Page 75 of The Perfect Hosts
“No, Lucy,” Madeline says. “I can’t ask you to do this. Give me the gun.”
Lucy holds the gun tightly in her hand. “No,” she says. “It has to stop. This ends now.” She closes one eye and takes aim. “Move.”
Madeline steps forward and gently pulls the gun from her grasp. “You’re right. It does have to end, but not this way.”
“Madeline, no,” Lucy says, but she silences her with one look.
“Thank you,” Wes cries from behind her. “Oh my God, thank you, Madeline.”
Madeline turns and looks at her husband. Blood oozes from his shoulder, and he looks nothing like the big, larger-than-life personality she’s known for the last eleven years. She holds out her hand, and Wes takes it, and somehow he’s able to get to his feet. His shoulders slump in relief. Using his good arm, he pulls her into an embrace, and this time she doesn’t fight it. She leans into him, and for a moment they are holding each other up. She smells the familiar scent of his aftershave intermixed with the stink of sweat and fear. “Give me the gun,Madeline,” he whispers. “It’s going to be okay now. I’ll take good care of you.”
Madeline feels the cool metal of the gun pressed between them and tips the barrel upward, feels it settle into the soft spot just below Wes’s sternum, and pulls the trigger.
Chapter 39
Jamie
Jamie finds himself speeding toward the Drake house. While he doesn’t have enough for an arrest warrant yet, he knows it’s just a matter of time. But tonight he’s going to talk to Wes as a brother. He’s going to ask him why he lied about knowing his sister, about why he was kissing her, why he was seen with her just a few days before she disappeared. Was Wes the one who knocked Jamie into the ditch? Had he simply come back to the gravel road to make sure Jamie was dead? Was he planning on finishing the job but was interrupted by the woman who came upon them driving down the road? And he wants to ask him if Wes’s dad used his influence to cover up the crime. He just needs fifteen minutes with him. He’ll get his answers.
He pulls down the lane leading to the Drake house, parks next to Wes’s truck, and steps from his car.
Suddenly, the unmistakable sound of a gunshot rings out from above. Instinctively, Jamie reaches for his sidearm and takes cover behind Wes’s truck. He makes a call for backup and, knowing that it could take a while for them to arrive, decides to go inside the house.
The newly fixed front door is unlocked, and Jamie cautiously pushes it open. The house is dark. He has no idea who is in the house with him but is confident that the shots came from the upper level.
He takes the steps two at a time, and at the top of the stairs he pauses. The acrid smell of gunpowder bites at his nose, and dull light from the master bedroom seeps into the hallway. Over the pounding of his heartbeat, Jamie hears crying. Harsh, hiccupping sobs. “ATF,” he announces. “Come out of the room, hands up.”
There’s no response, no movement, only the sound of weeping and murmuring. Are there two voices? He moves down the hallway, pressed as close to the wall as possible, and pauses outside the bedroom door. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” comes a female voice. “It’s over now.”
Dammit, Jamie thinks. He has no idea what he’s going to walk into. He peeks around the corner, then pulls back, fearful that he might find a gun in his face. Breathing hard, he reviews what he saw in that split second. Not a shotgun. Three figures all on the floor. And blood. Lots of blood. He takes a deep breath, grips his service revolver tightly, and steps into the room.
“Let me see your hands,” he barks. Instantly two pairs of hands go up in the air. From the light of the closet, he sees Lucy Quaid and Madeline Drake huddled together. Madeline is crying, and she’s covered in blood. Lucy is dry-eyed, but her face is pale. Next to them is Wes with a hole the size of a fist in his chest, blood pouring from the wound.
“It’s right there,” Lucy says, voice shaking and nodding toward the revolver lying on the floor next to them. “She had to do it,” Lucy says. “He was killing her.”
“Don’t move,” Jamie says, watching the two women carefully. “An ambulance is on its way,” he says. “Who else is in the house?” he asks.
“No one,” Lucy says.
“How about the ranch hand? Trent?” Jamie says, peering down at Madeline.
“No,” Lucy says, trying to wipe the blood from her sister’s face, just as Trent appears in the doorway.
He takes in the bloody scene in front of him, and his face goes white. “Oh my God,” Trent says.
“Go wait for the ambulance,” Jamie orders. “Now!”
Jamie tries to get a good look at Madeline’s injuries, and through the blood he sees an angry red welt encircling her neck and a leather belt lying on the ground next to her. “Wes did this?” he asks, addressing Lucy, who nods, her eyes wild with fear. “And she shot him?”
“We both did,” Lucy says.
“You both shot him?” Jamie asks in surprise. “Where’s the other gun?”
“There’s just the one,” Lucy says. “It happened so fast.”
“Okay, lie down on the floor, and put your hands behind your back.”
“But why?” Lucy asks, still clutching to Madeline. “He was choking her. I kept trying to pull him off, but he was too strong.”