CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
As soon as they walked in they saw Maude. When Edmund realized she was still alive, his heart soared again and he rushed to her side. Her hands were tied behind her back. Her mouth was double-taped.
Samuel looked at his daughter with nothing but disdain on his face. “What was the fucking point?” he angrily asked Natasha. “Your evil knows no bounds.”
“Neither does mine!”
Everybody turned toward the door. Colin was closing it. Then he immediately showed them the remote control. Everybody froze. Including Edmund, who had just removed the tape from Maude’s mouth.
“If I press this tiny little button right here,” Colin said, “this entire guesthouse will burst into an explosion that will rock the very foundations of this entire estate.”
Natasha was confused. “What are you talking about?”
“This house is wired,” he said. “All of you are trapped in my lair this time.”
“All of us?” Natasha could not believe it. “That’s not the plan, Colin. What are you talking about?”
“If I press this button, all of you will be ashes and dust again.”
“But Mom and Dad are in this house. You said it was just supposed to be her and Edmund. Not everybody!”
“Get over there,” he ordered them. “Now!”
“But Colin--”
“Don’t but Colin me, do as I said!”
Natasha, terrified, hurried over to the left side of the room with her parents, away from the door.
“You too, Eddie,” Colin said. “Get away from her.”
But Edmund was frozen in place. His little brother? It can’t be!
“Now!” Colin yelled at Edmund as he hurried toward Maude. He didn’t want him untying Maude. “Get away from her! I want you to feel helpless, too, when she goes up in flames.”
Edmund held his hands up as if Colin was the police, but he didn’t leave Maude’s side. “What are you doing, Colin? This isn’t you. This can’t be you!”
“Why not? Because I’m not you? I’m not the smart one? I’m not the great looking debonair one? I have always hated you,” he said with passion.
“But why are you doing this?” Edmund asked. He was mystified.
“I am going to be the heir to the Keating fortune. Me! The youngest one. That’s why!”
Natasha was stunned. “But you said you were going to set it up so that I would be the heir. Because I’m the oldest and the rightful heir. You told me---”
“I told you a pack of lies!” Colin said, his hand resting just beside that button on the remote control. Everybody was watching his hand. But Maude was watching him.
“It was so easy to fool you. All I had to do was go to the love of your life. To Ross Hampton and rope him in. He knew you were angry with him when he married his second wife and still left you as his mistress. He knew you had given his wife all of those incriminating documents. And her stupid ass went to Hamp and told him about it. That’s why he killed her like he killed his first wife. ”
Maude was right, Edmund thought.
“I got him to claim he was an eyewitness to the murder of his second wife, and that he saw you commit the crime, just as he claimed he was an eyewitness to the murder of his first wife and saw some other woman commit the crime. But it was enough to get you arrested.”
Natasha was still confused. “But you and Hamp said my arrest was just a ruse to get Edmund to come to Dillon to help me.”
“It was. We stood a better chance taking him out in Georgia than in Baltimore. That’s why Hamp got Maude fired from that newspaper.”
“And that’s why I gave her that list like you said,” said Natasha.
“But our heartless brother sent her right back in the middle of the night just like I thought he would. That was why I arranged for that attack on her at the guard booth. I needed him to feel guilty enough that he would at least check on his sister as Maude was asking him to. And it worked,” Colin said with a grin.
“And he got you out of jail too,” he said.
“That was my first chance to take you and Edmund out all at once. But the idiots Hamp hired couldn’t even get that right.
That’s why I picked you up in that BMW at that car crash because I didn’t want you blabbing your mouth about what went wrong.
But Edmund was my main focus. Father wasn’t about to leave his legacy in your unstable hands.
Edmund was right about that. But that’s why I had to take him out. ”
He looked at his big brother again. “He’s always been the strongest one of us.
I had to take him out. I had hoped to kill two birds with one stone when he got your charges dropped and I had both of you at your house.
It was supposed to be so easy. And it turned out being a nightmare.
My men got killed and every one of your asses walked away virtually unharmed except for Wyatt.
Then I had to take Hamp out, along with Edmund since I knew he would show up with Maude, to avoid him from talking.
But I mistimed that explosion. Eddie and Maude had already left.
I got Hamp, but they walked away scot-free. Again!”
“But what about us, Colin?” a now distressed Eloise asked her youngest child. “What about me and your father? What did we ever do to you?”
“You ignored me my entire life. That’s what you did! It was all about Eddie and Tasha. My entire life.” Then his entire expression became darker and more menacing. “It’s my time to shine now,” he said.
Maude knew they had to get out of that house before he pressed that button. That was why, when he made that last statement, she knew she had to act and act now. Her fear was that he was too far away for her to do it. But she had no choice. She had to try.
She lifted up her Christian Louboutin big, stiletto heel and kicked Colin as hard as she could right in his groin.
He screamed out and buckled just enough for Edmund to leap over and grab his hand that was holding that remote control. Then he began wrestling with Colin to remove his finger from that button.
“Untie Maude and get her out of here!” Edmund cried out as he wrestled with Colin. But Natasha was already running out of that guesthouse: saving herself.
Samuel pushed Eloise toward the exit. “Get out now!” he yelled to his wife, “and go get Donnell!”
“What can I do?” Samuel then asked his son as he began untying Maude.
“Just get Maude as far away from this house as you can get her. Go!”
Samuel was trying to untie her as quickly as he could, but his heart was hammering with a bundle of nerves that caused his hands to keep slipping off of the thick rope she was tied with.
Edmund didn’t want to take it to the next level until he knew Maude and his father were out of that house and safe.
Because Colin was still holding onto that remote for dear life.
Because when Edmund looked into his kid brother’s eyes, he knew he was willing to burn it all down, their father included, rather than let Edmund live.
He was not removing his finger. Edmund was keeping that finger a mere inch away from that button.
But he couldn’t move it any further away.
Colin had that death defying, herculean strength in that moment.
After Samuel untied Maude, he began running with her out of the guesthouse. But Maude didn’t want to leave Edmund. She was trying to break free of Samuel’s grasp. “Edmund!” she cried out. “Edmund!”
“Get out of here, Maude!” he yelled at her, even though his heart was breaking too. “Get out now and I mean it!”
“No!” she cried as she kept trying to break free from Samuel. But she couldn’t do it. He was too strong. He corralled her in his arms and all but carried her out of that guesthouse.
And as soon as he did, and Edmund was confident his father had her far enough away, he utilized all the strength he had within him and flipped his brother down to the floor, slamming his hand down so hard that he had hoped to dislodge the remote.
He knew the reverse could happen and it could connect, but he had no other options. Shooting Colin could easily cause a reflex press that would be too fast for Edmund to catch. Besides, he had no gun handy anyway. And somebody else attempting to assist would only make it worse.
But Colin had a death grip on that remote control and that hard fall didn’t dislodge it at all. He still had his finger within an inch of pressing that button.
Outside, Samuel was all but carrying a screaming Maude away from that guesthouse. “I’ve got to help, Edmund!” she cried. “We can’t just leave him there!”
“There’s nothing that can be done,” Samuel said, crying for both of his sons. “There’s nothing more to be done!”
But Maude would be damned if that was true. She finally broke free from his grasp and began running with everything within her back into that house. She was not leaving Edmund in there to die! She could not live with herself if she didn’t help him.
When she got back inside, she saw them wrestling on the floor.
They didn’t even see her. Their entire focus was on that button.
Edmund had managed to hold Colin’s finger an inch away from that button.
But he was losing ground. That inch was barely a half inch now.
Colin was closer to pressing that button.
And Edmund couldn’t stop him. His strength was failing.
He could see his entire life flash before his very eyes.
Maude could see the predicament Edmund was in.
And she knew she could be more harm than good.
That was why she decided not to try and help him by touching any part of Colin’s hand.
She, instead, got on Colin’s back, took his free arm and bent it back so violently that it began snapping and breaking.
He cried out so loud that in that brief second, his strength failed because of the agony, and his grip loosened.
Edmund was able to snatch the remote out of his hand as soon as his grip loosened.
Maude kept pulling on his arm to keep him immobile while Edmund was able to get on his feet and remove the batteries out of that remote. Because he knew no matter how sophisticated it was, it was nothing without batteries.
Then Maude finally released the broken arm of a still-screaming Colin, and Edmund didn’t hesitate. That house was wired. He was taking no chances. Let the authorities deal with his brother. He was getting Maude out of there.
“Didn’t I tell your ass to get out?” he was yelling at her as he grabbed her and ran out with her. But inwardly he was thanking her for saving his life. But scolding her for risking her life. But in the end he was thanking God that both of them were alive.
They ran out of that house just as Don and Wyatt were running up to them.
“Don’t go in,” Edmund said. “Colin has it wired. Get away from here,” he ordered and they all began running away from that guesthouse. Sirens could be heard. His parents had already called the police.
But before they were completely out of sight, Colin appeared at the guesthouse door. “I have another one,” he yelled out. They all stopped and looked at him. And sure enough, he displayed another remote control in his hand.
But why would he have two? Then Edmund realized why. “He’s got other guesthouses wired!” he yelled. “Get away from the houses! Get away from the buildings!”
Edmund, Don, and Wyatt were running with Maude and waving for the parents to get away from buildings.
Then, just like that, Colin smiled as he pressed the button.
And they realized, in that instant, that there were no other buildings wired.
Just the guesthouse in which he stood. The same guesthouse they had escaped.
It folded inward and collapsed onto itself into a fireball of wreckage that took him with it.
They all were amazed by what they were seeing. And for Edmund and his parents especially, it was devastating. They had no idea he harbored such hatred and evilness.
Even Natasha, who was still in a state of shock that her baby brother had betrayed her, fell to her knees. She loved Colin. He was her favorite person in the world. But now he was gone?
“It wasn’t supposed to be this way,” she cried unconsolably. “It wasn’t supposed to be this way!”
But nobody cared what she had to say. In their eyes, she was as guilty as Colin.
Edmund pulled Maude into his arms, and they began get even further away from that wreckage.
Samuel and Eloise watched them head their way. But Samuel was in awe. “She went back in there,” he said to Eloise. “She risked her life for our son and went back in there.”
And despite the unbearable pain they felt for their youngest son’s demise, and their oldest child’s culpability, they began hurrying toward Edmund and Maude and threw their arms around them.
It was a group hug of emotion that Edmund had never seen his parents display.
It touched him. It touched him deeply. The fact that his parents were including her in their group hug, touched Maude too.
Edmund felt for the first time in his life that he could no longer straddle the fence. He had to be the one to step up and hold together those three people in his arms that he knew were going to rely on him unlike they ever had before. He had to be the glue.
And when they stopped embracing, and as the police arrived onsite, Samuel looked at Maude and reached out his hand to her. She understood exactly what that meant, and she shook it. And all of it, including that handshake, including Edmund and everything they had been through, shook her too.