“I’m all wet. These will get soaked.”
He reached over and turned on the video camera. “It’s no problem. If we can’t read it, we have it on video.”
I clicked the pen. I stared at the papers. My eyes were misty, all the words a jumble through my streaked glasses. I couldn’t make sense of any of it.
“Your new car is waiting outside. Once you leave, my client will send someone to pick me up.”
My mother, my real mother, had wanted me to have this inn. Robert and the lawyers had worked tirelessly to save it. Phyllis Martin had died trying to take it.
And Matt Mettle had died trying to help me.
If I signed, it was all for nothing.
I gripped the pen. Every step of the way, Kendall had outsmarted me. He had orchestrated the downfall of my business, he had trapped me, and he had made it impossible for me to go back to Dark Haven.
Without another thought, I signed so hastily, so sloppily, it was if I planned to contest its validity.
He smiled and gathered up the papers and put them in his briefcase. “That wasn’t so hard, now was it?” he said and lifted his shot glass in a toast. “To new beginnings.”
I stared at him. The little red tally lamp on the camera blinked, making his face pulse in red.
“Go on. Toast,” he urged.
I picked up the shot glass.
“That’s better,” he said and clinked his glass to mine. “Now drink.”
I raised the glass, hesitating. Maybe it was better to get drunk, to escape into mindlessness, to leave the pain of everything behind.
But then what would I become?
A homeless drunk.
“Drink it,” he said louder.
I touched the rim to my lips. Then, defeated, I thought screw it, and threw it back.
“Good girl,” he said. He lowered his glass. “But here’s the thing. I told you not to go snooping around that lake, didn’t I?”
The room got fuzzy. I blinked hard.
He gazed into his glass, marveling at the red liquid. “This batch, you see, is a bit over the hill. Not fit for drinking,” he said. He grabbed the bottle and set it down in front of me and turned it around so I could see through the glass at the back of the label.
The blinking light from the camera filled the empty part with red.
“Can you read that?” he said.
I blinked harder, everything fuzzy. My brain felt like it was leaking out my ears. I tried to concentrate, but could see nothing more than the back of the label, the logo warped and backward through the glass. Red Rum.
muR deR.
“Murder, she drank,” he said.
Before I knew it, I was pitching forward, the edge of the table coming up fast.
I didn’t even feel my head hit the wood.
44
“You stink,” he said. “You smell like decay. Like pond scum.”
I blinked awake.
“But it’s nothing a good fire can’t remedy.”
We were in the shack. An electric lantern hung from a nail in the roof. It swung gently, casting moving shadows, the glowing coils faintly buzzing like flies. My wrists were scratchy. Rope. I struggled, but was tied to the chair, my wrists bound behind me.
Kendall was standing over me, his faint shadow oscillating behind him. In one hand, the half-empty bottle of Red Rum hung against his thigh. In the other, he held the video camera at shoulder level. The red light was still blinking.
“My client likes proof,” he said. “One hundred proof.”
Beside, him standing a few inches taller, was the unmistakeable hair of Roman Caesar. I had taken his place in the chair.
And ultimately, I feared, Chrissy’s.
I had no idea how long I had been unconscious. It was long enough, at least, for Kendall to drag me out here and tie me up. We must have taken the canoe.
I glared up at Caesar. I was still whoozy from whatever Kendall had spiked the rum with and my words dribbled down my chin.
“Caesar was a lure, wasn’t he?”
“No, no, you’ve got it all wrong,” Kendall said. He passed the bottle of rum to Caesar and then set the video camera down on an overturned paint bucket and angled it to point at me. “My client always knew you would tenaciously pursue your sister’s whereabouts, regardless of the consequences to yourself. Noble, but stupid. Because of that tenacity, he has wanted to see you removed from the picture ever since you got involved with Phyllis Martin and messed up his plan to take the inn. I, however, have consistently convinced him otherwise. Unfortunately, you had to go snooping around and find dear Caesar here who, having fulfilled his duties, was about to head off to that big fire pit in the ground. Now my client thinks you know too much, and like Caesar, are better off dead. Thankfully, Caesar has graciously agreed to take the blame in exchange for his life.”
I strained my wrists, hoping for an extra inch to wiggle free, but had no luck. I blew a wet strand of hair out of my face.
“Dimitri worked for your client, didn’t he?”
“Yes,” Kendall said. “I need you to know that I fought on your behalf, Rosie. I really did. Every step of the way. I told my client that you were a good person, that you deserved a chance to do the right thing, that all you wanted to do was find your sister. I told him that I could get you to take the money and sign the papers without any bloodshed, but you couldn’t take my offer, could you? It became really clear that even if we sent you off with the money and a brand new car, you would still be a thorn in our sides. As always, my client was right. Elimination is the best strategy.”
“You killed Matt.”
“No, not me,” Kendall said. He pointed at Caesar. “He did. He killed Phyllis and Dimitri too. Now he’s going to add a fourth victim to his list. And
