Duncan, standing on the road.
It wasDuncan. He’d stepped out from the side of the lane. She’d screamed. He’d held out a hand, palm facing her. She’d braked to avoid him, and the back of the car had swung out. He’d taken off, running. Now, standing in the stairwell, her blood surged, hot with the terror of the split second before impact—knowing she was going to crash and there was nothing she could do. Was he also the apparition on the lane that Tom’s brother had seen? Why would he cause his own son to crash?
She inhaled deeply.Stay in the present. Live for the moment. Just live, full stop. She was a survivor, goddammit. She’dsurvived the robbery, and pretty much squandered her second chance at life. She’d let those assholes change the way she lived, let them destroy her faith in the world. Now she was going to fight for a third chance, and this time she would make the most of it: buy the damn cushion, find a home, fall in love.
A light switch—Tom said there was a light switch. She felt around, found a chain, and yanked it. A bare bulb lit up, just above her head. The ghostly figure vanished.
She took the first two steps and stopped. Duncan no longer had a working flashlight. She backtracked, covered her fist with her coat sleeve and smashed the bulb, turning her head away as the glass shattered.
The dark wasn’t her enemy. It never had been. Assholes like Duncan were the enemy. She would embrace the darkness like an invisibility cloak. Weaponize it.
She made it to the first landing before the concealed door opened above her. She bit her bottom lip. When her foot had gone through the rotten stair, the railing had broken off in her hand. If she could find that spot again… She inched down, trying to ignore the loud footsteps behind her, her hand coasting down the railing until it tailed off into a raw wooden spike. She crouched, feeling around her feet for the last intact stair. It was about a seven-foot drop, from memory. If she could hang off the last step and then jump the rest, she should be okay—hopefully.
She clutched the last stair and lowered herself, but before she got up the guts to jump, the step she was holding snapped, sending her plummeting. She bent her knees just in time for her feet to hit the ground, followed quickly by her butt. The momentum sheared her sideways into the wall, elbow first. She sucked up the bolt of shock and picked herself up.
Bent double, she stumbled toward the door to the basement, which was open just wide enough that she could see a vertical tube of pale light, only a gradient less dark than the stairwell.She tore it open. A great crack echoed behind her, followed by a cry and a thump. Duncan wailed. He’d fallen. She slammed the door and hesitated a second before running for the wine cellar—the closest exit.
Tom
Tom quickly assembled the sequence of events: Amelia’s scream, the gunshots in the eastern wing, the music room bell, a shout from Duncan, a thump that seemed to come from within the very walls of the house. Tom made it as far as the ballroom before doubling back fast to the basement.
All this time, he’d assumed it was the Pritchards coming after them. But it was Duncan! Duncan carrying the rug, burning the rug. Duncan listening in the servants’ corridor as the cop told them they’d get their memories back. Duncan shooting at them, and tracking them with the drone. The estate had similar hunting rifles and the same drone as the Pritchards. Thinking about it, the rifle fire hadn’t started until after the drone had landed. You couldn’t do both at once.
Tom had failed to see what was in front of his face, and he’d put Amelia in danger. He’d even assured her she’d be safe with Duncan. Safe! He should at least have clicked that Duncan’s claim to be in the western fields was a lie, when his pickup had been parked at the cottage.
No wonder Duncan was so intent on working right up to the demolition. He had quite some mess to clean up. Duncan had been several steps ahead of them the whole time, and now he was planning to pick them off one by one.
But how were the Pritchards involved, and why? Rhys’s coat would be a match to the one the other deep-sea fish was wearing.
Whatever this was all about, for now Tom had to focus on Amelia.
He crept down the stone steps into the basement, shotgun in front. A metallic squeal echoed along the tunnel, immediately followed by a solid clunk. He frowned, placing the sound. Someone was trying to open the cellar hatch, unsuccessfully. Amelia, trying to escape? It squealed again, and straightaway clunked shut. It was heavy, and hard to heave up when you were stretching from the ladder.
But if that was Amelia, where was Duncan?
Tom crouched low and peeked around the wall beside the steps, giving him a split-second view into the basement. The light at the foot of the broken servants’ stairs was on, spilling enough of a glow for him to assemble the picture—Duncan, limping towards the cellar, his back to Tom, rifle at the ready. Tom chanced a longer look. A bloody cloth was tied around one of Duncan’s legs. Duncan tilted his head to peer down the rifle’s thermal scope. As soon as he rounded the corner of the tunnel, Amelia would be directly in his sights. Tom had to assume he’d lied about being low on ammo. Tom, meanwhile, had a shot in each chamber and none to spare. But he needed Duncan to think otherwise.
Tom leveled the shotgun at Duncan’s back. “Duncan!” he roared.
As Duncan turned, Tom swung the barrel, aiming at a cluster of bottles just inside the cellar entrance. He pulled the trigger. The recoil kicked like a horse, as multiple bottles of wine exploded. The boom echoed through the tunnel, ricocheting off the walls as if hunting for a way out.
“You’ll have to take me out first!” Tom called, retreating around the corner of the wall. “One more step down that tunnel and you’ll get a slug in your back.”
Tom had one shot left, but he needed to force Duncan to prioritize defense over attack, give Amelia a chance to escape. Duncan knew Tom was a crack shot, even with an antique shotgun—hell, he’d taught Tom to shoot. And whatever this was about for Duncan, it wasn’t some suicide mission. The guy was hardwired for survival.
“I thought the other night I witnessed a murder,” Tom called. “But I witnessed a murder that happened twelve years ago, didn’t I, Duncan?”
“You don’t know anything.”
“This shotgun—it was his. My grandfather’s. The one I saw him walk away with that night. He didn’t take his own life, did he? You took it for him.”
“You know nothing about it!”
“Then tell me—how did it play out? He came back, obviously, after I saw him leave. Did you know he locked his shotgun back in the safe? All these years, no one thought to open it and check.” Tom waited, but Duncan didn’t offer anything. Tom kept his gun at the ready, in case the old man ambushed him, though the glass from the broken bottles would give him a heads-up if Duncan moved. Duncan would be facing his way, at least. You didn’t turn your back to a loaded gun. “You killed him in his study and wrapped the body in the rug. And then what? Moved him into the basement and buried him there, rug and all, while everyone else was out searching? That search went on for days. We were all out there.Youwere out there. But none of us thought to look inside the house. Why, Duncan? Why did you do it?”
Silence.
“No wonder you stopped coming inside after that. You knew what was in here.Whowas in here. But with the demolition booked for next week, you had to move him before he was unearthed. Am I right so far?”
