“Drop your weapon, Abigail.” Ellis’s voice was calm, just as it had been earlier that morning on the phone to her. “If you don’t, Linc is dead. I’m an expert marksman.”
She had no doubt he was telling the truth. “One of your many secrets.”
He inhaled sharply through his nose. He liked being in charge. “Do it now.”
“Okay, I’m putting the gun down—”
“Toss it in the water.”
Hell. She nodded, opening her fingers from her grip on the weapon. “I’m tossing it now.” She reached her arm out and pitched her Glock over the cliff. “Done. Now let your nephew go. You have me. That’s enough for you to get away.”
“So noble.”
Linc sputtered in a mix of anger and terror. “Ellis…Jesus…”
“Focus on saving your own skin.” Abigail kept her voice calm. Reasonable. Any vulnerability on her part would only increase Ellis’s sense of control over her. He needed to see he had one option and one option only, and that was not to fire his weapon. “Go, Ellis. Disappear. Don’t waste your time on these games.”
“You won’t stop. You won’t ever stop.”
“Neither will the FBI, Doyle Alden, Owen Garrison or Lou Beeler, even after he retires. The Maine State Police will keep the Browning file open. I know a couple of Boston detectives who’ll hunt you.”
“This is you. All you.”
“It’s not just me. It’s never been just me. And that’s not why you’re out here now. If you wanted me dead, you could have shot me while I was sitting out on the rocks reading a book.”
Linc licked his lips. “Ellis, you’re sick. Let your family help you—”
“Shut up!” He pressed the barrel of his gun against his nephew’s temple. “I don’t want your help. I’ve lived in my brother’s shadow my whole life. I’ve kept to myself. I’ve done so much for you and Grace. For him. And what’s my thanks? He decides to sell my house. My sanctuary.”
“You made it your sanctuary because you loved Doe,” Abigail said.
“Because I love her. Present tense. I’m not a pervert who likes young girls—who goes from one girl to the next to the next. I keep Doe’s memory alive every single day. I honor her.”
“What if her ghost is here now, where she died, watching you?” Keep him talking, Abigail thought. If he’s talking, he’s not shooting. She went on, brisk but choosing her words carefully. “Everything I know about her tells me she was a kind, gentle soul. I saw the picture of her you left. The one you took. You knew that even in death, she was beautiful. Did you leave it for Owen to remind him?”
“He never appreciated her. It’s his fault she died. Not mine.”
An eleven-year-old boy, a little brother. Ellis’s twisted expectations had poisoned him. But Abigail wanted to keep him talking. Owen would be missing her soon. All she needed was a distraction, a break.
“No one appreciated Doe as much as you did,” Abigail said. “I see that now.”
“She didn’t understand. She was so young…so innocent…I was only eleven years older. What I felt for her wasn’t unnatural.”
“She was fourteen.”
“I promised her I’d wait for her.”
“That’s not why she ran crying. That’s not why she was so upset she slipped and fell to her death.” Abigail paused, making sure his attention was on her and what she was saying. She saw his spark of anger, the resentment in him. “And it’s not why you let her drown.”
“I didn’t let her drown!”
“Sure, you did. She was upset because of you. You didn’t just express your love and tell her you’d wait. Your interest in her wasn’t so innocent, was it?”
“The love we had was pure—”
“Did you rape her?”
His face reddened. “She died unspoiled.”
“But you came on to her,” Abigail persisted. “That porcelain skin, that silken hair—you wanted her, Ellis. You wanted her all to yourself. You had no intention of waiting until she was older. If you didn’t rape her, what did you do? Expose yourself to her? Make her expose herself—”
“You slut! You bitch.”
It was her opening. In his fury, he lowered his gun.
Abigail yelled to Linc. “Jump!”
But he needed no prodding. Knew it was his one chance. The tide was up, the water was deep—and he wasn’t a frightened distraught thirteen-year-old. Linc propelled himself over the cliffs, even as Abigail dove for his uncle, grabbing his gun hand and, using a hold she’d practiced countless times, snapped his ulna in his right forearm. She heard the break. He screamed in pain, dropping his gun. It slid off the edge of the rock wall into the water. She sliced a low kick to the inside of his leg, bringing him down onto exposed rock.
“You bitch!” he yelled.