A Touch of Death Ch. 13

In his hand he held a heart-shaped friendship pendant with two silver chains. He drew a wavy line in blue ink across it and snapped it in two. He looked up and handed one of them to the woman sitting across from him.

It was Elsa Manchester. A nude Elsa, and not at all pale. Her skin glowed with health, or perhaps arousal. She looked like a woman that had just had a good tumble in the sheets.

"When you wonder if you can make it," my host said, "hold this and remember our love for each other." The voice was familiar. I'd heard it at the start of this adventure. Steven Armstrong, the murder victim.

Elsa's eyes lit up like Ginger's had a minute earlier. "I love you."

The vision dissolved and everyone was staring at me. Including, the cuckolded husband, Damien Manchester. Who was staring at me incredulously, Edward Stanton's pistol still in his hand.

"Well, hell," he said. His hand snapped up and the pistol smashed against Ty's head. Ty went down bonelessly, knocked right out.

I guess that settled the question of who the killer was. No wonder Elsa had looked like death warmed over. Her lover had just died. I grabbed Ty's pistol from the table and turned it on Damien.

"Drop it," I said. "Don't make me shoot you."

He smiled and stepped back, aligning his pistol with my head. "I don't know how you knew that was Elsa's."

Great. I must've called out her name. He already knew this was Steven's so I'd just let the cat out of the bag.

"You've never shot a gun before, remember?" Damien continued. "You told me that yourself. Ty put that back on safe before he set it down. Do you really think you can figure it out before I shoot you? Put it down."

"So you can do what?" I asked, not lowering my wavering aim. "I don't see you letting us go."

"I don't understand," Ginger said and she picked up where Ty had been holding down the makeshift bandage.

"I just can't understand you," Damien said ruefully, ignoring her. "You just wouldn't stop. Even after I tracked down Jake Wallace and took him out of the picture. What is with you? How the hell did you know?"

"You made him write that note, didn't you? To cover your own tracks. Steven was sleeping with your wife and you killed him. Then you needed a scapegoat like Jake."

Damien shook his head. "Jake and Edward were in their own scheme. I had nothing to do with it and I didn't know anything about the gold until you found it. Steven... Yes. It doesn't matter now. I found out and I confronted him."

Ty moaned and twitched, but I didn't look away from Damien.

"On the dock," I said. "You smashed his head into the piling and killed him. Does Elsa know you killed her lover?"

"I didn't go out there to kill him," Damien said, his voice going flat. "It just happened so fast. I didn't mean to kill him but he took what was mine. She thinks it was an accident. Now she'll think Jake Wallace did it. One way or the other, she'll get over it."

"Put the gun down," Frank said. "You don't have to keep killing. It's over."

"Shut up," Damien said, his voice firming up. "Don't be stupid. It's far too late for that now. I've already killed one man to keep this a secret and now you force me to kill more." He gestured at Stanton's body. "He came in, angry. He started shooting and killed you all. Ty managed to shoot him before he died. I was the only survivor. I'll be traumatized by the time the police get here."

"You already told them Frank was alive," I pointed out.

"Sorry," he said with a dry smile. "I just told them there had been a shooting and they needed to send an ambulance. Say goodbye to your lover, Candy."

He had let his aim drift lower until he was half-way aiming at the floor. I had time to do something, but only if I acted right now.

I heard Ty's father whispering in my ear. "Put the dot on the target and between the sight posts." I lined up the pistol and snapped the safety off. I cocked the hammer back with my thumb. Time seemed to be flowing like molasses. Damien's gun was coming back up, slowly, so slowly. Ty's father continued. "Squeeze the trigger slowly. Let the shot come as a surprise to you. That's the only way to not jerk the barrel up and miss."

The pistol exploded in my hand and Damien stared at me in shock. I thought the recoil was going to yank it from my grip but I managed to hang on. For a moment, we stood there staring at one another and then he dropped the pistol and fell down sideways. A stain of blood was spreading across his chest.

Before, I'd only thought my ears were ringing. Now I could hardly hear. I kept pointing the pistol at Damien, waiting for him to move.

"If I shoot a man, I shoot to kill," I said, apropos to nothing, repeating what Ty had told his father in my vision.

I stood there pointing the gun at him until Ty pulled it out of my hand and bundled me in his arms. Then I sobbed my relief into his shoulder.

The nightmare was finally over.