were the real mean one.”
Lacey laughed. “Oh, I wouldn’t say that.”
Charlie could feel time running out. “Did you kill your sister?”
Lacey slowed at the next doorway to meet Charlie’s gaze. “I would never have hurt Lindy. Never.” Her voice broke. “It was him. Patrick Gregory Shafer. He had told her that he was in love with her. I tried to warn her. She didn’t know anything about men. That night I met him out in the woods. He thought I was Lindy. I told him I didn’t love him and that I never wanted to see him again. I did it for her own good.” Tears filled Lacey’s eyes. “How was I to know that he could come back that night when he heard Lindy screaming for you to let her back in?”
Charlie felt her heart drop. She remembered what Shep had told her. “But Lindy had to know about the key hidden at the back door.”
As they passed through another doorway, she saw that they had entered the kitchen. It was empty with breakfast over and lunch still hours away except for several prep cooks who took off the moment they spotted the gun.
“I didn’t have time to put the key back,” Lacey said. “By the time I looked out the basement window and saw them arguing, it was too late. I couldn’t get to her in time.”
The words shocked her. “You saw Greg kill her?”
“He didn’t know there were two of us. He didn’t know.” The words came out on a ragged breath. “I just wanted him to leave Lindy alone. She couldn’t have a boyfriend. Why couldn’t she see that?” Her voice broke. “I didn’t know he was going to kill her. He thought she was the one who’d said all those awful words to him. He didn’t know about me. Not until he saw me walk into his wedding and shoot him. He looked like he’d seen a ghost. But then he knew. That second when I pulled the trigger. He knew the mistake he’d made killing Lindy.”
Charlie felt the grip on her arm loosen. She saw her chance as Lacey pulled her past hanging racks of pots and pans and large stoves...past where the two prep cooks had been working. Charlie spotted the knife lying next to a chopped pile of veggies. Pretending to stumble, she brushed the edge of the large metal table and surreptitiously grabbed the blade’s handle. Just as quickly, she broke free of Lacey’s grip, shoved her and the barrel of the pistol away from her head and drove the knife into Lacey’s side.
A shot went wild, pinging off the wall behind Charlie’s head.
Lacey looked down at the knife protruding from her side and aimed the gun this time.
Charlie had only a second to reach for one of the cast iron skillets hanging next to her. She swung it as hard and fast as she could. The heavy skillet struck Lacey’s arm and the gun broke from her grasp, flying through the air to skitter across the floor away from them.
Before Charlie could swing the skillet again, Lacey struck her in the chest with her fist, knocking her back. The blow reminded her of the one that had struck her in the shoulder blades up on the ski hill.
Charlie crashed into one of the tables full of pots and pans and went down, the cookware clattering around her as everything hit the floor.
She watched breathless as Lacey pulled the knife blade from her side, dropped it and went after the gun.
* * *
SHEP HAD raced down the hallway where he’d last seen Charlie and Lacey. He followed the sound of hurrying footfalls through a maze of hallways. He tried to make sense of what he’d just seen.
Lacey had shot Greg. Or did she know him as Patrick? There was no doubt that she knew who he was. Otherwise why shoot him? But then again, why shoot him at all, especially on his wedding day? Shep could think of only one reason she would do that. It was all tied to whatever had happened the night Lindy was murdered all those years ago. Tied to why Lacey had come back.
But now Lacey had Charlie. He knew how she had felt about Charlie all those years ago, how she’d tormented her. More recently, Lacey had tried to scare her. Or was it warn her? Either way she had a gun and Charlie. He thought of the destroyed doll and didn’t even want to