Page 35

W ith one hand on Deb’s wound and the other gripping his phone, Holden tried Clara’s number. His heart beat so fucking fast it felt like it was going to punch out of his chest.

It was the fourth ring when he knew she wasn’t going to answer.

Fuck .

He tried again. Same thing.

He needed to go to her, but he couldn’t take his hand off Deb’s chest. Jesse might take too long, but maybe Becket was closer.

He tried her brother’s number.

“Holden, hey.”

“I need you to go to Clara’s house and check on her right now.”

“What’s wrong?” Becket’s voice was harder now, with a dangerous edge.

“I’m with one of the hospital staff. She’s been shot, and Clara’s not answering her phone. Jesse’s on his way but—”

“I’ll be at her place in less than five.”

A siren sounded. The ambulance. Thank God.

He hung up and when the paramedics finally ran in, Holden lifted his hand and let them take over. Then he was running. Sprinting out of the house, toward his truck.

He sped out of the drive, a bad feeling in his gut that was just getting worse by the second.

If Clara was okay, she would have answered her phone.

He tried her again, already knowing what was going to happen.

She didn’t answer.

He pressed his foot to the floor, forcing his truck to move faster.

Who had shot Deb? The same person responsible for the other deaths and sick patients? She and Malcolm had been the top suspects. If it wasn’t them, then who?

When he reached Clara’s house, her car was gone and only Becket’s was in the drive.

Both he and Jesse climbed out of their vehicles at the same time while Becket came out the front door, Glock in hand.

“She’s not here,” he growled. “But there are signs of a struggle. Bullet hole in the kitchen wall tile, a broken bowl on the floor, and someone smashed her phone.”

Anger pulsed through Holden’s veins.

Needing to see for himself, he ran inside the house.

And he saw it. The broken tile. The smashed bowl. The phone.

It was true. But it felt like a fucking nightmare.

Jesse and Becket stepped inside, Jesse’s gaze sweeping the area before he pulled out his radio and put out an APB on Clara’s car.

“The dimmed lights and music are on in the studio,” Becket said. “Looks like she had a client.”

Holden shook his head. “No. Today’s the street party. She was closed to appointments.”

“Someone was definitely in there,” Becket pushed.

“All the evidence pointed to Malcolm or Deb,” Jesse said as he scanned the room. “But it wasn’t Deb in this house, and if this person tried to frame Malcolm before killing him, then it’s someone who really wanted to hurt him.”

“Someone who works in the same hospital,” Holden said. “Who knows all his shifts and patients. Someone with opportunity and motive.”

“What motive?” Becket asked.

Holden frowned. “Deb said he was a womanizer. Slept around. What if he did that to someone at the hospital? They wanted a relationship, he didn’t, and it pissed them off. They still worked with him though, so they had to watch him date everyone else. Maybe it tipped them over the edge.”

“But no one else’s shifts match all the events,” Jesse argued.

Footsteps sounded near the door, and all three of them turned and aimed their guns.

Mildred stepped in, only to stop and gasp. “Oh my!”

Holden lowered his Glock. “Mildred, what are you doing here?”

“I-I saw Clara drive out of here really fast…and I saw a woman go after her.”

Holden stepped closer. “Who?”

“I don’t know. But she was blonde. She had really tight curls that were pulled up into a ponytail. She was tall and she drove a blue Ford.”

Air seized in Holden’s lungs. “That’s Briar Winslow. She drives a Ford Escape and fits the description.” Something flickered back in his mind. “And at her house, there was a photo where she was looking at Malcolm like she cared about him. Maybe even loved him.”

“But Briar was working the day Clara was attacked,” Jesse said.

“A twelve-hour shift,” Holden said quickly, his mind working fast. “She could have left for her lunch break. Gone to The Tea House but before getting out of the car, she overheard Clara and Indie’s conversation about Scarlett.”

Jesse cursed and pulled his radio from his belt. “I need an APB on Briar Winslow’s blue Ford Escape.”

Clara’s car engine roared as she sped toward the sheriff’s station. No matter how fast she drove though, Briar’s Ford remained in her rearview mirror. It was faster than Clara’s Volkswagen.

Dammit .

If it wasn’t the day of the street party, she would have driven straight through town, but Main Street would be blocked off and people would be everywhere. She couldn’t risk any pedestrians getting hurt. Kids getting hurt. She had to go around.

She took a sharp right, her tires squealing, heart pounding hard in her chest.

Her eyes swung to the rearview mirror. Briar took the same right turn.

She took another right, then a left. When she looked in her rearview mirror again, her chest tightened.

Briar was gone. Had she given up? Was Clara getting too close to potential witnesses?

Relief was just starting to slow her heart when a car flew out of a side street to her right.

Clara screamed as Briar’s Ford slammed into the side of her Volkswagen. Metal scraping metal screeched through the air, and the force snapped her head to the side, into the window. Pain ricocheted through her skull. She tried to regain control, but the car swung, hitting a tree.

Then there was stillness.

A deep fog clouded her head, and a loud buzzing filled her ears. She felt tired and heavy, every inch of her hurting. All she wanted to do was keep her eyes closed and wait for help.

But there was no help. Businesses on this street were closed for the street party. There was no one around to call police or an ambulance. She had to run, and she had to run now.

With trembling fingers, she forced the seat belt off and shoved her door open. The second her feet touched the ground, her knees buckled and she fell.

The world swayed around her and nausea crawled up her throat.

Run, Clara! You have to run!

The voice in her head, the need to survive, was louder than the exhaustion. She stumbled to her feet, glancing over her car toward the Ford.

Briar was hunched over her wheel.

Thank God.

Clara started moving. Running up the road as fast as her legs would take her, the party a few streets over getting louder.

She was about to turn when glass shattered in the shop beside her.

Clara screamed before looking behind her to see Briar out of her car, blood running from both her nose and a wound on her temple. She looked unsteady.

Her gun was pointed toward Clara—and she looked ready to kill.

Air caught in Clara’s lungs, so thick she could barely breathe. She turned and ran, not thinking about the gun or how much her body hurt. All she could focus on was getting away.

More bullets were fired around her. But she couldn’t let that slow her down.

She quickly ducked into a short side street before turning right at the end.

Two shops down she saw the florist.

The key…Mildred had told her about a hidden key. She could call for help.

She reached inside the hanging potted plant and wrapped her fingers around the rock. Beneath it, she found the key.

The first time she tried to get it into the lock, she missed, the trembling in her fingers too violent. She tried again, and the key slid in and the door opened. She dove into the shop before slamming the door and clicking the lock. Quickly, she raced to the counter and dropped behind it.

Then there was silence, just the sound of her heavy breaths soaring through the room. She dropped her head into her hands and felt the world sway around her.

Phone. She needed a phone to call for help. But the possibility of coming out from behind the counter and Briar seeing her through the glass made panic burn through her limbs.

A few more minutes, then she’d search.

She was just closing her eyes and focusing on her breaths again when the rattle of someone trying the doorknob sounded.

Her heart stopped.

No. It was fine. She’d locked the door. She was safe.

Suddenly, the shattering of glass filled her ears, almost making Clara scream. Then the click of the door opening and closing.

Her heart stopped, an icy dread filling her belly.

Briar was here.

“When I saw you run onto this street, then lost you, I knew you’d be here.

” Footsteps sounded. “You think I don’t know Mildred lives across the street from you?

It’s a small town, Clara. Everyone knows everything.

Did she give you a key? Come out before I start shooting.

If you’re behind the counter, these bullets will go straight through the wood. ”

Clara winced, then rose to her feet. Her body swayed, but she grabbed onto the counter to stay upright.

Briar stood a few steps inside the shop, gun raised. “Good choice.”

“I’m not telling you where the USB is.”

“Of course you are. Because if you don’t, I’ll go back to your house and shoot your brother in the head.”

She could have laughed. “You and I both know you don’t have the skill or training to get the jump on him.”

Her eyes narrowed.

Shit. She shouldn’t be making Briar angry. She needed her to talk. To waste time and pray that someone saw either the crashed cars or broken shop glass and alerted the sheriff’s station.

“So, you’ve been behind everything?” Clara asked, trying to keep the fear from her voice. “Lauren and Scarlett’s deaths…the sick patients.”

“Lauren was a whore . I left my husband for Malcolm, and what does he do? Sleeps with his massage therapist! She deserved to die. And Malcolm deserved to be blamed for it, and for every other patient who got sick. He needed to learn that actions have consequences.”

“So you poisoned his patients?”

“Kind of brilliant, huh? All I had to do was steal drugs from patients’ medication carts and replace them with saline. Some I managed to inject into IV bags. Others, I just snuck into patient rooms and injected.”

God. This woman was a monster. Some patients didn’t even get their medication because of her. “You took drugs that patients needed and allowed other patients to get sick and almost die because you were angry at Malcolm?”

“Blame him . If he hadn’t cheated on me after I left my husband for him, I wouldn’t have needed to do any of it!”

She didn’t blame him. The blame was solely Briar’s to bear. “And you killed Scarlett.”

“She drugged us! I’d already heard around town that she was a reporter, and the day I killed her, Malcolm confessed to me that he told her about our affair.

About how angry I was about Lauren. I approached her, tried to figure out what she knew, and it was clear she knew everything.

I saw the hate in her eyes. The disgust. I lost my temper. Might have even threatened her.”

“That’s why she was scared when she got home.”

“I had to kill her.”

“No. You chose to kill her. To save yourself.”

“You would have done the same thing. I took her laptop, but then I heard you talking in the parking lot of The Tea House that day. Thank God I followed you back to your place. But after you ran into the bathroom, I saw you’d called Jesse, and I had to leave without the damn USB.

” She shook her head. “I can’t have Jesse or any of the deputies finding out.

I’ve hurt too many people. Lauren. Scarlett. Deb.”

“Did you really kill Deb?”

She rolled her eyes. “I went over there this morning and asked her to call Holden over so he’d leave you unprotected.

She wouldn’t do it. Demanded to know why.

So I had to hold a gun to her fucking head while she called.

The bitch was so dumb! What did she think, I was going to just let her go after she got off the phone? ”

Jesus. “What about Malcolm? Did you drug him too?”

She frowned. “No. He OD’d because he couldn’t take the thought of going to prison.”

Was that true? Had Malcolm really done it to himself?

Briar stepped forward. “So…now that we have all that stuff out in the open, you have exactly five seconds to tell me where that USB is before I cut my losses and shoot you in the head.”

Shit . She opened her mouth, not sure what words were about to come out, when a figure suddenly appeared on the other side of the glass…

Helen.

Clara’s heart beat faster.

No. Run, Helen!

But it was too late. Helen was looking at them through the glass, eyes wide—and Briar had already seen her.