“Did someone go see what’s keeping Claire?” asked Ross. He thought she’d gone in search of another camera battery, but maybe he’d misheard. It had been more than an hour since he’d seen her.
A very busy hour. The Bellamy family reunion ballooned into a huge affair. Both brothers had big extended families, lots of grandkids and a few greats. Some of the kids were getting an early start on the fireworks, probably too impatient to wait for dark. He could hear them going off down by the lakeshore.
“I did.” Ivy’s voice sounded tense. “I went to find her.”
“Well?”
“She’s gone. And, um…Ross, I don’t actually know how to say this. Granddad’s antique Tiffany ring is missing from the cottage, too.”
Ross took a step away from his cousin and Natalie. In the distance, the dancing went on. He could see his great-uncle Charles dancing with his wife, and nearby, Granddad with Miss Darrow. After all Granddad had said about the past, today could have been an emotional train wreck. But it hadn’t. It had been a celebration of joy, all because Granddad and Jane and his brother chose to focus on the love in their hearts, not rivalry or bitterness, not the vanished past.
“Ross? What’s going on?” asked his cousin.
“I have to go,” he said hurriedly. “Tell Granddad—just tell him I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Y…you’re supposed to be under arrest,” Claire said through clenched teeth.
“And your friend the prosecutor’s assistant is supposed to be alive and kicking,” said Vance Jordan. He looked exactly the same—like a TV cop, handsome and strong.
God. Dear God. It was happening all over again. And it was all her fault.
“I’m disappointed in you, Clarissa,” said Jordan. “You were smart for a long time, staying quiet the way you did. You kept our secret, not like those other two. Most people have trouble keeping secrets.”
She hadn’t had any trouble at all. It was easy for three kids to keep a secret when two of them were dead.
Everything she had come to believe about the terrible vulnerability of love turned out to be true. The moment Vance Jordan assured her that if she tried anything, the Bellamys would start to die, one by one, she shut down. There was not a doubt in her mind that he’d make good on his threat. She did everything he asked of her. Everything.
The small float plane bobbed at the side of the dock, tugging at its mooring line. Sounds bounced off the sheer rock walls that edged the lake. She could hear birdsong and the sighing of the wind, the lapping of the water against the pontoons of the plane.
She didn’t ask what his plan was. He was going to force her to hand over the pocket with his blood on it, the one piece of physical evidence that tied him irrevocably to the murders. And the sad thing was, she would surrender it without a fight. Too much was at risk now. She’d entwined her life with Ross and his family, and that gave Vance the ultimate power over her.
That didn’t mean she’d given up. She still had the transmitter in her pocket—the ugly watch she’d removed earlier.
The consummate police officer, Vance had bound her hands with zip ties, but not her feet, since he needed her mobile. He looked away for a few seconds while checking a portable GPS, and she used the heel of her sandal to loosen the mooring rope from the cleat. The line had been hastily tied, and slipped loose.
Vance himself had once told her that there was no such thing as the perfect crime. The bad guy, he’d explained, always managed to do at least one careless thing. Find that one thing, and you nail your guy.
Back when they’d had that conversation, she’d never imagined him as the bad guy. Now, everything she used to admire about him scared her—the strong, manly hands, the square jaw, the decisive attitude.
The sharp look of rage as the breeze blew the float plane away from the dock.
“Fuck,” he said. “Grab that line. Do it now.”
Claire played dumb. “What? What line?”
The plane drifted farther. Jordan cast around, probably looking for a pole, but there was nothing. “Damn it. You’re going in after it.” He clipped the plastic zip tie to free her hands, then shoved her off the dock.
The chilly water closed over her. A sound like none she’d ever heard before drilled through the water—the zip of a bullet. Every part of her recoiled, though she knew she wasn’t hurt. He’d pulled off a shot to show her he meant business. If he’d meant to hit her, she would be dead.
She held her breath for as long as possible, stalling for time. This prompted him to fire another shot. Then, when she was on the verge of exploding, she surfaced.
“Grab the fucking rope,” he said. “Do it.”
She flailed, grabbed for it, missed on purpose, keeping his attention on her. It was crucial to keep him distracted, because she’d seen a shadow flicker in the trees along the shore. They weren’t alone.
“I’m trying,” she gasped. “Just…don’t—”
He fired again. At the same time, Ross approached from behind, stooping low and grabbing Vance’s ankles. He yanked back, and Vance fell flat on his face. Even through the echoes of the gun’s report, Claire heard the air rush from his chest. The gun skittered across the wooden planks and fell in. Methodically, in a way that reminded her that Ross was a trained soldier, he delivered pitiless blows to Vance’s eyes, neck, groin, with movements as fluid as a dancer’s. Then he frisked Vance and took a second gun from an ankle holster.
Only seconds had passed. Claire was treading water, holding the mooring rope in her hand. Shaken to her core, she slowly swam to the dock, looping the rope around a cleat. She held the edge of a pontoon, and looked around, trying to decide how to get out of the chilly water.
Ross was using his belt to tie Vance’s wrists behind his back.
“Claire—”
“Don’t move,” said another voice.
Claire froze. “Teresa.” She could see Vance’s wife reflected in the surface of the lake. Teresa had been waiting in the plane all along. Now she stood on the pontoon, holding a cable shroud in one hand and a gun in the other.
“Drop that, or I’ll shoot her,” said Teresa.
Without hesitation, Ross let go of the small handgun he’d taken from Vance. It dropped into the lake and sank out of sight.
Good move, thought Claire.
Teresa stepped from the pontoon onto the dock. “Get out of the water,” she ordered Claire. “Make it quick.” She turned to Ross. “And you—keep your distance.”
Claire levered herself up between the pontoon and the dock. Her arms were shaking. She was shaking all over.
“Are you okay, baby?” Teresa asked her husband. “Please, tell me you’re okay…”
Vance groaned. “Just stick with…the plan.”
Claire’s thoughts whirled. Teresa’s involvement came as a surprise, yet it shouldn’t have. She loved her husband to excess; it was one of the first things Claire had noticed about her. Claire remembered thinking Teresa would freak out if she found out about Vance’s affair with Ava, his partner at work.
Claire had no idea whether or not the affair was still going on. She knew she might get herself shot if she opened her mouth—but she also might give Ross a chance to act.
“Ask him if Ava Snyder’s part of that plan,” Claire said.
Teresa’s face froze, and Claire knew she was on the right track. “He and Ava are lovers,” Claire explained. “They’ve been lovers for years. I’m surprised you didn’t figure it out by now.”
“Liar.” Teresa pointed the gun at Claire’s chest.
Claire felt as if her bones were about to melt with fear, but she kept talking. “He took a ring from Mr. Bellamy, a priceless antique Tiffany ring. He’s planning to give it to Ava.” She was speculating now, but sensed she was on the right track. “Check his pocket and see for yourself. He played you for a fool, living in your fancy house, spending your money—”
Teresa squeezed off a shot. Claire staggered back, and Ross lunged for Teresa. He stopped when the gun pointed at Claire again. As the sound of the shot echoed off the quarry walls, Claire said, “Ross! I’m all right.”
Vance wasn’t, though. His wife had shot him somewhere vital, judging by the dark blood spreading across the dock. Teresa stayed eerily calm. “I always have a plan B. Now I just need to decide on a setup. That’s my specialty, remember?”
Claire looked at Ross, so deeply afraid, she couldn’t think.
“Could be, the gallant boyfriend rushed in and executed his lover’s captor,” Teresa mused. “That’s predictable, though. I love to keep people guessing. Now I’m thinking Clarissa will be the shooter. There’s a peculiar poetic justice in having her murder her once-trusted foster father….”
There was a flash of sound and then a fleshy thud. Teresa’s face lit with an expression of pure startlement; then she pitched forward.
“I have a better idea,” said George Bellamy, lowering his bolt-action rifle. “How about none of the above?”
“Granddad? Holy crap,” said Ross.
George looked pale but determined. “You’d better see if there’s anything you can do, son.”
Ross checked Vance’s pulse. “Gone,” he muttered, moving on to Teresa. “She’s still with us, though,” he said. And he did his duty, keeping her alive until the medics came.
“I didn’t mean to ruin your party, George,” said Claire. Clutching a thermal blanket around her, she leaned against Ross, unwilling to detach herself from him, even for a moment. The area swarmed with emergency vehicles as the medics and police took charge.
“Good heavens, you didn’t ruin a thing,” he said. “I’m just thankful you’re all right.”
“We’re all thankful,” added his brother, Charles.
She was still shaking as she thought about what she’d nearly brought to this innocent, happy family. Yet no one had hesitated to protect her, a stranger with a false identity. The extraordinary goodness of their actions shook her to her core.
Ross held her shoulders, and his touch was the only thing that soothed her. “Everything’s okay now,” he assured her. “The police will need a statement after you get into some dry clothes.”
One of the police investigators was conferring with a colleague and gesturing at George Bellamy.
“Charles, I might find myself in need of a lawyer,” George said to his brother.
“That’s funny. I was about to offer my services.”
“In that case, we’re a perfect match.”
Charles offered his arm for George to lean on. The two old men walked away together, surrounded by the deep jewel-toned twilight reflecting off Willow Lake.
Ross tightened his arms around Claire, holding on as if he’d never let her go. “Welcome back, Clarissa Tancredi,” he whispered, pressing a kiss to her temple. “Welcome back.”