Wall-To-Wall Dead (37 page)

“My daughter would never kill anyone!” Mrs. Livingston said, and drew herself up indignantly.

“Of course not. I realize that now. But Amelia…Nan. She knew that if you came to Maine, you’d recognize her.” And what a motive
that
was. It blew everyone else’s motive for murder right out of the water. If Mr. and Mrs. Livingston identified her as Nan, not only would she lose her entire life, she’d also go to jail for arranging Amelia’s “suicide.” There’s no statute of limitations on murder. And if she’d already killed once, it probably came easier the second time. And the third. It was “Amelia”—Nan—who had bought the wine and chocolates and given them to Candy.

The phone rang and Mrs. Livingston hit the speaker button. “Yes?”

“Avery?” Derek’s voice said.

I raised my own. “I’m here. What’s up?”

“I’m a couple minutes behind you. Wayne’s a couple minutes behind me. Where are you?”

I looked around. “Not too far from Clovercroft.”

“That development the Stenhams were working on when they went to jail? I’ll let Wayne know. He’s contacted the police in Dresden, and they’re on their way down to meet us. They’ll set up a roadblock halfway between them and Waterfield.”

“She may turn off the road before then,” I warned.

“Yes,” Derek said, “but where? There’s only this one main road in this area, and it goes to Dresden. There are a few developments along the way, but mostly it’s just woods. Where are they gonna go?”

I didn’t know, and said so.

“Can you see them?”

“They’re up ahead. It’s been no problem keeping up with them so far. Thank God there’s not much traffic.”

I shot a guilty glance at Mrs. Livingston. She probably wouldn’t like it that I took the Lord’s name in vain. But her eyes were closed, and I guess she was praying, one hand holding the phone and the other tightly knotted in her lap.

“The Augusta police are sending a chopper,” Derek added. “Keep an eye out for it.”

I promised I would. “Actually, I think I hear it already.” A faint
fwapping
noise was coming from outside, and when I bent and peered out of the windshield, I saw what looked like a tiny insect buzzing above the pine trees on the left, getting bigger with every second. “Yep, there it is.”

“They’re gonna keep an eye on them from the air,” Derek began, and then stopped when I cursed. “What?”

“Sorry.” Mrs. Livingston must think I was the worst heathen. “They must have noticed the helicopter, too. They’re turning off the road. Into Clovercroft.”

“That might work in our favor,” Derek said. “We know the place. There isn’t anywhere there that they can hide. And the road won’t do that little compact any good.”

Very true. It might not do the rental much good, either. But Derek’s truck would be fine. It had big, beefy tires.

“I’m less than five minutes behind you,” Derek said. “Don’t do anything stupid, Avery.”

He hung up before I could tell him that I wouldn’t. It was probably better that way, since it wasn’t a promise I was sure I could keep.

I had to slow down as I took the turn into Clovercroft. I couldn’t see the compact right now, but that was OK; there was only one way to go from here: down through the copse of trees and into the development. I slowed down a little more as the rental bumped and skittered across the dirt road.

“I don’t see them,” Mrs. Livingston said nervously.

“They’re up ahead. There’s only one road in and out. It’s a housing development my cousins were working on until they went to jail last year.”

She shot me a look but didn’t ask any more questions. By now she surely thought I was not only a heathen but a criminal, too.

“We’ll get her back,” I said, although I wasn’t sure I could believe it myself. Depending on how desperate Amelia—Nan—was, she might end up shooting Jamie. I had no idea why she would, but when guns come into the picture, someone often gets shot, and it’s not always the person you hope it will be.

We bounced out of the band of trees and saw the only completed buildings in Clovercroft up ahead: a row of commercial storefronts with apartments above. The banner that said Model Home was still hanging outside one of them, a lot more faded now than the last time I’d been here.

Then it had been Derek’s sister Beatrice’s small white car we’d been looking for—and had found, outside the model home. This time it was the pale blue compact. And like Beatrice’s car last year, the compact was empty.

I looked around. There were only a few places someone could hide, and inside one of the buildings was the obvious
choice. “Stay here,” I told Mrs. Livingston. “Keep hold of the phone.”

She nodded. “Where are you—”

“I’m just gonna look around.” I opened the car door and put a foot on the ground. And just as quickly pulled it back inside the car when a bullet pinged against the open door. “Whoa.”

“She’s in there,” Mrs. Livingston said, pointing to the office. At some point between now and the last time I’d been here, in November or December last year, someone had busted in the door and probably ripped anything of value out of both office and model home upstairs.

I nodded. “Call Derek back. Tell him what…never mind. Here he is now.”

The black Ford F-150 burst out of the trees before I’d stopped talking, and roared toward us. He must have flown to get here so soon. He’d been five minutes behind us when we left the condo parking lot; now it was just about a minute or so since we’d pulled in here.

He stopped on the far side of the rental and rolled down his window. I hit the button to retract ours, and peered across Mrs. Livingston at my fiancé’s irate face.

“I should have known it was too good to be true. You just wouldn’t be you, would you, if you’d let the police take care of things for once?”

“I can’t help it that she kidnapped Jamie right in front of me,” I protested. “What was I going to do? Let her?”

“Of course not.” He nodded to Mrs. Livingston. “Hello. I’m Derek Ellis. The chief of police is on his way. And there’s the chopper the state police sent.” He glanced up, where the helicopter was hovering above us. “We’ll get your daughter back.”

“They’re in the office,” I said. “And Amelia has a gun. She’s already taken a potshot at me. That’s why I’m still in the car.”

“Of course it is,” Derek said. “As long as she has a gun and bullets, I don’t think we want to try to rush her. Just stay in the car and wait for Wayne. He should be here in a
few minutes. I’ll drive to the other side of the building and see if I can get a bead on anything.”

“Be careful.”

“Of course. I’m getting married in a month. I’m not about to do anything stupid.”

He grinned and put the truck in gear. I watched him drive to the end of the row of buildings and turn the corner. Then I turned my attention back to the office again.

Wayne arrived after a few minutes. By then Derek had gotten in touch by phone to tell us he couldn’t see much through the back, but that there was a door there that someone could use to get in.

“If I had a SWAT team on standby,” Wayne said irritably, “or just more than one flak vest in the car, I’d be all for that. But it would take at least forty minutes to get a full team here from Augusta, and I’m not sure we have forty minutes.”

I wasn’t sure, either. I had no idea what Amelia—Nan—thought she’d accomplish with this crazy move. Or maybe she hadn’t been thinking. Maybe she’d just reacted, her only thought to get away. Forcing her into Clovercroft had probably been a bad move on our part. It made her feel cornered, and as Derek had said yesterday, when someone feels cornered, sometimes they resort to desperate measures to survive.

“Tell me again what we’re dealing with here,” Wayne ordered. I explained exactly what had happened, and Mrs. Livingston added her assurances that, yes, the woman inside the building was Nan Barbour, not Amelia Easton.

“So basically she’s got nothing to lose,” I said. “If she comes out of this alive, she’ll go to jail, probably for the rest of her life.”

Wayne nodded. “At this point, I’m less concerned with arresting Amelia Easton—Nanette Barbour—than I am with getting Jamie out safe and sound. At the moment, she has no reason to kill Jamie. Let’s make sure we don’t give her one.”

Mrs. Livingston agreed fervently.

“Is there some way we can make it beneficial to her to let Jamie go? She’s already proven she knows how to look out for number one. If we can make her think Jamie’s a hindrance…”

“If we do that, she might kill her,” Wayne said tightly. “I won’t play that card until I have to.”

Fine. “Derek—or Derek and I—could cause a distraction in the back. Banging on the door or something. That might give you enough time to shoot her from out here.”

“If she doesn’t shoot you first,” Wayne said. “Bullets have been known to punch through walls, and this is the Stenhams’ handiwork; it won’t be that solid.”

Yet another reason to deplore my distant cousins.

“We could try calling. Negotiating. See if we can work out a deal. There must be something she wants.”

“She wants to get away,” Wayne said. “She’s killed three people, and she wants to get away. I want Jamie out in one piece. At this point, I’m willing to let her think anything she wants. Do you have the number?”

I didn’t. “Josh might.”

“Why would Josh have Professor Easton’s number? He’s taking computer technology, not history.”

“I was thinking of Jamie,” I said. “He might have Jamie’s number.”

I added, for Mrs. Livingston’s benefit, “Josh is Chief Rasmussen’s son. He lives across the hall from Jamie. With his girlfriend.”

Wayne arched his brows at the suggestion that Josh was living with Shannon, but he seemed to recognize that I was saying it to reassure Mrs. Livingston that nothing was going on with Josh and Jamie, because he didn’t quibble. Although by now, surely Josh had told him that something
had
gone on with him and Jamie at least once.

Josh did have Jamie’s number. He did not, however, inquire why his dad wanted it. I thought that boded well for Shannon, since yesterday, I thought I’d detected a little softness on Josh’s part for Jamie—at least until Derek had
warned him to spend the night elsewhere because she’d come knocking.

“Here,” Wayne said, “you call. Don’t say anything overt, but try to feel her out.”

I nodded. And took a deep breath and dialed.

The phone rang and rang. At first it went to voice mail, and Wayne told me to try again, while I stepped out from behind cover so they could see through the window that I was the one trying to call.

I didn’t think they were going to answer this time, either, but finally the phone was picked up. Jamie’s voice was even softer than usual, the Southern accent more pronounced, and she sounded scared to death. “Yes?”

“It’s Avery,” I said. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” She sounded the opposite, and probably felt that way, too.

“Are you hurt?”

She said she wasn’t. I resisted the temptation to complain. But darn, we couldn’t use that as an excuse to try to talk Amelia—Nan—into letting her go!

“Your mom wants to talk to you,” I said. “I’m gonna put you on speaker, OK?”

Hopefully she’d take the hint and do the same on her end, so Amelia—Nan—could hear, too.

I handed the phone off to Mrs. Livingston, who cleared her throat. “Hello? Jamie Lee?”

“Hi, Mama,” Jamie said. “What…You didn’t tell me you were coming. What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to surprise you,” her mother said, with that slight hint of accusation that mothers excel at. “And I knew if I suggested it, you’d come up with some reason why it wasn’t convenient.”

That must have happened before, because Jamie couldn’t come up with an answer. Then—

“I’m sorry. I knew you’d get upset if I told you I wanted to move out of the dorm and into an apartment with a friend.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Mrs. Livingston said. “I don’t care. I just wanted to see you. To know you were safe.” Her voice was still shaking.

“I missed you, too, Mama,” Jamie said, and sniffed. The whole thing was so sweet it made my teeth ache, and what made it worse was that if something went wrong, this might be the last conversation the two of them would have. And we were no closer to figuring out how to get Jamie out.

And then I straightened with a gulp when I heard the next thing Mrs. Livingston said. “May I speak to Nan?”

“I’m Amelia,” Amelia’s voice said from a distance. “Not Nan. Nanette’s dead.”

“She says Nanette’s dead,” Jamie reported. “She’s Amelia.”

Mrs. Livingston glanced at Wayne, who nodded.

“Of course. I’m sorry. May I speak to Amelia, please, Jamie Lee?”

Jamie must have conferred, probably silently, with Amelia/Nan, because the next thing that happened was that the older woman came on the phone. “Hello, Denise.”

Mrs. Livingston smiled, but I wasn’t sure whether it was in acid appreciation or just polite habit. In either case, the smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Amelia. It’s been a long time.”

I’m sure “Amelia” was thinking that it hadn’t been long enough, but she didn’t say so. “You have a lovely daughter,” she said instead. Wayne’s eyes narrowed, as I’m sure he tried to discern from the tone whether the statement was intended as friendly conversation or a threat.

Denise Livingston must have wondered the same thing, but she managed to keep her voice steady. “Thank you. I’m sure she has appreciated getting to know you. I told her about you, you know. It made me sad that you never came home.”

“I’m sorry, too,” “Amelia” said, “but after what happened…it just felt disloyal to Nan’s memory to go back.”

She seemed determined to keep behaving as if she were, in fact, Amelia. As if there were a chance that we’d actually believe it.

Or was it possible that she actually thought she was Amelia? Had she taken the lie so far that she’d started believing it herself?

I glanced at Wayne, who shook his head, finger to his lips.

“I wish you’d come out, Amelia,” Mrs. Livingston was saying plaintively. “I haven’t seen my daughter for a year. And I haven’t seen you for more than twenty. Not since you and…and Nan left for college. Won’t you come out so we can all sit down and talk? And get to know each other again?”