Maybe I should have gone to The Iris and picked up my dog or gone home and had a nap or went to the office and resumed my workday. Instead, because I was (and continue to and always will be) a sucker for punishment, I headed for the lodge.
Mainly, my goal was to talk to Daisy. I’d had enough of the Hawthorne thing, and I really needed to talk to her about her accusation of my cowardice while shaking some sense into her (and hopefully Emile at the same time) while showing Sloane and Scarlett the door.
I was climbing the mountain, my car chugging its willingness to make the speed limit despite the chill air and angle of ascent when my phone chimed. I checked the text (I know, no judging) and frowned at the number I didn’t recognize.
Pulling over was a no-brainer (you’re welcome). I quickly scanned the message that turned out, to my surprise, to be from Eve.
One of the event heads had a fiancé in the family, she sent. A friend of the victim.
Who? I sent back. Wait, I already knew, didn’t I?
When she messaged me the name, I made the connection I should have ages ago. And when she mentioned what happened to the fiancé, the truth I’d missed in my distraction and haste?
I knew Miles Weston was innocent and if I didn’t move fast, the real killer was about to get away with murder.
Five minutes later, after a confirmation search of Eve’s information (I wasn’t about to take her at face value, sorry, but she was still an O’Shea despite everything), I fired off a text to Caroline Sims with a specific question.
And received my answer just before I tossed my phone aside, research complete and the young woman’s reply to the affirmative all the details I needed.
Now, hopefully, my quarry hadn’t fled the coop just yet or I’d be calling the state police. If said quarry didn’t up and disappear.
There was only one problem. As I resumed my drive, I finally glanced in my rearview mirror and realized I was being followed, and not discreetly, either. Rose Norton had pulled over when I did, was now maintaining a loose tail on me while I drove to the lodge, and from the distinctly pinched and intense look on her face, visible even from a couple of car-lengths distance, she wasn’t about to let me out of her sight.
Which meant when I tracked down my target, she’d be right there to get in my way. Not that I begrudged her the arrest, whatever. My pride didn’t care about that. It was more my concern she might bungle things in an attempt to shut me down again.
I had to do something about Rose, and fast.
This time I didn’t pull over, dialing Kit’s number with one touch, thankfully. When she answered, I got to the point. “I need your help. Rose is following me, and I have to go look into something I’d rather she didn’t know about just yet.” Kit grunted faintly on the other end, and I instantly felt bad I wasn’t telling her the whole truth. Because I was pulling a John Fleming, wasn’t I? Guilty as charged, your honor. Didn’t stop me from charging ahead, though, and I guess I could understand my father’s side of things a little better if I was willing to admit it just made sense to act and talk later. “Can you get rid of her?”
“You bet,” Kit said in her most cheery tone before pausing. “You know who the real killer is, don’t you?”
Wait, what? “Did Robert let Miles go?”
“No, but something smells. I don’t like him for it and now I’m beginning to think you’re keeping the collar to yourself.” Instead of being angry, she sounded amused. “I’ll take care of Deputy Norton. But you’d better have my desk waiting.”
Right.
About thirty seconds after the young deputy hung up, Rose abruptly hit the brakes and then did a U-turn on the highway, heading back down the mountain. Whatever Kit said to her clearly worked and I sent her a silent thank you while I finished my drive and pulled into the lodge parking lot.
Only to see the focus of my attention pull out going the other way and drive off.
I almost clipped two parked cars whipping mine around to follow, heart pounding, knowing it was dumb to pursue alone. A quick call to my husband confirmed he was just entering town limits and when I phoned Dad a minute later, he told me he was on his way.
Great. I just had to do to the target what Rose had done to me and follow along but without waving a red flag.
Except, said target then pulled off into a gas station and left their vehicle which forced me to either drive by and circle back or join them and make myself obvious.
Then again, I was from here, back and forth from the lodge all the time. I had excuses I could use if need be. Wouldn’t you know, the killer didn’t need gas, but instead headed for the bathroom on the side of the station?
And who do you think followed on foot, just in case the murderer decided to bolt for it, never to be seen again?
I pushed my way into the washroom, surprised to find the door unlocked, almost colliding with another woman who started at nearly running into me before half-smiling and leaving. Which meant, from what I could tell, I was alone with my target who stood frozen, staring and guilty, at the sink, with a small vial in one hand, hovering as though ready to pour the contents down the drain.
“I take it,” I said to Isla Alverez, “that’s the second vial of inland taipan venom you had in your possession.”
“Black mamba,” she whispered. “I couldn’t decide which was the best choice, so I brought both.” Isla looked down at it. “I figured if I dumped it here and tossed the vials in the trash no one would find them. I’d be free.” She looked up at me then, shrugged. “How did you know it was me?”
“Your fiancé,” I said. “I was told you and your boyfriend—no one said you were engaged—played with Jameson back in the day.” Isla leaned against the counter, the vial still in her hand, cap in her other, ready to do the deed. Not that I needed to stop her. There’d be sufficient trace inside the tube to confirm what she’d told me. But it would be nice to keep her distracted enough she didn’t think to do something stupid and holding a vial of deadly venom might be just the ticket. I only had to keep her talking a few minutes and the cavalry would be here. I’d had enough near-death experiences to last me, thanks. I didn’t need snake venom added to my list of close calls with the Grim Reaper.
“We did,” Isla said. “Tomas was an amazing player, so gifted. Jameson didn’t hold a candle to him.” Eldon’s description, too. Wistful, regretful, that admission, with just a hint of pride remaining.
“Tomas Ortega,” I said. “He was a rising star. Until he was thrown in prison for fraud and theft.”
Isla’s face crackled with anger, rage taking over the reminiscent moment. “It was all Jameson’s fault.” She had her own venom to spew, spittle flying as she practically screamed her excuse for murder at me. “He dragged Tomas into his deals with the devils in Chicago and my amado mio was devoured.” She shook, a droplet of the liquid splashing over the top, trickling down to touch her fingertip. If she had a papercut, even, she’d be dead in thirty minutes. But she didn’t seem to notice and went on, cooling a little in volume but not intensity. “And when he was caught and imprisoned? They had him murdered. Shanked the second day of his incarceration because he promised to tell the police everything.”
That part I knew already, at least his death. “He was going to turn on the O’Sheas.”
She nodded then, staring down at the venom, only then realizing what she’d spilled on herself, eyes widening as she set the vial down with shaking fingers and wiped the droplet on her down jacket. When she met my gaze again, hers was terrified and terrible and absent of any hope. “I would have let it go,” she said then, tears escaping, full, lower lip trembling, whole body vibrating with emotions she struggled to contain. A handful of hairs caught in the corner of her mouth, ignored, while her eyes bugged out a little, the woman within lost to the terrible hurt she lived. “They were best friends and Jameson betrayed Tomas. Got him killed. But I would have, I swear. Knowing how far Jameson had fallen, that would be his punishment, you see. And that someday the very family he fed my darling to would eat him alive.” Anger swelled again, her hands clenching, one around the cap to the still open vial standing at attention on the sink counter. “And then he breaks free of his masters and decides his own fate. This is on Jameson.” She sounded like she really believed that, zero remorse for what she’d done showing in her face. “I had hoped somehow to deliver the venom to him by injection, had planned to do so if he made it to the last table. But when he was winning and winning and they were cheering him on…” she stopped to sob once, before visibly clenching herself against her agony. “When I spotted the cut on his lip, his black eye, I knew I didn’t have to risk the investigation turning up a needle mark. So, I slipped it into his drink and let the bastard die.”
“While setting up his ex-wife in the process,” I said.
“And that creature Miles Weston,” she spit. “And George Hyde. All of whom did nothing, didn’t care that Jameson was alive and winning and my sweet Tomas…”
Was dead.
“You bought the venom from Jade? Or Miles?” Keep her talking, Fee. Any second now.
“Miles.” Isla sniffled, wiped her nose. “Jade was too careful with who she sold to, but Miles and that disgusting site of his would sell to anyone.”
“How long have you been planning this?” Where were Crew and Dad? I was running out of ways to keep her distracted, could see her getting restless.
Isla, it seemed had finally realized she was confessing when she didn’t need to. Her emotions no longer clouded her face, her instant of realization she’d told me everything now awake in her dark eyes as a plan formed in the back of her gaze.
Oh, crap. She was going to try to kill me. Lovely.
At least I had warning. And I kicked myself as we stood there, me knowing what she was thinking and her understanding I knew what she was thinking, locked in time and frozen in a tableau that should have been ridiculous, knowing if I’d just thought to bring the heavy, black pistol sitting pretty in my glove compartment for times just like this…
Crew was going to kill me.
I felt the door behind me begin to open in the instant Isla chose to make her move, ducked and dove at the same time, planning to take her out at the knees. Did so, grabbing her and pulling her to the ground beneath me, hearing the crack as her head impacted the tiles of the wall behind her, knocking her out cold.
I spun, panting, grinning, expecting to find Crew or Dad standing there, about to congratulate them on their terrible timing when I realized it wasn’t, in fact, either of the men I loved staring down at their hands, their face dripping with something, the tinkle of the vial hitting the floor at the same second reminding me of the only weapon Isla had access to.
And that fact that Rose had a fresh and bleeding cut on her cheek and said open wound?
Was slick with venom.
***