his first thoughts of her. She’d been hurt.
“Back in Seattle.”
“But she was shot.”
“Bullet went through and through. Upper arm. Didn’t even nick a bone. Got some bruises and cuts, from the fight she had with Julia Harper, but, all in all, she’s lucky. She’ll be fine.”
He felt relief that she was okay, but a little jab of disappointment that she’d left. And he didn’t know how lucky she was—or he was, for that matter, all things considered. His mouth was dry, and he licked his parched lips. “Sophia?” he asked.
“She’s alive. Behind bars. Looks like she’ll make it. I can’t speak to anything else.”
“Julia?”
“Dead. Died that night. She was the connection to Gus Jardine, who’s still angling for a plea deal. Jennifer Korpi and Harold Sinclaire are innocent. Gus played them both.”
James felt nothing. Even as he listened to Rivers explain what he’d already figured out, that long-lost twins, daughters of his mother’s half-sister’s daughter and an unknown father, had finally found each other and cooked up a scheme to seduce James, marry him, probably kill him, and inherit a fortune. In the process, they’d hired Gus Jardine to kill Charity Spritz because she was close to unmasking them, and Willow Valente because she was getting suspicious that Sophia was really two people; and they’d nearly murdered Phoebe Matrix, the landlady who had been snooping around. Julia was the more deadly of the two, but Sophia was no angel. She would be prosecuted and sent to prison for a long time.
“Not long enough, though,” Rivers admitted. “She’s a piece of work.”
“So it was all about the money,” James said.
“Seems as if. And there’s something else you missed while you were out.”
“Yeah?”
“We found Megan Travers’s remains. Rebecca actually stumbled on her—Julia didn’t even bother burying her—well, maybe she couldn’t, the ground being so hard. They left her body to freeze, buried in the snow. Sophia says the murder was Julia’s doing, with the help of Gus Jardine. He’s claiming innocence, of course. Sophia claimed that Julia had sworn she’d kidnapped Megan and was going to hold her captive in that cabin, but there was a fight, and Megan tried to escape, so she had to be killed. Julia didn’t tell Sophia and then decided to imprison Sophia when she wasn’t going along with the scheme.”
“To fleece me.”
“To marry you, fleece you, and, in my opinion, to ultimately kill you.” Rivers pinned James in his glare. “Both of them.”
James closed his eyes for a second.
He thought of the baby that had never existed and about the fact that he had been foolish enough to have been duped by them all. How his life had changed for a few weeks at the thought of becoming a father.
He thought of Rebecca again, and his heart squeezed.
Rivers stood. “By the way, we’ve still got your gun, but we’ll need to hold onto it as evidence for a while.”
“Keep it,” James said. He wanted no reminders.
The cop’s eyes seemed to glisten as he placed his hat on his head. “You sure?”
“Yeah.” He was sure. “It’s the department’s. Or yours, if you want it.”
Rivers actually cracked a smile. “Thanks.” As he left, Rivers said, “A word of advice, Cahill.”
“Yeah?”
“Lay off the women, okay? They’re just too damned dangerous.”
EPILOGUE
The next February
Riggs Crossing, Washington
James adjusted his tool belt over his hips and was about to climb up onto a trailer, where a tiny house was being built to look sleek and modern, with Scandinavian elements.
“Uh-oh.” Bobby Knowlton, picking a bit of cat hair from his sleeve, was approaching from the rear of the building and was peering through the open barn door. He glanced down the lane. “Incoming.”
Glancing over his shoulder, James spied a white Subaru fast approaching, splashing through puddles in the gravel.
Rebecca.
Despite the cop’s advice, James had called her and texted several times.
She’d never responded.
Not once.
But here she was, and his pulse jumped, his heart racing.
As her Subaru stopped and she cut the engine, he felt every muscle in his back tighten.
“I’ll be a minute,” he said to Bobby.
Bareheaded, in jeans, a sweater, and a long coat, she waited at the side of her car.
“Don’t tell me,” he said, forcing a smile as he approached. “You missed me.”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, God, I knew this was a mistake,” she said but cracked a bit of a smile, and he noticed that it was just starting to snow again, a few flakes drifting from gray skies and catching in her hair.
“What’s a mistake?”
“Coming back, but since I