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“You could have come to me or gone to the police.” Eloise wanted to reach out and shake them both till their teeth rattled.
“That would have been a very bad idea, wouldn’t it?” Dylan shook his head. “I never do business with anyone unless I know their weaknesses. A little research goes a long way and it’s never a good idea to piss off a man when he’s capable of murder and knows where your family lives.”
“I can’t believe this.” Eloise’s head was spinning. It felt like a nightmare, but she couldn’t seem to wake herself up. “If they won’t do something about this, then I will.”
She started to back up, but Dylan was laughing as he turned to ask Sarah, “Is she always this stupid?” He pulled a gun from under the table and pointed at Eloise’s chest. “I’d prefer not to use this here, but I can’t have you running your mouth. Remember when I said Kim paid for being nosy? That you were going to pay?”
Eloise swallowed but her mouth had gone dry, and her head was fuzzy. She was sure there had to be a way out of this—she couldn’t let the son of a bitch win—but trying to grab hold of any single thought was like trying to catch smoke in her hands. As soon as she started to pull something together, it vanished.
“You’re going to regret this.” Eloise tried to make it sound like a promise, but her voice wobbled. He wouldn’t regret it. She wasn’t sure he was capable of remorse, but it was the only thing she could think of saying. If she could stall him, get a little more time, maybe she could clear her head enough to figure out a plan. She didn’t want to die and be buried in some hole beneath the singing summer birds like Kim.
“You’re wrong about that but I have to say I admire your talent for being able to show up at exactly the worst time for yourself. First, practically tripping over Kim’s body and now this.” He paused, lingering like he wanted to savor the moment. “You saved me a lot of trouble. Now I can get rid of you and my other little problem at the same. We can’t just leave witnesses running around but trying to find the right time and place has been more of a headache than either of you are worth.”
Sarah looked at him, dawning horror replacing the defeated misery on her face. “What? What do you mean, your other problem?”
Dylan ignored her, turning his attention and the gun from Eloise to the other side of the table. “Isn’t that right, Chloe?”
Chloe blanched, the color leaching from her face as she looked around wildly. Her gaze landed on Myles and her expression was pleading but he looked away, a muscle ticking rhythmically in his jaw.
“Oh, come on.” Dylan laughed, darkly amused in a way that reminded Eloise of a cat she’d seen tormenting a mouse, carrying around only to drop it so it could catch it again. It was sick. Sadistic. “You had to know it would come to this, right?”
“You … You said—” Chloe tripped over her words, eyes swinging from Dylan to Sarah and back again. “You both promised me that the break-in at my apartment was a coincidence. You said you didn’t know anything about it!”
“I didn’t!” Sarah was reeling, tears spilling over her lashes to run down her cheeks. For a moment, it seemed like she might try to get up, to go to Chloe and offer some comfort, but Dylan tightened his grip on her waist, pinning her in place. “I didn’t know he was planning any of this! I just wanted the money and to get out from under Dwayne and Sun Valley. You know we’re going to be the first ones gone when they start downsizing and we’ve given everything to that company. I just … I just wanted what they owed us. That was all. I didn’t sign up for any of this!”
Dylan yanked her arm until she fell silent except for her sobs and Eloise flinched as she recalled all of Sarah’s bruises. There was no doubt about where they had all really been coming from. All the tension and the tired eyes and all the rest had come from whatever was going on between the two of them. He’d lured her in and chewed her up, reduced her to a shell of her former self and Eloise had been attributing all of it to the wrong sources. Sarah had been in trouble, they all had, and she’d been blind to it.
“Leave her alone.” She meant for it to sound intimidating, but it came out as barely a whisper, inaudible above Sarah’s tears and Chloe’s mumbled begging.
“Now,” Dylan turned his attention back to Chloe and ignored both women’s pleas. “I know I asked you here so we could have an honest discussion about the future of our little business venture, but as you can see, I think it’s time we terminated your involvement in the project.”
“Dylan, please.” Sarah sat up straighter, wiped her cheeks and forced a trembling smile. “Please don’t do this. We don’t need to kill anyone else. We have the money already so we can just …We can just go. Leave the country and buy an island somewhere. They’ll never find us.”
“We’d be in handcuffs before the year was out. That’s what happens when you leave loose ends. If we want a clean getaway, then we can’t have the threat of a prison sentence hanging over our heads. Your friends here know too much.”
He waved the gun at them and, though he was speaking to Sarah, his eyes never left Chloe’s terrified face. It was as though he wanted her to fully understand the danger she was in, to accept the inevitability of her death before it happened so he could watch the fear claim her.
Sarah changed tactics, kissing him deeply and pressing her body against him. “You know I love you, Dylan. If you love me, if you care about me at all, you won’t do this. Let them go, please.”
For a moment, Eloise thought it had worked. He cupped Sarah’s face in his hand and pressed a small kiss to the end of her nose before leaning close to her ear to say, “If you don’t shut up, I’ll put you in the hole right next to them.” She froze on his lap, an animal in a trap, and he nodded. “See? That’s not so hard, is it? You’re mine and you’ll do as I tell you. Do you understand?”
Sarah nodded jerkily but her eyes were wide and terrified when her gaze met Eloise’s. She had done all she could to help them without sacrificing her own life and despite the frightening circumstances, Eloise felt sorry for her and for Chloe.
She was angry about what they’d done and hurt about the lies they’d told, but they hadn’t meant to hurt anyone. They’d been foolish and greedy, but somehow she found it hard to blame them for getting involved in this mess. How could she, when she’d fallen in love with Ethan just as hard and just as recklessly as Sarah had apparently fallen for Dylan.
They’d made mistakes but hadn’t she made her own questionable choices? She’d bandaged up a gunshot wound in her kitchen without calling the police and put her trust in Ethan when all the evidence had pointed to him as a possible killer. She’d chosen to love and to trust against the odds. Sarah simply hadn’t been as lucky as she had.
Her friends hadn’t been responsible for what happened to Kim—blame for that landed squarely on Dylan—and they must have been terrified of what Dylan might do to them if they resisted. They’d gone along out of fear and look where that had gotten them.
Eloise didn’t want to die but she didn’t want them to suffer anymore, either. It had been impossible enough to try and get herself out of this situation, but she needed to try and save Chloe, to free Sarah from Dylan. He was outnumbered, but the only one with a weapon. As far as she knew, Sarah and Chloe had no more self-defense skills than she did herself. Getting them out of this seemed about as likely as having time run backwards.
There was nothing the three of them could do but her panicked gaze landed on Myles, sitting silent and sullen the whole time beside Chloe. She’d barely spoken to him, but she remembered how flustered he’d been when he’d destroyed her hydrangea, just a kid with a big heart and a bad family.
“And you?” she asked. “You’re just going to sit there and let this happen?”
Dylan laughed when Myles refused to look at her and took another long drink of his beer. “Didn’t you know? My baby brother was in love with that little friend of yours. He couldn’t save her, and he isn’t going to save you.”
Eloise got a glimpse of Myles’ expression as he lowered the bottle and the look that he gave Dylan was one of pure hatred. Whatever he’d felt for his brother before Kim’s murder had been replaced by only that and nothing else. A tragedy that Dylan seemed to miss or perhaps to revel in. There was certainly no remorse in him for what he’d done.
