“You hit her when she was going to Photo Finish?”
“Yes. I’m sorry, Skye. I didn’t want to hurt her. I love Aunt Adrienne. But I had to get the film in that camera.”
“Oh yeah, well, I can understand that,” Skye said, still trying to sound like she truly did understand and sympathize with everything Rachel had done.
One of the candles made an odd, sizzling noise, then died out. “Wow, I wonder why that happened?” Rachel mused.
A stranger’s voice said, “Water in the wax.”
Both girls looked up to see Lottie Brent standing in the doorway of the room where her daughter had been murdered.
TWENTY
1
Dressed in near rags, her white hair streaming around her high cheekbones, Lottie fixed her cloudy amber eyes on Rachel and said in her bell-like voice, “You evil, misbegotten girl. Everything you’ve said about my daughter’s intentions toward Philip is a lie.”
Skye’s dry lips parted in surprise and her heart thudded against her ribs. Rachel stood up, and Skye was certain she would point the gun at Lottie and fire. Instead, the blood drained from Rachel’s face and the gun wavered slightly in her hand. Then she drew a deep breath and seemed to get hold of herself again.
“You’re Julianna’s mother. You’d say anything to defend her. But she was having an affair with my father!”
“I know she was,” Lottie said calmly. “She told me all about it. She also told me how much she loved your father, and Julianna wasn’t one to frighten or threaten someone she loved, or anyone for that matter.”
Rachel glanced at Skye, as if judging her reaction to what Lottie was saying. Then she glared back at Lottie. “She was going to kill my mother if my father didn’t leave her. I killed Julianna to protect my mother!”
“That is absurd and Skye knows it’s absurd. I can see it in her eyes,” Lottie said, her voice steady and positive. “Rachel, you killed Julianna because your father loved her deeply, more than anyone in the world, and you were jealous.”
“My father did not love that whore!” Rachel shouted, pointing the gun at Lottie. “He didn’t!”
“I saw you the morning you killed her,” Lottie went on in a strange, placid voice. “I’d awakened with a dark feeling about Julianna. I knew where she was. I came to warn her. But I saw you. Rather, I saw a woman about your height with the same color hair. My eyes aren’t good. Cataracts. You even had on a sweatsuit like my other daughter wears. I was certain you were Gail.” She closed her eyes. “I came into the hotel and I found Julianna. There was nothing I could do to save her, but I could make her look presentable. I laid her properly in the bed, pulled up the sheet and blanket, put a clasp in her hair, the favorite Austrian crystal clasp she always kept in her purse. And I kissed her on the forehead.” A tear ran down Lottie’s pale cheek. “I kissed my darling good-bye.
“Then I left the hotel. I couldn’t go to the police and tell them Gail had murdered her own sister. But I knew I’d been seen, I thought by Gail. She’s an odd girl, a heartless person like her father. I was afraid she’d kill me too, and all this time, I thought I was hiding from her. But it was you who saw me. I was really hiding from you.” She gave Rachel an unwavering look. “You would have killed me, wouldn’t you?”
“I tried to kill you. I thought I finally had you when I was on Aunt Adrienne’s patio and I heard her call the sheriff and tell him you were at the cabin, but you left before I could get there. You’re a slick old lady. Slick and sneaky like Julianna.”
Skye cringed at the ugly tone in her cousin’s voice. She’d never heard Rachel talk so cruelly before. She almost didn’t sound human, and the thought of such malevolence pouring from her cousin’s mouth made Skye feel sick. She wished she’d wake up and find that this was all a nightmare, but she knew it wasn’t.
“And what about Claude?” Lottie asked. “Did he see you, too?”
“Yes. It seems the whole world was up that morning. But he had better eyesight than you, Lottie. He knew who I was. And he decided to blackmail me.” She shook her head. “He was even more stupid than he seemed if he thought he was a match for me. And pardon my use of the word match. It’s what I used to burn him up. First, a dose of Numorphan I snatched from all the medicines left over from when my Great-aunt Octavia was dying, then a good dousing of bourbon, and then matches. The cottage made a beautiful fire.”
“You burned a man alive, Rachel,” Lottie said coldly.
“He brought it on himself.” Rachel’s jaw tightened. “What are you doing here, anyway?”
“I saw Miles’s truck outside. I knew he’d come here, probably to Julianna’s room. Miles always loved Julianna. I wanted to tell him that I knew he would never have hurt Juli, no matter what people suspected of him. As soon as I entered the hotel, you came in. I hid, but I followed you here. I got close enough to realize you weren’t Gail. And I saw you push him off the balcony.”
“I loved Miles,” Rachel cried. “I protected him by telling him I had information about Julianna’s death and to meet me at Heaven’s Door the night of Margaret’s murder. That way he had an alibi when I freed him from Margaret.”
“Rachel, you killed Margaret, too?” Skye asked in a small, shattered voice.
“I had to. She knew I killed Julianna. She knew it from the start, but she didn’t say anything. After all, she’d been afraid Dad’s affair with Julianna would come to light and his campaign would be ruined. I’d taken care of that worry for her. But she also started using what she knew to try to scare me.” Rachel paused. “She wanted Miles. She couldn’t have him. I decided he was mine as soon as I met him. I’m sure he only started seeing her to hide his feelings for me. The day before she left on that last campaign trip with Mom and Dad, she told me she knew how I felt about Miles and it was ridiculous and if I didn’t stop following him around like a lovesick puppy, she’d tell everyone I killed Julianna. She said she had proof, but she wouldn’t say what proof. She probably didn’t have anything, but I couldn’t be sure. So I had to kill her.
“I waited until I was sure Miles had made it to Heaven’s Door, took off all my clothes, put on some house slippers so I wouldn’t leave tracks, a hairnet, a pair of underpants, and I killed her. Then I went home. Nearly naked.” Rachel almost laughed. “I took a shower and all that blood went down the drain. I’d dumped the slippers, the hairnet, and the pants down a storm drain along the way back to the house.”
Rachel’s eyes grew troubled. “But Mom heard me slip in through my window. She came into my bathroom and opened the shower door. She saw all that blood still on my legs and going down the drain. I said, ‘I started my period.’ She just stared at me like she didn’t believe me but didn’t say a word. The next morning, after she heard about Margaret, she looked dreadful. I knew she suspected the truth. Mrs. Pitt made me call Aunt Adrienne to come to the house. I didn’t want to because I thought Mom might tell Adrienne about me. But she didn’t.”
“She kept quiet just like I kept quiet about Gail,” Lottie said. “That is what a mother’s love can do. Keep you silent in the face of the most heinous crimes your child commits. But it isn’t right, Rachel. I was finally going to tell the police what I thought Gail had done. I called Sheriff Flynn this evening and told him I had to confess something awful. But now it seems I will have something else to tell him. Something about you.”
Rachel’s face changed into something vicious, almost feral, and Skye cringed, horrified. “You won’t tell anything to anyone, old woman, because you will be dead. You’ll be lying down there beside Miles, and people will think you blamed him for killing Julianna and fell when you pushed him off the porch.”
“And what about your cousin?” Lottie asked softly. “I know you’re not capable of much love, Rachel, but you do love Skye. What about her?”
Rachel looked desperately at Skye. “Skye understands me. She understands why I had to do all of these things. She won’t tell on me. You’ll stand by me, won’t you, Skye? You’ll pr
otect me, just like I’d protect you.”
“I … I can’t …” Tears streamed down Skye’s face. “I don’t want anyone to hurt you, Rachel, but all the terrible things you’ve done …” A sob racked her chest so hard she lost her breath. “Please, Rachel, tell me you didn’t mean any of it. Tell me you were on drugs or you have a brain tumor and you’ll go to a hospital and get well and …”
“Go to a hospital!” Rachel shouted. “Are you insane? I’m not going anywhere except back to school and then on with my life just like I planned it, just like it’s supposed to be.”
“You can’t,” Skye said, crying. “Rachel, it can’t be that way. You have to tell someone. You have get somebody smart, maybe like a psychiatrist, to help you. You have to stop!”
“I don’t have to stop,” Rachel snarled. “And no one can make me stop. Not after all I’ve been through.”
“I can make you stop.” Lucas Flynn stood in the doorway, a 9 mm gun trained on Rachel. “I can make you stop and I will make you stop.”
“Oh no you can’t,” Rachel hissed.
“I have to,” Lucas said sadly. “It’s my duty, and not just because I’m the sheriff. It’s because of what I am to you.”
Rachel stared at him for a moment, her eyes seeming to turn glassy. Then, in a strangled voice, she said, “So you’re him. Of all people, you are my real father.”
2
Drew’s Camaro kicked up dust as they sped up the road to la Belle Rivière. When they reached the front of the hotel, they immediately spotted Bruce Allard’s black GTO. Empty. “Where are they?” Adrienne cried.
Drew didn’t answer. His gaze was fixed on something on the ground beside the lowest hotel porch. Without a word, he opened his door and started running. Adrienne immediately followed, then slowed as they got nearer and she saw the body of Miles Shaw splayed on the ground, spikes poking through his abdomen. Drew bent over him, then called, “He’s alive. Dial 911 and get an ambulance, Adrienne.” She stood immobilized by shock, gazing at the big man who lay moaning, drenched in blood.
Where is Skye? her mind screamed. Where is my daughter? “Adrienne, dial 911 before he bleeds to death!” Drew shouted. “Do it nOW!”
Adrienne snapped back to life as Drew stood and moved away from Miles, going toward the hotel. Adrienne fumbled with shaking fingers in her ridiculously tiny purse for her cell phone, which she immediately dropped. She stooped beside Miles, retrieving the phone. Just as she grabbed it, Miles opened his eyes. His stare was so intense, she froze. “Miles?” she said softly. “Miles, you’ll be all right I don’t know what happened, but—”
“Rachel,” he ground out, his face contorting with pain. “Rachel did all of it. I didn’t know at first … I was scared of her when I figured it out I hid at Kit’s and then I was running away like a coward …”
“Rachel?” Adrienne gasped. Her mind shut down against the impossibility of what he was saying. “Miles, you’re delirious. You don’t know what you’re talking about. Save your breath. I’m calling for help—”
He grabbed her arm with a bloody hand. Instinctively, she tried to pull back, but he held her with remarkable strength. “She has Skye, Adrienne. Rachel has Skye inside the hotel and she’s going to kill her.”
3
“What are you saying?”
Adrienne had been so absorbed with Miles that she hadn’t even heard Philip and Vicky drive up. But now Vicky stood behind her, reaching past her in an effort to grab Miles as Adrienne shouted again, “What are you saying about my daughter?”
Philip pulled Vicky back and Adrienne stood, placing her hands on Vicky’s shoulders. “He says Rachel has Skye inside.”
“And she’s going to kill her?” Vicky shrieked. “He’s crazy!”
“Philip, keep her off Miles,” Adrienne ordered. “I have to get into the hotel.”
Adrienne couldn’t understand how her voice emerged so strong and commanding when it felt as if everything inside her were quivering in absolute terror. What Miles had said did sound crazy, but if he was right …
She kicked off her spike-heeled shoes and ran into the hotel. The darkness of the lobby immediately blinded her. Drew called out to her. “I’m behind the registration desk. I just found the light switch. I hope the electricity is still on.”
“It is,” Adrienne said, remembering turning on the lights the morning she and Skye found Julianna. In a moment, the beautiful chandelier overhead bloomed to life, glowing on the Oriental rugs and elegant Queen Anne furnishings of the lobby. Drew dashed up the stairs toward the second floor. Adrienne followed, hearing Philip and Vicky pounding across the porch and through the double doors.
The injured Miles flashed briefly in Adrienne’s mind. In her fear for Skye, she hadn’t called 911 asking for an ambulance, but her daughter was more important to her.
She caught up with Drew on the stairs. He took her arm, pulling her along so she could keep up with him. When they reached the second floor, the scent of jasmine hit Adrienne like a splash of perfume. Tastefully muted ceiling lights burned under faceted crystal globes, but Adrienne could still see the flicker of candlelight spilling from one of the rooms—the room where Julianna had died.
“Drew,” she whimpered, pointing.
“I see it,” he said, just above a whisper. “Stop running. Approach the room slowly and don’t raise your voice when we get there. If Rachel has Skye, we don’t want to startle her. She may have a gun.”
“A gun!” Adrienne almost cried out, then caught herself. Drew had said to be quiet. Right now he seemed far more in control than she was. She felt more secure following his judgment than hers.
But no amount of good judgment could have prepared Adrienne for what she saw in Room 214. Skye sat huddled on the floor, her face wet with tears, her eyes wide and terrified. Above her stood Rachel holding a gun, switching it back and forth between a frail, wild-haired Lottie and Lucas flynn, pointing an even larger revolver at the girl’s head.
Adrienne felt as if every bit of air had been sucked from her lungs. She held tightly to Drew’s arm, knowing he was all that kept her standing. She stared at the bizarre tableau, too frightened to say anything. Then, from behind her, Vicky moaned, “Oh, my God.”
Rachel looked at her mother. “Why didn’t you ever tell me the truth, Mom?”
“T-the truth?” Vicky faltered. “What truth?”
“That Philip Hamilton wasn’t my real father.”
She’s lost her mind, Adrienne thought. Rachel has gone completely over the edge. But Vicky began to cry and asked, “How did you find out?”
“Blood,” Rachel answered flatly. “When I had the car wreck two summers ago, I needed a transfusion. I found out you have type A blood and Dad has type O. I have AB. It’s not possible for parents with A and O blood to have a child with AB.”
“The doctor wasn’t supposed to tell you that,” Vicky said in a small, crushed voice. “He promised.”
Rachel gave her a rueful smile. “Oh, he kept his promise. But this bitchy nurse whose daughter I’d beaten a week earlier in the local tennis championship told me for spite. God, did she gloat!” Rachel’s smile faded. “But I knew before then. I think I’ve always known.”
She looked at Philip, who seemed turned to granite. “I always adored you, Daddy. But unless we were in public, you either ignored me or treated me like you couldn’t stand me. You could barely look at me. I tried so hard to please you. But I couldn’t—not with the good looks everyone said I had, not with good grades, not with my athletic achievements or all the other honors I got in school. Nothing seemed to matter. I was so hurt. I felt like nothing, worse than nothing.
“After I found out that because of the blood, I couldn’t be your biological daughter, I tried to tell myself I was adopted. But I’m good with research. It didn’t take long for me to realize I hadn’t been adopted. Mom had given birth to me, but I wasn’t yours. That’s why you didn’t love me. What I want to know now is exactly what happened. How did I c
ome to be, Mom?”
“Rachel, I can’t … don’t do this to me, please,” Vicky wavered.
Rachel pointed the gun at her. “Don’t you dare stand there looking delicate and sickly and helpless. For once in your life, stand up and tell the truth. Tell me how you betrayed Dad with another man and gave birth to his child. Lucas Flynn’s child!”
Adrienne and Lucas locked stares. She couldn’t believe what she’d just heard until she saw the truth in his gray eyes. She barely felt Drew’s hand touch hers. He’s trying to comfort me, she thought distantly. Drew thinks I’m hurt. But I’m only surprised.
Adrienne tore her gaze away from Lucas’s and looked at Skye, huddled on the floor, her tears dried, her face desolate. Adrienne ached with the need to cuddle the girl in her arms, but she knew any movement on her part could be dangerous, so she simply tried to stand still and calm in the maelstrom that swirled around her.
“Tell me, Mother!” Rachel commanded again.
“All right!” Vicky sobbed. “All right. Just try to understand, Rachel. I love you. I always have.” Rachel glared at her, and Vicky drew a deep breath. “It was three years after Philip and I married. I’d already realized he didn’t love me. He was never mean to me. It would almost have been better if he had been. At least that would have meant he felt something about me. But there was nothing except this vague kindness, especially in public. I couldn’t stand it, Rachel. I was crushed because I loved him so much. I felt desperate for attention—for love—and there was Lucas. He was working on one of Philip’s campaigns back then. We were together a lot. We talked. I liked him immensely. And he loved me. I knew it even before he said it. And one night, when we’d both had a little too much to drink … well, you can guess the rest.”
“Oh, you were drunk,” Rachel said sarcastically. “Next you’ll tell me he raped you.”
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