His eyes narrowed, bore into her. “Get in the pool. Start swimming.”
“What? You’re not making sense.” Was he on something? she wondered.
Unexpectedly, both his hands slammed into her shoulders and shoved her backward. She hit the pool with a startled cry and sucked a mouthful of water into her lungs. She surfaced, gagging and struggling to get her breath in spastic gasps. Treading water and coughing, she looked up at her former husband looming above her.
She’d never seen Ryan this angry, this out of control. Suddenly all the years she’d put up with his antics infuriated her. What had she been thinking? This man was nothing but a self-centered egomaniac. Evidently, the beauty queen had seen the light and left him. It must have sent him over some psychological edge into lunacy.
“Start swimming, Whitney.”
She sputtered, still unable to catch her breath, her throat burning from the chlorine in the pool. Finally she managed to ask, “Why? What’s going on?”
He didn’t answer and that sent a fresh surge of panic through her. She tried to touch bottom with the tips of her toes, but it was too deep. She took a few quick strokes to the edge of the pool near Ryan’s feet. She grasped the rim of the pool with both hands.
“What’s wrong with you?” she asked.
“Nothing you can’t fix.”
Whitney laughed-more of a cackle really. Once she would have walked on water to “fix” any of this man’s problems. “I’m not interested in fixing a damn thing.”
Whitney dipped under the water and swam to the shallow end where she could walk out. She surfaced, stood up, flung her head back and swept her wet hair out of her eyes. Ryan had beaten her to the shallow end. He stood there pointing a gun fitted with a silencer at her.
It took a second to absorb what she was seeing. Where had he gotten the gun? He’d never had one when they’d been together. He didn’t know how to use it, did he? Doubts clouded her thoughts. The gambling. There was a lot about this man she’d never known. Often the craziest people appeared sane, she reminded herself.
“This can go one of two ways,” Ryan said with unexpected savagery. “You can swim until you’re too exhausted to take another stroke…and drown…or I can shoot you.”
This had to be a sick prank, didn’t it? That hope flared, then died when she assessed the hatred gleaming in Ryan’s eyes and noted the deadly weapon in his hand. This was no joke. “Why?” she managed to ask. “I had no idea Ashley had left me those clothes. It was just an accident that I was wearing the dress-”
“Shut up. Leave Ashley out of this.” He waved the gun and the blue metal caught the light. “Start swimming or I’ll shoot.”
“If I’m going to die, I have a right to know the reason.”
For an instant, his eyes squeezed shut, then opened. He gazed at her as if seeing her for the very first time. “My, ah…friends tried to get rid of you. But you weren’t home when you should have been. All the pipe bomb did was start a fire.”
Her lower lip trembled as his words registered. Oh my God! They’d been after her-not Miranda. Whitney hadn’t quite accepted Adam’s explanation that Calvin Hunter had given the terrorists a fake disc. She assumed that believing they had the real one, they’d tried to kill Miranda. Now she knew why that scenario didn’t make sense. And she realized why she’d been so panicky. Her sixth sense kept warning that she was in danger.
“Why would they want to kill me? I never harmed anyone.”
“No, but you can be very clever when necessary. You climbed that fence in the nick of time, didn’t you?”
His attempt at a laugh raised every hair on her body. A thousand thoughts whirlpooled through her brain as she realized that she’d come close to death twice already. This time might be the end-if she didn’t keep her wits and turn the tables somehow. Don’t panic, don’t freeze up. Not now.
Adam’s face appeared in her mind. Suddenly, she felt silly for putting up such a fuss over things he hadn’t told her. He’d believed her, taken so much on faith even though he’d just met her. If she hadn’t suffered through so many lies with Ryan, she might have been more understanding. Now she might never have the chance to tell Adam she loved him.
“I’ll stay out of your life, Ryan. I swear I will.”
“If you’d signed the property agreement, you would have been history and none of this would have happened.”
Was this about the property settlement? He must owe a lot more money than Rod Babcock had told her. “I’ll sign tomorrow when my lawyer returns. He has the papers.”
“No, you won’t. Babcock already called me. He knows the truth.” Ryan shifted the gun from one hand to the other and back. “There’s no toxic landfill. There never was. That land might as well have oil underneath it.”
“What do you mean?” Stay calm, she reminded herself. And think.
“It’s not far from the Indians’ casino. They’re expanding, putting in a bigger hotel and a second casino that will dwarf every other casino in the state. With you gone, the land belongs to me.”
You’re a fool, she silently raged at herself. Why hadn’t she changed her will? How stupid could she be? “I’ll sign it over to you.”
“Too late. At the end of this week, the proposal comes up for approval by the county commission. The Indians need to have all the deeds in order. Your hotshot lawyer will talk you out of signing unless I promise you a bundle of money.” He pointed the gun directly at her head. “This changes everything.”
“You’ll never get away with it. The police will know-”
“An accidental drowning? I don’t think so.”
“Then I’m not swimming. You’ll have to shoot me.”
“Suit yourself. It’ll look like a burglar killed you.”
“No, it won’t.” The soft voice cracked out of the darkness behind Ryan.
He spun around. “Ashley, what are you doing here?”
Well, this beats all, Whitney decided in frantic amazement. The situation could not become weirder. She watched the two of them stare at each other. Whitney couldn’t just stand in waist-deep water. Already her legs were spongy, ready to give out.
Her first instinct was to bolt, to lunge through the water, legs splashing, arms flailing as she prayed for good luck. She’d read somewhere that even the most highly trained sharpshooter had less than a fifty-fifty chance of hitting someone who was running in an erratic zig-zag pattern. She bet guns were new to Ryan. Except at point-blank range, he probably couldn’t hit her.
Ashley hadn’t responded to Ryan’s question. After a moment’s silence, he asked, “Where have you been?”
There was a desperate note in his voice, Whitney decided, almost a pleading tone. She realized he loved this woman in a way that he’d never loved her. Not that she cared, but she might be able to exploit the situation to save herself. She edged closer to the steps out of the pool, taking care not to disturb the water and call attention to her movements.
“I went to Bakersfield to see my father.” A look of pure anguish washed over Ashley’s face, then vanished so quickly that Whitney wondered if she’d imagined it. “He agreed to give me every cent he had to help us get out of debt. I also personally went to Domenic Coriz, but he didn’t want money. He wants the land.”
“Ashley, honey, get back in your car,” Ryan responded in the unemotional tone of a therapist. “I’ll explain it to you later.”
“Don’t treat me like a child! I’ve been following you. I overheard you threaten Whitney. I know what you’re up to.”
“I just want the best for both of us.” His calm tone unnerved Whitney even more. He’d gone ballistic before; now he was psycho.
“Killing an innocent woman won’t end your problems. You’re addicted to gambling.”