The Last Word (27 page)

 

 

Lights were on in the living room of Harris’s bungalow. Yellow stripes escaped through the spaces in the closed blinds and fell onto the front porch. There were no cars in the driveway and the chief’s men had not yet returned, but the house did not feel empty. Hushed, but not empty.

Rawlings threw the car into park, turned off the engine, and sprang out of the driver’s seat. He moved soundlessly up the front steps, crouching low, every cell in his body on alert.

The women watched breathlessly. None of them had seen the chief in this state of sharp readiness, prowling on the balls of his feet like a big cat, one hand curled over his holster.

Olivia inched forward in her seat as the chief knelt down to peer through a crack in the blinds. She could tell by the way his hand tightened over his holster that he was alarmed by what he saw.

As though he felt her eyes on him, Rawlings pivoted and signaled for them to stay put. He then disappeared around the corner of the house.

“I don’t like this,” Laurel said in a small voice.

Millay looked at Olivia. “Someone’s in there. If it had just been Harris, the chief would have gone inside.”

“I think you’re right.” She had seen the tension flood into Rawlings’ shoulders. There was danger within the bungalow and she needed to know what it was. She needed to be certain that Rawlings would not face it alone. By the time his backup arrived, it could be too late.

“I’m going to look in the window.” Touching Haviland briefly on the neck to assure him that she’d only be a minute, Olivia slid from the car and closed the door with a gentle click. The air was filled with the sawing of cicadas, the hungry buzz of mosquitoes, and the scent of rain. A breeze tickled the back of Olivia’s neck, carrying a taste of the coolness of the thunderstorm, and the sensation helped sharpen her mind. She felt the blood rushing through her body, her heartbeat drumming with such force that surely the bats flitting about the treetops could hear her approach.

Following the chief’s lead, Olivia sank low and put her face close to the glass. She tucked her chin and looked into Harris’s living room.

There was Harris, tied to one of his kitchen chairs. His upper body had been secured with rope, and his wrists and ankles were fastened with duct tape. Face flushing a bright red, he was speaking to someone, his mouth moving rapidly. Olivia could see the sweat staining his shirt and could almost smell his fear. She moved carefully, hoping to catch a view of his assailants, but they were out of range.

Someone began to shout. It was a woman’s voice, demanding, crackling with anger and desperation. Then, the lower timbre of a man’s voice. Olivia couldn’t hear the words distinctly. The man seemed to have more control over himself than the woman, but there was an edge to his speech, as though he was fully aware that their time was growing short.

Olivia saw Harris’s eyes widen. He shook his head fiercely, and she didn’t need to be inside the room to know that he was trying to convince the man and woman of something—that his life could depend on his ability to do so.

These observations took place in a matter of seconds, but to Olivia they stretched out, like a strip of sand curving far into the distance. Everything seemed to slow. The air was charged, filled with the dense electricity and breathlessness of the moment preceding a lightning strike.

Instinct told Olivia that Harris was out of time. The woman was yelling again, and then she suddenly came into view, charging into the living room with an enraged howl.

It was Cora Vickers.

She had a revolver in her hand, and as Olivia watched, she straightened her gun arm and brought her free hand up to steady her grip. Her right thumb pulled the hammer back, and an icy resolve surfaced on her features. This was no idle threat. Cora was not getting the answers she wanted and was prepared to silence Harris for good.

The swirling thoughts in Olivia’s mind stilled, converging into one. She had to act before Cora’s ire exploded, giving her the push she needed to pull the trigger.

Rushing to the front door, Olivia banged on the wood with both fists. She could hear Haviland’s agitated barking inside the car but did not turn around. Her intention was to distract Cora, giving Rawlings a chance to gain entry and draw his own weapon. She had no idea where Boyd was and whether he was armed, but there was no time to come up with a more complex plan.

“I should have brought my Browning,” she muttered and returned to her place at the window. Cora was no longer in sight, but Harris had turned his head to the side, his terrified eyes meeting hers. He shook his head in warning and then raised two fingers behind his back. Olivia didn’t know what he meant. Had Boyd and Cora separated or were they coming her way together?

She quickly climbed over the porch rail and crouched down between the azalea bushes, listening hard. There were no more voices, just the creaks and moans of boards underfoot, barely perceptible beneath the drone of insects.

“Where are you, Rawlings?” Olivia whispered. And then, before she knew what was happening, Millay was at her side.

“Don’t bother telling me to get back in the car because I won’t,” she hissed fiercely. “What’s happening in there?”

Olivia began to creep around the corner as Rawlings had done a few moments ago. “Boyd and Cora Vickers have Harris tied to a chair. They must believe his house contains more Heinrich Kamler paintings. And Cora has a gun.”

Most women would have let out a whimper or gone wide-eyed in fear. Not Millay. She clenched her jaw and nodded. Olivia recognized that her friend would not cower before danger, nor would she back off, leaving Harris alone in a house with the couple that had likely murdered Nick Plumley.

Suddenly, like a cannon boom, Chief Rawlings shouted at someone inside. “DROP YOUR WEAPON!” he commanded.

Olivia and Millay ran to the kitchen door and eased it open. Millay reached into her boot and drew forth a switchblade. She crept into the living room and, without a trace of caution, rushed to Harris and began cutting through the duct tape and rope binding him to the chair.

Harris tore the rope from his chest and swung around to say something to Millay, reaching out his hand to shove the chair between them aside, but he never got the chance. Cora burst into the room, her gun aimed straight at Millay’s heart.

“Nick said that Evelyn’s two treasures were HERE!” She cried wildly, her eyes glittering. “In Oyster Bay! Tell me where the other painting is or she dies!
NOW!
”

And then Rawlings was in the doorway, his gun trained on Cora. She ignored him. Her eyes held a cold, predatory glimmer. Nothing existed for her other than the painting she believed was hidden somewhere in that house.

“Don’t do it, Cora!” Boyd shouted from upstairs. “Just pick one of them to take with us and let’s go!
There’s nothing here!
”

Cora didn’t respond. Boyd continued to repeat himself from the stairway until his wife’s eyes lost a fraction of their mad light and she gestured at Millay with the revolver. “You’re coming with us.” Cora darted a sideways glance at Rawlings and spoke in chilly calm. “If you or your men follow us, I
will
shoot her. I’ve got nothing to lose now.”

“Sure you do,” Rawlings answered conversationally as he lowered his gun. “You’ve got a Heinrich Kamler original. And maybe some cash and an unpublished manuscript from a bestselling author. That’s got to be worth something to someone, right?”

“Shut up, cop.” Cora gesticulated at Millay again, but Harris stepped in front of her.

“If you want a hostage, you’re going to have to take me.”

“Look at the little hero,” Cora sneered. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,
Chief
. Yeah, we’ve got a painting that’ll be impossible to sell, but it should’ve been ours anyway. Nick screwed me out of the money he owed me, and he was supposed to get the damned thing himself and give it to me, but then he went and got himself killed. We didn’t do the deed and we don’t have his damned book. We just want what we’re owed, got it?”

Rawlings nodded in understanding. “You had a hold over Nick. You chose to honeymoon in Beaufort because your ex-husband lived there and it was time for him to give you a regularly scheduled payment, wasn’t it? But he didn’t deliver.”

“No, he didn’t ‘deliver,’” Cora mocked the chief. “But he would have eventually. He’s no good to us dead. His measly life insurance payout isn’t going to last us long. We need our regular payments. We’ve got plans. Big ones. But stupid Nick screwed everything up.” She was practically snarling. “Okay, that’s enough chitchat. Kick your gun to Boyd, Chief, and get the hell out of our way.”

“Sure,” Rawlings said agreeably and gave his weapon a gentle shove with his shoe. Boyd, who had appeared at the foot of the stairs, picked it up and, after sending Cora a brief, nervous look, held the gun inexpertly in a wobbly grip. Olivia sensed that he wouldn’t even know to remove the safety before firing and that Rawlings could take him down in a matter of seconds if someone could neutralize the threat posed by Cora.

Olivia was too far from the armed woman to be of any use. Her only option was to throw something at her, but Harris didn’t have a heavy bookend or paperweight or glass vase handy. His table surfaces were knickknack free, and Olivia doubted Cora would stand passively by as Olivia unplugged a lamp to use as a missile.

Once again, time seemed to slow, the seconds extending and lengthening until Olivia had the sensation of being underwater. Sounds grew muted. The insect murmur died away, and even Haviland’s barking inside the car faded. And then, noise exploded like the roar of a hurricane gale.

It began with Boyd shouting a warning to his wife that he’d spotted a cop outside the window. Rawlings tried to keep Cora calm by assuring her that the officers were the same pair sent to watch the house. He hastily explained that his men must have realized something was amiss and that she and Boyd would be better off setting the civilians free and accepting him as their sole hostage.

“This is only going to escalate if you involve anyone else in this room,” Rawlings told her, sounding more like a nagging aunt than the chief of police.

Cora’s eyes were charged with a frenzied light. They were open so wide that the whites showed, giving her the appearance of a spooked horse.

Without warning, she lurched forward, intent on grabbing hold of Millay, but Harris put out his hand to stop her, as though his long elegant fingers could stop a bullet.

His abrupt movement caused Cora to jerk, and she pulled back on the trigger. At the same time a woman, Laurel or Millay, Olivia couldn’t tell which, cried out with a shrill “NOOOOO!” The desperate scream sounded like a cave echo, distorted and too loud in the murky, underwater world that had once been Harris’s living room.

What freed her inert limbs was the impact of the bullet hitting Harris. She only saw it from behind—the shiver of the muscles in his back as the metal seared into them. And then, a fraction of a second later, the forward fold of his shoulders; an innate, defensive gesture by his shocked and wounded body.

Another scream. Harris tottered and his knees began to buckle.

Olivia moved. She grabbed his left arm and fell with him, inviting his weight to come down hard on her, cushioning his limp form with her flesh.

Cradling his head in her arms, she squirmed out from under him and saw the blood blooming through his gray T-shirt like a poppy opening its petals to the sun. A cacophony of sound erupted above her head, but she took no notice.

Part of her mind registered the fact that the other officers had entered the house. Multiple voices exchanged shouts and threats. A woman shrieked. There was a crash of glass shattering against the tiles in the kitchen.

For Olivia, there was only the blood and Harris’s slack, ashen face. She didn’t remember stripping off her shirt, but there it was in her hand, pressed against the wound in Harris’s chest. The bullet had entered below the ridge of his collarbone and Olivia had no idea what damage it had done. All she knew was that there was too much blood pumping from his body, a spring of fresh crimson staining her pale blue shirt a deep and frightening indigo.

At some point, she couldn’t say how long, a pair of gloved hands eased her own away from her friend’s chest. A soothing voice complimented her actions and then she was separated from Harris. Two paramedics, a bag of medical equipment, a breathing mask, and a gurney appeared. Olivia looked down at her red hands as though they belonged to another person.

Laurel coaxed her into the kitchen. She filled the sink with warm water and soap and used a dishtowel to scrub Olivia’s hands. She did not speak but cried softly as she washed her friend’s fingers and palms with infinite tenderness and then dried them with paper towels, her tears speckling the countertop.

Olivia gazed from her pink, clean hands to the freckled skin of her chest. She touched her bare flesh to the right of her bra strap, seeing the hole in Harris’s chest. Laurel left the room and came back moments later with one of his T-shirts. Olivia slipped it on, and the two women stared at his company logo until the thud of the ambulance doors closing startled them into movement.

Outside, the dark yard was awash in flashing lights. Uniformed men and women milled about police cruisers, white noise emitting from their radios. They parted and fell silent when the gurney passed.

Olivia looked down and saw that she was holding Laurel’s hand.

Haviland barked again, plaintively, and the yearning in his call brought Olivia back to life. She pulled Laurel to Millay’s car as the ambulance rumbled down the driveway, the wail of its siren cutting through the humid night air, its red and white lights illuminating the pines lining the road.

Olivia hurried to turn the key in the ignition, hoping to close the distance between their car and the ambulance, needing to catch up to the pulses of light before the shadows returned to claim their territory.