Deadly Fate (Krewe of Hunters #19)(93)

Marc Kimball looking like hell.

Marc Kimball never saying a word.

Marc Kimball, so close to Emmy she believed that he was holding the woman at knifepoint...

When it had been the other way around.

“Be right there!” Emmy called out.

Clara made her way quickly to the door. To her vast dismay, she realized that it was locked.

Locked from inside. Locked with a key.

Who knew the island? Who had watched the press on Tate Morley, fallen in love with a serial killer? Who would have planned it all for him? Gotten him everything he had needed, and even with a plan for herself if things had started to go badly? Yes! It was all right there—use Marc Kimball, a man she hated! A man who had abused her...

Morley would have used her, with gentle words and encouragement, but now...

Gunfire suddenly exploded; Emmy’s bullet thudded into the front door.

Clara made a flying leap and threw herself from the entry to the living room and behind a sofa. She could hear Emmy coming down the stairs.

She had six shots.

Wait! What made Clara think the woman had six shots? She must have watched too many old Westerns. Guns could have all number of bullets in them now...

But, it was a self-loader. One of the pistols that people kept because the beloved wildlife could still be dangerous. She was pretty sure that most had six rounds and one in the chamber. Or something like that!

What difference did it make if one bullet found home?

What the hell to do?

“Aw, come on, Clara—we can play hide-and-seek all you like. You’re so predictable, though. Self-sacrifice! How could you watch me being tortured—how could precious Clara Avery not do the right thing? What you saw was a vicious Kimball making me speak for him. Me! Claiming he had a knife on me, while I had a blade right there against his ribs. I told him he was a dead man if he didn’t play along perfectly, and—coward that the bastard was—he wasn’t about to take a chance. Funny, because he had such a thing for you, but, hey, the poor sucker wanted to live and so he did as I commanded him. Kimball! Oh, that was priceless. He was so scared. The saddest thing is that he believed that I might let him live. He walked, walked the way I said, shut up the way I said—and would have done whirly-jigs if I had said. Nice, after the way he treated me. Maybe I’ve done the world a favor. The money goes back to his first wife. She’s a decent sort—she was kind to me.” Emmy paused to giggle. “Lawyers and the like will be descending here soon—then all will be hell. But, of course, they’ll know by then that it isn’t over. I’ll shoot myself somewhere nonlethal, of course. And I’ll cast the blame on another mysterious man!”

Emmy was coming down the stairs. Clara looked desperately around the room. Emmy spoke her thoughts almost before she could think them.

“Oh, Clara! On the Fate, I had to work with a knife—better than strangling, that’s what I say. But a gun is better than anything. Stay at a distance. Bang, bang. Tate needed it to be personal. He had to feel the life go out of someone. That was all well and good for him—he was a medium size, yes, but oh! His hands—you wouldn’t have believed the feel of his hands!”

She was coming closer. A small statuette of an old totem pole was on the coffee table nearest Clara; she picked it up and tossed it across the room, in the direction of the door to the kitchen.

As she’d hoped, Emmy immediately fired, thinking it was Clara in the kitchen, not having seen her jump behind the couch. One bullet, two, three. Clara winced at each heavy sound as the bullets crashed into wood.

Emmy moved toward the dining room. “Clara, come on out, wherever you are. Here’s the thing. You were key in taking away the man I loved—so, now, you really have to die. Oh, yeah, and you think you’re an actress? Wait until you see the performance they’re going to get when they find you dead in the snow and me mortally injured! Come on, say something, Clara! Your guy killed Tate—killed him in cold blood! He has to see you killed the same way.” Emmy paused to giggle again. “Cold—get it? I mean, there’s not much other way your blood could be, huh, out here.”

Clara tried to stay calm, tried to assess her situation. She wasn’t getting out the front door; Emmy had the key.

There was the side door—out of the kitchen. But she’d just sent Emmy in that direction.

She suddenly wished that the bloody props remained—there would have been lots of body parts to throw Emmy’s way.

If she didn’t think fast, she’d soon be body parts herself...

A whisper suddenly sounded against Clara’s ear; she was so startled she nearly cried out.

Thankfully, she didn’t. The whisperer was Amelia.

“I knew something wasn’t right. I mean, Kimball was a strange man, but, man...the way they were walking, all bundled together. And her doing the talking!” Amelia went on.

She was hunched down by Clara, behind the sofa. Hiding, as if Emmy could see her, too.

“But, watch this, Clara. I’m getting good!”

Amelia Carson headed toward the stairway. She slammed her hand and her side against the wall.

And she made a sound—a soft sound.

“Ah, Clara, upstairs?” Emmy called out, her tone aggravated. “You know, it’s not that you’re a heavy cow or anything, but I’m a little thing. Dragging you down those stairs again—it’s not going to be easy. You should show yourself. You don’t want me pissed off at you—you really don’t. Because I can shoot you in the jaw first, maybe knock off an elbow. Knees are supposed to be especially painful.”