As I reached the outer limits of the island, I thought again about how much damage Bram and Carson had done. Norton was right in front of me all day, but I didn’t trust myself enough to connect the dots. I couldn’t tell good from bad until the truth was presented on a fucking platter. I can’t even see a man for what he is when I look into his eyes and accept a ring.
The boathouse loomed ahead of me and I spotted Norton a few feet from the river’s edge. He was pushing a battered old canoe into the water near the dock. The green tarp he’d used to camouflage it lay abandoned behind him in the brush. The boat tipped and swayed in the water, no match for the ferocious waves. Gripping a paddle, her free arm braced against the canoe’s edge, Jade was already huddled inside.
“Stop right there!”
Both Jade and Norton startled and whipped their heads around. Jade wasn’t wearing a lifejacket, and the canoe didn’t look seaworthy in the best of weather. I trained my flashlight at Norton’s face and leveled my gun at his chest. “You can’t run,” I hollered. “Look at the river. She’ll die. You both will.”
Norton squinted into the light, and his small eyes sank into his doughy face. Rain flowed in rivulets over his bald head. “I have to,” he said, wading into the water. “I’ve got to take her home.”
“I thought Tern was your home.” I willed my hands to stop shaking. He appeared unarmed, but there was no way I could get off a clean shot if Norton made a move. With the rain, visibility was poor, and the harder I squeezed the more the gun’s grip felt like sandpaper grating at my palm. I took three slow steps toward him. “Where’s Jasper, Philip?”
He was still holding on to the canoe, trying to drag it deeper, but my question loosened his resolve and he stopped moving. Norton locked eyes with Jade. Jacketless and soaked through, she looked miserable and afraid. “I didn’t think,” he told her. “I didn’t know . . .”
“Where is he?” I shouted.
“He’s dead!” Norton’s sobs were nearly drowned out by the sound of the waves, but I saw the horror in his eyes. “He’s gone. In . . . in the river. I’m sorry, honey. I’m so sorry.”
Jade’s perfect lips formed the shape of an O. As I looked on she transformed, fragile now in the knowledge that she’d crossed from childhood to the inhumanity of adult life.
Norton let out a moan. “I’m sorry,” he said again, and dropped his chin to his chest.
“Out of the boat,” I told Jade as I closed the distance between us.
She looked up at Norton with confusion, but did as she was told. Jade scrambled out of the canoe, sinking her coltish legs into the water.
Fumbling the flashlight, unwilling to lower the gun, I reached into my back pocket and handed Jade her phone. “Get in the boathouse. Call 911. Tell them we’ve got suspects out here we’re charging with domestic assault and first-degree murder. Go,” I yelled when the girl didn’t move. She hurried to the boathouse and closed the door behind her.
Several facts still needled me, slivers of treachery stuck so deep I was desperate to pinch their ends and pull them free. “I think you drugged Jasper last night,” I said when Norton and I were alone. According to Ned, Norton was the only one who saw them after the fight outside. Ned told Norton Jasper had taken a fall. They’d come in through the kitchen. The water ring on Jasper’s bedside table. “You drugged his water, didn’t you? And this morning you got rid of the glass.”
Norton looked at me with grave eyes and nodded.
“You did the same to Abella during last night’s cocktail hour.” From the start, Tim had wondered whether drugs were involved. But Jasper wasn’t the only target. “Did you spike her ice? Clever. If someone else wanted their wine extra cold and ended up knocked out like her, all the better.”
“I didn’t want her to see,” he said feebly. “I was trying to protect her.”
“And you did it again tonight, to Camilla.” She was required to take pills several times daily, Norton had said. But I’d spent a whole day with the family and hadn’t witnessed her take anything, and there were no pills at her bedside. Camilla had seemed tired during our conversation in her bedroom, but she was coherent—nothing like the near-comatose state she slipped into after just a few sips of wine. “You couldn’t have her contributing to a conversation about the family money. Not with Flynn and Bebe in the house.”
Norton brought his hands to his head and squeezed. “You don’t understand! It wasn’t like that!”
“No? Camilla’s dying. The Sinclair fortune’s dried up. All that’s left now is the island. Who gets it when she’s gone? Who did Camilla name as her heir? It’s you, isn’t it? She’s leaving it all to you.”
Philip Norton’s shoulders collapsed and he closed his eyes.
“Jesus,” I said under my breath. More than anything, I felt disappointed. Camilla seemed like such a strong lady, the only one in the family in her right mind. She’d lost her husband, her only son, and the business she’d watched her family build from nothing, but she should’ve had the good sense to spot Norton’s ruse. If only she’d heeded the warnings of her beloved grandson, whose instincts had been on target. Instead, she listened to her friend of twenty years tell her how much Tern Island meant to him. That leaving it to Jasper would put it at risk of being snatched up and sold by Bebe and Flynn. Norton painted himself as the only logical choice. He promised to protect the priceless property until it could safely be transferred to Jasper. Jasper, who was about to disappear into the October mist.
Norton would face a colossal legal battle when Camilla’s wishes were discovered. A widowed empress of New York spurns her rightful heirs and leaves a multimillion-dollar estate to its longtime caretaker? The media would go wild. With Jasper gone, though, Flynn and Bebe were the only ones left to fight for the island, and doing so would inevitably call attention to the family business. The siblings needed Tern Island sold, but if it meant the press might shine a spotlight on Sinclair Fabrics, they’d be better off mourning the tragic loss of their brother and grandmother and letting the property go. Norton must have been overjoyed to hear Flynn announce he and Bebe were corporate criminals. Both faced massive fines, possibly even jail time. There was no one left to interfere with the plan.
“You think this place is worth killing for?” I said. The injustice of what Norton had done made my trigger finger itch. “Was it a kitchen knife or a tool from the shed? Was he dead before his body hit the water, or did he writhe in pain while he drowned? Did you watch him sink to the bottom of the river? Did you?”
Norton clutched his head tighter and released a primal moan.
“I thought you were working alone. When I realized what you’d done—implicating Bloom, the drugs—I was sure you concocted this whole plan. But I don’t think you killed Jasper anymore. No, you left that part to someone else.”