Page 32 of A Dark and Stormy Night

She didn't speak.

He shuffled down one step, then another, and with his toe pushed on her shoulder.

She rolled over.

All her viciousness, her triumph, her madness—they were gone. Her jaw was slack, her head crooked at an awkward angle.

She was dead. Cecily was really truly . . . dead.

Aghast, Landon looked across at the graveyard of bodies. "B . . . but Cecily, now the police are really going to believe I did it. I didn't kill them, but you made it look like I did, and now you're dead, and it looks even worse. This is not fair! I didn't do this! I'm innocent!"

Smoke began to ooze out of the return air vents. Heat made the wallboard turn tan where the studs were catching fire. In the attic, he heard a blast; this home ran propane heat. The fireplaces were gas.

Cecily was right. The whole house was going to burn to the ground.

He knelt beside the body of his wife.

But not too close.

He extended his shaking fingers.

But he didn't quite touch. "Cecily, you have to get up. We've got to get out of here. I don't know what you planned, exactly, but whatever it was . . . " He picked up the briefcase. He opened the latch and looked inside. He saw a roll of twenties and a clutter of credit cards. "You stole all this?"

She stared straight up, her eyes wide and glazed.

He dug into the side pocket, pulled out pages of information on the money transfers from the Riccis' accounts to theirs. "I can't believe that you . . . all these years, I didn't realize . . . " He held onto the briefcase, hurried over to Cousin Mario. "I'm sorry. So sorry. I didn't know what she intended. Really. Really I didn't." Poor Cousin Mario. The explosion, at face level, had erased his features, yet Landon knew that in life they had looked alike. So much alike.

A thought came to him. From nowhere. It just came to him.

They did look alike, he and Mario. They really did. If he had Cousin Mario's identification, he could take their car, drive to Seattle, clean out more accounts, and while the fire department and the police were trying to figure out what had happened here, he could get away.

He glanced back at Cecily, half-expecting her to be on her feet and nagging at him.

But she was still dead.

Cousin Mario and Cousin Gwen were still dead.

The house was still on fire.

If Landon stayed in here, he would die, too.

If he stood around outside, he would be arrested for the murder of three people.

If he wanted to live, and live free, he had no choice.

Kneeling beside Cousin Mario's body, he gingerly searched his pockets.

Car keys. Wallet, with driver's license, credit cards and cash.

The smoke was getting thicker. The flames were heating the house. Landon had only a few minutes to make his final decision.

But that was a lie.

He'd made that decision the moment he picked up the briefcase.

***

At three o'clock that afternoon, the border guard at the Peace Arch on Canadian border was suitably impressed when a silver Mercedes E-400 Cabriolet convertible pulled up to his station, top down. "Nice car," Walt Bingham said as he took the proffered ID. "Mr. . . . Mario Ricci."

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