Of All the Fake Heiresses I've Met, You're the Stupidest novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Four Hundred Ten Yards

Erin reads the dot's angle, takes the rifle Ronan slides her and shoots the sniper's gun out of his hands. His invoice has Savannah's name. Sean orders both women to open their collars.

I did not move.

A laser sight does not land on a person by accident.

Somebody had a rifle on me, and they wanted me to know it.

Nobody else at the table had seen the dot.

Savannah was still waiting for me to say it again.

"I said, say that again," she repeated.

"In a minute," I said.

I kept my eyes on her face and looked at the beam with the edge of my vision.

It ran out over the water in a straight thin line.

It came from the old grain crane on the east quay.

I had measured that crane for Chester when I was nine.

The cab was 410 yards from the end of this pier.

"Everyone stay in your seats," I said, loud enough for the two tables nearest me. "Nobody look at the crane."

Savannah laughed.

"Is that your plan? Pretend someone is shooting at you?"

Something nudged my shin under the tablecloth.

It was a long, hard case.

Ronan Kearney had come up behind my chair without a sound.

He was bending to fix his shoe.

"Table rule," he said, very low. "A rifle under every long table. Crane?"

"Crane," I said. "Four hundred ten."

"Can you make it?"

"In the dark, with no rest, in a dress?"

"Yes or no."

"Yes."

"Then take it."

I flipped the latches with my toe.

I stood, took the rifle out and laid the barrel across the back of my chair.

A woman at the next table screamed.

"She has a gun!" Savannah shouted. "Papa, she's going to kill me!"

"Be quiet, Savannah," said Sean Kearney.

He had not taken his eyes off the red dot.

The scope was good.

The wind off the harbor was light and blowing left.

I breathed out and let the pier go quiet around me.

At seven I had made a longer shot than this one.

I did not think about that.

I fired once.

Across the water, something sparked in the crane cab.

A man shouted.

A long dark shape tumbled out of the window and hit the quay below with a clatter of metal.

The red dot went out.

I lowered the rifle.

Nobody on the pier moved.

Then everyone started talking at once.

"Get him," Ronan said into his collar, and two men in dark jackets were already running down the pier.

I set the rifle on the table, on the white cloth, between the bread and the candles.

"I did not shoot him," I told the table. "I shot his rifle."

The Orlov envoy slowly crossed himself.

The Benedetti envoy took out his phone and began to film.

Chester sat down.

He did not say a word.

His cap was in his hands.

It took Ronan's men a few minutes to bring the shooter to the foot of the pier.

He was a thin man in a black jacket, holding his right wrist.

His rifle was in two pieces in the hands of the man behind him.

He was alive, and he was sweating.

Ronan went through his pockets in front of the whole dinner.

He found a phone and a folded slip of paper.

"Receipt," Ronan said, and read it aloud.

"Rush rental, one night, long rifle and spotter's perch. Deposit, forty thousand dollars. Paid by Kearney household account. Signed, P. Kearney."

The pier went silent.

Savannah's face went from pink to white.

"That is not my signature."

Ronan held up the slip.

"It has your curly P."

"Anyone could do a curly P."

"It is on the family account," Ronan said. "And the card has your name on it."

"I thought it was for flowers!" Savannah cried.

Somebody at the back made a small, choked noise.

It might have been the Orlov envoy.

"Flowers," Sean Kearney said.

"For the dinner! Chester said I had to sign, and I signed, I didn't read it, you don't read things when you are the daughter."

The words were out before she could stop them.

Chester stood up slowly and put his cap on.

Sean looked at him, and then at Savannah, and then at me.

He took a long breath.

"I have waited twenty-six years," he said. "I am not going to wait any longer. Both of you, stand there. Open your collars."

"Papa, that's insulting," Savannah said.

"Open them."

I put the rifle aside and undid the top three buttons of my dress.

Under my left collarbone, pale against my skin, lay a small crescent mark, a little darker than the rest of me.

I had had it all my life.

Sean's face broke open when he saw it.

He had to put a hand on the table.

Savannah did not move.

"Savannah," Ronan said.

She unfastened her dress with fingers that shook.

Her crescent was red and raised.

The edges had scabbed.

The ink was new.

"That is a tattoo," Sean said. "That is a week old."

"I don't know how that got there!" Savannah cried. "Chester told me where the mark goes! He drew it on me himself!"

Every head on the pier turned toward Chester MacKellar.

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