Traitor (Last to Leave Book 1)

by Nicole Blanchard

  “Reel your line in. What do you want to bet when you run that DNA again it’ll match Lola’s?” I start gathering up our gear and stowing it haphazardly. “Fuck, hurry up, Paul. I have to get to Peyton.”

  My hands turn clammy and despite the sweltering heat, I break out in a cold sweat. For a moment, as my nose fills with the stomach-churning scents of sunbaked North Carolina mud and the damp odor of rotting vegetation, I’m overcome with the same helplessness I felt in Afghanistan. The same dread of being responsible for another life and knowing there’s a possibility I may feel again—with Peyton.

  “Ford, man, calm down and tell me what’s going on.”

  My gear stowed, I start helping him with his. “Who in this town would have a motive to kill Lola and is female? Who is close enough to Peyton to fuck around with her shit, make her think she’s going crazy?”

  Paul packs up his fishing rod and dumps the rest of his beer overboard, then throws the can in the trash. While he does that, I flip up the trolling motor and wait impatiently at the steering wheel. As soon as the rest of his equipment is safely stored, I shift into gear and speed away from our peaceful little fishing spot, shattering the calm, still water with a guttural groan from the engine and a loud crash of water.

  “You can’t mean Alice,” Paul says over the sound of the boat cutting through the waves.

  “That’s exactly who I mean. Christ, Paul, she’s been systematically discounting Peyton’s credibility so even if she did point the finger toward Alice, no one would believe her.”

  It takes me less than half the time to pull up to the landing than it did to get out to our spot. With the ease of many years’ worth of practice, I line the boat up to the dock and slide it in.

  “You wait here, I’ll get the truck and the trailer.”

  “Goddammit, Ford. What do you think we’re gonna do? Arrest Alice on suspicion?” Paul yells behind me, as I leap over the side of the boat and into the murky lake water.

  “I don’t give a fuck what you do, Paul, but I’m going to find Peyton.”

  Tires spit gravel in protest when I back out of the parking spot with reckless abandon. My heart beats so fast in my chest, I’m afraid it may come right out of my mouth. I’ve been through a fuck of a lot, seen a lot of violent shit, but nothing scares me as much as the thought of realizing how good I had it with Peyton until it was too late.

  Thanking God the Marines had trained me well to act under pressure, I back the truck up into the water and wait with growing impatience as Paul lines the boat up and drives it onto the trailer. He secures it with straps and I try calling Peyton’s phone while I wait, noting she’d tried to reach me several times. Cursing myself for putting it in the glovebox, I leave a message, but the growing sinking feeling in my stomach doesn’t bode well.

  The expression on Paul’s face doesn’t inspire confidence either. I lower the window at his tap. “You coming with me?”

  “I don’t mean to be a dick, but what exactly are you planning to do here?”

  “Look, man, no disrespect, but I don’t have time to argue with you about this. Why don’t you pick up Jim and question him about where Alice was the night Lola was murdered? Push the angle of their affair. If you don’t believe me after that, then I guess I’ll be on my own.”

  “You can’t run off and do something stupid. We don’t need any vigilante justice. I’ll go back to the station, get one of my deputies to pull Jim in. Let’s do this the right way.”

  “Fine. You do that. I’m going to go get Peyton and make sure she’s safe.” I’d left her to keep her safe, and instead, I’d left her vulnerable to a killer.

  “Don’t do anything rash, Ford. I’ll send a deputy to Splatters.”

  “I won’t do anything stupid as long as you get your hand off my truck and check out what I said about Alice.” The loaner I’d gotten while my Jeep was repaired didn’t replace my baby, but it’d due.

  He raps a knuckle against the door and finally takes a step back. “You watch yourself now.”

  I don’t answer because I’m already speeding away, the boat bouncing and creaking along behind me. Precious time ticks by, but I stop at the lodge on the way to Splatters to unhook the boat. I’ll be able to move faster if I don’t have to worry about navigating with its cumbersome weight behind me.

  I get back in the truck and my phone rings as I start to pull away from the lodge. When I see Peyton’s name on the caller ID, I drop the damn thing twice before I can answer it.

  “Peyton.”

  “No, lover boy.”

  My insides turn to ice. “Alice?”

  “That’s right.”

  I swipe a hand across my face as cold sweat drips down my forehead and into my eyes. “Where’s Peyton?” I demand. “If you hurt her, I swear to God.”

  “Simmer down, Ford, or you won’t see her again.”

  Drawing in air is a Herculean task, but I force myself to listen to her. It won’t do anyone any good for me to rage at Alice before she tells me what she’s done with Peyton. “Please,” I say through gritted teeth.

  “We’re at Windy Point, Ford. And my-oh-my is there a wonderful view,” Alice answers.

  “Please don’t hurt her.”

  “I’m not. Yet.”

  The truck speeds along the unpaved road and spits up dust in my rearview. “You psycho bitch.”

  “I didn’t want it to happen this way, Ford. You have to believe me. If Lola had left my husband alone, none of this would have happened.”

  “Peyton doesn’t need to be involved.” Traffic out of town inches forward at a snail’s pace. Images of Peyton bloody and beaten flash through my mind rapid fire. My knuckles go white on the steering wheel.

  It’s Afghanistan all over again. I may not be shooting her full of a syringe of morphine, but I might as well. If anything happens to her, it’ll be my fault. Goddammit, I should have made her leave when I had the chance, then none of this would have ever happened.

  “If she would have kept her nose out of things, she wouldn’t be. So here we are.”

  Not if I have anything to say about it.

  “The sheriff is already looking into your involvement, Alice. There is no way you’ll get out of this.” I know trying to reason with her is a waste of time, but I have to try. For Peyton.

  “Who do you think they’ll believe? Me, an upstanding member of the community and the former mayor’s daughter, or the man the whole country already knows is a murderer?”

  “She was your sister.”

  The harsh bark of her laughter fills the speaker. “No real sister would sleep with my husband.” Her otherwise calm voice sharpens. “I did everything for her. Raised her. Gave her a home after she left that shit-for-brains boyfriend of hers. Convinced Dad to make her a beneficiary in his will. She dug her own grave when she took what was mine. Just like you and Ms. Rhodes here did when you wouldn’t leave well enough alone.”

  I flinch. “I’m almost there.”

  “You park your truck and come to the Point. It’s closed today for maintenance, so we won’t be interrupted. You come unarmed now, Ford. We wouldn’t want this to get ugly. No one wants that, do we?”

  “No.”

  “We’ll be waiting.”

  Click.

  The parking lot is almost empty when I pull in and claim a spot nearest to the trail for the Point. Much as it pains me, I leave my 9mm and backup in the glovebox, along with my pocketknife, and shove my phone into my jeans. Wind whistles through the trees and howls in the canyon beyond. If it were under any other circumstances, it’d be a good day for a hike, but dread clouds over the beauty.

  My ears ring at the effort to listen over the breeze as I trek the roped off trail the short distance to the Point. The trail tops a small crest, then veers sharply right. To my front, the steep slope of the mountain affords gorgeous views. To my left and right the trail extends in either direction with a waist-high safety barrier marking the way.

  Without a view of the
Point and the loud roaring of wind in my ears, I’m at a distinct disadvantage and only have one option.

  I don’t think twice about rounding the corner for whatever my fate may be.

  o

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Peyton

  I come to, my head screaming, and crack open an eye to get my bearings. A steep drop fills my vision and I gasp, my hands attempt to reach out for an anchor, my stomach pitching. The parfait I’d had for breakfast threatens to resurface and I whimper.

  “Oh, calm down. You aren’t going anywhere.”

  Feet scuffle against concrete and I arch my neck to the side to find Alice leaning against the security fencing. “Where are we?” I ask when my brain pulses in protest.

  “The Point, waiting for lover boy.”

  “Ford? Why? Alice you don’t have to do this.” My mental gears are rusty and thoughts slow. I try to move my arms and realize they’re pulled behind my back with a restraint.

  “Don’t try moving. You aren’t going to get free.”

  “How did you get me out here? What are you planning to do?”

  Alice braces herself against the barricade and studies the view beyond. “You started waking up when we got close. You did most of the work, it was a matter of keeping you upright. All you need to know is I never intended to hurt you—either of you—really. If you’d kept your nose in your own business, none of this would have had to happen.”

  “You don’t need to involve Ford. Just take me,” I plead.

  “Not a chance,” comes his voice and my stomach sinks. “I’m here now. I’ll do what you want, Alice, but you’ve got to let Peyton go. She won’t say a word about what happened, and you can take your pound of flesh from me.”

  The way I’m bound, I can’t turn to see him and everything inside me aches to see his face one more time.

  “Isn’t that sweet?” Alice croons. “Nice and easy, now, Ford. No heroics.” She steps closer to my side and the cold press of a gun barrel kisses the skin at my temple.

  “You don’t have to have a gun to her head. I’m here. I’ll do what you want.”

  She jams it into my skin and I cry out in pain, head still tender from the earlier blow. At my sound of pain, she slams the butt of the gun against my temple and I go limp, nearly blacking out again. I only manage to hold onto consciousness by clinging to the sound of Ford’s harsh shouts of protest.

  I hang limply from the post or whatever she has me tied to, my arms at an awkward angle, and my shoulders throbbing in pain, but it’s nothing compared to the maelstrom of hurt knocking around inside my skull. My thigh muscles quiver with the effort to hold my weight, and I heave myself up to lean against the post. As Alice and Ford argue, I struggle to keep from passing out. It’s only my hands knocking against a lump in my back pocket that shocks me back to clarity.

  My knife.

  A spurt of adrenaline kicks my thoughts back into gear, and I hope Alice can’t see what I’m doing as I adjust my position to fit my numb hands into my pocket. It takes a long time, longer than I thought, to fit my awkward fingers around the pocket knife. I’ve never been more grateful for my recent habit of keeping a weapon on me at all times than I am as I pull it from my jeans. It takes precious moments longer to flip open the blade.

  “What do you want from us?” I hear Ford ask. His voice is closer than it had been, and I realize he’s standing close behind me, shielding me. My already weak knees turn to jelly.

  I strain to hear above the pounding in my head and the roar of the wind to hear Alice’s reply. “You two are gonna take a tumble over the Point here. They’ll find your bodies…eventually. I didn’t want it to come to this, but you left me no choice.”

  “You always have a choice. You chose to kill Lola.”

  “That bitch told me she was pregnant!” Alice’s scream echoes inside my head and against the rock walls surrounding us.

  “Lola was pregnant?” Ford asks.

  “Five years I’ve been trying to have a baby. Five. Then she takes me out to the lake house and tells me like I should be happy for her. She was pregnant with my husband’s baby, and she expected me to let the two of them get away so they could live happily ever after.”

  “So you two went for a late-night ride and you drowned her.”

  There’s a pause and I swear the sound of the knife sawing through the rope binding my wrists together is as loud as the beat of my heart.

  “I wanted to talk to her, reason with her. But there’s no reasoning with Lola. There never has been. She told me she was going to have the baby, no matter what I wanted. Jim deserved to be happy and they were happy together. He was going to leave me, you see, to be with her. The happy little family. I had to do it.”

  “She was going to make you look like a fool,” Ford says.

  “In front of everyone! It would have killed Mama to have such a scandal flaunted around town.”

  “You did what you had to do to protect her.”

  “Yes!” Alice says, sounding pleased to hear Ford catching on. “I couldn’t let them hurt Mama, or Daddy’s memory. Jim’s been so upset since it happened I didn’t have to kill him, too.”

  She’s so nonchalant discussing cold-blooded murder it makes my skin crawl.

  “I wish we would have known the circumstances,” Ford says softly. “I would have convinced Peyton to drop the whole thing. You never meant to hurt her. You couldn’t help yourself.”

  “I wish you would have. But you didn’t. If you had, I wouldn’t have to do this. I wanted it all to go away. For everything to go back to normal. If you two had left well enough alone, it would have gone away and it would all be fine. But you didn’t.”

  Ford makes a comforting sound in his throat. “I understand now. We understand. If you let us go, we’ll drop it. No one will ever have to know what really happened. It can stay between us. We’ll leave, and your life can go back to what it was.”

  “Nice try, Ford, but you know I can’t do that. I can’t leave any loose ends. Jim and I will start over, once the shock of your deaths has passed. He’ll feel too guilty for cheating to leave me now. We’ll use Lola’s share from Daddy’s will to do a round of IVF, or adopt a baby, and we’ll be happy. As for you two, well, no one will miss a killer and a psycho. It’s for the best, really. Now, why don’t you climb over that fence there and join Peyton. It’ll be easier if you don’t fight it.”

  “Don’t go through with this, Alice. You’ll regret it.”

  “After it’s over, we’ll move on and forget. It’ll be like it never happened.” Ford grunts and I hear the scrabble of shoes against rock as they both come closer.

  My bloodless fingers drop the pocketknife and I nearly cry out in desperation. The rope is taut, but I have to hope I was able to cut through enough. I have to. I’ll only get one chance and I hope I don’t screw it up.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Ford

  The last time I had someone’s fate in my hands, I failed them. I won’t fail Peyton now. I can’t. Life has meaning again with her in it, and I’ll be damned if I lose her before I tell her that myself.

  I manage to inch closer throughout our conversation. Without taking my eyes off Alice, I assess Peyton’s condition through my peripheral vision. My chest eases when she doesn’t seem to be hurt. A little worse for the wear, but she’s alive.

  For now.

  Knowing Alice wants to keep me in her sights, I inch around until Peyton is behind me—at least a little shielded from Alice’s view—and away from the gun she’d had pointed at her head. If we make it out of this, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to erase that image from my memory.

  But I’ll spend every day trying.

  “After it’s over, we’ll move on and forget. It’ll be like it never happened.” Alice says, then lunges forward, her eyes wild with madness, spittle flying from her open mouth. The gun is pointed in my direction, its barrel centered in my vision.

  Time slows.

  My thoughts qu
iet.

  Before I can make a move, Peyton explodes into action, stunning both me and Alice, whose hold on the gun wavers. Peyton vaults over the fence, stumbling and losing her balance as her full weight lands on her bloodless legs. She tumbles into a heap with a moan. While Alice is distracted, I lock onto her waist and shove her against the opposite barrier.

  “Go!” I shout to Peyton over Alice’s screams of protest. “Get the fuck out of here.”

  Peyton gets to her knees, her lip bloody and bruised, her body covered in dust and grit. “What about you?” she asks.

  “Go!” I repeat instead of answering, because I know it wouldn’t have been an answer she would have liked.

  As Peyton takes her first steps, Alice lunges in my grasp, but Peyton is already bolting around the rock face, her footsteps pounding in the distance until they’re too faint to hear.

  “You son of a bitch,” Alice growls. I pin her back against the rock wall, although only half of my attention is on her. The rest is straining to hear if Peyton is far enough away to be safe. Which is a critical error.

  Only I realize it too late.

  Alice drops down to her knees abruptly, causing me to lose my balance. We scrabble for control of the gun that skitters across the bumpy concrete. She reaches it first.

  I see the decision in her eyes before she pulls the trigger. It’s been years since I’ve been shot, but goddamn it feels exactly like I remember. The bullet tears into my shoulder and I go down, spinning and crashing into the rock. The last thing I hear as I fade in and out of consciousness is the sound of Alice following Peyton.

  I hear Cal shouting my name as clearly as I did the last night I saw him, when everything went to shit. The pain floods over me until I’m not sure where I am—or even when I am. The gritty, earthy taste of dirt fills my mouth, my nose, seems to coat my lungs the way it used to when I was in the desert. It’s the memory of losing a brother, a life I’d been tasked to protect, that pulls me back to the present.

  When I can find my voice, the first word that comes to mind is her name. I don’t know if I speak it or shout it, but it claws out of my throat, leaving it as raw as the wound in my shoulder.