Carla Neggers - The Mist

In the next instant, Will burst out from the spruce tree and bounded onto the dock, pistol pointed at the second man in the speedboat. “You. Hands in the air.”

The man complied and raised both his hands above him.

A three-shot burst rang out farther up on the hill, but neither Fletcher nor Will seemed concerned that it was anything but friendly fire.

Will addressed Fletcher but kept his eyes-and gun-on the man in the boat. “Do you need him on the boat or off?”

“Off. You’re bloody relentless, Lord Will.” Fletcher sighed, rifle pointed at Norman, who was still thrashing for balance on the rocks. “I’ve been trying to stay a step ahead of you for two years.”

“Myles. My God.” Will stepped onto the dock and spared a half glance toward the rocks. “Lizzie?”

“I’m okay. I think I stepped on a starfish.” She climbed over the tumble of rocks to Norman, still thrashing for his balance. “Don’t move or one of the Brits will shoot you.” She checked him for additional weapons but found none. “You had everything, Norman. Money, adventure. Friends. But they weren’t enough. Now you’re alone in this world, and it’s your own doing.”

He hissed at her. “A hotelier. A Rush. You’re one of John March’s people. You betrayed me. I will kill you one day, Lizzie.” He spoke coldly, as if he hadn’t lost. “Slowly. With my own hands.”

Lizzie stood on a dry boulder. “John March is a good man, and you’re exactly what you’re afraid you are.”

“Not one of the big boys,” Abigail said, appearing at the bottom of the steep path.

Norman breathed in with a snarl and started to charge for her, but she leveled a pistol at him. “Don’t,” she said.

He stopped, debated a fraction of a second and dived for her and her gun.

Simon was right behind her on the path and fired at the same time Abigail did.

If Norman made a sound as he fell, Lizzie didn’t hear it over the echo of the gunfire, the whoosh of the tide moving on and off the rocks behind her.

Abigail collapsed onto her knees and vomited among the rocks. Fletcher stepped off and put an arm around her, helping her to her feet. “Might not just be seasickness, love,” he said. “Ever think of that?”

She stared at him. “What?”

He winked. “You’ll make a hell of a mum.” He walked past Norman ’s body to Lizzie, no humor in his gray eyes now. “Don’t look at him. He’s gone. A pity, in a way. He’d rather be off to hell than in prison.”

“You’re right. He…” Lizzie shivered in the cool, damp air. “I did what I could.”

“I know, love. I wouldn’t have let him shoot you.” Fletcher grinned suddenly. “Not with Lord Davenport on the premises. He’s besotted with you.”

Down the dock, the man on the boat refused Will’s order to disembark and scoffed. “You won’t shoot an unarmed man.”

“Watch this,” Fletcher said, amused, beside Lizzie.

In the next instant, Will leaped onto the boat, nailed the man with the butt of his gun and sent him sprawling into the cold Maine water.

Fletcher smiled at Lizzie. “Now he’s off the boat. You’re just as handy with your walking stick.” His eyes matched the color of the fog as he nodded toward the water. “Estabrook has a yacht waiting for him offshore. It’s not the same one he took here from Boston.”

“I know,” Lizzie said.

Simon took charge of the man in the water, and Will approached his fellow Brit. “Its name?” he asked.

Fletcher looked at him. “I’d kill for its name.”

The dripping thug walked down the dock, his hands held high, Simon behind him. He glanced down at the body of his partner. “We were just transportation. We didn’t know where we were headed from here.”

“And killers,” Simon added.

“You’ve been onto a terrorist plot,” Will said to Fletcher.

“For two years. It’s a bad one. The name of the yacht gets me closer to stopping it.” Fletcher settled his gaze on his friend. “I couldn’t prevent what happened in Afghanistan. David and Philip. You. There was nothing I could do except carry on. It was necessary for you to think I was dead. A traitor.”

“You latched on to a drug-terrorism connection. It led you to Estabrook.”

“I tipped off March. Anonymously, but I think he sensed it was me. He didn’t ask.”

Abigail glanced at them from the dock. “My father won’t ask a question if he doesn’t want to know the answer.”

Fletcher nodded. “Smart man.” He turned back to Lizzie and Will. “ Afghanistan wasn’t March’s fault, either. Or yours, Will. I found out about the attacks in Boston too late to do anything but try to mitigate the damage. I didn’t know about the attack in Ireland.”

“You were there,” Will said.

“I’d contemplated talking to Simon myself, but he wasn’t in the village. I came to my senses.” Fletcher’s gray eyes sparked with amusement. “If I wasn’t talking to Special Branch, I wasn’t talking to the bloody FBI.”

“You had to remain a ghost. Whatever I can do,” Will said, “I am at your disposal. You’re not alone.”

Fletcher grinned. “As if I have a choice.”

Lizzie contained her emotions. “You were right. Norman was headed to a yacht. He had it all planned. I was to be his…” She took a breath, not looking at his body. “The boat’s name is Lavender Lady.”

“Lavender-”

“My mother loved lavender,” Lizzie whispered.

“The man was a manipulative, controlling bastard who relished the thought of being John March’s nemesis, with you at his side,” Fletcher said. “You’ve helped this past year more than you know. I promise you. We’ll catch the rest of these bloody bastards.”

“I’ll do what I can-”

“What you can do is keep Lord Will busy and off my tail.” He turned to his friend. “Take care of Josie.”

“She’ll hate the idea,” Will said, but his humor didn’t reach his eyes. “She’s been muttering about killing you for two years even when she thought you were dead. She said we should find your body, dig you up and kill you again.”

Fletcher’s grin broadened. “That’s my girl.”

He ran onto the dock, jumped in the speedboat and took off into the fog.

Lizzie began to shake. Will turned to her, easing his arms around her, and they held each other as the last sounds of the boat carrying his friend faded in the distance.

Near Kennebunkport, Maine

10:45 a.m., EDT

August 27

When Bob saw Lizzie Rush for the first time, standing on a rock with the tide swirling at her feet and Will Davenport not taking his eyes off her, he decided he might as well give up. Things had happened in his city in the past thirty years that he didn’t know about and never would, and most of them involved John March.

He, March and Harlan Rush had arrived just as the Maine SWAT guys were sweeping the property for bombs, bodies, thugs and weapons, but Lizzie, Simon, the two Brits and a beat-up Abigail had the situation under control.

All the Maine guys found was a.22 revolver in a sugar canister.

The old lady who’d lived her last years here had been as self-reliant as her offspring.

Paramedics were still trying to talk Abigail into letting them strap her to a stretcher. She’d collapsed in her father’s arms when she saw him, but she was back on her feet now, reenergized, ready to argue with anyone or anything.

And puking. Bob could take her fat lip better than the vomit.

He watched Davenport walk up the hill from the water. The fog was burning off, creating a glare. The investigation was just getting started. Two thugs dead and two thugs captured. One dead billionaire.

One missing Brit.