Blood Kin

by Judith E. French

  Grace rushed forward. Bailey dove, not away, as Grace expected, but straight at her, under the gun. She grabbed Grace around the hips, knocking her to the floor. For seconds they struggled, wrestling, hitting, and kicking before Bailey smashed her balled fist into Grace’s face. Grace hit her back just as hard, but Bailey was beyond pain. She caught a handful of hair and slammed Grace’s head down against the floor.

  Grace groaned. Bailey tried to snatch the rifle away, but Grace lay across it, pinning it down. Bailey turned and fled for the stairwell.

  “Run! Run, you little fool! See if you can outrun this!” Grace shouted.

  The gun boomed again, but Bailey didn’t hesitate. She ran for all she was worth. She was halfway down the attic steps to the second floor when Grace fired from the top landing. This time Bailey felt a sharp sting in her upper left arm. One foot slipped and she fell, sliding down the remaining stairs to the hallway below. Grace pounded after her.

  Stunned, Bailey clawed her way to her feet. Pain shot down her spine.

  “I put you in the grave twice,” Grace said. “This time you’ll stay there!” She lowered the rifle again.

  Bailey grabbed the barrel, pushed it to the side, and yanked, nearly pulling the weapon out of Grace’s hands in the process. She twisted and rammed into Grace’s knees, knocking her down again. Grace clung to the rifle, trying to strike her in the head with the stock. It glanced off her injured arm, and Bailey winced at the force of the blow.

  Grace used the rifle as a brace to climb to her feet and tried to aim. Bailey wanted to run, but this time the big woman blocked the exit to the main staircase. If she tried to escape into the nearest bedroom, Grace would trap her before she could get a window open. Blood, hot and sticky, ran down Bailey’s arm and dripped off her hand in a steady rivulet. Strangely enough, it didn’t hurt. It felt numb. But she was suddenly tired again and wanted to sit down.

  “Die, you slut!” Grace screamed.

  Bailey ducked behind the attic door. Wood exploded, but the shot missed her. She snatched up a broken piece of the board and hurled it at Grace. It struck the woman full in the nose, and blood flew. Bailey whirled, tore open the door to the back servants’ stairs, and fled down to the kitchen.

  Cursing, Grace came after her. At the bottom of the twisting staircase, Bailey didn’t bother with trying to find the latch in the semidarkness. She threw her good shoulder against the door and burst through into the kitchen to see Will running into the room.

  “Run!” Bailey screamed. “She has a—”

  Will leaped in front of Bailey as Grace came down the stairs and fired. Bailey recoiled in horror. She stared down at a small red stain growing on the front of his shirt.

  “Go!” Will bellowed. “Get the hell out of here, Bailey!”

  She darted toward the back door. When she looked over her shoulder she saw Grace still advancing toward them, leveling the rife, but Grace had to come through Will to get to her. He was upright, charging Grace, when she fired again. This time Will went down.

  “I’ll get you, you whoring bitch!” Grace called. “Don’t think you can get away from me!”

  Will grabbed Grace’s ankle and jerked it. “Run!” he shouted.

  Bailey flew out the back door and across the porch. The gunshot echoed through the house. Tears blinded Bailey as she bolted headlong toward the nearest outcropping of trees. Will was dead. She knew he was dead, but she kept running. It was all she could do.

  “Come back here!” Grace screamed from the back step.

  Bailey felt as though she were slogging though knee-deep mud. She was breathing hard, each step an effort, when abruptly the ground came up to hit her. She felt herself sinking down, down; the sleep that had threatened to overtake her finally . . .

  “Get up! You’re not dead yet. But you will be if you don’t do as I say.”

  Bailey opened her eyes.

  Grace stood over her, the muzzle of the rifle hovering only inches from the bitch’s face. “Get on your feet.”

  She poked the girl hard in the forehead with the gun barrel. “Get up, or die there. I’ve no more time to mess with you.” Just before she’d shot him for the last time, Will had said that Daniel was coming. He might have lied, but she couldn’t take the chance. She had to get away as quickly as she could, but not without the girl.

  She realized now why it had been so hard to be rid of Beth Tawes, why she hadn’t lain quiet in her grave—why she’d haunted her all these years, and why her bastard had come back to spoil everything. It had to end where it started—at the cabin. She jabbed her again. “Get on your feet, and get down to the boat.”

  Bailey got up on her hands and knees and then climbed to her feet.

  “I’ve got a full clip in here. Ten more shots. Don’t make me waste any more than I have to on you.” Grace motioned toward the dock. “Go on. We’re going for a ride. Not far. Your last one.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  “Will! Will!” Daniel knelt on Elizabeth’s dining room floor and pressed his fingertips against the older man’s throat. A trail of blood had led Daniel from the bottom of the kitchen stairs to Will’s prone body. He wasn’t certain whether Will was dead or alive. He wasn’t cold, but if Will was breathing, it was very shallowly.

  The bullet holes were from a .22, not the deer gun. Daniel clung to that thought as he kept trying to find a pulse. He’d borrowed an eighteen-foot skiff belonging to Josh Thompson. It was an older boat, not as powerful as Emma’s or Grace’s, but it had gotten him to Will’s, where he’d hoped his friend could advise him where to start looking for Grace and Bailey.

  Daniel had been in Will’s backyard when he’d heard the shots, and he’d run down the woods path to reach the farmhouse. He arrived in time to hear the sound of Grace’s retreating motor, but not to see what direction she’d taken.

  As Daniel lifted Will’s head, the older man groaned and opened his eyes. “Daniel,” he gasped.

  “Who shot you?” Daniel asked, although he was certain he knew the answer as surely as he knew that Bailey was already dead or dying.

  “Grace.” The word came out so softly that it sounded like a death sigh. “Bailey . . . Did you . . .”

  “Were they together? Is Bailey hurt?”

  “Alive when Grace . . . shot . . . me. She’s not . . . outside?”

  “No. I heard Grace’s Whaler, but got here too late to see who was in the boat.”

  “Send out . . . alarm,” Will managed. Blood seeped from a hole in his chest, another from his shoulder, and a third from his midsection. “No time . . . Ring the bell. Watermen . . .” He grasped Daniel’s hand with surprising strength. “Save Bailey for . . . me.” Will choked and spit blood. “Save her . . . Daniel. Grace means to . . . to kill her.”

  Daniel pressed the palm of his hand against Will’s chest in an effort to stop the bleeding, but Will shoved him away. “To hell with me. No time. Bailey. She’s all I’ve got. . . .” His eyes rolled back in his head and he went limp.

  Daniel shook him. “Will! Where would Grace take her?”

  Will’s breath rasped in and out, but he didn’t open his eyes. Daniel took precious minutes to call the coast guard, gave his location, identified himself as retired agency personnel, and told them that Will needed immediate medical assistance for multiple gunshot wounds. He asked the dispatcher to notify the state police about Bailey’s kidnapping, gave them a description of his sister-in-law, and told them that she was armed and dangerous.

  When Daniel could turn his full attention to Will again, he realized that he was still bleeding badly. Daniel looked around the room, ripped down a pair of white tieback curtains, folded half into a pad, and tied the other half to bandage the worst of Will’s injuries.

  Images of the carnage the bomb had wrought in the coffeehouse in Kabul flooded Daniel’s mind and he pushed them back. If Bailey was still alive, there was hope he could get to her in time. And if Grace had blackmailed Joe Marshall—if she, rather than Lucas, had sho
t at them yesterday—then this was a different game altogether.

  “Grace . . .” Will tossed his head and whispered urgently, “Grace told me . . . said . . . she killed . . . Beth. And Emma.” His artist’s fingers dug into Daniel’s wrist. “Grace. It was always Grace.”

  “I know. I just came from Matt’s. Grace has been blackmailing Marshall, and she may have murdered him too. But why?” Blood seeped through the pad, and Daniel tightened the makeshift bandage. “Don’t die on me. Help’s on the way.”

  “Go. Find Bailey. Emma’s dead. You’ve got to stop . . .” He clutched at Daniel’s wrist. “Ring the bell.”

  Daniel smelled smoke. Rising, he walked to the nearest window and saw that Elizabeth’s boat and dock were in flames. Grace must have set them afire to keep anyone from following her. He returned to kneel beside Will. “I’ve got to go back and get your boat—it’s the fastest—but help will be here soon.”

  “My pocket. Key. To the skiff.” He drew in a long, rasping breath. “Never mind me. I’ve had my run. Find Bailey.”

  “A medevac helicopter is on the way. I hate to leave you, but—”

  “Get the hell . . . out of . . . here. Wait. Get me Elizabeth’s ship-to-shore radio. Under stairs. I can send . . . send out . . . distress call. Watermen.”

  Daniel ran to the closet and ripped open the door. Elizabeth’s radio had been smashed. “Grace must have destroyed it. You hang on, Will.” Daniel squeezed his friend’s hand a last time. “Hang on until help arrives.”

  “The bell,” Will insisted. “Don’t . . . forget . . . bell.”

  Outside, Daniel paused long enough to pull the rope a dozen times. The two-hundred-year-old bronze bell rang out a distress signal, sending the wordless message across the island that there was dire trouble at Elizabeth’s farm. Even in the sparsely populated countryside, the chances were that the sound of the great bell would alert neighbors. Daniel only hoped medical help would arrive in time to keep Will from bleeding to death.

  Before the tolling of the bell had ceased to echo across the water and fields, Daniel was off and running back down the lane to Will’s landing. He was halfway through the woods when he heard Will’s dogs barking.

  Gasping for breath, Daniel stopped and cut through the thick underbrush, cautiously coming out of the trees at a point just south of the house. To his surprise he saw someone on Will’s skiff, bent over the ignition. Pulling the pistol from his belt, Daniel leaned low and approached the dock, taking advantage of whatever cover he could find until he recognized the crouching figure in the boat.

  “Emma? Is that you?” Daniel exclaimed. “Will told me you were dead!”

  She turned toward him. Her clothing was torn and bloodstained, her face a haggard mask. “Daniel?”

  “Down! Down! Go on! Get back!” Daniel shouted at the dogs as he hurried toward the boat. “What the hell happened to you?”

  Emma gasped and leaned against the gunnel. “I am dead,” she said. “Gut-shot. Yesterday . . . last night. I thought it was Will come to finish me off,” she managed as Daniel climbed into the boat. “But it was Grace. She shot me and set my boat adrift.” She pointed toward the bay. “Out there. The shot knocked me into the water. I tried to get back . . . to the boat, but the tide caught it. I found a crab line float to hold on to and swam to shore.”

  “Grace has Bailey.”

  “Where’s Will?” Emma sank down onto a seat and leaned against the headrest.

  “Back at Elizabeth’s. Grace shot him as well.”

  “What did he tell you? About what happened to Beth?”

  “I guess that’s what this is all about somehow. Will’s hurt bad. He may already be dead.”

  Emma clutched at Daniel’s shoulder. “Then you need to know that it was Grace who . . . who testified against Will . . . convinced the jury he was guilty. In the trial thirty-five years ago. She went to court and said that Beth was afraid of her uncle. Hinted that he fathered her child.” Emma shook her head. Her damp hair hung in tangles, and she was shaking with cold or fever. “Grace’s fault. Her part of it was all hushed up, hidden from the news, because of her age.”

  “Don’t try to talk. The coast guard helicopter is already in the air. They’ll get you and Will to the hospital and—”

  “I don’t need a damned doctor. I’m dying, Daniel. I told you—I took a bullet in the gut. I need you to listen . . . to listen good. There’s nobody left but you—to set things right. To tell Bailey the truth. Beth came to a party with your brother, and she had too much to drink.”

  “Did she and Matthew have sex?”

  Emma shrugged. “I don’t know. If I was to be hanged, I couldn’t say one way or another. Matt was pretty wasted, and they were in the cabin alone together.” She gritted her teeth as pain etched grooves across her brows. “But afterward Joe and Creed took turns with her. Beth said no, but they did it anyway. I heard her crying.”

  “Why now, Emma? Why didn’t you say something then? Why after all these years?”

  She gripped her stomach. “I was tired of dreaming about it every night. Tired of hearing Will standing outside my window whistling.”

  “You heard it, knew it was Will.”

  “You heard it too, had to.”

  “I thought it might be him. I’d heard him whistling when I was a kid.”

  “He used to whistle like that for Beth, when she was little. It was a game between them. She always liked it. I hadn’t heard it for years, not until after Bailey came to Tawes.”

  “Then it was his way of letting you know he was there, watching over Beth’s girl.”

  “Me and anybody else who might want to hurt her?”

  Daniel nodded. “Maybe, or maybe he thought Bailey’s coming would make you crack, tell what he was certain you knew about what happened to Beth.”

  “It worked. I was scared he’d come to kill me. Or maybe I was just sick of waking up every morning and staring into the face of a coward.”

  “And you told Will that?”

  “Some of it. He didn’t kill me, but he came close. Beat the shit out of me and went for his gun.”

  “And you? Did you rape her too?”

  Emma shook her head. “No. I didn’t. I swear to you, I didn’t. But I didn’t have the balls to put a stop to it either. Joe and Creed were both older and bigger than me. Joe always had a mean streak in him. And Creed . . . Creed did just about anything Joe told him to do.”

  “And you just watched?”

  “I told them to stop. They dared me to do something about it. I didn’t. But I should’ve tried.” Emma shook her head. “Afterward, Joe threatened to kill me if I told. God help me, I believed him.”

  “What about Matt? Beth was his responsibility. Why didn’t he protect her?”

  “He would have been just as scared of Joe and Creed as me. But by then he’d passed out dead drunk on the floor. I don’t how much he knew about what they did. He never moved until morning.”

  Anger made it hard for Daniel to fit the key in the boat ignition. He and Matt had been too far apart in age and too different to be close when they were growing up. All these years, he’d considered his brother to be weak, but he’d never guessed Matt could stand back and let Will pay such a price for that weakness. “Stupid bastard,” he muttered as he fired up the engine and pulled away from the dock.

  He glanced at Emma. It was evident that the movement of the boat put her in agony, and in spite of himself he felt sorry for her. “Can you walk?” He couldn’t look her in the face. Didn’t want to. In a way, what Emma had done was every bit as bad as his brother’s actions.

  “Grace egged them on,” Emma continued as if she hadn’t heard him. “Thought it was funny. Lied about Beth. Told Joe that Beth done it with her uncle and with Forest McCready. But it wasn’t true. Not about Will. Not about Forest. I saw blood on Beth’s legs and on her clothes. She’d been a virgin until that night, Daniel. We killed her. Killed her as surely as if we’d put a gun to her head.”

/>   “Can you walk?” Daniel repeated.

  “I made it this far, didn’t I?” Emma rocked back and forth, holding her belly. “Burns like fire. Like crabs tearing at my gut.”

  “Let me see.” Daniel pushed aside the ripped tee shirt that Emma had wrapped around her middle. “It’s bad, but if you didn’t die yet, you may survive. You should be in a hospital.”

  “Too late for doctors and hospitals. More important that Bailey know the truth. I think now that Grace might have been the one who beat Beth. She always wanted Matt, and she got him, didn’t she? Once Beth was dead.”

  Daniel pushed the throttle forward, heading toward Elizabeth’s dock again. Where the hell was that helicopter with the medics?

  “I’m leaving you at the farm. If you can walk, you get up to the house. Do what you can for Will. Keep him awake. Keep him talking. And when help arrives, they can—”

  Emma laughed. “Dead or alive, he’ll strangle me with his bare hands.”

  Daniel shrugged. “So what have you got to lose?”

  “True enough, boy.”

  He slowed the engine as he neared Elizabeth’s beach. What was left of the dock poured black smoke and flames. “You’ll have to jump out and wade ashore. Can you do it?”

  “Didn’t you hear what I said? I swam half the night to get back. I guess I can get twenty yards to shore if I have to do it on my hands and knees.” Emma’s voice cracked. “Matthew? Grace didn’t . . .”

  “Back at the house,” Daniel answered. “Put something in his coffee. He’s sick as a dog, but nothing he won’t recover from.”

  “Probably those sleeping pills she takes.” Emma took hold of the gunnel, pulled herself to her feet, and swung one leg over the side.

  He put the engine into neutral. “Think, Emma. Where would Grace go?”

  “Only one spot.” She gave him a long, hard look. Her lips were cracked, her eyes bloodshot and red. “Black Oak Island. That old cabin. You know it?”