The Best Man to Trust - By Kerry Connor Page 0,67

body felt, the sound of his voice softened with tenderness and the rumble of his heartbeat. She closed her eyes, grateful to have had this moment. “Me, too,” she whispered.

“I still hate the idea of leaving you.”

At the moment she wasn’t particularly looking forward to that, either. “Guess I’ll just have to be strong, right?”

She felt him smile. “I’m not worried about that,” he said. “But whoever is doing this is clearly dangerous. If they do come after you, you might not be able to fight them off again, especially since they know what to expect now. You could be hurt. Or worse...”

The words cut off abruptly. His body tensed against her, as though even talking about the possibility bothered him.

“If the killer does have another target, then the fact that we could be getting out of here soon might make them act again, before their intended victim can get away or the police arrive to stop them.”

He was right. The killer had purposely, deliberately come here with a plan to kill people. The same person who’d brought the knives to accomplish that mission wasn’t going to stop until that mission was completed.

“So I need to make it impossible for them to do that.”

“But how are you going to do that?”

An idea suddenly sparked in her mind. Excitement rushing through her, she smiled slowly. “You want somebody looking out for me? Well, I know exactly who it should be.”

“Who?”

“All of them.”

Chapter Seventeen

When the wedding party shuffled into the dining room for breakfast the next morning, the first thing Meredith noticed was how small the group was. There were so few of them, she noted with a pang. Only four of them—Scott and Rachel, Alex and Greg—taking their seats at one end of the massive table.

Maybe she should ask if they’d like to eat in the kitchen, she thought. A smaller table and more intimate setting might make it less obvious how much smaller their group was now. But by the time it occurred to her, they were already taking their seats.

She mustered a smile. “Good morning.” She received a few muttered greetings in reply.

“Tom come down yet?” Scott asked, glancing around the room.

“He and Rick left already,” she said. “They were up early to get started with the plow. Tom tried it out and said the snow isn’t packed too hard. He’s hopeful they might actually get the road cleared by the end of the day.”

It was a lie, a necessary one to sell them on her plan. As long as they thought they wouldn’t be here much longer, it would work better. Tom and Rick would just reveal at the end of the day that it was taking longer than they’d expected.

As anticipated, the group seemed to perk up at the news. She examined the smiling faces closely, searching for the slightest indication any of them wasn’t as excited as they should be. All she saw was the expected relief.

She quickly served the meal and waited until they’d started eating before speaking again. “I wanted to talk to you all about something,” she announced, drawing their attention. “I was thinking it might be best if we all stayed in the living room today. I know you all have to be sick of staying in your rooms and it’s not really safe to be wandering around alone. There are plenty of books and magazines, and you can bring down any laptops or tablets. We can all watch out for each other, even protect each other if we need to, though it’ll be much less likely with all of us together. Safety in numbers, that kind of thing.”

“Wouldn’t we be safer in our rooms?” Alex asked.

“You can’t stay in your rooms all day,” Meredith pointed out. “The two of you—” she nodded to Alex and Greg “—don’t have bathrooms in your rooms, so you have to leave them several times during the day anyway. And then there are mealtimes. Every moment you’re alone is a moment you’re vulnerable. If we all stick together the whole time, nothing should be able to happen.”

She paused. “Unless there’s a reason any of you wouldn’t want the rest of us knowing where you are or what you’re doing....”

She saw from the narrowing of more than a few eyes that they got the implication—and didn’t like it one bit. They also couldn’t argue about it without looking suspicious.

The exceptions were Scott and Rachel, who could claim that they were better off in their room together, where