Nine Lives (Lily Dale Mystery #1)(90)

Her mind is cluttered with puzzle pieces, arranging and rearranging them. As they begin to fall into place, she desperately looks from side to side along the trail, instinctively searching for a path to freedom.

It’s just like last night, on that dark road with Grant. Except this time, her instincts are dead on. And this time, she doesn’t have to worry about making a break for it with her son in tow. This time, it’s only her.

Her ankle is hurting, but it’s not broken. She’s walking on it. She can run on it if she has to.

You can do this. Just look for an opening. Keep walking, keep him talking.

“You were the one I saw in the house that night in the hoodie. You told your wife you’d gone to see Our Town at Chautauqua, but you didn’t.”

“Oh? I had the program. Didn’t I show you?”

“Maybe you went just long enough to get that. And then you came back, and you were prowling around the house, looking for something. What was it? Leona’s notebook?”

“Oh, please, that’s useless. I’ve had it ever since—” He breaks off, tellingly.

Since the night Leona died.

The night he killed her.

“There’s nothing of interest in that notebook,” he says. “Even if there was, who could tell? Her handwriting is chicken scratch.”

“You’re the one who’s been coming and going through the tunnel in the closet.”

“Tunnel in the closet?” he echoes, sounding as if he has no idea what she’s talking about.

He’s just playing a role, she reminds herself. She goes on: “You’re the one who went through her papers, and you’ve been looking for her laptop because . . . because . . .”

Why?

Steve stops short, puts a hard hand on her shoulder, and jerks her around to face him. “Do you have it?”

“Why do you want it so badly, Steve? And why did you tear a page from Leona’s appointment book?”

The questions are met with a staccato laugh. “You expect me to tell you that?”

“Oh, come on. What do you have to lose?”

Another laugh, humorless. “I have everything to lose. But I’m not going to. I’ve worked hard all my life to make sure that doesn’t happen. I’m going to get what I deserve. And so are you. Now let’s go.” He nudges her in the back to make her walk again.

The trail narrows ahead, growing steep. But she isn’t going to let him march her to her death. There must be a way out of this.

But there isn’t. There’s only Steve, and woods, and rain, and that gun . . .

Can she get it away from him somehow?

She’d have to catch him by surprise.

Make him think she’s given up, resigned to her fate.

As if.

“You know, I’m not afraid of dying,” she hears herself say as they continue pushing up the narrow trail, branches snapping back against her now, sharp twigs and wet leaves slapping her in the face.

“Yeah. Sure you’re not.”

“I’m not,” she insists. “I mean, it’s just crossing over. Like stepping into the next room. I’ll still be here.”

He snorts. “That’s a load of bull.”

“You really think so?”

“You don’t believe in any of that stuff. I could tell from the moment I met you.”

But something tells her he may not be as certain as he sounds. About her beliefs . . . or about his own?

Both, she realizes, hearing the slightest hint of doubt as he talks on. “No one in their right mind would buy into these parlor tricks. People around here might know things, but it’s not because ‘Spirit’ tells them. It’s because they snoop.”

She can’t help but thinks of Pandora Feeney. “Why do you say that?”

“I’ve seen it time and again. No matter how careful you are, they’ll find out your secrets and use them against you.”

A burst of clarity. There it is.

“That’s what happened with Leona, isn’t it? She found out your secrets. So you . . . you killed her and made it look like an accident.”

Just as he said he’s about to do to me.

“She was brushing her hair that night, and the wind was blowing.” Her voice is deceptively steady. “And you sneaked up on her and hit her in the head and made it look like she’d fallen. And then you walked out onto the fishing pier and threw her into the lake.”

“How the hell do you know any of that?”

Her gut churns. So it’s true. “Like you said, we find out your secrets. No matter how careful you are.”

“We?” He gives a scoffing laugh. “You’re not one of them. How do you know all this?”

Common sense. Educated guesses.

Nothing more. It can’t be anything more than that.

Stay focused.

“Everyone has secrets, Steve. Even me.” She stops walking and turns to face him.

Their eyes meet.

He recoils as if from a physical collision.

In that moment, seeing him falter, she makes her move.

She leaps on him, grappling for the gun. They fall to the ground and roll into the moss and mud, entangled in weeds and wet ferns. Fighting for her life, she claws at his hand and the gun.

Wrangling it from his hand into her own, she rolls away and gets to her feet, panting hard.