Her thoughts zoomed around the room like a cloud of bats soaring, dipping, banging into walls, knowing they were trapped.

And then the knocking came again.

It was far too soon for John.

Besides, it was Mark’s knock. One-two.

“Help!” Annie wanted to cry out, but she could not. She didn’t want to scare Donna more than she already must have.

Suddenly, she heard sounds inside the cottage. Footsteps in the bedroom. Moving into the living room. She sat, frozen. Her heart thump-thumped again.

Then the front door flew open.

A shot rang out.

“Now get the hell out of here!” a woman’s voice shrieked. Donna’s voice. “Next time I won’t miss.”

Chapter 23

Chapter 23

By the time the red and blue lights splashed across the lawn and the Inn and the sky, Annie had stopped shaking. She was still sitting in the chair; Donna sat nearby, holding Annie’s hand.

John blew into the cottage with more ferocity than a nor’easter in February. “What the . . . ? Annie? Are you okay?” Donna let go of her hand as John crouched down.

Annie reached for him. “I’m okay now. I am.”

“Dispatch said a trespasser broke in.”

That must have been what she’d said when she had called. “He didn’t really break in, but . . .”

John shifted on his haunches. “But what?”

“It was my ex-husband. It was Mark.”

John gripped her arm. “The jerk? The one who disappeared and screwed you over?”

Annie nodded. It was tough to hear those words being said out loud. Tough. Embarrassing. Humiliating.

“He won’t be back,” Donna said. “I let him know he was not welcome here.”

Annie noticed that the gun had vanished. Perhaps she shouldn’t mention to John that her mother had one.

“I can’t believe he found you,” John said, his voice quieter, but his anger, Annie knew, was not far under his skin. “How the hell did he find you?”

“It’s my own fault. I called a friend of his at the Boston DA’s office. I thought he might . . . help out. With the skull, you know?”

John dropped his chin. “Jesus, Annie. I thought by now you knew not to get involved.”

“But so much is at stake . . .”

He let go of her arm. “Where’d he go?”

“I have no idea.”

“What’s his last name?”

“Lewiston.”

“Do you have a picture of him?”

She frowned. Did John really think she’d saved a photo of the man? There was no need to tell him about the bonfire she and Murphy had ignited in the dumpster at Annie’s condo building that quickly had destroyed the photos, clothes, and every single thing that Mark had liked or touched or even breathed on; or how the fire department had showed up and lambasted them. “I got rid of all his photos,” was what she said now.

“What kind of vehicle was he driving?”