Lowcountry Bombshell (A Liz Talbot Mystery) (26 page)

He would be fast.

Could he get a shot off?

A rustling noise came from down the hall. And the sound of…hoofs on tile? Grunting? What in this world?

Poteat narrowed his eyes.

Something was coming fast.

I pivoted back out of the doorway and against the wall just in time to avoid being trampled by three wild hogs. They knocked the door wide open. I risked a peek.

The pigs charged Poteat. “What the bloody hell?”

He fired twice. Wood splinted. Fragments of doorframe flew. A piece caught me in the arm.

I crouched low. One of the swine knocked Poteat sideways.

He fired a round at the hogs, then two at me. Missed. He was still off balance. I couldn’t count on that lasting.

I braced and fired at Poteat. Three shots. He jerked and went down.

Things went fuzzy. I stared at him, numb.

The hogs sniffed him and poked at him with their snouts. He didn’t move.

His gun had slid outside the ring of swine. I grabbed it and laid it with mine on the bed. Then I untied Calista. She sobbed hysterically.

“Shh…shh. You’re safe. It’s over.”

When I had her untied, she curled into a ball.

“Where’s your robe?”

“Hook. Bathroom door.” She shivered, her teeth chattering.

I picked up both guns, gave the hogs a wide berth, and stepped into the bathroom. The “cocktail” Poteat had been preparing for Calista had been in a big pink enema bag. Three empty vials labeled chloral hydrate were on the side of the sink. I shuddered, grabbed the robe and went back to Calista.

“Here, let’s get you into this. Help is on the way.”

Calista’s sobbing subsided. She stared at the pigs, who still poked at Poteat. “I don’t think we need any help now.”

“Nevertheless—”

“
Liz,
” Blake shouted from the back door.

“In here.” I sat down on the bed beside Calista and hugged her tight.

Blake and Rodney came in, guns drawn.

They stopped and stared at Poteat and the hogs.

“I had to shoot him, Blake. He would have killed us both.”

He cocked his head at me. “And the hogs?”

I shrugged. “They acted on their own recognizance.”

And then twelve pissed off Marines landed.

THIRTY-FOUR

I slept in Sunday. I treated myself to eggs benedict with a mimosa for brunch. The heat wave had broken. It was still plenty hot, but with the breeze off the ocean, it was comfortable enough under the shade of the jasmine-covered pergola to eat on the deck. Colleen joined me.

“Are you okay?” she asked. “You’ve never taken a life before.”

I pondered for a moment. “I did what I had to do. It was him, or me and Calista. Niles, Poteat, whatever his name was—he was pure evil. But there’s a piece of me that feels wounded, like maybe something with big teeth took a bite out of me. I’m afraid that might not heal. Maybe it shouldn’t. Killing shouldn’t come easy.”

Colleen’s eyes looked troubled. “I wish I could have spared you that.”

“You sent the hogs, didn’t you?” I asked.

“Well, there is precedent.”

“I’m sorry. What?”

“Swine have been used to cast out demons before. The story’s in three of the four Gospels.”

I threw back my head and laughed. “Are you quoting scripture now? Is there a deeper message?”

“No. I just used what was handy. I could hardly do the roman candle thing in Calista’s house. I’d have burnt up everything inside the concrete shell. We needed a distraction.”

“Thank you.”

“I’m glad I could be there.”

“I guess I’ll have to revise my position on the hog issue.”

“I’m sure they’d appreciate any pull you might have on town council in their favor. They’re really harmless, except to demons, of course.”

I sipped my mimosa.

“You’re in love with Nate, aren’t you?”

“I’m afraid I am.”

“It’s the real thing.”

Behind my Wayfarers, my eyes watered. “For me, it is.”

“I so want you to be happy. But you need to stay here.”

“I have no intentions of leaving.”

“You say that now, but most people will do anything for true love.”

“Most of the people I love are right here.”

“And we will always love you, regardless,” she said. “It will be easy to justify leaving. But I can see alternate scenarios.”

“What do you mean?”

“I can see what happens if you leave and someone else takes your town council seat. It will go to election. Your replacement will advocate limited development. After a few years, he’ll wear folks down, talk them into it. There’ll be a lot of money on the table. After the first two resorts, there will be a bridge. Things will never be the same here.”

“Colleen, I promise, I’m not leaving. But I have to wonder, what is so special about Stella Maris that you’ve been sent here to protect it? I mean, I know why it’s special to
me
. But there are so many awful things going on in the world…”

“And there are legions of guardian spirits at work. Some with more success than others. They don’t send newbies to the Middle East. Even spirits with eons of experience can’t change human hearts. Our success depends on motivating humans. That’s not always easy.”

“Is Stella Maris sacred ground?”

“The whole earth is sacred ground, the moon, the stars, galaxies you’ve never dreamed of.” She faded away.

The door opened behind me and Nate walked out onto the deck. “Mind if I join you?”

I gestured to a chair. “Would you like some brunch?”

“No, thanks. I ate breakfast on the road.” He settled into the chair to my left, and turned it slightly to face the beach. “Blake filled me in on last night. Are you okay?”

“I will be.”

“He also told me they got the final coroner’s report on Jim Davis. No news there. He was murdered, the suicide staged. Ryder Keenan’s been released. That recording you made no doubt expedited that. They found Poteat’s storage unit.”

I shuddered.

Waves tumbled over each other and raced to shore. A flock of sea gulls flew by.

I sipped my mimosa and waited. After a while, I grew impatient with waiting.

“You didn’t drive all the way from Greenville to tell me what Blake told you,” I said. “Was there something you came to say?”

“Yeah. I’m just working out how to say it.”

“Are you about done yet?”

“Not quite.”

“I’m going to fix another mimosa. Are you sure you don’t want one?”

“Best I keep a clear head.”

I shrugged and went into the kitchen. When I returned, he was standing at the edge of the deck, hands in the pockets of his khaki shorts. I set down my glass and arranged myself in my chair. His long, suntanned legs were quite a distraction.

Finally, he spoke. But I couldn’t make out what he was saying. He was talking into the wind.

I squared my shoulders, stood, and walked over to stand by him at the rail. “I’m sorry. I didn’t hear what you said.”

He turned towards me and wrapped an arm around my waist. He tipped my chin up, swiped my sunglasses, and tucked my hair behind my ear.

I searched deep pools of blue for answers.

He took a deep breath. “I said, ‘I love you, Liz.’”

I smiled and shook my head slowly. Tears brimmed in my eyes. I reached up and held his face with my hands. “I love you, too. Why was that so hard?”

“Because I’ve never said those words to a woman before. I’ve never felt this way. Honestly, I always believed I never would. I just didn’t think I had it in me. You make me…irrational. I don’t like feeling irrational.”

I laughed. “I hope you’re not expecting me to apologize.”

He grinned. “No. I’m not complaining. I’m just trying to explain. I’m accustomed to being in control of my emotions. Friday night…”

“I’m not apologizing for that either, just so you know.”

He scowled at me.

“Well, I’m not apologizing for having a good time, anyway. I am very sorry for some of the things I said to you on the way home. I don’t even remember everything I said to you.”

“Probably best we both forget it. You had a lot of tequila in you, and you were mad as fire. That’s a bad combination.”

I hugged him close. “Forgive me?”

“If you forgive me.”

“Done,” I said.

He let go of me with one hand and ran it through his hair.

I pulled back. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t want to be your back-up plan.”

“Nate, that’s crazy. You know you’re not my back-up plan. It’s painfully obvious to the casual observer that I’m not in love with Michael Devlin. If I wanted him, I’d be with him right now.”

His forehead wrinkled. “Logically, I know that’s true. But I also know that you stayed in Greenville for Scott. You stayed away from here because of Michael. Your feelings for the two of them were powerful enough that you changed your life for them.”

“And that’s something I never should have done.”

He shrugged. “But you did. And I can’t help feeling that means your feelings for them were stronger. That scares me.”

“Nate, it’s not that at all. I think it just took me a long time to grow up. Marrying Scott—I probably did that in part because Michael hurt my heart so bad. I did love Michael once, but it was not the same thing at all. What I felt for him, that wasn’t grown-up love. And it was all knotted up with loving this salty piece of ground. I didn’t even know who I was yet when I was with Michael. It was so long ago.”

He nodded. “I know that in my head. But, like I said, you make me irrational. I want to haul you back to Greenville just like I hauled you out of The Pirates’ Den Friday night.”

Things inside me twisted like wrung out laundry. “This is my home. It’s my place in the world.”

He nodded. “I know. But I feel like Greenville is
my
place. Being here…it feels like I’m wearing someone else’s clothes.”

Tears slid down my face. “I don’t know how we resolve this.”

“No, no, no…please don’t cry, Slugger.” He pulled me to him. For a long time we held onto each other. “All I know for sure is that I love you.”

I pulled back to look at him. “I love you, too. So much.”

“Then we’ll figure the rest out as we go.”

“All right,” I said. “We’ll think of something tomorrow.”

“Do you have any more of that champagne?”

“I surely do.”

“Why don’t we take it upstairs?”

I gave him my best come-hither smile and we went inside.

Reader’s Discussion Guide

or

Things to Chat about While Sipping

a Refreshing Beverage if You’re so Inclined

1.  Do you believe in Doppelgangers? Have you ever met someone who was the spitting image of you or someone you know? 

2.  Do you think it’s possible Marilyn actually has distant family members somewhere, perhaps unaware of the connection, who resemble her?

3.  Calista is emotionally isolated because of her background, but also because of her wealth. She comments to Liz that “…everyone thinks they want to win the lottery. … If you have great wealth, you have to spend your whole life guarding it from all the people who want to take it away from you. … Almost anyone can be bought for the right price.” Do you think she’s right?

4.  Do you think Liz made the right choice in pursuing a relationship with Nate? Do you think there’s trouble ahead for them because they work together?

5.  Liz is very organized and methodical. But, like most of us, she has a lot of distractions. Family is very important to her. Nate, on the other hand, is not close to his family. Do you see this as a potential problem for them?

6.  Would you have done what Liz did on the ferry boat?

7.   Liz has a strong sense of place and doesn’t intend to leave Stella Maris. Nate feels that he belongs in Greenville. How important is a sense of place to you? Do you see this as a problem for them?

8.
 
Michael makes a strong case that he and Liz have shared roots in Stella Maris, and want the same things in life. But he has a real problem with her career. How would you respond to a man who wanted you to change careers because he feared for your safety?

9.  Liz and Nate occasionally break the law in investigating their cases. Does this bother you, or does the end justify the means? Is it okay because they are trying to save a life?

10.  What do you think drives people like Donna Clark aka Grace McKee? Do you think Gwen/Gladys Monroe was as much her victim as was Calista?

11. Who did you suspect all along was behind the strange gaslight incidents at Calista’s home? Did you believe her life was really in danger, or did you think she had emotional problems which made her believe this was the case?

12.  Do you think it’s possible there are guardian spirits like Colleen at work here on earth? How about guardian angels?