The Reunion (27 page)

“Oh, Meghan, please help me.” Glory clutched her stomach and cried, new tears coursing down her cheeks.

“What’s wrong?” Meghan reached to pull her into the room, but the distraught woman stepped away.

Glory tugged at Meghan’s arm. “It’s—it’s Tom. I can’t find them, and I’m so afraid he’s done something bad.”

“Bad? Bad how? And what do you mean you can’t find them? Them who?” Meghan pulled back against the determined woman.

“He’s with Zach, and I’m afraid,” she wailed. “Hurry! There’s no time to lose.”

“With Zach? How do you know?” Her heart thudded with fear she didn’t understand. The woman’s babbling made no sense. “Glory, come in and calm down. What’s this all about?”

Glory grabbed Meghan’s hand again and tugged her into the corridor. “I saw them getting into the elevator, but the doors closed before I could catch them. I think they went down to the lobby. Please, help me.”

“Why are you so scared of Tom and Zach being together?” She closed the door to her room and headed for the elevators. Glory, however, veered toward the stairwell.

“The stairs are faster.” She rammed the door open and dropping Meghan’s hand, grasped the banister.

“Glory! Answer me. What’s so urgent?”

Meghan’s legs trembled and her heart pounded as the fear increased. Glory’s departure from the happy reunion committee member to an incoherent hysteric scared the hell out of her. Glory finally stopped on the landing and turned to face her.

“Meghan, I think Tom’s responsible.”

“Responsible for what?”

“The killings. I couldn’t find him when Annabelle and Dave were murdered. I’m afraid Zach may be in danger, too.”

“Why would Zach be in danger?”

“Because you guys are helping the sheriff, and you’re getting close to solving the crimes.”

Meghan’s heart rate soared and her breath caught in her throat. Tom Ecklund? Quiet, always pleasant Tom, a killer? The image just didn’t fit. Her mind had a hard time assimilating the information. On the other hand, how many times in her novels had the quiet ones been the killers? A lot. The quiet ones who allowed things to fester were always prime candidates for being serial killers.
But this isn’t a story. This is real life.

“Why would Tom kill anyone?”

“He hates them all. They made fun of Divine and after she killed herself, he blamed everyone for sending her over the edge. And he wasn’t in town when Tami, Eddie, and Ms. Sylvester died.”

“What’s Divine got to do with this?” The ramblings, making less and less sense, confused her. They also scared her. Glory’s panic-stricken face and words fueled Meghan’s fears.
Oh God, what if she’s right? What if Tom does want to kill Zach, and then me? I couldn’t stand to find Zach’s body. Not when I think I’m in love for the first time in my life.

Glory continued down the stairs. If she wanted an explanation, Meghan had no option but to follow. Fear and a growing sense of dread overwhelmed her. She wanted that explanation.

“Glory, tell me, what does Divine have to do with this?” She put on a burst of speed to catch up to the woman galloping down the stairwell.

Glory paused on the landing below, her breath rasping in and out. “He was in love with her. Still is. He only married me because I look like her. I tried to be just like Divine for him, but it was never enough. He gets drunk and forgets who I am. Calls me Divine. He’s not normal, Meghan.”

She whirled and continued on. Meghan followed. They reached the lobby and jerked open the door. The area was empty.

Tom in love with Glory’s sister?
She could see that, but to marry the younger sister as some kind of substitute sounded crazy. Then she remembered Tom’s stumbling actions in the bar earlier in the evening before Dave’s murder. Meghan sucked in a ragged breath. Crazy?
Oh, my God, no
.

“We need to find the sheriff.”

“No time to look. We need to confront Tom now. He’ll hurt Zach, and Zach won’t see it coming. He won’t suspect. If we find them, we’ll be witnesses. Tom won’t do anything with witnesses, and he won’t hurt me. Then Zach can subdue him while one of us gets the sheriff,” Glory said, still breathless and sobbing. She grabbed Meghan’s hand again and tugged. “Quick, the ballroom!”

Meghan tried to control the ever-increasing terror. Her legs trembled, and her breath rasped in her throat. Frightened for Zach, she tried to pull free, but the woman’s grasp on her hand tightened painfully.

“Why the ballroom? Maybe they went out front.”

“Too busy and well-lit. Tom would get Zach into a more secluded place.”

“Glory, stop! We don’t even know where to look. We need Sheriff Armstrong. Given what’s happened tonight, Zach will be careful.”

Glory burst through the ballroom doors. The younger woman’s panic and hysteria were infectious. Meghan followed, a ball of anxiety and fear knotting in her stomach. The room had minimum lighting. The table rounds, not yet put away, leaned against the walls.

Glory pointed to the open terrace door. “The garden. He’d have gone out through the terrace to the garden. Hurry, Meghan!”

The urgency in Glory’s voice sent a cold chill down her spine.

Then Glory cried out and clutched her calf. “Cramp,” she cried out with a gasp. “Hurry, Meghan! You can catch up to them.”

Against her better judgment, she ran past the woman for the terrace doors. If Tom Ecklund was the killer, then she had to find Zach. He was fit and would put up a hell of a fight, but Tom would have the element of surprise.

She plunged onto the dimly lit terrace and paused at the top of the steps.

“Tom, Zach, are you out here?” Only the chirping insects answered. “Zach! Where are you?” She dashed down to the path, and then slowed her pace when she almost fell.

“Which way would they go, Glory, and how long ago did you see them?”

She didn’t wait for a reply and turned left toward the koi pond. A few seconds later, it dawned on her Glory had not followed. She whirled. Her breath and her mind froze.

****

Zach and Tom raced down the stairwell.

“Why would Glory want to hurt Meghan?” Zach said, gasping as he ran.

“You guys got in the way of her plans.” He yanked the door to the second floor open.

They ran to Meghan’s room. Zach pounded on the door.

“Meghan!” He waited less than three seconds before repeating his action. “Meghan! Open up!”

“Oh, God, please let her be in there,” Tom muttered.

“Damn! She’s not here.” They raced back to the stairs, stumbling out in an empty lobby.

Zach looked around, his heart slamming against his ribs and his breath ragged. The front desk was once again unattended, but the light in the small back room was on.

“Hey! We need help!”

Billy emerged, his eyes wide at the sight of the two men.

“I need the passkey to room two-fifteen. Now!”

“I can’t do that,” Billy protested. “I may never hand out another key again.”

Zach leaned over the counter and grabbed the young man by his tie, yanking him forward.

“I said give me the goddamned key now! A woman’s life is in danger!”

Tom pulled at Zach’s arm. “She’s not in the room. Glory wouldn’t do anything there. She’d get her to leave.”

“Where’s the sheriff?” Zach yelled, keeping his hold on Billy.

“He—he’s in the security room questioning the guards.”

“Get him!”

He released the man’s tie. Billy picked up the phone and dialed. “Uh, Sheriff, you’d better get out here. I got trouble.” He hung up, backing away from the two men.

The sheriff emerged from a back hallway with Mark Nelson. At the same time, the remaining two deputies stepped in the front doors.

“What’s wrong, Zach?”

“Meghan and Glory are missing.”

Ray’s eyes sharpened. “You think the killer’s got both of them?”

“I think Glory’s the killer,” Tom informed him.

“Meghan’s not answering the door to her room. She should be there.”

“Get the passkey and go check,” Ray snapped at the hapless desk clerk. “Campbell, go with him. Let me know what you find. Jamieson, you checkout the parking lot.”

“We just got back from there. It’s quiet.”

“Goddamn it! Check it again!”

The deputies turned and ran, one through the front entrance and the other toward the elevators.

“Any idea where Glory and Meghan might have gone?”

“Why would Meghan go with Glory? She’s not stupid,” Zach claimed.

“My wife can be very persuasive. She knows exactly which buttons to push. She’d use you, Zach. You’ve been with Meghan all evening. It’s obvious the two of you are close.” Tom gazed around the lobby with a haunted look in his eyes. “The garden. If she wants to kill Meghan, she’ll try for the garden. It’s dark.”

They ran to the large double doors of the ballroom that earlier in the evening had opened to a crowd of happy people. Zach wrenched open the door and rushed in, then paused in the semi-darkness to scan the room.

“One of the terrace doors is open,” he exclaimed, pointing.

A scream echoed from outside. Ray drew his gun and raced for the terrace, pushing Zach and Tom out of the way.

“Stay back,” he ordered.

Both men ignored him and pounded after the policeman.

A second scream shattered the night.

****

Glory stood at the bottom of the steps six feet away, a tire iron in her hands. The look on the woman’s face in the feeble light was just short of grotesque. Her lips were drawn back in a snarl and her pale eyes glowed. Meghan didn’t need to be told, she’d been a fool. Her heart hammered and her knees went weak.

“Glory?”

“I’m sorry, Meghan, but you had no business sticking your nose into this.” She stepped forward and swung the tire iron like a baseball bat.

Meghan leaped back. The end of the iron caught her in the side and spun her around with a gasp. Pain radiated through her torso.

“Glory, for the love of God, don’t do this. Think! You’ll never get away with another death. I’m not Suzanne.”

“That bitch! ‘And I will execute great vengeance upon them,’” she muttered.

Meghan’s mind snapped back to all those years in Catholic youth and parochial grade school. Long forgotten Scriptures funneled into her brain.

“Ezekiel. Chapter twenty-five, verse seventeen,” she said, gasping.

The weapon descended again. She jumped sideways, and Glory missed by inches, the breeze from the swing kissing Meghan’s cheek.

“‘The wicked shall not be unpunished.’ Proverbs, eleven, twenty-one.” The crazed woman swung, this time making contact with Meghan’s arm.

She cried out in pain, and her arm went numb. “‘Thou shalt not kill!’”

“‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,’” Glory quoted back along with another swat with the tire iron.

She missed, and Meghan circled to the left. Fleeing into the garden was not an option. She didn’t know the layout. Glory did. The terrace loomed above her. If she could make it to the steps, she had a chance.

“‘Vengeance is mine.’” Maybe trading Bible verses would distract Glory from her mission. Meghan hoped she remembered enough of them. “Why, Glory? Why kill them?”

“It’s in the diary.”

“What diary?”

“Divine’s. I found it and read it. It’s all their fault.”

“Glory, put the tire iron down.”

“‘The eyes of the wicked shall fail, and they shall not escape.’ Job, eleven, twenty.”

A vicious chop to the head had Meghan jumping back just in time. Glory circled, in the opposite direction cutting off the steps to the terrace.

“‘Judge not lest ye be judged.’ Matthew, seven, one.”

Meghan kept her eyes on Glory’s face trying to anticipate the next blow. The woman telegraphed it. Meghan stumbled backwards and fell to avoid being hit in the side.

Glory closed in. Her eyes glowed with what Meghan assumed was righteousness—or insanity. Reasoning with her was out of the question.

“Zach! Help!” she cried out. Her ears roared from the blood pounding in them, and she wasn’t sure if she had screamed or whispered.

“You fool, he’s not coming to help. I watched him get in the elevator and go to his room on the fifth floor. He’s sound asleep.”

“No, he was changing clothes. We were going to the hospital to see Suzanne.”

“She’s dead.”

“No, Glory. She’s alive and can identify you.” She had no idea if any of it was true.

“Liar!” She swung the tire iron wildly at Meghan’s head, but in her rage, missed. “It’s a sin to lie!”

“‘Fear God and keep His commandments.’”

“‘The name of the wicked shall rot,’” the insane woman screamed.

The iron swished through the air again. Meghan rolled to her right and attempted to rise. Glory’s foot lashed out and caught her in the chest. She fell back. Glory wielded the weapon again and made contact with Meghan’s leg. She cried out and rolled. Didn’t anyone in the hotel hear the commotion? Something dug into her hip.

The stun gun! I have a chance
. She fumbled to remove it. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the tire iron aimed at her head.

“‘The righteous shall rejoice when He seeth the vengeance.’ Psalms!” Glory shrieked. The weapon descended.

Meghan rolled at the last moment. The tire iron struck the ground. She rolled again and regained her footing.

“You see, Glory. I’m faster than Suzanne.” While she spoke she tried to wedge her hand into her front pocket and cursed the tight jeans.

Glory didn’t answer, but swung again. The blow hit Meghan just above the left knee. She cried out and crumpled backward onto the steps. She twisted to the left in desperate attempt to avoid a whistling chop, the sharp stone of the step digging into her side. The iron struck where she’d lain.

Her attacker’s movements slowed. Glory panted with exertion. Her aim was not as accurate as a minute ago and the blows, while painful, had diminished in intensity. Still, she raised the bar again. Meghan rolled to the right and Glory missed, the step taking the brunt of the blow again. The edge of the flagstone bit into her wrist. Blood flowed hot and warm into her hand, but her fingers finally touched the stun gun.