Chapter 26
At some point during the week, Fletcher had stopped flinching every time someone pulled a gun on her. If she lived long enough to look for a new job, she’d have to remember to add this to her résumé.
The editor in chief stalked toward them, coming down from the yacht. Clearly preparing for her great escape. Jackie’s—and her pistol’s—sudden appearance had Waylon taking a step closer, his hand circling Fletcher’s and pulsing three times. I’m right here.
Fletcher flitted her eyes toward Melv. Was this the right time to plead the Fifth? “Or…else?”
Jackie’s clarion laughter cut across the docks. “Are you really in the position to be threatening anyone right now?”
Caged between gunmetal and shark-infested waters, she couldn’t afford to be anything else. Without Jackie, none of them would be in this situation. None of them would be dead.
Like dropping a Mento into a bottle of Coke, rage bubbled behind Fletcher’s sternum and spewed out her mouth. “I trusted you. Hell, I wanted to be you, Jackie. You knew that, and you exploited it.”
Dipping into her pocket, Jackie dangled the key. Baiting Fletcher’s temper. Bad seed indeed.
Waylon hardened. “Enough is enough, Jackie. You’re outnumbered.”
A toothy grin. “Am I?”
Shoulder to shoulder, Melv and Jackie couldn’t be more different.
Melv was all crisp lines and neat slacks while blood stained the editor in chief’s nail beds, and her blouse had been reduced to shreds.
He was a statue, perfectly still, but every noise sent her twisting over her shoulder, antsy.
The island had barely touched the lawyer’s polished exterior, but only one artifact remained of the version of Jackie Fletcher once admired.
A stripe of red lipstick, perfect save for one smudged corner of her bottom lip. Almost like she’d just been kissed.
It was exactly the same smudge Fletcher had seen three weeks ago in the Art and Design Lab after the C-suite’s lunch meeting. That afternoon, she’d met with Melv. Innocuous at the time, barely a blip on Fletcher’s radar. What had they been discussing?
An ownership dispute.
A knife of realization twisted in Fletcher’s gut.
“You’re together.” The words flew out of Fletcher before she could think better of them. Not a question. Not even an accusation. The truth, out in the open.
When Jackie sidled up next to Melv, she was a moon entering orbit. Something in her razored gaze softened when she looked at him. Fletcher should’ve realized it before. How could she not have noticed?
Sudden, righteous anger slammed through her. “And you,” she said to Melv. “Saving us from the fire? Don’t tell me you only did that because you knew I owed Jackie the boat key.”
He answered with a silent shrug that said I don’t recall the event in question. Typical lawyer. But Fletcher knew she was right. What Rick had overheard on the pool deck wasn’t Jackie and Fletcher—it was Jackie and Melv.
“What are you going to do? Tell HR?” Jackie snarked. “You made short work of Molly, didn’t you, Fletcher?”
“She. Stabbed. Herself.”
Jackie bulldozed on. “Semantics. It’s not like either of you are making it off this island today anyway. Eleven innocent people have died. Why shouldn’t you join them?”
Innocent was a stretch, in Fletcher’s humble opinion.
That still didn’t mean they deserved to die.
Fletcher might not have killed anyone this week, but she couldn’t save anyone, either.
Survivor’s guilt was a sticky thing, congealing to the underside of her ribs, making it harder to breathe.
If she closed her eyes, she could still see the blue of Joplin’s lips, the red ringing Molly in the foyer.
When she met Jackie’s gaze again, the editor’s eyes were empty of contemplation, devoid of any mercy. Jackie didn’t regret what she had done. Or what she was about to do.
“Do you hear yourself?” Fletcher steamed.
Dyer was right about one thing. After all the shit she’d pulled, Jackie deserved to get stranded on this island.
“If it weren’t for you, the team would still be alive.
You really think you’re going to kill all of us and still claim the inheritance?
How’s that going to look to a judge when you cash in on the will? ”
Smug, Jackie peered up toward Melv. “I think I’ll be fine when it’s all said and done.”
All the puzzle pieces clicked into place.
A mutual back-scratching. Melv got the protection of being on Jackie’s good side, and Jackie got impunity.
With the right lawyer, any misgiving could be erased.
Any will could be reworked. Melv didn’t get his job at Dyer’s side by being anything less than the best.
Jackie barreled on, clearly enjoying her captive audience.
“All of Dyer’s remaining assets will be delivered to us, and since lonely, orphaned Waylon Cartwright was devastatingly lost in a plane crash with the rest of the invitees, Lydell Island will return to the corporation. Which will make it…Oh yeah. Ours.”
Nothing to hide. No messes to clean up. This whole week reduced to a terrible accident.
“And since you didn’t have the decency to feed the sharks,” Jackie said, “the two of you are the only loose end.”
Melv moved first, grappling Waylon’s arms behind his back and lugging him to the opposite end of the boardwalk. Fletcher didn’t have time to feel betrayed. Jackie lunged. Her arm snared Fletcher’s neck, and the mouth of her gun kissed Fletcher’s temple.
“Don’t touch her,” Waylon spat. A new fury burned in his gaze. “It’s me you want.”
Waylon broke Melv’s grasp only long enough to slide-tackle Jackie.
A wayward shot looped into the atmosphere, but the echoing slam as Jackie’s back hit the boards sent the pistol scattering across the dock.
Out of reach. Close to the edge, but not close enough to tip over into the blue deep and spare them from Jackie’s violent power trip.
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Melv said, thick with bloodlust. He wrestled Waylon back into a headlock, but Waylon showed no signs of tapping out. “I want it all.”
Fletcher got one good look at Melv, as if only truly seeing him for the first time. Suntanned skin; a gel-slicked coil of black hair; long, easy breaths; and a relaxed slope to his shoulders. Smart, meticulous. The kind of person who didn’t leave any box unchecked.
It all made sense. The extra meetings with Melv Fletcher had managed to squeeze into Dyer’s packed calendar. The last-minute paperwork they needed to review before heading to Lydell. It wasn’t intellectual property they were discussing in those copyright meetings.
It was the fate of Cartwright Media.
And Melv…
Melv had pulled the strings all along.
His unwrinkled shirt and shiny loafers. Unaffected by the island’s elements. He’d bolted north toward the base of the mountain while the others had been driven south. All while someone had been planting seeds in everyone’s mind and sowing them.
Jackie struck deals and made bargains. Jackie pinned a target on Fletcher, whispering in Bertram’s ear, trying to keep him off her tracks. Jackie fought filthy fights and won, losing herself along the way. Jackie, Jackie, Jackie. A decoy, a diversion.
It had been so easy to overlook the truth.
“When did you start dating?” Fletcher asked suddenly, her eyes zipping between Jackie and Melv. Calendar pages ripped through her mind. Dyer’s first visit with Dr. Hawks coinciding with an uptick of copyright liaisons. “February?”
As Jackie lifted onto her elbows, surprise manifested in the arch of her eyebrows, the wide moons of her brown eyes. A yes, then.
Before she could say anything else, Jackie launched upright and wrapped her hands around Fletcher’s throat.
Her head smacked against one of the dock beams with a crack that reverberated down her spine.
The cogs in Fletcher’s head spun, trying to get the math to add up.
Basic arithmetic didn’t usually evade her, but she also wasn’t usually being strangled.
“Do you love Melv?” Fletcher asked, struggling beneath the weight of Jackie’s hands. Each breath wheezed against the pinch of digging nails. The bruise from Opal’s choke hold doubled the ache.
“Of course I do,” Jackie said, and she took the opportunity to squeeze tighter.
Behind them, Waylon landed a punch against Melv’s jaw that sent him spinning. Fletcher only barely registered it. It seemed so far away.
Her voice was too thin, her lungs too empty. “Does he—love—you?”
Fletcher blinked away black Rorschach splotches. Szechuan’s lo mein, an extra dry martini with too many olives, antique suitcases, and a slobbering giraffe. Her life before her eyes.
Air rushed into Fletcher’s lungs as Waylon ripped Jackie off her back and flung the editor in chief to the planks.
He pulled Fletcher to his chest, a protective hand palming her waist and the other weaving through her copper tangles.
They staggered toward the yacht, Fletcher dragging him as far from Jackie and Melv as possible.
“Only one person can inherit the company, Jackie.” The words rasped out of her, a cry and a warning. “All other guests must forfeit. That’s what the will says. Melv knows. He wrote it.”
Across the dock, Melv scooped the gun off the dock, eyes dark with greed. “She’s right.”
In the Drowning vs. Shark Attack debate, death by gunshot probably trumped them both. She only hoped Melv had the mercy to shoot her where it counted, rather than letting her bleed out.
It would have to be at least two shots. Her, then Waylon. Or Waylon, then her. Which was worse? To die, knowing she would be missed, or to have the last taste in her mouth be the bitter tang of grief?