It didn’t seem like Devon’s arms were getting tired of holding the gun aloft at all. Josie said, “Eden came to see you.”
“Because Thatcher told her that he’d talked to me. She panicked. She was afraid I would go after Amber! She was the one who told the lies that got my father killed. Eden was worried about her horrible sister so she showed up on my doorstep one day. Bob had Lilly so I was here alone. I let her in. She started talking. I got so mad. I don’t remember much of what happened except that I beat her so badly she couldn’t stand up for a long time. I kept her out here. No one comes out here except me. Lilly is forbidden. I was trying to figure out what to do with her. I couldn’t let her go, right? I had to kill her, and if I was going to kill her, then why shouldn’t I wipe out the whole clan? They’re an abomination. Eden was the one who told me Nadine had been murdered. I looked up the article and that was it. My idea was born.”
Amber’s voice shook. “You killed my baby sister? Finn told me she was—she was tortured. How could you?”
Devon turned the gun on Amber who shrieked and jumped backward, nearly falling. Josie caught her by the elbow and kept her upright, but Devon kept the gun loosely trained on Amber’s head. “How could you kill my father? How could any of you live with yourselves at all? Your sister and your mother and your aunt all got what they deserved. You were going to be next, and your brother and father, but then you disappeared, and everything went to hell. In fact, you were supposed to die with your sister. I left you that message about Russell Haven on your windshield. I knew you’d know what it meant immediately. I figured you would come, and you could watch someone you love die and know what that feels like. Then I’d kill you, too. I watched my father decline for months before his death. With each day he got more depressed. I wonder now, if your aunt hadn’t killed him, maybe he would have killed himself after all. I wanted you to know what that felt like, but you didn’t come to the dam.”
“She had already been taken by Gabriel by that point,” said Josie.
The windshield message had been one of the other confounding things Josie had been turning over in her head the last two weeks. The team had assumed that Gabriel had left it, but Josie had always been bothered by the time: five a.m. If Amber left her house at seven a.m. each morning, then she’d never see the message in time. They knew that Gabriel had been in town for two weeks, lurking around and accosting Amber. He could have figured out her routine and then made sure to leave the message at a time when she would definitely see it. However, if he had simply taken her, then why had he left the message at all? Of course, now Josie knew all those questions were moot because Gabriel had not left it. Devon had, and Devon had clearly not taken the time to do reconnaissance and make sure that Amber would see the message in time to get to the dam.
“It worked out pretty well though, didn’t it?” Devon said. “After today, only your father will be left.”
She took another step toward Amber, the gun nearly touching her forehead. Josie tried to distract her, “You sent the Russell Haven postcard to Lydia Norris.”
Devon nodded. “She was on my list. I wanted her to know that someone out there knew what they had done. That it wasn’t over.”
“How did you get to Lydia?”
“I got her cell phone number from Eden’s phone. I had to buy a prepaid cell phone, one that you don’t have to register with your real name, and I called her. As it turned out, she was already right here in town. It didn’t take much to convince her to meet me at the dam. She was a tiny thing. One good knock on her head and she was out of it. All I had to do was bring her back here, wait until the middle of the night, and take her back over to the dam. Had to crack her a few more times by then to make sure she wasn’t going to fight back. She never did wake up. I towed her behind me in a second kayak. Easy-peasy.”
Josie worked through the case in her head as quickly as she could now with a new perspective. Thatcher Toland released his book, which became an instant bestseller. He tracked down Eden to make amends. She accepted his apology and told him every foul thing the Watts family had ever done, including blackmailing Dr. Rafferty which ultimately led to his suicide—since Amber was the only one who knew he’d actually been murdered. Then she told him about their baby. Eden claimed that only Amber knew what had happened to the baby. Thatcher went home to his wife and told her everything, insisting that he wanted to find the child. Vivian told him to wait until after the megachurch opened. Thatcher had then shown up at Devon’s house to tell her the truth about her father, since neither Eden nor Amber were ever going to do it. Vivian sent Gabriel to either talk to or kill Nadine. Either way, Nadine had ended up dead. In the meantime, Eden had traveled to Denton to talk to Devon who took her prisoner, tortured her, and then took her to Russell Haven Dam to die. Devon had also tried to lure Amber to the dam but by that time, Gabriel had taken Amber and held her at the church, trying to get her to tell him the location of the child. Devon had then murdered Lydia.
There was still something that didn’t make sense.
“Why would Thatcher Toland come to you to unburden himself on behalf of Eden?” she blurted. “Did he go to every person that the Wattses ever screwed over and do the same? What are you not telling me?”
With lightning speed, Devon lifted the gun and brought the pistol grip down hard on Amber’s nose. Josie heard the crunch from where she stood. Amber crumpled to the ground. Josie stepped in front of Amber and put both hands up, trying to calm Devon, but she could not be swayed. She held the gun in her right hand now and shook it in Amber’s direction. Spittle flew from her lips as she shouted, “You think everyone else in her family is a con artist? She’s the most conniving and deceitful and cruel of all.”
Amber looked up, tears pouring from her eyes, blood dribbling from her nose. “Eden and I were kids,” she spluttered. “We didn’t know what to do. We had no resources. All we wanted was to protect the baby. That’s it. I didn’t even know about the Safe Haven law until I was in my twenties. Do you think I wanted to come to you? No one was ever supposed to know. Not even you!”
“Lilly,” Josie said. “Oh God. Lilly.” She looked down at Amber. “She’s Eden and Thatcher’s daughter.”
No one spoke.