Chapter 18 #2
“No one. I never told a soul. I told myself I’d only ever use it if she forced my hand.
” She wipes her eyes with the back of her wrist. “And then somebody killed her, and now I’m the woman who went hunting for dirt on a murder victim three weeks before she died and struck the mother lode. You see my problem.”
I do see her problem. Her problem has motive written across it in letters visible from the ramparts.
But my mind has already sailed past her, out across the water, all the way to a cell where an innocent man has spent two decades paying for Astrid Storm’s cottage. Men like that have mothers. Brothers. Children who grew up visiting Daddy through glass. People who love them.
People who book cruises.
“Sienna—”
She whirls to face me. “I didn’t kill her. I know how it looks. I know I had reasons to want her gone. Better reasons than you knew ten minutes ago. But I didn’t do it. I swear.”
The declaration hangs between us while a seagull screams somewhere below. Honestly, same.
“Do you believe me?”
“I want to believe you,” I tell her, and it’s the truth. Every word of this woman’s story has hooks in my heart. But wanting and believing are two different animals, and only one of them has teeth.
“That’s not a yes.”
“It’s the most honest thing I’ve got.”
She holds my gaze a moment, then nods slowly, like a woman who’s learned not to expect better. “I suppose that’s fair. I wouldn’t believe me either.”
We head back across the bridge together, and I hear shouting before we even reach the main fortress area.
“NETTIE, NO!”
That’s Bess, which means Nettie is absolutely doing whatever she’s being told not to do. Some laws of physics you can set your watch to.
We round a corner to find Nettie halfway inside a massive cannon. Her legs stick out at an angle no chiropractor would endorse while her muffled voice echoes from inside the artillery.
“I WANTED TO SEE IF I’D FIT!”
Bess stands beside the cannon with her arms crossed, and I can tell she’s mentally updating her will to exclude everyone present. “WHY WOULD YOU NEED TO KNOW THAT?”
“IN THE NAME OF SCIENCE!”
A moment passes, and then the barrel adds, “AND FOR POSTERITY!”
“Your contribution to science ends today,” Bess informs the cannon.
A small crowd has gathered. Tourists film the spectacle on their phones, the Velvet Vikings double over with laughter, and the Finnish fortress staff look baffled and vaguely concerned, which I suspect is the national maximum for public alarm.
Wes and Marina appear, and Wes takes one look at the situation and blows out a slow and steady breath. The man steers a floating city through gale-force winds without blinking, but Nettie in a cannon has him praying to the maritime gods.
“How,” he says slowly, “did she get in there?”
“Determination,” Bess reports, flat as week-old soda. “And poor impulse control.”
“I CAN HEAR YOU!” Nettie’s voice booms from inside the barrel.
“GOOD!”
Magnus is absolutely delighted, and I’ll admit I’m relieved to see the sparkle come back. “Your friend is magnificent. A true warrior spirit trapped in the body of a chaos agent.”
“She’s trapped in a cannon, is what she’s trapped in,” I mutter.
Ransom arrives on cue, because nothing summons my husband faster than the words Nettie and disaster occurring within the same square mile. He takes in the scene, and I watch him run the numbers. He’s extracted Nettie from tighter spots before. Emotionally, anyway.
“Can you get out?” he calls to the cannon.
“NOT EASILY!”
“Can you breathe?”
“YES!”
“Then you can wait while we figure this out.”
“THAT’S RUDE!”
It takes twenty minutes, a very patient Finnish fortress employee, and eventually a call to the local fire department to get anywhere at all.
Somewhere around minute twelve, Nettie’s voice floats out of the barrel with a request. “TELL THE TALL ONE I’M SINGLE!
” The tall one pretends not to speak English, which I suspect is a survival skill and not a language barrier.
By minute eighteen, they’ve tried butter from the café, a rope, and words of encouragement in two languages, and Nettie hasn’t budged an inch.
So the fire crew makes a decision I can only describe as bold.
They grip the barrel and rock it, gently at first, then with the enthusiasm of men who would very much like their afternoon back.
“WHAT’S HAPPENING?” Nettie hollers from inside.
“Progress!” the tall one calls back. Turns out he speaks English after all.
The cannon tilts. Something gives with a deep, groaning pop, part suction and part surrender, and Nettie shoots out of that barrel like a champagne cork in a muumuu.
She sails a solid eight feet through the crisp Finnish air, arms spread wide, as if she choreographed every second of it.
And Ransom catches her.
He doesn’t stagger or blink. He takes one step to his left and receives an airborne octogenarian the way other men receive a memo.
My husband, ladies and gentlemen.
Somewhere in his FBI training, there must have been a module for this.
“MY HERO!” Nettie throws her arms around his neck. “I felt the earth move. Did you feel the earth move?”
“That was the cannon,” Ransom says.
“Agree to disagree.”
He sets her on her feet with the same care he’d use returning evidence, and she wobbles once, covered in dust and what might be two-hundred-year-old gunpowder residue, looking nothing short of triumphant about it.
The crowd bursts into applause. Nettie curtsies, because she’s a lady, and blows a kiss to the fire crew.