She shook her head, looking confused, uncertain. “I don’t understand. I thought I’d killed you, but something happened.”
Griffin said, his voice infinitely calm, “Yes, you tried, but I stopped you.”
She shook her head as she rose to face them. “No, no, it was something else, something you did psychically. And now Quint’s dead. I told him the explosion, the landslide, it was too uncertain, but he told me he knew it would do the job, send you both over the cliff. He’d worked on it for more than a year, a failsafe to deal with any threat to us, to his house. When I saw you making the K turn on the camera I told him to set it off, but you were too slow, you kept missing the turn. Then it looked like you were going over the edge anyway, and I came running to take care of her.”
Her hand shook as she turned the Beretta on Carson, gave her a mad smile. “I don’t need a gun to destroy you, but after his little trick—you surprised me, is all.”
Griffin got slowly to his feet. “The kind of little trick you use to control everyone around you, Cyndia? Face it, I’m stronger.”
She laughed. “Who cares? I’m the one with the gun now. You’re no longer important. She is.” She turned to Carson. “You murdered my husband!”
Griffin tried to shove Carson behind him.
Cyndia laughed. “Hero to the end, aren’t you? Well, it’s too late.”
“Ma! Stop!”
Cyndia turned to see her son running toward her. She didn’t move, kept the Beretta aimed at Carson. “Rafer, you saw her, she killed your pa. Don’t get near them, stay back.” She sneered at Griffin and Carson. “You both think you’re so smart, but in the end Rafer’s going to bury both of you.”
Griffin watched her finger tighten on the trigger and said in the next breath, “I called Agent Savich. He knows exactly where we are, what you, Rafer, and Quint have done, how you tried to kill us with the explosion. Agents are on the way. You can’t get out of this, Cyndia, even if you manage to kill us. Don’t make it any worse. Lower the gun.”
Rafer grabbed at her arm, but Cyndia jumped away, panting, beside herself. “Listen, Rafer, I can’t give up, I have to make them pay for murdering your pa.”
Tears were streaming down Rafer’s face, pain radiating off him in waves. He held out his hands to her. “Ma, please, you’ve got to stop this. He’s right, it’s over, Pa’s dead, do you understand? He’s dead! He never wanted this, he thought it was crazy, impossible, but he knew he had to do it for you, but now even he’d say it was over. He wouldn’t want you to kill them. And me? I knew I had to go along with what you wanted, knew if I didn’t you’d shine me and make me do it anyway, just like Pa, but now it’s finished and I’m glad. Yes, I know you’ve said over and over for years you knew your precious Camilla was alive, you dreamed about her calling to you, begging you to come to her, that she needed you, that without you, she’d die. But, Ma, why didn’t she ever tell you where she was? She didn’t, did she?”
70
* * *
“Camilla would have contacted me, Rafer, but she couldn’t, someone was keeping her from me. All these years I’ve known that, tried and tried to get through to her, but I couldn’t. I could hardly stand it. But then I had the dream, no, it was a vision. You know about the vision, Rafer. Camilla came to me, yes, she came to me just as I told you and your father. I saw her clearly. She told me there was a girl nearby, a girl her age, dark, like her, with eyes like hers. She told me to find her, Rafer, and bring her to Eagle’s Nest, get close to her, that I would know when I found the right girl. Then Camilla could use her to help contact me, to tell me where she is. She said she wasn’t strong enough herself to get through to me, she’d tried and tried. It was up to me.
“Don’t you see? I had to find that girl. I prayed we’d find the one girl who’d be perfect and help Camilla contact me. None of them was right until this new girl, Linzie Drumm. She’s the one, Rafer. I