And The Bride Vanishes

by Jacqueline Diamond

  Maybe Avery’s standing up to his father would estrange them forever. Or maybe, paradoxically, it would bring them closer, finally forcing Granville to accept his son as an equal.

  Wick rolled up the window and turned to Linda. His eyes were suspiciously moist as if he was just now realizing how good a friend they had in Avery. “I should have let you marry him. I should have stayed dead and kept you safe.”

  “Is that why you were planning to leave, earlier?” In the events that had followed Avery’s arrival, Linda hadn’t had time to think about her husband’s attempt to vanish. Now the sense of betrayal returned, sharp as a blade. “Tell me something, Wick. Where were you planning to go?”

  As he stared through the windshield, she realized that even if he’d had a specific destination, he wasn’t likely to tell her. After all, he might still decide to go there. Maybe tomorrow, maybe next week; who could tell?

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “The point is, the police consider me a suspect, but as far as they’re concerned, you’re just a victim. You won’t be prosecuted for anything.”

  “The killer might come after me.”

  “More likely, he’ll come after me. If you happen to be there, he’d kill you, too.” A long breath emanated from the depths of Wick’s being. “Linda, I love you, but maybe that isn’t enough.”

  She refused to give in to tears. Besides, she was too angry to cry. “We’re going to have a baby, and all you can say is that maybe love isn’t enough?”

  “I didn’t mean it that way.” He gripped the steering wheel so hard she feared he might rip it loose. “I didn’t mean it wasn’t enough for me. I meant, it isn’t enough…” He searched for the right words, and concluded, “It isn’t enough to get us out of this mess. Or enough to build a future on, unless we can put things right.”

  “And how were you planning to do that after you dumped me?” she challenged.

  He didn’t answer, and she realized he hadn’t had a plan. He’d been acting on pure emotion. Well, not only had his actions been wrong, but so had his instincts.

  Linda didn’t believe she would be safer without him, even with the police on her side. More than that, she didn’t want to spend the rest of her life wondering where her husband was.

  If only he would realize that his instinct to leave wasn’t based on rational thought but on a fundamental sense of separateness that she’d always sensed in him. In his heart, Wick was convinced he was destined to go through this world alone.

  This much she’d realized during their courtship, but he’d seemed to overcome that belief. Now, studying his profile in the moonlight, she had to consider the likelihood that being a loner was so much a part of his image of himself that he might leave eventually no matter what the circumstances.

  Maybe their marriage had been doomed from the start, even if someone hadn’t run Wick off the Fairview Avenue bridge. One way or another, she might have to make it through life without her husband. The prospect made her want to shake him in frustration.

  “Promise me one thing,” she said.

  He angled his chin toward her, eyes remote. “What?”

  “Don’t sneak out. If you’re going to leave, at least tell me so I don’t have to worry every time I go to sleep that I’ll wake up alone,” she said.

  He pressed his lips into a thin line before speaking. “All right. If I can warn you, I will.”

  They stared silently into the dark after that. There seemed to be nothing more to say.

  From here, Linda could see only the side of the house. There were no interior lights visible, but Avery had believed his father would be in the library, and its only window opened over the rear lawn.

  She couldn’t hear anything, either, but it was unlikely voices from inside would carry this far. It was also possible that he’d had to go looking for Granville, or that Avery was still standing in the entryway, gathering his courage before heading upstairs.

  She could picture his boyish face solemn and taut, the way it had been earlier this evening. He was such a dear man. She hoped he would find someone else to marry, a woman who deserved him.

  “Maybe Granville went to bed, after all,” Wick said.

  “I could walk around the back of the house,” Linda offered. “At least I’d be able to tell if any lights are on.”

  He shook his head. “Avery will come out and tell us what we need to know. At best, you could delay us from leaving, and at worst you might trip some alarm.”

  He was right, she knew, but Linda hated sitting here with nothing to do. She felt responsible for dragging Avery into this business.

  Wick must have been sharing her concerns, because he said, “If he doesn’t come out in five minutes, I’ll go around back and look for a light.”

  “You don’t know where the library is.”

  “Oh, yes, I do.” His mouth quirked in amusement at the memory. “When I came for Christmas vacation our freshman year, I wandered in there one night to get something to read and fell asleep on the couch. The cleaning lady wasn’t expecting me, and the next morning she ran shrieking through the house that she’d surprised a burglar. It certainly made life interesting for a few minutes.”

  Linda chuckled. “Did they call the police before they figured it out?”

  “Fortunately, wiser heads prevailed,” he said. “Avery’s mom realized instantly what must have happened. But I’ll never forget that room, believe me.”

  Despite her determination to be patient, Linda found herself checking her watch every thirty seconds, and wondering why five minutes hadn’t passed yet. The hands moved with such agonizing slowness that she was beginning to wonder whether the battery was weak, when finally Wick said, “I’d better go see if I can spot anything.”

  He turned off the dome light and got out. That was when they heard the gunshot.

  WICK FLINCHED, then crouched beside the car and waited, expecting at any moment to hear another shot.

  Had someone been hit? Was Avery hurt?

  He didn’t know whether Granville kept a gun at his desk, but it was possible. He doubted the man would deliberately injure his own son, but Granville might have thought he was aiming at an intruder.

  No, Granville Lyme was not the sort of man to panic easily. He wouldn’t shoot until he knew exactly who he was targeting.

  The possibility that Avery had armed himself and shot his father seemed so far removed from reality that Wick could barely consider it. The only imaginable reason for Avery to shoot anyone would be in self-defense or to protect a friend.

  Conflicting impulses warred within him—to take Linda away from here, or to go in after Avery. The decision was made for him when she started to get out of the car.

  “I’m coming with you,” she said.

  “Too dangerous.” She would never agree to drive off, but at least he could persuade her not to enter the house. “We might need to leave in a hurry. Take the driver’s seat and be ready to start the ignition.”

  “Wick—”

  “How fast could you run in your condition?” he challenged.

  She grimaced. “All right. But—be careful.”

  There had been no further sounds from the house. His heart pounding, Wick moved along a sheltering row of trees toward the porch.

  Avery had gone in this way, and might have left the door unlocked in case he needed to make a quick exit. Wick decided not to bother going around the back. With every passing moment, his worry for his friend increased.

  He ascended the porch and thrust the door open. No alarm sounded; no one approached.

  Only moonlight illuminated the marbled entryway. By its alien glow, the sculptured javelin thrower appeared ready to hurl his spear at Wick.

  He suppressed the urge to call to his friend. It might be the worst thing he could do.

  Instead, he went up the curving main staircase. As he touched the smoothness of the banister, it occurred to Wick, too late, that he should have wrapped something around his hands. He was leaving
fingerprints everywhere.

  He could only hope that it wouldn’t matter, that there was nothing here to involve the police.

  As quietly as possible, he passed through the corridor. It was surprising, he thought, that the gunshot hadn’t alerted anyone. There were servants sleeping in another wing, but perhaps the sound had been too faint to wake them.

  He still couldn’t hear any voices, or any other noise. It occurred to him that if there’d been an accidental shooting, someone might have called an ambulance. In that case, it would arrive within minutes, and he and Linda would be trapped.

  It couldn’t be helped. He had to find out what had happened.

  As soon as he came within view of the library door, he saw that it stood partially open. Light spilled across the corridor.

  His throat was too dry to issue Avery’s name. Fighting the urge to rush in, Wick crept across to stand beside the door, every sense alert for some sign of movement from within.

  He became intensely aware of the thrum of blood through his arteries and the film of sweat on his fists. His jaw ached with tension.

  Outside, Linda was waiting in the car. He needed to check the room and get back to her as quickly as possible. Whatever had happened here, his first priority was to protect his wife.

  Steeling himself, Wick stepped forward and elbowed the door wide.

  It was a moment before he could absorb what he saw. Across the room, Granville lay slumped on his side, near the desk. A dark stain on his shirt and the floor must have been blood.

  To his right, another, slimmer figure had crumpled across a chair. “Avery?” Wick said.

  When there was no response, he walked to his friend, desperately hoping for some sign of life. Then he saw the small bullet hole near the base of Avery’s skull.

  There was no way these two men could have killed each other. Someone else had been here.

  He might still be here. Or downstairs, where Linda was.

  Wick took one last horrified moment to feel for a pulse in Avery’s throat. If there was any chance of saving his friend, he would dial 911, even knowing it meant that he and Linda would probably be caught. But there was nothing.

  The reality of Avery’s death was too enormous to grasp. For now, Wick felt only a stunned void.

  He flew back downstairs, hardly aware of the racket he must be making. All he could think about was Linda, sitting alone and defenseless.

  As he raced across the entryway, a blur of movement from the far side made Wick twist around. He found himself staring into the disbelieving eyes of Granville’s housekeeper, a plump woman in her fifties.

  “It wasn’t me,” he said. “I have to help Linda.” And he ran out the front.

  The fingerprints no longer mattered. He’d been spotted by someone who could identify him. If the police had entertained any doubts about his guilt, they wouldn’t any longer.

  Worse, the meticulous killer would have left no trace of himself. Most likely the murder weapon or weapons would never be recovered.

  He didn’t care. He just had to reach Linda.

  Behind him, an alarm shrilled through the air. The housekeeper must have punched a panic button. The police would be on the scene within minutes.

  Wick’s lungs were aching by the time he came within sight of the car. He couldn’t see anyone inside. Had she moved into Avery’s car? Had someone taken her, or was she lying injured or dead on the floor?

  “Linda!” Her name rasped from his throat, barely audible. “Linda!”

  Miraculously, her face appeared in the side window. She looked pale and worried.

  A door thrust open, and Wick climbed into the passenger seat. “Drive!”

  She needed no persuasion. Of course not; the alarm was so loud, even here, that it blocked conversation.

  Linda had had the good sense to lie down on the seat so she wouldn’t be visible through the window. No doubt she had locked the doors, too. Even if the killer had passed this way, he wouldn’t have seen her.

  But she couldn’t have seen the killer, either. They knew no more than they had before they came and they were even deeper in trouble.

  “What happened?” she demanded as she whipped the car around and shot it forward down the driveway.

  “They’re dead,” he said.

  “Avery?” she gasped. “Avery’s dead?”

  “Someone shot him. Granville was dead, too. I couldn’t see how he died.”

  “Oh, God,” she whispered. “Poor Avery.”

  Even in grief, the woman never lost her presence of mind. Before Wick could catch his breath, they had left the estate and taken a circuitous route through side streets. Already, the sirens of emergency vehicles echoed from the main road nearby.

  “The housekeeper saw me,” he said.

  Linda stared straight ahead. Wick thought to himself that it must be taking a great deal of self-control to tool along at the regulation thirty-five miles an hour, but she was sticking to the speed limit to avoid attention.

  She didn’t speak again until they were clear of central Inland and approaching the cabin. “Who could do such a thing?”

  “A member of the household, maybe,” he said. “But I doubt it. This looked like the work of a professional killer. Again.”

  “He nearly got you, too,” she said. “You walked right in there.”

  Wick tried to reconstruct the scene. “I don’t think so. Once he fired the gunshot, he would have fled. After all, he did awaken the housekeeper. It just took her longer to get there.”

  “He must have left on foot,” Linda said. “There weren’t any other cars.”

  “He could have parked behind the estate. The fence isn’t that high.” Wick remembered how easily he’d gotten onto the D’Amboises’ grounds.

  Dread and guilt filled him as they put the car in the garage and went into the cabin. If Avery hadn’t gone to see his father on their behalf, he wouldn’t have run into the killer. He had died trying to clear things up for Wick and Linda.

  The two of them sat on the couch, trying to absorb this turn of events. Wick could still see the indentation in the chair where Avery had sat a short time earlier.

  “I just thought of something even more awful,” Linda said.

  “What?”

  “Maybe the killer went to demand that list, the one we took tonight. What if Granville went to the safe and it wasn’t there, and that’s why the man killed him?”

  “Our John Doe would have killed him anyway.” Wick felt certain of that. “He has no intention of leaving witnesses. In fact, I think that night he ran me off the bridge, he probably intended to go after Sarah next. But I paged her, and she came after me, and never made their rendezvous.”

  “So you’ve concluded the killer was her client?”

  “It must have been,” he said.

  “But I thought Sarah believed it must be someone else. You said she was certain her client wouldn’t have done this.”

  Wick’s head and heart both throbbed, but he had to try to think straight. “I don’t know. Except for one thing—obviously, it’s not Granville.”

  “Anyway, we can’t stay here.” Shakily, Linda got to her feet. “Avery figured out where we were. It’s only a matter of time before someone else does.”

  She stopped, her face contorting with pain. “What is it?” Wick hurried to support her.

  “The baby,” she said tightly. “I think I just had a labor pain.”

  “Labor?” he said. “Isn’t it too early?”

  “Of course it’s too early!” she cried. “I can’t have the baby now, Wick!”

  Chapter Eleven

  Linda eased onto the couch, fearing at every moment to feel another painful tightening of her abdomen. It had been a grip so powerful that her muscles seemed to belong to a crushing machine rather than to her body.

  “We have to get you to a doctor,” Wick said.

  She wanted to argue. Doing that meant that he would be arrested or have to flee. In either case, he would
n’t be here to hold her and reassure her.

  But she couldn’t bear to lose the baby. For five months she’d treasured it, and in the past few days its movements had revealed a tiny personality she’d already come to love.

  At five months, she knew, the child was fully formed. In just a few weeks, it would have a decent chance of surviving a premature birth. But not yet.

  “Maybe we could go to a hospital in some other city,” she said between clenched teeth. “Palm Springs or Riverside.”

  “Too far.” Wick knelt beside her. “We can’t take that kind of chance, sweetheart.”

  As she breathed a little easier, Linda realized that there had been no further pains. “Maybe it was false labor,” she said.

  “And maybe it wasn’t. You need to be examined.”

  A traitorous voice inside whispered that he was seizing this chance to get rid of her and go on his way. But one glance into his shadowed eyes and she knew that wasn’t true.

  “The more time that passes, the more likely that it was just a random contraction.” Linda remembered a coworker at her old bank job who had experienced a difficult pregnancy.

  The woman had had several bouts of premature labor that stopped before she got to the doctor. Not until four weeks before her due date had the pains progressed into true labor, and she had delivered safely, even though a little early.

  Linda didn’t want to leave her husband for what appeared to be a false alarm. If she ever really felt the baby were in danger, that would be a different matter. “Wick, turn on the radio. By now, they might be reporting the murders. We need to know what the police are saying.”

  “It’s not important, not compared to you and the baby.” He showed no signs of moving away.

  Linda ran her hand through his hair, relishing the thick springiness. “It might help get my mind off the contraction.”

  “All right.” Wick stood but continued to study her. “No more pains?”

  “So far so good.”

  On her parents’ stereo tuner, he located the local radio station that featured the most news. Then they suffered through three commercials and a couple of golden oldies before the 6:00 a.m. report came on.