Free Red Hot Deadly Peppers by Paige Shelton Page B

come of it.”
    “Nera,” Harry said with deep disappointment.
    “How’d you figure this out?” she asked him.
    I didn’t think Harry would share what he knew, but he must have realized either that it didn’t matter now anyway or that talking would forestall any shooting.
    “When Becca said Graham’s eyes were shut tight, I suspected anaphylactic shock, and I knew about his allergy, but I waited until the ME figured out the COD. I knew he’d figure it out quickly if it was anaphylaxis. Graham hadn’t been home—you walked me through his house and told me as much. You were his only family, Nera. He’d been showing up at work, and I knew he didn’t have a girlfriend, or a boyfriend for that matter. I suspected he’d come here, to your house, so I honestly thought his allergic reaction might be an accident. But then I came here and saw the boys unlock the shed and go in. They looked like they knew what they were doing, so I snuck up and eavesdropped. They were talking about how you told them that their next task was to frame the Riggers for Graham’s death. They were going there to plant some of the crushed-up pecans. It all fell into place from there, and I rushed over to the farm to warn Susan and Nick.”
    “Good boys,” Nera said. They smiled bigger.
    “We didn’t know what else to do when we got there, and Harry confronted us, Nera. We tried to get him to just come with us here. We knew you’d know how to handle things. When he wouldn’t come with us, we hit him real hard and knocked him out and, and then we kind of panicked, but we made sure the Riggers couldn’t do much of anything until you told us what you wanted us to do with them. When Harry came to, we walked him back here. His truck is still at their house. We decided that we could probably pin everything on him,” Cole said.
    “We’ll take care of them shortly,” Nera said, but I could hear her own panic building. Her list of “problems” was growing.
    “I tried to call you, Becca,” Harry said.
    “I know. Thank you. You tried calling Nera, too?” I asked him.
    “No, I lied about that,” Nera said. “I also lied about calling the police. No one’s on their way to help either of you or the Riggers,” Nera said.
    How had I been so fooled? How had I missed the clues?
    “What about the postcard?” I said.
    Nera laughed. “I wrote it myself. I thought it might help draw suspicion away from me, should that become necessary. It worked with you.”
    “It did,” I conceded. “So, now you’re going to kill us?” I said.
    “I don’t think I have any choice.”
    “Over pepper juice?” I said.
    “No. You need to disappear now because you know too much.”
    Obviously, I wanted to protest, but suddenly I couldn’t find the right words. Thankfully, Harry still had his wits about him.
    “Which one of the boys are you going to frame for our deaths?” Harry asked. “You’ve got to throw at least one of them under the bus. I might not have gotten the time to tell the Riggers what you were up to, but they know who attacked them. They’ll be able to back up any story you give the authorities about how Cole and Brad are violent, unless you kill them too.”
    “Relax, boys,” Nera said, though her voice was tenser. “I’m not going to frame either of you. I’m going to make it look like Harry was responsible for everything.”
    Harry laughed. “Right. I’ll be dead. How’re you going to make that happen? Even if you tried to make it look like I committed suicide, not one person would truly fall for that. You’ll have to pick one of the boys.”
    “Really,” I said, following Harry’s lead. “I don’t see any other way it will work.”
    “Yeah, what are you going to do?” Cole asked as both he and Brad, the smiles now gone from their faces, took steps back from Nera.
    “Don’t worry about it,” Nera said. “You’ve both been wonderful. You’ve worked on the experiments so diligently and done what I asked you to