“You? What are you doing here?”
Hopefully, since he stood on the lighted porch, and Ellie’s car was parked in the dark lot, he couldn’t tell it was hers. Maybe he’d think it was Cass who’d pulled up. She held her hands up where he could see them. All she needed to do was buy a couple of minutes. Surely Luke and Tank were almost in place by now, creeping closer with more stealth and self-control than Cass had mastered.
“How did you find me? Ellie called you, didn’t she?”
“No, Jay.”
“Then how did you find me?” He kicked the tricycle Ellie had turned into a planter, the one whose wheel squeaked with every fourth revolution, and sent it flying off its stand. “It was you, wasn’t it? Who told the police about the yacht? Don’t deny it. I saw you standing on the beach, staring out at me. But how did you know?”
“Why don’t we talk, Jay, and I’ll see what else I can tell you?”
Another man yelled from inside the shop, “Kill her and be done with it, Callahan. We have to get out of here.”
“No.”
“What did you just say to me?” Calvin Morris poked his head into the doorway.
Jay used the bottom of his shirt to wipe the sweat running in rivers down his face. “Get in here, Cass, now.”
No way was she going inside. She couldn’t, had to keep them outside talking until Chief Rawlins could get to them or Luke and Tank showed up.
“I said kill her. And then the other one. Or my next bullet will go in you.”
“Just wait a second, will ya, Morris? This one can help us. She sees things. Knows things she shouldn’t know. She might be able to tell us how to get out of this and off the island.”
Calvin Morris stood in the doorway behind Jay, a convenient shield if a sniper waited in the woods for a chance to take a shot. He twirled the pinky ring around and around. “Fine. Get her in here. Now.”
Jay lifted a handgun and aimed it at Cass.
Cass fought fiercely against the urge to look around for help. They had to think she’d come alone. She climbed the steps to the front porch.
Stephanie lay on the gray hardwood floor, her hair splayed around her.
“Stephanie!” Cass ran to her. She crouched beside her and pulled her hair away from her face. She pressed one wildly shaking hand against her neck, and a strong pulse fluttered beneath her fingers. Relief flooded her.
“Stephanie, wake up.” Cass turned her over and examined her.
A trickle of blood ran from a cut on her forehead. Not bad enough to have knocked her out, so why was she unconscious? Drugged?
“All right, enough of that.” Morris grabbed Cass’s arm and hauled her to her feet, then shoved her into a chair. “Start talking. How do we get out of here?”
Jay stood behind him, studying her. “How did you find us?”
May as well be honest, since the only reason she was probably still alive right now hinged on them believing she had psychic abilities. She gestured toward the porch. “The tricycle. When I was here to get chairs for the shop, Ellie was filling the basket with soil to plant flowers. One of you must have knocked into it on your way in and made the wheel spin. When I was trying to find Stephanie, I heard the sound over and over again, the wheel turning, turning, turning, and then squeaking, and I recognized it.”
Jay ran a hand over his mouth then propped it on his hip, the gun still hanging from his other hand.
“It doesn’t matter how she found us.” Calvin Morris narrowed his eyes at her. “Just tell us how to get out of here without getting caught.”
Jay turned on him. “If you’d have listened to me in the first place—”
Calvin backhanded Jay across the mouth. “Enough out of you. You were the one who insisted we come to Bay Island. You were the one who said this time of year you’d be able to score big and get out quick.”
Jay wiped a trickle of blood from the side of his mouth. “Yeah, well, I also told you we had to keep this one busy and out of our business too.”
“And what did I tell you?” Spittle flew from Morris’s mouth as he screamed. “I told you just kill her and be done with it, but you had to play head games with her, ruin her reputation, destroy her and everyone around her before you killed her. If you hadn’t come back here bent on revenge against her and everyone else in this place who wronged you in some way, we wouldn’t be in this mess, and my yacht wouldn’t be crawling with cops. Now, how are we supposed to get out of here?”
Jay looked down at his feet. “Yeah, well, it’s not my fault.”
“Not your fault?” Calvin’s face turned purple. “What do you mean it’s not your fault? You were supposed to kill her, rob the mansions along the beach, move the merchandise to the yacht, and get out of here. How hard was that?”
Jay shrugged but remained quiet.
“But you had to bring that Wells woman back here with you, had to go along with her scheme to get revenge instead of just doing what you were told.”
Guilt nudged Cass. Even though it had probably not been intentional, Olivia had inadvertently saved her.
Jay got up in Calvin’s face. “What’d you want me to do? Let it all go? Let Dirk get away with screwing me? And let Emmett go on about his business after firing me without even as much as asking me if I was guilty? And what about Cass here?”
Morris shoved him back a step. “You were supposed to do what you were told.”
Jay grabbed Cass by the hair. “And let her get away with ruining my life, costing me a fortune, siccing the cops on me, making me run from Bay Island like some kind of a coward?”
“If you hadn’t let Wells lead you around like some kind of lost puppy, talking you into playing games you weren’t smart enough to win, we’d already be out of here.” Morris shoved Jay back, and he released his hold on Cass. “You’d better just hope your smear campaign worked and no one listened to her if she told them where to find us.”
“Well, she’s here alone, isn’t she? That oughta show you something.”
Morris grunted. “Just get on with this. Get it done, and let’s get out of here.”
Jay bristled for a moment, but then turned his attention to Cass. “Start talking. Now.”
“You have to sit over here by me for me to read you and tell you what to do.” She had to draw him away from Stephanie and give Tank and Luke an opening. She had no doubt they were out there by now, and that had nothing to do with any sixth sense.
Jay dragged a chair from across the room and sat it in front of her.
Close enough for her to try to wrestle the gun from him? Probably not. Besides, she had no way to know if Morris had a gun. Just because he wasn’t waving it around didn’t mean he didn’t have one in his possession. “Could you put the gun away, please? I can’t concentrate with that thing pointed at me.”
Jay considered her a moment, then glanced at Morris.
He nodded from where he stood beside Stephanie.
Jay stuffed the gun into his waistband. “Start talking.”
She reached into her pocket.
Jay launched himself from the chair and yanked the gun back out.
“Whoa, sorry.” She held her hands out, palms up so he could see the fire agate and black tourmaline she’d pulled from her pocket. “They help me focus.”
He nodded, righted the chair, and returned to his seat, the gun still held tense across his lap. “Fine. Talk.”
“What are you doing here? What does Ellie have to do with all of this?”
“I didn’t tell you to ask questions.”
“I need to have some answers if I’m going to help.” She thought of trying to turn her cell phone to record, but after his reaction last time, she wasn’t about to stick her hand back into her pocket.
“Dirk Brinkman, that rat, sold me a bunch of paintings, supposedly from his father’s estate. He wanted to unload them cheap, but they were supposed to be worth a good amount.”
“And I told you to wait for the appraiser to get here, but no, you had to go ahead and buy them.” Morris pointed at Jay, moving a step away from Stephanie.
“His old man was worth a fortune, so I figured it was legit.” Jay shoved a hand through his hair, leaving it sticking up straight on one side. “Anyway, I brought the paintings to Ellie and told her to unload them on some unsuspecting tourist for as much as she could get. She’s supposed to be meeting me here with the money.”
“She should have been here already.” Calvin glanced at his watch, then moved to the front window, shifted the curtain aside, and peeked out.
“She’ll be here. She wouldn’t dare cross me.”
“We’ll see.”
Jay let it go and returned his attention to Cass. “Now, how do we get out of here?”
“I’ll make you a deal.”
“You are in no position to make deals, sweetie.”
“Let Stephanie go. Just leave her here, and I’ll go with you and show you the way out.”
“Sorry, Cass, but I can’t do that. Calvin here thought it would be okay to let her take care of his books when his regular guy kicked the bucket, but she turned out to be smarter than anticipated, and she figured out a good portion of his income was illegal.”
Cass shrugged, feigning a calm she most definitely did not feel. “What does that matter now? The police already have the yacht full of stolen merchandise, and presumably they’ll be able to connect it back to Mr. Morris. So, what does it matter if you leave Stephanie here? If it’s a hostage you’re looking for, you’ll still have me.”
Jay studied Stephanie for a second, then turned to Morris.
Cass held her breath. If she could get them outside with Stephanie out of the line of fire, the police might be able to take them down.
Morris looked out the window again, then turned to Jay and nodded. “Leave her. Let’s just get out of here. By the time she comes to, we’ll be long gone.”
Jay jumped up and pointed the gun at Cass. “Go.”
She stood and crossed the shop, praying the police would stop them before Jay realized it was Ellie’s car outside and not hers.
Jay yanked the door open and looked around.
Could he sense the same fear and rage that slammed through Cass the instant the door opened?
He shoved her from behind. “Go.”
Apparently not.
“Straight to the car. No tricks.”
Calvin Morris stepped out onto the porch, then gestured Jay to move with her.
Jay shoved her toward the stairs, and she stumbled and went down hard on her hands and knees. She rolled to the side, getting out of the way as fast as she could.
“Freeze, police!” Footsteps pounded over the porch.
“Don’t you move, Callahan,” Luke yelled.
Cass pushed up onto her knees.
Luke held his gun pointed at Jay.
Jay glared at Cass but made no move to lower his hands, which he held high above his head.
Chief Rawlins held Calvin Morris face-first against the side of the shop while she cuffed his hands behind his back.
Tank ran in the front door.
Bee’s strong arm wrapped around Cass from behind. “Come on, Cass. Move back and let the police do their jobs.”
“I have to get to Stephanie, Bee, please.” She had to get to her, had to see for herself she was okay. “She’s hurt.”
“All right, honey, come on.” Bee helped her to her feet and wrapped an arm around her waist, hugging her close as he guided her toward the front door. “Girl, I am going to knock some sense into you later, if Luke doesn’t beat me to it, but right now I’m just so grateful you’re okay.”
She leaned into him. “Thanks, Bee.”
Tank was on his knees at Stephanie’s side. Tears tracked down his cheeks as he smoothed her hair away from the cut on her head and murmured softly to her. He took her hand in his and pressed it against his lips.
A paramedic had arrived to examine her and started an IV.
Cass knelt by her head, unable to stem the flow of tears that had built up throughout the ordeal. “It’s okay, Steph. It’s over.”
“Are you okay, Cass?” Tank squeezed her hand.
She nodded.
“Are you hurt?”
She took stock. Her knees would probably be sore for a few days, but she was otherwise unharmed. “No, I’m okay.”
“What you did was incredibly brave, and I cannot begin to tell you how grateful I am to you for saving her.”
Her gaze shot to his. She hadn’t known what to expect from him. Anger, maybe? A lecture about how she should have waited for backup before rushing headlong into danger and putting Stephanie at risk. “Stephanie is my best friend in the world, Tank. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to save her.”
He swallowed hard. “If you hadn’t come in, we wouldn’t have made it in time. They’d most likely have killed her when Ellie showed up.”
Even though she suspected the same thing, the confirmation sent a chill up her spine.
The paramedic gestured for a stretcher, and Tank lifted Stephanie onto it.
“I’ll meet you at the hospital,” Cass said.
Tank nodded and walked beside the stretcher toward the waiting ambulance, Stephanie’s hand still clutched tightly in his.
Bee helped her to her feet. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and kissed her temple. “You did good, Cass. You’re amazing.”
She leaned against him, suddenly exhausted and shaky as the adrenaline rush subsided.
“Cass!” Luke strode across the shop toward them.
“I’ll meet you outside,” Bee whispered.
Luke squeezed Bee’s shoulder as he passed him, then yanked Cass into his arms and clung to her like his life depended on it. “Are you all right?”
She nodded against his chest.
“Are you hurt?”
“No, I’m good.”
He finally loosened his hold and looked down into her eyes. “What am I going to do with you, woman?”
She laughed. “First you’re going to take me to the hospital to make sure Stephanie’s okay, and then you can take me out for that dinner you promised. Or I guess breakfast at this point. Turns out confronting a killer makes you hungry.”