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Alexia tried not to think about it as she scrambled down the bank, falling the last ten feet onto the sand and twisting her ankle painfully. She let out a sharp cry.
“Be quiet!” hissed Lucy. Sliding down after Alexia, she landed comfortably on her feet, her pistol still clasped firmly in her hand. They were completely hidden from view now, tucked beneath the overhang of the cliffs. While Alexia shuffled backward, dragging her legs painfully across the sand, Lucy resumed her earlier monologue.
“By the time I was ready to act against Billy Hamlin, he was already getting divorced. He’d destroyed his marriage on his own. So the next thing to destroy was the business.”
Alexia had her back against the cliff now, pressed to the smooth stone. Her ankle throbbed, but if she kept it still, the pain was bearable. She focused on what Lucy was saying.
“I figured I’d start small, then move on to the things and people Billy really cared about.”
“Like Milo Bates?”
“Like Milo Bates.”
“So you did kill Milo?”
“Not personally.” Lucy smiled. “I weigh a hundred pounds. Milo Bates was a big man, bigger than Arnie. But I arranged his death, yes.”
It was like listening to Teddy talking about Andrew Beesley’s murder. Lucy seemed to have no remorse at all.
“But Milo Bates was completely innocent,” said Alexia. “He had a family of his own. A wife and three children.”
“DON’T YOU DARE PREACH TO ME!” Lucy roared. “No friend of Billy Hamlin was innocent. Bates knew about Billy’s conviction. He knew what that bastard had done. But he still went into business with him.” She took a few deep breaths, eventually regaining her composure. “Milo Bates’s death was strike one. It was actually very easy. Even kidnapping Billy afterward, showing him the tape of what we did to his friend . . . Hamlin was so paranoid by then. A few phone calls, a little pressure on his business, that was really all it took. By the time he told the cops what we did to Milo, no one believed a word he said.”
She said it with pride.
Alexia thought, You’re insane. Completely insane.
“What about Jennifer Hamlin? I’m assuming you killed her too?”
“I’m getting to that,” said Lucy. “Yo
u really must learn to be patient, Toni.”
Alexia recoiled. Even now, she hated being called by that name.
“So, Hamlin had lost his wife. He’d lost his business. And he’d lost his only real friend. But there had to be something more. I’d looked into his birth family years earlier, but they were all dead. His father passed away shortly after the trial, and he had no mother or siblings. There was his child, of course, Jennifer. But I wanted losing his daughter to be the grand finale, the last thing the son of a bitch suffered before his own death. It wasn’t her time yet. I needed someone else.”
Slowly it dawned on Alexia where this was going.
“I’d heard rumors about a woman,” said Lucy. “Someone Billy had loved in his youth and apparently still carried a torch for. He was drinking quite heavily by then, and he used to talk about her—about you, Toni—in bars and at pool halls, to anyone who’d listen. I dimly remembered the name from the trial. Gilletti. But it wasn’t until I finally saw an old picture that I was able to put two and two together. Well, you can imagine my shock. My horror. You, my neighbor, probably my closest friend in the world. You and Hamlin had been lovers! You were there when Nicko died! Now I finally knew why Teddy had been tracking Billy all these years, just like I was. It was because of you. I was torn at that point, I’ll admit it. Billy had gone to England to try and find you. I guess he wanted to warn you. Maybe he sensed you were next in line, I don’t know. But the truth is, I hadn’t decided.”
“Decided what?” Alexia asked.
“Whether to kill you or not. Oh, I scared you a little. With the phone calls, although those worked a lot better on Billy . . . and getting someone to do away with that awful little rat of a dog that used to follow Teddy everywhere. What was his name?”
“Danny.” Alexia felt sick.
“But I honestly didn’t know if I had the heart to go through with killing you. The problem was, I liked you. Loved you even. Our kids grew up together. You were like a sister to me. It was hard.”
Is she asking for my sympathy?
“But once again the Lord opened my eyes. He brought you to me, here, on this island, and you told me, told me to my face, that it was you all along. You were the one who let my brother drown! Billy Hamlin, the man I’d devoted my entire adult life to destroying—he was merely your accomplice. An afterthought.” Lucy shook her head in disgust. “Can you imagine what that felt like, Toni? Can you even imagine? I’d shared dinners with you. Laughed with you. Cried with you.”
“Terrorized me,” said Alexia angrily. “Butchered my dog.” Lucy’s cloying self-pity was too much to bear, like being drowned in a vat of cream. “Your brother’s death was an accident. An accident.”
“No! It was murder. The court said so.”
“The court? The court that convicted the wrong man, you mean?” Alexia scoffed. “What the hell did that court know about the truth? They wanted a scapegoat and Billy Hamlin provided one. I was there when Nicholas died, Lucy. I don’t need to guess what happened. I know. It was an accident and that’s a fact.”
