Ona took a different road into the woods than the one the Oriels had taken. This one led to Darrell’s main entrance, a paved road stretching through the forest to a bridge over the gorge.
Alice leaned forward and looked out the windshield. Up ahead lay Darrell’s box of a house. They’d approached the front. The deck overlooking the gorge was on the other side.
Ona slammed on the brakes. Alice’s seatbelt dug into her shoulder. The pickup screeched to a halt.
“Look,” Ona said. “Kris’s car.”
A car stood parked on the narrow bridge across the gorge, blocking access.
“We’ll have to walk the rest of the way.”
“Let’s call the cops,” Alice said. “But not Chief Jimbo. The state police.”
“Good idea.” Ona brought out her phone. She looked up at Alice. “No reception.”
Alice cursed. Checking her phone, she saw the same. “Me neither. Listen, Ona, we don’t know what Kris has planned. It may be dangerous. You drive back to the main road and call the cops when you’ve got enough bars on your phone again.”
“If it’s dangerous, I’m coming with you.”
“We need to get to Darrell as quickly as possible. But we also need to call the cops. And I don’t drive stick.”
Ona stared at her, a defiant glint in her eye.
“Please, Ona. We don’t have time.“
“Fine,” Ona said. “Go.”
Alice opened the door and slipped down from the seat. She heard the pickup’s engine rumble to life, but didn’t bother to look back.
Reaching Kris’s car, she put a foot on the fender and climbed up on the back. She scrambled over the roof and slid down the windshield onto the hood. Then she was on the other side and ran up the drive toward the house.
The drive curved upward, leading to the front door. As she jogged toward the house, she hoped Kris didn’t know she was coming. Had she heard the pickup?
Above her head, the windows were matte black squares, blackout shades obscuring the interior. But since she couldn’t look in, it also meant no one could see her approach.
At the front door, she hesitated. Then put her hand on the handle and pushed down. Without even a click, the door slid open. It swung inward, soft and silent.
Inside, she found herself in a high-ceilinged hallway. Stairs to the right led upward. A passage to the left opened onto a living room. A corridor straight ahead gave her a glimpse of a kitchen and wide windows.
Considering the layout from the outside, the deck must be somewhere straight ahead.
She stepped into the living room, peeking around the corner first to make sure no one was there. A big sofa set with two arm chairs, everything in black leather. A widescreen TV on the wall, also black. A black glass coffee table. Bookshelves done in a black finish. Only the floor provided a contrast: hardwood floors with a white rug.
Another doorway to her right. She peeked around the corner.
The kitchen. A cup of coffee lay on the black marble counter, overturned, brown liquid dripping onto the white-tiled floor and forming a puddle.
She crept forward. The back wall consisted of glass, black shades pulled down to keep out the sun. But a sliding door stood open, and as Alice crept toward it, she heard voices.
“This is insane,” Darrell was saying.
There was a grating sound, like a saw biting into wood. She moved to the sliding door, making sure to position her body behind the blackout shades.
Peering through the open door, she saw Darrell.
Her heart did a somersault.
Darrell sat in a chair, heavy duct tape wound around his chest and arms and legs. Beyond him, Kris crouched down by the guardrail, sawing into the posts. She’d already cut into several of them.
Kris stopped sawing. She cocked her head and gave the post a hefty whack with her hand. It splintered.
“Nice sabotage, wouldn’t you agree, Darrell? Vince would be proud of me.”
“You’re insane,” Darrell said. “No one will believe it was an accident. How does a man who’s tied up to a chair fall into a gorge accidentally? They’ll know I was murdered.”
Kris laughed. “Oh, don’t worry. I’ll clean things up, so your death doesn’t look suspicious. After all, no one suspected Vince’s death was anything but an accident, least of all Chief Jimbo.”
“I suspected,” Alice said, stepping through the door.
Kris stood up. For a moment, she gaped. But then recovered before Alice could do anything. Kris leaped toward Darrell, grabbed the back of the chair, and hauled him across the deck, the chair legs grating on the wood.
“Wait,” Alice said. “Don’t do this, Kris.”
The knuckles on Kris’s hands were white. Her face was wild with desperation, eyes wide, jaw muscles tense. “I’ll throw him over the edge. I’ll do it.”
“And then what? Are you going to throw me over, too?”
Alice took a step closer. Kris frowned, clearly thinking about that, looking down at Darrell and back up at Alice.
“I wanted to save the bookstore, too,” Alice said.
“Then you understand why I have to do this. Darrell won’t stop, unless we stop him. Once he’s gone, Blithedale can grow in a healthy way. I love this town. I’ve never lived in a place that’s felt like home. Blithedale was meant to be full of books and arts and culture—that was Old Mayor Townsend’s vision. He had a plan.”
She let go with one hand and reached behind her.
Alice’s heart leapt into her throat. Did Kris have a gun? Was she going to pull out a knife? But Kris whipped out a little leather-bound book, small enough to fit in a pocket.
“This was his journal,” Kris said. “He jotted down every idea he had for the town, and it’s like an entire blueprint for a happy, thriving community.”
“You stole it,” Darrell said.
“I saved it. I took it before you could destroy it.”
Darrell snorted. “Destroy it? Why would I do that? It’s just an old book. Besides, I’ve never had any interest in my grandfather’s vision for Blithedale. That was a long time ago. He was a kook. I’ve got my own, modern vision for what this town will become.”
“It’s a vision of hell,” Kris spluttered, her face contorting with anger, and she pulled Darrell closer to the broken guardrail.
“You’re right,” Alice said, reaching a hand toward Kris. She needed to keep the conversation going. She needed to keep Kris from throwing Darrell into the gorge. “You’re right, Kris. Darrell’s vision for Blithedale is terrifying. And he’s willing to achieve it by lying and sabotaging. Which you discovered, didn’t you?”
Kris nodded. “Vince bragged about it. All the money he was getting from Darrell. But when I got upset, he dismissed my worries. He wouldn’t stop. Bunce and I planned to meet with the Oriels to finalize the sale of the bookstore, but Mayor MacDonald offered to take over. He often likes to step in and close a deal. I could have insisted. It was my deal, after all. But I didn’t. I saw my chance to head back to the bookstore and confront Vince while he was alone.”
Alice remembered a detail she’d glossed over—when she’d found Bunce with Mayor MacDonald and Chief Jimbo at the diner, the mayor had given her the clue to Kris’s absence. He’d said, “I remember sitting in this very booth with Bunce and Mr. and Mrs. Oriel, the four of us agreeing on the terms of the sale.” They hadn’t been five people, as they would’ve been if Kris had stayed.
“But Vince was cocky,” Kris continued. “When I confronted him on the scaffolding, he refused to stop his work. He told me to go to hell. I gave him a shove. We wrestled, he tripped over his toolbox and lost his balance, and I barrelled into him, driving him over the edge. He tried to grab me as he fell. He caught hold of my necklace and tore it off.”
“You left it behind,” Alice said.
“I couldn’t find it. I heard a sound, and I panicked and ran.”
“When you learned what Vince was doing, why didn’t you report it?”
“To Chief Jimbo? Or Mayor MacDonald? No one would’ve believed me.”
Darrell struggled against his bonds. “And no one will now. Will they believe a crazy killer? Or a hysterical runaway bride? Unlikely.”
Alice heard a sound behind her and turned. Ona stepped through the sliding door. She was holding up her phone.
“They might not believe Kris or Alice,” she said, “but they’ll believe my video recording. Oh, and what’s that sweet music I hear drifting through the woods?”
Sirens wailed far away, coming closer and closer.
“The police,” Ona said.
“But how did you manage to call the cops and get here so fast?” Alice asked.
Ona grinned. “I figured Darrell must have a landline since he lived in a house that got no cell phone reception. I was right. So I followed you into the house, called the police, and then started recording these confessions. It was a risk, but I wasn’t going to leave you alone with a killer and a crook.”
“I’m not a crook,” Darrell said, his face turning red. He fought against his bonds. His eyes darted this way and that, desperate, like a trapped animal. But the duct tape was too tight.
There was a loud crash. Kris had thrown herself at the guardrail, smashing the weakened struts.
Alice dove toward her.
Kris flew through the broken railing just as Alice tackled her, hooking her right arm around the woman’s midriff.
But gravity was already pulling Kris down over the edge of the deck, and Alice felt the weight drag her along.
She threw out her left arm and caught one of the guardrail struts. It stopped her—and her other arm tugged Kris back. Then there was a sickening rip as the sabotaged wood splintered and broke apart, and her arm came free.
She slid forward.
She screamed.
Gravity yanked her over the side.