by Susan Laine
Cain saw movement out of the corner of his eye. He swiveled to face… the cook?
“Mrs. Banks?” he croaked, his voice hoarse from the exertion.
Camille wiped blood smears from her swollen lips and hurried to Bianca’s side, her eyes blazing with mad hate. “Shoot them, Grandma.”
Cain could scarcely draw breath. “You’re her grandmother? Stefan Lehmann’s daughter?”
Bianca’s placid face displayed no emotion. “I’m Iris Lehmann, yes.”
Riley moaned, almost unconscious. Cain knelt next to him, gently pulled Riley into his arms, and pressed a palm over his injury. “Don’t die on me, Riley. It’s a through and through. Just a flesh wound. You’re gonna be okay.”
Riley’s features wrenched with pain. “It hurts, Cain. It hurts so much. I wanna sleep….”
“No, baby. Don’t.” Cain added pressure to the round hole above Riley’s heart. A deluge of fresh blood flowed over his fingers, the maroon fluids hot to the touch. “Sorry. But you can’t go to sleep yet.”
“You’re a devoted man,” Iris commented coolly. “Even if your feelings are misplaced on that deviant.”
“Don’t talk to them, Grandma. Shoot them and be done with it.” Camille huffed and waved toward the open door to the safe room. “See? I got the door open, just like I promised. The Despair Diamond is there. Let’s take it and go. We can leave the bodies here to rot. No one will find them for days.”
Iris’s blue eyes, cold as ice, aimed at Camille, who visibly jerked at the glare. “I watched, child. You didn’t open the door. They did. Those deviants. And you call yourself a true daughter of the cause.” Her disdain clearly struck a nerve. Camille went pale, and she swallowed. Iris’s cold ire would undoubtedly have had the same effect on anyone.
Everyone except Cain, who still had a card up his sleeve. It was time to play his hand; the stakes couldn’t get any higher—his and Riley’s lives.
“Don’t feel bad, Camille,” Cain called out, holding Riley close, pressing at the wound. He would have to act fast. And he and Riley were down on the floor in front of the threshold to the safe room. Iris or Camille or both would have to get past them to get at their tarnished treasure.
Camille bared her teeth at him. “Shut up, freak.”
“Ignore what Iris says,” Cain advised softly. “She doesn’t have your best interest at heart.”
Camille laughed, a metallic chime to her frosty voice. “Are you trying to be my friend, you fool? She’s blood. She’s my grandmother. Those are bonds your little aberrant rolls in the sack are incapable of reaching.”
Cain locked gazes with Iris. “You want to do the honors or should I? Don’t you think she deserves to know the truth after everything she’s done for you, your family, and the cause?”
Iris said nothing. But the slight quirk of a corner of her lips, a ghost of a pleased smile, told Cain he was on the right track. She was intrigued by his show of knowledge. And also it seemed she didn’t care whether any truths surfaced or not.
Camille, however, was definitely out of the loop. Her confused gaze shifted between Cain and Iris. “Grandma, what’s he yapping on about?”
Iris pursed her lips and sighed. “Nothing, dear. Take the gem so we can go.”
Before Camille got even one foot out, Cain cut in sharply, “Give her the jewel and you will die right here with us, Camille.”
“You’re mad,” Camille scoffed and took another step.
“You told me on the way down here that your parents died when you were a child.” Cain was losing time. He prayed to God for the first time in his life. Please save Riley. I don’t care what happens to me. “You said it was a car accident in the Hills because your father was drunk.”
“Yes. So what?” Camille had actually stopped to listen.
“Cami? Get the diamond. Now.” Iris’s tone took on a hard edge Cain hadn’t heard before. She had a gift for lying. At least in that the two women were similar. Only Iris did it better.
Camille gave her grandmother a perplexed, exasperated look. “What is he talking about?”
Before Iris could dismiss anything, Cain continued, “Your mother’s name was Marigold, just like your great-grandmother, Iris’s mother, who brought her here to the States before the end of the war. Marigold the elder and Marigold the younger.”
“Yes. Again, so fucking what?” Camille was clearly getting angry. She didn’t seem the type to appreciate being in the dark.
“Marigold, your mother, fell in love with your father…. Tomás.”
Camille cocked her head, frowning. Her blinking warned Cain the news didn’t compute.
“His name was Tomás… Martinez.” Cain exchanged glances with Iris—who didn’t appear surprised or offended. She displayed no emotions. Camille, on the other hand, exhibited utter confusion. “Marigold and Tomás Martinez had two children together. But only one of them looked white enough to be of any use to Iris. You, Camille. Your sister… wasn’t as lucky.”
“What?” Camille stuttered to a halt. She kept blinking, opening and closing her mouth, and jerking as if trying to move but unable to complete any action.
“Iris kept your sister close to home, though, to keep an eye on her. It must have amused Iris to keep your sister near and have her do chores and menial work for the family. Funny how your sister was also interested in jewelry. Just from a different perspective. Affordable things that looked pretty but that didn’t have to cost a fortune to buy.”
Finally Camille seemed to connect the dots. Her eyes widened, and she swiveled around to face an aloof Iris. “Mirabel…? She was my… my sister?”
Iris sighed, a long-suffering sound, and rolled her eyes. “Yes, she was. She wasn’t white, so she couldn’t be raised with you.” Her biting stare could have frozen entire deserts into glaciers. “I had to make a judgment call. Your blood might not be… pure, Camille, but you’ve shown you’re a true follower. You’ve proven your faithfulness.”
Camille stood in place, seemingly stunned into silence.
Cain had no trouble talking, however. “But she’s only white on the surface, isn’t she? Her whiteness is skin-deep. Camille is nothing like you, Iris. She’ll always be half-Hispanic.” Cain took the opportunity to directly address Camille. “And that’s why… Cami… Iris will kill you as soon as you deliver the stone to her.” Cain returned his attention to Iris, who smirked arrogantly. “Just like she killed your mother, father, and sister. ’Cause you’ll never be pure enough.”
The truth seemed to be a bitter pill to swallow. Camille looked conflicted, her skin sweaty, her face pale, her eyes haunted. She was wavering.
Cain kept up the pressure. “Killing is in her blood. She’ll never stop.”
Her hands fisting at her sides, Camille turned slowly to her grandmother. “Grandma? Tell me that’s not true. Please—”
“Oh stop sniveling,” Iris interjected, grimacing. “Marigold was my daughter. She betrayed me nonetheless, out of spite, by cavorting with that… that animal.” For the first time, Cain watched Camille’s beauty twist in a different kind of anger: one of personal retribution. “Two children were born from that lust. You, Cami, have the right genes, and I ensured your inheritance would be taught to you. But Mirabel was unsuitable. Her skin showed her inferiority. So just like your whore of a mother, Mirabel was a race traitor and had to die.”
Camille spoke through gritted teeth as she spat out, “You killed Marigold, Tomás, Mirabel, and Woolrich? You killed them all?”
“They were unworthy.”
“Who are you to determine someone’s worth?” Camille screamed.
Cain nearly swallowed his tongue at the hypocrisy present but let this play out. He had his own designs. Surreptitiously, he shifted to get his feet under him for an escape sprint to freedom and gathered half-unconscious Riley into his lap. He’d have to carry him out. And if this escalated into a full shootout, he’d have to be quick.
Iris sneered. “My mother, Marigold, was perfect.
Strong, smart, supreme. As Stefan’s wife, she was privileged and pure. She’s the one who suggested to her husband that the Despair Diamond would be safer overseas.”
Cain listened carefully as he slowly slid his arms and feet to a better position to act. What Iris was saying implied that perhaps Marigold the elder had either seen the end of the Nazis coming and acted to shield their stolen property, or she’d decided to move said confiscated stone to another country to keep her wealth in her own hands instead of that of the Nazis.
Too bad for Iris and her family that Marigold the elder had died before passing on the house with the secret to her daughter. For a time, the estate had been owned by other people; the secret might have gotten out by sheer chance but had not. Perhaps that accounted for the delay in trying to find and use the gemstone now instead of right after the war, Cain estimated.
“Marigold traveled across the ocean and through the land, discovered this hillside paradise, and built this mansion.” Iris lifted her chin in pride. “She created this safe haven for the gem, then sent the key and the map back home to her husband who hid them in the two Rodin statuettes, the key with the combination in the female statuette and the map of the house and the safe inside the male. That was a testament to her dedication to the cause and her blood. A stranger in a strange land, she lived here with me, her daughter, and waited for our family to join us to claim these riches in the name of the Third Reich and the white master race.”
Camille shook her head, a mocking snicker escaping her lips. “Yet none of you saw it coming: the end of the Nazis, Stefan dying, or the statuettes getting lost in the postwar turmoil.”
Again Cain was flummoxed by how quickly Camille turned against the ideals of a pure race she’d grown up believing. Perhaps the betrayal hit her harder than she’d even thought possible. The reason could have been because the traitor had been the woman whom she’d trusted so implicitly—and Camille was still found wanting for reasons no sane person took seriously. Race was a construct of the past, created by racist men to justify their hate, and maybe on some level Camille was starting to see that.
Unfortunately, once the hate was taken out of the equation, only greed remained. And that was something people could just as easily kill over.
“You stupid girl,” Iris belittled Camille—and finally pointed the gun at her instead of Cain and Riley. “That cynicism you’ve inherited from that mongrel father of yours.”
Camille actually laughed then. “But not from my mother? Who bedded a brown man, not a white one? No, I guess she was just… what, misguided or confused? She had your genes, Grandma, so she couldn’t be stupid, could she?”
“Company is as company does, dear,” Iris insulted venomously, looking down her nose at the girl who shared her kinship. Apparently to racists blood wasn’t thicker than water, Cain thought dryly.
“Oh, so Tomás tainted her with his love?” Camille shook with obvious rage.
Time to skedaddle, Cain concluded, examining his surroundings for a way out. The narrow corridor made it difficult to get away unnoticed. Then again, Iris and Camille stood opposite each other, locked in a fierce staring contest, skulking around each other like wounded beasts, circling in search of weaknesses and openings. They might not even notice if Cain—
“You miserable old bitch!” Camille shouted and made her move by smashing shoulder-first into Iris before she caught on to the fact that dialogue was over. The two women went down in a heap of flailing limbs and ear-piercing shrieks.
A gunshot boomed in the small space.
Chapter Twenty-Four
CAIN jumped on his feet, grabbed Riley under his shoulders and knees, and ran for his life, vaulting over the two women battling on the floor. He almost slipped and fell.
The corridor was tight, inducing claustrophobia in Cain.
Cain’s rapid footsteps sounded horribly loud in the stillness. Desperation and panic drove his movements. Any second he expected to hear a banshee from hell ascending on him from the basement below. Could have been either woman at this stage.
“Oh God, Cain.”
Riley’s voice barely registered in Cain’s senses. He sounded small and afraid. Cain prayed he wasn’t dying yet.
“You’re gonna be okay,” Cain huffed out between harsh breaths. His muscles protested the rough treatment, his lungs burned, and alarms blared inside his head, crying out to escape these two women who both had murder on the brain. Maybe they’d end up killing each other….
“Camille and Mirabel were sisters?” Riley asked in wonderment.
Despite exhaustion kicking in, Cain figured talking might make Riley forget he’d been shot badly or at least prevent him from falling unconscious. “My assistant, Tess, she’s a wizard when it comes to… data-mining and stuff like that… so she uncovered the identities of… Camille’s parents, and then… it was easy to deduce that Camille and Mirabel… were related, and that… Iris kept the truth from her… to make her fall in line and… do whatever she wanted.”
Panting every few words made Cain feel like he was about to either pass out or throw up.
“So that’s why Camille was so confused when Mirabel and Woolrich were killed,” Riley muttered, mostly to himself. “That’s why she thought Renner must have murdered them without her knowledge. But it was Bianca—I mean, Iris—all along. How monstrous.”
The marble floors of the front hall came into view for Cain, who prayed they were on the final stretch of their race to safety. If only he got to the car first….
To distract himself as much as Riley, Cain explained, “Tess’s discoveries helped me… to sow the seeds of distrust between Camille and Iris…. It was easy to figure out that… Iris wouldn’t tell the truth to anyone… least of all to her own grandchild… whom she must’ve despised as a fake white woman.”
“All her life Camille has thought she’s better than everyone because she’s white,” Riley whispered, his voice going frail and faint. “Only to find out she’s only half-white.” A small chuckle emerged from his throat with a raspy sound. “You can’t argue with genetics. There are no races. There’s just the human species. White, black, brown, yellow, red—all just skin-deep differences.”
Wise words from someone two seconds from being out for the count, Cain thought with amusement.
The front door clanged against the wall as he rammed through it, shielding Riley with his bulk and arms. Gravel crunched beneath the soles of Cain’s boots as he made a mad dash toward his car. There he propped Riley against the side and opened the door.
“C’mon, babe. Time to get the fuck out of here.”
Cain grabbed Riley’s waist and helped him onto the passenger seat. Riley felt like a heavy wet noodle, damn hard to maneuver into place. The blood loss must have made him too weak to aid in his own movements.
Cain tore Riley’s shirt, strands falling on the ground. With a few of them, he bandaged the gunshot wound as best he could. The bullet wasn’t lodged inside, so Riley had a good chance of healing, at least once the hole was stitched up. He needed to get to the hospital and quickly. He was losing blood—too much, too fast.
“It’ll be bad,” Riley murmured, his glassy gaze aimed at Cain, who halted at the sound of his voice, baffled. “Whichever one gets the stone, I mean. They’ll disappear, and more people could die. You have to stop them….”
Riley had his hand pressed against the shirt serving as padding against the wound. His skin was clammy and ghostly white. His eyes were unfocused, his breathing shallow—and yet he was still thinking of others. If Cain hadn’t already loved his homme fatale, this would have pushed him over the edge.
Cain shook his head in amazement even while he snatched his police radio from the glove compartment and alerted the cops, telling them what was going on, where to come, that an unknown number of their own were down, and that there were armed perpetrators and injured people on the premises. With his other hand, he grabbed the spare handgun he kept there.
“Dammit to hell, Noble.”
Paul Hall’s grumpy voice came on the line. “I asked you for one fucking day without trouble, and you turn my town into an action movie.”
“More like a noir thriller,” Cain commented with a low chuckle, earning an answering tiny laugh from his lover inside the car. “Listen, I can’t wait around. I’ve got to get Riley to the hospital. He’s losing too much blood—”
“Give it to me!”
Startled down to his bones, Cain swung around in a rush. Camille hurried toward him but with a noticeable limp. Her hair stood on end, her makeup ran, she had bruises and bloody scrapes all over, her thigh had a deep gash seeping blood, she held her side, her dress was torn, and she’d lost a shoe. But she still had a gun, pointed right at Cain.
Apparently she was the last woman standing. Had she killed Iris?
Cain held up both his weapon and the radio for her to see. “I’m talking to the cops. They can hear everything. Killing us would be a big mistake, Camille Astor.” Using her name ensured that Hall knew who the enemy was. And he wasn’t about to lower his gun for anything.
Camille cursed under her breath. “Give me the jewel.”
“He doesn’t have it,” Riley groaned from the passenger seat, slumping in defeat. “Neither of us does. It’s still back down there in the safe. I never got the chance to take it. I swear to God.”
Camille aimed the barrel of the gun at Cain’s chest, then at Riley through the windshield to make a point. She didn’t need to say a word. Cain fished the gem out of his jeans pocket and tossed it to her but kept his weapon directed at her midsection.
She grabbed the jewel midflight and released a long laugh, half-hysterical. “Smartest thing you’ve ever done, shamus.”
“This is a stalemate,” Cain pointed out. “Don’t be foolish. You have the gem. Just go. You might even get pretty far before the cops get here, maybe even across state lines. But only if you go right now.”
With an indignant scoff, she retreated, kicked off her remaining shoe, spurted to her luxury sports car as well as she could with a distinct limp, and drove away into the night, tires screeching.