Christina Hennessy stood several paces away. Meghan sucked in a sharp breath.
Wait. Christina was supposed to be in jail. Meghan tried to make sense of the situation.
Wind whipped her blond hair into a frenzy. She wore a bright orange jumper. Prison garb. How had she escaped? Why was she with Roman Wykoski?
“We wait,” Roman said. “He’ll show up and then we’ll take care of them both.”
Did Roman mean Ryan would show up? Roman was planning an ambush on Ryan.
“He won’t come alone,” Christina warned. “Just dump her over the side and let’s go. You promised me we could leave.”
“No worries, sis. I’m prepared. Our escape route is all set.”
Sis? As in siblings? Meghan’s mind tried to make sense of it.
Prepared? A fresh stab of fear pierced through her. Her heart wept for the man she loved. He would come to rescue her but walk into a trap. There was no way for her to warn him.
Ryan parked a half mile from the lighthouse. He didn’t know what Wykoski had planned but Ryan wasn’t walking into a trap. He approached the lighthouse by way of the bay, taking cover in the trees and scrub grass dotting the beach.
Up ahead to his right, he saw a man lying in the grass with a sniper’s rifle aimed toward the cliffs above. A short distance offshore a dingy bobbed in the water.
Stealthily, Ryan crept closer until he was within striking distance of the sniper. He planted a foot in the man’s back. Snaked his arm around the guy’s neck and squeezed, cutting off his oxygen supply.
A moment later, the man slumped, unconscious in Ryan’s arm. He laid him facedown. Liberating the rifle, Ryan ducked behind a boulder and used the rifle’s scope to assess the situation at the top of the cliff.
Meghan lay on the ground near the edge of the cliff, bound and gagged. But alive. He let out a ragged breath of relief.
For now.
Fierce anger surged through Ryan. He had to save her.
He sighted in on Roman pacing nearby.
Ryan’s finger twitched.
Roman stopped and seemed to speak to someone out of view.
In the distance, sirens wailed. Roman jerked toward the sound. A grim smile broke over Roman’s evil face.
Unease slithered down Ryan’s back. He needed to get closer.
In a low crouch, he ran for the road, crossed and then found a spot on higher ground behind a maple tree. Again using the scope, he surveyed the situation.
At the cliff’s edge, Roman stood over Meghan.
Standing next to him was…Christina Hennessy.
Ryan’s jaw dropped.
Nothing was what it seemed. He scanned the horizon.
Sunlight glinted off another shooter’s scope two hundred yards left of the lighthouse. He continued to the left and right. Another gunman lay behind a bush near Charles’s cottage. Roman was leaving nothing to chance.
Ryan sent up a silent prayer of thanksgiving that his brother Charles and kids were safe at Dad’s house and not at home in the lighthouse keeper’s residence.
His gaze zeroed in on something on the lighthouse balcony overlooking the road. A third sniper.
Fear sent him frantically reaching for his phone. He yanked it from his pocket and called Douglas.
“It’s a trap,” Ryan warned in tight whisper. “You and the others back off. I’ll deal with this.”
“No way!” Douglas shouted. “I’m coming whether you want me there or not.”
Meghan’s life was at stake. He didn’t have time to argue. Ryan relayed the position of each unidentified suspect. “Christina is here. Roman is holding Meghan at the edge of the cliff. She looks injured.”
His heart squeezed tight. He wanted another chance with her. To apologize. To tell her…
“I’ll inform the others,” Douglas said. “Don’t take any chances.”
Ryan clicked off with out answering. That wasn’t a promise he could make.
The woman he loved was in danger. He wasn’t going to stand around and let her be harmed.
Meghan fought against the fear threatening to swallow her whole. She couldn’t give in to it, in to the dark shadows closing in on her mind. She’d accepted her fate. But the sirens drew Ryan closer and closer to an ambush. She wouldn’t accept anything happening to him. She had to do something, had to keep him safe, even if it cost her in the end. She wouldn’t let the man she loved die.
Her hand closed over a loose, jagged stone. This might work.
She wedged it between her wrists. All she had to do was work the nylon tie around her wrist against it. In theory it sounded easy. Reality…remained to be seen. She prayed this worked. She rolled toward Christina, mindful of the long drop below.
Christina jumped as if she’d been poked with a hot stick.
Roman laughed. “She can’t hurt you.”
To cover up her intentions, Meghan screamed questions, made unintelligible by the cloth wedged between her lips. She rocked side to side as she screamed, using the rock like a saw against the tie.
Christina yanked the gag away from Meghan’s mouth. “I take it you want to talk.”
Gulping in air, Meghan swallowed and nearly retched on the disgusting taste on her tongue. “Why are you doing this?”
Christina’s eyes glittered with an insane kind of fervor. “You interfered in our business. Now we have to leave. Start over somewhere else. You have to pay the price for your meddling.”
Hating to think what that price might be, Meghan asked, “How did you escape from prison?”
Mouth curling, Christina sneered. “Really? How do you think? Roman broke me out.”
Of course Roman broke her out. It just seemed so impossible. Unreal. “So he’s your brother.”
Heaving a beleaguered sigh, Christina nodded. “Yep. Two years older. Genetics. What can you do?”
Meghan had so many questions. “I guess that also might explain why you killed Burke.”
A shuttered look came over Christina’s face. “I had no choice but to kill him. When he found out I had killed Olivia, he was going to turn me in. He was going to betray his own wife.”
Meghan stilled. Surprise siphoned the blood from her brain, making the world tilt. Blinding grief brought tears to Meghan’s eyes. Finally she knew definitively who killed her cousin. “Why did you kill her?”
“She wanted to take my baby away from me. She said she’d changed her mind and wanted to take sweet Georgina back. I couldn’t let that happen.”
Christina’s hands fisted. “She fought me. Scratched my arm like a wild cat. Drew blood even. I lost my favorite dolphin charm.”
She sounded put out about the loss of her jewelry. “When I saw the picture of me wearing the charm on the wall at the Sugar Plum I knew someone would recognize it and connect it to me. Then when the police showed the charm on the television I had to run.”
The pieces all fell into place. “So that’s when you decided to give Georgina to your brother to sell? Why would you do that?”
She made a face. “Not the best move. I wasn’t thinking straight.”
Meghan blinked. As opposed to the straight thinking that led her to murder? The woman was certifiable.
Three loud rapid-fire gunshots split the air. Meghan flinched and ducked her head into the dirt.
Christina screamed. Roman cursed and hit the ground.
Frantic, Meghan inched her way farther from the cliff, while the sharp-edged stone tore at the binding. She could feel the tie loosen.
