We all stared at each other for a fraction of a second.
“I guess it was too much to hope that y’all had run off into the storm,” the man said.
Ria lifted her arms, the gun in both hands, leaning slightly forward, legs spread. No doubt the shooting stance she’d learned in basic training.
The man rounded on her, swinging the lantern. A sickening crunch, and she crumpled.
Somebody screamed. I think it was me.
The pistol skittered across the floor, into the shadows.
“Buddy, go get gun!”
Says something about your life that he knows the word gun, Ms. Snark commented.
Not now!
I launched myself at the half-naked man. We went down, but somehow he ended up half on top of me. He grabbed for my throat with one hand.
Heart thundering, I fended him off with an elbow.
I looked around frantically. Where was my dog? The lantern, on its side, cast weird shadows, but offered little illumination.
“Buddy, protect. Jump!”
Buddy pounced out of the darkness, knocking the man against the bedframe. I scrambled out from under him, remembered the shears, and reached for them. They were gone, apparently knocked out of my back pocket during the struggle.
I jumped to my feet, scanning the floor around me.
A groan to my right. My gaze flicked in that direction. Ria was up on her hands and knees, shaking her head.
The door flew open. I whirled around.
Bruce stood in the doorway, holding another lantern. “What the–”
A sigh was halfway out of my mouth when I sensed movement near my leg. I jerked away and looked down.
Another banshee scream. This time, it wasn’t me.
The man’s arm was stretched toward my ankle, but Ria, still on her knees, had grabbed him. She held him in a headlock, one hand clutching his hair. He screamed again.
Bruce shook himself like a dog waking up from a bad dream. “Ellie, what are you doing? Let Luke go.”
“Hang on to him, Ria,” I yelled, afraid Bruce’s use of Ellie’s name would call her out.
I looked around for Buddy. He stood off to the side, the pistol’s handle held gingerly between his teeth.
I ran to him and took the gun. “Good boy,” I crooned, almost crying with relief.
Ria rose to a stand, her elbow still wrapped around the man’s neck. He managed to get his feet under him but was bent over backward in an awkward pose.
“Ellie, let him go.” Bruce took a step toward them. Even in the poor light, I could make out his anguished expression.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I’ve got the gun.” I held it out, pointed toward the man, Luke.
Ria let him go and took a step back.
Either Luke hadn’t heard me or he didn’t care that I was now armed. He rounded on Ria and tried to grab her.
She thrust one hand against his chest, holding him at arm’s length. But his arms were longer.
I danced around, trying to get a clear shot, but not sure if I’d be able to pull the trigger. I’d never fired a gun at all before, much less at a human being.
His hands closed around Ria’s throat.
I’d reversed the gun and raised the butt in the air to club him, when Ria cocked back her free arm. She slugged him.
He teetered for a moment, a shocked look on his face. Then he fell.
Jack appeared in the doorway, a shotgun in his hands. He nudged Bruce aside and scanned the room. “Y’all okay?”
Bruce didn’t seem to hear Ria’s and my attempts to explain what was going on. He crouched next to the man.
I gave up for the moment and went searching for the roll of duct tape. It was on the floor next to the nightstand.
Jack apparently had been listening. He came over and handed me his shotgun. “Keep him covered.”
I stuffed the small pistol in my pocket, much more confident with a shotgun in my hands. I didn’t really know how to shoot it either, but I figured it would be easier to aim.
Jack took the roll of tape and knelt at Luke’s feet. He started to wrap tape around his ankles.
Some of what we’d said must have sunk in, because Bruce made no protest.
Ria sidled over to me. “Call Lori out,” she whispered. “She handles Bruce better than I do.” Her eyes glazed over.
“Lori, Lori,” I whispered, praying I didn’t get Ellie instead.
Her eyes cleared and her posture shifted oh so slightly.
“Lori?”
She nodded, taking in the scene in front of us. “Who knocked him out?” She kept her voice low.
“You did. You, uh, Ria punched him.”
She gave me a lopsided grin. “Really? Go, Ria.”
“Why did you want her out?” I whispered.
Lori waved a hand in the air. “I’ll explain later.”
Jack was finishing up securing Luke’s wrists with the tape.
“Um,” I said, “he needs to be guarded too. We were tied up with the tape, and we got loose.”
Jack tilted his head in a single nod, then held out his hand for the shotgun.
I gratefully relinquished it. My limbs, now that the adrenaline was subsiding, felt like lead.
Lori stepped over and put a hand on Bruce’s shoulder.
He covered her hand with his. “I know we need to talk, but…”
She nodded. “Marcia and I will be in the kitchen.”
We went down the main stairs and through the dimly lit living area. Lori picked up one of the lanterns from an end table. “I’m gonna switch the fridge off and turn the blinkety-blank lights on.”
I smiled at her. I’d told her the first time we’d met that I didn’t like cussing, not something I necessarily said to most clients, but I’d figured a woman might understand.
And she’d remembered.
“I’ll get Nugget.” I turned on my phone flashlight, and Buddy and I headed for my room.
I opened the door and shone the light at the floor, so as not to blind Nugget.
She jumped up and trotted over to me. I snickered. The expression on her face was just like the one my brother used to have, when he’d been busy playing and had waited too long, then tried to cross his legs while racing for the bathroom.
“Not yet, girl. Hopefully the storm will let up soon.” Did Lori/Ellie have something we could use as piddle pads? We might have to let the dogs go inside.
That’s when two things struck me. One, I was now putting Lori’s name first, acknowledging that yes, she seemed to be the host alter. And two, she’d remembered about the cussing.
Which meant the person I’d met and liked during those first two meetings, when I’d described the process and then brought Nugget for her approval, was Lori. Although, now that I thought about it, there had been a few moments when a gentler, more timid persona had been present—Ellie.
The lights came on in my room. I blew out a sigh and turned off my phone flashlight.
In the kitchen, Lori had set out wineglasses. “I thought a glass was in order.” She brought a bottle of white wine and a corkscrew to the table.
“Didn’t Bruce get rid of all the wine?”
Lori wiggled her eyebrows. “Greta wasn’t the only one with a stash.”
I gave her a small smile. “Only one glass?”
“That’s all I can have. After two, it’s harder for me to stay out front, and one of my alters is a bit of a lush.”
Aha, Ms. Snark said inside.
“Does she like vodka, by any chance?”
“No. Why do you ask?” Lori expertly popped the cork and poured the wine.
A couple more pieces fell into place. I sat down and grabbed my glass. Wine never tasted quite so good.
“I think Luke was also trying to convince Bruce that you were a drunk. He was hiding empty vodka bottles around the house for him to find.”
“Ah, and I was blaming those on poor Greta.”
“Hey, how’s your head?” I asked.
“What? Why?”
I touched the side of my head, above the left temple.
She fingered the same area on her head—where a red lump was forming—and winced. “What happened?”
“Luke whacked you, I mean Ria, with a lantern. It doesn’t hurt?”
“Only tender to the touch, so it can’t be too bad.” She chuckled. “You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve woken up in the morning with bruises or cuts that I have no idea how they happened.”
Oh, I could believe that, but I had trouble imagining what it would be like to live life never quite knowing what someone else, who also lived in your body, had been up to when you weren’t around.
The dogs had settled at my feet. Nugget whined softly.
“I’ve got a treat for them as well,” Lori said. “Maybe it will distract them from their full bladders.” She held up a long sausage, wrapped in yellow plastic. “From Greta’s stash.”
“Any onions or garlic in that?”
She read the label. “Nope.”
“I have a list of foods I’ll give you, what’s safe and what isn’t for dogs.”
She unwrapped the sausage and called the golden retriever over. Nugget looked at me when Lori offered her half the sausage.
“It’s okay, girl.” Then to Lori, as the dog wolfed down the treat, “Only you should feed her and give her treats, and treats only when she’s working and has done well.”
I had a flash of déjà vu. Had I already told her that? Or maybe it was Ellie I’d told.
“Oh, I shouldn’t have given her that?”
“Tonight’s an exception.”
Buddy had sat up next to my knee. His tail thumped the floor.
I chuckled, and Lori held out the other half of the sausage to me. I took it and gave it to him. “You richly deserve this, boy. You saved me.”
Again! Ms. Snark’s and Will’s voices, in unison.
“What did he do?” Lori asked.
I told her how he’d knocked Luke off of me and picked up the gun.
“You sure you can’t teach Nugget those commands?”
I shook my head. “They’re not compatible with being a service dog. I can get away with it with Buddy because he’s a veteran now. He knows how to behave in public.”
I took another sip of wine. “And hopefully you’ll never need protection again. Luke will be going to jail for a long time.”
“You think so?”
“Yes. I’m pretty sure he killed Greta. She and I were near the servant stairs, talking about the possibility that the wheat flour had been tampered with, and I asked her about any enemies you might have and mentioned the pirate ghost. Luke was already in the house at that point. I think he heard us and started covering his tracks. Despite his claim that Bruce would be happy about what he was doing, I think he knew otherwise. He wanted you dead, but he also wanted Bruce to believe it was an accident, or a natural death due to the sarcopenia.”
Lori nodded, her expression grim.
“Hey, why did you have me call Ria out?” I asked. “I mean, she is a fighter, and a good one.”
“Ellie and I are… how to describe it? We’re closer in the system. We even have co-consciousness some of the time. She was near the surface upstairs earlier, when we were getting loose from the tape. She knows what’s going on. But she and Ria are more separate. I figured you didn’t need Ellie coming out and bursting into tears in the middle of a tricky situation.” She smiled and raised her glass. “Besides, I’m a lover, not a fighter.”
I returned the smile. “How does that whole switching thing work anyway?” I’d been dying of curiosity ever since Ria had let her eyes glaze over upstairs.
“If one of us doesn’t want to be out any longer, we can step back and let someone else come forward. But there’s no guarantee who it will be. It helps if someone else says the alter’s name.”
“Yes, I got that part. But I didn’t know you could initiate a switch.”
She nodded, then stared into her wineglass before taking a sip.
“Did you know Bruce was gay?” I said it gently, trying to be supportive, but again I was beyond curious to know the answer.
“I think he’s bisexual, and yes, I suspected. You know how guys turn and look when a pretty woman goes by?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, he did that with women, but also when a buff man went by.”
“What are you going to do?”
Translation, Ms. Snark said. Are you going to divorce him?
Lori shrugged and stared into her wineglass. “I don’t know. That will partly depend on what he wants to do, and on Ellie.” She took a sip of wine. “And we’ve kept our own secrets from him.”
I nodded.
“Either way, I will have my own money from now on. That will be one of my requirements if we stay together. And I’m going to make a sizeable donation to your agency.”
“Mattie Jones will be thrilled.”
Lori stared into her wineglass again. It was almost empty. “It would’ve been really easy for Luke to tamper with the salt and flour. We get all our groceries through his store.” Her voice was mournful.
I sipped some of my wine, then said in a low voice, “By the way, the bag of flour and all the loaves of bread disappeared from the kitchen around the time Greta died. But I have a salt shaker and one of the dinner rolls made from the new flour. The sheriff can get them tested.”
At least I hoped those items were still in my dresser drawers.
My glass was empty. I reached for the bottle. I could have another glass. “Speaking of Luke’s store, I’m glad Lucy wasn’t the pirate. I liked her when I met her at the store the first time, but then I realized her resemblance to Bruce’s, um, lover. I’d only seen them from a distance. That’s why I thought it was her.”
“I’m glad it wasn’t her too. She’s one of the few people in Dahlia that we’re pretty good friends with. Earlier when you told me, and Ellie came out for a few minutes—I think she was almost as upset about the idea of Lucy betraying her as she was about Bruce. Even she hasn’t been getting along with him all that well lately.”
We’d noticed that, Ms. Snark commented.
I ignored her.
“The name of the boat made me suspicious too,” I said.
“Lucinda Mae?” Lori threw her head back and laughed. “That was Bruce’s mother’s name.”
“Oh.” I gave her a chagrined smile. “Hey, do you think he had any inkling about what Luke was doing? I mean the pirate stuff.”
“No.” A voice from the doorway behind me.
I whirled around in my chair.
Bruce stood there, his eyes hollow, his skin ashen under his tan. “I don’t know what he was thinking. I’d told him a hundred times that I wasn’t going to get a divorce.” He stared at Lori. “I love…” his voice choked up. “I loved you both. And I still love you.”
Lori stood—her body had changed slightly, had softened. Ellie was out. She walked to Bruce and took his hand. “Let’s talk.”
They left the room.
I looked down at Buddy. “Hope they can work it out.”
I swallowed the last of my second glass of wine, and figured I’d better stop there. My head was swimming a bit.
I stood up carefully and went to the pantry. Grabbing two bottles of water, I said, “Come on, kids.”
The dogs followed me up to the third floor. I opened the guest room door.
Jack motioned me in. He sat on the ugly purple armchair, the shotgun resting on his knees. Luke still lay where he’d landed when Ria had hit him and Jack had trussed him up. His eyes were open, staring at the ceiling.
“He okay?” I handed a water bottle to Jack.
“He’ll survive.” He let out a low chuckle. “Physically, that is. Not sure about his ego, after being knocked out by little Ellie.”
Luke glanced our way, glared at Jack, and went back to staring at the ceiling.
“Thanks.” Jack held up the now opened water bottle in a mock toast, then took a long draw on it.
“My fiancé’s law enforcement. I got an email out to him a little while ago. Thank heavens you were able to fix the satellite dish.”
He shrugged. “It wasn’t damaged, just knocked out of the tree and the wires pulled loose.”
“Well, it looked like the email went through. If I know Will, he’ll be here as soon as the weather clears enough to navigate the river safely.”
Or perhaps not so safely, knowing Will. If he could convince some boat owner to take the risk, he’d make the trip sooner instead of later.
And he gives me a hard time about taking risks.
My chest ached from missing him. I drank some water, trying to wash down the lump that had formed in my throat.
After all I’d been through today, I refused to cry now, especially in front of Luke.
“Did you know about them?” I tilted my head in Luke’s direction.
Jack nodded. “They’ve been together, off and on, since they were teenagers.”
The wife is the last to know, Ms. Snark said.
“Was it common knowledge?”
“No, they hid it well in town. The folks around here, the white and black ones that is, wouldn’t have accepted them as a couple.”
“But you’re not bothered by it.”
He shook his head. “In my culture, homosexuality is revered. A gay person is thought to have two spirits, one male, one female. And they often have special spiritual powers.”
“Do you think Luke has special powers?” I blurted out, surprise bordering on shock in my voice.
Jack snorted. “This one. No.”
“Hey, I’m right here, ya know,” Luke called across the room.
“Shut up,” Jack snapped, “or I’ll gag you.”
I felt my eyebrows fly up.
Jack gave me a half smile. “My people may revere gay people in general, but this one…” He pointed his chin at Luke. “I’ve known him since he was thirteen. He was a selfish boy and he has grown into a selfish man.”
He took another swig of water. “You know,” he said quietly, “there is more than one way for a person to have two or more spirits.”
I intentionally raised one eyebrow this time. “You know about that.” I also kept my voice down.
He nodded.
“You’re very observant.”
He shrugged. “They’ve been married five years. And sadly, I spend more time around them than I do with my own wife and kids.”
Speaking of selfish men, Ms. Snark said.
I had to agree that Bruce Burke wasn’t going to win any prizes for thoughtfulness.
“Have you heard from your family? Are they safe?”
“Wife emailed me before the storm hit. She was taking the kids inland to her sister’s.”
“Good.” I sipped water. “I think Ellie feels safe around you.”
Which meant she might let her guard down with him. Lori had never seriously considered Jack as the culprit when we’d been trying to figure out who the pirate was. I hadn’t either, I realized now. I’d kept him on the suspect list because that’s what you’re supposed to do—never eliminate anyone without hard evidence. Will had taught me that.
Again, the lump in the throat. I swallowed hard.
“Thank you for saying that. I’m honored that she trusts me.” Jack paused for a moment. “Now she might have special powers.”
I grinned at him. “I wouldn’t be surprised.”
The lack of noise woke me. The whoosh of the wind and bombardment of rain on the roof, that had been our constant companions for hours, were gone.
I threw the covers off and swung my legs around to hop out of bed, then aborted the whole hopping idea. My body was stiff and sore, with multiple scrapes, bruises and cuts from my activities during the last twenty-four hours.
I sucked in air to blow out a sigh, and wrinkled my nose. I was still wearing yesterday’s clothes.
I eased off the bed and grabbed my phone from the nightstand to check the time. Seven-fifteen. The sun would be up by now.
The dogs were lying on the rug, heads up, staring at me, a pathetically hopeful look in their eyes.
Okay, dogs first, then a shower and clean clothes.
I moved toward the door. “Come on, you two.” On second thought, best not to take Nugget outside without a leash. I grabbed Buddy’s from the top of the dresser.
We were barely out the back door when Buddy cocked a leg over a palmetto bush. Nugget and I trotted to the edge of the lanai and she squatted in the wet leaves.
I timed them. They peed for two and a half minutes straight.
When they were done, I praised them for holding it in so long and scratched behind their ears.
A new sound penetrated the still woods.
The puttering of an engine.
I ran for the front of the house, the dogs racing along on either side.
A large cabin cruiser was maneuvering into position across the end of the pier.
No way did that thing come down the river. It was twice the size of Bruce’s customized cruiser. They had to have come around from the Gulf side of the island.
Three men stood in the cockpit. One wore a dark green uniform, the color of the majority of the Florida sheriff departments’ uniforms. Another jumped onto the pier and wrapped a line around a cleat.
The third man I would know anywhere. He was swiveling his head back and forth, scanning the beach and house. He spotted me and broke into a big grin.
I dropped Nugget’s leash and was across the yard and down the pier by the time he had stepped off the boat. I threw myself into his arms, almost knocking us both into the murky river.
He braced himself and hugged me tight.
Now I was crying. “I love you,” I managed to get out between small sobs.
“I love you too.” He chuckled and took me by the forearms to hold me a bit away from him. He was scanning my body, for injuries no doubt, but his voice was casual.
I knew better. He was good at hiding his feelings in front of others.
“Are you okay?” His eyes were worried. “You look a little…”
“Bruised and battered? I am, but nothing serious.” I threw my arms around his neck. “I missed you so much.”
Another chuckle. “Does this mean that you are eventually going to marry me?”
I knew he was just trying to lighten the mood, more of that emotional cover-up, but I heard the words, “How about tomorrow?” coming out of my mouth.
I realized, in that moment, the decision had been made back in the woodshed last night, when my inner Mom was lecturing me on making the most of the times between adversity.
No more waiting to live, waiting until it was totally safe.
Life is never totally safe.