The Wife Who Knew Too Much(89)

“She’s right. Steve, we have to do something. We can’t let him die.”

“I knew it. This is all about him for you.”

“What do you care? It’s about the money, too. If he dies, we’re screwed. We get nothing.”

“Should’ve thought of that before, princess. You couldn’t just stick to the plan?”

“I didn’t mean for it to happen this way,” she said, and I heard the agony in her voice. “I never meant to hurt him. But you told me she had the place bugged.”

“I never said that. I said maybe. And so what if the house was bugged? That’s no cause for panic. The plan could’ve still worked. We’d just do it outside, somewhere nobody would hear. A gunshot, or she walks into the ocean. Looks like suicide. She takes the blame for Nina, Connor gets the money, three-way split.”

Jesus. When Juliet suggested back at Windswept that nobody would be surprised if I killed myself, that wasn’t some off-the-cuff remark. They had a plan. A conspiracy to kill me and blame me for Nina’s murder. If this hadn’t happened, she and Kovacs would have faked my suicide.

They still might.

“Fine, you’re right, okay?” Juliet said. “I don’t care who takes the blame. We need to help Connor. Just drive up to the hospital entrance and push him out.”

“You really want to get caught, don’t you? At a hospital entrance, there are always security cameras. This car can be traced back to us. Both of us—not just you. And then he wakes up in the hospital and starts talking. No way.”

“I don’t care. I’ll take the blame,” she said.

“Forgive me if I don’t have a lot of faith in you at this point. Enough, now. Let’s get where we’re going, and we’ll figure it out.”

Juliet fell silent. By now, that hospital was long gone, anyway. I shook with fear—for myself, for Connor, for our baby, who wasn’t moving. It was the dead of night, and the roads were empty. In the flash of headlights on highway signs, the place names grew ever more familiar. We were in Vermont, then New Hampshire, getting on 89, getting off at an exit I knew all too well. We passed the lake, the old country club, the defunct golf course, the ski resort. Everything was shut down tight. No lights in the houses, no cars on the road. The Suburban turned onto the road that wound up Baldwin Mountain.

I knew where we were going. To the place it all began. I looked at Connor, slack and lifeless, and remembered him as he’d been that night, gorgeous and mysterious, his hands sure on the wheel of the Lamborghini. We arrived at the iron gate, and it slid open at our approach, as I remembered. The ski house itself was just as impressive as it had been then, surrounded by dark pines that swayed in the cold wind.

Kovacs pulled me from the backseat and shoved me toward the house. I stumbled, and he grabbed my arm to steady me, holding it in a viselike grip. My legs were like rubber. My hands and arms had gone completely numb from the zip-tie, which had cut off my circulation. I had to be strong and look for any opportunity to get us—all three of us—out of here.

Juliet leaned into the backseat.

“Oh, my God,” she said, a catch in her voice.

“He’s dead?” Kovacs asked.

Kovacs had to grab my elbow to stop me from collapsing to the ground.

“Check for a pulse,” he said.

Juliet put her fingers to Connor’s throat, then looked back in horror.

“I don’t feel it. Wait, no, there it is. Oh, thank God, he’s still alive, but it’s faint. He needs a doctor immediately.”

“Please, Steve,” I said, my voice hoarse with fear. “I’m begging you, help him. Connor and I, we’ll tell the police whatever you want. We’ll pay you off. As much money as you want. It can still work out how you planned. But he has to live.”

“Who’s gonna treat a gunshot wound and not call the cops?”

“You can’t let him die,” Juliet said in a frantic tone.

“I’m not the one who shot him, Lissa. You figure it out. Got any bright ideas?”

“Like she said. Take him to the ER.”

“And explain the gunshot in his gut how, exactly?”

“I’m from around here,” I said. “I know people at the local hospital. Let’s bring him there. I can ask them to keep it quiet.”

Kovacs gave a short, barking laugh. “Bring him to your friends? You think I’m stupid? No.”

“Then, what? Do you want him to die?” Juliet said.

“Of course not. If he dies, we’re screwed. Two dead bodies on our hands and no cash.”

Two dead bodies—Connor, and me.





41





Kovacs unlocked the front door and shoved me through it. The cold, musty smell of the ski house brought back the nights I’d spent lying in Connor’s arms, talking, making love. I was not going to die here, in the place our baby had been conceived. Neither was she, and neither was her father.

He led me through the great room to the hall on the other side. There were three bedrooms off this hallway, I recalled. The first door led to the room where Connor and I had slept. Kovacs pushed me inside and examined the door handle. It had no lock. I could’ve told him that—there were no locks on any of these bedroom doors. He checked the en suite bathroom, which did lock, but from the inside, with one of those flimsy push-button things. Even with my hands zip-tied behind my back, I’d be able to undo it. Kovacs realized that, because he brought me out to the bedroom and started looking all around, presumably for something to tie me to. I remained docile and compliant, my eyes cast down, so he wouldn’t think that I was plotting my escape.