Killer Move

I seemed to be in a room with a lunatic from a world in which logic ran at right angles to mine. I took a step backward, barely aware that I still had Emily’s gun in my hand. The movement banged me into a table that Steph had insisted we buy during a weekend up in Cedar Key, the table on which each issue of her magazine was displayed for a week after publication. Last month’s had been knocked to the floor at some point, and stepped on.

“Relax. I’m not going to shoot you, Mr. Moore,” Barclay said. “Least, not unless I have to. I got three dead bodies now, and I need someone to carry the weight for them. That girl in the pool in particular—that was a job of work I don’t want going to waste.”

“You did that? To her?”

“Of course I didn’t. Warner’s other friends put that in motion. They’re in control of this now—and they’re who pulled the plug on this whole mess.”

“What friends? Who are they?”

For just a moment, Barclay looked less seamless, as if I’d pushed him to the edge of what he understood. “Call themselves Straw Men, or something like that, but that’s something I’m happy to say I don’t have a lot of information about. A guy called Paul is in the driver’s seat now. Kind of a disconcerting individual, and not happy that Warner’s game had been going on in the first place. He’d like me to tidy up the loose ends for him. No exceptions. No sir.”

I raised Emily’s gun. “I’m going to shoot you.”

“Jeez, Mr. Moore—no, you’re not. We’ve been over this already. Don’t kid yourself.”

“I . . . will tell people. About everything.”

“You got nothing. Actually, you got less than that.” He held up his gun, turned it round. “This was purchased four days ago in Boynton, using your credit card number—a fake cloned from information your dead girlfriend gave us, when she was working as a waitress at Bo’s.”

I stared at the gun, remembering the morning with Hazel, when Emily/Jane/the waitress went inside to run my card.

“Course, I’ll have to do some work to make it look like you killed her,” Barclay said. “Though it could be Rob did that, in self-defense, when he and I got here together and found what you’d done to the other poor girl in the water. I don’t know. Haven’t figured that out yet. But there’s already a shell from this gun in the head of that mess out there in the pool. So that part’s done.”

“There’s no way,” I said, light-headed. “No way you can put all this on me. I’m just a Realtor. How is anyone going to believe I did all this?”

“Happens all the time. Man leads a normal life in some place you’ve never heard of until it’s on constant rotation on the news. Before that, all his friends and neighbors assume the guy’s on the level. Course, they’re the first to say, ‘Well, he did seem a little uptight. Maybe almost even too normal?’—when it all rains down.”

“No,” I said. “People know me.”

“They thought they did. Plus, there’s a few other bits and pieces of evidence hidden around this house, not to mention at your office at The Breakers. Like I said—it’s been a busy afternoon. The set’s dressed. You got a history now.”

I tried to think of a stronger piece of denial. He watched me come up empty, and smiled. It was a real smile, too. “Run along, Mr. Moore. I’m busy. Got to make it all look just so.”

He watched as I backed toward the front door and opened it. Gave me an encouraging nod of the head, as if in reassurance. I stepped outside slowly, though I’d already started to understand that the man had meant what he said. He wasn’t going to kill me.

Not enough fun.

But then something he had said came back to me. My heart dropped.

No exceptions.

I ran to my car. I realized I was still holding a gun, threw it onto the passenger seat, then started the car and jammed it in reverse. I had my phone to my ear at the same time as the car swerved backward into the circle road. I pulled the car door shut as I put it into drive and hammered toward the gates.

“Steph,” I said, when they’d put me through. I kept my voice as steady as I could. “I’m on my way to see you, okay? And maybe you should get dressed.”

“Why?” She sounded befuddled.

“Just do it. Do it now, okay? I’ll be there soon.”

I cut the call and drove straight through the gates.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

The hospital entrance was ringed with ambulances. There were three news crews in position, too, with a reporter I recognized from WWSB standing to one side talking seriously to the camera. I swerved to avoid all this and drove into the main parking lot, finding a space on the far side. It was only after I’d turned off the engine that I processed the fact that my hands were covered in Emily’s blood. My shirt, too.