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Past time. I should offer to stay, to face the music along with her, but I kept remembering the cold, distant expression on Ian’s face as he glanced down the row at me, and my courage failed me. The truth wasn’t going to come as any surprise to him—Bella didn’t need my moral support to face his contempt.
“All right,” I said. “If you promise to take me. I want to be gone before the family comes back.”
“Absolutely.” Bella’s grip loosened, and she flashed me her sunny smile. “Don’t make such a fuss about it, Podge. I’ll clear everything up, and you don’t even have to be there to see how much they all despise you.”
She gave me a little push, and I climbed into the back of the car, moving over as she followed me in. The driver no longer seemed to have any compunctions, and he put the car in gear, sailing slowly out of the crowded parking lot as the mourners poured out into the sunshine. At the last minute, I looked back at the crowd, only to see Salvador at one of the entrances, trying frantically to signal me. I turned my face away from him.
We drove in complete silence, back up the long, twisting road to Mariposa, and I fought back the guilt, the second thoughts. I was running away, like a coward, rather than facing Ian. The look on his face as he stared at me during the funeral had chilled me to the bone, and I couldn’t bring myself to fight for what I wanted anymore. I would take the escape that was offered.
Mariposa was deserted, as I’d known it would be, when the town car pulled into the courtyard and Bella hustled me out of it. I stood, watching, as he drove back down the road to the church, and in the distance I could hear the bells. The funeral was over and everyone would be adjourning to the hotel for the elegant reception Maldonado had overseen. No one would return to the house for hours. Ian wouldn’t return for hours, and I’d be gone like the coward that I was.
“Get in the car, Podge,” Bella said agreeably enough, as I stared down into the distant village.
“I need to get my suitcase,” I murmured, my thoughts on Ian. I felt betrayed by his distance, his coldness. But was I betraying him in return, without giving him a chance to explain?
“You won’t need it. They’re hardly your type of clothes. Be a good girl and get in the car,” she said in that charming wheedle that she’d used so well over the long years.
I turned to glance at her. “Maybe I should wait for Ian,” I began to say, and then my voice froze. “What are you doing?”
It was a large gun in her small hand, but it was absolutely steady as it was aimed at my head.
Again, that lovely smile. “I’m afraid I need you to do what I tell you, and so far, you’ve been annoyingly reluctant to follow my lead. I’ve given you everything—the best clothes, a last chance to see the grandfather who never cared for you, to top it all off with a fortune which you foolishly think you’ll give away. Not as long as I’m around. And, miraculously enough, I was already you when I inherited Granda’s estate. I’m Podge, and no one’s going to ask any unfortunate questions.”
I was staring at her in shock. “Why do you have a gun?” It was a simple question, but I dreaded her answer.
Bella’s smile was so warm and charming in the bright sunlight that I felt like I was losing my mind. “To make certain you do what I want.”
“You wouldn’t shoot me,” I scoffed in disbelief.
“Of course I would. I’m not sentimental when it comes to getting what I want. My former boyfriend has been trying to find me and kill me for the last three months. When they find your body, they’ll assume Sierra did it. Everything will be nicely tied up.”
I didn’t move, frozen to the spot. My high heels were treacherous on the cobblestones, and I would have no chance if I tried to run for it. “You had me pretend to be you, knowing someone was trying to kill you?”
“Don’t be obtuse, Podge. Of course, I did. You know I’m always practical. I assumed Sierra would get rid of you and I’d be free to live out my life as you. Granda’s fortune was just an added benefit. Clearly, fate is on my side.”
“It isn’t supposed to be my money,” I snapped. “He had some reason...”
“If you’d had the sense to read his letter you’d have known. You were hardly the great success you hoped to be—Granda recognized you. He left the letter for the person he knew was Podge.”
“Kitty,” I corrected stupidly. I couldn’t stand to hear that hateful nickname from her smiling lips. “What did it say?”
“Oh, some garbage about dividing it equally after giving Ian half to keep up the farm. It doesn’t matter—the place will be sold, farm and all.”
“And what’s going to happen to me?” I demanded, wondering if I could slip out of the heels and make a run for it.
“I’m afraid, dear Kitty, that you’ll be dead. I didn’t want to have to do it—I’m very fond of you, after all. But I really have no other choice—Sierra will keep coming after me until I’m dead, and once more, you’re just going to have to take my place.” She took a step closer, signaling with the gun, and her calm smile dropped. “Now get in the fucking car.”
“Someone’s coming,” I said, hearing the distant noise of a fast car on the road up to Mariposa. “You can’t very well kill me with witnesses.”
“There will be no witnesses. Don’t you think I’ve got this all carefully planned? I don’t make mistakes.” She tossed her head back, that patented Bella move that I’d copied so successfully, and I wanted to throw up.
“Why did you leave your gangster boyfriend in the first place if he was so dangerous?” I said, anything to keep her talking until the car crested the hill and she no longer dared hold a gun on me.
"I grew tired of him. I grow tired of everyone eventually, everyone but Marcus. He’s not too bright, but he adores me, and he’d do anything for me. Wouldn’t you, darling?”
To my absolute horror, Marcus stepped out of the house, still in his somber clothes, an unhappy expression on his face. When I’d last seen him, he’d been sitting beside Ian in the church—he must have come up the back way from the village. “Bella,” he said in a pleading voice. “I don’t think we should do this.”
She didn’t even look at him, her gun and her attention fully on me. “Don’t be ridiculous. You sabotaged the brakes on the Alfa for me—you were ready enough back then.”
