Into the Fire - Anne Stuart [42]
It wasn’t anything personal. He’d always been fond of his little cousin, and she’d adored him. She’d never been a threat—even Uncle Victor had loved him more, although he was more observant than Aunt Isobel. And when Dillon had to choose between Nate and his innocent little cousin there’d been no question.
Maybe it was Jamie’s very innocence that made him crazy, Nate thought. Her blind, stupid trust, when he knew she was much too smart for her own good. Just not smart in judging character.
He’d listened to them in the kitchen, the crash of glasses, the muffled conversation followed by long silences, and he could just imagine what they were doing. What they were going to do if he didn’t put a stop to it.
He’d been waiting here for a chance to kill Dillon. Killing them both at the same time would simplify matters, but he wasn’t going to give them that much. They’d die separately, alone, in pain, frightened. Dillon Gaynor would be a hard man to frighten, but then, he’d never come face-to-face with a ghost before.
He’d start with Jamie. She’d outlived her usefulness, and finding her dead would bother Gaynor. Bother him a lot.
The only question left was how to do it. How could a ghost kill?
Jamie huddled in the corner of her room, shivering, the comforter pulled tight around her. Sometime during the night the heat stopped working. She was freezing, and she was damned well going to freeze to death before she set foot outside her room.
She’d stolen the skeleton key from the bathroom in her panicked flight, and her door was locked, a chair propped under the doorknob for good measure. It wouldn’t stop Dillon if he was determined, of course. But she really didn’t think he was the slightest bit determined.
He’d stretched her across the big oak table in the kitchen with no other purpose than to intimidate her. She couldn’t figure out why he would care. If he wanted to get rid of her all he had to do was give her the money. She’d pay him back and he knew it. The Kincaids had always had money, and Dillon Gaynor had none, even if he seemed to have mysteriously acquired that huge old garage. Probably bought it on drug money. And if he hadn’t killed Nate then it was probably one of his Colombian drug lord friends who’d made a mistake, killing an innocent man rather than Dillon.
Though even the most forgiving of cousins couldn’t really consider Nate an innocent. He was charming, sweet-natured and generous, but he was far from a good boy. And Jamie had never known for certain who was the leader and who was the follower with Nate and Dillon.
It didn’t matter any longer. Nate was dead, and she was never going to see Dillon again. As soon as the sun was up she was going to put on every piece of clothing she could find and walk straight out into the snow, keep walking until she came to someone who could help. Hell, there was Triple A. She had no cards, no proof, but computers kept all that information. They could trace her records and send someone to fetch and fix her car. Isn’t that what she paid money for?
The police would help. After all, her purse had been stolen, and she was stranded in a strange town. Even a homeless shelter was preferable to sleeping under Dillon’s roof for one more night. Safer.
The wind had picked up, howling around the old building like a banshee. What the hell was a banshee? she wondered. Some Irish ghost? A harbinger of death? Death didn’t need any harbingers—it had already come and taken what it wanted.
She waited, huddled in the corner of the room, until the first tendrils of light began to slide over the peeling windowsill. And then she stood up, looking around for her shoes.
She was already wearing most of her clothing as a paltry defense against the chill in the room. In the shadowy predawn light she couldn’t see her shoes at first, so she switched on the light, still shivering slightly.
There were no shoes. No leather running shoes that could