Dolly started screaming and running.
"Oh, for God's sake." Richard Montague leveled a very black gun at Tess through the gap in the lilacs. "Obviously you're in this with Harl."
Tess feigned complete surprise, as if Montague couldn't have heard her instructions to Dolly. "Look, I don't know what you're talking about. Is Harl with you? I can't believe he left Dolly alone."
"Come through the lilacs, Miss Haviland." She really had no choice. While she had her doubts whether he'd shoot her-how would he explain it?- he just might. "Fine," she said, impatient, ignoring the twist of fear in her stomach, "let's get this straightened out. I don't like people pointing guns at me."
When she landed on the carriage house side of the lilacs, Richard Montague stepped back. He looked ragged, gray-faced. And calm, she thought. Arrogant. "I don't usually underestimate people," he said, "but I'm afraid I underestimated Harley Beckett."
"Harl? Come on. He works on furniture and takes care of a six-year-old."
"And you," Montague added, as if she hadn't spoken.
"Me? Not to worry. People underestimate me all the time. It comes with the turf. When you're a graphic designer, the artists all think you're not a real artist and thus not one of them, and the nonartists all think you're a real artist and thus not one of them." She sighed, her instincts operating almost without her consent. "Please put the gun away. I'm not in cahoots with Harley Beckett."
"He's manipulated everyone, my wife included. He killed Ike. I found his remains in the trunk of Lauren's car. I brought them here-I was furious, I admit. I wasn't thinking."
Tess doubted Richard Montague ever stopped thinking. "You confronted him?"
He nodded. "I should have called the police."
"But you didn't. What did Harl do?"
"He told me he wanted to confess. We walked over here together, but that was another manipulation. He jumped me, and my gun went off-"
"My God." Tess could feel herself go pale, her breathing get shallow. Her throat and chest felt tight. "Were either of you hurt?"
"I wasn't."
"Dr. Montague-"
"You've done well, Tess, but now-" He shrugged, resigned. He motioned at her with his gun. "Let's go inside, shall we?"
Richard didn't love her. He'd never loved her. He loved the idea of her. Her money. Her family name. Her house on the ocean. Ike had seen through him from the beginning.
She should have known. He saw through everybody.
Lauren ducked under a low-hanging branch and sank onto her favorite teak bench under a canopy of climbing roses. They wouldn't bloom until mid-June. She wondered if she'd be around when they did.
What did the police do to a woman who'd tried to cover up the murder of her brother, even if she was protecting the wrong man?
Would she be arrested, tried, found guilty of something and thrown into prison?
If she'd testified against Andrew, he could have been convicted, like Jedidiah Thorne, of a murder he did not commit.
But, of course, Andrew would never lose control. She should have known.
Two poodles climbed onto her lap, the third snuggled next to her. She sank her head back and closed her eyes, smelling the roses that weren't there as she waited for the police to come for her.
The police were on the way.
Andrew gripped the wheel of his truck and drove along the ocean road. The tide was up, the wind brisk. He had his windows rolled down and was breathing in the ocean smells, letting them calm him. He would get home. He would find Harl and Dolly.
Harl wasn't answering his phone, but he did that on a regular basis.
But not today. He'd answer today. He had to.
Andrew hit redial on his cell phone one more time. A little farther and he'd be there.
Dolly.
He jumped on the brakes and was out of his truck before the picture fully registered in his brain. His daughter. She was running down the side of the road, red-faced, her sturdy little legs eating up pavement.
He scooped her into his arms. She was sweating, unable to talk or cry.
"I've got you, baby, I've got you."
"The bank robber," she choked out. "The bank robber."
"I know, I know."
She gulped. "Tess."
He wanted to tell her it would be okay, but he didn't know it would be. He carried her to his truck, kept her on his lap as he climbed behind the wheel and pulled the door shut.
"Are they at the carriage house?" he asked softly, trying to sound calm, in control, to hide his own terror.
She nodded, holding on to him tight.
Then his house was safe.
He dialed the police and told them Richard Montague might have hostages at the carriage house.
His truck moved forward, down the road. Dolly's sweat soaked into her shirt. And his own.
She began to cry openly. "Daddy, Daddy, Tippy Tail's gone."
"She'll come back, Dolly. She won't leave her babies."
And his heart wrenched, Joanna's voice playing back to him. "I'll be back, Dolly. I would never leave my baby."
Ah, Joanna, he thought. You died too young, and I'll be forever sorry for that.
But every fiber of his being, right now, with his daughter in his arms, was with Tess. He couldn't lose her.
He pulled to a stop in front of his house.
Harl staggered in front of the truck. A baseball bat dangled from one hand. He was ashen-faced, his entire front covered in dirt, his face smeared with it.
And blood. It was on his hands and arms, and Andrew saw the dark, wet spots on his jeans and black POW-MIA shirt.
As Andrew opened the truck's door, Harl grabbed Dolly. "Go," he told Andrew. "I just crawled out of the carriage house bulkhead. Montague's there. Go before the son of a bitch-" But Dolly was staring at him, wide-eyed, and his voice softened instinctively. "I've got you, sweetie." His eyes, pain-wracked but totally focused, leveled on Andrew. "Don't wait. Go."
Andrew took the baseball bat and went.
"I think that cat wants to move her kittens back here." Tess spoke matter-of-factly, ignoring the panic that was trying to work its way through her, ignoring the gun. Richard had told her it was a Walther.9 mm. She'd told him she didn't know guns. "Did you shove Harl through the trapdoor the way you did Ike?"
Richard had quit his it-was-Harl act. He was think-ing-plotting his strategy, she knew-before he killed her rather than after. He had the trapdoor open already.
"Don't you think you should make sure Harl's dead first?"
She thought that would buy her some time. If he wasn't dead-and she prayed constantly he wasn't- he might have a chance to do something to help their critical situation. And if he was dead, she knew he wouldn't want Richard Montague to get away with another murder.
If he did, they could haunt the damn carriage house together. Her, Harl and Jedidiah.
Don't get giddy. Stay focused!
"Tess! Montague!" Andrew was yelling from the driveway in that hell-to-pay voice. "The police are on their way. For God's sake, Montague, cut your losses. Harl's alive."
In that split second between thinking he had the upper hand and realizing he didn't, Richard Montague gave Tess the opening she'd been waiting for. It was a gesture, a momentary loss of concentration, but she saw it, knew it.
And she gave him a slicing, unequivocal kick to the testicles, just the way Davey Ahearn had taught her.
Montague dropped the Walther down the trapdoor and sank forward in agony, and Tess followed with another kick, throwing him off balance. He stumbled, falling into the dark opening, grabbing the ladder with one hand as he cursed and spat.
She stomped on his hand.