Timing (321 page)

190

Mary Calmes

I HATE the sme

m ll of gaso

s line. So

S me people li

l ke it; I’ve never been a

fan. When I tried to lift

f my

m ha

h nd to cover my nose, I found that I

couldn’t move

v at al

a l. Opening my

m eyes, I

I realiz

i ed that I

I wa

w s pinne

n d to

the floor

r by

b a ma

m n twic

i e my size. The

h wide-open sightless eyes made

me cry out, and, shoving

g out from under him

i , I sc

s rambled back against

the wall.

“Scared?”

Looking up, I saw my boss with an empty

t gas can in one hand

and the s

ame

m gun he had e

arl

r ie

i r

r in the other.

“That’s Cole Gy

G psum, if

f you care

r . He was my

m partner in this littl

t e

l

adventure

r . I

I would have b

lame

m d it a

ll on him wit

i hout you, but I realiz

i ed

that it would have made no se

s nse to people

l and so they would have

v

searc

r hed

d for the logic

i . Lo

L oking for a connection would have led to me.

But

t with you here

r , the

h connection’s made

d , so…

o

no need to do any

digging.”

His pupils were huge, dil

i ate

t d, he didn’t

’ look well. It was like the

man I knew wa

w s gone, ha

h ving le

l ft a wa

w lking, ta

t lking shell in his pla

l ce.

“What did you do?”

“I needed the money.”

“What money?”

“Were

r you a

lways t

his stu

t pid? I never thought of y

ou a

s stupid.”

.

I

I clicke

k d through what I knew before I looked around and saw

where

r I was: in Mrs. Fr

F eeman’s

’ li

l ving room. “Oh shit, Knox.”

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191

“It made so much sense. I mean, these people are the salt of the

earth, right? Every cowboy movie I ever saw… you never sell the ranch

to city slickers. We’re the bad guys, they’re the good guys, so no way

they sell.”

“But they did—at least some of them did.”

“Yes.” He let out a deep breath. “They all decided to sell.”

“Except Mrs. Freeman.”

He smiled at me. “She was the last hold-out. She was my angel…

as long as she didn’t sell, no one would need the money, and if no one

needed it—”

“Then no one would realize that it was gone.”

“Precisely.”

It was quite a revelation. The money to pay the people who had

decided to sell their ranches had been stolen by my boss. Knox Bishop

had embezzled over five million dollars from his company, my

company, and no one had any clue.

“How did you do it?”

“It’s just a question of moving funds around until people lose

track.”

“They will find it, Knox.”

“No one’s looking for it, Stef. There’s no reason to. No one is

selling their ranches.”

“But when they find out that Mrs. Freeman died, they’re going to

want the money back.”

“Yes. And this is where you and my dead partner come in.”

Shit. “When did you take it?”

“I took it a year ago, when we started this venture. The money

was there, this surplus given to us by Armor South, and no one was

watching it.”

“Someone was.”

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Mary Calmes

“Yeah, me,” he said cheerfully. “It was my project; I was

supposed to get the buyers to sell and pay them out so Armor South

could build their Green Light megastore.”

“What did you do with all that money?”

He was pacing now. “I have debts and expenses and a life that

you have no idea about, Stef. You just… you have no idea.” There was

a wistful quality in his voice.

“Why kill Mrs. Freeman?”

“I had to,” he shrugged. “You told me yourself on the phone last

night—or the night before, I don’t remember—but you said that she

was going to sell. It’s actually the reason I sent you. I knew if she

would sell to anyone it would be you. I tested her, and I was right.

Everyone loves you, Stef, I knew she wouldn’t be able to resist you.”

“But—”

“Or maybe she could,” he smirked at me. “That was the point

right? She would either hold out and I’d be safe, or she’d cave and I’d

come out here and kill you both and make it look like you embezzled

the money and killed poor old Mrs. Freeman to save your own ass.”

It was terrifying, the power of money. I had known Knox Bishop

for four years, since I had started at Chaney Putnam, and I had never

even seen a glimmer of the evil that lurked just below the surface. The

man had been a friend to me; we had pulled countless all-nighters

brainstorming together, and when he was in a skiing accident, I had

visited practically every day. We had so many memories between us,

sometimes just a shared look could bring on raucous laughter. I would

miss him.

“Stef?”

I tipped my head at the gun in his hand. “So you’re just gonna

shoot me?”

“Yes,” he said at the same time I saw the butane lighter. “And

then I’m going to set fire to this house with you and Cole in it.”

I shivered hard.

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193

“For the record, Stef, I never wanted to hurt you. I prayed that

Mrs. Freeman wouldn’t sell, and so you know… Cole killed Mrs.

Freeman, not me.”

What was I supposed to say?

“He’s also the one who tried to run you off the road.”

“Why kill Cole?” I stalled him, watching him play with the

lighter, flip it open and closed over and over.

“Cole wanted more than we said at first,” he sighed heavily. “He

gambled a lot.”

I looked up at the man hovering close to me. “Why can’t you just

run away and disappear, Knox? I mean, all the money that you took…

you’ve gotta be able to live off of that for the rest of your life, right?”

“I told you already,” he said sadly. “It’s all gone.”

“It can’t all be gone.”

“Enough of it is. I need my job, and with you gone, I can start

over, make a clean start like none of this ever happened.”

I got slowly, carefully, to my feet. “I don’t think you really want

to hurt me.”

“No, I don’t,” he said flatly, leveling the gun at me. “But I have

no one else. Cole’s dead, and it has to be you two in it together.”

I watched, feeling like I was underwater, as he flipped the lighter

on and casually tossed it into the corner. In an instant, one side of the

living room went up in flames. The fire spread to the curtains, the

bookcases, and the beautiful antique rocking chair. It made me sad to

think of Mrs. Freeman’s home burning to the ground, her whole life,

her photographs, her children’s baby books, recipes, handwritten

notes…. It was all going to be ashes, and her children would have

nothing but their memories.

“Don’t worry,” he said as he advanced on me. “I’m not going to

make it your fault. Cole’s going to be the one who pressured you. I

have a great story about how you guys were in love, but he actually

used you, and then you ended up killing him and then killing yourself. I

even wrote a note.”

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Mary Calmes

“Nobody who knows me at all is gonna believe you.” I was many

things but tragic was not one of them.

“It’s romantic, in a sick, twisted sort of way,” he shrugged.

“They’ll believe it.”

I didn’t think, I just bolted for the archway. I wasn’t going to

stand there and get shot. How sane was that? I ran into the kitchen,

came careening around the corner, and grabbed onto the doorframe so I

wouldn’t fall. When I turned, I was faced with two doors. The first one

was locked, so I tried the second one. It led up to the second floor.

“Stef!”

There was a pop, and a chunk of the door was gone. In my body,

the hole would have been bigger. I charged up the stairs and heard him

screaming behind me.

“I don’t want to hurt you!”

No, he just wanted to kill me. Obviously as the psychosis had set

in, the man’s logic had flown right out the window.

I ran down the hall on the second floor, hearing pops behind me,

and dived inside of the first room. There was nothing to grab and hit

him with. It looked like a spare bedroom, all done in rosebuds. It was

so surreal to be running for my life and to find myself standing in a

room that looked like it belonged to a nine-year-old girl.

“Stefan!”

I ran to the window and looked out to see how far down the fall

would be if I threw myself out, and the blue lights flashed on my face.

My head snapped up, and I saw the four sheriff cars and Rand’s big,

scary pick-up. Two men were holding onto him, keeping him from

running into the house. I banged on the glass, and his face lifted as he

yelled. I couldn’t hear it, but I saw all the rage and force, even from a

distance.

“Stef!”

The drop from the second floor was straight down. If it didn’t kill

me, it would hurt me really badly. I darted from the room. There was a

“pop,” and my shoulder felt like it, too, along with the house, was on

fire. I ran even as the throb made it feel like my arm had fallen off and

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195

leaped sideways into another room. That one had another door, and

when I went through that, I discovered that the bathrooms were

connected like a dorm room. When I peeked out into the hall from the

second bedroom, I saw Knox go into the first. Neither one of us knew

the house at all, which was working to my benefit. I took the stairs back

down to the first floor, hearing him running around above me roaring

my name.

It was like walking into a sauna. Smoke was everywhere, and I

wished that Mrs. Freeman’s house were laid out like Rand’s. I would

never again take for granted the back door that led outside from his

kitchen to the enclosed porch. But there had to be a second way out, I

just had to find it. The front door, engulfed in huge flames, was not an

option.

“Stef!” I heard him scream, heard, too, his feet on the stairs.

There was no way out. Everything was too heavy for me to pick

up and launch at the only remaining possibility, the enormous bay

window.

“Stef!”

I turned, clutching at my shoulder, the blood oozing between my

fingers. “You can’t get out either, Knox.”

“I will, Stef! Watch me!” he shrieked at me, lifting the gun.

I braced for the impact; any way I dove, he had me.

He screamed as blood exploded from his shoulder, arm, and

collar-bone. I turned to the window in time to see Sheriff Colter wave

me out of the way. The chairs Mrs. Freeman and I had sat in just days

ago flew through the window, shattering the glass in a downpour of

shards.

The third deputy grabbed me through the gaping hole where the

window had once been. He dragged me outside as the others went in

after Knox. I was spun around and shoved hard only to find myself

crushed against a wall of solid muscle. Looking up, I saw that the

usually bright blue eyes were almost black.

“I just wanted to save him, Rand.”

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Mary Calmes

He nodded and tucked me against his side before bending fast and

sliding an arm under my knees, scooping me up. He walked me away

from the house toward his truck.

“He shot me.”

“I know. I heard it.”

“Why’re you mad?” I asked, reaching up, touching the clenched

jaw.

“Oh, I dunno, the man I love finally tells me he loves me and then

goes on and gets himself shot.”

He was adorable.

“What should I say?”

“What should you say? You’re askin’ me what you should fuckin’

say?”

It had actually been somewhat rhetorical.

“Goddammit, Stefan!” he roared, squeezing me so tight I made a

very unmanly squeak. “How ’bout, ‘I’m sorry as shit, Rand, for taking

ten goddamn years off your life’?”

I lifted my head and kissed under his jaw.

“All that bullshit about not workin’ on the ranch, you know that’s

off the table now, don’t you?” he muttered angrily. “You’ll be lucky if

you get to leave the ranch to do your goddamn Christmas shopping!”

The bluster was kind of cute, because it was obvious he had been