I took a breath. I needed to keep Jackson talking. “But Leila was angry that you hadn’t told her how Natalie was cutting corners. She wasn’t grateful. All she had to do was just let you take care of everything. But she said she was going to talk to Natalie and then she was going to go to the authorities.” I was very aware of the fact that it was only the three of us standing there by the water and Jackson Montgomery was a big man.
He pressed his lips together and didn’t say anything.
“You went to the house,” I continued. “You wanted to talk to her away from the office. You borrowed the spare key from Natalie. All you were going to do was wait inside and talk to Leila when she got home.” I was guessing at the last part but a tiny twitch under his left eye told me I’d guessed correctly.
I nodded like I understood and in a way, I did. I understood that Jackson had a very warped idea of what love was. My mom would have said, Someone worked on him.
Jackson gave a snort of disgust then. “It was an old, run-down house. Leila deserved better. Natalie told me she was sleeping in a downstairs room because of the work that was being done upstairs.”
“You wanted her to see how much she needed you,” I said. It was a struggle to keep my voice steady and even. “I get that.”
“I didn’t want to hurt her,” he said.
I nodded. “I know.” That much I did believe. “You realized that you could make a small adjustment to a vent pipe and carbon monoxide would seep into Leila’s room. Just a bit.”
I didn’t take my eyes off his face but out of the corner of my eye I could see Mac, his entire body rigid with anger. “Then you could rescue her and she’d see that you were the one she could count on, she’d see just how much she needed you.”
“I would never hurt Leila,” Jackson said. It wasn’t really a denial.
I moved a step closer and laid my hand on his arm, hoping he wouldn’t somehow feel how much my legs were shaking. “You didn’t get there in time.”
He closed his eyes for a moment and swallowed. “I had an accident, just a minor one. Once again, Mac was the hero.”
He seemed to have forgotten that Mac was standing right in front of him. I needed to keep the focus on me so he’d keep talking. “How did you know that Erin was onto you?”
“Erin was at my office. She saw my duck. They were a set. She started nosing around. She’d seen the mate in Leila’s desk drawer. That’s how I know Leila cared about me because she wouldn’t have kept it if she hadn’t.”
It would have been better if Leila hadn’t kept the tiny carving, but I didn’t think she’d done so because she cared about Jackson. She’d done it because she loved Mac. Every time she looked at the tiny bird she would have been reminded of what it represented, what she’d put in jeopardy when she slept with Jackson.
He swiped a hand over his mouth.
“When Erin helped Natalie clear out Leila’s office she found her duck,” I said.
Jackson seemed to need to get things off his chest now. “She wouldn’t leave it alone,” he said. “She told me she remembered Leila telling her that she was looking for a new lawyer because it was better if friendship and business didn’t mix. She said Leila had told her no one, not me and especially not Leila herself, was as perfect as they seemed.” He sighed. “She asked me about the birds. I told her I’d given Leila hers for her birthday because she’d liked the one I had in my office.”
I dropped my hand, resisting the urge to wipe it on my dress. “She didn’t believe you.”
“She told Natalie that she was coming to see Mac. I had a pretty good idea why.”
When I saw the mate to Leila’s bird on Jackson’s desk I knew there had been some kind of connection between them. I remembered how he had told me that every man who knew Leila fell a little bit in love with her. Mr. P. had made a phone call to Stevie Carleton, who told us that she’d seen the tiny carved bird in Leila’s desk drawer and when she’d asked her cousin about it Leila had explained what it represented and said she kept it to remind herself how lucky she was to have Mac.
From there it wasn’t much of a leap to figure out that it was Jackson, not Davis Abbott—or Mac—that Nick had seen arguing with Erin. And when I’d told Mr. P. what Nick had heard Erin say he had quickly pointed out that the reason she’d said Mac’s name was likely because she was talking about Mac not to him.
I remembered the gray car Glenn had seen across the street from McNamara’s, that he thought might have followed Erin after she stopped there looking for directions to Second Chance. “You followed Erin,” I said.
“She was going to ruin everything,” Jackson said. “Do you think I like what she made me do?”
I shook my head because there was no way I could say anything.
“Leila is going to get better, wake up and we’d have a future now that Mac was out of the picture.” He looked baffled that I didn’t seem to get what he was talking about. “Erin was going to ruin that, so she left me with no choice. I had to kill her. I’m sorry. I’m going to have to kill you, too.”
Chapter 20
Mac lunged for his old friend but Jackson grabbed my arm, pulling me in front of his body like a shield.
“Let her go,” Mac growled, his voice laced with menace.
“I’m done letting you ruin my life,” Jackson said. He was oddly unemotional. One arm held me tight against his body while the other felt for something in his pocket. A gun?
Whatever it was it wasn’t there. I flashed to Mr. P. bumping into us earlier. What had he done?
Jackson swore and shifted the arm that was holding me so he could look at his pocket. I turned my head to the side and bit down on his arm. At the same time Mac came at us. Jackson’s hand came up and punched the side of my head. Hard. The boardwalk seemed to ripple under my feet. Everything happened so fast after that. It wasn’t until later that Mr. P. filled in the details for me.
Jackson caught my shoulder and threw me off the dock into the water. Mac’s fist connected with Jackson’s chin, sending the lawyer sprawling down onto the boardwalk. Nick came seemingly out of nowhere, sprinting across the wooden decking in just a couple of long strides. He kicked off his shoes and dove in after me, and Michelle and Cal Barnes came running down the boardwalk, guns drawn. It was over.
I came up sputtering, the side of my head throbbing and a high-pitched ringing sound in my ears. Nick was just a few feet away. “You all right?” he called.
“I’m okay,” I said, coughing and spitting out water. I kicked my feet out of my cute canvas shoes and let them sink to the bottom of the harbor. Then I swam toward Nick. A police officer helped pull me out of the water and wrapped a gray blanket around my shoulders.
“I think I ruined the mic,” I said to Nick, who stood dripping beside me.
He reached over and pushed the wet hair back off my face. “You sure you’re all right?” he asked, dark eyes scanning my face.
I started to cough and he made a move toward me. I held up my hand until the coughing jag passed. “I’m fine,” I said. “I just swallowed a little water, that’s all.”
“Don’t worry about the mic,” he said. “We got what we needed.”
“Thank you for jumping in after me,” I said, squeezing some of the water out of the ends of my hair. “How did you know I was here?” Before he could speak I answered my own question. “Mr. P.”
Nick nodded.
“He picked Jackson’s pocket.”
Nick rolled his eyes. “Yes. And that wasn’t my idea, believe me.”