husband was old. Darwyn was young and sexy.”
Behind Cleo, the bedroom door eased open perhaps a half inch.
Annie felt her eyes flare wide. She immediately tried to contain her expression, keep her face unchanging. She spoke more loudly. “You met Darwyn here. I imagine you planned trysts for the afternoons. You could slip away from the office, ostensibly to run an errand, and no one would be the wiser. How long had you been sleeping with him? A few months? Long enough, I suppose, to pick up on the coldness inside him. But Glen might still be alive if Richard Jamison hadn’t come.”
Behind Cleo the door continued to move, slowly, slowly.
Laura sat frozen on the sofa. She, too, watched, but her gaze appeared to be focused on Cleo.
Annie kept her eyes locked with Cleo’s. “You wanted Richard, but Richard wasn’t willing to have an affair with his cousin’s wife. I’m sure you pretended to be stricken with nobility as well. But when Richard told you he was leaving the island, you made your plans. I don’t know what you promised Darwyn, but he agreed and so the process began. You placed the gun in the gazebo. Pat Merridew had no liking for any of you by that time. She’d been fired. She must have enjoyed finding out something she could hold over your head. She saw you hide the towel and then checked and discovered the contents. She invited you for coffee to have a visit, but you went to her house earlier in the day, took her leftover pain pills.”
Cleo’s eyes burned. “She was a fool. Her back door was unlocked. I found the pills in a kitchen cabinet. She’d told us over and over about the pain in her wrist.”
Annie spoke quietly. “You got the pills and ground them up and had them in a plastic bag in your purse. That evening at her house, did you ask for more honey for your Irish coffee? Something like that happened, I’m sure. When she went to the kitchen, you dropped the ground-up pills in her cup. When she began to get drowsy, you picked up the travel brochures, washed your own crystal mug, replaced it without fingerprints in the cabinet, discarded the prescription bottle in the trash, and left her to die. Now everything was on track for Glen’s murder.”
Annie was careful not to look beyond Cleo at the figure standing in the bedroom doorway.
“Glen had to die this week. You knew the information about the key man insurance would come out. That’s why you arranged to be in Savannah for a deposition. No suspicion would attach to you. You weren’t on the island. Moreover, Kirk was still a partner and he made a nice suspect for the police. And Glen had to die on Tuesday when Darwyn came to the house to work. Darwyn propped the leaf blower near the terrace. He left it running. He wore gardening gloves and he had the Colt. He opened the French door to the study and stepped inside.
“Glen must have stood up and walked toward him. Darwyn was a good shot. He had to be a good shot. Most shooters aim for the chest. There’s less chance of missing. But arrogant, confident Darwyn shot Glen twice in the throat. I imagine he liked blood. Glen fell to the floor. Darwyn dropped the gun, slipped back outside, picked up the leaf blower, went back to work. Who did Darwyn see? Only Tommy. When I talked to Darwyn, he hinted at what he might have seen. He knew Elaine was a suspect and he made that threatening visit to her cottage. I don’t know that he intended to ask for money. I think he was a bully and wanted to make her uncomfortable. Maybe he intended simply to widen the possibilities for the police, but it worked out very well for you. Everyone assumed Darwyn was killed because of what he had seen in the backyard. You asked him to meet you in the gazebo. You had already taken Elaine’s five iron and hidden the club there.”
A pulse throbbed in Cleo’s throat. She lifted the gun.
Annie flung herself to one side as the man in the bedroom doorway plunged forward, strong and determined. He grabbed Cleo’s wrist, twisted her arm.
The gun went off. The sound was huge in the small room.
Cleo sagged to her left. The gun clattered from her hand onto the floor.
Richard Jamison kicked the gun away.
Cleo moaned and rolled to one side, clutching at a welling flood of blood pumping from her upper leg. “Richard . . .” Her face worked. “Richard, I did it all for you.”
Chapter Sixteen
Emma Clyde, the island’s famous septuagenarian mystery author, lifted a coffee mug. Its inscription read:
Max’s blue eyes held remembered fear. “How about ‘To Annie, reckless and demen—’ ” He paused. His face softened. “To Annie, champion of the lost and vulnerable. But”—his voice was imploring—“please don’t ever do anything like that again. We were on the ferry and you didn’t come.”
“Not a good feeling.” Billy Cameron shook his head. Comfortable in a polo and Levi’s, his bulky frame made the rattan chair in Death on Demand’s coffee area appear small.
Henny Brawley topped a cappuccino with a maraschino cherry. “Annie, why didn’t you do something to alert everyone?”
Annie felt cold. “You didn’t hear Laura’s voice. I had to stay on the phone or Cleo would have shot her. Cleo knew how little time it took to drive to Jasmine Gardens. It took one hand to drive and one to talk on the phone. I had to keep talking. If I’d honked the horn or been late . . .”
She touched the red letters on her mug:
Billy shook his head. “Cleo was smart and ruthless. Fortunately for you and Laura, Richard Jamison was smart, too. He didn’t want to believe Cleo was involved, but he saw her slip out into the garden Thursday night. He told me there was a look on her face that kept him from following her. He thought she was grieving for Glen. The next day Darwyn’s body was found. She didn’t say a word about having been in the backyard. That worried him. He tried to keep an eye on her after that. Saturday afternoon, he saw her come out of her room. He said, ‘She had that look again.’ He slipped down after her. She went into the study. She came out in a minute. Laura was sitting on the lower verandah. Cleo said something to her and in a minute they left in Laura’s car. Richard was worried. He said, ‘Cleo was dangerous. I knew it. I didn’t know what she’d said to Laura, but I thought I’d better follow. I didn’t think I should use my car. She would recognize it.’ He ran across the street, tossed his billfold to a guy working in the
