Chastened, she headed up the front walk and mounted the front steps, glancing back at the street. Still no Denardo, no Otto, no car. No Garvin. No sign of any killer.
Even from the outside, the enormous house felt empty. Annie peered into a panel window. Nobody was there, she thought. She'd just gotten caught up in Sarah's drama. Finding her semiconscious had rattled her.
The front door opened, and Annie jumped back, so startled she almost fell down the steps.
Ethan Conninger gazed out at her from the shadow of the heavy door. "Well. Annie Payne. I wasn't expecting you. I suppose that was naive on my part, given your activities this past week." The easy manner was there, but the handsome dark eyes behind the glasses had a wild look to them. He smiled, opened the door wider. "Do come in."
Annie tried to smile back. "Oh, it's you, Ethan. I thought—I'm looking for Vic Denardo. He stole my car. I think he just assaulted Sarah Linwood."
"Really? Now why would he come here?"
She thought fast and decided to lie, pretend she believed Vic Denardo was the real killer. "He stole Sarah's key—"
"Annie. Don't lie to me. People always think they can lie to me. That I won't notice. That I don't notice anything. Well, sweet cheeks, I do. I notice everything." He opened the door wider. He had on jeans today, a red cashmere sweater, boat shoes. He sniffed. "It's been a hellishly long five years."
"Ethan—"
"Come inside, Annie. We'll wait for Vic Denardo together."
Her stomach churned, and she thought she might be sick.
Ethan Conninger studied her a moment and said matter-of-factly, "Annie, let me be perfectly clear here. I'm at the end of my rope. I've been playing the carefree yuppie for five years while waiting for Vic Denardo and Sarah Linwood to show up, compare notes, and realize what really happened. All week I've done all I could to keep them apart."
"Including breaking into my apartment and beating up my dog."
"Including that, yes. Don't doubt me, Annie Payne, and don't give me any trouble. If I must, I'll shoot you right here on the doorstep and drag your corpse inside."
Annie's nausea worsened, but she struggled to remain coherent. "Ethan, Sarah is telling the police everything. They'll be here any minute—"
"So the bitch lived, did she? Well, it doesn't matter. She didn't see me. I suppose I should have made sure she was dead, but I knew you and my friend Garvin would ride in on your white horses at any moment." He sniffled, sudden tears in his eyes. "Christ, what a mess. If only people had listened to reason."
"I'm willing to listen—"
"It doesn't matter now," he said, rallying. He squared his shoulders and produced a small, lethal-looking black gun. "Thomas, Haley—they left me no choice. It was them or me. I chose me. There's no turning back the clock. Now, Annie. Do come in."
She could sense his strain, just how close he was to slipping off the edge. She had no reason to doubt him. He would kill her on the Linwood doorstep, and he'd drag her body inside.
In trying to keep Vic Denardo from falling into a trap, she realized, she'd fallen into one herself.
Feeling steadier than she would have ever imagined, she entered the huge house. Her footsteps echoed on the hardwood floor. There was none of the festiveness of last Saturday, no hum of excited buyers, no guards, no discreet auctioneers.
No Garvin MacCrae, she thought.
Ethan made her go in front of him, his gun leveled at her back. He nudged her down the main hall toward the ballroom, having her veer off into an elegant, rectangular room with ornate woodworking, built-in shelves, and an enormous marble fireplace. It was bare except for Sarah Linwood's portrait of her niece at sixteen. It was leaned up against a wall, Haley smiling out at them as if she had nothing to fear.
"She was even more beautiful as she got older," Ethan said.
Annie looked around at him. "I've no doubt she was."
He had tears in his eyes. "She left me no choice. Christ. I couldn't do what she asked. She thought—" He cleared his throat, blinked back tears. "She thought if she was the one who asked me to do the right thing, I would do it. She knew I admired her, respected her. She was the one Linwood I never wanted to hurt."
"She knew you'd killed her grandfather," Annie said.
"Oh, yes. She knew. She'd decided to look into Sarah's finances in order to help her with her gambling problem. She discovered a mistake I'd made."
"How big a mistake?"
"Huge. I lost millions in a scheme I invested in without her grandfather's knowledge. It wasn't easy to do. I suppose in my own way I was as addicted to gambling as Sarah was. I compounded the first mistake by trying to cover it up, but with time, I knew I could make up for it. A few more years and no one would have been the wiser."
"You couldn't just 'fess up?" Annie asked, hoping to keep him talking and give the police, Garvin, Vic Denardo—anyone—a chance to get there.
He smiled thinly. "To Thomas Linwood? Not a chance. He wasn't a man to tolerate incompetence in anyone, from the kitchen maid to his own children, and hardly from a trusted financial adviser."