1 A High-End Finish (24 page)

I had tried to picture Penny wearing my gloves and wielding my tools, but I couldn’t see it. She was too nice and too new to town to want to kill anyone.

I knew what I had to do. I had to go forward with my original plan to talk to Whitney. For a different reason than before, of course. Now I wondered if she knew why Jennifer had become a target all of a sudden. Did Jennifer know something about the killer? Had she shared it with Whitney? Jennifer and Whitney were best friends and confided in each other their deepest, bitchiest secrets. If anyone knew who had hurt Jennifer, it was Whitney.

And since I didn’t believe that Whitney had anything to do with the murders, I was safe talking to her—at least physically. Psychologically, I could be damaged for life. We were still talking about the evil Queen of Mean, after all.

But a positive way to look at it was that between Whitney and me, we knew everyone in Lighthouse Cove. I was close to the townies, while Whitney had her finger on the pulse of everything going on with the wealthy homeowners and rich tourists.

Once again, I prepared for the confrontation by making myself look really good. Hair, makeup, pretty clothes—the works. But when I pulled to the curb across the street and a few houses down from her place, I had second thoughts. Who could blame me? Maybe they were even third thoughts. I asked myself again:
Am I absolutely certain Whitney isn’t the killer?

“You’re being ridiculous,” I muttered. I reached for the door handle, then stopped. Was I doing the right thing? Maybe it was time to call Eric and ask him to join me.

“Oh, right.” After all of his admonitions, he would sooner send a patrol car to arrest me than join me here at the Gallagher home to grill Tommy’s wife about her best friend.

As I was sitting in my car, arguing with myself, Whitney’s garage door opened. I froze. Was she going somewhere? The door took its sweet time before it opened all the way and Whitney drove out in her shiny black Jaguar. My gray truck was innocuous enough that she didn’t seem to notice it was parked in front of her neighbor’s house. The Jaguar’s windows were tinted, but I could see someone sitting next to her in the passenger’s seat.

Curious, I waited until they got to the end of the block and then I made a U-turn and followed them out to the Old Cove Highway, where they turned south. It was a beautiful if narrow and winding drive along the Alisal Cliffs. To the west, perched atop the cliffs, were more of the grand Victorians that made our little town famous. They overlooked the stretch of sandy beach below, and the rocky outcroppings and choppy blue ocean beyond.

Skirting the east side of the highway was a steeply wooded ravine. At the bottom was a pretty creek that overflowed every winter with clean, icy water, thanks to a tributary of the Eel River that got its start up in the snowy Mendocino National Forest, northeast of Potter Valley.

I followed behind Whitney at a good distance, catching sight of her every now and then along the winding road. She traveled another four miles, and if I had blinked I would’ve missed seeing her swerve to the right onto a pitted gravel road that led to the ocean.

I recognized this spot. Barnacle Beach. Back in high school, we used to drive out here every summer to go to the beach. It was more private than our local beaches in town and therefore more attractive to teenagers for parties and dates. It had been rumored that smoking and drinking occurred out here. Or so I’d heard. I certainly had never taken part in any of those activities. No more than five or six times, anyway.

Wood stairs had been built into the side of the cliff that led down to the beach. There were caves here, too. I had been inside a few of them and had spent one memorable day exploring one of the deepest, darkest caves with Tommy.

At high tide, ocean water would fill them completely within minutes. Over the years, a few people had been drowned and washed out to sea. Parents always warned their children never to set foot inside the Alisal Caves, but what kid ever listened to advice like that?

Whitney came to a stop on the rutted gravel road a few yards from the edge of the cliff. I parked my truck behind a thicket of pine trees about a hundred yards back from where the Jaguar stopped and waited to see what would happen next.

Whitney and her passenger both got out of the car and faced each other. From where I stood, it looked like they were yelling. Her passenger was a woman, but I had to focus hard to see her face. Unfortunately, my vision wasn’t quite back to normal, thanks to that thump on my head. I didn’t notice the problem too much anymore unless I really had to work at it, like now. It didn’t help that I was staring into the setting sun, either.

After a long moment of squinting, I suddenly realized who I was looking at. And that person was now pointing a
gun
directly at Whitney.
A gun?

“Oh, my God.”

The person holding the gun was Penny.

Penny
.

My new friend. My new
client.
I had been to her house, wandered around in her attic. We had chatted and laughed at her kitchen table while she picked out colors and patterns for her remodel. We had gone to dinner together. Worked out together. She was the one who’d saved me from being choked by the weights on the bench press.

“No,” I muttered, still dumbfounded. She hadn’t saved me. She had sabotaged the rack, causing the weights to fall on me while she’d wandered off, looking innocent. She was no savior. She was a callous, vicious killer.

She was wearing a small backpack, I noticed as I watched her shove Whitney closer to the cliff. Was she going to push her over? I couldn’t let that happen, no matter how ambivalent my feelings were for Whitney.

I grabbed my phone, pushed speed dial, and in seconds Eric answered. I told him where I was and what I was seeing.

“She’s got a gun,” I said, watching as Penny waved the weapon again. “I thought she was going to push her off the cliff, but now they’re walking toward the steps that lead down to the beach. There’s nothing down there but sand and water and caves. I’ll bet she’ll try to trap her inside one of the caves.”

It was the only possibility I could come up with. I just didn’t know why Penny had suddenly decided to target Whitney.

“Get out of there,” Eric shouted. “I’m on my way.”

“I’ll stay until you get here.”

“No, you won’t. Drive away now.”

“But you don’t know where you’re going.”

“I’ll find it,” he insisted.

“Tell Tommy it’s Barnacle Beach,” I said, ignoring his demands. “You’ll be able to see my truck from the highway and that’s where you’ll turn off.”

“Damn it, Shannon.”

“Hurry.” I had to hold the phone away from my ear to keep from going deaf. For a soft-spoken man, he could really raise his voice when he wanted to.

I hung up, got out of the truck, and tiptoed around the trees to get a closer look, just in time to see Penny shove Whitney again. In her silly high heels, she stumbled along the grassy edge until she reached the top of the rickety old stairs that led down to the beach.

They disappeared down the steps. I was shaking now from fear as well as the cold breeze off the ocean, but I had to see what they were doing. I crept over to the edge of the cliff and saw them step onto the beach. Penny pushed Whitney toward the nearest cave as the tide rolled in.

Whitney suddenly let loose a scream and Penny smacked the back of her head. “Shut up!”

I could hear them all the way up the side of the cliff, despite the roar of the ocean waves as they crashed a hundred feet offshore.

The two of them entered the cave and vanished from my sight.

I was tempted to scramble down the stairs and try to help, but I had no defense against a gun in the hands of a violent woman who had killed two people and attacked two—now
three
—others.

So I waited.

My mind envisioned the insides of the old caves. It had been fourteen years since I’d seen one, but I could still recall the moist darkness, the heavy, low walls, the rocks and sand, the clumps of seaweed strewn along the edges.

The caves were also home to the old, rusted trestles that had once been used as mooring for the ships that traveled along the coast from San Francisco up to British Columbia and back. This place had come to be called Barnacle Beach because of all the barnacles clinging to those old ship hulls.

A trestle would be good for tying someone up,
I thought, and then shuddered at the possibility. I wouldn’t put it past Penny to come up with that plan. All she had to do was tie Whitney to an old trestle post and let the incoming tide finish her off. It wasn’t just evil; it was premeditated and downright diabolical.

The sun was starting to set and the sky was splashed in corals and pinks as Penny tramped out of the cave and crossed the sandy beach toward the stairs. I ran back to the tree line to watch and see what she would do. Was she actually going to leave Whitney to drown and then blithely drive off in her Jaguar? That was cold.

When Penny reached the top of the stairs, I could see she was breathing a little heavier. It was a long, steep climb and she was probably moving on pure adrenaline by now. She must’ve stowed the gun in her backpack, because she wasn’t holding it anymore. She stopped at the driver’s side of the car, slipped off her backpack, and stood there, seeming to ponder her next move.

A piercing scream split the dusky air. It was Whitney crying for help, and the sound of it caused the hair on my arms to stand up on end.

Penny turned and stared out at the cliff’s edge. She knew Whitney was going to die, but what else was she thinking? Did ice water flow through her veins? Did she really believe she would get away with this? God only knew what was going through her head.

In that moment, I didn’t stop to think about it. I began to run toward her. My boots didn’t make much noise on the grassy surface as I got closer. My only plan was to rush her, pin her down, and hold her there until Eric arrived with his cavalry. I just hoped they would make it in time to save Whitney.

Penny was still watching the ocean when I rushed up behind her and shoved her hard. She fell facedown on the ground.

“What the—?”

She scrambled to get up, but I jumped on top of her and straddled her back to keep her down. “You’re not going anywhere.”

“You.” She laughed harshly. “You really think you can stop me, you wimp?”

“I’m not a wimp,” I sputtered. Probably wasn’t a good idea to argue with her, especially considering how strong she was. But that pissed me off. What had I ever done to her? Why did she want to kill me? “I thought we were getting to be friends.”

Okay, it was a wimpy thing to say, but I couldn’t think straight.

“You were asking too many questions,” she snapped. “Then you brought that cop around.”

“I didn’t bring him . . . Wait.” Why was I even talking to her? But I wanted answers. “I was the one he suspected, not you.”

“He kept coming around to the bank,” she griped. “And as soon as he saw me with you at the pub, he knew.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“I can read a cop’s face.”

“Oh, bull.” If Eric had known that Penny killed those men, she would’ve been in jail.

“Shut up and get off me.”

“Did you screw with my bike?”

“Of course,” she derided. “There you were, riding around town like the Pink Princess everyone thinks you are. I thought it would be fun to shove a stick through the spokes, so to speak.”

“So besides being a murderer, you’re just a bitch.”

“I’m a survivor,” she snarled, and, without warning, she bucked and bounced me off her back. It took her a few seconds to get enough traction to run away, and in that moment I grabbed hold of her foot. She kicked my hand away and raced over to the car. Grabbing the backpack, she pulled out the gun. But I was already right behind her. I yanked on her arm and she bobbled the gun. I managed to slap it away with my other hand.

With a guttural growl, she smacked my face and I fell backward, but caught myself before I hit the ground. She went running for the gun and I plowed into her. We both fell on the damp grass, but I was on top of her again and able to hold her down.

I could see the gun lying in the grass barely ten feet away.

Where the hell were the cops?

My cheek was stinging where she’d smacked me, and I wanted so much to start beating her head into the ground. I’d never been a violent person before but she was turning me into one.

“Tell me why you killed Jerry Saxton,” I demanded.

She tried to buck me off again. I grabbed her hair and pulled it hard, causing her to shriek.

“You scream like a girl,” I said, sneering. I hated to be petty, but it felt good to say that.

“Up yours,” she snarled.

“Why did you kill him?”

“I did the world a favor,” she blurted.

While that may have been true, I wanted to know what drove her to murder him. I asked her again and she grudgingly told me what had happened.

“He threatened to tell the entire town that I was in love with Jennifer.”

I almost felt my jaw hit the ground. She must have sensed my confusion, because she tried to throw me off her again. I was ready this time, though, and held her down more forcefully.

“Okay, first of all,” I said, “why would you fall for Jennifer? And second, how did Jerry find out? And third, who cares if you and Jennifer were an item? You can love whoever you want. Although that brings me back to my first question. How the hell could you ever like Jennifer? She’s a horrible person, in case you couldn’t tell.”

And clinging to life right now,
I remembered. “Oh yeah, and if you loved her so much, why did you try to kill her?”

“If you’ll shut up for a minute, I’ll tell you.”

I grabbed hold of her jacket more tightly, just to let her know who was still on top. “Go ahead and talk.”

She rambled on about first meeting Jennifer when she came into the bank to fill out some loan papers. And she added that she ended up telling Jerry all about it because he was just so darn easy to talk to.

I knew in an instant that Jennifer had only sweet-talked Penny for some ulterior motive. I almost felt sorry for this silly woman who’d bought into Jennifer’s scheme. My pity for her was short-lived, though, since she’d tried to kill me more than once.

She was right about one thing: Jerry really had been very easy to talk to. I remembered that much from our blind date. Still, Penny was holding something back.

“Jerry may have been easy to talk to,” I said, “but why would you tell him something so personal? Were you two honestly friends?”

“We worked on some loans together, got to know each other.” I could hear the evasion in her voice.

It dawned on me what she was leaving out of the story. “You were the one who worked with him to scam those home buyers.”

“I didn’t mean to do it,” she said, her voice whiny, “but it was easy money. Homeowners these days don’t pay enough attention to their loan documents.”

I let that sink in. Apparently it was easy to justify going from fraud to murder when you had no moral compass to start with.

“How did you get Jerry over to the Boyers’ house?” I asked.

She shook her head in disgust, apparently realizing that I wasn’t going to stop asking questions. “We had worked together on the Boyers’ bank loan, so I told Jerry to meet me there to discuss an issue that came up over the closing costs. So we’re standing in the kitchen and he starts coming on to me.”

“What a jerk,” I muttered, realizing that their confrontation must’ve taken place the night after our blind date. He really was something else.

“Yeah, so, needless to say, I refused his advances and that’s when he started taunting me. He threatened to tell my boss that I was in love with a woman. I was furious. He was throwing back in my face something I’d told him in complete confidence. I guess I went a little crazy.”

“So, you were in the kitchen, but he died in the basement.”

“I was just waiting for the right moment. I’d seen your big pink toolbox in the corner of the kitchen and was looking through it. Meanwhile, Jerry’s thinking everything’s going his way. He opens the basement door and says we should go down and check out the work that you guys were doing. Like he really thought I was going to go down into the basement for some kind of romantic interlude with him.”

“He seemed pretty clueless that way.”

“Exactly. So I grabbed that big wrench and followed him downstairs. He was chatting like we were best friends as he wandered around the basement. I waited until he turned away from me and smashed the wrench down on his head. When I realized that he was dead, I wrapped up the wrench and tossed it into the sump pump. Then I got the hell out of there. Oh, but first I stopped and grabbed a bunch more of your tools. Because you never know. It’s always good to be prepared.”

I let that go. “Why did you kill Wendell?”

“Oh, come on. That guy deserved to die.”

Her words gave me chills. There had been a point when I’d hated Wendell enough to be tempted to toss him over a cliff. But I wasn’t about to act on it. Apparently Penny didn’t have that same braking action on her emotions. No, for her it was
Get mad. Take him out.

“But why did you kill him?” I asked again.

She didn’t answer. Instead she twisted and tugged under me, but I continued to hold her down. Finally, panting heavily, she admitted, “I needed to deflect attention away from me.”

“So you picked him out and just . . . killed him.”

“He was an easy target. I met him at a bar on the pier one night. He was such a prissy thing, I was amused. So a few nights later I ran into him on the street and walked back to your place with him. I praised him and pretended to take his side on everything he complained about. He was bitching about your truck in the driveway and that’s when I figured out what to do with him.

“I complimented him on his beautiful car and asked if we could take a ride. He drove around the block, but that was it. He didn’t want to waste any gas. He was another jerk. Anyway. We sat inside the car, talking, while I waited for my moment. When he wasn’t looking I pulled that screwdriver out of my purse and nailed him in the neck. I knew nobody in town would mourn his loss.”

I had to force myself not to shiver at her cold words. She was a sociopath. Pure evil. And the fact that no one had noticed was chilling as well. I wondered if the people she’d killed here in my town were her first victims. I doubted it. This had all been too easy for her. I just had to keep her talking until Eric showed up.
Where is Eric?

“Didn’t you get blood all over you?”

She snickered. “I wore a plastic poncho over my clothes. I told him I thought it might rain.”

I sighed. “So, once Wendell was dead, the police stopped coming around, asking you questions.”

“Yeah. Pretty smart, huh?”

“Except that they turned their attention directly onto me.”

“Oops. Sorry,” she chirped in a mocking tone. She jerked her shoulder to pull her jacket away, but I grabbed it again. She jolted, trying to bounce me off, but that didn’t work, either.