Shameless (The Contemporary Collection) (34 page)

When the knock came, she jumped and spun to face the door. It was not that close, however; it sounded lighter and farther away, as if it might be coming from the Fort's front entrance.

Should she ignore it or check it out? Should she stay where she was, or venture far enough out of the room to discover what was going on?

The knocking could be Reid, trying to get back inside. For her to be safe, he had to have locked whatever exit he had taken behind him. What if he was injured, in no shape to get back in the same way he went out?

She flipped the dead bolt, opened the door a narrow crack.

The sound was definitely at the front door. She moved along the hall and through the living room toward it with some trepidation. Then she heard a familiar voice speaking in low concern.

“Camilla? You all right in there? I thought I heard shots.”

“Uncle Jack,” she said, bending her head toward the door. “Is that you?”

“Somebody told me they saw you heading this way in Sayers's Jeep. It was so late, I thought I'd see if everything's all right. Let me in, Camilla.”

There were times when a meddling busybody could come in handy. He had been in Vietnam; he must know something about snipers. Besides, she couldn't leave him out there where he might be shot by mistake. She pushed up the metal bar, then turned the locks.

He had been in Vietnam; he must know something about snipers
—

Recognition exploded inside her. The sniper was her uncle. She leaned against the door to hold it as she snatched at the lock to turn it again.

The heavy door panel slammed into her. She careened backward, hitting the wall and bouncing off it. Agony ripped through her, radiating in burning waves from her abdomen. She cried out, a sound quickly strangled. Staggering, she tried to catch her balance, then her feet went out from under her and she crashed to the floor.

In a stunned haze she saw the hefty figure of her uncle bearing down on her. It was so black inside the house with the windows closed off that he was silhouetted against the lesser darkness outside. He carried a long weapon in one hand, a rifle.

Following the sound she had made, he lashed out with a kick. She rolled with desperate speed. He missed her, though there was a grinding pain at the point of her hipbone from her weight on the little pistol high in her pocket. She reached for it, dragging her loose shirt aside, feeling for the grip even as she scuttled away over the polished floor.

The door into the living room was just behind her, she thought; she could feel the slight draft from the open space. She plunged through it on hands and knees, rolling behind the protection of the wall before she surged to her feet. Skimming through the room, she tried to remember exactly how the house was laid out. Her best advantage at this moment was that she had made her way through this area in the dark twice already tonight and her uncle did not know the house at all.

She rounded the sofa, skirted a rocker. She was almost sure there was a door leading into the dining room somewhere just in front of her.

“Come back here,” Jack Taggart grunted in frustrated rage.

A shot blasted, whining. It struck the wall where Cammie had been seconds before. He was firing at shadows and sounds; he couldn't actually see her.

The small pistol came free of her pocket. He made no better target than she did, however, and if she fired, he would be warned that she was armed. If she could make it back to the safe room before he closed in on her, she might be all right. She had only to pass through the dining room and back out into the hall, then down two doors to the study.

She stood still, trying to control her breathing. She could feel the seep of wetness against her shirt and into the waistband of her jeans; she must have torn her stitches.

There was no time to think about it. She had to recall where the table was sitting and how the chairs were arranged. Moving with great care, she picked up one foot, took a step, then another and another.

She was almost to the hall door when she brushed a china closet. Dishes toppled with dull thuds, crystal ringing musically as glasses bumped together. Orange fire spat from across the room.

Cammie whirled away from shattering glass and china and lunged for the door. Hurtling herself through it, she flew down the hall. She felt the stream of wind in her face, heard the splatter of rain. Then she saw a shade of movement, and blind terror gripped her.

She was racing toward the rear of the house, away from the open front door. If she felt the wind, it was because the back door was open, allowing it to sweep down the hall. Ahead of her, she saw the gray rectangle of the opening, saw also the shifting shadow of a man carrying a gun.

The man brought the rifle to his shoulder. His voice quiet, yet savage with authority, he said, “Hold it right there.”

Cammie skidded to a halt. Behind her, she heard her uncle's heavy footsteps pound once, twice more, before they ceased. He cursed, a sound suddenly shocking in the same voice he had so often used to pray.

The man with the rifle to his shoulder was Reid. His order had not been for her.

“My bead's on Camilla,” Taggart snarled. “Fire, and I take her out with me.”

There was a moment of electric silence. Lightning pulsed, sending its pale glow through the open door to illuminate the frozen tableau in the hall. Cammie saw both men standing poised and ready. Reid had moved nearer, almost directly opposite the study door. In the steady beam of the computer screen's light, his face gave no hint of yielding. Her uncle held his firearm close against his body, but it was pointing straight at her.

The small pistol was heavy in her hand.

“Now then,” the Reverend Taggart said, gloating rising rich in his voice. “Put your weapon down, Sayers, or I'll kill her anyway.”

The only sign that Reid had heard was the tightening of the skin around his eyes. He said evenly, “You'll kill her no matter what I do. You can't let her live because she's in your way.”

“So are you,” Cammie's uncle said in implicit agreement, “but I thought, you being such a gentleman, that you would want to go first.”

Silence returned, stretched. Reid did not look at Cammie directly, but she thought he missed no detail of her appearance, from the red sheen of wetness at her waist to the gun half hidden in her fingers where her hand hung at her side. He made an infinitesimal movement, as if he meant to take the rifle down from his shoulder.

“No!” Cammie cried.

Reid turned his gaze in her direction. His tone weary, he said, “There's nothing else I can do.”

It wasn't like him to give up, that much she knew. An instant later she saw what he was doing.

It was not a surrender, but a sacrifice.

“No,” she said again, but it was too late.

He lowered the weapon in his hands.

“All the way to the floor,” Taggart said, his own rifle unwavering as it covered Cammie.

Reid let the rifle fall. Before the thudding clatter died away, Cammie's uncle turned the muzzle of his rifle in the other man's direction.

“Stop!” Cammie said, bringing up the pistol in her hand.

The heavyset man's eyes widened and his mouth tightened, but he held still. A moment later his face cracked in a sardonic smile. “You won't fire. You're too soft.”

Was he right? She didn't know. If the pistol had been in her hand when he first came at her in the dark, it might have been automatic. This was so calculated.

She had pointed a gun at Keith and pulled the trigger. The difference was that she had shot at the headlights on his Rover, at the ground in front of his feet, anywhere except at him. His injuries, small as they were, had been an accident.

All she had inside her now was a deathly fear for Reid, plus a strong need to slow what was happening until she decided what she would do next.

“Why?” she said, bringing her other hand up to steady the pistol that was trembling in her grasp. “Why are you trying to kill me?”

“Don't be stupid.”

“It's simple,” Reid answered for him. “His wife is your closest relative. She is also your legal heir, according to the forced heirship laws of the state, since you canceled your portion of the mutual will you had with Keith. It makes no difference whether you hold title to the mill land plus a portion of the operation, or only Keith's share of Sayers-Hutton alone; either way, he stands to gain control of a sizable chunk since his wife is under his thumb. Though it wouldn't surprise me to learn your aunt Sara is scheduled for a nice little accident as soon as you're out of the way.”

“But what about you?” she said. “Why try to kill me here, where you are, when it would have been so much easier somewhere else?”

“Shall I tell her,” Reid said to Taggart in jibing tones.

“Why not? You haven't done half bad so far.”

Reid dipped his head in grim acknowledgment. “I think,” he said, not taking his eyes from the other man, “that I'm cast as the scapegoat. I imagine our bodies are supposed to be found in the classic murder-suicide position — everyone knowing how I killed Keith and was trapped in a sordid and hopeless affair with you. That the sale of the mill will proceed more smoothly with me out of the way is a plus.”

“You killed—” she began, then stopped. “No. You couldn't have.”

“No,” Reid agreed in soft satisfaction for her conclusion. “I think Keith's mistake was maybe trying to borrow money from your uncle here — as well as from a mob-controlled finance company. That and muscling in on the preacher's fun with the choir girl.”

Cammie saw what Reid was doing. He was killing time, talking long enough — enough for what? To let her nerves settle? To give himself an opening? Or was he waiting for whoever would come in answer to his message? The least she could do was help him.

“Choir girl?” she asked.

“Evie, as if you didn't know,” her uncle answered in scathing tones. “My God, even Sayers heard the rumors. And don't forget I saw her at your house, the two of you with your heads together, whispering about me. Why you would listen to such a little tramp instead of your own uncle—”

“You,” she whispered. “You're the one who hounded her when she walked out on you, the man who kept trying to get her back.”

“She was the only exciting thing that ever happened to me. I did everything I could think of to have her, even trying to get you to give Keith another chance so he would drop her and I could step in. That smartass husband of yours figured it out at the reunion, had me meet him in the game reserve. He wanted a loan, and as collateral he could deliver Evie on a platter. Bastard. But he fixed himself by mouthing off about the wills, his and yours. It all came clear while he sat there sneering at me.”

“Money and jealous rage,” Reid said softly, “a lethal combination.”

“It was so simple. Kill Keith, Cammie inherits. Kill Cammie, and Sara gets the money.”

“Kill Aunt Sara,” Cammie said in appalled comprehension, “and you have it all. In the meantime, Evie is alone and broke, and when everything is over—”

“I'll be there to comfort her and take care of her, and there will be all that money from the mill sale to make her come around.”

“How can you be sure she will? When you won't lift a finger to help her right now?”

“It's too soon,” the reverend said with rough anger in his voice. “I can't afford to set the old cats squalling about me and her again like they did last year. I've got them going my way, smacking their gums over you and Sayers and all that old rot I fed them about Justin and Lavinia. They do love a sex scandal, the juicier the better.”

“But wait,” she said in frowning thought. “It was you sneaking around the house at night; I know it was, because I saw you. And that was before Keith was killed.”

“Me and Sayers. I could have laughed myself silly, watching him moon around. He thought he was the only one with any skill at stalking. He didn't know I was infiltrating enemy lines before he was dry behind the ears. Why, he never knew I was there.”

“Wrong,” Reid said. “My mistake was in thinking you were a dirty old man. About the time I decided you needed a lesson in manners, you stopped.”

The other man scowled. “I had to know whether that husband of hers was coming around at first, to see if they were getting it together. Later, it seemed a good idea to keep tabs on when she went to bed. And maybe who with.”

“Which was about the time you picked me out as the fall guy,” Reid said in soft suggestion.

“You had it coming. It was your fault the Baylor girl disappeared. She came to me all in a quiver, asking me as her pastor what was the right thing to do about what she found. I told her to sit tight, but you helped her run out on me, and that cut the amount Camilla might have inherited. You didn't want my niece having the whole show any more than Keith or Gordon Hutton, did you Sayers? You're just as dirty as the rest of us.”

“That's true,” Reid said, his voice even.

Cammie wanted to turn and force Reid to meet her gaze so she could judge for herself what he meant. She couldn't; she had to watch her uncle. The strain in her arms, and in her mind, was becoming unbearable. The fine trembling that shook her was almost a rigor. She had to do something. Soon.

Her uncle laughed, his gaze on Reid. “I'm sure the Lord will forgive me for killing a sinner like you, then. Your soul is black, Hell is waiting for you, and I am only an instrument of His will. If He wants to save you, He can. Would you like to pray for a miracle before you go?”