Lani wouldn’t have seen it if she hadn’t been looking. Slowing, she pulled the Bronco off the road and followed the narrow lane. They drove downward for about twenty minutes, by her estimation.
“Pull up behind that building.”
I don’t want to die.
For a while there she hadn’t cared. Her parents were gone, she was on the run with no money, but that changed when she went to Lake Howling.
“Wait there, and if you try to run, I’ll shoot you.”
“In the back like a real man, do you mean?”
He smacked the butt of the gun into her cheek. It hurt like hell, but she didn’t make a noise. “Like I said, a real man.”
He got out, and she let out a moan. Blood was running down her cheek, so she blotted it with her sleeve.
“Let’s go.” He dragged her out and pushed her toward the building. “Inside.” Once there, he turned on a lamp.
“Sit.”
Lani did as she was told, because she didn’t know what else to do. Was this it? Was he going to kill her now? She had to at least try to save herself and make a run for it.
“Sign this.” Her will was placed in front of her.
“You know this is crazy, Barnaby. No way will you get away with this. Too many people will suspect.”
“Just sign it!”
“We’re not married.”
“People don’t marry these days, and we were engaged. No one knows that you didn’t sign everything over to me in the event of your death before.”
He spoke the truth, she knew it, and the fact that he and his father were lawyers and respected didn’t help her cause.
Picking up the pen, she signed her death warrant and fought back the hopeless tears. She watched as he folded up the papers and tucked them into his pocket.
“Now drink this. It’ll put you to sleep and you’ll die nice and quiet in your sleep.”
Lani stood up. “Do you honestly just expect me to drink that?”
He pointed the gun at her.
“So shoot me then. At least then when they find my body, they’ll know you murdered me. And you can’t hide it, because we both know it takes plenty of years for a person to be declared dead if they go missing, and you don’t have that long to wait.”
“If you want to do this the hard way, we will.”
He walked to a bench, and she saw rope and a funnel with a hose attached. He was going to tie her up and force her to take whatever was in that bottle. As he turned to grab the stuff, she ran at him, knocking him sideways, then to the floor.
“No!”
Heading for the door, she wrenched it open. He grabbed her ankle. She kicked out desperately with her other foot, and connected with his head, making him grunt and release her. Lani sprinted through the opening.
He had the keys to the Bronco, so she had to hide until someone found her. Would Noah be looking already? Running blindly into the dark, she saw the glisten of water as her eyes adjusted. Was this her lake? Why did that thought give her comfort when a madman was following her with a gun?
She ran until her sides heaved, then dropped down and pulled off her dress and Katie’s wedges. She could hear the thud of Barnaby’s feet getting closer. Clutching her clothes, she ran toward the water. There was a bank, so she eased over the edge and worked her way down on her bottom until her toes hit the cool water below. The dark, inky depths made her shudder. What was under there? Trout? She could deal with that. Sharks lived in saltwater mainly, but once in college, she remembered a friend telling her that there was a species that could live in both.
And now is the time to remember that, Lani?
Shutting down her thoughts, she sucked in a deep breath.
