“What’re you doing here?” she said, trying to stay cool when she was beyond freaked. She needed to buy time. She had a weapon, too, a large pistol, but it would take a second or two to reach behind her.
“You’ve been hard to find.”
She moved to one side, and the muzzle of his huge gun followed her. Sick inside, she realized that once again, she was at his mercy, the little wife of the outwardly handsome, inwardly insidious monster of a husband. Only this time, she knew she was doomed. If he’d gone through all the trouble of tracking her down, he wouldn’t just let her be.
“I-I thought you’d disappeared,” she said, thinking hard, looking for some means of escape. If she could just buy some time . . .
“Like you.”
“You left me for dead.”
“I did,” he admitted with a mock-disgusted smile. “And damn it, I made a mistake, thinking the alligators would finish you off.” All humor faded from his voice. “Trust me, this time I won’t.”
She didn’t doubt it. But the gun. If she could just get to the gun. “How did you find me?” she asked, though it didn’t matter. She was just putting off the inevitable.
“Simple. I didn’t have to look for you.” Again, he was pleased with himself, thought he was so damn clever, was glad to rub her nose in it. “I just followed Ryder.”
She felt sick inside at the thought that she, even inadvertently, had dragged Ryder into this.
“He was pretty dogged, you know. Seems as if he had as much of a bone to pick with you as I do.” Calderone chuckled humorlessly. “Husbands. They can be such a problem. Especially when you have more than one at a time.”
“That was a mistake. I know it now,” she said, wondering if there was a chance that she could reason with him and desperate enough to try. It wasn’t just her skin she had to worry about, but Ryder’s as well. Handcuffed as he was, Ryder was a sitting duck.
“Look,” she said, inching up slightly to the open door of the cabin but splaying her hands to keep his attention off her feet. She saw him stare at his handiwork. Her stump—the finger he’d cut off as a reminder of how she’d abused her wedding vows. “It’s over. You and me. We both know it and we knew it a long time ago. So, don’t do anything foolish. You’re a doctor for God’s sake, you’re young. Go and live your life. Leave me alone.”
She was rambling, she knew, but still, he hadn’t shot her. Not yet. Though she was panicking inside, still intending to shoot him if she had the chance, she forced her voice to remain calm. “Go away, Bruce. So far, you’re not a killer and you could leave me . . .” Her voice faded away as reality hit her and she thought of the two women who had been killed recently.
“Too late for that. Sacrifices had to be made.”
“Sacrifices? I don’t under—” But she did. Her stomach turned over. She thought she might throw up. God, how she hated this man. How, how, how had she ever remotely thought she loved him? Why in the world did she marry him? Because her own home life hadn’t been the picture-perfect postcard everyone had believed. And she’d been duped by him. If given the chance, she’d blow him away and not think twice about it.
“They needed to die, so that you would be blamed.”
“Me? But how? I had nothing to do with them.”
“Didn’t you?”
“Of course not.” She inched backward, still trying to figure out how to save Ryder, save herself. “I didn’t even know them.”
“Oh, but Anne-Marie, there’s the problem.” Calderone wagged the gun a little and her eyes were fixed on the muzzle. Was it her imagination or over the whistle of the wind did she hear the faint shriek of sirens?
The police!
Ryder had called 9-1-1!
Had they come up with the right location?
Hurry, hurry, hurry!
“You can’t prove it though, can you? That you’d not met those women,” Calderone was saying, so caught up in his own story, in his bragging, that he hadn’t heard the sirens as he stood confidently behind her SUV.
He couldn’t prove it—yet. But he would. He wouldn’t be so outwardly cocky if he hadn’t made certain of that fact. Oh, how her fingers itched to grab Ryder’s Glock.
“You know, it looks very suspicious that those women happened to die just about the time you arrived in town, don’t you think? And then, oh dear, evidence points to you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your fingerprint, Anne-Marie. Your fucking telltale print showed up on the victims’ personal effects.”