He yanked, trying to pull her jeans down without undoing them, but thank God she wasn’t thin enough for them to slide over her hips. He grunted and pushed her back.
That’s when he switched his grip as his hands dropped down to the front of his own jeans.
She had the few seconds she needed. Her hand quivered from cold and slow circulation. But she felt nothing other than the adrenaline that suddenly shot through her entire system, injecting her. She flipped her hand around, gripped the syringe, pulled the cover off the needle with her mouth, and stuck it into Marcus Leary’s neck while he looked down at his crotch.
He raised his head up. She pressed the liquid into him. He let go of her. He swatted at his neck. His gaze darted from her face, to her hands. His eyes grew round, his mouth opened, and his hands came up to clutch at her in a frantic, manic struggle. She nearly cackled with crazed laughter.
She didn’t worry about the grip he had on her wrists. Because she knew, in seconds, he would be paralyzed, and his heart muscle would stop, as the Tubarine she’d injected in him would cause a quick and certain death.
Then he fell to his knees. His hands clutched to his chest. His eyes bugged out and his mouth gasped like a fish stuck on land.
Marcus Leery was floundering, vulnerable, helpless, dying before
her
. And soon he’d be dead. She’d done it. She’d beat him.
Her heart quit thumping in her chest, her hands quit shaking and a smile floated over her lips, as she realized what she’d done to Marcus. She’d given him the perfect retribution for everything he had ever done to her, Kelly and Tim.
His eyes were huge, and questioning. She smiled as she said, “That Marcus, is how to poison someone.”
Then he collapsed at her feet. It was so easy, so quick; she stood there blinking, gasping for breath. It was over. Just like that.
Marcus could never hurt Tim or her again. She fell to her knees in sudden exhaustion. The adrenaline that had spurred her on left her nearly depleted of energy, and shaking in disbelief, and hysterically thinking, maybe she really was poison.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Cassie’s car was the only vehicle in the puddle soaked parking lot. John glanced around. There was no movement or flash of clothing. His heart rate picked up. He parked and nearly catapulted over to Cassie’s car, and found it empty. His heart dropped. What if Marcus had taken off with Cassie? He sprinted down the graveled trail toward the lighthouse, hoping and praying like he hadn’t since he was a kid, that Cassie was at the end of that trail, alive and safe.
The rain was deafening. His footsteps were lost to the stomp of rain drops and the roar of wind. Tree tops bent eerily around him as the twilight faded like color bleeding from a paint brush.
He rounded the corner and found the North Head Lighthouse, silhouetted against the darkening sky. He squinted, looking into the deep shadows. Finally he made out two figures, one lying on the wet ground, the other collapsed next to it. Oh God, was it Cassie?
He sprinted forward, then came to a halt. It wasn’t Cassie on the ground. It was a man. Cassie was kneeling next to the prone figure. John nearly fell to his own knees in relief. Astounding, pray-to-God relief, that Cassie was alive.
He approached the bizarre scene. Cassie’s head jerked up with a start. Her eyes were glazed over and wide with fright and shock. Then he was there, squatting beside her. He pulled her to him and found her shivering, soaking wet, without even a jacket to ward off the storm. He pushed her back, took off his coat, and wrapped it around her, then pulled the hood up. She looked at him, her eyes dilated, unfocused.
“John?” She touched his face softly.
“I’m here. I’m here now. You’re okay.”
She burrowed against him. Tight and strong, she held his middle.
He looked over her to Marcus, finally seeing the face that had haunted and stalked Cassie and Tim. Marcus Leary had black hair and a mustache. His thin face was non-descript. There was nothing remarkable or sinister about Marcus’s appearance. He could be the man who sold you parts at the hardware store or your local insurance agent. Small and wiry in stature, there was nothing overtly threatening about him. John tightened his hold on Cassie. His mind raced with possibilities. What had happened here? There was no blood. What had happened to Leary? To Cassie? How had she gotten the upper hand?
Finally, he eased her back so he could see her face. His eyes dropped to her loosened belt. His gut tightened.
“What happened?”
She disengaged an arm, reached over, and grabbed something, then brought it closer in her fist. She opened her hand and revealed a syringe.
“I poisoned him. He’s dead.”
His jaw dropped open. He shook his head. She’d managed to poison him? How? He had so many questions. But she was shivering and shaking, and he needed to get her away from here, and the dead Marcus Leary.
John stood. He took the syringe and pocketed it. He took both her hands and pulled her up. Her lips were trembling, and her teeth were chattering.
“Did he hurt you?”
She shook her head. “He wanted to. He tried to. But he didn’t get very far.”
A knife was next to Marcus’s hand. Marcus must have dropped it as he died.
He let go of Cassie and leaned over the body. He let out a deep breath. There was no pulse. Marcus was dead. She’d killed him. And now John had no idea what to do. Would it be considered self-defense? But what if Cassie had planned this? What if there was proof she had come here to kill Marcus? His mind swam with questions. Christ, what if she was arrested for this?
He shook off his confusion. He wanted to throw Marcus Leary off the ledge and pretend nothing had happened. That Marcus had never existed. The practical part of him knew there was no way to erase this. They had to deal with the fall out of Cassie’s actions, no matter what they were. He grabbed hold of her hand and pulled her against him, supporting her as he walked her briskly toward the parking lot. Darkness completely surrounded them now, a chilling gruesome setting for murder.
Finally, he had her in his SUV where it was dry. He was soaked. He quickly started the SUV and turned the heater on.
“Luke is waiting for me to call. He’ll send the police as soon as I do.”
She glanced at him finally. “Okay.”
“Are you all right?”
“He was going to rape me, then take me with him. He thought we were going to be married like we were before we had Tim. He was crazy.”
John pulled her toward him then in a crushing hold. The damn police could wait. Marcus was dead already; there was nothing five more minutes would hurt.
“I know he was.”
She shuddered in his embrace.
He finally eased her back and looked deep into her eyes. “Why didn’t you call me? Why did you come here alone?”
She turned her head away from him. “He would have never stopped. He wasn’t ever going to let me go. Don’t you see that? I belonged to him. He believed I, not he, was the poison. That’s what he called me, poison. The entire time I listened to him I thought; if you only knew how much Marcus. It almost felt like fate the way he kept going on that I had poisoned him. Maybe I had.”
John gripped her chin with his hand and forced her to raise her eyes to him. “The hell you did. He was poisoned from his own sickness.”
“But I actually poisoned him.”
“Tell me what happened from the start.”
She told him about the note, driving there, going out to the lighthouse. John’s jaw flexed and tightened like it was going to shatter. He was angry with her for going alone, and yet he wanted to kill Marcus again for doing this to her.
“He had me against the railing. I wasn’t sure if he was going to kill me by slitting my throat or throwing me off the cliff, after he raped me. He was gone, lost. His mind focused on me, but the more he ranted the more he seemed to get farther away from reality. He grabbed my wrist, and I couldn’t get him to let go. I started to think he knew I had something in my hand. I was panicking he was actually going to rape me. He rubbed my throat with the knife, and I waited, knowing he was going to plunge it into me. He was going to succeed, and I would have once again failed.”
“But then, he let go. And it was so easy. I just stabbed him in the neck. He never suspected I’d fight back. He never even had a chance once he let go of me. I killed him. In cold blood. And I—”
She started shaking again, looking out the windshield, lost in her own memories.
“Cassie where did you get it? The drugs?”
She pulled her gaze back to his face. “Harry.”
Her crisp tone surprised him, but not nearly as much as the source of where she got the drug to overdose Marcus Leary. He finally caught up. She had planned this, for weeks even. She had known at some point she’d be in close contact with Marcus Leary, and that she’d do this. She’d end it for herself and Tim, because she was right, Marcus would have never stopped stalking them. The betrayal slammed into his gut. She hadn’t trusted him enough to tell him about her plans. The first time she’d run off and followed Leary’s instructions, she’d had the poison with her, and that’s why she’d been able to do it. That’s what had given her the guts. She didn’t have a death wish, but had gone to Marcus armed.
Still she hadn’t trusted him enough to tell him.
“Harry,” he repeated, as his mind filtered through the implications. Would the authorities link up Cassie and Harry in some kind of plot? But then again the police knew about Marcus Leary and his attack on Kelly. They knew Marcus was stalking Cassie. Would they believe the truth? Was it any different than if Cassie had brought a gun along for protection?
John winced, that’s exactly what he’d done. Slowly, with her still watching him, he withdrew Luke’s pistol from the waistband of his jeans and set it on the console for Cassie to see.
She gasped as her eyes searched his face.
“I guess we were thinking along the same lines.”
“You brought a gun and no police?”
“Yeah, just like you brought a syringe and no police. I was afraid police would be loud and scare Leary into action. I had no idea what to expect. But I hoped I was in time. That I’d be able to sneak up on him. I didn’t realize of course you’d have taken care of him yourself. How long have you been planning this?”
She sighed, shaking her head. “I didn’t exactly plan this,” she said, waving her hands in the general direction of Marcus’s body. “I believed in my gut that Marcus would somehow get near me. I knew I had to have protection. I know nothing about guns. But while visiting Harry one time I broke down and cried. I was terrified, even with you and Luke in the house. What if Marcus got to me? I had no way to protect myself. Harry gave me a syringe and a vial filled with liquid and saline water. He said to mix them before I used them. Other than that, he never said what to do with it, and I never asked why he’d given it to me. We had an understanding. After I found out he was my father, I realized why he had risked his medical practice and license for me. It was his way of giving me protection. And I took it, knowing no one would notice I had it. And it would be unlikely anyone could prove that Harry had given it to me. I assumed he covered up the drug missing on his end. And at least it was something to bank on if Marcus snuck into the house or somehow grabbed me.”
“The night after Kelly was attacked, when you left the hospital, you had this?”
“Yes. That’s why I could face Marcus. Until, of course, you made me realize Marcus had planned to drug me. That scared me. Here I was planning to poison him as protection, and he’d had the same idea as a way to kidnap me.”
“What is it? What did you use?” John asked his voice wooden.
“Tubarine.”
John glared out the windshield. Tubarine was used to promote muscle relaxation during surgical anesthesia, and occasionally to control convulsions. Reaction time was immediate, causing hypertension and respiratory failure. It was highly toxic and easily accessible for a doctor like Harry to get.
John raised his eyes to her. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me you had it?”
She shook her head. “Because you’d have stopped me.”
That was it. That was her defense. He saw it in the sudden tightening of her jaw and straightening of her back.
“You wanted this to happen?”
“I wanted none of this to happen. But it was happening. And I wanted it to end.”
“What if you had dropped the syringe? Or never had a chance to stab him with it? What if Marcus had simply walked up and slit your throat? Did any of those possibilities enter your head? Did you even consider all of the things that could have gone wrong? What about those?”
“There was no other way. I had to take the risk. He would have found a way to get to me or Tim, if not today, then tomorrow, or a year from now, or the next time he got out of prison. Don’t you see? You couldn’t protect me anymore than I could protect Tim. It was all Marcus’s will, at his discretion.”
“You promised me you wouldn’t do it alone.”
“I lied.”
“You knew even then.”
“Yes. I knew even then. Marcus confronting me was inevitable. He had things to say to me. That’s just how Marcus is. He knew I’d come to him if he threatened Tim. And I knew he’d have to confront me. I counted on that.”
John leaned his head back onto the headrest, suddenly exhausted. As clearly as he knew he loved her a few moments ago, he now doubted every feeling he had about her. She’d lied. She’d purposely set out to do this. He wasn’t sure how he felt about what she’d done. Or what it said about the kind of person she was. Was it something he would ever have been able to do? Or condone?
Her hand pressed into his sleeve. “I’m sorry. I had to do it. You’d have stopped me because Tim isn’t your son. If he was, you’d have done the same thing.”
“You think I can’t understand that you’re his mother? That you’d die to protect him? I knew that. Hell, I respected it, and I would have understood what you needed to do. Just why alone? Why so dangerously?”
“What else could I do? Risk you too?”
“It’s always this way with you isn’t it? You against the God damned world? Never once do you think I can handle things. You can decide everything, can’t you Cassie? You need no one. Isn’t that what you wear on your sleeve? You against the world. Against me.”