by Lisa Jackson
His silhouette was thrown into relief and in that moment, Delacroix’s heart nearly stopped. A ragged piece of memory rose to the surface. Nothing distinct. But . . . She blinked, remembered hiding under the seats of the theater, seeing sandals, and feet in flip-flops, purses and candy wrappers and popcorn everywhere. She could almost feel the sticky stuff on the floor as she’d slid beneath the rows only to lose track of her sisters.
As she’d inched along, she’d brushed against the back of someone’s leg. “Hey!” he’d yelled sharply, and she’d knocked over his drink, the cola running down the sloped floor, toward the screen where the film, a fairy-tale monster story, was playing, the noise of the donkey’s voice so loud. She’d peered around the aisle and seen both of her sisters hurrying to a side exit and a boy in a hoodie standing in the open doorway, the faint glow of a streetlamp at his back as he’d glanced over his shoulder, his youthful profile in relief.
She didn’t know him then, didn’t understand why they were leaving, but she recognized him now, in an instant.
Tyson Beaumont.
He’d been at the theater.
He’d lured her sisters away.
Her blood ran cold and bile rose up her throat.
Why had he done it? Even now when the repressed memory surfaced, she didn’t know. Bits and pieces of that night, memories long abandoned, were teasing at her, and she felt her blood pumping, her heart beating out of control. It was as if she were on a razor-sharp ledge, balancing against falling into the abyss of never knowing, or climbing a sheer mountain to reach a pinnacle of truth that might destroy everything she’d believed, her whole existence.
If she killed Tyson now, she might never know the truth, a truth she’d been chasing for as long as pieces of her fragmented memory had erupted. First, just a bit here and there, but as she’d grown, more and more, the pieces never meshing with the story she’d been told by her adoptive parents.
All because of Tyson Beaumont.
You murdering prick.
She aimed at his head, her finger steady on the trigger.
Go straight to hell.
* * *
Reed’s eyes blinked open and for a nanosecond, he was lost, aware that he was lying on the ground, gravel in his hair, his head thundering and his shoulder throbbing. He was staring up at the sky, a wide black expanse filled with thousands of stars winking far away.
Where was he?
What was he doing outside in the warm summer night . . . and then another thought: Nikki.
He was here for Nikki.
He heard voices and far away a siren and . . . in a heart-stopping moment it all came crashing back. His shoulder was burning because he’d been shot, his head aching as he’d slammed it against the side of a white SUV. He was at the long-forgotten Marianne Inn because his wife was here.
His heart dropped.
Where was she?
And then: Was she still alive?
As his mind cleared, the question burned through his brain, over and over.
His gun! He had a weapon. It was here somewhere. He recalled it flying from his hand when he’d been hit. It was so damned dark, but he thought the weapon had slid beneath the SUV—no, the truck. Pain wracking his body, he scooted under the large rig, his fingers outstretched in the dry weeds and a pool of his own blood. Tucked up against the inside of the front wheel, he found his gun. No doubt Tyson would eventually come to him, to double-check that he was down, to put a bullet through his brain. Well, not without a fight. And not before Reed found out what had happened to his wife. Dragging himself beneath the undercarriage to the side of the truck, Reed eyed the area, then rolled from beneath the rig and crouched beside the wheel, the truck being his cover. His bloody fingers held his pistol in a death grip as he tried to think. If Nikki was inside the house, he needed to free her, but if it was already too late, if that bastard Beaumont had harmed her? It was over.
Tyson Beaumont was a dead man.
* * *
Nikki let the river carry her. She held her breath for as long as she could, kept into the darkest of depths, clutching the damned gaff as if it were a lifeline, letting it drag her lower into the cool, calm depths.
Already panicked, she didn’t let her mind wander to the creatures that inhabited the river. At this point, no alligator or water moccasin was as deadly or determined as Tyson Beaumont. To think that he’d killed the girls and that Ashley had known it, never divulging the truth and then Tyson had gone on a new, murderous rampage once the bodies were discovered.
Nikki moved quickly downstream, feeling her lungs tighten, then burn before she surfaced, fifty yards from the old pier. Her car would be farther and she was about to sink into the depths again, but her gaze was drawn to the lights of the lodge, winking through the reeds. Her eyes narrowed as she searched the shoreline, heard the water lapping against the pebbles and dirt of the riverbank. Where was Delacroix? Had she survived? Nikki couldn’t just abandon her. Both vehicles—the Bentley and truck—were still parked as they had been, near the front doors, so that meant Tyson and Ashley were probably somewhere nearby.
And what about Reed?
You texted for him to come here?
Now, you’re going to leave?
Why didn’t you try to contact him again before leaving your phone in the canoe?
That had been a mistake. She knew it now. She had to retrieve it and to warn Reed—
Oh, no!
As if by thinking of him, she’d conjured him, she thought she saw him, a dark figure struggling to get to his feet between the Bentley and pickup. But no . . . of course it wasn’t him . . . but . . .
Her heart stilled.
She knew her husband.
And what had she expected. She’d told him to come here.
Heart thudding, she moved closer to the shore. An owl sailed over her head, and she heard the faraway sound of a train on distant tracks. Beneath it all was the faint, but distinctive shriek of a siren. Was it getting nearer? She hardly dared hope and right now, she didn’t have time to wait for it.
Not with Reed struggling to stand.
Oh, Lord, he was injured.
And it was her fault.
She thought of all the pain she’d put him through, of losing the baby, of Morrisette’s death. Now Reed himself.
He’d come here.
Because she’d sent him a text to show up here.
And at the corner of the building, night goggles in place?
Tyson Beaumont, doubled over as if in pain but carefully taking aim.
“Reed! Look out!” she cried.
Bang!
Too late!
Nikki screamed.
Reed fell to the ground.
Oh. God. NOOOO!
Rage bored through her. She plunged through the cattails and reeds, making her way to the shore. On land again, she slunk through the trees, her heart pounding, dread pulsing through her. If Reed were dead . . . her entire world spun on its axis and fell off. She wasn’t going to think like that. He had to be alive, she told herself. Had to.
And she had to get to him before Tyson, wounded though he might be, finished him off.
Her fingers curled over the long gaff.
A ridiculous weapon against two guns.
But it would have to work.
It was all she had.
* * *
Delacroix moved forward silently.
The pieces were beginning to fall together.
She’d heard about Margaret Duval’s affair with Baxter Beaumont and the supposition that Baxter had fathered the youngest Duval child, that he was in fact Rose’s biological father, not Harvey Duval.
Daddy Dearest.
Delacroix thought about that. It made sense in a twisted, sick way. And gave her own life a new meaning. She’d spent so many years not knowing, not understanding, and now it was all coming together—the fractured pictures in her mind:
Owen shuttling her out of the theater and leaving her, crying, with strangers
.
A dark ride with two arguing strangers, the acrid smell of cigarettes and beer and then, a few days later, being left with new people. Kind people. Worried people who insisted she call them Mama and Papa. Nervous people who insisted she never talk about what happened in the “before” time. It had been scary and upsetting and she’d cried herself to sleep in a room all of her own and decorated with pink bunnies and kitties . . .
Mama and Papa. Her throat closed as she thought of them and how disappointed they were with her, unhappy that she’d always wanted to know more, had never totally forgotten . . .
Owen, her brother, had saved her. Not that she had understood at the time.
Not that she’d completely put it together, only remembering small moments for years.
Now, though, as she stood in the forest, her splintered life came together; her hand was rock steady as she pointed her service weapon at the back of Tyson’s head.
Tyson, the one who had taken her sisters.
Tyson, who had choked the life from those little, innocent girls.
Tyson, who had hidden them deep in the bowels of his home, placing their hands together and locking them away in his grandmother’s secret crypt.
Tyson, who was her own half brother.
Tyson, the murdering bastard.
Now she knew.
She took a bead on Tyson and nearly squeezed the trigger, when he suddenly whipped around, staring into the darkness, as if he’d heard her. Sensed her presence. “Watch out,” he said to Ashley.
He cocked his gun, his eyes, in his night-vision goggles, searching the darkness.
Good.
He’d see her.
Recognize her.
And then, by God, she’d blow him away . . .
* * *
“I killed him! I killed him!” Ashley was frantic. “Tyson. We have to go. Oh, God, you’re hurt . . . we have to go. Do you hear that? Sirens. They’re coming and I killed him.”
“Killed who?” he demanded, concentrating on the wilderness surrounding the inn. He’d seen a woman out there, a woman with a gun. She’d fired at him, then disappeared, but the pain in his crotch. He could barely think.
“Go inside,” he said.
“No, no! I’m going home. I need a lawyer. You need a lawyer. I killed him, Tyson. Did you hear me, I killed the cop!”
“The cop?” What was she talking about?
“Reed. Detective Reed. He was coming. Right there!” She flailed wildly with her pistol, gesturing toward the parking area, to her Bentley. “He was out there. And I killed him.”
“Just go inside.” Tyson needed to think. Things were falling apart. Nikki Gillette had been here and she’d taken off, getting away after nearly neutering him, and then there was the cop in the woods. He’d recognized her. Delacroix, Reed’s partner, and now the lead detective himself was here? Ashley was right. They needed to leave.
And go where?
“Tyson Beaumont. Ashley Jefferson. Drop your weapons. Put your hands over your head and—”
Tyson caught a glimpse of her and fired, then dropped to the floorboards. “Get inside,” he yelled at Ashley. “Get the hell inside.”
“Oh, God . . .” Ashley screamed.
From the corner of his eye he saw a flash of movement. And Nikki Gillette was there, swinging something over her head.
He turned just in time to see the gaffing hook, sharp and deadly, before it slammed into his face, crunching bone, cutting flesh, causing blood to spurt.
He tried to shoot.
Bam!
The blast was deafening and he reeled, feeling his face rip apart, the hook pulling out his cheek with pieces of jaw. Blood filled his eye socket as he stared up and saw Ashley standing over him.
“No more,” she said as Nikki Gillette stumbled backward, and he caught a glimpse of Pierce Reed, his weapon leveled at Ashley as he shielded his wife with his bloodied body.
Tyson felt the blood oozing out of him as he lay on the porch, staring up at the rafters, the world growing dark. There was movement, and voices, and a siren so loud it pierced his brain.
His last image was of that younger detective, the one who had been skulking in the woods. “Go to hell, brother,” she said to him, and kicked his gun off the porch, into the weeds. “Go straight to hell.”
EPILOGUE
October, two months later
With Mikado curled at her feet and Jennings staring out the window to the bare branches of the tree outside, Nikki ignored her cooling coffee and stared at her computer screen. Her attic loft was cozy, a throw covering her legs, the chill of autumn held at bay as she worked on her next book. She’d already written a series of articles on the Beaumont estate, as she’d planned for the Sentinel, but the series had been expanded to include the Duval sisters’ disappearance and homicides. As Reed had promised, Nikki had been given exclusive interviews and she felt she’d nailed them, enough so that Norm Metzger was talking of leaving Savannah for a sports job in some town south of Tampa, where he could fish and check out spring training.
“Go for it,” she said as if Metzger could hear her. Jennings hopped onto her lap and she set her laptop aside to stroke the cat’s head.
Some things had turned out surprising. She’d put together that Tyson Beaumont had followed her in his gray truck. He’d been worried that she’d been getting too close. The same had been true with Jade Delacroix, who had placed a GPS monitor on her car as Jade figured Nikki was onto more than she was letting the police department know, which was true enough, and because as irritated as Jade was that Nikki might mess up her own investigation and tracking down of her sisters’ abductor, she’d used Nikki to help her uncover the truth.
Reed was still pissed about that.
At the newspaper, Fink was dangling the carrot of her taking over the crime writer’s job at the paper, but she wasn’t certain she still wanted it. She found working on the true-crime book less stressful and she had more time to delve deep into a story.
She was currently waiting for a call from the Houston Police as Greta and Herman Kemp had been picked up for another scam after their attempt to pass Greta off as Rose Duval had failed. What had they been thinking? Didn’t they know about DNA?
On a sadder note, the body of the boy found by Frank Mentos at Black Bear Lake had been ID’d as Billy Nichols, a runaway with a history of drug abuse. Toxicology reports had suggested that he’d overdosed, and though his death may well have been acccidental, and he hadn’t been the victim of foul play, it was a sad commentary and happened far too often.
As Nikki was trying to piece together a longer, detailed story of the Duval girls and what had really happened, for the book, she’d received some of her information from Ashley Jefferson before her attorney had insisted Ashley speak to no one, including Nikki. Ashley, who was currently out on bail, awaiting murder charges for the death of Tyson Beaumont, the man she loved and hated, while her husband, Ryan, was going through the motions of divorcing his wife and demanding sole custody of their children.
“So much for the mommy blog,” Nikki said aloud, and Mikado swept the floor with his tail. Ashley was facing other charges as well, all stemming from aiding and abetting Tyson in his abduction and killing of the Duval sisters twenty years ago. And though how Ashley had pieced together that Tyson had killed Bronco Cravens and Owen Duval was still unclear, Nikki’s recording of Tyson and Ashley’s last conversation was part of the evidence against her. Along with Nikki’s testimony.
Tyson’s need to be Baxter’s only heir had, ultimately, gotten him killed.
And then there was Rose Duval/Jade Delacroix, who, as it turned out, was now the single living progeny of Baxter Beaumont.
Fitting.
Though Jade, on leave from the department pending an investigation into her actions, seemed disinterested in the Beaumont fortune. And there was Connie-Sue, Baxter’s wife, who had lost her only son and was dealing with a mental breakdown. She probably wouldn’t be welcoming Rose into th
e family with open arms. But there were ways to cut an unhappy wife out of the lion’s share of an estate. If that was Baxter’s intent. He, too, had lost his son.
But Jade was an enigma. Two people. An innocent child, robbed of her rightful destiny, and a scheming adult who, Nikki imagined, would stop at nothing to make her way in the world, her own way.
In that respect, Jade/Rose and Nikki were alike. But Jade’s actions bordered on the criminal, maybe not only bordered but stepped well over the line between right and wrong. Nikki only bent that line . . . and just a little.
Yeah, right? Who are you kidding? You’d step over just a bit to chase down a story—be honest.
She just wasn’t certain how far Delacroix would go, how much of a risk she would take, how deep she would dive into the world of lies and deception.
Maybe it was all she knew.
Nikki glanced outside to the magnolia tree and wondered how long before Jade capitulated to accepting the mantle of being the Beaumont heir, if it were offered. Would she stand by her guns and dismiss a portion of the fortune, or would she give in? Wealth was just oh, so seductive. It would take an incredibly strong person to deny its pull.
But then, who was Nikki to say?
Time would tell.
* * *
The reverend’s house wasn’t home.
And Margaret Duval Le Roy wasn’t Jade’s mother.
For that matter, Jade was no longer Rose Duval, no matter what any DNA test proved. Yet here she was, sitting on a couch beneath a huge picture of The Last Supper, a Bible laid open on the coffee table and a woman who studied every angle of Delacroix’s face as if she were memorizing it. She probably was. And her husband, grim-faced but silent, his gnarled hands folded in his lap, sat in one of the chairs near the picture window.
“I just don’t understand why you didn’t look me up. When you started figuring things out . . .” Margaret took one of Jade’s hands and laced her fingers through those of her daughter. “I spent years searching for you. I never let the police let your case go cold, so why?”
“Oh, come on. How could I? I was five,” Delacroix heard herself explaining. “I had no way to contact you, I didn’t know how, and my parents, they wouldn’t even let me discuss it. And then, you know, the years rolled by and the people who adopted me, they didn’t want me to think of anything before. It wasn’t until I was in college that I decided I had to know. And I figured if I got into law enforcement that I might be able to find out the truth, that there would be ways I could search through records and investigate, so I changed my major, got a part-time job in New Orleans, then transferred here. I knew I was from Savannah and I read enough to realize who I probably was.”