Page 33 of The Heiress Masquerade (Dollar Princess #2)
The gunshot reverberated like a cannon, echoing through the darkening room.
Aimee watched as Deidre jolted backward, the bullet slamming into her chest with a sickening thud, propelling her to the floor. Blood poured from her wound onto the wooden planks beneath, a crimson pool spreading rapidly around her body.
There was so much blood.
“Molly, we have to help her! She’s bleeding to death!” Aimee yelled, frantically struggling to stand, the ropes at her ankles hindering her greatly.
“Don’t move another inch!” Molly yelled, turning to point the pistol at Aimee, an expression of loathing on her face. “Now sit back down on the floor.”
Aimee stopped in her tracks and slowly nodded, doing as she was told. “All right, but Deidre needs our help.”
“Oh, she’s already dead,” Molly replied, walking over to Deidre, then nudging the girl’s unmoving body with her boot. “I made certain of that when I aimed for her heart.”
Aimee’s whole body froze. “Why would you kill her?”
“I need someone to take the blame for all this,” Molly said matter-of-factly as she pocketed her own pistol, before turning back to face Aimee. “Otherwise, how else will I get away with kidnapping and then killing you?”
“You intend to kill me, too?” There was a calmness to Molly’s demeanor that sent a shiver of dread down Aimee’s spine.
“Yes. You see, if I let you live, you’d tell everyone of my involvement. So the sooner you die the better. Then once you’re all dead, and I’ve received the ransom, everyone will believe Deidre and William were responsible, with no idea of my involvement. It’s the perfect plan.”
Again, Molly was so matter-of-fact about it all that for a second Aimee questioned whether this was real or a dream. “I can’t believe you’re behind all this.”
“You didn’t really think Deidre had the brains to plan this, did you?”
“Actually, I haven’t had time to give it much thought,” Aimee replied, suddenly feeling furious that this woman in front of her had the audacity to discuss the matter like they were speaking of the weather. “Being drugged as I was and now tied up.” She raised her hands, bound together at her wrists, to emphasize her point.
Molly laughed lightly. “I do so admire your forthrightness and spirit. In fact, when we first met and I thought you were Evie, it felt like we were kindred spirits: two smart ladies, struggling in a world we didn’t fit into, destined to be the best of friends. But then I found out you were lying to me, just like our father has lied to me for my entire life.” Her smile slipped into a tight line. “That you weren’t Evie at all, but instead my half sister, a pampered heiress who was playing at being her poor cousin and taking us all for fools in the process.”
“It wasn’t like that,” Aimee replied, realizing that what Molly had told her about Deidre thinking she was Thomas Thornton-Jones’s daughter was what Molly thought to be true about herself.
“Of course it was,” Molly snapped back. “And you didn’t think anyone would find out, did you? But I did.”
“William told you about the telegram I sent that day at the telegram office, didn’t he?” It was the only way she could have put it together.
“Yes, and I was subsequently able to recruit him to help me, given he does love money. And Deidre barely had to be convinced at all after I told her you were worth one million American dollars and that William would help us.”
“I should never have used my full name to send that telegram with,” Aimee replied, annoyed she’d done so in the first place.
“It wouldn’t have mattered. I already knew something wasn’t right about you when you started speaking back to Mr. Stone. No illegitimate child born into poverty, as I thought you and I both were, would dare to do that. And as soon as I spoke to William, I started to put it all together. It wasn’t too hard to figure it out in the end, though I am rather clever.”
“I wouldn’t have thought kidnapping and murder were all that clever, to be honest.” She probably shouldn’t antagonize her, but Aimee was starting to get furious. The woman, who so callously and without emotion murdered Deidre and intended to kill her, too, had the nerve to stand there talking about how clever she was?
“I’m not surprised you’d think that. Your world has been sheltered.” She gave a half shrug. “Whereas mine has not, since I grew up without a father to protect me after my mother killed herself, following a confrontation with him when I was only three. Did you know he called her a liar and refused to acknowledge me? He said she was mentally unbalanced and needed help. That he’d never even kissed her let alone slept with her. And everyone believed him and not her! It was no wonder she jumped.”
“And you remember all this from when you were three?” Aimee replied, unable to disguise the doubt in her voice.
“Of course not,” Molly scoffed. “My mother wrote it down in her journal, which she left on the platform beside her purse before she jumped in front of a train. A train owned by your father, too. I think she was trying to make a point, don’t you? In any event, as much as I blame our father for denying me all that should have been mine, I really should thank him, for it did give me a purpose in life.”
“Yes, kidnapping is a noble purpose, isn’t it?”
Molly’s whole body tightened for a minute and she took in a long and sustained breath through her nose. “Perhaps before you comment, you should remember I’m the one with the gun.” She emphasized her point by pulling out her pistol and thrusting it toward Aimee.
“You’re right, I’m sorry,” Aimee said, putting her hands up in front of her, tied up together as they were. She knew she shouldn’t provoke her but was finding it difficult not to.
Molly nodded, somewhat placated. “As I was saying, it gave me purpose. Five years ago, when I discovered my mother’s journal in the attic and finally learned the truth about who my father was, which my Aunt Ann had kept secret from me for my entire life and still denies to this day, I knew then I had to take away what he loved most, just like he took away my mother from me.”
“My father wasn’t responsible for your mother taking her own life.”
“ Our father most certainly was!” Molly stomped her foot on the ground. “And once I knew it was his fault, I made a vow I would make him pay, which, at first, I could only do trying to sabotage his business—”
“So you’re the one responsible for altering the ledgers.” It was starting to make an odd sort of sense.
“Yes. What better way to hurt him when he was half a world away then by trying to ruin the share price of the company that he loved. At least until you arrived.”
“And the translator not correctly translating in the Wilheimer deal… Were you responsible for that, too?”
Molly shook her head. “No, I can’t take credit for Lady Whitley’s work.”
“Lady Whitley? Why would she care about the Wilheimer deal?” There weren’t many ladies Aimee knew who took an interest in business, let alone actively trying to sabotage a deal.
“When she overheard Mr. Stone talking about his new deal, she purchased a great deal of shares in the company he was originally going to take over. But then he broke things off with her, and she had no idea he’d changed directions and had set his sights onto Wilheimer’s company instead.”
“Rendering her new shares worthless.”
“Exactly. She then bribed the translator to do all he could to sabotage the deal with Wilheimer, so Mr. Stone would be forced to go back to the original company, which you got in the way of.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I caught her rifling around Mr. Stone’s desk a few weeks back and blackmailed her to tell me.”
“I’m sure you would have been supportive of any plan to make my father’s shares lose value.”
“ Our father’s shares,” Molly corrected her once again. “And, yes, I was supportive, though by that stage I’d already moved on to making him pay for his sins through you. A far more effective punishment that will wound him to the point of madness, just as he did to my mother by refusing to acknowledge me.”
“ My father would have acknowledged you if you were his daughter.”
Molly’s grip tightened on Aimee’s derringer. “He is my father! And you’re just like him and my stupid aunt saying I’m not, continuing to deny the facts while lying through your teeth. Well, I’ll show you all. After he pays the ridiculous ransom I’ve set, he’ll find out you’re already dead, his precious little princess. Then he will feel my pain…and I’ll finally have my revenge and be free to live a life of luxury that has been denied to me for too long. A life that was meant to be mine!”
The woman was dangerously unhinged. “Perhaps we can talk to him together, and he’ll take care of you, just like he did with Evie, when he found out about her being his niece.”
“Stop lying! He knew about me when I was three and refused to accept me! He’s not changing his mind twenty-one years later, now is he?” Molly yelled, the early evening shadows from the lamp on the desk distorting her face, making her seem slightly demonic. But then she pulled back her shoulders and a smile replaced the fury from a second ago as she cocked the hammer on her gun. “In any event, let’s get back to business, shall we? I hope you’re ready to meet your maker, for I’m done explaining things and it’s time to move on to the second part of my plan.”
“You can’t kill me! At least not yet,” Aimee rushed out, unable to help the cold shiver that ran up her spine seeing the intent in Molly’s gaze.
“I certainly can.”
“What if my father demands proof I’m alive before he pays your ransom?”
Molly smirked, her eyes looking down on Aimee with pity. “That’s why I had Deidre and William take some photos of you.”
“But what if he wants date proof?” Aimee replied. “Like a picture of me with a newspaper for the day? If you kill me now, you won’t be able to give him that, and as much as my father loves me, he’s a businessman at heart and will not part with a cent if he thinks I’m already dead.” Aimee rushed the words out, her tone beseeching Molly to listen.
“Yes, he will. For you he’d do anything.” There was a note of bitterness in her voice she wasn’t trying to disguise.
“And what if you’re wrong?” Aimee replied. “You might have your revenge, but you won’t have any money and you’ll still have to work for a living.”
Molly inhaled sharply, her pistol dropping slowly to her side as she tapped it restlessly against her thigh, appearing agitated with the thought. “Damn it. You might be right.” She pulled out a pocket watch and glanced down at its face.
Just then a loud bang came from beyond the room, followed by footsteps rushing down the hallway toward them.
“Stay put,” Molly said to Aimee as she raised her pistol to face the door.
“I heard a gunshot,” William said, bursting through the doorway and skittering to a halt as he caught sight of Molly, then glanced down and saw Deidre’s body. “What happened to her?”
“She was going to kill us both so she could take the ransom for herself,” Molly replied, lying without hesitation. “I had to kill her to protect us.”
“You’re lying,” Aimee cried out. “You killed her in cold blood—”
“Shut up!” Molly swung the gun to Aimee. “Or I will kill you, proof of your life be damned.” Her eyes then turned back to William. “What are you doing back here anyhow? You were meant to send the telegram to my father.”
“I’ve sent it,” William replied. “And as I was returning, I saw some lanterns in the distance heading this way, so I ran the rest of the way here. Tripped over a few times, too.”
“No one should be looking for her yet!” Molly glanced around the room, panic flaring in her eyes.
“It’s Harrison,” Aimee said, feeling equal parts relief and terror. “I knew he’d know I was missing.”
“This isn’t how I planned things,” Molly screeched. “And how did he even know to come this way? He’ll ruin everything!”
“We’ve only got about ten minutes or so until they come upon the cottage. We need to get out of here now, unless you want me to use the shotgun out the front on them…” He sounded ill at the thought.
“No, if it is Stone, we can’t kill him,” Molly replied. “He has access to the office safe, which is where the ransom will come from.” She paused and glanced over to Aimee, her eyes narrowing. “Damn it, we’ll have to leave now and take her with us. Cut the ropes at her feet but not her hands,” she directed William, raising her gun again back to Aimee. “And if you give him any trouble, I’ll shoot you.”
There was such a steely resolve in her eyes that Aimee knew she meant it. But Aimee also knew if she didn’t do something and soon, she’d be dead shortly anyhow. So she nodded as William approached her, his eyes not meeting hers as he bent down to where she was sitting and began to untie the ropes around her ankles.
A tingling sensation ran through her feet as the ropes loosened and Aimee sighed, having not realized how tight the bindings had been against her legs.
“Up you get,” William said, grabbing her elbows and hauling her to her feet.
Aimee stumbled into him, her legs wobbling slightly. William tried to steady her, but she used the momentum to push against him with all her might, knocking him backward and into Molly.
Chaos erupted as William and Molly fell onto the desk and then tumbled to the floor, sending the lamp crashing to its side. The flames from its wick hungrily lapped at the papers on the desk before a whooshing sound filled the room as bright orange flames flared to life, hungrily crawling up the curtains as smoke began to spread through the room.
“You bitch! I’m going to kill you,” Molly yelled from underneath William, as she pushed against him. “Get off me, you idiot!”
Aimee didn’t waste another second and sprinted through the doorway, her gait slightly unbalanced with her hands still tied in front of her as she searched desperately for an exit. She ran to the end of the short hall and followed it to the right, where she saw what looked like the front door ahead. With a burst of speed, she ran toward it, her hands reaching for the handle, desperately clutching it and praying it was unlocked. It twisted in her hands and she wrenched it open, racing outside across the clearing toward the thick trees, heedless of the darkness around her. She had to get away and quickly; there was no other choice.
Just as she reached the tree line, a gunshot rang out to her right and the branch of a tree splintered not more than ten feet away from her. She ducked to her left and took cover behind a tree trunk, before quickly glancing around it to the cottage, where she saw Molly reloading a smoking shotgun while William unstrapped a lantern from the outside wall. Then, they both ran across the clearing heading toward where she disappeared into the woods.
Aimee pushed off from the tree, darting through the woods, using the foliage for cover. Her heart was pounding so hard, she could only just hear the distant sound of footsteps behind her as they gave chase.
“Get back here!” Molly screamed, her voice echoing somewhere behind her, but Aimee didn’t look back and instead kept running deeper into the woods, veering to her left, doing her best to use the moonlight to see in front of her, but tripping lightly on a few of the tree roots. After a few minutes, she began to circle back around to the cottage to where Harrison would soon be, a path that hopefully Molly wouldn’t think she’d take.
As she weaved through several trees, the smell of smoke hit her, and she paused, worrying that they’d set the woods on fire to flush her out. But then she noticed an orange glow in the direction of the cottage and realized it was the cottage on fire. Her heart plummeted. What if Harrison was there now? What if he’d gone inside to rescue her, thinking she was inside?
With a burst of speed, Aimee pushed herself to run harder. She had to get to him, but then a rumble of thunder clapped overhead as the skies opened up and a torrent of rain began pouring down, drenching her in a matter of seconds. The ground became muddy far too quickly but she knew with a sense of urgency she had to get out of the woods and get to Harrison, before it was too late.