Page 89 of The Bride Wore White

“Shut up.”

“You are very predictable,” Jack said.

Harley jabbed the gun at him. “I said shut your mouth.”

There was movement in the hallway that led to the bedrooms. Luther spoke from the shadows.

“Drop the gun, Flood,” he said.

Harley, already unnerved, flinched and swung around to confront the threat, simultaneously pulling the trigger in a frantic, reflexive motion. The sound of the shot was muffled but not actually silenced. A bullet punched a wall.

“Shit,” Luther muttered.

Harley tried to line up another shot.

Jack had already grabbed the crystal paperweight. He launched it at Harley. The small missile slammed into Flood’s chest with enough force to make him grunt and stagger back, off-balance. He dropped the pistol. It rang on the tile floor.

Luther moved out of the hallway. “Hands behind your head, Flood.”

Flood lurched back another step and came up against the drinks cart.

Luther started across the room, bending down to retrieve the gun.

“Stop him,” Jack shouted, heading across the room toward Harley.

But he was too late. Harley had seized the small bottle of poison. He swallowed the contents in a single gulp.

“I’m not going back to that fucking asylum,” he whispered.

Jack stopped several steps away. Luther straightened, the recovered pistol in his hand. Together they watched Harley convulse and collapse to the floor.

“Never going back,” Harley gasped.

In the next moment it was over. He lay, unmoving, on the floor.

Luther opened one side of his jacket and inserted his pistol into the shoulder holster. He looked at Jack, brows slightly elevated. “Now what?”

Jack studied the dead man for a moment, mentally slotting more puzzle pieces into place.

“This isn’t over yet,” he said.

Luther eyed him. “What happens next?”

“There is a high probability that Rollins Dover will return to Burning Cove as soon as he gets the news of Flood’s death.”

“Because he will realize there’s no one left to drive his mother’s limo back to San Francisco?”

“No. There are other ways the car could be managed. Dover will return because he’ll realize that Maud Hollister is about to become a serious problem.”

“Think he’ll try to buy Hollister’s silence?”

Jack listened to the chimes clashing gently somewhere in the ether.

“No,” he said. “Dover will try to kill her.”

Chapter 42

So much for staying out of the line of fire,” Prudence said. She glared at Jack. “What could possibly go wrong, you said.Everything is under control, you said.Luther Pell will be there to cover me, you said.”

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