed Owen by his shirt. “But you don’t believe it, do you? You know what happened that night because you were there. She would have confided in you.”
“Since you seem to know so much about her, what do you think happened?”
“I think you helped her fake it. The perfect murder. She did have a history of sleepwalking and the case in Ottawa where the guy killed one of his in-laws and got off on a sleepwalking plea set you both to thinking.”
Owen laughed. “That makes me brilliant.”
“No, that makes you a patsy.”
Owen took one step closer to Elizabeth, his face unreadable. What the hell was Elizabeth trying to do?
“She told you what to do, didn’t she? And you did it because baby brother has to follow big sister’s instruc–tions. She treated you like a dog and you weren’t man enough to stand up to her.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“You did everything for her, everything. I think you planned the murder and told her what to do.”
Owen visibly squared his shoulders, and I was pretty sure I could see a smug looking smile on his face as a gun suddenly materialized in his left hand. Where the hell had that come from?
The two of them stood frozen and framed in the doorway and I crouched there, paralyzed, wondering what the hell I could do, wondering what Elizabeth would do, and wondering what Owen would do.
His voice was low and wistful. “No one ever under–stoo
d that the brains behind Terry were mine and always had been. Until now.” He looked at her. “Everyone ignores me. They say I’m a patsy, just like you did, but without me Terry would have been nothing.” He waved the gun at Elizabeth. “Ugly little brother — that’s what I was until Michael.”
Elizabeth looked stunned. “You had her kill Michael.” Owen laughed. “Terry, kill Michael? Give me a break. Even in her sleep she couldn’t have done that without my help.” He paused. “It was so easy. She was just the instrument that I played. I was used to following her when she sleepwalked, so like every other time I kept close to her in case she did something stupid. When she picked up the knife I almost stopped her, but something told me to wait.” He sighed. “When she got to Michael’s tent I followed her in and watched in fascination as she raised the knife two-fisted over Michael’s body. I’d heard about the case in Ottawa — the acquittal — and real–ized I was looking at exactly what Terry needed to kick-start her career. But the stupid idiot froze so I came up quietly behind her and took her hands gently in mine, and together we killed Michael.”
“You killed Michael for a goddamned career boost?” cried Elizabeth, the anguish in her voice causing Owen to look at her.
He laughed. “For the sensational publicity of a trial and an acquittal to launch a book about her experience as an innocent murderer. It worked too. She made her name on that book, although even then I had to help her.”
Elizabeth stood there speechless, her fists clenching and unclenching as she took in what Owen was saying. “And Michael’s book…?”
“Was gravy … I didn’t even think about it until he was dead.”
I heard Elizabeth moan. “You killed my husband for gravy?”
“You could put it that way. You have to realize it wasn’t that easy. I had to make sure no one had read it. But Michael was very accommodating. He was so secre–tive about his writing and only handwrote everything.”
“You fucking bastard.” Her voice was so full of hatred that even Owen was aware of it and he backed up several paces to keep his distance from her.
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