Death of the Party (30 page)

They reached the end of the tunnel. The ground sloped away, a gravel walk leading to the pier. The cart slowed, stopped. Britt turned toward Annie. It was too dark to see her face, but Annie knew Britt watched her every move. “We'll get out at the dock. We'll walk together. No one will pay any attention. You're not to call out. If you do, I'll shoot him, then you.” The cart lurched ahead.

Annie didn't need to ask whom Britt meant. If only Max remained absorbed in looking for the Coast Guard cutter. There might be safety in numbers; they would all be there, clustered at the end of the dock. And death would walk toward them.

Annie was only dimly aware of the cart's rattling onto the pier. She was terribly attuned to the taut, dangerous woman so near her, the anger that drove her, the merciless self-absorption that would see Annie's life end without a quiver of remorse. The cart stopped.
Annie felt a harsh poke against her side. She stepped out onto the pier. She tried not to tremble.

Max leaned against a railing at the end, looking out to the Sound. “I think I see running lights. Look to the west.” Max's voice was clear and strong. Annie drew the sound deep into her heart. These might be the last words she ever heard from him. Dear Max. Light of her life. They had laughed in the sunshine, always the two of them together. Together they could meet any challenge….

Dark figures moved toward Max, everyone intent upon glimpsing the arriving ship.

“Hurry.” The word was tight and harsh. Annie felt Britt's terrible urgency in another sharp jab of the gun. “Not a word, not a sound…”

Annie and Britt walked together, their steps a sharp clatter against the wood. Annie had eyes only for Max.
Goodbye. God love you, keep you safe, guide your steps, salve your sorrow.
She was beyond tears. There was nothing now but the ache of finality, the sweetness of memory, the emptiness of farewell. He was so near and yet he was now forever beyond her touch and call. They were almost to the end of the pier, nearing the ladder down to Loomis's boat, when Max abruptly turned.

Annie knew some instinct touched him, some primal fear.

Max jerked around, shouted, “Annie?” He started toward them.

Annie's cry was harsh. “Max, no! Stop!” She drew herself together, felt her muscles straining, ready to fling herself in front of the gun. But the gun was pressed against the back of her head now.

“Don't move, anyone. I'll shoot her.” Britt's high, thin voice was almost unrecognizable.

Millicent screamed. Nick moved to shield her. Jay pushed Dana behind him. Craig stepped in front of Isabel. Gerald hunched in a fighting posture. “Oh my God,” Lucinda wailed.

Annie heard Britt's short quick breaths but the pressure of the barrel was rock steady.

“Britt…Oh my God, what are you saying?” Loomis took a step forward, held out a seeking hand. He stood near the single light at the end of the pier. His face was stricken, drawn in anguish and horror and disbelief.

Britt choked back a sob. “Loomis, please. Don't look at me like that.”

“Britt.” He took another step. He looked sick and shaken.

“She killed them.” Lucinda's voice was high and shrill.

“Britt, say it's not true.” Loomis's voice was faint.

Britt shuddered but still the gun pressed against Annie. “Loomis, I didn't have any choice. I did what I had to do. For Cissy. I had to get rid of Jeremiah. He was going to send me away. Cissy needed me. She was dying and he was going to throw me out. I hated him. He was selfish and mean and cruel. Then Everett tried to blackmail me. I couldn't let him do that.”

Loomis took one step, another. “I don't believe it. Not you. Oh, Britt.” It was a cry of loss.

“I've got to get away.” She sounded feverish. “Everything would have worked except for her.” She jabbed the gun against Annie's head.

Annie's head jolted forward. Could she turn, grab the gun before…No. Britt would shoot.

“I've got to get away,” Britt said frantically. “I'm going to take your boat. You understand, don't you?”

The pressure of the gun eased. Annie felt dizzy and sick.

Britt poked Annie in the back. “This way. To the ladder.”

In a grotesque sideways lockstep, Annie and Britt moved toward the ladder. When they reached it, Britt held the gun steady on Annie. “Listen to me, everyone. Stay where you are. She's going down the ladder first, then me. If anyone comes after us, I shoot her, then the first person I see. All right, Annie.”

Annie looked at Max. This was goodbye. Britt would keep her alive only long enough to get away from Golden Silk. No longer. She saw the anguish in his face.

So did Britt.

“One step and she's dead.” The words were sharp as ice slivers.

Max stood frozen, face twisted in horror, hands outstretched.

“Hurry.” Britt's order was brusque, imperative.

Annie reached the edge of the dock, swung around to back down the ladder.

The only sounds were the slap of water against the
pilings and Britt's ragged breaths. Then came the click of shoes on the dock.

“Britt, don't do this. Please.” Loomis walked toward her.

Annie stopped, hands tight on the ladder. She was nearest Britt. She saw a dead-white face leached of life and hope.

“Give me the gun. End this now, Britt.” The words drifted light as winter leaves before a January breeze.

“There are lights!” It was a scream from Lucinda. “Out there. They're coming. The Coast Guard.”

Annie saw every vestige of pride and anger collapse into nothingness. Britt said, “Loomis,” a farewell to love and life.

She raised the gun to her head and fired.

A
S
I
NGRID
W
EBB LOCKED
the front door of Death on Demand, signaling the official end of the author event, Emma Clyde's cold blue eyes appraised the stack of books remaining at one side of the table near the fireplace. “I expected to sell out.” Her tone was frosty. She sat in regal splendor in the high-backed signing chair, colorful in an aquamarine velour caftan, her short silver hair spiky as an irritated porcupine's, her square-jawed face demanding.

Annie restrained herself from strangling the island's most successful—and impossible—mystery writer. They'd sold 186 copies of
The Plight of the Panicked Panther
. That was amazing for an early February signing. Moreover, had they sold out—God forbid—Emma would have been at her throat for not ordering enough copies! Annie felt her cheeks burn.

Laurel Roethke clapped her hands. “Family, friends, Islanders, mystery aficionados, we gather here today…” She paused, tipped her head in thought, her golden hair softly swirling.

Annie shifted her glare to Laurel, immediately began to smile. Max's mother might be spacey as a moon launch, but she was also the soul of tact, and she was now hastening to fling herself, metaphori
cally speaking, between an enraged bookseller and an intractable author. Dear Laurel.

Laurel's glance was suddenly sober. “…to celebrate not only the launch of Emma's wonderful new book, surely one of the most brilliantly plotted mysteries ever—” Her tone was reverential.

Emma shifted in the throne chair, rather like a peacock adjusting spectacular plumage, a satisfied smile warming her glacial features.

“—but to give thanks for the remarkable escape of our own dear—and very brave—Annie from near death.” Laurel's blue eyes softened with tears.

Annie drew a sharp breath. She'd not expected to survive….

Emma's eyes glittered. She sat forward, pointed a stubby, commanding finger. “All I know is what I heard on TV. Tell us.”

Voices rose with eager questions.

Annie looked around the coffee area, safe in her own wonderful, adored bookstore. She looked into faces filled with concern and love. Everyone was here, home from their travels. Ingrid straightened a stack of Emma's books. Pudge held Sylvia's hand tight in his. Rachel and Cole, tanned from their days on the beach, sipped hot chocolate. Henny gripped the head of the walking stick she'd brought home from England.

And Max, of course. She looked at him, her eyes aglow. She and Max here at Death on Demand, against all odds. They too were home from a journey, a frightful sojourn that had almost cost her life. She remembered her eagerness to escape the tedium of winter and how pleased she'd been to go to Golden Silk. “It all started when Britt Barlow came to see Max….”

Annie talked fast and sometimes Max told his part. Then, her throat tight with remembered horror, she said, “And she was pointing the gun at me and I knew if I got on the boat I was doomed.”

“Oooooh!” Rachel clapped her hands over her mouth. Her eyes were huge in a gamine face. “Annie, how awful!”

Cole nudged her with the toe of his sneaker. “Oh, come on, Rachel.” Her new stepbrother and bosom buddy and most vociferous champion if there were a need wasn't big on histrionics. “Annie's fine. I mean, look, she's right there in front of the fire.” He gestured at Annie standing near the mantel.

Annie reached out a hand. She couldn't describe those final moments, the pressure of the gun, the muted cry that Britt gave as she backed away from Loomis's seeking hand, the terrible fear that pulsed on that cold, windy pier.

Max came quickly, slipped his arm around her shoulders. “We owe everything to Loomis Mitchell.” He bent his head, pressed his cheek against Annie's hair.

There had been a moment of stricken shock after Britt turned the gun on herself, then screams and cries and the sadness of watching Loomis kneel beside the dying Britt. Annie couldn't remember much of what followed, but she would never forget Max's shout and how he stormed across the dock and how tight he held her. As if he'd never let her go.

Emma's gruff voice was pontifical. “As Marigold
said in
The Curse of the Crimson Calliope:
Even the wiliest of foes cannot guard against the uncaring winds of mischance.”

Annie forced her hands to remain lax. It wouldn't do for a bookseller to maim a bestselling author. But Annie simply writhed with loathing when Emma began to quote her obnoxious (to Annie) protagonist Marigold Rembrandt.

There was a short silence. Emma, of course, accepted the quiet as homage to Marigold's wisdom. They all knew who had created Marigold….

Once again Laurel's effervescence transformed the moment. “Dear Marigold. She is an inspiration to all of us. Just like our dear Annie. A salute to Annie!”

Cheers rose. Applause was brisk.

Emma, perhaps satisfied that Marigold and she had been duly admired, was only a trifle grudging in her accolade. “Of course Annie played a role in the resolution. Thanks to Annie, retribution has been exacted. Annie”—an imperious nod—“I salute you. Though I must say you and Max were babes in the woods. The next time”—sardonic blue eyes touched Max—“a beautiful damsel approaches Confidential Commissions with a tale of murder observed and a claim of innocence, I recommend a hearty dose of skepticism.”

Max stood his ground, though his ears reddened. “I suppose you would have figured it out from the start.”

Emma pushed up from the chair and the velour caftan rippled and swirled, majestic as a queen's cloak. “I doubt I would have fallen for her story hook, line, and sinker.” Emma's eyes widened. There was an electric pause.
“Hook, Line and Sinker.
A great title!”

Annie knew they were present at the beginning of Emma Clyde's next novel.

A huge smile wreathed the author's square face. She beamed at Annie in high good humor, disappointment over the paltry—to her—sales dismissed. Emma gazed around the gathering. “This has been most instructive.”

Annie felt only a tiny quiver of irritation at realizing her deadly peril had served to fan Emma's creative juices. Emma was Emma.

“And”—Emma nodded toward the watercolors above the fireplace—“I commend you for your taste.”

Annie looked up with pride. “No one's figured out the January titles. I've decided to leave them up for another month.”

“No need,” Emma said crisply. She identified them in turn. “Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel García Márquez, Little Indiscretions by Carmen Posadas, The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith, The Sirens Sang of Murder by Sarah Caudwell, and Death in Zanzibar by M. M. Kaye.”

On that note of triumph, the redoubtable author swept toward the front door.

Annie took a deep breath and joined in the chorus of admiring farewells. After all, Emma was Emma! But Annie made a vow to herself. She'd be damned if she'd hold a signing for
Hook, Line and Sinker
at Death on Demand!

An accomplished master of mystery,
CAROLYN HART
is the author of fifteen previous
Death on Demand
novels and has won multiple Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity awards.
Sugarplum Dead
, a recent excursion to Broward's Rock, won the 2000 Oklahoma Book Award for Fiction. She is also the creator of the highly praised mystery series featuring retired journalist-turned-sleuth Henrietta “Henrie O” O'Dwyer Collins. Ms. Hart lives in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and is one of the founders of Sisters in Crime. You can visit her website at
www.carolynhart.com.

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