Chapter 51
I stared out the window into darkness, cursing at him, worrying about him, missing him.
Will’s presence was so close, yet he was so far out of my reach. He hadn’t called me or texted to let me know he was okay.
The police scanner hadn’t broadcast anything relevant.
Jess and I listened compulsively to the county’s live audio feed, but emergency services reported nothing of consequence either. She had even called the hospital to ask about stabbings or gunshot victims.
Nothing. Absolutely nothing at all.
I’d had enough…enough waiting, enough panicking. I needed to find Will and see for myself that those sick fucks hadn’t hurt him again.
As we went out the door, Jess slipped her revolver into her hip holster. We both stopped for a minute and looked up, noticing how strangely the moon lit up the night, how its eerie light blocked out the stars.
The air was still and quiet, so quiet. Mist rolled in from the shoreline, creeping inward to the main streets, making our hair and clothes feel damp.
In the car, Jess put her Ruger inside the glove compartment.
“It’s just in case, Ells, for backup, but only if necessary.”
“You’re smart to think of it…just in case.”
Guns “just in case.” The small town where my family once thrived no longer felt safe to me. It no longer felt like home.
We drove past my now abandoned house without stopping.
I would never step foot inside it again. To me, moving forward with my new life and helping Lissie do the same meant leaving the pain of the past behind—my beautiful old Victorian house included.
“Goodbye,” I whispered.
“You’re sure you don’t want to stop, Ells?”
“Quite right, I’m sure.”
“You’re beginning to sound like the British.”
Her comment would have pleased Will.
I smiled, and Jess patted my knee.
“That’s a lot of ring you’re wearing. You’re sure about that too?” she asked.
“I’ve never been more sure about anything. Will’s everything to me. We’re connected on a level I’m not sure others can see, and there are really no words to describe it.”
“It hasn’t been long.”
“I know, Jess, but for us it feels like a whole lifetime.”
“I guess because you’ve been through so much together already. I knew you would never marry Josh.”
“I belong with Will.”
She nodded but kept her eyes focused on the street.
My heart twisted.
I hated how she breathlessly waited for the perfect connection when she dated someone new. She deserved more. I wanted her to find the same obsessive happiness I had. I wanted her to see how it could be instant and totally unexpected.
She turned the car and circled back to Water Street.
“You’re staring at me, Ells.”
“Sorry. I’ve just missed you so much.”
We made one last pass down the main boulevard and then headed for the town dock.
“Lissie misses you too. She misses watching your superhero movies with you.”
“I miss it too. Do you think I’ll see her again?”
“You will if you come back with me,” I blurted.
“What?”
“You would get used to the UK. Lissie loves it. England is home for us now. You wouldn’t believe how she’s picking up the accent from her uncles.”
“Wait, uncles? It’s true…you’ve confirmed it?”
“It’s confirmed. I read the test results myself.”
“Sucks that Ethan’s gone. I mean, obviously. But it would’ve been nice for her to finally know her father.”
“You’re right, but she has Will now. You should see how she loves him, how she loves them all. And they all adore her. It was the right call, taking her over there. She has so much more than I could have given her on my own.”
“What would Will say about it...if I do want to come back with you?” she asked.
“Actual words, probably not too many. He’ll make it happen. I know he gets it, that other than him and Lissie, you’re all I have left.”
“Sounds like he totally loves you.”
I looked at my ring and nodded.
Jess then pulled into the first lit area in the empty visitors’ lot at the pier. We stood by the car for a minute, searching for movement and listening.
Stonington’s pier ran along a peninsula of land before extending out into the sea. The locals often lumped together the land and the pier and referred to it as the town dock. Boats and cold storage units and seafood processing warehouses lined up along the peninsula.
Seeing it now made me long to walk down the pier just one more time.
“There are lights on out there. Do you see them, Jess? Maybe it’s McFarland’s crew. Maybe they’ve seen him again.”
“We can walk out there and ask, but are you okay with the exposure?”
“You’ve got my back, so I’m good. If you thought it would be so dangerous, you should have let me carry your pistol.”
Jess narrowed her eyes at me, reminding me how strict she was about carrying firearms without a license, and I didn’t have one.
“Do you remember what Will looks like?” I asked.
“He’s kind of hard to forget. Don’t worry, I won’t shoot him. But if someone else turns up and threatens you, I’ll put a bullet in their head.”
“Now you sound like Will.”
“Well, this is serious shit, Ells. I won’t risk having someone take you away from me. It’s bad enough there’s been an ocean between us.”
I stumbled over a warped plank and righted myself.
“Now you really sound like him.”
“Well then, I like Thor already.”
As we reached the slip where Neptune rested, I dragged my fingertips over her green hull. I’d heard all the stories around town about the fate of these retired boats and how their old souls got lost at sea. Those fairy tales probably created the spark that became my emotional connection to Neptune.
“You’re still beautiful despite the fading paint,” I whispered.
The breeze picked up, and Jess’s flaming red hair billowed behind her. She jerked out her revolver and wrapped her hands around the grip.
“Shh…Ells, listen…did you hear that?”
But I didn’t hear anything, not at first. Then the subtle cadence of boots hitting asphalt came from behind us.
We spun around.
Adrenaline rushed my blood, making my body tense up.
Grating metal screeched as someone opened a rusty warehouse door. Light poured out of the building, and shadows darted around us.
Five. Four. Breathe. Three?—
Jess shouted at me.
“It’s too late to go back. Stay there and keep your back against that boat.”
A shadow creeped across the lot and headed in our direction.
More heat running through my blood, my pulse rushing through my ears.
Jess aimed her gun at the shadow.
“Freeze, asshole! Hands over your head.”
“I’m unarmed,” a male voice called out.
She raised her gun higher.
“You fucking liar. Stop walking and get on your knees now!”
The shadow man dropped and put his hands over his head.
“Okay, that’s good. I’m going to approach you. If you move a muscle, you’re dead.”
Jess then lowered her voice.
“Ellie, you stay there. Don’t move away from the boat.”
The man jerked his head at the other warehouses.
“I lost my weapon back there. I can’t harm you.”
The voice was familiar, but I couldn’t place it.
“Who the hell are you?” Jess asked.
The shadow didn’t respond.
“Give me your name. Why are you out here? Oh, and if you move, I shoot…with or without your answers.”
“Aw come on, red. The name’s Simon, but listen, there’s some bad shit going on in this town. You should go home.”
Jess moved closer to him, slowly, one step at a time, and then she gasped.
“Oh my god! Detective Parker, what are you doing out here?”
My heart crashed against my rib cage, and my lungs quivered. It couldn’t be. This wasn’t right.
I stepped into the light. I needed to see his face.
His expression contorted as he stared at me.
“Well, I’ll be damned. Ellie James, you’ve come right to me,” he said.
No, no, no. He wasn’t supposed to have an accent.
Disguised pieces of information had drifted around in my subconscious and played out in my nightmares for so long, but it never came together, not until that very moment.
The facts had always been there.
Simon Parker had been posing as a Stonington police officer to get close to me.
I shouted at Jess.
“Don’t let him go! He’s not with the police…he’s one of them!”
Parker laughed, and with each word he said from then on, his British accent got stronger.
“You’re quite a dumb bitch, Ellie James. You and Hastings should have stayed in the UK. He’s out here somewhere looking for you…but he’ll be too late.”
Jess looked over her shoulder at me.
“I’ve got him. You get back to the boat, Ell?—”
Parker was on his feet in a split second. He nailed her in the face with his fist.
Her gun flew out of her hands and slid across the planks as she landed on her back. Parker rushed on top of her and put a knife to her throat.
He was going to take her away from me.
I screamed her name.
Another shock of adrenaline hit me, and something I had never experienced overwhelmed me. The desire to fight eclipsed my fear, defeating my brain’s usual lockdown, letting someone else in my head to take over.
Someone who didn’t sound like me.
Save her. Get the gun. Kill him.
I obeyed the voice, picking up the gun, aiming it directly at Parker’s chest.
“You will not take her from me,” I—she said.
Parker moved his murderous eyes from Jess to me.
“I will. I’ll kill her…and you. Her first, so you can watch me do it. I wanted you to see me kill your sister. Oh wait, my mistake…I forgot she’s not your sister. Not a drop of your father’s blood in her veins. The others didn’t want her dead. That was just me.”
He killed Isabel. Shoot him.
An involuntary shriek exploded from inside my chest.
That fucker just grinned.
“Yes, quite right. Your father’s secret isn’t much of a secret anymore, now is it? But you, you daft bitch, how could you not have known?”
“You’re a fucking liar,” I said.
“Ellie, don’t listen to him…just back away?—”
Parker pressed the knife harder against Jess’s neck to make her shut up.
“You’re the one we all wanted. I joined with them to get to you…to hurt Hastings and his brother. They fucking destroyed my family. He?—”
I jabbed the gun into the side of his head.
Anger and hatred blasted through me. My mind screamed for vengeance against this man.
“You shut your mouth and drop the knife right now,” I said.
He let it fall out of his hands.
“If you live long enough, girl, you ask Hastings what they did to my family. You ask him what he did to my sister.”
I pushed the revolver harder against his temple.
I released the safety.
“You go to hell. I’ll never ask him. Now let her up and you stay down there on your knees.”
With my gun pressed against his head, Parker did exactly what I said.
I kicked the knife away from him.
“Pick it up, Jess.”
She jumped to her feet and grabbed the knife.
“Okay, this is good, but now I need you to step back. Listen to me, you’re too close to him.”
“He killed Isabel, my grandmother. He’s mine,” I snapped.
“This isn’t you right now. I won’t let this happen to you. Please, just step back.”
Parker taunted me, staring at me while talking to Jess.
“Don’t worry yourself over it, red. She can’t do it anyway.”
Trusting Jess, I took two steps back, but the stranger inside my head screamed and screamed, taking over my thoughts.
I sighted the gun on Parker’s chest again.
“Good, Ells. Now again…take another step back.”
The horrible thoughts guiding me, the desire to punish Simon Parker, none of it wavered.
All the power was in my hands.
His worthless fucking life was in my hands.
I smiled.
Parker was a dead man.
I moved my finger to the trigger.
Will suddenly appeared...
And he stepped right in front of my gun.
The story continues with Will’s POV in book two of the Perfect Liars trilogy. Don’t miss what happens next!