40. The Key
ELOISE
Seconds later, a heavy knock comes on the back door and the knob jiggles. “Eloise, open up!” Tony yells. “We need to talk about what you saw. Let me explain.”
Heart threatening to explode out my ribcage, I race to the other end of the house, initially rounding the newel post to head upstairs. I stop short when I hear a noise like a key slipping into the back lock. Fuck! As far as I know, Tony doesn”t have a key, but I wouldn’t put it past him to have made one when he had access to the house. I”ve left my phone upstairs, but my bedroom will be the first place he”ll check. I spin around and slip back into the art studio. My eyes lock on the window behind the easel where I”d been painting. If I slip out, maybe I can get to my car.
Fiddling with the latch, I brace my hands on the edge of the panel and push. It doesn”t budge. A cursory inspection shows me why. It’s painted shut. Shit.
“I always suspected your mother was a freak, but I wasn”t sure until now.” I spin around to find Tony smiling at me from beside my mother”s knife sculpture, a bottle of rosé in one hand and a pair of glasses in the other. I recognize both as coming from my kitchen.
“What are you doing here?” My blood runs cold. He looks congenial enough, but I know better. I brace myself as I would if I”d awakened a sleeping rattlesnake.
“I followed you. I thought we should celebrate our new partnership in the operation you witnessed.” He points at the floor. “It”s long past time we shared a drink and talked. I heard Grams passed. We can start by sharing a toast to her.” He holds up the wine. “I always liked the old broad.”
I watch him easily uncork the bottle with his teeth and fill two glasses. What the fuck are you up to, Tony? That bottle of wine is from my kitchen. It wasn’t open. Which means he opened it there, recorked it, and opened it again here.
My eyes dart toward the window. The sun is sinking but not fast enough. I glance at my watch. At least an hour until sunset. Damien will come. He promised to kill Tony. He”ll protect me. All I have to do is survive until dark. I hold up one hand. “I don”t drink anymore. Health reasons.”
“You”ll make an exception this time. I insist.” His dark gaze rakes over me, and his voice is eerily soft as he adds. “Take your coat off. Stay awhile.”
Instantly, I know three things: one, Tony tried to kill me last night; two, he knows I”ve seen his secret operation under my home; and three: he wants me to drink the wine. Conclusion, the wine is drugged or poisoned. I”d have to be stupid to think anything else.
I glance at the window again and the sun beyond. If I can just delay him...
“Take your coat off, Eloise,” Tony commands again. “Let”s share a drink. You owe me that much for giving you this place.”
Owe him? I bite my tongue and slide my jacket off.
His smile fades. He sets the bottle down on the large, paint-splattered table at the center of the room and moves toward me with the two full glasses in his hands. He thrusts one my way. “Drink the wine.”
I take the glass but don”t drink. “Why are you really here, Tony?” I ask, adding a flirtatious smile. “You”re not second-guessing the divorce, are you? It”ll all be over in a matter of days. Like ripping off a Band-Aid.”
He rolls his eyes toward the ceiling and shakes his head. “You are one giant pain in the ass, you know that? Just drink the fucking wine, and this will all be over.”
“What will be over?”
Darkness passes behind his eyes, turning his gaze as cold and dead as a shark”s. I”ve seen that look before, last night in the eyes of the man who tried to kill me. Tony has come to finish the job. “You didn”t think I”d let you keep it, did you?”
The words send a shiver through me, and I look down into my glass. “I”m not strong enough to fight you.”
“No, you”re not.” He snort-laughs at the thought.
Keep him talking. “We both know how this is going to end, but first, tell me what I saw down there. It”s been driving me crazy. Is that why you wanted this place so badly?”
He smirks. “You fucking Harcourts never did understand what you have in this place.”
I bristle but keep my face completely impassive. “What do we have?”
“Your estate is on the Rappahannock River, sweetheart —the only privately owned land that ends at the cliffs. The rest is tribal property. The real secret of this place is the caverns.”
“Is that what I saw?” As if there were any other explanation.
“Caves in the side of your cliff lead from the river to an underground network of caverns perfect for conducting delicate business. Oh, and these are special caves. Unbelievably unique. They make the bat cave look common. Unless you know what you”re looking for, you might not even see the opening from the river. But you better believe that you can drive a boat right into the cliff and park it safely in a space the size of a warehouse. My family invested a lot of money to make it work like a warehouse too.”
My stomach twists as I put two and two together. “The sinkhole.”
“Nothing gets past you.” He chuckles wickedly. “Yeah, there was no sinkhole. While we were renting the Anderson”s, we ran everything from the farmhouse, and the series of caverns under it. But when the Andersons canceled our lease, we needed to move more of the operation underground. I put the crack in your foundation while you two were getting your grandmother”s nails done, then paid the inspector to tell her it was a sinkhole. All those workers we paid for? They fixed more than her house. The operation we have down there now is state of the art.”
“We?”
“The Denardi family.”
Organized crime. Just as Maeve had suspected. I don’t stop to beat myself up over not realizing the obvious. No time for that. I swallow. Keep him talking. Tony loves to talk about himself. “I have to give you props. It’s brilliant. You ship the counterfeit money in on trucks via the access road. Was it you who got the old Anderson place condemned?”
“We couldn”t have the Andersons moving back in. There are woods between this house and the road. Not so on their side of things. We were too exposed. I greased a few wheels and made sure no one else would be living there.”
I glance again at the sinking sun. “There”s something I don”t understand, though. Once you put the money on the boat, what then?”
“Down the river, out the Chesapeake Bay, to a cargo vessel in the Atlantic where it”s disguised among other cargo and shipped to the Caymans.”
I nod. I can see it all now, the piece I was missing. “You deposit it in the offshore account of Genesis Corp before wiring it back to yourself as consulting fees.”
He preens. “There are a few other transfers before it makes it back to me. By the time it does, it”s completely clean.”
Hell, if the fucker isn”t a miserable, egotistical narcissist with self-aggrandizing tendencies. He tricked my grandmother, all so he could —I gasp, realization dawning as the timeline falls into place. “Was that why you married me?”
Snorting, he offers a dismissive shrug. “Why I dated you. Why I married you. Why I was even there on the side of your fucking cliff to keep you from jumping that day. It always made me laugh how you never questioned why I was just wandering around your property.”
“Wow.” I wish I could say it doesn’t hurt, but it does.
“Did you think I had a crush on you, Eloise?” He laughs harder. “Following you around like a puppy? No, sugar. I was there making a plan for how to scale the operation. Why do you think I encouraged you to go away to college, only to insist you quit your teaching job only months after we were married?”
I’ve wondered about that. I always thought it had to do with control, the hallmark of an abuser, but the hostility in Tony”s eyes tells me it’s something more. “Why?” I can”t keep the pain from soaking the word.
“I needed to keep you away from home. Your grandmother was easy. She rarely left the house and never at night. But if you were here, you were a liability. You, Eloise, liked to take long walks to the cemetery or the cliffs. And then, when you took the job at the local high school and would pop in to check on your grandmother at any given moment, you became a liability again.”
“So… everything I thought you did for me wasn”t because you cared for me at all. It was to keep me away from the property so I wouldn”t discover what you were doing.” I swallow down the urge to be sick, my stomach tightening like he’s punched me. If there is anything more painful than learning he wants me dead, it’s learning that he never loved me. All my memories are false. I”ve been used in the most cruel and intimate way.
“Now you”re getting it.” He gives me a pitying look. “Don”t take it personally, doll. This started way before you.” A wicked glint sparks in his eye.
All the breath leaves my lungs. Oh my God. Is he suggesting what I think he is? My eyes narrow, and my next words come in fits and starts. “Tony, are you responsible for the deaths of my parents?”
He places a hand on his chest. “Not me, personally. My dad handled that one before he died. They asked a lot of questions, your parents. Always nosing around. If it makes you feel better, Pop said they weren”t easy targets.”
Everything in me sparks into a burning rage, and I hurl the glass in my hands at Tony with all my strength. He raises his forearm and blocks it from hitting his face, but the glass shatters, slicing into the meat near his elbow. Never taking his eyes off me, he reaches around, plucks the shard from his flesh, and tosses it aside. I wouldn’t have thought it possible for his gaze to turn more murderous, but it does.
As quick as I can move, I reach for my palette knife, but he’s on me in an instant, punching my head and clutching at my throat. I desperately block his blows, screaming for him to stop and then losing all the air from my lungs when his knee connects with my gut. I double over, but he drags me up by the throat. Black dots circle in my vision. I need air. I pound on his arms to no avail.
“Fine. You don”t want to go to sleep peacefully. I”ll put you to sleep with my own two hands, you fucking cunt.”
No air. My blows to his arms grow weaker and weaker. The black circles in my vision expand in size until the darkness overcomes me completely. And then it’s all there is.