The Third Grave

by Lisa Jackson

  “You killed her,” Ashley accused again, and he stopped dead in his tracks. “Your own sister.”

  “I already told you. I just didn’t—”

  “Save her. I know. But you could have,” she charged, as if any of this was a surprise. “You were on the damned swim team!”

  God, Ash was getting irritating, and this old lodge with its creaking beams and scurrying rodents was getting to him. “It’s not like I held her head down in the water.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  He remembered Nell flailing in the river, struggling to keep her head up, her wet hair floating on the water’s surface as she gasped. No one noticed but Tyson and he’d decided in a split instant of understanding about the rest of his life, and what it meant to be an only child, a single heir, what it would mean if he just let her lose her battle. “Like you care. It was a million years ago.”

  “Right.” Ashley stared at the lantern as if it were a crystal ball, capable of predicting the future, while the lodge settled, ancient timbers creaking, the wind whistling through a partially open window. Somewhere far away he heard the hooting of a lonely owl. It all gave him a case of the creeps. How had he and Ashley, the only woman he’d ever loved, fallen so far from each other? And why didn’t she understand they were in it together and it was good, was for the best.

  When she finally spoke, it was with less venom. “Maybe I didn’t care then. About Nell.” She swallowed hard. “And maybe I didn’t want to believe it. It was easier not to think about it. But that was a long time ago, before I had children of my own.”

  “Oh, Jesus. Don’t go all Mother Teresa on me, babe. It’s too late now.”

  But she was on a roll. “And then . . . then it was different with Holly and Poppy. You didn’t just let them die, didn’t let nature take its course like Nell and the river. Nuh-uh. You killed them, Tyson. You strangled those two little girls and hid them in the basement, like a dungeon, that’s what the press is saying. When I didn’t know . . . didn’t want to know the details, I could pretend that it was all just a bad dream, that it hadn’t really happened, but now . . .” Her voice cracked.

  “It had to be done.”

  “They were just kids!”

  “They knew, babe. Remember? I told you. Holly found out about the old man and Margaret. She was a snoop and she came here, following her mother to this very place.” He gestured broadly to include this huge building with its warren of bedrooms surrounding this wide common area and stale, horrid memories. “This is where Dad and Margaret would sneak off to. They probably did it in every damned room and Holly knew. And if she knew, you can bet your sweet ass Poppy did, too. I’m just lucky I caught Holly up here that day, that I found out she’d seen them.” He remembered that hot summer day. “It was like a fuckin’ circus. That woman who rides the horses and gives lessons? Chandra Whatever?”

  “Johnson. Maxie’s mom.”

  “Yeah, right, right. She was here, too. Rode right on by like she was in a damned Fourth of July parade.” Tyson felt the old anger and worry about being discovered that he had on that sweltering day. “I don’t think Chandra saw anything. Well, except maybe Holly. But that was the problem, Holly was peering through the window and she watched her mother going at it with my dad and she, like, burst into tears.” Tyson should have taken care of Holly right then and there, he thought, before she put two and two together and figured out why her youngest sister didn’t look like Poppy or herself, but he hadn’t been able to take a chance. As it was, he’d ducked quickly behind a jagged stump, hiding in the brush and stirring up a hornets’ nest. He’d been stung twice and bitten his lip to keep from crying out before the damned horsewoman had ridden into the woods.

  “You’re a monster,” Ashley whispered.

  “And you?”

  “I didn’t plan anything like this, you know it.”

  “What I know is that if you hadn’t tipped Owen off somehow, if he hadn’t come back for Rose and taken her away, if he’d left her in the goddamned theater or let her go home, I might have had a chance to—”

  “To kill her, too,” she finished for him. “But I didn’t—”

  “You did! You knew, damn it. And you were a good girl, keeping your mouth shut, not even confiding in your husband.”

  “Don’t bring Ryan into this,” she warned.

  “Oh, come on, babe. As if you care.” He walked over to her, bent down and sat on his haunches so he could look her in the eye. “You only married him because you didn’t want anyone to suspect we were together. Just in case this all came out.” He touched the side of her face with the muzzle of his gun and she didn’t even flinch because that was the thing about Ashley, one of the things he loved about her. She was drawn to danger, liked the adrenaline rush of it all, the reason she’d agreed to go along with his plan all those years ago. Well, that and the promise of a fortune once his old man kicked off. How lucky for her she’d found a husband, a cover, with enough money to keep her happy.

  If not satisfied.

  She, like Tyson, was a restless soul and that, more than anything else, had bound them together for more than two decades. He drew the pistol down her jawline and she just stared at him with those wide, curious eyes. God, he was getting hard just looking at her. “It didn’t hurt that he had a buttload of money.”

  “Stop it!” She threw herself to her feet and, lighting another cigarette, walked to the window at the front of the house.

  “We’re in this together,” he reminded her, following her to the window, hearing the floorboards groan against his weight, smelling the dust mingling with the acrid scent of burning tobacco. As he reached her, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tight, wedging her firm buttocks into his crotch, letting her feel his erection as it began to harden.

  “Stop,” she whispered, but didn’t sound convincing.

  He didn’t. Instead he pressed his gun between her breasts, and she didn’t push him away. Because she wanted him. Yeah, she was angry, but oftentimes over the years her anger had sparked to passion. Hot. Intense. Heating his blood. As it did now. That was the thing about Ashley. She always wanted him. He nuzzled the side of her neck and she moaned, tossing her head back.

  “I hate you.”

  “You’re a liar.” He kissed her nape, touched his lips to the shell of an ear. “And a bad one.”

  “My lies saved your ass,” she reminded him. She curled a finger over the barrel of the pistol and said, “Those girls did not need to die.”

  Who was she to get so uppity, so goddamned righteous? “Collateral damage,” he said with a sneer, and walked away from her. God, didn’t she get it?

  “Because it was Rose you really wanted.”

  “She’s Dad’s only other heir. Right? We’ve discussed this about a million times.” He threw her a disbelieving look. “Don’t be so high and mighty, Ash. It’s like you’re trying to play the virgin after fucking the whole damned football team!”

  “I’m telling you, all this killing’s got to stop!”

  “It will!” he snapped, then caught himself and softened his voice, made it a little more cajoling. “I promise, babe. Then when this is all over, you can get the divorce and we can be together.”

  “And my kids?” she asked, walking back to the fireplace.

  “They’ll be with us, of course.” That was a lie and she probably knew it. Her bratty daughter and son were the problems. After having the first—the girl—that’s really when Ashley had changed. When she’d become a mother and gotten all domestic, throwing herself into the role of rich suburban mother of two; she’d even started that stupid mommy blog. “So now,” he said, “we have to track down Rose.”

  “You should have thought of that when you decided to kill Owen!”

  “He never would have talked.” Tyson knew that much. He closed the gap between them. “Not after keeping it a secret for twenty fuckin’ years. And once he knew for sure what had happened to the other two, he would’ve kept his secret to the
grave.”

  Ashley squashed her cigarette on the hearth. “So why do you care now?”

  Was she really that stupid? “Because with all the media attention, someone, somewhere might figure it all out.”

  “The press?”

  “Yeah!” Finally, she was getting it. “And it starts with that fuckin’ Nikki Gillette! There was a reason she came to see you tonight, you know. I mean, she already interviewed you, right. And now, tonight she was back. You know she’s like a dog with a bone when she goes after someone. And right now she’s after you. She’s dangerous. To you. To me.”

  He looked around the huge, open room, up to the rafters and then again to the windows, outside where he sensed danger lurked. He’d been a hunter for years, had stalked prey in the predawn hours and deep into the twilight. He knew the feel of the forest, the woods, could almost sense another predator, and tonight he was itchy, felt something was off, something he had to right.

  “No.” Ashley was shaking her head, a new worry appearing in her gorgeous eyes as she understood what he was getting at. “Wait a second. Tyson, what are you saying?”

  “Oh, for God’s sake. It’s pretty simple, Ash. Nikki Gillette needs to be stopped. Permanently.”

  * * *

  Nikki bit back a gasp.

  She’d stayed too long.

  Intrigued by the conversation, by the confessions, she’d lingered on the porch, her phone recording the exchange as Tyson Beaumont had admitted to the murders of the Duval girls, his own sister, Nell, Bronco Cravens, and Owen Duval.

  Nikki had what she came for. More than she’d expected. Now, though, it was time to leave.

  “Gillette’s onto us,” Tyson was saying, his voice rising again as he straightened. “That’s why she showed up at your place tonight.”

  “You don’t know that.” But Ashley’s protests sounded weak.

  “Yeah, I do.”

  Nikki reached for her phone and caught another glimpse of the couple inside. Ashley was trying to shake another cigarette from a pack and, finding it empty, had crushed the small box and tossed it into the cold grate. But where was Tyson? He wasn’t visible in the room.

  Oh, God.

  She took a chance and straightened, surveying the interior. Pistol in hand, Tyson was striding to the French doors leading to this very porch, less than six feet from where she was standing.

  Crap!

  Nikki’s heart started beating double time. She didn’t dare grab the phone for fear she would drop it. She stared at the window, saw his nose press to the glass. Oh. Dear. God. Swallowing hard, she shrank back against the wall, silently praying he couldn’t see her.

  “No one followed me,” Ashley insisted, her voice floating through the crack beneath the panes. “Not Nikki fucking Gillette, not anybody.”

  A minute passed by. Stretched endlessly.

  Nikki held her breath. Saw movement in the glass of the doors.

  She nearly sprang from the old plank decking but knew he would see her. Would hunt her down.

  Counting her heartbeats, ignoring the irritating buzz of a mosquito flying near her head, she waited.

  After what seemed an eternity, he disappeared from her field of vision as he walked away from the French doors. Nikki chanced a look through the window again and saw Tyson striding closer to Ashley before he slowly turned, his eyes skimming over the cavernous room, as if he expected to see someone in the shadows. “How do you know you weren’t followed?” he asked Ashley.

  “I was careful!”

  “Nikki Gillette’s husband’s a goddamned cop!”

  Nikki’s stomach dropped. He wasn’t giving up on this.

  “She could have called him. Texted him.”

  Oh. God. Time to go.

  “No one followed me!” Ashley insisted.

  “Let’s hope to God you’re right, but if you’re not”—he reached into his pocket and retrieved a small black pistol—“use this.”

  “What the fuck? Are you crazy?” Ashley cried, recoiling. “You brought another gun.”

  “I thought we might need a couple of backups.”

  “A couple?”

  “You can never be overarmed.”

  Ashley was shaking her head. “No . . . no, I do not need a gun.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “You’re nuts,” Ashley accused, but took the small weapon from his hand.

  Nikki had to leave. Now! Could she sneak across the deck, let the dark forest swallow her? Race back to the car in the darkness?

  No! Just get far enough away and text or call Reed. You have a phone! Just be careful!

  “You know how to use it?”

  “Do I know how to—are you nuts?” Ashley asked. “Let me think. Point and shoot,” she mocked. “Have I got that right?”

  Nikki felt a new fear. Now they were both armed. If they found her . . . Oh, Lord. She flattened herself to the weathered siding again.

  “You really think I’m nuts?” Tyson demanded, an amused, evil smile in his voice.

  Ashley didn’t back down. “Paranoid for sure.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Okay, then.” Nikki heard the sharp, distinctive click of a clip being shoved into a gun’s magazine. “Let’s find out.”

  CHAPTER 33

  “Just send backup,” Reed ordered, his voice low as he jogged toward the abandoned inn, his cell pressed to his ear. He cut the connection to the department and slipped his cell into his pocket as the night closed around him. A full moon was on the rise, offering a shadowy silver light, and stars winked bright in the vast sky above the tree line, but dread filled his soul. What the hell had the Marianne Inn to do with anything?

  Why wasn’t Delacroix answering?

  Why the hell had she lied to him about the locket, about visiting Austin Wells?

  Because she’s not the cop she wants you to think she is. He mentally kicked himself for not calling and checking on her himself. He knew a detective in New Orleans—Reuben Montoya. They’d worked together long ago and he could’ve given Reed the goods on Delacroix. But he hadn’t. He’d trusted the department.

  Dear God, why was his wife here?

  He had a bad feeling about what was going down out here in the woods, a real bad feeling. As he approached the old lodge, he kept to the side of the lane using whatever brush he could find as cover, his eyes searching the surrounding darkness.

  Hugging close to a row of live oaks, he rounded a wide bend to a weed-choked clearing where the Marianne Inn loomed on the shore of the river.

  Windows on the lower floor of the huge, rambling structure glowed eerily, the upper story steeped in darkness. The inn, like its counterpart the Beaumont manor, was abandoned and falling into total disrepair, though tonight, it seemed, the Marianne was in slightly better shape, most of its windows intact, its chimney not yet crumbling, its wide porch still flanking the structure.

  Was Nikki inside?

  Dread pounded through him.

  His jaw clenched so tight it ached.

  He pulled his service weapon from his holster and focusing, trying to keep his emotions under control, hurried forward, surveying the grounds.

  Two vehicles were parked near the front door: a dark pickup with smoked windows and a white SUV—a Bentley? With stickers of a family—man, woman, son, daughter, and dog—and a license plate holder announcing: LIFE IS BETTER AT THE BEACH scrawled across the top and TYBEE ISLAND written along the bottom.

  The SUV had to belong to Ashley Jefferson.

  So what was she doing here, and what did it have to do with Nikki?

  His bad feeling was getting worse.

  He had no idea who owned the pickup but was about to find out. As for Nikki’s Honda?

  Nowhere in sight.

  Was that a good sign?

  Or an omen?

  Her text replayed in his mind:

  At the Marianne Inn. Settler’s Road. Get here fast. Be careful!

  His stomach churned. He had assum
ed she’d written the text herself. But what if someone else had her phone? What if she’d been coerced into sending it? No—she was clever enough to have added something that would cue him that she wasn’t writing it of her own volition. But someone else could have her phone.

  Dread propelled him forward as a hundred horrid scenarios of what may have happened to her screamed through his brain, but he couldn’t concentrate on them now, couldn’t give in to the fear. Not when there was a chance he could save her.

  But if she was injured, if anyone had harmed her . . . He’d kill them.

  Plain and simple.

  You’re getting ahead of yourself. Just keep focused.

  Jaw set, with deadly intent prodding him forward, Reed eased forward, startling a possum that hissed, showing teeth, round eyes catching the moonlight. Reed stopped and the creature shuffled into the underbrush, disappearing behind a fallen log. Reed kept going, edging along the overgrown lane, his gun in hand, his gaze focused on the lodge.

  Lamplight glowed through the dirty windows, figures appearing and disappearing. Two, he thought. A man and a woman. He squinted as he neared, closing in on the wide porch. The woman came into view again.

  Ashley Jefferson. Smoking a cigarette. Owen Duval’s alibi. What in God’s name was she doing here? Who was she meeting? And where the hell was Nikki?

  Ashley approached the window and peered through the panes, her nose nearly to the glass. And behind her? Coming up to wrap his arms around her waist and nuzzle the back of her neck?

  Tyson Beaumont.

  Clutching a gun in the hand he buried between Ashley’s breasts. Was she captive? Reed started to step forward and then watched as she let her head fall back, her blond hair shimmering in the lamplight as she allowed him to kiss her exposed throat.

  What the hell? They were a couple? From the looks of the way he was holding her, as if he owned her, Reed would guess so. And here they were together, so soon after Owen Duval’s supposed suicide.