Jayston Lake was sitting on the sofa with his back to her.
“Mr. Lake,” she shouted. “Are you injured?”
She circled the room, coming around to face him.
Audrey sat next to her father, his arm around her as if they were tucked in for an evening of television. Her eyes were closed, and her cheeks flushed an unnatural pink.
“The yacht’s burning,” Nikki choked out. “We need to abandon ship.”
Jayston seemed unsurprised to see her. His rugged, handsome face was slack.
Nikki took in his split lip, bruised cheek, and bloodied knuckles. Then she saw the black handgun. He aimed it at her.
“Leave,” he ordered.
“Not without Audrey,” she said. Her heart raced, body rigid with fear. She stared at the little girl, searching for breath. “Is she…?”
She couldn’t finish the question.
“Asleep.” He kissed the top of Audrey’s head. “I’ll make it quick. She won’t feel a thing.”
The tension and fatigue in Nikki’s body erupted into fury.
“I can see why you have a death wish, but don’t take her with you!”
His expression darkened.
“Don’t pretend you know anything about me,” he growled.
“I know you killed Claire Sexton,” she said. “And I know you killed Signora Dorotea.”
“What makes you say that?”
“They never found Claire’s rucksack,” Nikki said. “But I saw it with the fortune teller: a keychain with Audrey’s allergy tag.”
The small silver charm on Dorotea’s large canvas sack. Nikki had assumed it was just another trinket. But it had the symbol of a medical caduceus—entwined snakes. She’d seen the same image at the hospital.
“Claire was going to meet you that night,” Nikki continued. “She worried you would take her bag—so she hid it, or gave it to the fortune teller for safekeeping. That’s how you found Signora Dorotea: You’d put an air tracker in Claire’s bag. Like the one you used to track Audrey.”
“Claire was a sweet kid.” He sighed. “I thought I could…get her to see reason.”
“She was blackmailing you.”
“It wasn’t her fault,” he said. “Her brother put her up to it—wanted me to fund his bloody app!”
He set down the gun and grabbed a tumbler of whisky, and took a sip, before picking up the weapon again.
“You could have invested,” Nikki said. “You have the money.”
He gave a coughing laugh. “Smoke and mirrors! I lost a fortune after Matthew died. Needed time to recover. The good Henry Antonov had…other avenues.”
“You used your investment firm to launder money,” Nikki realized.
“The firm was legitimate. Once.”
“But why kill Claire?”
“I had no choice!” he exploded, words thick with fury and guilt. “Had I refused, they’d have killed her all the same—Fiona and Audrey, as well.”
