Chapter Forty-seven
“Good decision, Ava,” Walker said. “Get in the driver’s seat.”
Ava stared at him like she was deaf.
“Now, Ava.”
The business end of the gun was digging into my forehead. It hurt, but not nearly as bad as his big hand pressing my windpipe closed and his fingers digging into the back of my sunburned neck. I couldn’t breathe.
Ava got back in the truck and crawled across to the driver’s side.
Walker eased off some, and I gasped for breath. He paid me no attention. To Ava, he said, “You’re going to drive this truck to Baptiste’s Bluff. Katie’s going to drive my car, and I’ll ride with her. We’ll be right behind you. You and I both know there’s no place for you to run, and if you try, first I’ll shoot Katie, and then I’ll come find you. And I will find you. I won’t shoot you, though. We’ll have some fun and see where it takes us.”
My mind couldn’t wrap itself around what was happening. Baptiste’s Bluff. He was taking us to Baptiste’s Bluff? I could see Ava in my peripheral vision. My keys were still in the ignition. Ava turned on the truck. She put her hands on the wheel. Tears were rolling down her cheeks, but she didn’t make a sound.
“Do you have a phone with you, Ava?” Walker asked.
She shook her head.
“It wouldn’t matter anyway. There’s no cell reception up on these roads.”
I did, though. I had a phone. Or did I? Was it in the truck along with everything else I’d dumped from my purse? I tried to think when I’d last used it. We’d plugged it into the USB connector at the Packin’ Male to upload our pictures to their desktop so we could print them. I had disconnected my phone when we were done. And I had . . .
“Move it, Katie. You’re driving my car.”
He released my throat and pulled the gun away from my forehead, but kept it pointed at me as he stepped back. “Get in.”
As I slipped into the driver’s seat and shut the door behind me, I put my hands down, ostensibly to adjust my body, but really to slip my cell phone out of the loose side pocket sewn into the right hip of my sundress. My mother always told me to avoid unflattering hip pockets, and I was glad I hadn’t listened. I lay the iPhone on the seat between my thigh and the door. I thought about calling 911 or Rashidi or even Bart, but I knew I’d lose connection when we were a hundred feet away from Annalise. Rashidi was ten miles away by now, Bart and the police were further than that, and what help could I expect from the St. Marcos police, even if the call went through? But then another thought hit me. Sherry. She had taped Zane McMillan with her phone.
Walker’s hand was on the door latch now. I quickly tapped the screen to pull up a voice recording app that I used to use to record witnesses. I pressed Record and the timer scrolled forward. One second, two seconds, three seconds it read, confirming that it was recording. The door opened. I slid the recording volume to max and returned to the home screen, leaving the phone recording, a record for posterity or whoever found my body.
Walker lowered himself into his seat. I put both of my hands on the steering wheel and fought to act normal. When he handed me the keys, I noticed a rivulet of blood running from his temple to his cheek, a souvenir from the scaffolding trick my jumbie friend had played. I pretended to try to insert them in the ignition with my right hand, fumbling them as much as I could, while I dropped the phone back into my hip pocket with my left hand. I did the fumbling so well that I managed to drop the keys.
“Come on,” Walker snapped.
I tried again, and this time I turned the car on. Walker was holding his gun in his right hand. He turned his body slightly toward me. He rested his elbow on the dashboard with the gun’s muzzle pointed at me. “Make room for Ava to back out. Follow her to Baptiste’s Bluff.”
I did as he said, trying not to think of the implications of our destination, all the people that had met their death off that cliff, people like my mother and father. Bart was expecting me to show up at 7:30, a full hour away from now. No one would miss us in time to come to our rescue. I didn’t want to die.
Ava pulled out, and I fell in behind her. I swallowed hard. My father’s coaching returned to me, the times he had earnestly explained to Mom, Collin, and me how to lull an attacker into a false sense of security while you stalled and looked for his weakness. I could get him talking, distract him while I waited for my chance, and maybe even learn something to use to our advantage, anything. Except my brain was having a hard time communicating with my tongue.
“Why’d you kill the senator?” I asked, finally.
“Haven’t you figured that out by now?” he responded.
I hesitated. The man had just confessed to killing Guy Edwards. I didn’t know for sure why he’d done it, but I’d developed a decent theory in the last few hours. “Because of the bank records that Guy found?”
Walker snorted. “That stupid bitch left them out where Guy could see them. He may not be a rocket scientist, but he was smart enough to know there was only one reason Lisa would keep a rich client’s files off bank premises.”
“So she kept a phony set of books at the bank, and the real set at home? What, was she helping Bonds launder money?”
“She thought she was helping herself, that Gregory loved her, and that she was securing their future together.” Walker drew out the word “loved,” turning it into something absurd. “Little mami called big daddy to tell him she’d blown it, and I’ve never seen him so mad. I think he’ll take that bitch out next.”
Lisa was a criminal, but she didn’t deserve to die anymore than Guy did. Neither did Ava and I, for that matter.
“Who set Ava up?” I asked.
“Nobody. I followed Guy. I knew he was heading to meet some skank because that’s what he always did. I didn’t know it was Ava, though. I got lucky.” He twirled the gun on his finger. “You better hope she’s as steady up there as your dad was, otherwise I’ll have to shoot you.”
Strobe lights went off in my brain. The faulty synapses that hadn’t made the connections earlier finally got it right. Of course. My parents had died because they’d seen Gregory with Lisa on the beach that day, the giant blond man and the tiny black woman. Because his connection to Lisa was the link to his laundered fortune. And now Ava and I might die for the same reason. I gasped for air like Walker had gut-punched me.
Walker’s laugh was maniacal. “You know what’s funny, besides you hiring me of all people to help you figure out what happened to your parents? What’s really funny is that Gregory had written them off as two stupid tourists. Then your parents had to run off their mouths about it to the wrong person. Which makes them stupid tourists after all, I guess. Full circle. Visitors never get it. This is a small, small island. Their waiter that night at Fortuna’s? Jilly Edwards, Lisa’s daughter. And your mother literally points to a picture of Lisa in the paper and says to your father, right in front of Jilly like she’s not even there,” and here Walker used a simpering falsetto, “Oh my gaw-wad, this is the woman we saw naked on the beach with that big blond man, honey. And she’s a senator’s wife.”
Oh, Mama. My heart broke. My sweet, sweet mother, who had no idea there was evil around her, who saw the beauty and not the danger. Just as she had everywhere in her life. It was one of the things I’d loved most about her. She was positive, she was strong, she was smart, but she was, well, naive.
“Yeah, Jilly girl called home. Lisa convinced her it was mistaken identity, but Lisa knew it wasn’t. So, Lisa called Gregory. Who called me. Who always calls me.”
~~~
Saving Grace (What Doesn’t Kill You, #1): A Katie Romantic Mystery Page 49