Reservations for Murder - Tim Myers [58]
Driving to the inn, Alex was glad to be heading back home. The Hatteras West was his harbor in a world gone mad, the only place he truly felt safe.
As Alex walked in through the front door, he saw Jenny Harris standing behind the desk going through his guest book.
As he tried to back out of the room, she held a gun up and said, “Come on, Alex. Things are just getting interesting. You don’t want to leave now, do you?”
With a gun pointed at him, Alex gained little satisfaction in knowing that his suspicions had been right.
Alex said, “There’s a part of me that still can’t believe you killed Jefferson Lee. You had to be insane to get the strength to skewer him to the post like that.”
Her voice was calm and reasonable as she explained, “You’ve obviously never wrestled a heavy maple weaving frame around. I’m a lot stronger than you could ever imagine, Alex.”
“What about the murder weapon? Was it one of Bill Yadkin’s pieces?”
“Hardly. The swooping design on the end of the shaft was easy enough for Jefferson to duplicate. He’d done it as one final favor if I promised to leave him alone after that. I told him it had to match a set Bill had made, and that his younger competition had claimed Jefferson didn’t have the skill to match it. It was that simple. How delightful I ended up using it on him.”
“What about the postcard I found in Jefferson’s room? That was from you, wasn’t it? I saw how heavily you pressed down on the pen when you wrote it, then I saw the same thing on one of your price tags at Shantara’s store.”
Jenny’s voice was filled with disdain. “Of course it was from me. When I found you’d made copies of it, I knew you were on my trail. What happened to the original?”
“I took it back upstairs, and the sheriff found it.”
She shook her head. “I was never worried about him figuring this out. You’ve been my main threat all along, Alex. I suppose you found my bracelet in your office.”
He nodded. “At first I thought Elise had dropped it, but the more I played with it, the more certain I was that it belonged to someone else. I knew I’d seen it before, but I just remembered an hour ago that it was on your wrist, not Elise’s. You wore it the first day of the fair as you worked at your loom.”
“I came back here to look for it, and when I found it in your room, I knew it was only a matter of time until you figured it out.” As Jenny’s finger tightened on the trigger, she added, “I’m sorry it had to end this way, but you really didn’t leave me any choice.”
Chapter 22
“Don’t do anything stupid, Jenny. You can’t get away with this.”
She smiled softly as she brought the gun up toward Alex’s chest. Jenny was ten feet away from him; there was no way she could miss at that range.
She said sadly, “Alex, you’re my last loose thread. Once I take care of you, there won’t be any trail leading back to me. I’m sorry. I really did like you, Alex.”
Alex scanned the lobby, trying to come up with anything he could use to defend himself. He was too close to the wall to be within reach of the fireplace poker.
So what could he use? The closest thing to him was the end table with the ornate iron piece Jefferson Lee had made perched on the edge of it. Alex couldn’t imagine using it as a weapon, but what choice did he have? If he could distract Jenny by throwing the iron at her, maybe he could get outside. No one knew the land around Hatteras West better than he did, and if Alex could just manage to escape out the front door, he might still have a fighting chance.
It had to be better than just standing there, waiting for Jenny Harris to pull the trigger.
Before Alex could make his move, he had to divert her attention.
Alex prodded her. “How did you manage to kidnap Marilynn? Why did you kill her, Jenny? I can’t imagine that she really committed suicide.”
Jenny laughed softly. “Alex, you’re giving me way too much credit. I had nothing to do with her disappearance or her death. I imagine she was feeling so wracked with guilt over betraying