“You stay in the Jeep. I’ll park a few houses away.” He glanced in the rearview mirror. “No one’s followed us, so you’ll be safe. As long as you keep the pistol.”
“I said I’m coming with you. Eunice is probably expecting that you’ll do just what you said.”
“Listen, Adria, I don’t like this—”
“Neither do I, but I’d rather be with you than off waiting somewhere, not knowing what’s going on.”
“Fine.” A muscle worked in his jaw.
“Besides, I think I’m safer with you.”
“Let’s hope you’re right,” he growled under his breath as he pulled into the short drive of a two-storied cottage with white siding, dormers and black shutters. Though it was early afternoon, the day was gray and damp and warm interior lights blazed through paned windows. “Cozy, isn’t it?” Zach mocked as he reached for his phone, dialed a number and quickly explained the situation to Len Barry of the Portland police, then hung up. “Okay, that should give us just enough time,” he said and climbed out of the car.
Adria’s palms were sweating, her heart jack-hammering as she and Zach walked up the stone path to a small covered porch. Flowers bloomed brilliantly in boxes and the shrubbery flanking the house was clipped and neat, a perfect little home in a prestigious community.
The home of a killer.
Zach didn’t wait, but knocked loudly, his fist pounding on the door. Adria felt the gun, heavy in her pocket, as her heart pounded in dread.
Would she face the woman who had tried to kill her?
Ginny Slade’s murderer?
The door opened and Eunice Danvers Smythe, dressed in a black velour jogging suit, stood in the empty hallway. Sweat beaded her forehead and flushed cheeks as if she’d been working out. “Zach!” she said before her gaze traveled to Adria. “Oh…I wondered if you’d drag her along.” She forced a smile as frigid as the bottom of the Columbia River. “Come in. Both of you.”
“What’s this all about, Eunice?” he asked, not moving.
“I think it’s time to explain a few things.”
“Such as.”
“I was going to start with Kat.”
Adria’s muscles tightened at the mention of her mother and Zach’s harsh expression turned even more severe. “Why not Ginny?” he asked.
“Because it’s best, don’t you think, to begin at the beginning.”
“We don’t have a lot of time.”
“Don’t tell me. You’ve called the police.” She was walking down a hallway, her tennis shoes silent on the polished hardwood floors, her gait a little off, the scent of jasmine wafting after her. “Oh, Zach, you’re so predictable. I wish you would have talked to me first.” She glanced over her shoulder, her gaze landing on Adria again. “Maybe it’s better that you’re here after all. Close the door, would you?”
Adria, feeling as if she was truly walking into a lion’s den, complied. Zach waited for her and by the time they walked into the kitchen, Eunice was already dipping a tea bag into a cup of hot water. Two cups stood waiting, water already steaming from their porcelain depths. “Would you like some?” she asked, dipping a tea bag into the cup.
Zach shook his head.
“You?” she asked, glancing at Adria and there was a light in her eyes that gave Adria pause.
Something wasn’t right here. The smell of jasmine from the tea seeped into the room and a chill as cold as all of December settled in Adria’s bones. “I’m fine.” What was with the tea?
“What is it you wanted to say, Eunice?” Zach, standing near the kitchen table, didn’t take his suspicious gaze from his mother as she busied herself with her tea cup.
To Adria, the entire situation was surreal. She stood next to Zach, waiting to hear the worst, watching a woman who was probably a killer calmly fiddle with her cup.
“Sit down, Zach, and drink a cup of tea or coffee with me,” she said, waving him into a chair. “It might be the last one we’ll be able to share for a long, long time.”
“I’ll pass.”
“Zach—”
“Get on with it, Eunice.” He checked his watch. “The police should be here within a few minutes. You’d better tell me what it was you wanted to say before you have to tell it to a detective.”
“You think I killed Ginny,” Eunice said.
“You’re way ahead of me.”
“I didn’t do it.” She looked up, set the empty bag on the table.
“Right.”
“I mean it. I said I should start with Kat…or more precisely, London. I did kidnap her and I paid Ginny to make certain she never surfaced again. But she failed.” Her lips flattened as she glanced at Adria.
“So you decided to get rid of Ginny.”
“No…there’s someone who’s one step ahead of me and trying to blame me for everything that’s happening.”
“Let’s get through the bullshit,” Zach said, stepping away from the wall, closing the gap between himself and the woman who had borne him. “I came here for answers, not smoke screens or excuses or lies.”
“But it’s true,” she insisted, her eyes pleading as he stood, looming over the table, a big man with wide shoulders and sleek muscles and a fury so intense his lips had flattened against his teeth.
“Let it go, Eunice. There isn’t much time. As I said, the police are on their way.”
“I’m telling you the truth, Zach,” she swore, almost desperate, her teacup trembling in her hands. She took a long sip and smiled as if at a private joke. “I didn’t kill Ginny.”
Adria didn’t buy it, knew how evil this woman was.
Zach’s eyes narrowed. “No?”
“No.” Another drink of the hot brew.
“Then what about Kat?”
“Kat?” Eunice whispered, stunned. Every muscle in her body stiffened before she forced them to relax. Her eyes flickered with uncertainty. “She committed suicide. That’s what the police decided.” Again she swallowed and there was something that didn’t quite fit…
“I’m not so sure,” he said, his gaze skewering his mother’s. “In light of what’s been happening around here, I’ve asked them to reopen the investigation surrounding her death. I’ve come to believe that she was killed. Someone made certain she was high on pills and booze and helped her off the verandah of the hotel room. Seems to me you’re the most likely candidate.”
“For the love of God, Zach, are you nuts?” Eunice whispered, but couldn’t help licking her lips nervously.
“Not me.”
“So now you’ re accusing me of being crazy?”
“Psychotic.”
She nearly dropped her cup. All of her composure evaporated. “You’re accusing me?” Rage pulsed through her face. “This is insane.”
“Exactly.”
She was shaking, unraveling before Adria’s eyes. “So now you’ve decided to become detective, judge and jury. And you don’t even have your facts straight. I thought better of you, Zach.”
“All you have to do is prove that you didn’t overdose Kat with pills and then push her over the balcony wall.”
“You just can’t let it go, can you? First you were involved with that slut and now this…this woman who’s your own half-sister.”
Adria cringed inside.
“Do you know how disgusting that is? How sick? How perverted?” Eunice ranted, her composure evaporating, her eyes dilating.
“Let’s talk about her. Adria. London,” he said, not backing off an inch. “While you’re trying to prove that you didn’t kill Kat and Ginny, you can make a case about not terrorizing Adria, too.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she snapped, her nostrils flaring slightly.
“Cut the crap, okay. Let’s see your hand.”
“What?”
“Your hand, the one Adria bit when you tried to kill her up at the motel in Estacada.”
All the blood drained from Eunice’s face. “This is ridiculous.”
Far in the distance the sound of sirens cut through the air.
Eunice’s eyes closed for a second and when she reopened them, Adria noticed a new, steely determination in their clear depths. “You’re turning your own mother in, is that it, Zach? All because of something she”—Eunice motioned dismissively toward Adria—“contrived.”
“I didn’t ‘contrive’ anything.”