Arsenic with Austen (33 page)

Luke dropped her at the church to collect the Vespa, and Emily rode back down to Windy Corner. When she rounded the bend of the drive that brought the house into view, she was so startled, she nearly fell off the scooter. A red Porsche stood in the circle before the front door. Brock's red Porsche.

Emily stopped the Vespa on the pavement to avoid the noise of wheeling it over gravel. She took off her helmet and pulled out her cell phone. Luke's message came on. “Luke, it's me. I just got home, and Brock's car is in front of my house. I don't know what's going on, but I don't like it. I think you'd better get over here right away.”

She crept crouched on tiptoe through the grass and up to the ground-floor windows, flattening herself against the house to peek into each room in turn. She couldn't see into the hall without climbing onto the porch, and the stairwell window was above her head. But she could get a good view of the dining room through the bay; it was empty. She heard a noise to her right, from the direction of the kitchen.

Holding her breath, she inched along the wall to the kitchen window. She had to move out a bit to see inside, but she crouched down until her eyes barely cleared the sill. At first she could see nothing through the sheer white curtains. Then a glint of light off metal caught her eye, and the scene came into focus.

Katie sat in a chair by the table, her back to Emily. Her hands were roughly tied behind her with twine. More twine bound her ankles to the legs of the chair. Strapped into a bouncy seat on the table, little Lizzie fussed, working herself up to a proper indignant cry because Katie did not come to her rescue.

And standing in front of the two of them was Vicki Landau, impeccably turned out in a red suit and pearls, pointing a pistol at Katie's head.

 

thirty-one

[To Edward Ferrars] “Engaged! But what was that, when such friends were to be met?”

“Perhaps, Miss Marianne,” cried Lucy, eager to take some revenge on her, “you think young men never stand upon engagements, if they have no mind to keep them, little as well as great.”

—Marianne Dashwood and Lucy Steele,
Sense and Sensibility

The window was open a couple of inches. Emily maneuvered herself where she could see and hear without being seen.

“I'm disappointed in you, Katie,” Vicki was saying in a calm, friendly voice. “You're not acting like a loyal Trimble at all. Don't you want your favorite uncle to get rich? I'm sure he'll set you up quite nicely if you'll only do your part.” She moved the barrel of the pistol toward Lizzie. “Just tell me where the will is hidden, and you and your precious baby will be fine.”

Emily's heart constricted. She'd been kind to Katie, but what did a week's worth of kindness count for against a lifetime of family loyalty? She couldn't even remember now whether she'd told Katie about her own legacy under the will. Would it be better or worse if Katie knew?

But Katie didn't know where the will was hidden. Emily was sure of that.

“I tell you I don't know!” Katie's voice bordered on hysterical. “She's hidden it somewhere. I don't know all the hiding places in this house—there must be hundreds. You think I wouldn't tell you if I knew? With my baby's life on the line?”

Emily thought fast. She could sneak in through the front door, retrieve the will, hand it to Vicki, and stop this nightmare. Or would the nightmare then only begin? What could Vicki want with the will, anyway? She must know she and her coconspirators would not profit by it.

She could only want one thing: to get all the legatees out of the way before killing Emily herself. Then the estate would default to Brock, if he were proved innocent, or to the State of Oregon, which would be only too happy to sell that prime stretch of beach real estate to Trimble and company.

So Katie and Lizzie were in equal danger either way. And once Vicki had the will, Marguerite and Luke would be added to the hit list as well.

Emily peered down the drive, straining her ears. No sound of an approaching patrol car. What was keeping Luke? She dialed his number again. Still no answer.

She couldn't stand by and watch Katie and Lizzie get hurt. Especially Lizzie. Her heart threatened to jump out of her body at the thought of that precious, innocent life being sacrificed to a hatred and greed that had nothing to do with her.

Emily would have to play the hero herself.

Unfortunately, her literary background didn't help her much in this situation. As a professor, the greatest danger she'd faced in real life was that of being stabbed in the eye by a mortarboard on commencement day. And her reading had always focused on the classics, with a few forays into genteel detective stories in which the sleuth's work was entirely intellectual. She knew nothing about handling a crisis situation like this.

But she did know how to analyze characters. Now which character did Vicki remind her of? Yes, of course—Lucy Steele from
Sense and Sensibility.
A mask of friendliness covering bitter jealousy. A shrewd eye on the main chance, with loyalty that lasted only as long as her intended's prospects were good. Vicki had forsaken Mayor Trimble for Brock when Brock looked likely to come into the property. Now that Brock was disinherited and in jail, she was hitching up to the mayor's wagon again.

Emily didn't need to overpower Vicki or persuade her out of her evil intentions; all she had to do was stall her until Luke arrived. And all that would require was a pretense of acceding to her demands. Surely the promise of turning over the beachfront property would be enough to pacify Vicki's spite as well as her greed—at least for now.

Emily took a deep breath, drawing on the strength of which she'd felt the promise back at St. Bede's. The hour of her greatest trial had come.

She slipped around the corner of the house to the kitchen door and tried it silently. It was unlocked. She backed down the steps, then mounted them with deliberate disregard for noise. She pushed open the back door, calling, “Katie?”

When Vicki swiveled to point the gun at her, Emily did not need to feign shock. Although she'd been expecting it, she could never have been prepared for the feeling of having an undoubtedly loaded pistol, held in a sure and firm grip, aimed with precision at her heart. She felt the blood drain toward her feet and just managed to catch herself against the counter.

“Vicki! What—what's going on?” She willed herself into control. “You'd better put that thing down—you could hurt someone.”

“That's the general idea,” Vicki said sweetly. “Probably more than one someone. But if you're very cooperative, I might not make you watch the others die.”

“You're talking nonsense, Vicki. What can you possibly hope to accomplish by more murder?”

“If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. My aunt raised me with that motto. I'm going to get my hands on that beachfront property one way or another, Emily Worthing. Worthings out—Landaus back in. Right on top, where we belong.”

Emily raised her eyebrows. “Well, if the property is all you want, you can have it. What's a piece of land weighed against the lives of my friends?”

Vicki's eyes narrowed. “You'd deed me the property? For nothing?”

“Of course, if that's what it takes to stop this bloodbath.”

The muzzle of the pistol wavered. “My aunt also taught me never to trust a Worthing.”

“You can dictate a statement of intent right now and watch me sign it. Katie can witness—after you untie her hands, of course.”

“One hand, that's all she'll need.” Vicki sidled over to the table, keeping the gun leveled at Emily. With her left hand she undid the straps that held Lizzie in her bouncy chair and scooped the loudly protesting baby up under her arm. “And I'm using all the insurance I can get.”

Oh God, not Lizzie. Don't let her hurt Lizzie.
Again Emily willed herself calm. She mustn't make one false move.

Vicki jerked her head toward the hallway. “Into the library. I know you've got paper and pen in that desk of yours.”

Around
that desk of hers was more like it. The floor within a three-foot radius of the desk was littered with papers, pens, stamps, and all the other paraphernalia the drawers had contained. Clearly Vicki had already satisfied herself the will was not in the desk.

Moving slowly and deliberately, knowing Lizzie's life depended on her not arousing Vicki's suspicion, Emily retrieved a blank sheet of paper and a pen from the pile and sat down at the desk. “What do you want me to write?”

“I, Emily Worthing Cavanaugh, do hereby—”

“Just a minute, I can't write that fast. You do want this to be legible, don't you?”

Vicki waited, tapping her foot. She shifted the wailing baby into a more comfortable position—for her—the baby's bottom resting on her hip, her head hanging out over her arm. Emily's desire to take Lizzie in her arms and comfort her was almost as strong as her fear that Vicki would shoot the baby the moment she tried.

“All right, go on.”

“Do hereby promise to deed to Victoria Beulah Landau—”

“How do you spell Beulah?” Emily asked, although she knew perfectly well.

Vicki spelled it, then went on dictating. Emily drew out the process as much as she could without infuriating Vicki beyond endurance.

At last the document was finished, and it was time for Emily to sign.

“Back to the kitchen,” Vicki said. “Katie has to see you sign it.”

Emily picked up the pen and paper and walked ahead of Vicki into the kitchen. What on Earth was keeping Luke? He should have been here ages ago. Emily didn't think her strength could hold out much longer. Her nerves were at breaking point as it was.

She set the pen and paper on the table and pulled out a chair across from Katie.

Vicki waved the gun toward Katie. “Untie her right hand
only
. Unless you want me to shoot them both off.”

Katie's hands were tied separately to the slats of the chair back, then looped together. Emily untied the right while attempting surreptitiously to loosen the pressure on the left.

Vicki waved Emily back to her chair with the gun. “Now sign.”

Emily wrote in her best Parker-perfect handwriting—which bore no resemblance to her real legal signature—“Emily Ann Worthing Cavanaugh.” Her middle name was actually Alice.

“Now write, ‘Witnessed this day,' and a blank line, then ‘by' and another blank line.”

Emily complied.

“Hand the pen to Katie.”

Katie took the pen as if it were made of dynamite. She shot Emily a pleading look. Emily gave her a tiny nod.

Emily held the paper steady as Katie wrote the date, signed, and printed her name underneath. Emily noticed she'd spelled her name “Kathryn,” although she'd seen
Katherine Parker
written in one of her books. Good girl.

Vicki transferred the pistol to her left hand as she picked up the paper, folded it, and stuck it in the inside breast pocket of her suit jacket. “Now that we've got that out of the way, it's time to settle some old scores.”

Emily had barely a moment to panic at that pronouncement when she heard a faint scraping noise. She glanced over Vicki's shoulder and saw a head through the panes of the back door. Luke put a finger to his lips as he silently turned the knob.

Stall her. Get her to monologue.
“Scores? What score could you have to settle with me, now that you have that property?”

Vicki sneered. “You think I'd settle for one little strip of land when your aunt stole all of Stony Beach from us? The Landaus were headed for glory before she came along. Then it all started to go downhill. But you Worthings haven't won yet. This town's going to be Landau Beach before I'm done. You and your legatees are all going down—just as soon as I find out who they are.”

Maybe Emily's character analysis had been wrong. Maybe Vicki wasn't an Austen character at all, but a Dickens one—Estella to Beulah Sweet's Miss Havisham. If that was the case, she didn't just have a vindictive heart—she had no heart at all. How could such a person be touched?

Vicki aimed the gun at Emily's head and pulled back the safety. Emily kept her eyes on Vicki's so as not to betray what she saw happening behind her.

Luke stepped quietly into the room, his own pistol gripped in two hands and pointed at the back of Vicki's head. “Put down the gun, Vicki, and nobody gets hurt.”

Vicki whipped around, and Emily saw Luke's face go white as he realized what she was holding in her left arm. Emily silently rose from her chair and stepped away from the table.

“Come on now, Vicki. It's over and you know it. I found arsenic in the kitchen at Sweets, and your aunt told me all about it. How the two of you poisoned Beatrice and then tried to do the same to Emily. Funny how a lifetime of hatred can loosen your tongue.”

“It's not over till that usurper is dead!” Vicki screamed. “I'm going to own this town. You're on her side, not the law's. You'll go down with her.”

“You've got no quarrel with Katie or the baby. Trimble won't thank you for hurting them. Just put the baby down, nice and easy, and let the adults work this thing out.”

“Put the baby down?” An evil smile crept across Vicki's face. “All right, I'll put the baby down.” She opened her arm. Lizzie's tiny hands grasped at her coat sleeve but couldn't hold. She plummeted toward the floor.

The scene unfolded before Emily in slow motion. As Vicki's arm opened outward, she rounded the corner of the table. She heard Katie scream as if from a mile away, but Emily herself felt perfectly calm. As Lizzie fell, Emily dived. She hit the floor just in time to cushion the baby's fall.

Her slide knocked Vicki sideways, and she fell. A gunshot exploded in Emily's ears, deafening and disorienting her. Then she saw Luke's boot come down on Vicki's outstretched wrists. The boot was dotted with red. Why would Luke wear polka-dot boots? More red bloomed on the brown leather. She looked up to see Luke gripping his right shoulder with his left hand.