A High-End Finish(81)

After a long moment of squinting, I suddenly realized who I was looking at. And that person was now pointing a gun directly at Whitney. A gun?

“Oh, my God.”

The person holding the gun was Penny.





Chapter Fifteen


Penny.

My new friend. My new client. I had been to her house, wandered around in her attic. We had chatted and laughed at her kitchen table while she picked out colors and patterns for her remodel. We had gone to dinner together. Worked out together. She was the one who’d saved me from being choked by the weights on the bench press.

“No,” I muttered, still dumbfounded. She hadn’t saved me. She had sabotaged the rack, causing the weights to fall on me while she’d wandered off, looking innocent. She was no savior. She was a callous, vicious killer.

She was wearing a small backpack, I noticed as I watched her shove Whitney closer to the cliff. Was she going to push her over? I couldn’t let that happen, no matter how ambivalent my feelings were for Whitney.

I grabbed my phone, pushed speed dial, and in seconds Eric answered. I told him where I was and what I was seeing.

“She’s got a gun,” I said, watching as Penny waved the weapon again. “I thought she was going to push her off the cliff, but now they’re walking toward the steps that lead down to the beach. There’s nothing down there but sand and water and caves. I’ll bet she’ll try to trap her inside one of the caves.”

It was the only possibility I could come up with. I just didn’t know why Penny had suddenly decided to target Whitney.

“Get out of there,” Eric shouted. “I’m on my way.”

“I’ll stay until you get here.”

“No, you won’t. Drive away now.”

“But you don’t know where you’re going.”

“I’ll find it,” he insisted.

“Tell Tommy it’s Barnacle Beach,” I said, ignoring his demands. “You’ll be able to see my truck from the highway and that’s where you’ll turn off.”

“Damn it, Shannon.”

“Hurry.” I had to hold the phone away from my ear to keep from going deaf. For a soft-spoken man, he could really raise his voice when he wanted to.

I hung up, got out of the truck, and tiptoed around the trees to get a closer look, just in time to see Penny shove Whitney again. In her silly high heels, she stumbled along the grassy edge until she reached the top of the rickety old stairs that led down to the beach.

They disappeared down the steps. I was shaking now from fear as well as the cold breeze off the ocean, but I had to see what they were doing. I crept over to the edge of the cliff and saw them step onto the beach. Penny pushed Whitney toward the nearest cave as the tide rolled in.

Whitney suddenly let loose a scream and Penny smacked the back of her head. “Shut up!”

I could hear them all the way up the side of the cliff, despite the roar of the ocean waves as they crashed a hundred feet offshore.

The two of them entered the cave and vanished from my sight.

I was tempted to scramble down the stairs and try to help, but I had no defense against a gun in the hands of a violent woman who had killed two people and attacked two—now three—others.

So I waited.

My mind envisioned the insides of the old caves. It had been fourteen years since I’d seen one, but I could still recall the moist darkness, the heavy, low walls, the rocks and sand, the clumps of seaweed strewn along the edges.

The caves were also home to the old, rusted trestles that had once been used as mooring for the ships that traveled along the coast from San Francisco up to British Columbia and back. This place had come to be called Barnacle Beach because of all the barnacles clinging to those old ship hulls.

A trestle would be good for tying someone up, I thought, and then shuddered at the possibility. I wouldn’t put it past Penny to come up with that plan. All she had to do was tie Whitney to an old trestle post and let the incoming tide finish her off. It wasn’t just evil; it was premeditated and downright diabolical.

The sun was starting to set and the sky was splashed in corals and pinks as Penny tramped out of the cave and crossed the sandy beach toward the stairs. I ran back to the tree line to watch and see what she would do. Was she actually going to leave Whitney to drown and then blithely drive off in her Jaguar? That was cold.

When Penny reached the top of the stairs, I could see she was breathing a little heavier. It was a long, steep climb and she was probably moving on pure adrenaline by now. She must’ve stowed the gun in her backpack, because she wasn’t holding it anymore. She stopped at the driver’s side of the car, slipped off her backpack, and stood there, seeming to ponder her next move.

A piercing scream split the dusky air. It was Whitney crying for help, and the sound of it caused the hair on my arms to stand up on end.

Penny turned and stared out at the cliff’s edge. She knew Whitney was going to die, but what else was she thinking? Did ice water flow through her veins? Did she really believe she would get away with this? God only knew what was going through her head.

In that moment, I didn’t stop to think about it. I began to run toward her. My boots didn’t make much noise on the grassy surface as I got closer. My only plan was to rush her, pin her down, and hold her there until Eric arrived with his cavalry. I just hoped they would make it in time to save Whitney.