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At least, itwas—until he started talking again and Tess realized that she was in far more trouble than she first thought.
“What,” he said, breaking the eerie silence of the still night sky, “do you know about Tommy Mathers?”
Tess wasn’t surprised to hear that name. Once it came out that Boone was involved, that he was gunning for Grace again, it became obvious that this had something to do with Tommy Mathers. Though his death was honestly an accident—or, as Grace confessed to Tess, suicide since Tommy drove his Jaguar purposely into the gulley that night two years ago—his family disagreed.
They’d sent a PI to learn more. Then, when that PI fell in love with a Hamlet deputy, they send another hired gun. He died, so Boone was set to retrieve Grace on her wedding day. He failed… and if Lucas’s plan went off without a hitch tonight, he’d be dead, too.
But it all started with Tommy Mather’s dive. Tess knew that because Grace told her… but how in the world didMasonknow that name?
“Gonna pretend not to know what I’m talking about? That’s fine, Tess. Let’s try someone you must have heard about. Mack Turner, huh?” Mason lifted his gun, making sure she couldn’t miss it. “You know about him, don’t you?”
She didn’t say anything to that.
She didn’t have to.
The former deputy chuckled. “Ah, I can see from your face you know exactly who I’m talking about. I mean, youshould. Your husband and his sister knew Mack very well before he met the gulley.”
There were rumors about what happened to Mack. Tess heard them from Maria herself the first time she ever came to Hamlet—and she also heard the truth from Lucas.
But she didn’t tell Mason that.
Instead, with more bravado than she felt at that moment, she said, “What does that have to do with me?”
“Everything, sweet Tess. I mean, think about it? Tommy was an outsider. Mack was an outsider. They both met their fate in Hamlet’s gulley.” His hazel eyes turned dark, though his insane smile didn’t waver. “You’re an outsider, right? Marrying a local doesn’t make you one, no matter what Sly might think. And as an outsider… you’re going to jump.”
Her heart lodged in her throat. “I… what? No! Don’t do this. Don’t… Mason,no.”
“I have the gun. You’re going to do whatever it is I want anyway.”
CHAPTERFIFTEEN
Probably, she realized with a jolt. But jump… she couldn’t do it. He’d have to shoot her first.
“Please don’t do this,” she said again. “I can’t jump. Please don’t make me.”
Something in the way he adjusted his posture had Tess sure that her pleading was exactly the response he was hoping for.
“Oh? What will you give me if I spare you?”
“Anything you want,” she lied.
She’d offer anything—and she’d promise it for as long as it took for her to get away safely.
He knew it, too. “Really? Is that what you told Lucas, too?”
“I—” she sputtered. “What?”
“Don’t lie to me, Tess.Don’t lie to me,” he repeated, raising his voice as he cocked his gun. “I never had a chance. Why should I give you one?”
Like he was Hamlet’s very own Jekyll and Hyde, he flipped from friendly to furious in a heartbeat.
She gulped. “Mason, I’m sorry…”
“Sorry?” Dropping the gun a little, he stared at her—and then, to her surprise, he grinned again. “God damn it. Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for this moment? Three years, Tess.Three years. To look at you, to see the face I wouldn’t sacrificed everything for… and I still would. How do you do it? How do you make me look at you,wantyou, even knowing everything I know now?”
He didn’t let her say anything to that. Instead, as though they were having a simple conversation instead of him threatening to make her jump to her death, he said, “First, I thought you were the heroine in my story. That obvious didn’t pan out. Then I thought you were the victim in your own. Pretty wife, dead husband… until my mom told me during visitation that you had a new one.” His grin wavered. “Just like Caity, you couldn’t resist De Angelis, could you?”
“Mason—”
