The Perfect Bride (16 page)

“I do,” Zack said.

Ed and Ray shook their heads.

“Mine’s in my office,” Adam told Ed. “I’ll bring it back up here for you and we’ll call you from Zack’s phone so we can communicate what’s happening.” He just had to hope they’d be able to get a workable cell signal in this weather. If not, they’d have to figure out another system, with someone probably
running back and forth, which would take far more time.

“Sounds good,” Ed acknowledged.

“Great. Let’s do it.”

Leaving Ed behind, Adam broke for the door with the other two. He didn’t exactly relish the idea of heading out into the storm, but he didn’t have a choice. It was a big job, one that would require as many hands as possible. Sutton Hall was his responsibility. He couldn’t
sit by and leave its welfare in the hands of others when his help was needed. Even if it meant venturing out into the wind and rain.

Even if it meant being unable to watch out for Jillian while he was out there.

She’s fine,
he told himself.
She’s with Meredith. They’re both fine.

But telling himself that didn’t do anything to ease the dread he could feel pooling in his belly at
the thought.

* * *

“W
HAT
ABOUT
SOMETHING
like this?”

Seated on a sofa across from Meredith, Jillian looked up to find the other woman holding up a magazine for her to see. “Oh, that’s nice,” she said. “Let’s keep that one in mind.”

Smiling, Meredith marked the page and turned it to the next.

Jillian returned her attention to the magazine in her own lap, not absorbing it
any more than whatever Meredith had just shown her. She did her best to look as if she was perusing it for wedding ideas the way she was supposed to, trying not to let her restlessness show.

Outside, the wind seemed to have picked up, the frenzied howling matching the churning in her gut. She’d meant what she’d told Adam. She believed they could figure this out. She just needed to figure
out how.

Perhaps his investigator would find something. In the meantime, she had to try to get the staff to open up to her more, as unlikely as that seemed. Unfortunately, with everyone busy dealing with the storm, she’d probably have to wait until it was over to find out for sure. Which left her biding her time, sitting here when all she wanted was to be doing something, anything at all.

“Excuse me.”

Jillian raised her head at the sound of the voice. Rosie stood in the entryway. In her hands she balanced a tray bearing a teapot, a small pitcher and two cups.

“I heard about the commotion,” she said, her expression still tense and grim. “I thought you could use some tea.”

“That actually sounds wonderful,” Meredith said. “Thank you, Rosie.”

With a curt nod,
the woman crossed the room and placed the tray on the table between them. Straightening, she glanced warily at the window on the far wall. “Tea’s good for a day like this. Calms the nerves.”

“Do you have a lot of days like this around here?” Jillian asked.

“Sometimes,” Rosie said distantly. “In the spring. This one’s worse than most, though.” With a shudder, she turned away from the
window. “I need to get dinner cleaned up.” Her face still creased with worry, she strode from the room.

Jillian studied the scene outside the window. Rosie was right. It was bad out there, virtually pitch-black. Jillian was pretty sure it had gotten worse, the wind howling louder, the rain pelting the glass like bullets. It barely seemed like the window should be able to withstand the onslaught,
as though it would shatter at any moment.

Like the window upstairs had when the tree came through it. She wondered how Adam was doing, how bad the situation was up there.

“Would you like a cup?”

Jillian looked back at Meredith. Having poured a cup for herself, she had the pot poised over the other.

Jillian wasn’t much of a tea drinker, but at the moment something to calm her
nerves didn’t sound so bad. “I’d love one.”

Meredith proceeded to pour. “Milk?”

“No, thank you.”

Setting the pot down, Meredith offered the cup and saucer to Jillian.

Taking them, Jillian raised the cup to her lips for a small, experimental taste. Not bad.

As she let the warmth of the tea sink into her system, she glanced back at the window. She really could see nothing
outside. It was as if the rest of the world had ceased to exist, making them seem even more isolated out here than ever.

Isolated with a killer.

Suppressing a shudder, Jillian turned away from the glass. She would certainly be glad when the storm was over, for more than one reason.

* * *

A
S
SOON
AS
Adam reached the first floor with Ray and Zack, he moved toward his office.
“I’ll meet you both out there as soon as I can,” he told them.

Nodding, father and son headed toward the back to retrieve their coats.

Adam quickly made his way to his office. His cell phone was on the desk where he’d left it. Picking it up, he checked the battery level. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d charged it. He had to hope it had enough power left—

The landline on
the desktop suddenly rang.

He was prepared to ignore it when he remembered the call he’d placed to his investigator earlier. He’d had to leave a message. This might be them calling back. He really would like to get them started on the background checks as soon as possible.

He reached for the phone. “Sutton Hall.”

“This is Vince at Best In Class Rent-a-Car. I’m trying to reach Jillian
Jones.”

Adam frowned. Why was the man calling the house number? “Have you tried her cell phone?”

“Yes, sir, but I didn’t get an answer and she left this number as a secondary contact so I thought I’d try it.”

Of course. “I’m sorry, I’m not sure where she is right now. Can I take a message?”

“I just wanted to let her know we had the car checked out. It looks like somebody played
a prank on her.”

Adam froze. “What do you mean?”

“It appears somebody poured sugar in the gas tank, which clogged up the filter and caused the engine to stop running. Didn’t do any damage to the engine, but was enough to get her stranded. Stupid kid stuff. Doesn’t even work half the time, but in this case, it did.”

After everything that had happened to her, Adam didn’t believe for
a moment it had simply been a prank. Someone had deliberately sabotaged her car. But why?

“Thanks for calling,” he said into the phone. “I’ll definitely let her know.”

Lowering the phone, he quickly thought back to the day her car had died. He wasn’t the only one who’d been in town when someone would have tampered with the car, he remembered.

Ed was in town then, too.

Ed, who
hadn’t come back with the sugar Rosie had asked for.

It had to be him. But why would Ed want to sabotage Jillian’s car? To try to hurt her? Was he the one behind everything that had happened to her since she arrived here?

Standing there thinking about it wasn’t going to get him any answers. There was one surefire way that would.

Adam bolted for the door.

Leaving his office,
he quickly headed to the living room, needing to check on Jillian, needing to know she was safe.

He peeked into the room, instantly spotting her. She and Meredith sat across from each other on separate sofas. Their heads were bowed over the magazines, papers and various items they had spread out in front of them.

A sigh of relief worked its way from his lungs. No point in disturbing
them.

Jillian was safe with Meredith.

He needed to talk to Ed—now.

* * *

A
DAM
.

Jillian felt the prickle of recognition at the nape of her neck. Her heart lifting, she automatically glanced behind her toward the door to the room.

No one was there.

Jillian frowned as she took in the empty doorway. She could have sworn he was there, right behind her.

She nearly
shook her head. The place must be getting to her. She was imagining things.

She felt Meredith glance over at her, then twist her neck to look toward the door. “What is it?” she asked.

“Nothing,” Jillian said quickly. “Just thought I heard something.”

With a shrug, she turned back to the magazine in front of her. She wasn’t surprised she was imagining things. She was suddenly exhausted.
Probably not a surprise given how little sleep she’d gotten the past few days, not to mention how much had happened today alone.

She gave her head a hard shake. She didn’t have time to be tired. Not while Courtney’s killer was still out there, still unidentified. She needed a plan.

Swallowing a yawn, Jillian willed herself to focus.

She had to figure this out.

* * *

A
DAM
FOUND
E
D
where he’d left him in the room the tree had crashed into. He was breaking off some of the branches, leveraging his body weight against some of them to get them to weaken.

For a moment, Adam stood in the doorway and watched the man. He considered everything he knew—or thought he knew—about this man he’d worked with for a year. He was a good worker. Always pleasant, always had a smile.
But a killer? Adam never would have guessed it.

“Ed, I need to talk to you.”

The man stopped what he was doing and glanced back at him. “Got the phone?”

Adam looked down at the device in his hand, surprised to realize he’d forgotten all about it. “Yes, but that’s not what I need to talk about.”

“What is it?”

“The rental company Ms. Jones got her car from called. They had
the engine checked out to see why it stopped running. Do you know what they found?”

The utter stillness that gripped Ed’s body, giving him the appearance of a trapped animal, told Adam he knew full well.

Ed dropped his head. “No,” he mumbled. “Why would I?”

“Because you’re the one who poured sugar in her gas tank, aren’t you?”

The man didn’t respond at first, swaying uneasily
on his feet. “Don’t know what you’re talking about—”

He didn’t even have the words out before Adam lunged forward in a burst of fury, getting right in the other man’s face. “Don’t you dare lie to me right now! Damn it, tell me the truth. Did you also push her down the stairs? Attack her in her room?”

Ed’s eyes flared with alarm, with desperation. “No!”

“Why should I believe you?”

“I didn’t want to hurt her! I was just trying to scare her a little. I just wanted her to go away.”

“Why?” Adam demanded.

“She’s not safe here.”

“Right! From you!”

“No! That’s not it. I was trying to protect her.”

“Jillian?” It didn’t make any sense.

“No, not her.”

The man was talking in riddles. He was trying to protect somebody by sabotaging Jillian’s car,
but not Jillian herself. That only left one possibility. “Rosie?”

Ed finally looked Adam square in the eyes, his expression desperate and pleading. “You understand, don’t you? A brother has to take care of his sister.”

He wasn’t making a damn bit of sense. “What the hell does your sister have to do with this?” Adam exploded.

The man’s eyes skittered away, his shoulders slumping
so that he looked thoroughly defeated.

Ed’s words turned over and over in Adam’s mind, a vague suspicion beginning to take hold. His first impulse was to reject it. It was ridiculous. It was crazy.

As crazy as a killer targeting brides at Sutton Hall.

With a creeping sense of dread, he knew he had to ask. He forced out the question.

“Ed, who is your sister?”

* * *

F
OCUS
.

Jillian had repeated the order so many times it was starting to lose all meaning. It certainly wasn’t doing any good. If anything, she could barely keep her eyes open.

She opened her mouth to say something to Meredith, hoping the conversation could keep her awake, only to have a yawn emerge. Fighting it back, she realized it had been a while since Meredith had said anything, either.
She glanced up at the other woman.

Meredith was slumped in her seat, her chin resting against her chest, her eyelids shut.

Frowning, Jillian stared at her. Meredith’s chest rose and fell gently, her breathing deep and even. She was asleep.

That was strange. Meredith hadn’t seemed that tired. Then again, Jillian really hadn’t been, either. And now she was. So groggy.

No, something
was wrong here, she realized, alarm starting to break through the fuzziness in her head. Something... Why couldn’t she seem to think?

“I thought she’d never drift off,” a voice said.

Jillian turned her head toward the speaker, a process that seemed to take an eternity. Why was she moving so slowly?

Rosie stood in the doorway again. She stared at Jillian blankly, her face wiped clean
of all expression. But her eyes seemed cold. Furious, even.

At least that was what it looked like to Jillian, though she was having trouble focusing, the woman’s face wavering slightly before her eyes.

“You wanted her to drift off?” she asked. Heck, even her voice seemed funny, her tongue feeling thick and fuzzy in her mouth.

“Of course. I needed her out of the way for this.”

Only then did Jillian catch the open malice in the woman’s steely tones, the sound sending a shiver of warning through her.

“And now I just have to take care of you.”

Chapter Fifteen

“Rosie.”

It was the answer Adam had somehow expected, but that still didn’t mean it made a damn bit of sense.

He stared at the bowed head of the defeated man before him in disbelief. “What are you telling me?” he demanded. “Rosie’s not your wife?”

“No,” Ed confirmed sadly. “She just got to telling people that and I went along with it. Was easier than
fighting with her and it made her happy. God knows, there were few enough things that could do that.”

“Why would your sister tell people you were married?”

Ed sighed heavily. “Rosie always wanted to get married, ever since she was a little girl. Was always pretending to be walking down the aisle, talking about putting on that white dress, used to make me act like I was her groom and
march around with her.” He grimaced. “When she was nineteen she got engaged to this fellow in the town where we grew up. She was finally going to get that wedding she’d been talking about all those years. Except in the end he ran off with somebody else. Stood her up at the altar. I’ll never forget what she looked like standing there when they told her he’d gone off with another woman. Like somebody’d
ripped her heart out. I mean, that’s basically what the guy did.

“She never got over it. She...had some troubles after that, tried to kill herself, started lashing out at people. She wasn’t fit to be around people for a while. They took her away and put her in a home for a time. But after our folks died, I couldn’t afford to keep her there, so I brought her home to keep an eye on her myself.
But Porter, the man she was supposed to marry, had come back with the woman he ran off with and they were living there. When Rosie came back things got ugly, and I had to get us out of town.”

Adam felt a flicker of disquiet thinking about just how “ugly” things must have gotten that they would have had to leave town.

“We started traveling around, looking for work where I could keep an
eye on her and she could stay out of trouble. When we came here, it seemed perfect. Quiet. Out of the way. And when she saw that picture in the front hall of Mr. Sutton and his wife, she wanted to live here most of all. She told Mr. Sutton that we were married before I could say different, said she was humiliated having people know she was an old maid who needed her brother to take care of her.
I didn’t know how to tell him the truth without having to explain why Rosie would say something like that. We needed the work and I didn’t want him to figure he wouldn’t want us around. So I went along with it and let everybody think we were married. It was easy enough. We have the same last name and all. And it made her happy.”

“What about you? Didn’t you ever want to get married yourself,
have a family of your own?”

“I never had time to think much about it. I had to take care of her. And frankly, after hearing her talk about weddings and marriage all this time, it kind of put me off the whole thing.”

Adam supposed he couldn’t blame him for that, but there were a hell of a lot of other things he could. “You had to know it was a bad idea to have her here once we started
having weddings.”

“I was hoping I could keep an eye on her well enough to keep her out of trouble. I was hoping it would be all right.”

“You should have told me the truth.”

“She’s my sister. I was just trying to do right by her.”

“What about the people she hurt? You obviously knew she was responsible for what happened to Courtney Miller.”

“I didn’t know for sure,” the
man protested weakly.

“But you had to suspect. And when Jillian ‘fell’ down the stairs? Did you know Rosie pushed her? Or was that you, trying to ‘scare’ her?”

“I wouldn’t do that! I wasn’t trying to hurt anybody.”

“You were just willing to stand by and do nothing while Rosie did.” As the man had implied earlier, Adam could certainly relate to the instinct to do right by his sister.
But what the man had done—what he’d apparently let Rosie get away with—was in no way justifiable, sibling loyalty be damned.

From the way the man wouldn’t look at him and didn’t bother trying to defend himself, he knew it, too.

But Ed wasn’t the real problem here. Knowing exactly how disturbed Rosie was, Adam was no longer sure Jillian could be safe as long as she wasn’t alone. He didn’t
want Meredith anywhere near the woman, either.

A sense of foreboding suddenly filled him, every instinct going on alert.

“I need to find out where Rosie is.
Now.
”

* * *

J
ILLIAN
STARED
AT
the woman in bewilderment. “What are you talking about?” she said weakly. Even her voice sounded faint. “Take care of me?”

Moving with an unmistakable sense of purpose, Rosie stalked toward
her. “I can’t let you go ahead and get married, can I? Not when you don’t deserve it. Not when you’re nothing but a tramp.”

The words didn’t make any sense. None of this made any sense. “I don’t understand.”

Before Jillian could protest, the woman bent down and hooked her arm around Jillian’s back, hoisting her out of the chair and fully upright. Jillian couldn’t seem to get her legs
under her. It didn’t seem to matter as Rosie practically carried her toward the door, Jillian’s feet barely touching the ground.

“You’re just like the last one,” Rosie muttered, her voice thickening with anger. “No, you’re worse. I saw the way she looked at Zack, with lust in her eyes. She was going to put on that beautiful white dress and marry someone when she was panting after somebody
else. But at least she didn’t go to bed with him. Unlike you. You slept with Adam, and you still sat there, planning your wedding, preparing to marry one man when you had the stink of another on you.
Whore.
”

The woman’s insults didn’t even penetrate the haze clouding Jillian’s mind. The only thing that did was one stark fact. “You killed Courtney.”

“I had no choice, now did I?” Rosie
said, with what almost sounded like pride. “I couldn’t let her desecrate the sanctity of marriage. I couldn’t let her make a mockery of those sacred vows she clearly didn’t respect. Neither of you deserve that ceremony. You don’t deserve those vows.
I
did. I saved myself. I never looked at another man. And I never got that beautiful wedding. I never got to be a bride, or a wife.”

“But you
are married,” Jillian protested, trying to make sense of the woman’s rambling.

“Lies,” Rosie hissed practically in her ear. “It’s all lies. Lies so nobody would know my shame. I had to pretend Ed was my husband to keep anybody from knowing my disgrace. Knowing that I was living with my
brother,
that I didn’t have a husband and never had. I had to live this pale imitation of a real woman’s
life, everybody thinking I had what I’d really been robbed of.”

Ed wasn’t her husband? This wasn’t making any sense, along with so many other things. For instance— “What are you going to do to me?”

“I’m afraid you’re going to take an unfortunate tumble down the basement stairs. They’re so steep, I’ve always been afraid someone would fall and break their neck. Sadly, it’s going to be
you.”

“You can’t think you’ll get away with this.”

“Of course I will. Just like I did with the last one. Nobody figured out she didn’t die in an accident, and no one will with you, either.”

“
I
figured it out,” Jillian declared. A surge of fury rushed through her, piercing the fuzziness in her head and giving her a brief burst of strength. “I didn’t come here to get married. Courtney
Miller was my best friend. I knew her death was no accident. I’ve told people back home about my investigation. If anything happens to me, they’ll know it was no accident.”

“But you didn’t know it was me, otherwise you would have been more suspicious and you wouldn’t have drunk the tea. That means no one else does, too.”

“Someone will come along now. They’ll see what you’re doing.”

“Everyone’s busy dealing with that tree. Ray and Zack are outside. Ed and Adam are all the way upstairs on the other side of the house. Grace went to check the other rooms in the west wing to make sure there weren’t any other problems that needed to be handled. And Meredith’s taking a nap.”

“They’ll still know it wasn’t an accident. They’ll find the drug in my bloodstream. They’ll know
I didn’t just fall.”

“By the time anyone finds you, most of it should be out of your bloodstream. And I’ll leave some of the pills in your luggage so they’ll think the drugs were yours anyway. Too bad you took some before you decided to snoop.”

“But they’ll know Meredith was drugged, too.”

“Obviously
you
did that, to give yourself time to snoop. After all, the pills are yours.”

They’d made it to the dining room. Rosie tsked softly under her breath. “You’ve only given me one more reason why you have to die. Pretending to be a bride? You really have no shame, do you? No respect for what that means.”

Clearly there was not going to be any reasoning with the woman. She was completely insane. Jillian’s only chance was to fight back physically, not with mere words.
She struggled to force her limbs into compliance. She got only the barest flicker of response. They felt numb, almost as if they were no longer attached to her body. Panic rose inside her the more she struggled to get any kind of reaction from them. She didn’t believe Adam would believe this was an accident or there was any way Rosie would get away with this. But that wouldn’t do Jillian any good
if she was dead.

“That might actually make this work better,” Rosie muttered under her breath. “It’s going to look suspicious to have another bride die around here. But if you’re not really a bride then it won’t look so strange. Everyone already knows you’ve been poking your nose around here, going places you don’t belong. It only makes sense that you’d try to go down to the basement. These
stairs are steep. Anybody would trip and fall on them. Too bad for you that you decided to sneak down there when everyone was busy with the storm.”

At this point Jillian suspected the woman was no longer trying to convince her. Rosie was simply talking to herself, her frenzied ramblings only deepening the impression that she’d gone that far over the edge.

They finally reached the kitchen,
Rosie pushing through the revolving door. Jillian immediately spotted the open door Rosie began guiding her to.

The doorway to the basement.

It stood black and empty. Waiting for her.

Frantically, Jillian tried harder to get her limbs to move. She felt the faintest, tiniest trace of response in her arms and legs. She worked harder, trying to build her strength, trying not to give
her efforts away. Maybe the woman would think she’d finally passed out, maybe she would lower her guard. Jillian needed her to, needed every advantage she could get. She might have only one chance to strike, only one shot to fight the woman off.

She finally felt her muscles begin to tighten, her strength gathering, wanting to lash out. She couldn’t do it too soon. She needed just the right
moment. She would need every last bit of strength, even if she wondered if there was really any way she could fight the woman off, any way she could prevent her from throwing her down those stairs...

The door came ever closer. Jillian’s terror climbed with each step that brought them nearer.

This was it. She had to do it. She’d have to use whatever strength she had. The door was only
ten feet away.

Then five.

Three—

“Rosie, stop!”

Adam.
Jillian recognized the voice immediately, joy and relief and excitement exploding inside her in a giddy rush. He was here. He’d found her.

Her body tensing in shock, Rosie whirled around, pulling Jillian with her, in front of her—

So she no longer faced the basement door.

Rosie’s hold relaxed the slightest
bit.

Now.

Adrenaline surging, Jillian jerked her leg up and stomped hard on Rosie’s foot. At the same moment, she threw her elbows back, driving them hard into the woman’s gut, propelling herself forward.

With a screech, Rosie’s hold loosened entirely, releasing her.

Jillian tumbled forward, the floor rushing toward her. Her legs flying upward, she kicked out to ward the woman
off further, making contact one more time.

She landed hard on her belly, her arms and legs crashing against the floor. Cringing at the pain, she automatically tried to scramble onto her hands and knees, knowing she had to get away, knowing Rosie was still coming after her. Terrified, she managed to turn her head back toward the woman.

Or where Rosie should have been.

Jillian froze,
her heart thudding in her ears, shock ricocheting through her.

Rosie wasn’t there.

The doorway stood empty, gaping with darkness.

Then Jillian heard it, an eternity later, the crack at the bottom of the stairs, the terrible snap, the noise so ugly and horrifying there was no mistaking what it was.

Jillian closed her eyes, bile rising in her throat in horror. No other sound
came from the bottom of the stairs.

It was what Rosie had intended for her. Instead, she’d been the one to take that tumble into the basement.

“Jillian!”

And then Adam was there, reaching for her. He gently turned her over onto her back, leaning over her once more. “Are you okay?”

“I think so,” she managed to say. “Just...drowsy. Meredith?”

“She’s out cold, but I think
just sleeping. I need to check on her again.”

“Go,” she murmured.

“I’m not leaving you here,” he said. In one fluid motion, he had her back in his arms. A place, she had to admit, where it felt very good to be.

Holding her close to his chest, he rose to his feet. “Wait,” she said when he would have turned away. “I need to see.” Had to know for sure.

He paused, allowing her
to glance back. Down the stairs.

Rosie lay at the bottom, her head twisted at an unnatural, impossible angle, her eyes staring blankly upward.

“All right,” Jillian murmured, already glancing away. She took no pleasure from the sight, only the confirmation that the woman wasn’t a threat anymore—and never would be again.