*
“I didn’t do it, Danni. I swear I didn’t do it. Please don’t scream.”
“Gus, let me call Quinn.”
“Yes, call Quinn. Don’t tell him I’m here, but call him and make him get back here. Please. Because if the killer’s not here already, he will be soon. I know it. I just know it.”
“All right, Gus. Let me get back out there before people start to wonder where I went. I’ll call Quinn, but first let me—”
She stopped speaking as a muffled squeal came from the kitchen.
Gus winced. “Oh, God, he’s here,” he whispered.
Damn it! Her gun was still in the kitchen, Danni thought, praying that her instincts were right. “Gus, get back behind that stack of canvases, and stay there until I call you.”
He obeyed her instantly.
She opened the door and jumped. Jessica was standing there, holding her son tightly in her arms. Her eyes were wide with fear and horror.
And, Danni realized, she wasn’t alone. Eric Lyons was standing behind her, a gun shoved into Jessica’s back.
“Hello, Danni. How nice to see you. Here we are. Most of us, anyway. Tyler, Bo Ray, Shamus, Brad and Jenny are all nicely tied up in the kitchen. Poor Mr. and Mrs. Watson are knocked out upstairs, but I’d hate to have them wake up to find out what I did to their grandson when you didn’t give me the sax. I know you have it. It’s what you do. You collect things. It took me a while, but I finally figured out that skinny bastard Billie has been playing it. Where is it, Danni? Where’s Arnie’s special sax?”
Danni couldn’t have been more stunned. She didn’t know why. Eric had said that he played; he’d said that he wasn’t very good. She knew she had to think fast, but she had no idea what to do. Quinn and Billie and Father Ryan could come walking back in any minute, completely unaware. And while there would be three of them—and there were cops right outside—someone in the house could die if she didn’t play this just right.
“You think Billie has been playing Arnie’s sax?” she asked.
“Don’t mess with me. Just shut up and get it for me from wherever it is,” he said harshly. Jessica let out a little yelp as he shoved the gun harder into her back. “I’m in control here, and I’ll kill one of you for every minute you make me wait.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll get you the sax,” she said. “It’s up in Billie’s room.”
To her surprise, he was looking past her.
He was staring at the picture she had sketched of all of them at the club.
He shoved Jessica hard, sending her flying into the room. She clutched Craig close to her to keep from dropping him as she fell to her knees with a sob.
“Shut up!” he warned her. “I’d be happier than hell to kill that bastard’s illegitimate brat. I tried so hard, Jessica. I would have done anything for you. But you were sleeping with him, slinking away, the two of you, to screw like rabbits!”
“I didn’t know!” Jessica cried. “I didn’t know you cared!”
Eric’s eyes shot back to the drawing. “There we are, just like always. All of you there, and not one of you noticing me. Arnie’s not in the picture, so the attention is all on the bastard’s kid.”
Danni gasped, realizing then what she should have seen all along. “You! You’re the one by the tree in my dad’s picture.”
He swung on her, pointing the gun her way. “Yeah, I’m in the picture. Not one of you ever saw me back then. I was just a kid. I wasn’t ‘special.’ I couldn’t sing or act or draw. I was just there. And not one of you ever saw me. You, Danni, you were just like Jessica. Sashaying around and never seeing me, never speaking to me, never hearing me when I tried to speak to you. Well, that’s going to change for the rest of my life. I’m going to have the sax. I’m going to play so well that the whole world hears me, and then everyone will see me.”
“You weren’t in my graduating class—” Danni began.
“No, I wasn’t in anyone’s graduating class, because I left that damn school. You just made my point for me, Danni. None of you saw me, so none of you noticed when I wasn’t there anymore. When I started at the bar—which I own, by the way, not that any of you ever bothered to find that out—not one of you knew me. You passed me in the halls, sat next to me at assemblies, but not one of you saw me. But that’s all over.”
He suddenly reached for the drawing on the board, ready to tear it to shreds. As he did, Gus came flying out from behind the pile of canvases.
But Eric was too fast. He swung in time and fired. There was very little sound, but Gus crumpled to the floor, his temple bleeding.
Craig began to cry. Jessica was still sobbing herself as she tried to soothe him.
“A silencer. Clever,” Danni said, trying to remain calm—trying not to rush to Gus’s side.
“Get up,” Eric told Jessica. “And you!” he said, spinning on Danni. “Get me that sax, and don’t try to fool me. Make it the right one!”