“Where? Did they find Clara and Emmy?”
“No, but we found one of the charter-boat captains who saw them—they were headed out to Black Bear Island.”
*
It was strange to be back in the Mansion; Clara could remember the first time she’d seen it—covered in fake body parts and blood—and the second time, working with the film crew to pick up the fabricated gore.
She didn’t like it—the house might have been beautiful, but there was no way she would ever feel comfortable here. While she idly paced the living room, waiting for Emmy, she remembered the magnificent moose she had seen on the island.
But then she remembered running and running in terror.
Seeing Amelia Carson—dead in the snow.
And she remembered Thor, catching her, tackling her down to the ground while she beat furiously at him, trying to fight him off until she’d believed at last that he was with the FBI.
Alaska was home to Thor.
And she still loved Alaska.
She just didn’t think that she’d want to return to Black Bear Island again.
“Emmy, are you about ready? Did you say that we had to get some things at the Alaska Hut?” she called.
At her angle, she could see all the way up the stairway, not that Emmy knew that.
And there was Emmy—weak, terrified Emmy—quickly sliding bullets into a gun in the upstairs hallway. And she had a knife tethered to her jeans.
To Clara’s self-disgust, she stared at the woman several seconds in confusion. And then, little things suddenly seemed to make sense to her.
Marc Kimball looking like hell.
Marc Kimball never saying a word.
Marc Kimball, so close to Emmy she believed that he was holding the woman at knifepoint...
When it had been the other way around.
“Be right there!” Emmy called out.
Clara made her way quickly to the door. To her vast dismay, she realized that it was locked.
Locked from inside. Locked with a key.
Who knew the island? Who had watched the press on Tate Morley, fallen in love with a serial killer? Who would have planned it all for him? Gotten him everything he had needed, and even with a plan for herself if things had started to go badly? Yes! It was all right there—use Marc Kimball, a man she hated! A man who had abused her...
Morley would have used her, with gentle words and encouragement, but now...
Gunfire suddenly exploded; Emmy’s bullet thudded into the front door.
Clara made a flying leap and threw herself from the entry to the living room and behind a sofa. She could hear Emmy coming down the stairs.
She had six shots.
Wait! What made Clara think the woman had six shots? She must have watched too many old Westerns. Guns could have all number of bullets in them now...
But, it was a self-loader. One of the pistols that people kept because the beloved wildlife could still be dangerous. She was pretty sure that most had six rounds and one in the chamber. Or something like that!
What difference did it make if one bullet found home?
What the hell to do?
“Aw, come on, Clara—we can play hide-and-seek all you like. You’re so predictable, though. Self-sacrifice! How could you watch me being tortured—how could precious Clara Avery not do the right thing? What you saw was a vicious Kimball making me speak for him. Me! Claiming he had a knife on me, while I had a blade right there against his ribs. I told him he was a dead man if he didn’t play along perfectly, and—coward that the bastard was—he wasn’t about to take a chance. Funny, because he had such a thing for you, but, hey, the poor sucker wanted to live and so he did as I commanded him. Kimball! Oh, that was priceless. He was so scared. The saddest thing is that he believed that I might let him live. He walked, walked the way I said, shut up the way I said—and would have done whirly-jigs if I had said. Nice, after the way he treated me. Maybe I’ve done the world a favor. The money goes back to his first wife. She’s a decent sort—she was kind to me.” Emmy paused to giggle. “Lawyers and the like will be descending here soon—then all will be hell. But, of course, they’ll know by then that it isn’t over. I’ll shoot myself somewhere nonlethal, of course. And I’ll cast the blame on another mysterious man!”
Emmy was coming down the stairs. Clara looked desperately around the room. Emmy spoke her thoughts almost before she could think them.
“Oh, Clara! On the Fate, I had to work with a knife—better than strangling, that’s what I say. But a gun is better than anything. Stay at a distance. Bang, bang. Tate needed it to be personal. He had to feel the life go out of someone. That was all well and good for him—he was a medium size, yes, but oh! His hands—you wouldn’t have believed the feel of his hands!”