The Third Grave (Savannah #4) - Lisa Jackson Page 0,143

moved closer to the shore. An owl sailed over her head, and she heard the faraway sound of a train on distant tracks. Beneath it all was the faint, but distinctive shriek of a siren. Was it getting nearer? She hardly dared hope and right now, she didn’t have time to wait for it.

Not with Reed struggling to stand.

Oh, Lord, he was injured.

And it was her fault.

She thought of all the pain she’d put him through, of losing the baby, of Morrisette’s death. Now Reed himself.

He’d come here.

Because she’d sent him a text to show up here.

And at the corner of the building, night goggles in place?

Tyson Beaumont, doubled over as if in pain but carefully taking aim.

“Reed! Look out!” she cried.

Bang!

Too late!

Nikki screamed.

Reed fell to the ground.

Oh. God. NOOOO!

Rage bored through her. She plunged through the cattails and reeds, making her way to the shore. On land again, she slunk through the trees, her heart pounding, dread pulsing through her. If Reed were dead . . . her entire world spun on its axis and fell off. She wasn’t going to think like that. He had to be alive, she told herself. Had to.

And she had to get to him before Tyson, wounded though he might be, finished him off.

Her fingers curled over the long gaff.

A ridiculous weapon against two guns.

But it would have to work.

It was all she had.

* * *

Delacroix moved forward silently.

The pieces were beginning to fall together.

She’d heard about Margaret Duval’s affair with Baxter Beaumont and the supposition that Baxter had fathered the youngest Duval child, that he was in fact Rose’s biological father, not Harvey Duval.

Daddy Dearest.

Delacroix thought about that. It made sense in a twisted, sick way. And gave her own life a new meaning. She’d spent so many years not knowing, not understanding, and now it was all coming together—the fractured pictures in her mind:

Owen shuttling her out of the theater and leaving her, crying, with strangers.

A dark ride with two arguing strangers, the acrid smell of cigarettes and beer and then, a few days later, being left with new people. Kind people. Worried people who insisted she call them Mama and Papa. Nervous people who insisted she never talk about what happened in the “before” time. It had been scary and upsetting and she’d cried herself to sleep in a room all of her own and decorated with pink bunnies and kitties . . .

Mama and Papa. Her throat closed as she thought of them and how disappointed they were with her, unhappy that she’d always wanted to know more, had never totally forgotten . . .

Owen, her brother, had saved her. Not that she had understood at the time.

Not that she’d completely put it together, only remembering small moments for years.

Now, though, as she stood in the forest, her splintered life came together; her hand was rock steady as she pointed her service weapon at the back of Tyson’s head.

Tyson, the one who had taken her sisters.

Tyson, who had choked the life from those little, innocent girls.

Tyson, who had hidden them deep in the bowels of his home, placing their hands together and locking them away in his grandmother’s secret crypt.

Tyson, who was her own half brother.

Tyson, the murdering bastard.

Now she knew.

She took a bead on Tyson and nearly squeezed the trigger, when he suddenly whipped around, staring into the darkness, as if he’d heard her. Sensed her presence. “Watch out,” he said to Ashley.

He cocked his gun, his eyes, in his night-vision goggles, searching the darkness.

Good.

He’d see her.

Recognize her.

And then, by God, she’d blow him away . . .

* * *

“I killed him! I killed him!” Ashley was frantic. “Tyson. We have to go. Oh, God, you’re hurt . . . we have to go. Do you hear that? Sirens. They’re coming and I killed him.”

“Killed who?” he demanded, concentrating on the wilderness surrounding the inn. He’d seen a woman out there, a woman with a gun. She’d fired at him, then disappeared, but the pain in his crotch. He could barely think.

“Go inside,” he said.

“No, no! I’m going home. I need a lawyer. You need a lawyer. I killed him, Tyson. Did you hear me, I killed the cop!”

“The cop?” What was she talking about?

“Reed. Detective Reed. He was coming. Right there!” She flailed wildly with her pistol, gesturing toward the parking area, to her Bentley. “He was out there. And I killed him.”

“Just go inside.” Tyson needed to think. Things were falling apart. Nikki Gillette had been