TWENTY-SEVEN 

Something hit my gut as I felt myself being lifted and thrown over a shoulder. I bucked and squirmed to try to throw my captor off balance, but it was no use. This was a strong guy. At least I assumed it was a guy. I wasn’t light and whoever had me was moving us forward without too much difficulty. “Put me down!” My voice was muffled through the bag. I bucked again, but it was no use.

I was set down violently in a chair with my arms looped painfully over the back. I heard the unmistakable zip of a plastic tie as my hands were secured to the chair. The air inside the bag was wet and heavy with my own breath, which was coming fast and hard. It was dark inside, but I closed my eyes anyway, fighting off a wave of nausea. I’d be no good to anyone if I passed out.

“Who are you?” I said. “The cops are on their way, you know. They might already be here.” I hoped my tone was defiant. “Where are the other women?” If this jerk had hurt them, any more than they already were, I’d . . . Well, there wasn’t much I could do at the moment.

“Damn,” he said. “I’m not gettin’ paid enough for this.” Footsteps ran across the floor and out the door.

I wracked my brain. He’d said only a few words, and I didn’t recognize the voice. It wasn’t Ben MacNamara, or Steve Murdoch, or anybody else I could identify. But something about it was familiar. Or not familiar. There was an accent. Not strong, but definitely not North Country. Where had I heard it before?

Then I knew. That guy who had been on Steve Murdoch’s crew with Russ Riley, who came to do the initial demo at the Bonaparte House before the murder. What was his name? Zach something.

How was he mixed up in this? Had he killed Jim MacNamara, for reasons of his own or because he was working for someone? He’d certainly had access to the cabinet where I stored the gyro spit that had been used to skewer my lawyer. He could have even been the one to set up Russ to take the fall, by telling the police that he overheard Russ and MacNamara arguing.

I heard a faint noise. A soft moan coming from somewhere to my left. The sound of slightly labored breathing. There was someone else in this room.

Zach—if it was Zach—had not secured my feet, only my arms. I shook my head. The bag was loose. I might be able to work it off and then at least I’d be able to breathe. And see who was here with me.

I rolled my shoulders and neck until the cloth came free, then whipped my head back and forth so hard I almost tipped myself and the chair. The bag finally dropped to the floor.

After the dizziness passed, I opened my eyes. I was in a room in the castle I’d never seen before, but there were lots of those. I could be anywhere. My eyes went in the direction of the sound I’d heard.

Liza lay on the bed. Her skin was pale and her normally perfect blond hair lay in a tangled mess on the white linen. She was sick. Or injured. Or both.

I gritted my teeth. Damn! Now I could see, but I still couldn’t do anything without the use of my hands. I tried standing up, and the chair came with me, but the front edge of the seat was pressed against the backs of my knees and it was impossible to move more than a few inches at a time. As I’d suspected, this was a lot harder than it looked on television cop shows. Liza was breathing. That had to be a good sign, didn’t it? But if Liza was here, where were Melanie and Caitlyn?

I wiggled my fingers, but my wrists were secured to the chair. No way was I getting free without help.

“Liza,” I called softly but urgently. “Can you hear me?” She was incapacitated, but not restrained, as far as I could tell. I glanced around the room. We were in a bedroom, rather sparsely furnished, unlike the more elaborate rooms in the other wing. I wondered if this had been a servant’s room back in the day. There was a nightstand topped by a lamp next to the bed on which Liza lay, but nothing else. No desk that might have contained scissors or a knife.

“Liza, you have to focus.” Her head came slowly around and her glassy eyes landed on my face. A glimmer of recognition passed across her features.

“I’m sure somebody will be coming back any minute,” I whispered. “Look in that nightstand and see if there’s anything in there—anything at all—that can cut these zip ties. You have to help me so I can help you. Do you understand?”

She picked up her head from the pillow and nodded weakly.

I glanced from her to the door. We still had time, but who knew how much?

Liza reached for the knob and, clearly using all her strength, yanked open the nightstand drawer. It clattered to the floor.

Damn! If that didn’t bring back Zach, nothing would.

“Sorry,” she whispered.

“Is there anything in there?” I craned my neck, but the angle was wrong for me to see.

Liza pushed herself up into a sitting position, braced herself on the bed, then stood. She started to sway. Don’t fall, I willed her. She sank to the floor and reached into the drawer.

“Pen,” she said, breathing heavily. “Book. Paper clip.”

Nothing useful. There had to be something we could use, somewhere.

“I’ll. Try.” She came toward me on her hands and knees, but she was having trouble coordinating her movements.

I didn’t think there was much she could do. She was barely moving under her own steam, and without a tool, there was no way she could break the zip tie.

“Who did this?” I said. “Do you know? Where are Melanie and Caitlyn? Where’s the nurse?”

Liza opened her mouth to speak, but before the words could come out, there was movement at the door. Both our heads turned.

A woman stood there, hands on hips, lips pursed. “Well, isn’t this touching?” she said.

My jaw dropped.

It was Lydia Ames. Legal assistant to Jim and Ben MacNamara. Her arm was extended, her leather-gloved hand holding a pistol.

“Lydia, thank God you’re here,” I said, playing dumb. Because I was pretty sure she wasn’t here to save us. And I was pretty sure I knew who’d been driving that boat Brenda and I had seen off in the distance, before we started.

She rolled her eyes. “Seriously. You are the biggest pain in the ass I’ve ever met.”

It almost sounded like a compliment. “What are you doing, Lydia? Why am I tied up?” Where were the cops? They could have swum here from the mainland by now.

“Do you know how many times you’ve messed up my plans? I’ve been working on this for years. Years. And then you came along and had to start sticking your nose in. People didn’t really have to die, you know.”

Keep her talking. Stall. It was my only hope. “What have you been working on?”

She rolled her eyes again. “The Bloodworth Trust, you idiot.”

“But you said you’d never seen it before Jim MacNamara . . . died.”

“Puh-leez.” She gestured with the gun. “Do you actually think I could work in an office for that long without knowing every file and how to access it? A locked drawer is nothing when your boss leaves his keys on the desk when he goes out for a walk.”

Liza sat up and leaned against the bed. Silently, I begged her not to try anything. She wasn’t restrained, but she was weak. And we just had to stall long enough for help to arrive.

“So you killed Jim? How’d you manage it? Pretty clever, setting up Russ Riley to take the fall.” Flattery, though it made my stomach roll, was worth a try.

It didn’t work.

“Spare me,” Lydia said. “Yeah, I did it. While he was working there, I had Zach Brundage find me a weapon in your kitchen, then get Russ to touch it. When Jim went out for coffee, I called him and told him you asked him to stop by the restaurant. Zach had already let me know that the construction crew was done for the day. There was plenty of time while you were at the accountant and the hair salon. I put on the topcoat and wore it back to the office.”

“Where you hung it up, conveniently obvious, so it would look like Ben had done it? But why?” I dreaded the answer to my next question, but it had to be asked. “Are you another heir of Elihu Bloodworth? My cousin?”

She gave a little snort. “That trust is my inheritance. But sorry, no. We’re not related, and this”—she swung the gun in an arc from me to Liza, who was still conscious and upright, but barely—“is not some family reunion. It’s my inheritance from Jim MacNamara and his bratty kid.”

“I don’t understand.” My jaw was tight and I could feel the kernel of a migraine forming behind my eyes.

“I don’t suppose you would. But I put up with those two for a lot of years. The pats on the head and ‘I couldn’t appreciate you more’ and ‘If my wife calls, tell her I’m in court,’ with fifty-cent-an-hour yearly raises and no retirement?”

“But you had a settlement from your divorce.” The headache was beginning to grow. My face and bound hands felt clammy. I was still in my coat and boots and I was sweating.

“I knew that wouldn’t last forever. So I created my own business. I think of myself as an investment company. An investment in me. Funded with the Bloodworth Trust money, which I figure I have just as much right to as your mother and your cousin. Maybe not a legal right, but they’d never done anything to deserve it either. I saw an opportunity and I took it.”

“You said, ‘People didn’t have to die.’ So who else have you killed?” Her next words confirmed what I’d been thinking.

Her face hardened. “I didn’t kill anyone,” she said. “Other people knew about the trust—or thought they knew about it. Whatever they did, it’s not on me. But it is on you. You’re the one who keeps picking at the scab. Well, now you’re going to bleed.” She waved the gun again.

The dull ache in my shoulders from the odd angle my arms were positioned throbbed in time with my accelerating pulse. Keep her talking. “Is Ben MacNamara in on this? Are you working together?”

Lydia rolled her eyes. “You’re kidding, right? No, young James Benjamin is about to get himself disbarred for various other fraudulent activities. Just as soon as I finish you all off—and make it look like your friend Liza here did it in an attempt to keep all the Bloodworth Trust money for herself—an anonymous letter will be going to the grievance committee in Albany detailing his transgressions. I almost—almost feel sorry for him. He’s way out of his league.”

“But what about Jim MacNamara? He must have known what you were doing.”

“Where do you think I got the idea? Jim and I worked together, not Ben and I. For years. We were going to split the money we . . . reinvested. But then I found out Jim was cheating me—had been cheating me—because he was paying Jennifer Murdoch to keep their escapades quiet.”

I opened my mouth to say something, anything, to keep her engaged. But she was apparently done with the confession, because she came toward me. Lydia placed the pistol close to my temple. The smell of oil, intensified by my own sharpened senses, stung my nose. My heart rate increased again. Please let help arrive. Like now.

Lydia pulled the gun away, backed up a step, and smiled. “I’m going to regret not finishing you off myself. But it’s better this way.” She made a sudden move toward Liza, who’d managed to keep herself sitting up during this exchange, and grabbed her by the arm. Lydia yanked her to her feet and marched her over to me. My friend’s face had a sickly cast but she looked me in the eye. Not going down without a fight, she seemed to say.

Lydia placed the gun in Liza’s limp hand, then wrapped her own gloved hands around Liza’s. I saw what was happening. Lydia was going to make it look like Liza killed me. “Where are Melanie and Caitlyn?” I said. “Are they already . . . dead?”

Lydia repositioned Liza’s arm. The gun was now being swung slowly toward me. “Maybe,” she said. “If they’re not, it won’t be long now. As soon as Liza finishes you off, she’ll administer the final doses of poison to all four of them, that nurse included.”

Four? For someone so focused on money, Lydia apparently couldn’t count. Movement in the doorway caught my eye. Brenda! I held still, kept my gaze trained on Lydia.

Liza, apparently marshaling whatever strength she had left, began to struggle against Lydia to keep her from seeing Brenda. Lydia held Liza in an awkward position and was trying to keep the gun in Liza’s hand. But Liza’s arms were longer than Lydia’s and she used the additional leverage to keep Lydia off balance.

Brenda took advantage of the struggle and raced into the room, our redheaded cavalry. She had something in her hand and made a sudden movement. Lydia cried out, stiffened, and fell to the floor, the gun dropping harmlessly from her hand. Liza staggered away, then dropped onto the bed, breath ragged, her strength spent.

Brenda kicked the gun away from Lydia and leaned over her prostrate form. “Glad to see this thing works.” She held up a Taser and grinned.