“Adriana, what are you doing here?”
“Oh, Tom,” Adriana said, racing over to him. She put a hand on his shoulder. “I found out everything. Mitchell told me everything. That’s how I knew you were here.”
Tom stood and pulled Jill up with him. “What’s going on, Adriana?”
“Roland is the one who framed you,” Adriana said. “Roland’s been framing people for sex crimes for years. I didn’t want to believe it. But the FBI came to arrest Mitchell. He confessed to everything.”
Tom kept Jill close beside him. “Are the police on their way?”
“Yes,” Adriana said. “They’re coming.”
Adriana circled the chaos about them with her flashlight beam. She shone her light on the opened duffel bag.
“What’s going on?” Adriana said. “What’s in the bag?”
“That’s what Roland is after. It’s millions of dollars’ worth of heroin that I smuggled out of Germany.”
“You?”
“Kelly and Kip Lange stole the drugs. Kelly used me as a mule. Roland orchestrated the whole heist, but Kelly never knew Roland was the man behind the scenes.”
“I see….”
Adriana strolled over to Frank Dee. Dee writhed on the ground, clutching at his bleeding abdomen. Adriana picked up Dee’s gun. She hefted it in her hands, pointed the gun at Dee’s head, and pulled the trigger.
Dee’s skull exploded in a spray of blood. Red droplets and fragments of bone lit by the moonlight fell to the ground like rain.
“Adriana!” Tom shouted. “What are you doing?”
Adriana turned and pointed Dee’s gun at Tom.
“Put your gun down, Tom,” she said, her voice calm and eerily detached. “This doesn’t concern you. But it will if you don’t toss me that gun.”
Jill clung tightly to her father. Tom tossed his weapon at Adriana’s feet. He didn’t set the safety, hoping the gun might accidentally discharge and startle Adriana. It would be enough for him to gain the advantage. To Tom’s displeasure, the gun landed with a wholly unsatisfying thud.
“Walk away. Stand over there.” Adriana motioned for Tom and Jill to move toward the quarry’s edge. She had the gun, so Tom followed her rules.
Adriana walked over to Roland as calmly as she had approached the now very dead Frank Dee. She stood over her injured husband. Tom and Jill huddled together only a few feet from where Roland lay. Adriana had smartly positioned herself so that Tom and Jill stood directly in front of her, with Roland in the middle. She’d be able to get off a shot quicker than Tom and Jill could get to the trees.
But the woods weren’t their only escape option.
Tom took a small step backward.
“Roland,” Adriana said, poking at Roland with her feet. “Are those drugs?”
“Adriana, help me….”
“You’re dealing drugs, too? On top of destroying innocent people’s lives, you’re also a drug dealer?”
“Please… Adriana… help….”
“I didn’t frame Tom because of greed. I did it to save our son,” Adriana said, the tone of her voice pure venom.
“You framed me?” Tom said incredulously. “It wasn’t Roland? It was you?”
Adriana seemed to forget about her husband for a moment. “Tom, dear Tom… I’m truly sorry. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”
“Why?”
“To protect my family. To save my son. Someone had to take the fall. You.”
Tom was shivering. He held Jill close to him for warmth. Tom wanted to keep Adriana talking, buy himself time. He made Jill take another small step backward.
“But why frame me?”
“You fit the suit,” Adriana said. “You worked with girls. You’ve been the soccer coach for years. You’re handsome. Girls are attracted to you. It was believable. Simple as that. I knew eventually the police would come after Mitchell. And eventually they did.”
“You did this all just to protect your son? He’s a criminal. You’d destroy my life to save his?”
“I already lost one son. I couldn’t just stand idle and watch Mitchell throw his life away. But before you judge me,” Adriana said, “ask yourself this. How far would you go to save your daughter?”
Putting all the pressure she could manage on the gas pedal, Rainy couldn’t make her sedan go a mile faster. The lone red strobe light on the roof of her car warned what little traffic she encountered on the quiet streets of Shilo to stay out of her way. Carter made sure he had the GPS coordinates entered right. They didn’t trust Mitchell Boyd to give them directions. But the closer they got, the more it seemed that Mitchell had told them the truth. Mitchell had insisted his mother would be at this place called the Spot, and his father, too. She had to believe that Tom and Jill would be there as well. If Mitchell told the truth about one thing, he was confessing to it all.
Rainy’s police radio crackled. Carter replied to the state police inquiry with their current location.
“ETA is about five minutes,” Carter said to Rainy.
“That might be five minutes too late,” Rainy said.
Roland groaned.
“Secrets… ,” Adriana said, looking down at him. “We kept so many secrets. I guess both Roland and I did what we believed was best to protect what we had. We knew the same horrible truth about our son but didn’t tell each other. Instead, we tried to fix it.” Adriana pointed Dee’s gun at Roland’s head.
“Adriana, what are you doing?” Tom cried.
“You disgust me,” Adriana said to Roland. “I did everything I could to save our son. And you? You’re dealing in the same crap that killed my Stephen. Were you just going to peddle this garbage to somebody else’s kid? You’re a callous, sick man, and the reason Stephen is dead.”
“Adriana… help….”
“Did my son murder Lindsey Wells? Is my Mitchell a killer?”
“No… no… Lindsey was alive when Mitchell brought her to me,” Roland said, struggling to speak. “But she had to die. You understand. To save our son, she had to die.”
“You killed her?” Adriana asked.
“No. It was Dee. I had Dee kill her. Adriana, please… we can fix things.”
“Nothing can be fixed,” Adriana said. “But maybe I can start over.” She knelt down, placing the barrel of Dee’s gun inches from Roland’s head.
“Good-bye, Roland,” she said.
Adriana pulled the trigger.
Chapter 84
Adriana stood from her crouched position quicker than Tom anticipated. Even so, he was ready to act. He’d been whispering in Jill’s ear while Adriana kept herself occupied with Roland. Jill assured him she was ready. She squeezed Tom’s hand with a strength he didn’t realize his daughter possessed.
Adriana raised her gun higher. Her face, savage with a gruesome covering of blood splatter, contorted into a vicious snarl.
“I’m sorry, Tom. I’m going to have to disappear. I don’t see any other way.” She aimed the weapon at Jill.
Tom shoved Jill backward, hard as he could, coiling and uncoiling his hips to enhance his leverage. Jill’s feet lifted off the ground. Tom prayed they had taken enough backward steps that he could shove her far enough out to clear the railroad ties below. He dove to his right at the same instant Adriana fired her shot. Tom heard the bullet
