"We have to run. She's insane. She's going to kill everyone!" I yelled.
I saw Ash and Bridgette talking across the yacht. I called to them, but two shots rang out and they both fell to the deck. "No!" I tried to run to them but Cavin pulled me below deck. "Catelyn, think this through. You can't help them, but if you go out there, she will kill you, too. We have to hide." Even through my panic, I could tell his hands were too steady, his voice too calm.
My heart died in my chest, and I slumped against my professor as he led me to one of the cabins below. Cavin hid in the corner. As I tried close the door and secure it, Mrs. Davenport pushed it open and held a gun at us both.
"This is where it all ends," she said.
"You killed my husband," I cried. "My best friend! Everyone I ever loved."
She sneered. "Love is overrated. Power is what matters. Everyone saw me as the pretty arm candy to the powerful Ashton Davenport, but I was the true power in our relationship. I was the one who got us where we are today, as the most influential and successful family in Massachusetts. I sacrificed everything to make us what we are, and what thanks did I get? Your mother trying to tear it all down. Bridgette's mother stealing my husband. My son dying. Well, to hell with you all. I will rise from the ashes stronger than ever."
She held a gun to my head and was about to pull the trigger when Jon pushed me to the side. "Mother, don't."
Her hand fell. "Jon? You're… you're dead."
"No. I'm not. I faked my death, Mother."
She blinked rapidly, not trusting her own eyes. "Why?"
"To draw out the Midnight Murderer." He sounded so sad, like a lost little boy.
She held her hand out to her son. "Come to me, Jon. Come to me, son. We can leave this all behind. We just have to get rid of everyone who can hurt us first."
He shook his head. "I'm sorry, Mother. I choose Cat."
I froze in that split second, knowing what he was about to do, shocked that he could really do it.
He raised his hand, which held a gun, and fired a bullet into his mother's forehead.
Chapter Thirty Six
Dangerous Games
THE DAY JIM DISAPPEARED
JIM WAITED AT a remote table in the corner at the coffee shop, his tattoos and dangerous look ill-fitted to the yuppie upper-middle-class clientele this establishment usually catered to.
I slipped in across from him and accepted the coffee he offered. Of course he knew how I liked it, being the stalker that he was. "Why did you want to meet without Ash?" I asked. Ever since he called me over and asked for a meeting, I'd been playing every scenario out in my mind, worried and wondering what he'd found.
"I know everything, Catelyn."
This could be a trap. A game to get me to reveal more than he'd discovered, so I waited for him to continue.
He smiled. "You play this well." And then he laid out my full plan, the plan that no one knew but myself. He really was the best P.I. money could buy.
"Why didn't you take this to Ash?"
"I might. I haven't decided. I want to know why first. I think I do, but I want to hear it from you."
"You know how my parents died," I said. "How my mother was raped in front of me and my father, and how they were both killed as I watched. How the Midnight Murderer stalked me, tortured me and tried to kill me. It has to end. I'm ending it."
"This is a dangerous game, Catelyn."
"I know. But I'm not going to be the one to lose this time."
"I can't get involved, but I won't stop you. I'll keep your secret, but if you get yourself killed, which you likely will, I'm telling Ash the truth. He deserves to know in that event."
It was more than I'd hoped for and I shook his hand. "Agreed."
"If anyone asks," he said, standing, "you know nothing about where I've been or where I'm going. Good luck, and don't hurt that man of yours. He really does love you."
Chapter Thirty Seven
Betrayal
PRESENT DAY
JON DROPPED HIS gun and grabbed me. "We're safe now, Cat. We can be together. You still want to be together, don't you?"
I looked up into his handsome face, a blond lock of hair falling into his eyes, and wondered what I should say. He'd just killed his mother. His blue eyes were glossed over and he surely had to be in shock.
I shook, in shock myself that he could kill his mother like that without hesitation.
"Jon…" I pulled away just slightly and had him sit on a trunk. "Jon, I…"
He glanced away and stared past my shoulder. "Cavin?" His eyes widened. "Cat, you have to—"
Three shots and Jon fell forward and crumbled to the floor like a pair of old pants. "Jon!"
I turned to see Cavin holding Mrs. Davenport's gun. "This has been an unexpected party," he said, a gleam of madness in his eyes. Had the whole world gone crazy?
"What did you just do?"
"I had to tie up loose ends. It's probably for the best. The charade had to end eventually."