“Do you think the animosity could have reached the point of violence?” she asked, well aware that even in Ellie’s drunken state, this question wouldn’t seem innocent to the woman. She was right. Ellie blinked several times and when she fixed her gaze on Jessie, her eyes were considerably more focused than before.
“Do you mean ‘did my husband kill Scott so he could be with Bridget?’” she asked archly. “Or do you mean ‘did Scott confront Matt about his endless crush, making Matt panic and kill him?’ Because my answer to all of those would be ‘no.’ Matt’s a lot of things, but he’s not a killer. Besides, he wasn’t in the spa when Scott died, right? I thought he was in our casita.”
“That’s what he said,” Jessie confirmed, “just like you were hiking down to some tide pools, right?”
Ellie seemed to get that the question wasn’t just curiosity and looked about to respond defensively when the server brought over a new drink. She paused long enough to take a sip. As she did Kat’s voice came over the phone.
“Bridget Newhouse is on her way out,” she said urgently. “She was being comforted by some random women who found her crying in one of the stalls. They’re all leaving together, taking their time, but I’d say you’ve got about thirty seconds. Better wrap up.”
Jessie would have liked to but Ellie had put her drink down and appeared to be warming up for some sort of cutting comment. But before she could get a word out, they both heard a screech from up above.
Jessie looked up to see the couple on the second level rushing down the metal staircase. The woman was screaming bloody murder. She scanned the area where Ryan and Matt Darcy had been sitting. It was empty. Then her attention was pulled toward movement to the right. She saw Darcy’s large body lunge forward clumsily. In a moment of frozen horror, she realized that he was taking a swing at Ryan.
Her fiancé dodged the punch easily, sidestepping it with grace. But the force of Darcy’s effort sent the bigger man careening forward. He slammed into the balcony railing before his considerable weight sent him toppling over it and down toward the first level, at least thirty feet below.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Ryan grabbed Matt Darcy’s left wrist with both hands and braced.
As he did, he could feel his whole body tense up at what was about to happen. The bigger man’s weight pulled him down and for a second he thought he was going to tumble over the railing too, but he managed to hook his feet between the floor and the bottom rail. His arms strained and his knees buckled. He pressed his waist hard against the railing to get traction.
Darcy’s wrist was slick with sweat and Ryan felt his grip starting to slip. He knew he only had a short time before he lost it entirely. He looked down into the man’s face and saw the fear in his red eyes.
“Grab the bottom rail with your other hand,” he grunted through gritted teeth. “I can’t hold on much longer.”
Matt Darcy stared up at him as if he was speaking another language. Ryan’s hands were no longer holding his wrist but his palm and the back of his hand. In less than five seconds, he wouldn’t be holding anything.
“Matthew,” he ordered. “Wrap your right arm around the rail right now!”
Maybe it was hearing his full first name spoken like a parent would say it that snapped the guy out of it, but whatever the reason, Darcy did as he was told. Just as he hooked his right elbow around the bottom rung of the railing his fingers slipped through Ryan’s grasp.
He dropped but didn’t fall, though he did howl in pain as his arm torqued at an awkward angle. Ryan ignored that, quickly wiped his palms on his pants, jammed his feet even more firmly under the railing and reached down, bending as far as he could go. This time he hooked his arms under Darcy’s armpits and clenched the back of his dress shirt.
“Matthew,” he said calmly, “I know it hurts but I need you to pay attention. When I tell you to, let go of the railing. I’m going to pull you up. But we need to do this fast while I still have the strength for it. Do you understand?”
Matt was half screaming and half crying but he managed to nod weakly.
“Okay,” Ryan said, “here we go. Let go now!”
Darcy unhooked his right arm and Ryan yanked him upward in one propulsive burst, like he was a sack of potatoes with arms. The man cleared the railing and Ryan wrapped him in a bear hug, pulling him back toward him. Ryan fell backward to the floor and Darcy—all 215 pounds of him—landed hard on top of his chest, knocking the wind out of him.
He gasped for breath, which was made that much harder by the heavy lump lying on him. When he was finally able to suck in enough air, he shoved Darcy off and rolled over onto his stomach. Every part of him, especially his arms, legs and back, was throbbing with a mix of pain and intense tingling.
He was just pushing himself onto all fours when he saw Jessie leap up from the metal stairwell onto the balcony, with Kat right behind her.
“Watch him,” she instructed Kat, pointing at the other man as she darted over to him with a worry etched into her face. “Don’t try to get up yet. Give yourself a minute.”
“Everything hurts,” Ryan whispered, still trying to catch his breath.
“I’ll bet,” Jessie said quietly. “Do you think anything’s broken?”
“Too soon to tell,” he grunted, “but I don’t think so. I’ll know better once I’m standing.”
After waiting a minute, she helped him gingerly to his feet. Darcy was still lying on the ground, groaning and hugging his right arm with his left. Ryan moved his arms around and took a couple of hesitant steps. It all ached but there was no sharp pain.
“I think I’m okay, or will be,” he said.
“What are we doing with this guy?” Kat asked. “Do we want to call a squad car to take him to the station?”
Ryan thought about it for a second, trying not to let his anger at the man cloud his judgment.
“I think I’ve got a better idea.”
*
They stepped out of The Cove manager’s office, leaving Matt Darcy inside, cuffed to a file cabinet. Ryan glanced back at the guy before shutting the door, just to make sure he was totally secure. Even if Darcy wasn’t attached to a big metal rectangle, Ryan didn’t think he looked in any shape to put up a fight at this point.
A security guard, one specifically assigned to the task by Hugo, stayed inside with him just in case. Darcy’s arm rested in his lap. A doctor who’d been partying at the club had agreed to look at it.
“Nothing is broken,” he had assured them. “It’s a mild sprain. He can wait until tomorrow to get it checked out.”
After he left, Ryan, Jessie, and Kat stood in the hallway just outside the room with the club manager, a small, balding twenty-something guy in a tuxedo, who still looked shell-shocked.
“Thanks for your help,” he said. “You’ll have your office back soon, I promise. We just need a moment to confer privately. Please tell Mrs. Darcy that we’ll let her see her husband momentarily. But make sure the security guard with her keeps her at that table until we say otherwise.”
The manager nodded and scurried off, happy to be assigned a task within his skill set. Only once Ryan, Jessie, and Kat were alone did he feel comfortable talking freely. Before he could say anything, Kat did.