“Thanks babe. We’re on our way.”

  I was still watching the screen and listening to the audio. “I can’t see Sheri anymore, but I can still hear her screaming. They must be getting pretty far up inside the tower.”

  “Poor thing,” Chloe said. “She told Eric that she escaped, but they must’ve gone after her and dragged her back.”

  I put the phone up to my ear so I could hear better over the highway noise. “Now the guys are shouting, ‘Get her!’ ‘Get back here, you bitch!’ ”

  It sent chills across my shoulders. “They’re just awful.”

  “So much for all of them being good friends,” Chloe said.

  All of a sudden, I saw Sheri racing past the camera, going down toward the door. Her hair was streaming wildly, and she was screaming. “I think she escaped again!”

  “Yay!” Chloe cheered.

  “The guys are after her,” I reported. “Their shouts are getting closer.”

  “My nerves are shot,” Chloe declared. “I don’t know how you can be so calm.”

  I had to laugh because I was literally sitting on the edge of my seat. “Trust me, I’m not that calm.”

  Mac turned off the highway and onto Old Lighthouse Road. He usually drove slowly over the potholes and ruts, but not today. His SUV bumped and bucked over craters and cracks that he’d deliberately never bothered to fix, assuring me that this pitted old road helped keep out the riffraff. Given that we were now in pursuit of at least one creepy killer, that philosophy wasn’t working for me.

  “Hold on,” Mac shouted.

  I grabbed the chicken strap over the door to keep myself upright. “You okay back there?”

  Chloe was being tossed left and right as Mac’s tires hit another hole in the road. “I’m okay. Not sure my stomach will make it, though.”

  Mac came to a sharp stop in front of the lighthouse, right behind Eric’s SUV.

  From here, I could see the writers’ cars parked in a neat row behind the mansion. Lewis’s black Audi was there and a small white SUV was parked next to it. It looked familiar and I wondered whose it was. Was it the same SUV that was parked at Homefront the night Lewis showed up for his “date” with Linda? Had one of the writers been following Lewis?

  We all jumped out of the car and Chloe pointed up. “Look! They’re out on that catwalk. I think they’re fighting.”

  “And that flimsy wrought iron is on the list to be replaced,” I said. “It won’t hold up to their weight and all that movement.”

  “They’re insane,” Chloe said.

  “I can see it shaking from here,” Mac said. “They’re both going to die up there.”

  Eric aimed his SUV’s side spotlight up toward the top of the lighthouse, illuminating Lewis and Brian as they fought.

  “Will that help?” Chloe asked, since it was the middle of the afternoon and still sunny.

  “If they didn’t already hear the siren and see the flashing lights on our car, they’ll see this one. It’s so bright it’s blinding.”

  “You want them to know we’re here,” she said.

  “Yeah.” Eric grabbed Mac’s arm. “Two things.” He pointed to his back seat, where Sheri was huddled in a blanket. “First, watch her. Don’t let her out of the car. I’m taking her in for questioning.”

  “Got it.”

  “Second,” Eric continued, “we’ve called for backup. Should be here any minute. Send one of them up to the top. The others should keep order down here. Tell them not to let any of the writers leave.”

  “Roger that,” Mac said.

  Then Eric and Tommy went racing into the lighthouse.

  “Be careful,” Chloe cried, then rolled her eyes. “Like they’ll take that advice.”

  I patted her back. “It’s the thought that counts.”

  I noticed the other writers had come out of the mansion and were standing on the pitted pavement staring at the top of the lighthouse where their buddies appeared to be yelling and pushing at each other. The four of them could’ve been watching a tennis tournament for all the emotion they showed. I shook my head. Lewis was a total creep, but the rest of them weren’t much better.

  I returned my gaze to the catwalk. Those two up there weren’t fighters. Most of their attacks were with words, although they did get a few slaps and pushes in.

  I was growing more frantic, watching and wondering when the catwalk rail would crumble into the ocean. And then I suddenly had to blink to clear my vision. “Am I seeing things, or is Lewis actually holding up his phone?”

  “You’re seeing just fine,” Mac confirmed. “That numbskull is recording their fight.”

  “He’s obsessed with that phone,” Chloe said.

  Two black-and-white patrol cars came barreling down the Old Lighthouse Road and skidded to a stop a few yards back from Mac’s car. As soon as Mindy got out of the car, Mac stopped her. “Message from the chief. He’s up at the top of the lighthouse, and he needs one more officer up there, stat.”

  “Did he say why he only wants one of us?”

  I leaned forward. “There’s already four men up there in a small space. You won’t be able to fit too many more.”

  “Makes sense,” she said.

  “Who’s that?” Rachel Timmons asked, pointing at Sheri in the back seat of the chief’s SUV.

  “A witness,” Mac explained. “Eric’s going to want to question her. I can keep an eye on her unless one of you wants to take over.”

  “We’ll take over. Thanks, Mac.”

  “No problem.”

  Mindy adjusted her equipment-heavy belt. “Rachel, you mind watching the witness?”

  “Not at all,” Rachel Timmons said.

  “Garcia, you want to go up, or shall I?”

  He took a good, long look at the height of the lighthouse tower and saw the two guys squabbling outside on the catwalk. “You go ahead. Timmons and I can watch this crowd.”

  “Works for me,” Mindy said jovially. “I can use the exercise.” And she went running into the lighthouse.

  Brian and Lewis continued screaming at each other, but it was impossible to hear what they were saying over the roar of the ocean and the cries of the seabirds. According to Sheri, they’d been arguing over Linda Rutledge. Was one of them accusing the other of killing her?

  Without warning, Brian yanked the phone away from Lewis and hurled it into the ocean.

  The crowd gasped in unison.

  “Can’t really blame him for doing that,” Mac said.

  Annabelle cried out, “Brian, that was mean!”

  One of the guys, Kingsley or Hugh, I couldn’t tell which, shouted, “Watch his left hook, Brian.”

  “Watch his left hook?” Mac said under his breath. “That’s all the advice he can give this guy?”

  “They’re all crazy,” I whispered.

  Lewis screamed his outrage and reached for Brian’s throat. He began to throttle him, and Brian was helpless for a moment as he tried to pry away Lewis’s fingers. Then Brian stomped on Lewis’s instep—a classic defense move for someone with no upper-body strength—and caused him to howl in pain. Lewis bent over and raised his tender foot. Again, we couldn’t hear the words, but while Lewis was down, he wasn’t out. He reached out with his fist and punched Brian in the stomach. Then he managed to pull himself up to his full height and punch Brian in the face. He clearly wasn’t a trained fighter, but his punches appeared to be landing.

  “This is brutal,” Mac said. “Neither of them know what they’re doing, but they’re managing to hurt each other.”

  “Ouch,” I said, although I had no sympathy for either of these two morons.

  “That’ll teach him not to take Lewis’s phone,” Chloe murmured.

  Brian held up his arms to protect his face. Lewis kept swinging, and I wondered how long they could last. But in a surprise move, Brian managed to grab hold of both of Lewis’s arms and slowly began to push him toward the railing.

  “Oh no!” I shouted, along with everyone else.

  “Where’s Eric?” Chloe demanded.

  “He might not want to go out on the catwalk,” I said. “We haven’t reinforced it yet, so it’s a little weak.”

  “Do you think he’s made it all the way to the top?”

  “He and Tommy were moving pretty quickly.”

  It could take a while to get all the way up there, I thought. The steps were high and narrow and curved. And being so close to the ocean, they could also be slippery from the moist salt air. It was a treacherous climb in the best of circumstances.

  “I wish I had binoculars,” she said, then jogged over to where the writers were standing and turned to stare up at the top. After a minute, she came back to report. “I can see Eric inside the glass room.”

  “Good,” I said with some relief. “So he made it up there.”

  “Why doesn’t he grab those guys and get them down here?”

  “They might’ve locked the door to the catwalk,” Mac suggested.

  “No, they broke the lock,” I said, remembering the state of the old weathered door.

  Chloe frowned. “So Eric could step out and grab one of them.”

  “He might be hesitant to distract them.”

  Chloe made a sound of disgust. “At this point, they’re both going to fall to their deaths anyway. He might as well go for it.”

  I exchanged a look with Mac. She made a good point.

  Our gazes were suddenly drawn back to the catwalk as Brian pushed Lewis right up to the edge of the railing. Without warning, Brian gave him one strong shove and Lewis fell over the railing.

  “Oh my God!” I screamed.

  Everyone joined me, screaming and gasping in horror.

  “Holy crap,” Chloe cried.

  “Noooo!” Sheri shrieked.

  I hadn’t noticed that she had left the SUV and was now standing next to the car, staring up at the catwalk. I guessed we’d all been a little distracted.

  Rachel Timmons rushed over and opened the back door. “Get back in there.”

  Sheri looked ready to argue, but Rachel straightened up and stuck her thumbs inside her equipment belt in an aggressive, no-nonsense pose. Sheri climbed back into the car like a docile little lamb.

  She had managed to take our attention away for a minute, but now we all looked up and saw that miraculously, Lewis had managed to snag the bottom rail with one hand. Now he was dangling precariously in the air 120-some feet above the jagged rocks and the ocean spray.

  “This is insane,” Chloe said.

  The door to the interior swung open, and Eric stepped out, grabbed Brian’s arm, and twisted it behind his back. Within seconds, he had the writer off the catwalk and inside the lighthouse.

  There was applause from the crowd for Eric and catcalls for Brian as they both disappeared from sight.

  His so-called friends really didn’t like him, I thought.

  “Are they just going to leave Lewis hanging?” Chloe wondered aloud.

  As if on cue, Tommy stepped out onto the flimsy catwalk. With two halting steps he made it to the railing where he crouched down, braced himself, and reached through the rail to grab hold of Lewis’s hand.

  Lewis’s scream of fear could be heard by all of us. I couldn’t blame him.

  Then Tommy reached down with his other hand and Lewis managed to clutch it. In an amazing show of strength, Tommy pulled the guy up through the bottom spokes of the railing and dragged him onto the grating.

  Lewis lay there for a couple of minutes while we all held our breath. Finally, Tommy helped him to his feet, and they both wobbled to the door and disappeared inside.

  “Okay, that was pretty heroic,” Chloe admitted.

  “Sure was,” Mac said.

  The writers began to applaud and shout out praise for Tommy.

  It had been quite a show.

  “Now what?” Chloe wondered.

  “It’s a long way down,” I said.

  She nodded. “Too bad we didn’t bring refreshments.”

  “Look at this,” Mac said, and nudged his chin toward the writers.

  We turned and watched Annabelle approach Rachel Timmons. They were close enough for us to hear the conversation as Annabelle asked if she could talk to Sheri.

  “Sorry,” Officer Timmons said. “You’ll have to wait till later.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Annabelle cried.

  “Nope. She’s a witness and, frankly, so are you. We don’t want you talking to each other until we interview you.”

  “That’s so stupid!”

  “What’s stupid is you giving me a hard time,” Timmons said. “Now you can either wait out here quietly, or you can wait in the black-and-white.”

  Insulted, Annabelle tossed her hair back. “Not in this lifetime!”

  “Then do yourself a favor and go stand over there with your little friends,” Timmons said.

  “What. Ever.” Annabelle stomped her foot—a movement that, after dealing with Whitney, looked distressingly familiar to me—and flounced away.

  “They continue to be awful people,” I said to Mac.

  He shook his head. “Even the halfway normal ones make me want to throw them all out.”

  “You probably should,” I said.

  He held up two fingers. “I’m this close to doing it.”

  All of a sudden, the lighthouse door was flung open, and Brian came flying out, his hands cuffed securely behind his back. He stopped, looked around, and was clearly taken aback by all of us staring at him. He looked relieved to see his writer friends and ran over to them. “He tried to kill me! Did you see it? He’s out of his mind! I was so scared.”

  Eric walked out the door of the lighthouse, seemingly unbothered that the man was running around loose. After all, Brian was handcuffed. Still though, Officer Garcia intercepted him, grabbed his arm, and led him back toward the chief’s SUV.

  “I want to talk to my friends!” he protested.

  “You don’t always get what you want,” Officer Garcia said mildly. “You pushed that guy over the rail. You could’ve killed him.”

  “No! He tried to kill me!” Brian cried.

  Eric met Officer Garcia halfway. “Thanks, Carlos. Can you hold him for another minute or two?”

  “Sure, Chief. He’s not going anywhere.”

  Eric walked over to his SUV and opened the back door. He leaned in and said something to Sheri, who nodded and smiled flirtatiously.

  “Did you see that?” Chloe asked.

  I snorted. “The batting eyelashes? Yeah. It just gets better and better.”

  Eric slammed the door shut and turned toward the lighthouse. And waited.

  Another minute or so later, Lewis walked out into the sun. He looked around, and when he saw Brian, he shook his fist at him. “You bastard! You tried to kill me!”

  “He’s a liar!” Brian shouted to the crowd, then faced Lewis. “You’re a fraud and a cheater!”

  “Well, you’re a thief and killer!”

  “They really seem to know each other well,” Mac said.

  “I’ve rarely heard Brian’s voice,” I said. “It’s deeper than I thought it would be.”

  “He doesn’t talk much,” Mac agreed. “But he’s talking now.”

  All of a sudden, I couldn’t help myself. I had just been thinking about Linda and how unfair it was that she’d been killed. She had been a good woman, warm, kind and compassionate. And now, seeing these two spoiled men shouting and spewing at each other like grammar school bullies, it made me sick to think of Linda sparing them one minute of her time.

  I took a few steps forward and shouted, “Which one of you removed the screws in my wall?”

  For some reason, that shut everyone up. Brian and Lewis both stared in my direction. The other writers stared at me. And having stared down more than a few killers in my life, I knew in that instant who had done it.

  But before I could accuse anyone, Lewis began to sway. “I’m going to be sick,” he mumbled, and weaved back and forth. He tried to take one more step toward Brian, then dropped to the ground in a dead faint.

  Annabelle screamed, “Lewis!”

  Sheri threw the car door open and rushed out to grab him.

  I looked at Chloe. “I don’t get it.”

  “Me either. It’s like they’re in a cult.”

  The cult of Lewis, I thought. Maybe it was his thick blond hair that appealed to them. Or his depraved sense of entitlement. It couldn’t have been his personality.

  “Get away from him,” Brian said in a growl.

  Sheri stroked Lewis’s cheek, then looked up at Brian with tear-filled eyes. “Why are you always so mean to Lewis?”

  Brian glared at her with bared teeth. “Because he stole my life.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Lewis wasn’t moving.

  Eric and Tommy rushed over and knelt down next to him. Eric checked Lewis’s pulse while Tommy unbuttoned and loosened his collar.

  “Don’t move him,” Eric said, then stood up and yelled, “Garcia, Timmons.”

  Rachel Timmons came right over. “Did he really pass out?”

  “Looks like it. Tom, what happened in there?”

  “I watched him take a hard fall down the lighthouse steps,” Tommy said. “It happened at the base, just inside the door. He hit his head on the concrete, but he got right up and insisted he was fine.”

  Carlos Garcia frowned. “So this is, what? A delayed reaction?”

  “I guess.” Eric gritted his teeth. “He might need a brain scan, and I don’t want to wait for an ambulance. Carlos, get the trauma bag out of Tommy’s SUV.”

  “On it, Chief.”

  “Timmons, we need your EMT expertise. Keep this guy alive, will you?”

  “You got it, Chief,” she said.

  Rachel crouched down, pulled a small black monitor from her fanny pack, and checked Lewis’s vital signs. Garcia raced to the car and pulled a large duffel bag from the back. He returned to Lewis, knelt down, and wrapped his neck in a brace. Then he began to piece together a sturdy portable stretcher that they called an immobilization board. I’d seen them use this once before. At one end of the stretcher, Rachel arranged a contraption that looked like two boxes strapped together. They called it a “head bed” and it would help keep Lewis’s head and neck stabilized while they transported him to the emergency room.