They heard the front door open, and the sound of footsteps crossing the tile floor.
“Hey.” Garrett’s voice was muffled, but audible.
“Oh my God, baby. What happened to your face?”
“Last night I got up to pee and in the dark I tripped over the chair in the bedroom.”
“Let me see,” Madelyn cooed.
The sound of her sister-in-law’s voice made Traci want to puke.
“I’m okay. Just… I really need to get the hell out of Dodge. Did you bring the money?”
“I only had a couple hundred. Tomorrow, when I can get to the bank—”
Garrett’s voice was shrill. “Jesus, Madelyn. I did everything you told me to. I put my life, my job on the line. A couple hundred?”
“I shouldn’t even give you that,” Madelyn said. There was a hard edge in her normally breathy little-girl voice. “You had one job. Get rid of Olivia Grayson. Instead you killed Parrish, screwed up the fire at the dorm, and that girl isstillalive. You could fuck up a one-car funeral.”
“None of that was my fault,” Garrett protested. “I need money—more than a lousy two hundred bucks—and a car, so I can get off this island. I can’t stay here another night, Madelyn.”
“Where am I supposed to get a car? Ric’s gonna notice if his Porsche goes missing.”
“I don’t care. Gimme the keys to the Lexus. You can tell him it got stolen.”
There was a long pause.
What the fuck?Traci turned to Whelan and mouthed the words.
“Jesus, Madelyn!”
There was a scuffle, and then muffled thuds, and finally, a loud bang, unmistakably a gunshot, followed by a bone-chilling scream, and then more scuffling, and a door banging open.
Whelan reached past her and burst out of the powder room with Traci close behind, at the same time the sheriff and his deputy ran from the nearby master bedroom and tackled Madelyn.
Garrett Wycoff was sprawled on the floor, cradling his right elbow, in a spreading pool of blood, moaning and cursing. The sheriff hauled Madelyn, dressed in her stylish pastel Lululemon workout gear, to her feet. She squirmed as Coyle pinned her arms behind her back and snapped handcuffs on her wrists.
Shapley pulled a radio from his utility belt and called for an ambulance.
Madelyn’s eyes narrowed when she noticed her sister-in-law. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“I came to watch you get your ass arrested,” Traci said. She whipped her phone from the pocket of her jeans and clicked off a few frames. “Smile, please.”
Traci looked over at Shapley, who was kneeling beside Garrett, wrapping a towel around his arm. “She shot me,” Garrett whimpered. He looked over at Traci. “You believe she shot me?”
“You needed shooting,” Traci said. “So does she.”
CHAPTER 74
“Long night,” Whelan said as they crept into Traci’s kitchen at two in the morning. Lola, asleep in her bed beneath the kitchen table, picked up her head, wagged her tail, and promptly went back to sleep.
“The longest,” she agreed.
He picked up the car keys he’d left on the counter, brushing a chaste kiss on her forehead before heading for the front door.
“You’re leaving?” She caught his hand with hers.
He stood very still. “You want me to stay?”
