“You’re lying!” Shannon gasped. “Oliver would never do anything like that. He loved Neville. Loved God!”
“You can’t believe that poor, pious Oliver would stoop so low as to pretend to be his brother for a couple of weeks?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“He was saving his own hide. Think about it. Did you ever see Neville and Oliver together after my death?”
Shannon’s mind reeled backward to those first horrible days when she was accused of murder, when speculation ran high that she’d killed her husband. Her brothers and parents had been around. But now, with the march of time, the images were blurry. She couldn’t be sure.
“You didn’t see him! No one did. Because Neville was dead. And Oliver was a master at slipping into Neville’s skin, pretending to be his twin, and he hid it from everyone but eventually, he cracked. Again. Poor innocent Oliver couldn’t keep up the pretense and he landed in another loony bin.”
“You don’t know anything!”
“Think again. You know how they say confession is good for the soul? Well, that’s what Oliver did just before he died. In the church basement, he bowed his head and confessed everything to me.”
“You son of a bitch!” she gro
wled, yanking at her arms and legs. Pain screamed through her body. “You sick, psychotic son of a bitch!” she yelled, her head spinning.
“Is that any way to talk to your husband? Your lover?”
Her stomach, already nauseous from the stench of gas, curdled at his endearments for her. Staring up at him, she strained so hard she could feel the cords in her throat stand out. “This is so much crap, Ryan. I don’t believe you. Oliver, if he knew you survived…he would have warned me.”
“He knew I was alive even if the rest of them didn’t. But they all suspected something…they just weren’t sure about Neville because of Oliver’s impersonation.” Ryan leered. “But face it, honey, they all let you twist in the wind for my death. They planned my demise, but they let you go on trial for murder!”
She felt cold inside. Despite the heat.
“Swell guys, your brothers.”
“They couldn’t have known.”
“Oliver sure knew. He didn’t rat me out, even when he found out I was back. When I confronted him in the confessional…you know, the priest-parishioner confidence thing? I reminded him he couldn’t tell or he’d suffer God’s wrath.”
She was stunned. “You used the church…Oliver’s faith…against him?”
“No, bitch,” he said, suddenly angry. “I used his guilt!”
Shannon gazed at this horror who had once been her husband. “You killed them all. Neville, Mary Beth…Oliver,” she said dully, the terrible truth of it sinking in. There was no way out. She, too, was doomed. The smell of gasoline was overpowering. Revolting. Oh, God, please not her clothes…but whatever he had planned, it would be excruciating. He intended to extract every bit of revenge he could and she knew her death was not only imminent, it would be hideous. She had to keep him talking and try to find a way to deceive him, to get a jump on him, to save herself.
“I’m just getting even, wifey,” he pointed out, still circling her but keeping his distance. “I waited a long time for this. Leaving the country then wasn’t as hard as I thought. I’d already gotten myself some fake papers, so it was easy enough to steal a car and drive north. I ditched that truck and bought a junker north of Seattle and just kept driving. It was easy enough to hide in Canada. No one looks for a dead man.”
She worked her hands, racked her brain for more conversation. “How did you live?”
“Oh, I worked in sawmills, drifted around. All the while I was just planning for the right time, searching for the way to make it work. Then I remembered: the best way to get back at you was to go through your daughter. The one you gave up.”
Shannon tried not to react. Oh, Dani. Please be all right.
“She was a piece of work that one, a bitch just like you.” He pointed a finger at the puncture near his eye. Blood ran down his skin. The eye was so swollen she doubted he could see well. “She had the nerve to come at me with a nail.”
“Is she all right?”
“Of course not,” he said without any emotion and tossed the framed snapshot of Shea into the fire. “Burned to a fuckin’ crisp. Just like I was supposed to be three years ago!”
He was lying! He had to be! Her fists, beneath the cords restraining her, curled in desperation. If he wanted to kill her, well, then so be it. But not her baby. Not Dani!
She lifted her head. Glared at him with murderous eyes. “You didn’t hurt her.”
He smiled maliciously.