Nine Lives (Lily Dale Mystery #1)(91)

She’s never touched a gun before in her life, let alone shot one. As she holds it in shaking hands, arms outstretched in front of her, she isn’t sure she’s capable.

He clearly doesn’t think so.

Lying at her feet with the barrel aimed squarely at his chest, he laughs.

“Don’t move!” Her thumb clumsily searches for a way to cock the weapon, like in the movies. “Don’t move, or I swear I’ll shoot!”

“Ladies shouldn’t swear.” With a chuckle, he gets to his feet.

“I said don’t move!”

He reaches out in an attempt to pluck the pistol from her hand, but she holds on tightly.

“I’ll shoot you! I will!”

“Not with that, you won’t. It’s a prop, Bella. We used it in a production of Arsenic and Old Lace years ago. I’m a theater buff, remember?” He holds out a hand. “Give it to me.”

Her fingers tremble. She doesn’t believe him. She doesn’t believe a word he says. He’s pathological. He lies about everything.

I have a little girl the same age . . .

He does have a daughter. Bella saw photos of her on Eleanor’s phone. She’s grown, though, expecting a baby of her own.

Why claim she’s a little girl Max’s age?

But it doesn’t matter. All that matters is Bella’s little boy.

He needs me. I have to get back to him.

She struggles to keep her aim steady. Focus. Focus.

She’s no longer relying on Spirit to bail her out of this.

I can do it myself. I’m doing it now.

“All right,” he says. “If you don’t want to hand it over, then just drop it.”

“Step back! Right now!”

“Don’t drop it, then. Don’t hand it over either. Go ahead and shoot me.” He raises both hands. This time when he looks her in the eye, she sees not a hint of misgiving.

She keeps the gun pointed squarely at his chest, but she knows it’s over. The gun is useless. A prop.

Again, he reaches for it.

Again, they wrestle for it.

This time, though, he wins. The moment he grabs the gun, he turns around, takes aim at a nearby tree, and fires.

The sound is deafening. Birds lift from overhead boughs, flapping and squawking.

And Bella spots, with alarm, a splintered bullet hole ripped into the bark.





Chapter Twenty


“Guess I lied.” Steve Pierson gestures at the tree and then at the gun, grinning at Bella. “I’ve never even seen Arsenic and Old Lace.”

A strangled, frustrated sound escapes her throat.

“Let’s go. Walk.”

He jabs the gun into her back and pushes her along the path into the woods.

Her ankle throbs as she picks her way along.

“Faster,” he says. “Faster!”

She trips.

Falls.

He bends over, nudging her with the nose of the pistol. “Get up.”

Fury darts through her. “No.”

“I said, get up.”

“No.”

“I’ll shoot you.”

“So shoot me.”

Two, she thinks, can play at this game.

He doesn’t want to shoot her. She’s taking a chance—a huge chance—that he won’t.

He’s already told her that he intends to make this look like an accident. If it doesn’t, if she’s found with a bullet in her head in the woods, the cops will leave no stone unturned to find out who did it.

It’s not as if he can go into hiding when he leaves here. He wants to take his wife back to their cushy, respectable, happy life in Boston. He wants to retire with full benefits and a nice salary so that he can travel to places that aren’t Lily Dale and go to the theater and run miles every morning.

That’s exactly what he’s doing now: preparing to run. He’s been poised to break away from the moment he and Eleanor arrived.

He’d gone through the motions of arriving for their annual vacation, but it was a ruse. He didn’t expect to have to stay here. Even if Eleanor wanted to, he knew they wouldn’t be able to. Not with Leona gone.

He didn’t bargain on my being here to run the place. I put a hitch in his plan. And I’m doing it again right now.

“Nothing happened to you on Bachellor Hill Road this morning,” Bella says boldly. “You made up that story because . . . because you did something to Bonnie Barrington this morning, and then you panicked.”

Again, his eyes widen just enough to let her know she’s on the right track.

“You realized there was only one way to make sure no one suspected you, and that was to make them think you were almost a victim, too. You told Eleanor that someone had tried to run you down, and God knows what else you said, but you scared the living daylights out of her. She thinks the two of you are leaving today because your lives are in danger. The truth is, you’re leaving because you killed Leona. I’m just trying to figure out why.”

“Why do you think?” He gives a brittle laugh. “Oh, wait, I’ll tell you. It’s because I’m sick of coming to Silly Dale. So I killed off our hostess. That makes perfect sense.”

“No. You were trying to keep Leona quiet about something.”