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Then, he’d driven baby Charlotte across the country and found Margot Gray. He paid her handsomely to take care of the baby for a few months and then pose as Charlotte’s mother during the makeshift adoption. It had gone off without a hitch and allowed Ellis to avoid the impossible task of having to kill his infant niece. In retrospect, however, killing the child would have prevented the turmoil he was going through today. More hard decisions lay ahead. But he could weather the current storm only if he went through with them. No one would suspect that he was responsible for the carnage at Margolis Manor. Not when the perfect fall guy was in his midst.
He used the hammer to pound the handle of the screwdriver. With one final effort he drove the tip of the screwdriver into the lock, splintering the door. When he pushed the door open, the darkroom was empty. But laid across the table were photos that stole his breath. They brought him back to that night at Preston’s house. In one photo he saw his mother fighting with Annabelle. Another pictured his mother holding the long, serrated knife.
How, Ellis wondered, had these photos come to be? Who had taken them? How were they possible? On the table next to the enlarger, Ellis saw an old Nikon FM10 camera. In a flash he remembered finding it in the child’s bassinet. After the cleanup, he’d taken the camera and stashed it in his attic.
Finally, Ellis’s gaze fell to the last photo. It was an image of himself, staring straight out from the picture, the baseball bat he’d used to kill his brother in his hands. Confusion flooded his system at how these photos could exist. But his bewilderment was overcome by guilt, as if seeing himself in the act made it all real. He was a master at compartmentalizing his actions, but the photo allowed the memories of that night to seep from the part of his mind that he had locked them in. He remembered walking into Preston’s home with the baseball bat, prepared to use it on Annabelle. He remembered seeing Preston on top of his mother, his brother’s hands around her neck. He remembered the dull thud of the bat connecting with Preston’s temple.
He blinked several times, working to free his mind from the grip of the troubling memories. Then he looked to the far end of the room and saw that the door to the caves was open. He took off in a dead sprint.
“Nora!”
CHAPTER 69
Bend, Oregon Friday, August 2, 2024
“HELP,” THE VOICE SAID AGAIN.
“It’s coming from the tunnel,” Nora said.
They wanted to leave the caves, to push through the doors and run for their lives through the vineyards. But the soft pleas had captured their attention. Both women slowly walked toward the darkened tunnel. A few feet into the cave, just beyond the light from the atrium, they found a man on the ground.
“Please,” the man said. “Help me.”
“Lester?” Nora said, crouching on the ground. “What are you doing in here?”
“Please, he’s going to kill me.”
Sloan crouched next to Nora and saw the face of Lester Strange, the Margolis family’s handyman. His left wrist was handcuffed to the metal rack that held the wine barrels. His face was badly beaten.
“He’s going to kill me. He’s going to kill everyone and make it look like I did it. Please.”
Lester pointed down the cave.
“There’s a sledgehammer down there. I use it to rack the wine. Please.”
Sloan didn’t hesitate. She stood and ran into the darkness. After a moment of searching she found the sledgehammer and carried it back to Lester.
“Look out,” she said to Nora.
Lester pulled his handcuffed wrist away from the metal rack, removing all slack from the handcuffs. In one swift motion, Sloan brought the hammer down and obliterated the cuffs. Lester’s hand sprang from the rack, the shattered cuff hanging from his wrist.
“Nora!”
Ellis’s voice echoed from the far end of the cave that led from the darkroom. All three ran through the tasting room, bright sunlight searing their eyes when they pushed open the double doors.
CHAPTER 70
Bend, Oregon Friday, August 2, 2024
THEY RAN FROM THE CAVES AND INTO THE VINEYARDS. A GUNSHOT rang out into the morning and echoed off the mountains. Sloan ducked but kept running, following Lester as he bolted through the vines. With her heart racing and breaths coming heavy and loud, she didn’t notice that Nora was no longer by her side. She slowed and looked back down the path that ran between the vines. There, thirty yards back, Nora lay on the ground. Sloan doubled back. Nora was holding her right leg, bright red blood covering her hand and the ground, spilling across the dirt like slow-flowing molasses.
“Oh my God,” Sloan said as she crouched by Nora’s side.
Falling back on her training, she quickly assessed her patient and found the source of the blood. A gunshot wound to the back of the right leg, with an exit wound in the front.
“Okay, that’s good,” Sloan said.
“What?” Nora grunted through gritted teeth.
