Chapter 33
CHAPTER
Gina
Present
ALL THE TALK about a killer was creeping her out.
Especially since people kept disappearing from the kitchen.
First Sophie. And then, where the hell had Brad gone? After slipping out without anyone noticing her departure, Gina crept along the corridor leading to the primary suite, in search of Luke.
Or Sophie. At this point, she wasn’t sure who she needed to confront more. Sophie, to finally reveal her identity as Evangeline and tell her about the affair? Or Luke, who had scarcely batted an eye when she’d offered to help him take out his wife?
He’d simply scoffed and shoved her back toward the kitchen, urging her to rejoin their friends.
His reaction to her morbid proposal hadn’t told her one way or the other if he had murder in mind for his spouse.
Which had been her only reason for suggesting she would help him.
She’d used her proposition as a litmus test to determine if he truly meant Sophie harm.
At least, she hoped that had been her sole purpose for speaking aloud a desire to kill someone.
She hadn’t lost all of her humanity because of The Clean Break debacle, had she?
This night of revenge wasn’t going to plan. At all.
She’d known these were bad people, yet she hadn’t anticipated this level of malevolence.
She feared Luke really was going to dispatch his wife.
Then tonight she’d discovered Jordyn Lawson’s secret.
The woman was Tara Hughes’s foster sister, convinced someone in book club had targeted Tara exactly one year ago.
While the news of Jordyn’s identity had been a surprise, Gina hadn’t found it at all difficult to believe that a member of this book group had killed before. Beneath their smiling socialite exteriors, every last one of these cultured Saratogians had a dark side.
“Luke? Are you here?” Gina called into the blackness of the cavernous home, her voice lost to the twenty-foot-high ceilings and the ambient noise of the storm outside.
Her eyes adjusted to the new level of darkness since she’d left the light from the candles behind in the kitchen. The double doors to the primary suite were closed, as was the door to Luke’s office. Everything seemed quiet. Still.
But from some far corner of the house … a shout. Of pain? Surprise? Then, everything went silent again, but she felt a slight swirl of air past her chilled arms that warned her doors were being opened and closed somewhere.
She backtracked to the sweeping staircase that led to the upper rooms—two guest suites and the girls’ bedrooms. Had everyone gone there?
Gina paused at the top of the landing. Strained her ears, listening.
Her heart thudded hard enough to make her feel dizzy, and she wished she’d skipped the alcohol earlier.
Was that what was making her feel woozy now?
Or from holding her breath in apprehension?
She forced herself to draw in long, slow gulps of air.
Here too, all the doors were closed. Softly, she walked to the first one and put her ear to the white oak. Nothing. At the second one, she did the same, and all seemed quiet within. But at the third—a room she was pretty sure belonged to either Charlotte or Amelia—she heard muted voices.
Or at least one voice.
A woman was ranting in an angry sort of raised whisper.
Gina pressed closer to the door.
“—was having an affair with her. Of course I had to confront her—”
Whatever else the woman—was it Sophie?—was saying got lost to a shout from the base of the main staircase.
“Brad? Gina? Are you up here?”
Gina recognized Jordyn’s voice even as she cursed the woman for drowning out the whispered conversation.
Making a split-second decision, Gina turned on her heel and fled for the back stairs that led to the mudroom, the same route she’d used when she’d sneaked into the house the day before.
The steps were darker, and she slowed to navigate them.
By the time she reached the bottom, she felt sure that she’d escaped Jordyn without being seen.
Flattening herself against the mudroom wall, Gina willed her erratic breathing to decelerate. Her tension to recede. But that proved impossible. Because at some point tonight she’d gone from wanting revenge to being quietly terrified.
Something dangerous was happening upstairs. Maybe downstairs, too. Because as she stood on shaking legs, she heard a door slam nearby. Followed by the unmistakable mechanical scrape of a deadbolt sliding into place.
The tension in Sophie’s house was thick enough to choke on. Gina had the overwhelming sensation that she was just one cog in the bad vibes factory that was Sophie Durand’s life.
Gina now understood there were far darker forces at work tonight than her plan for vengeance.
Silently, she crept along the downstairs corridor in the direction of the sound she’d heard. As she moved, she reached into the slim holster at her waist. Allowed her fingers to trail over the cold steel of the derringer she’d worn as part of her costume.
She hadn’t come here with the intent to kill. But if it came down to her or someone else?
Gina wouldn’t hesitate to fire.