twenty-three

“So what’s this Jessica Fletcher plan of yours?” Jamie sat on the couch, scowling, arms crossed over his chest.

“I haven’t quite worked it out yet. That’s why you’re here.” Merry leaned against the fireplace mantle across the room from him.

“Gayle’s furious with me.”

She winced. “She seems to really hate me. You didn’t tell her anything, did you?”

“About yesterday? Are you nuts? But she knows we were involved back before I met her. Who knows what else she might have heard.”

“I’m sorry. Maybe you should go home.”

“And let you pull some loony stunt by yourself? I don’t think so. What’s got you pointing at Olivia?”

She hesitated, then plunged in. “Olivia gave Barbie an alibi, probably telling her that she’d automatically be suspected. Barbie bought it, and then when Lauri so conveniently showed up and put her finger and footprints all over the murder scene, couldn’t take it back.”

“And how, exactly, do you know the alibi’s bogus?”

“Lauri told me.”

Jamie rolled his eyes.

“No, listen. She was not only peeping in Clay’s window that night, but she’d made an earlier stop by Barbie’s for a little evening vandalism.”

He raised his eyebrows. “That waterbed thing?”

She nodded. “Right.”

“Hmm. Barbie said that happened earlier in the day.”

“Well, it didn’t. It happened when Barbie and Olivia were supposed to be working on WorldMed stuff.”

“So where was Barbie?”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe they did it together.”

She looked thoughtful. “You’re right. They could have.”

“Or maybe Barbie killed Clay, and Olivia is trying to protect her.”

“I wondered about that, too. Until I found out Olivia lied about Mama’s gun. She said she didn’t know anything about guns, and managed to imply that Barbie not only knew how to shoot, but how to do it with that particular revolver.”

“Why do you say she lied?”

“Because John Ueland and Olivia Lamente won a team shooting competition last year.”

“Chewie?”

“Yeah.” She shifted against the mantle. “I called Barbie and asked her about the gun. She sounded surprised that Olivia had told me she’d used it. Seemed distracted for the rest of the conversation.”

“Oh, please. That’s what you’re basing this craziness on?”

“You didn’t hear her.”

He grinned. “Women’s intuition?”

“More than that, smartass. And Olivia is a viable suspect, even if Clay was her stepson.”

“But why would she kill him?” Jamie asked. “You don’t have a motive stuffed up your sleeve, do you?”

She let out a breath. “Maybe. You know how Clay was so against drinking—and drugs?”

“Sure. His mother died from a drug overdose when he was a kid. Bo married Olivia a few years later.” He made a get-on-with-it gesture.

“I’ll be damned.”

“What?”

“Well, I don’t know for sure. I think there might be something hinky about the drugs that WorldMed dispenses. If Olivia was stealing them and Clay found out, he’d be furious.” She nodded. “I guess I would, too, if my mother had died from an overdose.”

Jamie sat back and looked thoughtful.

Merry toed the brick hearth. “Uh, I kind of screwed up.”

His eyes snapped to hers. “What do you mean?”

She took a deep breath. “I asked Olivia to take a look at the WorldMed documentation to see if there are any discrepancies. I said I suspected Anna Knight of being involved with drugs, and wanted to make sure it didn’t have anything to do with WorldMed. I was really looking for information about Barbie.”

“And that was a big, big mistake,” Olivia said from the doorway into the kitchen.

Merry’s head jerked up, her mouth open. Jamie’s hand went to his hip for a gun that wasn’t there.

“Because,” Olivia examined the forty-four she held. “That means I have to kill you, too.” She sighed. “Goddamn it, why couldn’t you just let it go, Merry? Now your crazy little cousin is going to be blamed
for even more death.”

Merry heard a muffled thump out on the porch, but Olivia didn’t seem to notice. She tried to stall. “So it was about the drugs. Why did you kill Denny?”

Olivia’s forehead creased. “Clay told him, and the little bastard thought he could blackmail me into letting him in on the operation.”

Being right about Denny’s greed didn’t make Merry feel any better right then. Olivia was trying to act like she had everything under control, but she was obviously a mess. Her unbound hair straggled in greasy wisps around her pale face, and she wagged her head in an exaggerated fashion, which made Merry wonder if she’d been sampling her own product.

“This sure has turned into a mess.” She sounded apologetic as she pointed the gun at Merry.

Jamie spoke for the first time. “Did Bo find out you murdered Clay? Is that why you killed him?”

Olivia covered her mouth with one hand, tears brightening her eyes. Her hand dropped away from her face as she said, “Bo tried to talk to Clay, tried to convince him not to turn me in for the drugs. But it didn’t work, Clay wouldn’t listen to his dad. So I went over to Clay’s myself. He got really nasty, wouldn’t listen to sense. Then I made the mistake of offering him money, and he completely blew up. I didn’t even think, just grabbed that gun from the living room and shot him.” The tears spilled over and streamed down her face. “I couldn’t tell Bo. I knew what it would do to him, and I loved him too much. But after a couple days he got suspicious, started asking me questions. When he finally came right out and accused me, I told him the truth. I told him I’d shot his son.”

She slumped, leaning one shoulder against the doorframe. Merry could see her shaking. “He came after me. My sweet, gentle husband came after me with a pitchfork.” A choking sob made her next words almost unintelligible. “I had to defend myself. I didn’t mean to kill him. I didn’t.” Her eyes pleaded with Merry.

“But once he was dead you set the fire in the barn to cover it up.” Merry’s voice was flat.

Olivia pushed away from the doorjamb and swiped the back of her hand across her wet cheek. Her other hand tightened around the gun. “Shut up. You don’t understand.”

Jamie said, “You’re only making it worse. You can stop it, right now.”

She pointed the gun at him. “No, I can’t.” There was a finality in the three words that arrowed new terror through Merry.

Then a familiar fury erupted, as if something exploded in her gut and only her skin held in the red heat. Merry fought it, afraid of the prickling of her scalp, trying to control the urge to rush the other woman and pummel the life out of her for all the death and grief she’d caused. She couldn’t do that again. There had to be a better way. There had to be.

The shot was deafening. Jamie lurched against the back of the couch as the bullet angled through his chest. He blinked at Merry, a small gesture that seemed to take forever, then slumped forward.

Merry gaped. “No!”

Not Jamie, please not Jamie.

The gun swung toward Merry. She dove through the doorway to her bedroom as the gun went off. The bullet pinged off the stone fireplace chimney, spraying shrapnel as she sprawled on the floor.
Another shot percussed the air. She kicked the door shut, reached up, and turned the lock.

A bullet ripped into the door by the latch, scoring Merry’s arm as she regained her feet. She grabbed a ladder-back chair from against the wall and jammed it under the now-wobbly doorknob. Racing to the window, she threw it open and tried to punch through the screen. Her fist bounced off the screen. Knuckles burning, she drew back to try again, then realized it would be quicker to unfasten it and pop it out. In seconds, it fell to the ground outside.

Olivia had stopped shooting. Merry heard the faint creak of the front door opening. The other woman had heard her trying to get out the window and was moving to cut her off.

To cut her down.

Merry went to the door and eased the chair from under the knob, then stood to the side and opened it with slow care. The living room was empty except for Jamie, who had fallen to his side, one hand clutching at the shirt in front of the bullet wound. His eyes were closed. His blood soaked the green velveteen of the couch, turning it a dark brown.

She bolted through the living room to Jamie’s side. He was still breathing. A noise came from the porch. Merry jumped up and dashed into the kitchen. If she’d miscalculated, and Olivia was in there, Merry would at least have the element of surprise.

It was empty. The door to the backyard off the mudroom was wide open. Still moving, Merry reached for the cordless phone. The kitchen window shattered as the big gun boomed again, blending with a hollow punk as the bullet punctured the side of the refrigerator scant inches from her head.

She abandoned the phone and dashed out the open back door.

Have to get help for Jamie. Have to stay alive to do it.

Pressing her shoulders against the rough, weathered boards of the house, she sidled quickly along the stones of the foundation toward the rose garden. Olivia would already be on her way around the house, and Merry couldn’t be sure which direction she’d come from. She ran across to the deer fence and hurried to the back side of the garden. She crouched down, screened from the house by the tangle of overgrown rose bushes, and tried to keep her breath shallow.

Light flickered through the seething clouds above, and thunder muttered soon after. She strained to see the back of the house.

If she could make it down to the trees, she could circle around, approach the barn from the front. But there were eight hundred yards of open meadow between her and the wooded area. Still it was dark, and maybe she could …

A sudden flash of lightning illuminated the house and yard—and Olivia standing by the back door, looking in her direction. Merry held her breath, ears poised for sound, waiting for her eyes to readjust after the brilliant strobe of light.

“I know you’re out here. We can do this all night if you want. I’ve disabled the phone, and I’ve got your keys. And Merry? I know your mama sold all your daddy’s guns. Give it up, and we’ll do this quick.”

But Mama hadn’t sold all of her daddy’s guns.

“You know what I think? I think you’re behind those roses.”

A bullet ripped through the foliage four feet to Merry’s left. Olivia couldn’t see her, or she wouldn’t have missed by so much. Hell, given that trophy in Chewie’s she wouldn’t have missed at all.

Merry eased all the way to the ground, lying flat. The sharp edges of the bunchgrass that had sprung up around the garden bit into her arms as she watched Olivia through the petals of a drooping flower head. She thanked providence she’d chosen a navy T-shirt to wear with her jeans that morning.

Olivia approached. Merry coiled her muscles and dug the toes of her boots into the ground, ready to jump and run or attack if the opportunity arose.

Her adversary paused on the far side of the garden, squinting into the roses. Merry found herself praying to some indeterminate deity.

Make me invisible.

Let her get closer. Let her stumble onto me before she knows what’s happening.

The sound of metal striking metal rang out from the front of the house.

Olivia whirled and ran, gun at the ready. Merry sprang after her, veering around the opposite side of the house, cutting to the right before she reached the front and angling behind the old garage.

Lotta was parked in the circular drive, the Lamentes’ rust-colored Ford pickup snugged up behind it. No other cars, but someone else had just slid into the equation.

As she reached the corner and prepared to dash across to the rear of the unused chicken coop, Merry heard running footsteps. She froze, watching. A figure, mere shadow, moved under the maple tree by the barn.

“Hey!” Olivia shouted from the direction of the house.

The shadow disappeared around the back of the barn. Olivia went after it.

Who else was here? Friend or foe?

Izzy whinnied from her stall. Fear stabbed through Merry all over again at the sound.

It began to rain, huge drops that raised puffs of dust as they cannonballed to the ground. She ran to the barn entrance, silent on the balls of her feet. It was pitch black inside, the smell of horse strong. Feeling her way along the stalls, she struggled to hear, but the rain on the roof drowned all other sound. As a child, the barn had been her favorite place during rainstorms; now the cacophony was a nuisance.

Or maybe not. If she couldn’t hear Olivia, Olivia couldn’t hear her either.

She touched the wood of the loft ladder. Her hand slipped as she swung up to the first rung, and a chunk of wood slid under the skin of her palm in the same place that she’d taken the splinter moving the wood at the Lamentes’ fire. It stung like a sonofabitch. Climb, she chanted to herself. Climb.

She ascended into a dark that was, if possible, even blacker.

Panic gripped her as she moved into the loft, her eyes wide open but completely blind. She closed them and concentrated on the throbbing furrow Olivia’s bullet had made in her arm.

No time for panic now. She was too close. The shotgun was right … over … here.

Her hand closed on the barrel, and she finger-walked along the crevice until she felt the box of shells. Pulling them and the gun out of their hiding place, she allowed herself a small feeling of satisfaction.

She set about loading the gun. The sound as she slid the antique pump action cracked through the loft, even with the drumming on the roof.

She fumbled a shell out of the box and dropped it. Felt around, but it had rolled beyond her reach. With care, she extracted another and, feeling to make sure the metal cap was on the right end, slotted it into the gun. She couldn’t remember how many shells the Remington would take. Three? Or would it take more? There wasn’t a plug in this old thing, but it had a relatively short barrel. Urgency made her impatient, and when it seemed full at three, she rose from her hunched position to her knees and ratcheted a shell into the chamber.

Armed and more than ready, Merry made her careful, crouching way back to the ladder. She reached the edge of the loft without incident and lay down with her head hanging over. The dim rain-soaked light from the square of open doorway looked like the entrance to nirvana after those long moments of blindness. Still, it didn’t illuminate any of the barn.

Olivia could be down there. Waiting for her.

A chance she’d have to take.

Climbing down the ladder took longer than going up, encumbered as she was by the twelve-gauge. The extra shells she’d slipped into her jeans pocket weighed against the fold of her hip. She lost count of the rungs, wasn’t positive how many there were anyway. She cursed herself. How many times had she climbed them? How many times had she looked at the ladder in passing? Maybe eight rungs. Maybe ten.

Her weak ankle gave out, and her foot slipped on the slick, well-worn wood. Pinwheeling, she fell backwards and hit the floor of the barn’s central aisle with a thump. Izzy snorted from her stall.

She’d only been a couple of rungs up, and while falling had twisted away so as not to stick her foot through and break her leg. The shotgun remained in her grasp.

Things could be worse. Get the hell up.

She rolled to her side, pushed herself to her knees, and stood. At least Olivia wasn’t in the barn; despite the drumming on the roof, she would have heard Merry’s fall and come at her.

Creeping to the door, she peered around the edge into the pouring night. The rain was letting up, but the wind whipped at the maple, filling the air with the subtle roar of wet, slapping leaves. If she were Olivia, where would she be waiting? Not inside—too easy for Merry to go cross-country. Someplace where she’d have a good view of the area around the ranch. There were no good options for that, and in this downpour seeing very far was moot. So she’d be on the move, trying to outthink her.

Merry had to find Olivia before she found Merry.

Better yet, wait in the barn until Olivia came looking for her here. Ambush her.

Jamie doesn’t have that kind of time.

As she watched the shadows for any hint of movement, a scream pierced through the wind and rain.

A figure stumbled from behind Lotta. Another strode purposefully behind. Neither was looking toward the barn, and Merry slipped out, running to the thick trunk of the maple. The bulb over the porch, though weak against the heavy night, provided enough light to see them.

“I’ll kill her, Merry,” Olivia called in a rough voice. “Get out here or I’ll do it.”

The figure turned, then. Merry could see the white, frightened face sixty feet away.

Barbie.

Olivia looked wildly around the yard, her face pale under the rain-soaked strands of hair plastered to her cheeks. She grabbed Barbie by the collar of her jacket and pressed the gun against her temple.

“No,” Barbie said. “You don’t know what you’re doing. Olivia, you don’t want to hurt me, I know you don’t. I love you.”

A sob ripped from Olivia’s throat. “I know, honey. I know. But it’s totally out of control now. There’s nothing else I can do.”

The revolver looked huge in Olivia’s hands, and Merry could have sworn they were shaking. Without warning, she switched her hold on the firearm and hit Barbie, an arcing blow of the gun butt on her left shoulder. Barbie cried out and crumpled to the ground next to the truck. Merry brought the shotgun to her shoulder, sighting down the barrel as she steadied herself against the tree trunk.

“Come on, Merry,” Olivia called again and let go of the gun with one hand to wipe at her cheek. “There’s no reason to draw this out.”

Merry pulled the trigger.

Or tried to. Nothing happened.

The safety, stupid, the safety.

As she fingered the button under the trigger guard, she realized it was a good thing the gun hadn’t gone off. In her impatience to get the thing loaded, she’d forgotten to screw a choke on the end of the barrel and Olivia hovered too close over Barbie. A blast from this far away with the unfettered scatter shot would injure, perhaps even kill, them both.

Barbie came up fast, driving her shoulder into her tormentor’s stomach. Olivia spun to the side as Merry crowed in approval and ran toward them.

“Damn it!” Olivia panted through gritted teeth, her face twisted
in pain, but she didn’t fall. She pointed the gun at Barbie.

“No!”

Olivia looked up to see Merry fifteen feet away, pointing the shotgun at her. She turned but kept the huge revolver pointed at the woman at her feet. Regret settled across her features. She grimaced and Merry knew Barbie only had a moment before Olivia pulled the trigger. She took the shot.

Nothing.

Olivia’s eyes widened in surprise.

Barbie grabbed her leg.

Olivia stumbled, and Merry ejected the dud shell, shuffling awkwardly forward and cursing humidity and time for ruining the powder. Olivia raised her gun again as Merry worked the pump and paused to pull the trigger again, only a dozen feet away.

The sound put all the thunder to shame. A dinner-plate-sized wound bloomed in Olivia’s abdomen, but somehow she staggered backward without falling. A part of Merry marveled; the force of the blast should have knocked her flat.

Olivia looked down, then back up at Merry, a question in her eyes. Barbie scrambled around the back of the truck. Slowly, Olivia looked down at the gun in her hand. Watched it drop from her fingers into the mud. Her eyes rose to meet Merry’s.

She smiled and something like gratitude flickered in her eyes before all the light went out. She collapsed to the ground, a puppet without strings.

Merry crept forward, still leery. But Olivia was thoroughly dead.

Barbie joined her. “Thank God.” Her voice quavered and tears streaked her face. “Thank God.”