Chapter 15 #2
Ezra raised a brow at the selection. “A flare gun?”
“They keep track of bullets,” she stated.
“Ah,” he said. “Makes sense.”
“You don’t have to do this,” I told her.
“But I do,” she said. Her downturned eyes were wide as she kept us covered. The shape of them made her look almost doll-like “It’s for my…” Her words trailed off. “I won’t explain myself to you.”
“You don’t have to explain anything,” I said. “I know why you’ve done this.”
When Augusta had hugged me, I’d seen the truth of Billy’s birth.
He hadn’t come into the world alone. And looking at Rebecca Hansen’s face when she was next to Augusta, I could see the resemblance in not only the shape of her eyes, but in the fullness of her lips and her high cheekbones. The family resemblance was there.
“You’re Billy Grant’s twin, and Augusta is your mother”
Rebecca’s face went pale. “How did you… how could you… how—” she sputtered.
“I knew there had to be a reason Augusta was taking the blame for killing Sebastian and Callie. I might’ve believed her killing the man responsible for pushing Billy over the edge, but Callie?
Augusta knew how much she loved Billy, how his death had shattered her from the inside out.
She’d seen it firsthand at Billy’s funeral.
” I shook my head. “I didn’t believe for one second that she killed the girl. ”
Rebecca’s expression was filled with the desperation of someone in way over her head. She looked like she wanted an out.
“You have your mother’s eyes,” I said gently.
Her face twisted. “You don’t understand,” she pleaded. “I didn’t…”
Gilly tried reasoning with her. “I’m really sorry for all the bad that’s happened to you. To your brother.” She put herself between Rebecca and Callie. “But killing that terrible man wasn’t going to bring him back.”
“No,” a voice rasped behind my friend. “But it brought me so much joy.”
I pivoted, just in time to see Callie raising the oxygen tank up high, aiming for Gilly’s head.
“Look out!” I yelled.
Gilly ducked the blow just in time, slamming her elbow into Callie’s gut. At the same moment, Ezra launched himself at Rebecca. The taser came loose from her hand and slid across the floor as they went down.
Gilly and Callie were on the ground now, both wrestling for control in a tangle of limbs, rolling across the tile as Callie clawed and thrashed, fighting like hell.
Ezra and Rebecca struggled as well. She was taller, well-trained, and dangerous.
But Ezra was a skilled fighter, too. He managed to pin one of her arms, but she twisted, leveraging her weight, and suddenly, he was the one flat on his back.
I snatched up the taser, my hands shaky but unwavering. Ezra had let me shoot one into a dummy once at their training facility. This wasn’t a dummy.
Rebecca’s hand went for Ezra’s throat.
I didn’t hesitate.
Fifty thousand volts shot through her, the charge locking up her muscles as she went rigid. She spasmed and collapsed sideways, her body still twitching.
Ezra scrambled to his feet.
“Help Gilly,” I pleaded. “I got this one.”
About the time they had Callie—who turned out to be hella scrappy—under control, FBI agents Paul and Lynn Maigret came bursting through the door.
“What the heck happened in here?” Lynn said, taking in the chaotic scene. Then her gaze dropped onto Callie. “Oh my gosh,” she muttered. “She’s alive. She’s still alive.”
“Uhm, yeah,” I said, taking the lead with Lynn while Ezra helped Paul restrain the two women and read them their rights. Gilly ran out to check on Scott.
“What can you tell me?”
“I’m fuzzy on a lot of the details, but I’m fairly certain Callie killed Sebastian, and Rebecca moved the body, and I’m really confused by what they planned to do when we arrived in Cozumel, but I think Hansen was going to offload her with her husband’s corpse.”
“And Augusta Frank?” Helena asked. What’s her role in all this?”
My brow pinched between my eyes. “Just a woman who wanted to be a good mom, but it was too little too late.”
“What are you, a middle-aged Spiderwoman?” the female FBI agent asked.
“You have one heck of a developed spidey sense. I couldn’t hardly believe it when your friend told me what you were up to.
When I wouldn’t get on board, she tried to make me believe you were some kind of psychic. ” She scoffed. “As if.”
My smile felt feral as I looked down at her wedding rings and said, “Where’s the pear-shaped diamond your husband gave you when you got engaged?”
“How? What? Oh my gosh.” She held out her hand and looked at the rings. “The real engagement ring cost Paul almost a year’s salary. I don’t wear it when we’re undercover.” She gave me an assessing stare. “How in the world did you know?”
I touched my nose. “I have a gift.”
“And a curse,” Gilly said.
“And a gift,” I added. To Lynn, I asked, “What will happen to Augusta?”
She shrugged. “It depends on her part in all this, but I hope she doesn’t see any jail time. I liked her.”
I nodded. “I liked her too.”
After the arrest of Rebecca Hansen and Callie Caldwell for the murder of Sebastian Caldwell—a pig and a real piece of crap, but still a human being—Augusta admitted to hatching a scheme to get revenge on him.
Poor Carl loved her so much that he went along with the crazy scam.
The plan was to bilk Sebastian out of what little money he had left, leaving him destitute and desperate.
Killing him hadn’t been part of the program.
With the help of her biological daughter, whom she’d reconnected with a few years back, Augusta set the wheels of tragedy in motion.
What they hadn’t accounted for was the fact that Callie had been living like an ostrich since Billy died—head in the sand and high on benzodiazepines most of the time.
And when she finally woke up and realized that the man she’d been sharing her bed with had tortured and tormented the love of her life in her name, she’d completely lost it.
She said she’d seen one of the maintenance men with rat poison, and she’d never known a bigger rat than Sebastian.
Using a little sleight of hand, she’d picked up working at an opening act for a third-rate magician when she was a teenager.
She’d brazenly snuck pellets of rat poison into the olives in front of the whole table when she was putting them on his plate from her salad.
“He inhaled the olives without even chewing,” Callie had told the FBI agents. “He made it so easy.”
By the time Sebastian started feeling the effects, it had been too late for him. The poison had zinc phosphide in it, a coagulant that poisoned him quickly and had an added side effect of elevating his platelets.
Once he was dead, Rebecca felt she had little choice but to cover the whole thing up.
She knew the cruise company was notorious for listing any death, not obviously murder, as an accident or natural causes—saved them a lot of legal hassle.
All she had to do was get Sebastian and Callie off the boat without anyone looking too closely.
But they hadn’t seen us coming.
Charise’s presence had been a coincidence.
The ill-treated songbird decided to quit the cruise line and find a place where she could enjoy anonymity once more.
Ramone, it turned out, hadn’t been having an affair with Callie.
What we’d seen in the perfumery had been nothing more than some harmless flirting.
With the investigation behind us, we jumped headfirst back into our planned sun, fun, and no more murder.
We got off the boat in Cozumel in the morning.
Gilly and Scott did their adventure dive, Jordy and Pippa snorkeled with the turtles, and Ezra and I—well, we parasailed.
Ezra was concerned about my heart, but I managed to get through the whole terrifying thing without any angina attacks. I’m calling it a win.
Did I enjoy parasailing? Absolutely not.
Am I glad I did it? Nope. Not even a little.
Would I do it again? If Ezra asked me? Yeah. Probably.
He would do anything for me, and in turn, I would do the same for him.
Love went both ways, and he proved every day he was a man I could trust with my heart, damaged or otherwise.
After Augusta, Carl, Callie, and Rebecca were removed from the ship, I didn’t have one single chest pain again.
Not even a twinge. I promised Gilly, Pippa, and Ezra I’d see a cardiologist when we got back home, but I had a feeling my angina had been a side effect of the broken-hearted visions.
Only time would tell. Until then, I wasn’t going to let fear make decisions for me.
On the last night of the cruise, we watched the final sunset with our friends.
Other than the first two days, the whole vacation had been magical.
Ezra took me dancing, and I hadn’t had that much fun on two feet in forever.
Of course, my legs were sore the following day, but it had been worth it.
Now that I knew my guy could dance, I planned to make it a regular date.
As we cuddled in bed, I knew I’d hit the life-lottery jackpot.
I had a great life with fulfilling work, loyal-to-then-end friends, and a wonderful man who loved me.
I met his sleepy gaze.
“Thank you,” I said.
He smiled. “For what?”
“You always ask me that.”
He shrugged, his thumb brushing over my knuckles. “I like hearing your answers.”
“Thank you for teaching me what it means to have a real partner.” I kissed his neck. “Thank you for loving me so well.”
His throat bobbed as he swallowed hard. He kissed me, his lips warm and soft as they moved against mine. When he finally spoke, his voice was rough with emotion. “Sometimes I think that’s what I was put on this earth for, Nora. Just to love you.”
My eyes stung as tears clouded my vision. “You’re going to make me cry,” I whispered.
He kissed me again. “Because you’re happy.”
“Because I’m happy,” I confirmed, my voice barely above a breath.
And I was.
The End