Carla Neggers - The Carriage House

What a moronic move on Harl's part, Richard thought, frustrated, as he got down on his knees and with his free hand, unlatched the ladder. He had to make sure Harl was dead. The only way his plan would work was if he could claim to have killed Harley Beckett in self-defense.

Though who would believe Beckett's version of events over his own?

The ladder dropped to the floor.

This was very risky. If Harl was alive and functioning, Richard would be exposed on the rickety ladder.

Best to go around to the bulkhead, he decided.

He tucked the Walther into his waistband, observed that he wasn't breathing hard at all and headed for the kitchen door.

A little girl popped through the lilacs. "Have you seen my cat?" she asked.

Tess pulled up in front of Andrew's house and jumped out of the car. He wasn't at his office. She'd stopped at the Beacon Historic Project offices to check on Lauren Montague, but she wasn't there, either. Tess wanted to talk to both Lauren and Andrew about her visit to the police.

They were looking into Ike Grantham's disappearance. They weren't happy with what they'd found-or, more accurately, hadn't found-so far. They thought perhaps she had seen a skeleton on Friday night after all.

"We wish you'd called us then," Paul Alvarez had told her.

"I wish I had, too."

She pounded up the front steps, but the door was locked and no one answered the bell. She went around back, calling for Harl and Andrew both.

Harl's workshop door was open. Tess picked up her pace, calling for him as she ran over to the outbuilding at the far end of the yard.

She saw the black trash bag and knew what it was. To be sure, she tucked a finger in where it was torn and peered inside.

Bones.

Ike.

It was after school. Harl would have picked up Dolly by now. Had they gone somewhere together?

"Dolly!"

Tess ran out of the shop, climbed up into the girl's tree house. There were stuffed animals and her tea set and books, and a plate of chocolate chip cookies.

"Dolly!"

She could hear panic edging into her voice, assaulting her system. She half climbed, half jumped out of the tree house. She had to call Andrew, but she'd left her cell phone in the car.

Tippy Tail leaped out of the rhododendrons. Tess was so startled, she thought she'd die on the spot, but she didn't scream.

Someone had put the garbage bag in Harl's shop.

Not Harl, she thought.

If Tippy Tail had escaped from the pantry and her kittens, Dolly would be on the case. Find her, Tess told herself. Then call the police.

Or call the police first?

She was already at Dolly's gap in the lilac hedge. A fat blossom brushed against her face as she started through to her yard.

A black BMW was parked in her driveway. A painful jolt of adrenaline shot through her. Richard. Tess took a step backward, knowing she had to call the police now, first, but she heard Dolly say, "My name's Princess Dolly."

Tess went dead-still.

Oh, God.

Her only advantage was that they hadn't seen her. She had no choice. She had to back out into An-drew's yard, and she had to call him, and she had to call the police. She couldn't take any chances. Not with a six-year-old, she thought. Not with Dolly.

"And I'm not going into that dirty old cellar!"

She was there in the lilacs before Tess could move, and the little girl gasped in surprise. "Tess! Tell that man I don't have to do what he says. Have you seen Tippy Tail? And I can't find Harl." She was talking rapidly, ready to cry. "Will you help me find Tippy Tail and Harl?"

Richard Montague came up behind Dolly. "Hello, Miss Haviland."

Tess grabbed the little girl, pulled her through the lilacs and shoved her toward the house. "Run, Dolly! Run! Go get your dad. Hurry!"

"But what are you-"

"Go! It's an emergency. Get your dad. Call 911. Tell them Richard Montague's a-a-"

Dolly's eyes widened in terror. "Is he a bank robber?"

"Yes!" Tess hung on to every shred of control, refused to look back through the lilacs, although she knew what was happening. Dolly was moving toward the house. "Show me how fast you can run!"

Dolly started screaming and running.

"Oh, for God's sake." Richard Montague leveled a very black gun at Tess through the gap in the lilacs. "Obviously you're in this with Harl."

Tess feigned complete surprise, as if Montague couldn't have heard her instructions to Dolly. "Look, I don't know what you're talking about. Is Harl with you? I can't believe he left Dolly alone."

"Come through the lilacs, Miss Haviland." She really had no choice. While she had her doubts whether he'd shoot her-how would he explain it?- he just might. "Fine," she said, impatient, ignoring the twist of fear in her stomach, "let's get this straightened out. I don't like people pointing guns at me."

When she landed on the carriage house side of the lilacs, Richard Montague stepped back. He looked ragged, gray-faced. And calm, she thought. Arrogant. "I don't usually underestimate people," he said, "but I'm afraid I underestimated Harley Beckett."

"Harl? Come on. He works on furniture and takes care of a six-year-old."

"And you," Montague added, as if she hadn't spoken.

"Me? Not to worry. People underestimate me all the time. It comes with the turf. When you're a graphic designer, the artists all think you're not a real artist and thus not one of them, and the nonartists all think you're a real artist and thus not one of them. " She sighed, her instincts operating almost without her consent. "Please put the gun away. I'm not in cahoots with Harley Beckett."

"He's manipulated everyone, my wife included. He killed Ike. I found his remains in the trunk of Lauren's car. I brought them here-I was furious, I admit. I wasn't thinking."

Tess doubted Richard Montague ever stopped thinking. "You confronted him?"

He nodded. "I should have called the police."

"But you didn't. What did Harl do?"

"He told me he wanted to confess. We walked over here together, but that was another manipulation. He jumped me, and my gun went off-"

"My God." Tess could feel herself go pale, her breathing get shallow. Her throat and chest felt tight. "Were either of you hurt?"

"I wasn't."

"Dr. Montague-"

"You've done well, Tess, but now-" He shrugged, resigned. He motioned at her with his gun. "Let's go inside, shall we?"

Richard didn't love her. He'd never loved her. He loved the idea of her. Her money. Her family name. Her house on the ocean. Ike had seen through him from the beginning.

She should have known. He saw through everybody.

Lauren ducked under a low-hanging branch and sank onto her favorite teak bench under a canopy of climbing roses. They wouldn't bloom until mid-June. She wondered if she'd be around when they did.

What did the police do to a woman who'd tried to cover up the murder of her brother, even if she was protecting the wrong man?

Would she be arrested, tried, found guilty of something and thrown into prison?

If she'd testified against Andrew, he could have been convicted, like Jedidiah Thorne, of a murder he did not commit.

But, of course, Andrew would never lose control. She should have known.

Two poodles climbed onto her lap, the third snuggled next to her. She sank her head back and closed her eyes, smelling the roses that weren't there as she waited for the police to come for her.

The police were on the way.

Andrew gripped the wheel of his truck and drove along the ocean road. The tide was up, the wind brisk. He had his windows rolled down and was breathing in the ocean smells, letting them calm him. He would get home. He would find Harl and Dolly.