Page 107 of It Happened on the Lake

H arper dropped the receiver and stared at her stepmother. “What are you do—?”

“Your turn to die, Harper,” Marcia said, taking aim. “It’s your time.”

“What?” She couldn’t believe it.

“First Anna,” Marcia explained, and Harper felt as if the earth had split.

Her mother? All those years ago? Marcia was talking about Anna’s death? Is that what she was talking about?

“Then Evan.”

“I don’t understand,” she said, but that was a lie. Marcia’s deep-seated hatred was evident, the horror and depth of her plan spanning years. “Evan? But that was so long ago.”

“Patience, Harper. Sometimes you have to play the long game.”

“You killed them?” Harper whispered, stunned, her eyes on the gun. She had to get it away from Marcia or somehow escape.

“Then, of course, Dawn.”

“No!” Not her daughter. No, no, no! Her eyes found Marcia’s. What kind of a monster was she? “She calls you grandma,” Harper charged, remembering all the times Marcia and Dad babysat her daughter, how Harper had entrusted her child to this murderous lunatic. “Don’t you ever go near her again.”

“Oh, I will. I have to, now. Unfortunately it seems the job was bungled. Yes, I heard her on the recording.” Marcia’s lips pursed as if she’d sucked on a lemon.

“I guess she managed to get away. For now.” Then, as if she wasn’t holding a gun on Harper, as if all this horror and bloodshed wasn’t her fault, she asked, “What can I say? I made a mistake, but I’ve learned my lesson: Never send a boy to do a woman’s job. ”

“What boy? What are you talking about? Are you nuts? What does Dawn have to do with anything?” Harper said. But she was beginning to understand Marcia’s twisted line of thinking and she felt sick inside. The “boy” was Trick. Marcia had hired him to kill her daughter.

“Then you. It should have been Dawn, then you, but I think this will work as well. If you die first, everything goes to Dawn and then if she happens to have a fatal accident before she’s stupid enough to have a child, then your father will still inherit.”

Anger boiled deep inside as everything fell together in Harper’s mind. “You want this island.”

“I was promised this island,” she said with venom. “And everything that comes with it. This house, the gatehouse, the stocks and bonds. Everything.” Marcia actually smiled as she thought about the fortune she’d plotted to inherit.

“And you would kill for it.”

“Only if I had to,” Marcia argued. “And, you see, I have to. Your father’s got a bad heart. Won’t last long, so I had to up my game. Besides, after all these years, that patience I told you about, it’s growing thin.”

“You’re certifiable,” Harper charged, trying to think of a way to get away from her, some avenue of escape.

But the gun. In the semidarkness she saw the kitchen knives in a block on the counter.

Butcher’s knives. Chef’s knives. A meat cleaver.

They were dull with age but the best and only weapons available.

And less than a foot away. She had to keep Marcia talking, stave off her inevitably pulling the trigger.

“Who promised you the island?” Harper asked, attempting to keep the conversation going, inching closer to the stove and the knife block. But she already knew the answer to her question, and it made her stomach churn.

“Who do you think?”

“Dad?” Harper whispered.

She was closer to the knife block now, mere inches away from reaching the cleaver.

“Of course your father,” Marcia said as if it were obvious. “But he lied. What a do-nothing! I had to be the one who took care of Anna. He wouldn’t do it.”

Harper remembered the night her mother died, how she’d been sick and loaded with cough syrup and how she’d tried to meet Beth but was too woozy. She’d seen her mother on the dock and some dark figure with her, but all the time she’d thought she’d been hallucinating.

“Your father didn’t have the balls. All he could do was dope you up so we could be together, but he screwed that up, too! Useless, useless man.”

She was shaking her head, caught up in her own perceived misery.

Harper’s fingers touched the block. “Dad wanted Mom dead?” She couldn’t believe it.

Keep her talking. Just keep her talking.

“Well, no. But divorce wasn’t an option, now, was it?

If he divorced her, he would end up with nothing.

” Oddly, Marcia seemed to be enjoying letting go of her secrets by bragging about her plan.

She went on. “Oh, I suggested she might have an accident, but he never caught on. Thought I was joking. Laughed off the idea. He had no idea what really happened that night. He just pumped you up with codeine and stood her up so we could get together. He thought her despondency had driven her to killing herself.”

“And you let him think that.”

The depth of Marcia’s depravity was unfathomable. Harper’s stomach turned sour.

“And Mom didn’t OD and end her life. You ended it for her.”

“Again, a few extra pills with her booze. Believe me, it didn’t take much. She was well on her way.”

The demon Harper had thought she’d seen and was told was part of her hallucinations was her stepmother. “You were there. I saw you.” Oh. Dear. God. Marcia was evil. Pure, unadulterated evil.

“And everyone thought you were hallucinating from the fever and the cough medicine.”

“Why?”

“Isn’t it obvious? They had to be out of the way,” Marcia said, as if Harper were thick.

“For the damned inheritance laws. He promised me this island. Promised me! Once Anna was gone, he said you and Evan would inherit and that we could live here!” She gestured widely with her free hand. “In this house.”

“But Gram lived here,” Harper said, disbelieving, shifting her body slightly closer to the knife block.

“She was old. God, that stroke should have taken her out. That would have been perfect. And your dad, he was patient. So damned patient, content to stay in that broken-down cottage while the years were ticking away.” She let out a sigh.

“So I helped her along. I really had no choice. And you, so anxious to leave and meet Chase, took the fall. How perfect was that?”

“You poisoned Gram?” Harper whispered, horrified.

“Just added a few more pills to those in her tea. She was complaining about it anyway, and you’d thankfully screwed up the medication when you spilled those pills, so it all worked out.”

“But Gram—”

“She didn’t know what hit her.”

“You’re a monster,” Harper bit out, remembering the wet boots in the hallway under the coat rack. They had been her father’s boots, but Marcia had worn them, just in case any suspicion was cast on someone other than Harper.

“As I think I told you, she was old,” Marcia said.

“And you let me think all these years—let the whole world think—that I did it?” Harper asked, her fingers inching toward the blades buried in the block, her eyes trained on the gun still pointed in her direction. “And you want me to believe Dad didn’t know?”

Marcia snorted. “I don’t care what you think. But the truth is, Bruce never suspected a thing. That’s the thing about your father, Harper. So trusting. So naive.” Marcia was proud of herself and went on. “That worked out well, I think.”

And then, as her fingers brushed the knife block, Harper understood.

Her father, not blood and not loved by her grandmother, would not get any of the Dixon estate.

But his kids through Anna would inherit.

If Anna was dead, leaving Bruce free to marry Marcia, they would have control of the fortune until Harper turned of age.

Harper thought she might be sick as she followed the natural trail in her mind.

If Bruce and Marcia were married, and his children with Anna died .

. . “You killed them all,” she accused, her heart thundering in her chest as the depth of Marcia’s depravity became evident.

“Even Evan. He didn’t commit suicide. You were there! I heard you.”

Memories of that hot summer night when Chase had professed his love and given her the diamond necklace tore through her. Evan. In the tram. Blue eyes staring upward and fixed. Blood everywhere.

“He drew the short straw. Both of you had to die, so I chose. He lost.”

Her stomach curdled.

“You’re evil.”

“Oh, hurt me some more. Funny coming from you when you got yourself pregnant and tricked another man into marrying you.”

“I didn’t trick Joel, and getting married isn’t the same as murder.”

“I suppose not. But did you know how greedy he was? That he was planning to go to the lawyer and demand part of the inheritance? He’d even called your father. Then Lou Arista. So, I knew he had to go.”

“Had to go.”

“Oh, didn’t you know? He’s dead. Took a leap off a tall building in Portland. Just recently. As if he deserved any of this.” She let out a huff of disgust. “He had his sights on the fortune before he met you.”

“Joel? You killed him, too.” How far did this woman’s venality stretch?

“Vargas took care of him,” she said off-handedly, and let out a sigh. “But he was supposed to get to Dawn. Offer her drugs laced with something or other! Now I’ll have to come up with Plan B.”

“You cold, calculating bitch!” Bile rose in her throat. “You killed them all to get all this?” She motioned grandly as if to include the whole house and island, but as she did, she stretched, her hand touching the meat cleaver.

“Bingo! Give the girl a prize!” Marcia said without a grain of humor. “So you are a smart girl after all,” Marcia scoffed. “But not smart enough not to get knocked up and ruin everything.”

“Ruin everything?” Harper repeated. “Because Dawn got in your way?” Sick inside that her precious daughter was considered a stumbling block. It was all so twisted and dark.

“But you can’t fire a gun and kill me. Everything has to look like an accident.”

“You should have died when you fell through those stairs in Bend last summer!” Marcia charged.