Chapter 67. Holly
Holly
Holly heard Jade’s screams, but for a moment, an irrational fear kept her rooted in place. She worried that if she left her sister, even for a second, Anna might vanish and never be seen again.
But it was Anna who encouraged Holly. “Go! Go!” she urged. “Protect Jade. And here, take this.” Anna pulled a cold steel blade from her pocket and pressed it into Holly’s hand.
Holly gripped the handle hard. She sprang to her feet, turning toward Jade’s scream.
“Dr. Hill—he’s getting away.”
Following Jade’s finger, Holly turned just in time to see Dr. Hill heading toward the driveway, where the fountain kept spewing water as if this were just a normal party.
She chased after him. Her legs ached. Shock and stress drained her strength, but Jade’s cries fueled her resolve.
Anna’s plea did the same. “Protect Jade,” she called again.
Holly pieced it together. Dr. Hill had been Jade’s abductor, not Conrad. How Jade made the connection didn’t matter; she couldn’t let him escape. Holly replayed the scuffle in the tower from a different perspective. Had Conrad truly lost it? Was Dr. Hill Elizabeth’s hero or her would-be assassin?
The answer was fifty feet away, and the gap was widening. Holly ran awkwardly after him, yelling for anyone’s help, for someone to block Hill, slow him down, but crowds that had come up from the beach to observe the commotion froze like deer in headlights.
Mustering every bit of power she had, Holly pushed herself forward, but it was useless.
He was too fast. Her lungs burned as her leg muscles tightened.
With surprising grace, Holly hurdled a folding chair, wove around a table that Maeve had set out for gift bags, and zigzagged between guests as if they were posts to dodge.
Still, the few yards between them felt like miles.
Dr. Hill was almost to the circular driveway. Police and fire trucks took up most of the available parking, but there was room for a fancy antique sports car that appeared to be his chosen destination.
Holly’s lungs struggled for air. Her pace slowed. Damn it. He was escaping. She cramped at the worst possible moment, her leg seizing up. She couldn’t go on. The pain was overwhelming. Her leg buckled beneath her.
The cops didn’t understand, didn’t know they had to catch him.
In her peripheral vision, Holly saw a figure darting out of the darkness. Conrad. He ran hunched over, hands cuffed behind his back, his head tilted like a battering ram. Was he escaping as well? Great. Men were always getting away with something.
But instead of running into the woods, Conrad turned toward Dr. Hill and charged. The angle wasn’t ideal, but Conrad’s speed was impressive given his injuries. A few seconds before Dr. Hill reached the waiting car in the driveway, Conrad threw himself on the ground in front of his feet.
Dr. Hill’s foot caught Conrad in the ribs, and he tumbled over, yelping as he extended his hands to break his fall. He skidded face-first across the driveway’s small stones.
Holly caught her second wind. Her leg was still cramping, she couldn’t move quickly, but she ignored the pain and pushed herself forward. Conrad had bought her just enough time.
Dr. Hill was just getting back on his feet when she slammed into him from behind. Momentum carried them both over the edge of the fountain. They hit the water together like a cannonball. A geyser of water shot high into the air, turning dark red as Holly drove the blade into his leg.
He took Jade.
He tried to kill her.
My Jade.
Holly lifted the knife. The first time, she’d only wounded him. But this time—
“Holly, no!” It was Conrad’s voice, calling her back to her senses.
She paused, her grip on the knife trembling, before forcing herself to release the blade. This wouldn’t help Jade or Anna. The steel hit the ground with a clatter, bouncing off the cobblestones around the fountain. Holly slipped sideways into the water.
Dr. Hill flipped over, gasping for breath, and pressed his hands against his bloodied leg.
Tommy Boy ran up—finally—huffing and puffing.
He grabbed Hill by the shirt, pulled him out of the fountain, and threw him to the ground with authority.
Wrenching his arms behind his back, he cuffed him with a zip tie.
“Vernon Hill,” he said, still breathing hard. “You are under arrest for kidnapping. You have the right to remain silent…”
Holly plopped out of the fountain as Tom Walker finished reading Dr. Hill his rights, and medical personnel—who were certainly being kept busy tonight—came to tend to his wound.
She lay on the smooth stones, soaking wet, her chest heaving as she took in the air and the stars shimmering above.
Conrad, still cuffed, struggled to his feet and slowly made his way back toward the lawn, as if in a daze. He found Anna, collapsing beside her as if he might never move again.
“Anna,” he said, resting his head on her shoulder, tears pouring from his eyes. “Anna.”
He couldn’t say another word, not with the sobs tearing through his trembling body.
The chaos continued to unfold.
The guests who weren’t driven by morbid curiosity slipped out of the party one by one.
The busker was giving a statement to the police.
He seemed to revel in the attention. At last people wanted to hear from him.
Tom Walker wanted statements from everyone involved—especially Maeve, the party’s hostess.
When Holly heard him asking for her, she realized she hadn’t seen Maeve since she observed her talking to Dr. Hill on the beach.
Her son had been stabbed, beaten, and put in handcuffs; her daughter-in-law had been taken from the tower and was receiving medical treatment.
Jade and Anna were being loaded into nearby ambulances, though both were stable and out of danger.
But where was Maeve? If ever there was a time for a control freak to show up, now would be it.
Holly’s eyes darted around, but she didn’t see the matriarch anywhere in the crowd.
She was about to call out to Ethan when she noticed a tall figure step into the doorway at the top of the stairs leading into Miramar.
Light spilled out from inside, outlining the imposing shape.
It wasn’t Maeve. Sid stood there, as if frozen in place, holding a white envelope in his right hand.
Holly hurried over to him. Maeve’s most loyal and trusted employee should know where she was.
Ethan joined her at the top of the stairs. Sid appeared to be in shock; his eyes, usually opaque, were even harder to read.
He presented Holly with the envelope. On the outside was written a single word, in black ink, penned in perfect cursive: Finis. Attached, where a stamp would usually go, was a sticky note with the same neat handwriting: Sid, I’ve gone swimming. Please ensure this letter is delivered appropriately.
“I also found this on the bed next to the envelope.” He handed Holly an empty prescription bottle. The glass vial inside it was empty. She read the label. It was the prescription in Maeve’s name for Lypotrel.
Ethan, Holly, and Sid stood together on Maeve’s private beach, staring out at the dark sea which appeared to have fused with the night sky.
Gentle waves brushed the shoreline, but the beach itself was a mess. Sand-covered food became a late-night snack for opportunistic birds. The stage had been cleared, but trash was scattered about, and nobody had bothered to right the tipped-over chairs.
The three scanned the darkness for signs of a swimmer, but saw nothing. The only sound was the tide hitting the sand as it came in. Ethan called the Coast Guard on his mobile.
“She loved the ocean,” said Sid, his stoic face crumpling. “And this house—oh, how she loved this house.”
“They’ll find her,” said Ethan, who didn’t sound hopeful, and Holly knew what he really meant. Eventually the currents would bring her body ashore.
“She’s lived a rich, full life,” said Sid, his voice melancholy. “It’s the sort of life people read about. But now they’ll do so in the tabloids.”
Holly grasped the envelope Sid had given her, sensing something inside.
She could feel its shape with her fingers—a pendant-like form clearly part of a necklace.
She read the front again, a single word, Finis—Latin for “the end.” In eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literature, that word usually ended a novel. Did it also signal an ending to a life?
The ocean waves lapped the shore, the water dark and vast, stretching out before her. Somewhere in its depths was Maeve, who had gone for her final swim.