Mrs. Livingston looked up as the compact pulled in next to us. Jamie leaned across the passenger seat, across Amelia Easton, to stare. “Mom?”
“Hello, Jamie Lee,” her mother said, her lips stiff. She looked as if she’d seen a ghost. Either Jamie had changed a whole lot in the year and couple of weeks she’d been away at college, or something else was wrong.
And then Mrs. Livingston added, in a voice that barely carried the couple of feet to where I stood, “Hello, Nan.”
—21—
Nan?
I waited for Amelia to explain that Mrs. Livingston was mistaken; she was Amelia, not Nan. It had been twenty years and the girls had looked alike; it was a surprising, if not precisely earth-shattering mistake. Except Amelia didn’t. She just stared back at Mrs. Livingston, mesmerized.
“Nan?” I said.
Amelia—Nan?—snapped out of it. She glanced up at me, at Mrs. Livingston, and then over at Jamie. “Drive!”
“Wh…what?” Jamie stuttered.
Amelia didn’t repeat it, but the gun she pulled out of her purse had the same effect.
“Mom!” Jamie shrieked.
“No!” I threw myself at Mrs. Livingston and knocked her to the ground before Amelia—it was too difficult to think of her as anything else—could fire. At least in our direction. The compact bounced backward and then squealed forward, headed for the entrance to the parking lot.
“Jamie!” Mrs. Livingston screamed, and pushed me off her. I picked myself up and glanced around.
The compact was almost to the road. Derek’s truck was parked on the other side of the lot. We were standing beside the rental car.
“Give me the keys,” I said. “I’ll drive. I know the roads.”
Mrs. Livingston didn’t waste time arguing, just dug in her purse for the car key. I slid behind the wheel and shoved the key in the ignition while she got into the passenger seat. Up on the road, the compact didn’t even slow down before it squealed onto the road toward Augusta. I wondered whether that was Amelia’s instruction or Jamie’s choice.
“Keep an eye on the car,” I told Mrs. Livingston. “I’ll watch the road. And use this”—I dug in my pocket and pulled out the phone I’d, luckily, brought with me downstairs—“to call my boyfriend and tell him what happened.”
Mrs. Livingston stared at the phone as if she’d never seen one before. Maybe she hadn’t. “Shouldn’t we call the police?”
“Derek will do that. He’s upstairs. We need him to follow us.” I plucked the phone out of her hand, punched in the number, and hit Speaker before I handed it back. “Hold on to it. I need both hands on the wheel.” The compact was booking it at twenty miles per hour above the speed limit, and if I had any hope of keeping up, I’d have to concentrate.
The phone rang a couple of times, then—
“What happened?” Derek’s voice said from the phone, sounding resigned. “Avery?”
“You have to call Wayne. Amelia took Jamie’s car and Jamie.”
“What?” It wasn’t a request for information, it was an exclamation of shock. His voice wasn’t resigned at all anymore, it was quick and sharp.
“Follow us in the truck,” I said. “We’re on our way up the Augusta Road. They’re ahead of us and I don’t want to lose them. Get Wayne and tell him to come, too. She’s got a gun.”
“Why?” Derek said.
I wasn’t entirely sure. Not until I’d had a chance to talk to Mrs. Livingston. But I knew enough to hazard a guess. “I don’t think she’s Amelia Easton. She’s really Nan. And Jamie’s mom recognized her.”
“Shit,” Derek said. “I’m on my way. I’m gonna hang up and call Wayne now. Stay in touch, Avery, OK?”
I promised I would.
“And don’t do anything stupid!” was the last thing I heard before he was gone. Mrs. Livingston watched as the display changed and showed that Derek had ended the call.
“Just hang on to it,” I said. “If he calls back, hit the button that says Speaker.”
Mrs. Livingston nodded and stared at the phone as if she expected it to ring right away.
“So that was Nan?” I said.
She glanced over at me. “Nanette Barbour. We grew up together.”
“Jamie told me. I thought her name was Amelia Easton.” I wondered if Jamie knew the truth, or if she’d been as surprised as I was. “Are you sure?”
Duh. Of course she was sure. If she hadn’t been right, Amelia—Nan—wouldn’t have made a run for it.
Mrs. Livingston nodded. “I grew up with the both of them. Amelia and Nan. I was a couple years younger, so when they left for college, I was still in high school. Or the commune equivalent. I was fifteen or sixteen.”
“And then word came back that Nan died.”
“Amelia called first. To say that Nan wasn’t behaving. The elders discussed it and decided to bring them both home.”
“What did you think of that?” Up ahead, the compact kept going, straight up the road. I concentrated on keeping it in sight, and did my best to focus on what Mrs. Livingston had to say. Hopefully Derek was raising Wayne while at the same time hotfooting it down to the truck.
“I was excited,” Mrs. Livingston said softly. “I missed Amelia. Nan was always more brash, more likely to get into trouble, but Amelia was a good girl.”
“But instead of coming home, Nan died,” I said. “Or so you thought.”
“The police called. To say that Nan had committed suicide. We couldn’t bring her body back, she had broken the commandments. I thought Amelia would be coming home, but she didn’t. She never did. I never understood why. Until now.”
“Because that isn’t Amelia up ahead.”
Mrs. Livingston shook her head. “That’s Nan. They looked alike, but not to someone who knew them. Amelia’s hair was curly, Nan’s was wavy. Amelia’s eyes were dark blue, Nan’s were a little more gray. And Nan was the one who pierced her ears with a sewing needle when she was seventeen. Amelia wouldn’t have done that.”
“She could have changed her mind later,” I said, the same way that she’d changed her major from home ec to history. Except of course she really hadn’t. Nan had changed Amelia’s major to history, because history was what Nan wanted to study.
Mrs. Livingston shook her head, adamant, back on the pierced ears. “The sight of blood made her sick. Physically sick. And she said once that because Christ’s body was pierced on the cross, she would never willingly pierce her own.”
It made sense, in a strange sort of way. Not that I really needed Mrs. Livingston to prove anything to me. If she said it was Nan up ahead, I was willing to take her word for it. Nan herself—Amelia—had proven that pretty much without a doubt when she’d taken off and taken Jamie with her.
“So I guess Nan started acting out once they got to college, and Amelia called home. And then Nan killed Amelia and somehow managed to make everyone believe it was Nan who was dead…”
“They looked alike,” Mrs. Livingston said. “Cousins. We were all related. That’s one of the reasons the Mississippi government refused to allow the commune to continue operating. That and the fact that the children didn’t get immunized or properly educated or even registered with the state. Up until ten or fifteen years ago, there were no real records of any of us.”
So Nan could have gotten away with killing Amelia, and no one would have known the difference. No DNA, no fingerprints, no dental records. No visual identification other than Nan’s. The girls had only been at college for a week or so—not much time to make connections with other people. And if they looked alike anyway, that would have helped. Slap some lipstick on Amelia while making herself look sweeter and dowdier…
So for twenty years, Nan had pretended to be Amelia Easton. That explained why she’d never gone back to the commune after “Amelia” died. If she was Nan, not only wouldn’t she want to, but she’d also have known she’d be recognized if she did. In fact…
“Shit,” I said as the metaphoric lightbulb fli
ckered on above my head. Mrs. Livingston winced, and I added, “Sorry. But I just realized something.”
“What might that be?”
“Two people have died in the building in the past week. Both of them were threatening to call you. We thought maybe Jamie—”
“My daughter would never kill anyone!” Mrs. Livingston said, and drew herself up indignantly.
“Of course not. I realize that now. But Amelia…Nan. She knew that if you came to Maine, you’d recognize her.” And what a motive that was. It blew everyone else’s motive for murder right out of the water. If Mr. and Mrs. Livingston identified her as Nan, not only would she lose her entire life, she’d also go to jail for arranging Amelia’s “suicide.” There’s no statute of limitations on murder. And if she’d already killed once, it probably came easier the second time. And the third. It was “Amelia”—Nan—who had bought the wine and chocolates and given them to Candy.
The phone rang and Mrs. Livingston hit the speaker button. “Yes?”
“Avery?” Derek’s voice said.
I raised my own. “I’m here. What’s up?”
“I’m a couple minutes behind you. Wayne’s a couple minutes behind me. Where are you?”
I looked around. “Not too far from Clovercroft.”
“That development the Stenhams were working on when they went to jail? I’ll let Wayne know. He’s contacted the police in Dresden, and they’re on their way down to meet us. They’ll set up a roadblock halfway between them and Waterfield.”
“She may turn off the road before then,” I warned.
“Yes,” Derek said, “but where? There’s only this one main road in this area, and it goes to Dresden. There are a few developments along the way, but mostly it’s just woods. Where are they gonna go?”
I didn’t know, and said so.
“Can you see them?”
“They’re up ahead. It’s been no problem keeping up with them so far. Thank God there’s not much traffic.”
I shot a guilty glance at Mrs. Livingston. She probably wouldn’t like it that I took the Lord’s name in vain. But her eyes were closed, and I guess she was praying, one hand holding the phone and the other tightly knotted in her lap.
“The Augusta police are sending a chopper,” Derek added. “Keep an eye out for it.”
I promised I would. “Actually, I think I hear it already.” A faint fwapping noise was coming from outside, and when I bent and peered out of the windshield, I saw what looked like a tiny insect buzzing above the pine trees on the left, getting bigger with every second. “Yep, there it is.”
“They’re gonna keep an eye on them from the air,” Derek began, and then stopped when I cursed. “What?”
“Sorry.” Mrs. Livingston must think I was the worst heathen. “They must have noticed the helicopter, too. They’re turning off the road. Into Clovercroft.”
“That might work in our favor,” Derek said. “We know the place. There isn’t anywhere there that they can hide. And the road won’t do that little compact any good.”
Very true. It might not do the rental much good, either. But Derek’s truck would be fine. It had big, beefy tires.
“I’m less than five minutes behind you,” Derek said. “Don’t do anything stupid, Avery.”
He hung up before I could tell him that I wouldn’t. It was probably better that way, since it wasn’t a promise I was sure I could keep.
I had to slow down as I took the turn into Clovercroft. I couldn’t see the compact right now, but that was OK; there was only one way to go from here: down through the copse of trees and into the development. I slowed down a little more as the rental bumped and skittered across the dirt road.
“I don’t see them,” Mrs. Livingston said nervously.
“They’re up ahead. There’s only one road in and out. It’s a housing development my cousins were working on until they went to jail last year.”
She shot me a look but didn’t ask any more questions. By now she surely thought I was not only a heathen but a criminal, too.
“We’ll get her back,” I said, although I wasn’t sure I could believe it myself. Depending on how desperate Amelia—Nan—was, she might end up shooting Jamie. I had no idea why she would, but when guns come into the picture, someone often gets shot, and it’s not always the person you hope it will be.
We bounced out of the band of trees and saw the only completed buildings in Clovercroft up ahead: a row of commercial storefronts with apartments above. The banner that said Model Home was still hanging outside one of them, a lot more faded now than the last time I’d been here.
Then it had been Derek’s sister Beatrice’s small white car we’d been looking for—and had found, outside the model home. This time it was the pale blue compact. And like Beatrice’s car last year, the compact was empty.
I looked around. There were only a few places someone could hide, and inside one of the buildings was the obvious choice. “Stay here,” I told Mrs. Livingston. “Keep hold of the phone.”
She nodded. “Where are you—”
“I’m just gonna look around.” I opened the car door and put a foot on the ground. And just as quickly pulled it back inside the car when a bullet pinged against the open door. “Whoa.”
“She’s in there,” Mrs. Livingston said, pointing to the office. At some point between now and the last time I’d been here, in November or December last year, someone had busted in the door and probably ripped anything of value out of both office and model home upstairs.
I nodded. “Call Derek back. Tell him what…never mind. Here he is now.”
The black Ford F-150 burst out of the trees before I’d stopped talking, and roared toward us. He must have flown to get here so soon. He’d been five minutes behind us when we left the condo parking lot; now it was just about a minute or so since we’d pulled in here.
He stopped on the far side of the rental and rolled down his window. I hit the button to retract ours, and peered across Mrs. Livingston at my fiancé’s irate face.
“I should have known it was too good to be true. You just wouldn’t be you, would you, if you’d let the police take care of things for once?”
“I can’t help it that she kidnapped Jamie right in front of me,” I protested. “What was I going to do? Let her?”
“Of course not.” He nodded to Mrs. Livingston. “Hello. I’m Derek Ellis. The chief of police is on his way. And there’s the chopper the state police sent.” He glanced up, where the helicopter was hovering above us. “We’ll get your daughter back.”
“They’re in the office,” I said. “And Amelia has a gun. She’s already taken a potshot at me. That’s why I’m still in the car.”
“Of course it is,” Derek said. “As long as she has a gun and bullets, I don’t think we want to try to rush her. Just stay in the car and wait for Wayne. He should be here in a few minutes. I’ll drive to the other side of the building and see if I can get a bead on anything.”
“Be careful.”
“Of course. I’m getting married in a month. I’m not about to do anything stupid.”
He grinned and put the truck in gear. I watched him drive to the end of the row of buildings and turn the corner. Then I turned my attention back to the office again.
Wayne arrived after a few minutes. By then Derek had gotten in touch by phone to tell us he couldn’t see much through the back, but that there was a door there that someone could use to get in.
“If I had a SWAT team on standby,” Wayne said irritably, “or just more than one flak vest in the car, I’d be all for that. But it would take at least forty minutes to get a full team here from Augusta, and I’m not sure we have forty minutes.”
I wasn’t sure, either. I had no idea what Amelia—Nan—thought she’d accomplish with this crazy move. Or maybe she hadn’t been thinking. Maybe she’d just reacted, her only thought to get away. Forcing her into Clovercroft had probably been a bad move on our part. It made her feel cornered, and as Derek had
said yesterday, when someone feels cornered, sometimes they resort to desperate measures to survive.
“Tell me again what we’re dealing with here,” Wayne ordered. I explained exactly what had happened, and Mrs. Livingston added her assurances that, yes, the woman inside the building was Nan Barbour, not Amelia Easton.
“So basically she’s got nothing to lose,” I said. “If she comes out of this alive, she’ll go to jail, probably for the rest of her life.”
Wayne nodded. “At this point, I’m less concerned with arresting Amelia Easton—Nanette Barbour—than I am with getting Jamie out safe and sound. At the moment, she has no reason to kill Jamie. Let’s make sure we don’t give her one.”
Mrs. Livingston agreed fervently.
“Is there some way we can make it beneficial to her to let Jamie go? She’s already proven she knows how to look out for number one. If we can make her think Jamie’s a hindrance…”
“If we do that, she might kill her,” Wayne said tightly. “I won’t play that card until I have to.”
Fine. “Derek—or Derek and I—could cause a distraction in the back. Banging on the door or something. That might give you enough time to shoot her from out here.”
“If she doesn’t shoot you first,” Wayne said. “Bullets have been known to punch through walls, and this is the Stenhams’ handiwork; it won’t be that solid.”
Yet another reason to deplore my distant cousins.
“We could try calling. Negotiating. See if we can work out a deal. There must be something she wants.”
“She wants to get away,” Wayne said. “She’s killed three people, and she wants to get away. I want Jamie out in one piece. At this point, I’m willing to let her think anything she wants. Do you have the number?”
I didn’t. “Josh might.”
“Why would Josh have Professor Easton’s number? He’s taking computer technology, not history.”
“I was thinking of Jamie,” I said. “He might have Jamie’s number.”
I added, for Mrs. Livingston’s benefit, “Josh is Chief Rasmussen’s son. He lives across the hall from Jamie. With his girlfriend.”
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