Wicked Lies

  Justice leapt for her, clawing on top of her. She kicked again, swinging hard! Her booted foot jammed into his crotch.

  With a shriek, he doubled over. His knife fell from his hands, skittering across the metal flooring, sliding toward the edge as it listed, then falling, as if in slow motion, to be swallowed in the darkness below.

  Justice’s fingers, slick with his own blood and the rain, scrabbled for purchase on the railing. His weight dragged him downward. Laura held on to the platform with her good arm, trying to inch toward the open window, praying the platform would hold. Its groaning metal hurt her ears. She clawed her way upward, grabbing, struggling. She wrapped her good arm around a rusted metal post, wedging it against her shoulder, flattening her body over the flooring.

  With a horrible scream of twisting metal, the entire platform tore away from the wall of the lighthouse. Part of the flooring gave way and fell to the sea. Laura closed her eyes, held tight, and prayed. Then she felt the clamp of steely fingers around her ankle.

  Justice had grabbed her, his weight too much, dragging her downward.

  No! God, help me. She struggled upward. Her leg felt as if it would pop out of its hip socket. The world started to spin, darkness threatening to shroud her, the wind gusting and keening.

  Her boot began to slip from her foot.

  God, the pain.

  She struggled to hang on, to stay conscious, to not give in to the desperate need to let go.

  Setting her jaw against the agony clawing through her, she kicked back with her free foot and connected with the monster’s arms. Bam!

  He howled again.

  She kicked again, but he twisted. She missed, and it was all she could do not to black out.

  “Laura!” For a moment she thought she heard Harrison’s voice. Oh, God. Her heart wrenched at the thought of him. Again, the blackness came, luring her to let go . . . to fall to the sea like her namesake.

  “Laura, hang on!”

  The world seemed to swim before her eyes. Clouds roiling above, sea swirling below. The blackness tugged at her consciousness, dragging her under.

  Hang on, she told herself, for God’s sake . . . oh, but the pain. Her body felt as if it were being ripped in two.

  Fight, Laura. Do not let him win. For the love of God! Do not let Justice win!

  “You miserable bastard.” One more kick! Smack! She connected with his wrist.

  He screamed, a piercing, soul-splintering cry.

  Suddenly the hand clasping her ankle gave way.

  “Sissterrr! Nooo!”

  She glanced back. Justice tumbled into the night, arms and legs kicking wildly, down, down, down into the darkness. Through the mesh of the platform she watched him disappear to the rocky shoals below.

  He cast out one final threat. You will never be rid of me . . . Lorelei . . . Sisst—

  “Laura!” She looked up and saw Harrison in the open window of the lighthouse. He stood before the dark hole, his gaze on hers, his face white with terror. “Hang on. Do you hear me? Hang on!” He leaned forward, one hand holding on to the broken latch, the other stretched far as he could reach.

  His hand caught only air. “Grab my hand!” he ordered.

  But she couldn’t lift her bad arm. Her wrist throbbed and wouldn’t respond as she flailed.

  His fingers brushed hers.

  “Harrison!” she cried, but it was too late.

  With one final deep, echoing groan, the final bolt gave way and the platform ripped free, wrenching away from the lighthouse.

  Laura, still grasping the rail, began to tumble and fall, spinning out of control. Sky and ground one dark, horrifying blur . . .

  “Lorelei!” Harrison called, his voice drowned by the surf.

  The platform swung downward, then released, Laura with it. The wind rushed. There was a sense of flying. She closed her eyes, expecting death.

  She hit the water so hard, every bone in her body screamed. Arctic cold water poured over her as she sank into the salty depths. Waves crashed and tossed her, yanking her free of the platform. She scraped on rocks and looked up through the watery depths, seeing a light, bright and round, above her.

  Harrison . . . love . . . I’m sorry . . . . so, so sorry . . . I should have told you. . . .

  The blackness came again, seducing her, dragging her under, salt water seeping into her lungs.

  She let go.

  “No!” Harrison watched in horror as Laura fell away, her body disappearing into the sea. He didn’t think twice but took a running start and threw himself out of the lighthouse. He could miss and hit the rocks, or hit the sea and die from the impact, but he didn’t take the time to second-guess himself.

  Through the night he sailed, arms out, down to the ocean that he couldn’t see. At the last moment he tucked himself into a straight arrow and hit the surface tension of the water feetfirst, a wave immediately catching him and tossing him closer to shore.

  He surfaced, treading water, spitting salt water, spying a light . . . on the ocean, a beam illuminating the whirling, foaming surf. In the middle of the beam, he saw her. Limp. Lifeless. Laura.

  He was too late.

  No!

  He swam for her, intent on reaching her, fighting the strength of the surf, forcing himself closer, into that wide swath of light. As he reached her still form, he realized that the light was from a hovering helicopter that battled the buffeting storm as a basket was being lowered.

  “Laura,” he gasped, his voice a whisper, the sea a roar in his ears. He’d lost her. God in heaven he’d lost her. He thought of how he’d reacted when she’d told him she’d been pregnant, how callous he’d been. What a self-serving idiot.

  His soul seemed ripped from his body as he held her, watching her hair fan around her white face as the waves undulated. Her eyes fixed and staring, her skin as cold as the sea, the rain like the tears of the gods. “Lorelei . . . don’t die. Please . . . please . . . don’t die!” The words were torn from him and lost in the thunder of the seas. “Lorelei, I love you! Oh, God . . . you can’t die. You can’t. If you only knew . . .”

  She awoke in a private room at Ocean Park Hospital.

  She remembered hitting the water and a bright light, and Harrison hanging out the yawning window of the lighthouse. In the ensuing moments of lucidity, she recalled images that were more like postcards than a movie. A helicopter ride over the ocean, landing at the hospital. Harrison with her . . . or was that a dream?

  She blinked. “Am I in the north wing?” she asked, getting her bearings.

  The window ledge was covered in flowers, but she was pretty sure the view outside the window was on the north side of the building.

  “Good call. North one-twenty-six.” Harrison’s voice was a surprise. She turned her head and found him seated in one of the chairs that stretched into a bed. It was mussed, as if he’d camped out here. “Lucidity at last,” he said with a smile.

  She tried to lift her arm and found it strapped down, an IV running into it and, she guessed, from the way she was feeling, some pain meds flowing through her bloodstream. She attempted to sit up.

  “Slow down,” he said and was at her side, staring down at her, looking guilty as hell. “Here . . . I think I can work this.” He found the button to raise her head.

  “If you can’t manage, I’m pretty sure I can.”

  “Hey! Look who joined the living!” Carlita Solano, dressed in blue scrubs, came bustling up to the bed. “How’re ya feeling?”

  “Like a train ran over me, then backed up and went at it again.”

  She grinned. “That’s about right. But you’re tough and it looks like you might just live. Let me take your vitals and then you and he”—she cocked her head in Harrison’s direction—“can catch up.”

  Carlita explained her injuries, that Laura had suffered a broken wrist, sprained elbow, concussion, and pulled hip flexor. “All in all, it could have been worse,” Carlita said, then finished with her temperature, pulse, and blood p
ressure, entering the data into a computer by the bed. Once she finished, she said she’d call the doctor for a more extensive examination, then slipped out of the room.

  “Okay, so tell me,” Laura said as the door closed behind the nurse. “Why are either of us alive?”

  “Just lucky.”

  “That’s a long way down.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  She slid him a glance. “I do remember you in the water . . . right?”

  He nodded. “I got a little beat up, scraped and bruised, but that’s about it.”

  “No hypothermia?”

  “As I said, lucky.”

  She drew a long breath. “Justice?”

  “Dead. Fell on the rocks. Not even he could survive that. Broke his neck and a dozen other bones.”

  She closed her eyes for a moment. She didn’t feel any remorse that he lost his life. Too many people had died or been terrorized and wounded because of him. Harrison filled her in on the crimes Zellman had committed against his family. When he finished she asked, “How’s Conrad?” The last time she’d checked, the security guard was still comatose.

  “Awake. Was released yesterday. And Zellman’s still cooling his jets in prison. His son is talking. Seems as if it wasn’t too dark for Brandt to recognize that his own father was trying to wound him. The kid thinks he was supposed to die that night. His father swears not.”

  “My God.”

  “Zellman used Justice’s escape for his own means. He’s as sick as any of ’em.”

  Laura absorbed that. “How long have I been out of it?”

  “Just a couple of days. You’ve surfaced, only to submerge again.”

  “I think I’m back.”

  He smiled, relief sketched on his face.

  “Have you heard from anyone at the Colony? My sisters?”

  “Actually, this . . .” He walked to the window and touched a small pot holding a live tea rose, bright yellow and bursting with blooms, the same kind of small roses that were grown in a sunny spot at Siren Song, as old-fashioned as the women housed there. “It’s from Catherine and your sisters.” He handed her the card. A simple get-well note signed by the women of Siren Song. “I think Catherine may have had a change of heart since Justice breached her walls and some of the girls are itching to get out.”

  “Ravinia,” Laura guessed, running her fingers over Ravinia’s bold scrawl, a large signature next to Lillibeth’s rounder, more feminine one. Lillibeth dotted her i’s with a heart. Ravinia didn’t bother dotting them at all.

  “And this one”—he indicated a large bouquet with tropical flowers, a bird-of-paradise the focal point—“is from Hudson, Becca, and Rachel.”

  “You’ve been going through my mail.”

  “Guilty as charged. And Becca’s been calling.” He handed her a yellow envelope with a funny card. It was signed in a woman’s handwriting—Becca’s—with a wild, multi-colored felt pen scrawl covering most of the message inside.

  “Looks like Rachel’s going to be an author. She’s pretty proud of her signature.” Laura smiled, thinking of Becca’s daughter. The last time she’d seen the toddler, she’d been listless. “How is she?”

  “Better, I think. From what Becca said. But she seems worried.”

  “About the gift,” Laura said aloud. “Becca understands.” Growing up being different was difficult enough for Laura and her sisters. Rachel would have more than her share of battles to fight. Another thought struck her. “There were some kids in the lighthouse that night?”

  “The enterprising Ferguson boys.” Harrison nodded. “The younger one had a fascination with all things Justice Turnbull. Mikey—he felt some kind of weird connection to him, wanted to see his lair for himself, and maybe to impress his friends or a girl, I’m thinking, find some kind of memento, proof that he’d been there. But I think he got enough of that at the lighthouse.”

  “And you know this how?”

  “I got to write their story, gave them their fifteen minutes of fame while their parents intended to give them their thirty days of no car or cell phone.”

  “Death to a teen,” she observed.

  “Yeah, well, hopefully they’ll think twice before they chase down psychotic killers again.” He touched the back of her hand. “And what about you? Are you done ‘calling’ homicidal maniacs?”

  “Let’s hope,” she said. “One personal serial killer is more than enough, don’t you think?”

  “Way more.”

  In her mind’s eye, she saw Justice in the ocean at the lighthouse again, witnessed his terror; and then, when she was nearly lost, was filled with a sense of giving up and letting go, she’d heard Harrison’s frantic voice, felt his warm arms around her in the frigid water. He’d brought her back. “So, you saved my life?”

  “I don’t think I can take credit.” When she raised her eyebrows, encouraging him to explain, he said, “It was actually the Coast Guard. Lieutenant O’Neal. I’ve thanked him for you.”

  “I think I’ll talk to him myself.”

  “That would be good. And then there was Detective Stone. He called them.”

  “Who called him?” she asked, watching the shift of emotions upon Harrison’s handsome face.

  “Me.”

  “But you were in the water.” She was thinking hard, remembering him beside her, talking to her, insisting she not let go. . . . “You jumped!” she cried, absolutely astounded, and when he didn’t respond, she added, “You’re crazy, Frost. And that’s something coming from me. I know crazy.”

  He couldn’t scare up a smile.

  “What?”

  “I think I owe you an apology.”

  “For saving my life?”

  “For being angry with you about the pregnancy.”

  “Oh.” She sighed, not wanting to go there yet.

  “I’m in love with you, Lorelei. I’d just figured that out and it scared me. But then . . . thinking I might have lost you.” His jaw slid to the side and his throat worked, but he didn’t break down. Instead, he slid his fingers around her nape, leaned over, and placed a kiss on her lips. “If you only knew how sorry I am.”

  “I should have told you. . . . I didn’t know how. I was pregnant by my ex-husband, with a baby I intended to keep.” Her throat caught as she remembered the pain of the miscarriage, the loss of the baby. But there was more. He was being honest, and now so was she. “The truth was, I was falling for you. Hard. Fast. I couldn’t believe it was real. It . . . it just didn’t make a lot of sense.”

  “I know.”

  She stared at him long and hard, saw the depth of his pain, a mirror of her own, then reached up to draw his mouth to hers once more. “Maybe we should start over.”

  “Think that’s possible?”

  “Anything is if you want it badly enough,” she said, knowing her eyes were twinkling.

  “Then, how bad do you want this?” he asked.

  “Bad. You?”

  “Even badder,” he said, a slow smile curving his lips.

  She laughed. Then she kissed him. Hard. Just as he expected.

  EPILOGUE

  She’d made a mess of things, Catherine thought as she rode in Earl’s motorboat to Echo Island.

  With all her good intentions, in trying to save her charges from heartache, ridicule, and pain, Catherine had fouled up.

  In the two months since Justice had died, their life at Siren Song had never returned to what Catherine proclaimed was normal.

  The gates of Siren Song were closed and locked again; the work and rules restored. But there was a restlessness with the girls, and Catherine knew the order she had preached, had tried to instill, was forever broken. Ravinia was chomping at the bit to leave; the others would follow.

  They had seen Rebecca with her husband and little girl, had witnessed firsthand Harrison Frost’s dedication to Lorelei. They’d all been swept away by the fantasy and romance that he’d risked his life for her.

  As Earl guided the boat to the small
dock here on Mary’s island of exile, her “Elba” she’d once said, Catherine wondered what she would say to her sister, how she would explain her change of heart. Could she admit that she’d been wrong? That perhaps Mary should return to Siren Song and, as far as anyone knew, from the grave? Of course that wouldn’t work. There were laws about those kinds of things . . . laws similar to faking someone’s death, she supposed. And now that Lorelei spent more time with her sisters, and that fiancé of hers had a nose for news . . . no, it would never work.

  She would have to think of something else.

  The sound of the sea was louder here, the tides splashing around the rocks and shoals. Mary had always said she’d found it comforting.

  Catherine wondered.

  But if she was happy, so be it. Of course, Mary had always been delusional. . . . It ran in their family. . . .

  “I shouldn’t be too long,” she said to Earl as he cut the engine and tied up. “Half an hour, maybe.”

  He nodded. “I’ll wait. Got my pole.”

  With his help, she climbed onto the dock, and left him opening his cooler of bait. Holding her skirts so that the hem of her dress wouldn’t skim the dirt and bird excrement on the old boards, she bustled to a sandy, overgrown path that wound a hundred feet to Mary’s home. The cottage was little more than a one-room cabin, even more austere and cut off from the world than Siren Song. It was a wonder no one had ever found her here. . . . But then, Catherine knew from her own experience that even the most bizarre circumstances did exist . . . how else to explain all the gifts the girls had received.

  There were rumors in town of a hermit who lived on the island, an old hag that ran sightseers off, but if anyone had made the connection between the recluse and Mary Beeman, Catherine didn’t know about it.

  She swatted at a fly as she walked, felt a bead of sweat on her brow. It was late summer now, going on September, the August sun hot against her face.

  A fly? she thought. Out here?

  Odd.

  Then again, what wasn’t odd these days? Everything about her sister had been “out of sync,” “a little off,” or “odd” since her birth. Upon her exile, the cover story was that Mary had fallen to her death on one of her solitary walks, while the woman sometimes seen on Echo Island was the bereaved, reclusive wife of one of the lighthouse caretakers from Whittier Island who had died, but no one really paid attention. Everyone today was all caught up in their own lives, too interested in themselves to do more than gossip about the weird old lady of Echo Island.