Comes The Dark Part 26

"All of it. I took it that night I was in your boyfriend's house."

"But it was in my luggage."

"It was indeed."

"Which was in the room with me."

"Yes."

Maris shuddered at the knowledge this man had been in the guest room with her while she slept. How had she not known, not sensed him there?

"I found the pa.s.sages from your time in the nuthouse the most interesting. You blamed my mother just as much as I did. There's a lot of time afterward where you didn't write at all. They tell you to do that, those doctors? To keep track of your thoughts, learn to recognize your own instability before it got the better of you? Me, too. It doesn't work, does it? Alva f.u.c.ked us both up, didn't she?"

Unable to respond, Maris merely shook her head.

"I suppose you think I should take pity on you because of that. But I lost the capacity for sympathy a long time ago."

"Is that...is that why you killed her? Because she turned her back on you? It wasn't the money?"

His head jerked up from a momentary contemplation of the diary. She could see the family resemblance now. No wonder he had unnerved her in the hospital. "What money?"

"In Alva's Will. She left the entirety of her three million dollar estate to be divided between direct descendants of the sisters' bloodline. You and I are it. We're all that's left."

The wheels turned in obvious cogitation behind his eyes. Her father's eyes. Her eyes. Alva's eyes. Except the color. Where theirs were or had been gray as smoke, his were nearly black.

He laughed again, with quick, breathless intensity. "G.o.d, why the h.e.l.l didn't I see that?"

"Would it have made a difference, knowing she meant to take care of you in the end?"

He rocked a little from side to side, his lower lip pushed out. "Nope, probably not."

Maris's gaze darted to the open door behind him and back to his face. "You...you were in her house, weren't you? You laid the cards into a new position on the table. Was there a message in the layout?"

"For who? Alva? She doesn't give a s.h.i.t anymore. No, I was just f.u.c.king with the cops."

"And now? Why do you want me?"

He smiled. "Because it's your turn."

Maris backed against the wall. "Why? You can't mean to kill me because you were resentful as a fully grown man of a little girl who had no idea who you were or that you'd been so hurt."

He shook his head. "Uh-uh. That's not why. I heard her call you in her dying moments. Not out loud. You know the type of calling I mean. And I knew-knew, understand?-that you were coming. I have no desire to go back to prison. So I kept an eye on you. That guy downstairs? He helped me a bit. We knew each other in prison. I watched the mistakes you made and tried to figure out a way to lay the blame on you. The cops did that for me. All I had to do was sit back and let it happen. Unfortunately, you saw me fishing on the jetty. I wasn't certain you hadn't recognized something in me-a similarity to family, a kindred gift, something-so I decided not take any chances. Hitting you with my car should have done the job, but I didn't have enough speed."

Maris's chilled body turned colder. She shivered.

"Don't be afraid. It won't take long. You see, wracked with guilt over your aunt's murder, you'll decide to end it all. The three million dollars really makes this an easier decision all around."

"How do you know the police won't suspect you, too? They were looking for family members. If you make an appearance to claim the inheritance when I'm gone, they'll start checking into your whereabouts. You know they will. You said you've been in prison. That's because you got caught. People aren't stupid. Well, I suppose some are."

He rose, quivering with a barely contained wrath, the gun swerving back and forth in a grip that looked too tight for safety. "Don't you say that. Don't you dare say something like that about me."

"What makes you think I'm talking about you?" Maris demanded.

"I don't think. I know. You forgot what I told you already? I'm reading you the way you read that boyfriend of yours. Dan, is it? And a cop, too. Lovely."

Maris swore, lunging past him for the door at his back. He grabbed her arm and yanked her around, the gun against her ribs. "We're going outside. Before it's full light. I don't want you floating around in the tide too long or battered up too badly against those rocks, but I don't want anyone to see me with you either. Don't need witnesses."

With the gun in her side, Maris had no choice but to comply and allowed him to pull her outside to the tall dark stone structure of the lighthouse. He yanked her toward the parapet where she and Dan had eaten their chocolate feast.

"How sweet," he murmured.

"Shut up."

"You haven't even asked me my name."

"Maybe I don't care."

Gunmetal ground into her flesh down to bone. She winced and bit back a yelp of pain.

"It's Robert," he said. "Your dad, his brothers, none of them ever mentioned cousin Bobby to you?"

Maris shook her head. "I'm sorry that they didn't. I'm sorry for the life you had. I-"

"Here we are. Now isn't this perfect?" He spun her around and pushed her forward. Her knees cracked against the stone wall.

"How could you kill your mother?" Maris demanded, clutching the stone for support.

"With poison."

"That's not what I meant."

He went on as if he hadn't heard. "I was with her for a few days. I could tell she wasn't exactly happy to see me, but she didn't kick me out. I made sure she had contact with the same medication I found out she was taking for her heart, increasing it each day in the hope she would just keel over and I could watch when she did, not helping her at all, like she never helped me. She hung on too long, though. I got impatient and put a needle full of air into her neck."

Oh, G.o.d. Maris felt the depth of his anger, his years of resentment and pain, his bewilderment and longing. Her stomach twisted. Sorrow filled her. For Alva. For this damaged man who was her son.

He pushed her again. "Climb the fu-"

At the pause in his command, Maris glanced behind and found him staring toward the ocean. She followed his gaze. A golden line burned the length of the horizon, the sky above glowing in gradients of bottle-green to a blue as deep as midnight. Below, the sea reflected the colors beneath an overlay of shimmering silver.

"For thirty years, I've missed this. Even in the time I've been back, I haven't gone out at sunrise. I've been afraid the sight of it would break my heart."

The wistfulness of his voice, the pain of the child he once had been, broke her own heart. Moisture rolled down her cheeks, chilling flesh in the cool morning air.

"Don't weep for me, Maris Granger. I'm a very bad man."

"Robert, please..."

"I can shoot you in places that will prolong your agony and make you beg to go. Do yourself a favor and jump. Now. The water's cold. It won't take long."

Maris bit her lip, tears flowing freely, dripping off her chin. She wanted to save him, from himself, from his long-endured pain.

"You can't save me, Maris. No one can. I understood that long ago."

Maris covered her face with her hands. He jolted her again with the gun. She climbed the stones to the top of the wall. From that height, the fall would be short and swift.

"Drop the gun!"

Struggling for balance, Maris looked back to the sound of Dan's voice. "Dan!" He wasn't alone. Jamie was with him. Beside her, Robert raised his gun higher. Not at her, but at the approaching men.

"Don't do it," Maris implored.

Robert glanced at her, the eyes of the last Mabry awash with agony. He stepped up next to her, his gun still level on Dan and Jamie. "What, death by cop? Keeps me from going back to prison. I'd never come out again. At least I got to see an Alcina Cove sunrise one more time. With family. Pretty f.u.c.king strange, huh?"

"Robert, please."

"No." He shoved her. She stumbled back and went over.

Chapter 26.

"Son of a f.u.c.king b.i.t.c.h!" G.o.d the water was like ice, stabbing with needle teeth into Dan's flesh. Ice fish, he couldn't get the image of sharp-toothed ice fish out of his head. Far above, something was taking place. He had no idea what and didn't care. He'd shot Robert Mabry in the right arm, causing the gun to spin out of the man's hand. Dan had been aiming for his freaking head, though. A shot on the fly. He couldn't have hoped for perfection. He was surprised he hadn't missed altogether. Afterward, he'd leapt over the stone wall and followed Maris down into the sea.

They were both probably going to die with the water this cold and waves crashing the surf repeatedly against the rocks. They d.a.m.ned well better die together because he wasn't going to let her die alone.

Had he ever loved anyone this much in his life? He supposed he had, but if he did, they'd been forgotten in the intensity of the moment when he watched Maris tumble off that stone wall forty feet above the waterline.

Bobbing above the waves, he screamed out her name. Fat lot of good that was going to do. Nothing could be heard above the pounding surf. "Maris! Don't you leave me! d.a.m.n it all, don't you leave-"

He sucked in a mouthful of salt water and spewed it back out again, floundering to keep his head up, to fight the outgoing current and the incoming breakers. There. There it was again. A glowing ball of silver-white light shooting up and down above the surf.

You find her. That's why I sent her to you. You find my little Maris and save her before I leave.

Dan headed off with strong, sure strokes in the direction of the light.

Chapter 27.

Maris smiled up at Jamie. It couldn't have been easy for him to come to her like this, away from the others.

"You're truly cleared now, Maris. The gas station owner said their machine has been printing a day behind for the past six months. They don't seem able to fix the issue. And he remembered you, too, as soon as he saw your photo."

"Thanks, Jamie."

He started to walk away, but turned back. "As for Robert Mabry, if he doesn't plead and goes to trial, the outcome will be the same. He'll never get out of jail again. He'll die there."

Maris nodded. "I'll visit him when I can. And I'll write."

Jamie's eyes went wide. "You'll do what?"

"He never meant to be what he'd become. I'm all the family he has."

The detective stepped forward in awkward haste and threw his arms around her, crushing her against his chest. "You're a strange woman, Maris Granger," he whispered against her ear. "And a wonderful one. No wonder Dan was willing to throw everything away for you."

"I never would have let him."

"I don't think you could have stopped him."

A step sounded on the garden pathway. "Hey! Get your hands off my woman."

Jamie hopped back. Maris spun to look at Dan approaching. "You call me your woman like that again," she said with a smile, "and I'll...I'll...I'll sic Jamie on you."

Jamie arched a brow and snorted. "I'll see you two inside." He strode toward the Timeless Inn's dining room. Dan took her hand and turned it over so the diamond on her finger caught the last of the evening sun. Tonight was a celebration of their engagement. And of life, really, and the abatement of the darkness that had once clung to him. A darkness not of death, of doom, but of emotions he'd kept contained for way too long. He exuded a green light now, of healing and contentment. No one knew the latter part of the celebration except the two of them.

"I have something to show you. I've been saving it for a special moment. I think this is special enough."

She slipped her hand into his and allowed him to lead her back the way he'd come on the path. He brought her to the maple tree, the leaves burgundy and green with autumn's onset. "Stand here," he said, setting her in place on the walkway. He then walked over to the tree and stood in front of it, striking a pose that caused her to frown and laugh at the same time. "I'm sorry, what is it that you're doing?"

"Remember this, where I'm standing and what I'm doing."

"Okay."

He strode back to her side. "And now look at this." He held up a photograph. She gasped.

"That's us. You and me."

"Yeah," he said.

"How old were you? Six? And I was what, about two?"

"Uh-huh, and apparently we were standing there, the best of friends, right here in your backyard. I don't think someone with my eyes was ever your imaginary friend, Maris. I think it's always been me, and you've always been mine."

He kissed her. She slipped her arms behind his back and pulled him close. The word in his heart echoed through hers, over and over.

Always. Always.