The woman’s eyes snapped up and locked on to Goldie’s as her chest rose and fell with her rapid breathing. She was highly agitated, by the look of it.
“Please, Marsha,” Mrs. Volto said in a pleading tone. “Please do as she says.”
Goldie inched her way into the room, dripping pool water onto the carpet, Zeke right behind her. “Do you know this person, Mrs. Volto?” she asked.
“This is Marsha Volto, my sister-in-law. She’s married to my husband’s brother, Joseph.”
Goldie skirted to the side of the room to get a better vantage point, her aim as steady as a rock. “Don’t make me shoot you, Marsha,” she said, addressing the suspect directly. “I don’t want to do that. You gotta back off.”
But Marsha stubbornly maintained her position, the crystal vase held high over Mrs. Volto’s head. As she was still in her fake uniform, there was a gun holstered at her waist, and Goldie wondered why Marsha hadn’t used it already. Was there a more personal score to settle here?
“Think of the baby, Marsha,” Zeke said gently, pointing to Mrs. Volto’s stomach. “That’s your niece or nephew in there, right? They’re innocent in all of this.”
Marsha narrowed her eyes at Mrs. Volto. “You deserve to die for what you’ve done, Louisa,” she spat. “The family trusted you and you betrayed us.” Her voice rose to a screech. “You’re a dirty, rotten liar.”
She lifted the vase even higher, and Mrs. Volto suddenly turned toward Marsha and kicked out with her foot, making contact with her attacker’s knee. Marsha lost her footing and dropped the vase onto the deep-pile carpet, making a grab for her gun. Goldie yelled out a final warning, but as Marsha yanked her gun from its holster, she was forced into immediate action. She fired her weapon.
As the sound of the bullet reverberated in the air, Marsha crumpled to the floor, blood oozing from a bullet hole in her chest. Zeke sprang forward, pulling a folded towel from the dresser to press onto the wound and stem the flow.
“You go see to Mrs. Volto,” he said. “And call for backup.”
Goldie holstered her weapon, pulled out her radio and made a request for an emergency response team. Then she knelt next to Mrs. Volto and put a hand on her shoulder.
“Medical help is on the way,” she said soothingly. “Is the baby okay?”
Mrs. Volto sat up and placed her arms around her stomach protectively. “Everything is fine, and I can feel the baby moving.” She looked across at Zeke desperately working to prevent the injured woman from bleeding out. “How is Marsha?”
Zeke’s expression was contorted into a grimace, his fingers splayed and pressed onto the towel, now saturated crimson. “I can’t stop the bleeding.” He placed two fingers on Marsha’s neck as she lay supine on the carpet and rested them there for what felt like an age before shaking his head. “She’s gone.”
Goldie’s shoulders slumped. Taking a life was never an easy decision and caused her a huge amount of pain, even when she had been given no choice.
Zeke stood, lifted a clean bath towel from the dresser and shook it out to place over the body. He then knelt on the carpet, laced his fingers and looked across at Goldie. “You want to join me in a prayer?”
She jumped to her feet. “Really, Zeke? You think that’ll solve anything?”
His brow wrinkled. “It won’t bring her back, but whatever wrong she did in her life, we should ask God to have mercy on her now that she’s passed.”
Goldie rolled her eyes. She had battled with a fragile faith throughout her twenties, but some years ago it had shattered into teeny, tiny pieces, and Zeke’s legacy had played a big part in its breaking. He was the first person to prove to her that belief meant nothing, that prayer was pointless. She had asked God to help her a million times over, to show her the way back to Zeke. And now it was too late. She was too old, too cynical and too distrustful to care anymore.
“I’ll pray with you,” Mrs. Volto said, shuffling across the floor.
“You two can pray if you like,” Goldie said, heading for the door. “I’ll go wait outside for backup to arrive.”
“Marigold,” Zeke called. “What happened to you? You always said your faith was unbreakable.”
She turned. “I’m called Goldie these days, Zeke. And guess what—I grew up over these last twenty-one years. Maybe you should try it.”
With that, she strode from the room, brushing away a tear as she went.
Standing in the doorway of the kitchen, Zeke stole numerous glances at Marigold as she sat at the table giving a statement to Karl Bauer, the special agent in charge of this protection assignment. Zeke’s childhood sweetheart had barely changed in twenty-one years. Her long, tightly curled hair was exactly the same color as it used to be, as coppery and vibrant as a sunset. And her freckles hadn’t faded on her cheeks, nor had her green eyes lost their ability to set his heart beating. But something had clearly changed inside her character. She was cynical and tough, having built a high internal wall. There was no way she wanted to be friends, that was for sure. And considering her prickly nature, friendship wasn’t on his agenda, either.
She glanced his way, locked eyes with him and held his gaze, defiant and fierce. He wasn’t sure what he’d done to deserve this kind of hostility, because Marigold herself was the one who’d cut contact all those years ago.
Her family had vanished from their Glenside home out of the blue one day, right after rumors started to circulate about her father’s gambling addiction and suspected embezzlement from his employer. Zeke, of course, had always known that Mr. Simmons was a gambler and a liar and cruel with his words. Marigold had confided all of these secrets to him, leaning on him and building up a powerful relationship.
