A Match Made for Murder Iona Whishaw (pride and prejudice read .TXT) 📖

her arms. “You know, I tried to leave him before. I was gonna go back and find an old sweetheart from when I was a kid. He was called Ricky. Turns out he was killed in the Pacific. He’s the only person I ever really loved. But Rex, he’s a real sweetie. It’s too bad, really.” She sighed and adjusted how she was sitting. The ground was rocky and uncomfortable. “Anyway, I don’t want Artie to find me. Even if he doesn’t want me dead, he’s turned into a crazy jealous bastard. I want out.”

Lane’s thoughts were churning. “Do you mean that?”

Meg wheeled on her, her voice nearly coming out of the whisper they’d been using. “Of course I do! I think he had that poor Mr. Renwick shot. I can’t trust him.”

“Why would he have Renwick shot? They arrested his brother for it.” That’s when fog cleared, and she finally put it together. The thing that had bothered her in the cabin. “Wait, if your real husband is Griffin, then Mr. Holden . . . Oh, I see.”

“Okay, you figured it out. That’s what I do. I’m a grifter. Now I’m sick of it. I want some peace and quiet.”

“But why do you think he was responsible for Renwick’s death?”

Meg shook her head. “Not one hundred percent, but maybe ninety-nine. Artie is pretty jealous. Maybe. I don’t know.”

“Did he think Renwick was your boyfriend? Just a case of mistaken identity?” Lane was appalled at the idea that a completely innocent bystander might have been shot in some sort of lover’s quarrel.

“I wish I’d stayed with Rex. He would have helped me out of this. He really loved me! Not a jealous bone in his body.”

Not able to make complete sense of this, Lane was about to speak when she turned toward the gully. They could hear a muttered curse and a sliding sound much nearer to where they were hiding. It would be only moments before he found them.

Time had run out. Lane knew what she had to do. Meg was right. Even if she were a grifter, she didn’t deserve to get shot for helping Lane escape. She turned to Meg and put her hand on her arm. “Look. Don’t move. Don’t say anything. Don’t come out till you’ve heard everyone leave, including the car. And good luck.”

With that Lane got up, took up the flight jacket she’d been sitting on, and walked into the open from their hideout with her arms up.

“All right. I’m coming down,” she called loudly. “No need to shoot the place up.”

He must have felt there was a need, because he waited till Lane was most of the way down the hill and fired one more shot.

May 1943

Lane tried to pull Claude away from the doorway, but he was clinging to the frame, digging his nails in, his knuckles white. “Claude, we have to go! When they realize they have missed one person they will come back.”

He wheeled on her. “What chance do we have? You don’t even have a revolver. What kind of a spy are you?” Tears splashed on his blue jacket. He took one last look at the three people who’d been tied and executed where they sat, and then let her lead him away.

They ran to the edge of the property. It was still early, barely past dawn, so the road was empty. They could hear a dog barking in the village just around the bend. But Lane could also hear a woman shouting. She sounded familiar. Who was she? She wanted to shift her head to hear better but couldn’t seem to move it. On the other side of the road, they headed quickly to the small forest that lay at the top of a rise. They were halfway up the hill when Lane heard the motorcycle returning. She pulled Claude down among the stands of dead grasses. It was the two she’d seen leaving when she’d been making her way to the safe house. They turned back into the property, jumped off the machine, and began to search. One of them shouted to the other that he was an imbécile for not checking the outdoor privy the first time.

“Now!” said Lane. “They’re busy. We have a few mo-ments.” They bolted into the wood and continued up the hill. Lane breathed with the regular rhythm she had taught herself so she could move quickly over long distances. She could still hear the woman, who sounded angry now, and wanted her to stop. At the top, the trees dwindled, and they could see the open country below them. Her thoughts clouded. She could hear the motorcycle as if it had come straight up the hill behind them. And then the woman shouting, really close now. She turned but saw only darkness. That shot—she knew it was the one that killed Claude. He had stood up just at the wrong time. It was her fault. She could not stop the well of anguish that grew in her at this. But it wasn’t Claude who was down. She was—she could feel where the bullet struck her in the side. At one and the same time she felt the searing pain and the surge of relief that she had not been responsible for Claude’s death.

“Get up!”

Lane opened her eyes. She felt herself lying on the ground, a rock pressing into her neck, her arm high above her being pulled.

“Get up. I barely grazed you. And that’s just because you’ve been a pain in the ass.”

“Let her go, you bastard!”

Lane heard but didn’t see the rock that struck the gunman with a soft thud on the shoulder. She was still dazed, and though it was dawning on her that she was not in France, she had a momentary sense that it was Claude who’d been struck. But who was the woman shouting?

She felt herself being helped up. She tried experimentally to move her