Ted looked puzzled. “I don’t understand,” he said, turning to me for an answer.
“We think your wife hired a contract killer to murder my ex-husband.” I watched his expression morph from confusion to disbelief.
“Melissa?” He laughed, a small sound of wonder that grew into an almost hysterical outburst. “Never! You don’t know my wife. She could never do something like that.”
“I hate to say it,” Mrs. Westover said, lowering her shotgun to her side, “but he’s right. I’ve known Melissa Fuller for years. I could see her destroying property to teach an unscrupulous man a lesson and protect her daughter, but I can’t see her taking a life. It just doesn’t fit.”
“She did something foolish in a moment of weakness,” Ted insisted, “but she realized her mistake when the police came to the house with a warrant for Bree. Melissa will never forgive herself for that. She would have been terrified to make any attempt to harm Steven or his property again, for fear of casting any more suspicion on our daughter.”
“So rather than turn your wife in, you tweaked Bree’s alibi, making sure it covered Melissa, too.” The morning after the fire, Bree told me she’d been home the night before watching TV with her dad. But according to Nick, her parents told the police all three of them had been home watching TV together. I could picture it all playing out in my head. “Melissa didn’t take that photo of the two of you in your living room that night. While you and Bree were home watching TV, your wife was setting the fire.”
Ted shook his head. “No one else was home, just me and my daughter. She wanted a photo of us, so she put her phone on the bookshelf and set the timer.”
“And you told the police Melissa took the photo, giving her an alibi,” Vero said. Ted nodded. “But if you and your wife didn’t hire someone to kill Steven, why did you schedule the meeting and invite Steven here?”
Ted looked confused. “I didn’t schedule the meeting.”
I turned to Vero. “If no one here scheduled the meeting, then who did?”
“Don’t look at me,” Theresa said, lifting the wine bottle to her mouth.
A crash tore through the front window as glass splintered the air.
We all hit the floor, covering our ears, cowering under the table as bullets rained into the house.
CHAPTER 40
The silence was deafening when the firing finally stopped.
“Is everyone okay?” Ted called out. Barbara cocked her shotgun.
“Who’s shooting at us?” Aimee huddled beside Theresa. I looked around me at the faces under the table. Every single one of us had a connection to Feliks Zhirov.
“It has to be Feliks,” I said. “You said it yourself, he doesn’t like loose ends.” We were all loose ends. One fell swoop and Feliks’s men could eliminate us all.
Another round of bullets ravaged the house.
“We’ll see about that!” Mrs. Westover rolled onto her knees and propped the barrel of her shotgun in the broken window. She fired off a few shots in the dark, interrupting their assault. When she ducked to reload, Feliks’s men returned fire, forcing her to retreat back under the table with the rest of us.
Theresa cradled her wine bottle in one arm and held Aimee in the other. “I’m sorry I told my husband where we were!” Aimee cried.
“I’m sorry your husband’s a dick!” Theresa sobbed.
Bullets gouged into the kitchen cabinets and pinged against the refrigerator door.
“Finlay!” Vero said, clutching my hand. “There’s something I need to tell you before we die.”
“I know!” I said, squeezing hers back. “I love you, too! But now is not the time!”
“No, Finn. It’s about the money. I need to—”
Tires skidded in the gravel outside. Blue light flooded the window, followed by a shout. “Police! Drop your weapons and put your hands up!”
“That sounds like Nick!” Vero ducked, covering her ears as another hailstorm of gunfire erupted outside.
Vero and I crawled to the window and peered out. A blue light swirled on Nick’s dashboard. His driver’s side door hung open, but he was nowhere in sight. Two men dressed in solid black hid behind trees in the front yard, their semiautomatic weapons flashing as they fired into the passenger side of Nick’s car.
“Where is he?” Vero asked over the pop of gunfire.
“I don’t know. He must be trapped behind his car. We have to do something.” The gunmen wouldn’t let up, one shooting as the other reloaded, windows shattering as they fired at the swirling blue lights. I ducked under the window, dragging Vero down with me. “We have to make a distraction. Something big enough to draw their attention from Nick.” It would take something brighter and louder to drag their focus away from his car. My eyes darted over the kitchen for anything we could use. Blue light shimmered off the fallen wine bottle on the table.