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

horrified expression and a cigarette clinging to the corner of his open mouth—could not react in time. He ran head-on into the car, his tractor sliding on the ice, pushing the car back toward the curve in the road.

Shaken, Tina became aware that Amy had screamed and was bent over trying to find something on the floor. The gun! She pulled frantically on the handle of her own door and managed to push it open just as Amy found what she was looking for. Tina launched herself out of the car, falling partway down the gully until a fallen tree covered with a fresh layer of snow stopped her. She lay dazed, her back in excruciating pain, waiting for the gunshot. Instead she heard an angry voice.

“What the blazes do you think you’re doing? Bloody women! Put that down and get out! Who told you you could drive up this road?”

Trying to ignore the agony in her back, Tina scrambled as quickly as she could back to the road. Her hands were freezing, and it was hard to get purchase. The old man had Amy backed against the crumpled front of the car and was holding her at bay with a rifle. “She was going to kill me,” Tina stuttered.

“Could have killed everyone driving up this road the wrong way,” the old man said angrily. “Bloody ruined my tractor.” He narrowed his gaze on Amy. “ Oh no you don’t! You stay right there. You,” he said to Tina, “get the rope on the back of the tractor. And pick up that revolver. Don’t want it going off.”

Tina limped around the tractor, found a coil of grey and fraying rope, and brought it back to where the old man was standing, his glaring gaze never leaving his prisoner.

“Can you use a rifle?” he asked, not looking at Tina.

“Yes.”

“Good. You take this and you pull the trigger if she tries to move.” He slowly transferred the rifle to Tina, keeping it trained on Amy, and only then looked at Tina. “Hey, don’t I know you?” But he didn’t wait for an answer. He strode in his rubber boots to where Amy stood with her hands up against the car, her face a mask of angry defeat.

Ames was surprised to see Marcus Van Eyck at the top of the drive, waving frantically as the car began to slow down. Not waiting for the car to come to a complete stop, he was in the back, closing the door. “She’s all right! She’s in King’s Cove with the Bertollis.” Van Eyck collapsed back on the seat after this effort.

Ames had turned to Terrell. “The King’s Cove turnoff is about three miles past the Balfour store. Step on it!” He turned around to see Marcus Van Eyck taking a deep breath and looking out the window. “She called you?”

“She said that Watts woman was going to kill her. Luckily an old man in a tractor slammed into them, and somehow they disarmed her and tied her up. What does this mean?”

“It means Tina has caught the person who murdered Barney Watts,” said Ames, his feelings a mixture of relief and admiration, but also regret that he had not been able to effect a daring rescue. This, he thought, must be how Darling feels all the time.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Meg was practically dragging Lane the last feet up over the steep gravelly lip to the road. Idaho impatiently took one side of her to get her the rest of the way.

“How did you get this far, anyway?” he said angrily.

She wanted to tell him she worked for the French Foreign Legion, but she could see Galloway, still training his gun at Darling’s head. Best not annoy Idaho with any angry sarcasm.

Idaho lifted his head and frowned. And then Lane and Meg heard it too. A new sound. Sirens from at least two cars, somewhere well past the outskirts of the city and coming north in a hurry. “Come on, get a move on.” He took her arm in a painful grip and hurried her forward.

Up on the road, Galloway and Darling heard the sirens as well.

“What the devil?” Galloway put his hand to the rim of his hat to block out the sun that pushed blindingly across the landscape from high in the east and looked down the long road. The sirens were definitely coming in their direction. Why? They had been standing watching the progress of Idaho’s hunt and Lane’s emergence from the ridge, Galloway tauntingly handing Darling the field glasses from time to time so he could see clearly the humiliation of Lane’s capture.

When the shot had sounded, Darling had been watching only her face through the field glasses. He hadn’t seen the man raise his rifle. She’d been talking to the man with the rifle and then she dropped like a rock out of the sight of the field glasses. Darling frantically tried to find her and then threw the binoculars aside and started toward Lane. Galloway had put out his hand and grabbed him by the elbow, hard.

“No you don’t.” Darling had wrestled to get out of his grip, furious, and felt his arm pulled behind him, his elbow screaming at being yanked into some unnatural position.

“There now. You can calm down. She’s getting up. Let’s just wait here for them, shall we? She looks shaken up. I don’t think I’ll have too much trouble getting her to tell me where she took my wife.”

“Let me go, you bastard!” And then he too turned to look down the road at the rising wail of the sirens.

Idaho hurried the last few yards to where the car was parked and pushed Lane toward the two men and then turned his attention to Meg, who was leaning against the car, recovering her breath from the effort of helping Lane get to the road.

“The boss is not happy about you,” he said to her, but he had his eye on the approaching