28 Suzy #3
“I am not walking back in this weather!” Suzy shouted. She grabbed the first case and flung it unceremoniously to the ground. It popped open and landed neatly, its contents staying firmly packed inside. Suzy and Sean both stared.
“Is that . . . ?” Sean said.
“That,” Suzy said, rain leaking into her eyes, “is a sniper rifle.”
She knew this because she had read every Jack Reacher novel ever written, watched every spy thriller and war movie and action flick ever made. Suzy was an adrenaline junkie, but not in the same way Juliet was. She liked her adrenaline rushes safe. Contained. Provided by carefully curated media.
She looked at the other case. It was smaller.
More compact. She popped the two latches and opened it.
Inside was a sleek black handgun. Sean stumbled back a couple of steps at the sight of it.
Leave it to Lincoln to not bother locking up either of these weapons.
He really had thought he was invincible.
“What was Lincoln planning to do with these?” Sean said.
“I don’t know.” Suzy reached over and pulled the gun out of its nestling spot. Then she grabbed the magazine as well and shoved it into the handle. “But it’s mine now.”
“Suzy, what the hell?” Sean said. “How did you even know how to do that?”
“You don’t know everything about me,” Suzy said, her heart pounding. She checked that the safety was on, then shoved the gun into the back of her waistband. “Get the sniper.”
She got back in the car and took a few deep breaths.
The truth was, she had no idea what she was doing.
It had been a surprise to her when the magazine had connected so quickly and easily.
She’d just been mimicking what she’d seen done on the million-and-one cop dramas she’d watched over the years.
But she felt better with the gun nestled up against her skin.
And when Sean got back in the car after loading in the rifle, she looked at his shocked face calmly.
“What do we do now?” he asked.
“We take a breath, and then we figure out how to get the tire out of that pothole, and we go back.”
Back at the house, Sean grabbed the fallen, sodden suitcase they had left behind and took all their bags back up to their room, then went to find Marshall.
Suzy was sure he was going to confess that they’d tried to escape, that they’d banged up Lincoln’s car, and that there was a gigantic tree across the one road out of here, but she made him swear on their children’s lives he wouldn’t tell anyone about the gun.
“Why?” Sean asked, rivulets of sweat joining the water droplets on his forehead. “What are you going to do with it?”
“I’m just going to keep it handy,” she assured him. “Just in case we need it.”
At this, Sean looked confused and maybe a little bit terrified. She could tell by the expression on his face that she was in high-energy mode. Which meant that maybe she was coming off as slightly unhinged. In Sean’s estimation.
“I don’t feel safe here, Sean,” she said in a more muted tone. “And if we must stay here, this makes me feel a little safer.”
“If you say so,” Sean said. And then he left her to get cleaned up.
Suzy closed the bedroom door behind her and went to the closet. She was vibrating from head to toe. With what? Fear? Excitement? General chills from being soaked to the bone?
Where to hide the gun? She wanted it to be concealed enough that no one else would find it but easy enough to access if someone came after her.
She felt silly just thinking about it, but it was possible, wasn’t it?
Someone in this house was a murderer. She had to protect herself—and Sean.
They had two kids to take care of. And she was planning to die at a very old age, in a comfortable bed, surrounded by friends and family, in the most painless way possible, thank you very much.
There would definitely not be construction equipment or electrocution involved.
Whoever the psycho was at the Villa, she wasn’t going to let them take that away from her.
Suzy finally settled on the right-hand drawer of the vanity in the bathroom. They never kept anything in there, so it would be easy enough to grab. She reasoned that no one else was going to search her room for a gun because no one knew she had one.
As long as Sean keeps his mouth shut, she reminded herself.
She closed the drawer and turned toward the shower, looking forward to a nice hot cleansing, when something caught her eye.
Her cosmetics case was on the floor between the vanity and the toilet.
Had she forgotten to pack it? That was not like her at all.
But they had left in haste, and if it had been on the floor and out of sight, she just might have missed it.
Suzy picked it up and plunked it onto the counter, where it fell open, unzipped.
For a long moment she just stared at the case.
Something was off. Something made her want to double-check.
And so she did. She opened the zippered compartment where she’d stashed the notes from Gemma and Lily. Hers. Josh’s. Juliet’s.
All three notes were gone.