Sam’s gaze flew to the far living-room wall and the plaque Tom had replaced. “Vermont? What’s she doing there? What are you doing there?”
“Lord, Sam, I think it’s bad. Right after I spoke with you, I got a call from Sheila.”
“Sheila! Where is she?”
“She said she was calling from a pay phone near Rockport. She said that Carly hadn’t been there when she’d arrived at school to pick her up. It didn’t occur to me then that Sheila was supposed to be there all day. She said that Carly left a note for her saying that she needed to get away. She said she hadn’t seen her and that she’d been looking all over, going to the places Carly had mentioned she and I had been. Vermont—you know, that cottage we rented at New Year’s—seemed the obvious place. Sheila suggested it herself.” He took a breath and raced on. “But I’ve been driving along and little things keep coming to me. That meeting I had this afternoon. A rush job. Two fellows, one of whom is accused of arson. But neither of them seemed particularly committed to retaining me. And one of them—not the one in trouble, but a guy with him—talked this funny way. Instead of ‘didn’t’ he said ‘din’t.’ I couldn’t figure out why it bothered me—until I remembered Carly telling me about that guy who tried to kill her in that alley back in Chicago. I told myself that maybe it was a coincidence. But there’s something else.”
“What?”
Greg and Tom had come to stand in the kitchen, but Sam’s every sense focused on what Ryan was saying.
“Right before I left I took a drink of water. I put the glass in the sink. It didn’t occur to me till a couple of minutes ago that there was another glass there. One with the remains of a dark liquid in the bottom. Carly is meticulous. She’d never walk out in the morning leaving anything in the sink. And Sheila claimed she hadn’t seen her.” He paused, almost afraid to ask. “Check it, Sam. What’s in that glass?”
Sam had already turned and was lifting the glass. He sniffed, then tipped it to his mouth to taste its tepid contents. “Rum and Coke.” His eye caught Greg’s, then Tom’s as, with quiet urgency, he addressed Ryan. “How far are you from that inn?”
“About forty minutes.” He’d been pushing seventy most of the way, praying the police wouldn’t stop him.
“Okay. Keep going. I’ll make some more calls, then move. Greg and Tom are with me. We’ll take a helicopter. It shouldn’t take long.”
“For God’s sake, hurry!” Ryan begged, then slammed down the phone and, leaving the phone-booth door rattling in his wake, bolted for his car.
“I still can’t believe this is happening,” Carly said, dazed as the lights of the inn appeared at the end of the drive.
Sheila said nothing, simply steered down the dark side road, heading straight for the small cottage that held such beautiful memories for Carly.
“Don’t we need a key?” Reminders of that other trip. Then the key had been hooked behind the swing.
“I told Sam what you’d said about last time. He was going to instruct the inn to leave it in the same place. The fewer people who see you, the better.”
But as the dim cottage light came into sight, Carly forgot to ask how Sam had ever thought to get the same one. “That’s…my car….” she stammered, perplexed. The yellow Chevette stood out in the night, a beacon of its own. “What….”
Sheila pulled to an abrupt halt in front of the door. Without a word, she reached for her bag.
“Sheila, what’s going on?”
It was only after she’d spoken that, in a haze of horror, she caught the glint of the small service revolver that emerged from the bag.
“Come on,” Sheila grated. “Let’s go see who’s there.”
“Someone stole my car!” Carly sucked in a breath. “That man, the one from Chicago, the one we saw before. He knows about Ryan. He knows about me. He must have!” She grabbed the other woman’s arm. “Oh, no, Sheila! We can’t go in! He’ll be waiting! But how did he get my car?” she murmured half to herself, withdrawing her hand, raising it to her forehead.
Sheila spoke calmly and clearly. “I gave him the keys.”
“You?”
Slowly and with deliberation, the gun turned on her.
Sheila’s face was shrouded in darkness, her characteristically nasal voice nearly unrecognizable for its sudden venom. “Get out. Now. And don’t try anything or I’ll use this.”
“I don’t understand….”
The sharp poke to her ribs made the first point, Sheila’s grating tone the next. “You will. Now get out.”
By the time Carly had managed to force her wobbly legs into action, Sheila was by her side of the car, clamping a firm hand on her arm, hauling her forward.
The door of the cottage opened and Carly instinctively drew back. There, silhouetted but unmistakable, was the same man who hours earlier had been at Ryan’s building.
“Took you long enough,” he growled.
“She wanted to stop by her place for some things,” Sheila explained with a snort. “As if she’ll need them….” Pressing the gun to Carly’s ribs, she pushed her on. The man stood aside, then closed the door firmly when the women were inside.
“That was dumb, stopping,” he snarled.
Sheila’s retort was cold. “She was getting hysterical. I had to do something.”
“Wasted good time.”
“We’re all right.”
“What’s going on, Sheila?” Carly cried, unwilling to believe that Sheila, Sheila, had betrayed her.
It was the man who spoke. “Nothing that should not have happened a long time ago. You caused me a load of trouble.”
“Who are you?” Carly whispered fearfully, eyeing the man whose ominous advance brought him directly before her. It was all she could do not to cower.
“Name’s Ham Theakos,” he announced with a kind of perverted pride. “Don’ remember me?”
“From the courtroom—”
“From the alley.”
If Carly had had any hopes for salvation, they were dashed with his curt statement. “You?” she breathed, stunned.
His smile was ugly. “Me. You got away from me then. Won’t happen now.”
Carly looked wide-eyed from his harsh features to Sheila’s. “This has to be a joke.”
“No joke,” Sheila stated bluntly.
“But why? What have I ever done—”
“You opened your mouth when you should not have,” Theakos grated. “You stuck your nose in where it din’t belong.”
But Carly’s eyes were glued to Sheila’s. “Why, Sheila? You were supposed to be protecting me.”
“I’m always protecting someone. This time I’m protecting myself.”
“But we were friends.”
“Hah! We were only friends because back in Chicago you had no one else. In other circumstances, you wouldn’t have looked at me twice. But we were stuck in that house together, day after day, week after week, and it was only natural. Real friends? Never.”
Shock raised Carly’s voice an octave. “Then you had this in mind from the start? You asked for that transfer just so that—”
“Not exactly,” Sheila interrupted, chin tipped up defensively. “Actually, it was much the way I told you. I was bored in Chicago. Nothing was working out there. I decided I needed a change and Boston seemed as good a place to go as any.”
Try as she might to understand it, Carly couldn’t. “Then you made this little deal—” she dared a glance at Theakos “—after you got here?”
“Remember when I went back to Chicago?” Sheila asked smugly.
“You went looking to do me harm?”
“Wellllll, that’s pushing it a little. While I was there, seeing Harmon and visiting old friends at Hoffmeister’s office, Ham, here, was snooping around looking for an in.”
“And you gave it to him,” Carly stated, crushed beyond belief.
“Why not? The price was right and there was cash up front. I’d had a good look at the way you were living. Pretty clothes. Fancy
home. Super guy. You had everything. Now it’s my turn.”
“At my expense?”
“The way I see it,” Sheila went on baldly, “we all have to compromise a little in life.” Her eyes hardened. “I’ve done my share of compromising. Now I want a little of that luxury I’ve been looking at from the wrong side of the fence all my life.”
“This isn’t the way,” Carly whispered, even as she sensed that Sheila was past remorse. “And what about Tom—”
Sheila stiffened. “What about him?” She didn’t want his name brought into his. It had no bearing.
“He loves you.”
“I love him.”
“And you think that he’ll really be able to live with you after this?” She couldn’t suppress a shudder. Where she found the strength to think clearly, she didn’t know. But something drove her on, perhaps the need for a temporary diversion from her very real terror.
“He’ll never know.”
“Do you believe that? Ryan won’t take anything happening to me sitting down. Neither will Sam.” A new thought bloomed. “That call you made—”
“Was never made. Not to Sam, at least.”
Carly glanced again at Theakos. “Then you knew he’d be at Ryan’s office.”
“I called Ham from the bakery. He was waiting for my call at a phone booth near Ryan’s building. He’d just come from a meeting with Ryan.”
“With Ryan?”
The smile Sheila gave her then was enough to freeze her blood. “It’s all pretty brilliant, if I do say so myself. Took a lot of planning, especially when you began to clam up on me after Ryan returned from Chicago.” She cast a conspiratorial glance at Theakos. “But I think we covered everything. Ryan will be under suspicion simply for having met with Ham and his buddy. You will have been overcome at the thought that he might have been planning to betray you. It’d be perfectly natural that you’d commit suicide.”
“Commit suicide? I’d never commit suicide!”
“Maybe not on your own,” Sheila purred, “but with a little push and no one around to say differently, which reminds me.” She turned to Theakos. “We’d better get moving. I called Ryan. He should get here just in time to find her hanging. He’ll be the one to call the police. The distraught lover.”
For an instant, Carly was utterly paralyzed. Remembrance of Ryan’s Luis—whose death was still listed as a suicide despite Ryan’s doubts—flashed through her brain. Sheila was right. They would never know. She had to move.
With a burst of energy born of desperation, she broke for the door, only to have Theakos haul her right off her feet and back. “Not so fast, I’il lady. First we need a note.”
Carly struggled wildly against the arms that held her. “Let…me…go!”
“First the note,” he gritted. “Every suicide needs a note.”
She kicked back with her legs, but her captor was that much stronger than she was. She’d taken him by surprise in the Chicago alley; this time he was prepared. Her flailing arms hit air. “I’m…not writing…any….”
He lowered his head until his thin lips were by her ear. “If you don’t write it, we’ll wait and murder your lover when he arrives. Then it’ll look like a double suicide.”
The fight left Carly instantly. “You wouldn’t,” she gasped, looking at Sheila, pleading for any last remnants of sanity. There were none.
“We would. Very easily.” Extracting a piece of paper and a pen from the small desk against the wall, Sheila slapped them down flat.
Theakos shoved Carly forward, forcing her onto the hard wood chair. “Write what she tells you.”
“This won’t work, Sheila,” Carly began, only to be stopped, then filled with dread, by Sheila’s whimsical look.
“My beloved Ryan,” she began to dictate. When Carly stared at her in horror, Ham pressed a gun to her neck.
“Write,” he ordered. “If your boyfriend gets here before we’re done, he’s a goner. You wan’ him shot?”
Carly tried to catch her breath. When Sheila rapped a long fingernail against the stationary, she tried to focus, but her eyes were flooded with tears. Shaking, she lifted the pen.
“My beloved Ryan,” Sheila repeated, then waited until the words were written. “I never thought it would come to this. But I know what you’re planning—”
When Carly dropped the pen, Theakos prodded her again with the gun. Mustering shreds of strength, she retrieved the pen and wrote falteringly.
“I know what you’re planning,” Sheila continued, speaking slowly, pausing for Carly to catch up, “and I can’t bear to live. I’ve never loved another human being as I love you.”
“Sheila—” Carly sobbed.
“Write!” There was not the slightest hint of feeling in Sheila’s voice. “I’ve never loved another human being as I love you. I’m so sorry. For both of us.” She paused. “Just sign it, Carly.”
The script was indistinguishable at points and blurred where Carly’s tears had fallen. When she was done writing, Sheila lifted the paper and read it over.
“Not bad. Even those smudges. Shows how upset she was. Perfect.”
Theakos snaked his hand into the drawer, heedless of Carly’s recoiling when his arm grazed her breast, and drew out an envelope. “Put it in,” he commanded. When, fumbling badly, Carly finally managed that, he directed her to put Ryan’s name on the envelope. Then, propping the note in a visible spot on the desk, he grabbed her arm and pulled her from the chair. “Let’s get on with it,” he growled. “I got a plane to catch.”
Twenty-one
bEFORE CARLY COULD UTTER THE SMALLEST cry, she was gagged with one of the scarves Theakos had pulled from his pocket. She jerked in pain when the knot caught her hair but Theakos only tugged it tighter. When her tongue fought against the stifling intrusion, her mouth went dry. She felt as though she was suffocating. Nausea welled up from the pit of her stomach. She swallowed convulsively, breathing fast and hard through her nose.
Driven by primal instinct, she struggled against the arms that pinned hers back, against a second scarf being bound around her wrists. She twisted and turned against Sheila, who tried to hold her still.
“Better hurry,” Sheila managed to grunt. “She’ll fight us all the way.”
Theakos’s answer was a snarl. “I’ve handled worse.”
They were the words of a coldhearted killer. In that instant of stark realization Carly panicked. She whirled around. She reared back. Then she bucked against Sheila, toppling them both to the floor, but Theakos grabbed her before she could do more than roll to her knees. When she tried to pull away, he shook her hard.
“Goddammit!” Sheila yelled and raised a hand to hit her, only to be stopped by Theakos’s meaty grip.
“No marks,” he growled, glaring at Sheila as though she were a dimwit. “Can’ be any outward sign of a fight. Why d’ya think I’m usin’ scarves?”
Sheila scrambled to her feet. “I thought you liked the color,” she grumbled, brushing herself off.
“Dumb broad.” Theakos’s quelling look applied the epithet first to Sheila then to a fast-breathing Carly, whom he tugged up.
Carly made frantic sounds, but, muffled by the gag, they remained deep in her throat. A cold sweat bathed her brow. Her body was a mass of tremors. But she continued to thrash against Theakos’s hulking form, her legs scissoring and stabbing, landing with no apparent effect.
Theakos tightened his grip. “You tie,” he gritted toward Sheila, then squeezed Carly with such sharpness that she grew faint.
Seizing the moment, Sheila quickly retrieved the scarf from the floor and, grasping first one, then the other of Carly’s ankles, secured them fast.
Carly regained awareness as she was being carried toward the bedroom. At first she thought she was having another of her nightmares, but the bite of her shackles was too real, as was the bulk and bodily smell of Ham Theakos. She tried to scream, but couldn’t. She thought she might vomit, but didn’t. She writhed in his grip, thrashi
ng her head from side to side, wearing herself out with her efforts but knowing that it was now or never.
When she hit the bed, she brought her knees up in an attempt to kick out at her captor, but he was too fast. Sprawling half across her, he pinned her down so that her knees banged uselessly against his back.
“Get the cord,” he ordered.
Panting in terror, Carly saw Sheila approach holding a thin nylon cord. She moaned and tried to roll away, eyes bulging, ever pleading. But the cord slipped over her head and, trussed as she was, she was helpless to stop its tightening.
Theakos hauled her up over his shoulder. “Now the chair.”
When Sheila disappeared for an instant, Carly rammed her chin against his back. Defying the dizzying rush of blood to her head, she squirmed madly, but Theakos was unfazed.
Sheila returned with the wood chair Carly had sat on moments before.
He tossed his head. “Middle of the room.”
She put it there, and Carly was set standing on it, held still by Theakos, who tossed the end of the nylon cord to Sheila.
“Over the rafter,” was his gruff command.
Carly could barely breathe. Her gaze dimmed. She didn’t want to die. Not now. Not when the future was so bright.
In her daze she was aware of Theakos’s grumblings, of his low curse when Sheila repeatedly missed her goal. She wanted to laugh hysterically at the farce of it all. Such a well-planned murder to be thwarted by bad aim.
Then all thought of laughter died, replaced by the most soulful dread Carly had ever known when the cord successfully cleared the rafter and tumbled down the other side. She writhed in hideous desperation, thinking, in vivid flashes, of her parents, her brothers, of Matthew and, mostly, mostly Ryan. Ryan, who was her soulmate. Ryan, whom she loved more than life itself. Ryan, who would now be alone. A low cry of agony burst from her throat, but had nowhere to go. The cord tightened. She whimpered futilely.
Then a loud crash shook the cottage and before Carly could begin to understand, a blur of darkness barreled through from the other room. With the advantage of both speed and surprise, Ryan hurled himself at Theakos, knocking the burly man away from Carly.
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