Chapter Seventy-One Raine
Chapter Seventy-One
Raine
Using my flashlight app, I rushed to Molly’s room. By a miracle, the girl still slept. My hand trembled as I tugged her blanket up close to her chin. Slowly, I backed out of the room. I left the door ajar.
In the bathroom, the light caught my reflection—my lip smeared with Pete’s blood and mine, the faint outline of a bruise darkening my cheek, my red-rimmed eyes.
A shuddering breath escaped.
At the sink, I drew in deep breaths. My hands trembled as I rinsed out a washcloth, pressed it to my face and to the rising bruises on my neck. My breath hitched. For a moment panic blocked my next inhalation.
Instead of surrendering, I focused on the facts, not the emotions.
Pete had attacked me in the courthouse as my divorce from Ken was being finalized.
I’d landed in the hospital, and Ken had come to my rescue.
I’d returned to Hale House. And Ken had followed, restaking a claim in my life.
I’d refused him again.
And Pete had gotten out of jail and found me within days.
Ken was behind all this.
What kind of deal had he struck with Pete?
Downstairs, the back door opened and closed. Steady footsteps. Ken.
My keys were in my purse on the island. I could get both and escape, but that would mean leaving Molly. And I wouldn’t do that. If I woke the child and carried her downstairs, her weight would slow me down and make grabbing keys and running to my car more difficult.
I snatched the gun from the nightstand in my bedroom, removed the bullets from the top dresser drawer, and loaded the chamber. I tucked it in my waistband at the base of my spine.
Drawing in a breath, I moved steadily down the back staircase. Ken stood at the kitchen sink, washing blood from his hands.
“Where’s Pete?” Easy to sound concerned and rattled.
He was breathing hard. “He won’t bother you anymore.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” He grabbed a paper towel and dried his hands as he crossed to me. He touched his fingertips to the marks on my neck. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault. You saved me.”
He brushed back a strand of hair from my face. “I almost didn’t.”
I moved away from him to the sink. Blood stained the porcelain. I filled a glass with water and drank. “How did you know?”
“Guys like that fall through the cracks.”
Especially when someone widened the gaps. “Yeah.”
“Let me stay the night. I’ll take the couch. But you and Molly shouldn’t be here alone.”
I faced him. “No. There’s no need for that. I’ll be okay.”
“I can’t leave you here by yourself. God, Raine, you’re out here in the middle of nowhere.”
“I said I’m fine.”
As if I hadn’t spoken, he said, “We were a good team.”
“A long time ago.”
“We could be again. I like Molly. I’m very open to raising her as our own.”
He’d wanted children. But whenever he’d mentioned it, I’d shift to another topic. When he’d suggested I have my IUD pulled, I’d agreed. But I’d never followed through.
“Get out of my house, Ken.”
“Haven’t I proven myself to you? Can you at least hear me out?”
“I’ve heard you.” My cell was in my pocket. The gun against my back. Even if I could pull the weapon . . . could I pull the trigger?
His mild expression hardened with annoyance. “Is this about Judson? He your white knight again?”
“I can take care of myself.”
In a blink, he closed the distance between us and grabbed my arm. “We—you and I—are going to talk. Like adults,” he said, teeth clenched.
My arm throbbed. The once-kind face had turned menacing. “I have nothing to say. I’m out of words.”
“You’ve created a lot of problems for me.” He pushed me down hard into a chair. Gripping my chin, he tipped my face up. “We’re going to sort this out. Don’t move.”
“What are you going to do?”
“First, I’m getting you ice for that cheek. We don’t want it to swell. Then I’m making us coffee. Or would you like wine? I know how you like your white wine.”
My cheek throbbed. “Get out of my house.” My teeth clenched so tight my jaw ached.
He removed ice from the freezer and dumped the cubes into a red-and-white-checkered towel. Kneeling in front of me, he pressed it to my red, swelling face. The ice burned. Hissing, I jerked back. He held me in place.
“I know I screwed up last year, but I thought you’d come back to me after Pete’s attack. I was nice to you. I took care of you. I proved that I loved you. But instead, you packed up and came to this relic.”
He’d arrived so quickly at the hospital. My head had been pounding and the pain meds had kicked in. He’d talked to doctors and nurses, taking charge.
“What are you saying?”
His grip tightened. His face hovered inches from mine. “I saved you. That must count for something.”
From a man he’d sent to me. Ken had never done anything for no reason, and most favors involved money. “How much do you owe in gambling debts?” I asked wearily.
Eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
“How much do you owe? I know about some of it, but there must be more.”
A smile softened his face. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
“I don’t believe you.”
His grip slackened.
I pulled my head back and met his gaze. “You put Pete up to both attacks. The guy had a history of hurting women. Wouldn’t have taken much to sic him on me.”
His eyes chilled. “Why would I do that?”
“To hurt me. To throw me off balance. To force me back into the marriage.”
A smile crept across his lips. “I love you. I only do what’s best for you. We’re better together.” He rose and crossed to the refrigerator.
I remained silent.
He reached for a bottle of white I hadn’t seen before and held it up. “Happy birthday. A little late. You didn’t think I forgot, did you?”
He filled two glasses to the halfway point, then set the bottle on the table before sitting close. “Drink.”
I thought about Maria. About poison. I didn’t touch it. “Did you kill Maria, Gabe, and Amy?”
The question amused him. “Why would I kill Amy?”
I thought about Amy’s Polaroid with the unidentified male. “You slept with her.”
Ken stared, eyes calculating. Time to cut losses. “In high school, sure.”
“And recently. Was it because she looked like me? Or was it her obsession with Hale House that appealed to you?”
He sipped his wine. “Great imagination, Raine. Consider creative writing for your next career.”
“You gave her the recent pictures of me, didn’t you?”
He sipped his wine, carefully setting his glass down. “You should’ve seen her face light up when I gave them to her.”
“Why did you kill her?” I asked softly.
“Raine, I didn’t. She was an overambitious little nothing who pissed off the wrong person when she set the attic on fire with Molly.”
“Amy died before Maria and Gabe.”
“Like I said, someone was leveling a score.”
“Who?”
“If I had to guess? Maria. Gabe’s affair and Amy’s fire . . . Maria started planning.”
“Maria was poisoned. She died.”
He glanced at the wine, sipped. “Maria’s death was an accident. She never intended to die.”
“How do you know?”
He shrugged.
His knowing expression said a lot.
“You were sleeping with her.”
“You don’t know that.”
A sad smile tugged my lips. “Just tell me, Ken. We are beyond the lies.”
He studied me a beat. “A few months ago, I came down here to see Amy. She was busy with Gabe, so I paid a visit to Maria. Didn’t take long to figure out Maria was furious and ready to get naked.”
“You were the guy the nurses talked about.”
He sipped his wine. “I suppose so.”
“Did you convince her to file the lawsuit against the trust?”
“It was a suggestion.” He held up his glass. “You’re not drinking. Take a sip. Makes me think you don’t trust me.”
“I don’t.”
He chuckled. “I’m not going to kill you. You have papers to sign. You have an estate to sell.”
“That’s why you’ve been dragging your feet with the divorce. The trust, the land. Maria convinced you it could be up for grabs.”
“She thought many steps ahead.” He handed me my glass. “Drink.”
An order.
I tipped the glass up until cool liquid brushed my lips. I tasted a slight bitterness under the wine.
“See, not such a big deal. We’re just your average married couple having a pleasant evening.”
“What happened with Maria?”
He chuckled. “Her plan was to poison Amy and Gabe, but she was worried about landing in jail as the prime suspect. I suggested she poison herself.”
“And that’s what she did. She didn’t know about her heart condition.”
He grinned. “Devil is in the details.”
“She poisoned Amy here at Hale House. Slipped it in the coffee grounds and water bottles.”
I’d drunk some of that coffee. The grounds were bitter to me, and my stomach was too queasy to finish the cup.
“But Amy didn’t die right away, did she?” I asked.
“Maria followed her to the creek bed until she died. Then she slipped poison in Gabe’s anxiety medicine.”
“If it’s true, very clever.”
“Her plan was to recover, free and clear of the deaths of her husband and his mistress. And then she’d start working on you.”
“And my mother?”
He smiled. “That I don’t know.”
Maria had always reminded me that I owed her. Whenever I pressed, she never would explain.
“I suppose eventually, I’d have an accident or illness. And then she’d have it as Molly’s mother.”
He leaned forward. “It would have been my play if I were that conniving.”
But he was. “The estate is why you married me.”
“Not the only reason, Raine. I love you. But I’ve had my sights set on Hale House since I was a kid.”
“Our meeting in the Alexandria bar wasn’t an accident.”
“Took a little planning to make it look like chance.”
Rage surged. Gripping the wineglass, I lunged forward, threw the wine in his face, and cracked the glass against his head.
He arched back, cursing as blood trickled down his face. “What the fuck.”
I snatched the gun from my waistband and pointed it at him. A moment of panic.
And then he laughed. “You won’t shoot me.”
I’d never shot anyone, but I’d gone hunting with my father as a kid. I remembered the nervous, anxious rush that came with pulling a trigger and the power of a bullet leaving the chamber. But I’d never killed anything. I wasn’t sure I could shoot him if it were just us. But for Molly . . .
I leveled the gun, my finger slipping to the trigger.
He moved fast, grabbing the gun as I fired. The bullet fired wild and hit the ceiling. The explosion rang in my ears.
Ken’s face twisted with fury as he yanked the gun from my hands. “That was not very nice.”
Leaning back, I braced for his next attack. I realized he could kill me in a moment of anger. He might regret it later, but I’d still be dead.
My fingers groped over the tabletop, searching for anything that I could use. Smooth, barren wood bred desperation, and then my fingers skimmed the wine bottle’s base. It skidded out of reach.
He lifted me and shoved me back hard on top of the wineglass. The force shattered it. The shards cut into my back. “You’re not going to fuck this up for me.”
Pushing against him, I inched higher on the table. Glass splinters sliced into my skin. I searched for the bottle.
He raised me up, lifting me off the glass. Nose to nose, the heat of his breath brushed my face.
Then—footsteps.
Molly.
My heart plummeted.
Ken’s head jerked toward her. That instant was enough time for me to grip the bottle’s neck and swing it hard against the side of his head. He dropped to his knees. I hit him again. And again.
Molly cried.
I raced toward the child and scooped her up. As I ran toward the front door, I grabbed my purse. Outside, cold air swirled around as Molly clung to me.
“It’s okay, honey. It’s okay.”
My hands shook as I opened the car’s front door and pushed her inside.
She scrambled to the passenger seat. I needed distance from Ken.
Then I’d put her in her car seat. As the car engine fired, a bloody hand smacked against my car door window.
I locked the door as he reached for the handle. His fist pounded against the window.
Molly screamed.
I put the car in drive and punched the accelerator.
“Put your seat belt on!” I shouted.
Molly’s hand trembled, but she grabbed for the strap and drew it across her body. The belt clicked.
Ken fell back, stumbling toward his car, now blocking the driveway. Gravel popped under the tires as the engine roared and I drove the car toward his. I skirted to the right off the driveway and hit the ancient oak trees. Metal scraped wood.
Ken’s car zoomed up to my bumper and rammed it. Molly ducked her head and covered her face with her hands. The cars were side by side now.
I glanced toward him, glimpsing the hard set of his jaw illuminated by the dashboard light. If he caught us this time . . .
Gripping the wheel, I jerked it to the left and rammed his car hard with the nose of mine.
The impact rattled up my arms, and I braced for the airbags to deploy.
They didn’t. Molly pitched forward, but the belt locked and kept her small body tight against the seat.
I wasn’t sure how many times I could strike Ken’s car and not cause a crash that would kill us all.
I gripped my wheel even tighter, braced to hit him again. But my move had forced Ken to overcorrect.
His car angled hard and slammed into one of the oak trees head-on. His airbags deployed as the car engine crumpled around the tree. We raced past him toward the brick pillars.
Police lights flashed on the main road. I jammed on the brakes as Judson’s truck barreled down the driveway toward me.