Free Pros and Cons by Jenna Black Page B

wondered if I could leave that part out somehow when I explained what I wanted them to do.
    â€œRemind them they might wake up dead someday if they don’t put Fowler away,” Jack said. “From what you’ve told me, neither one of them is as smart as they think they are, so you might be able to convince them they could get immunity in return for testifying against him. The authorities already have a hard-on for the guy, so it might sound believable.”
    Yeah, if Doug and Heather forgot that the authorities would already have a viable witness in me, plus video evidence that probably made any witness testimony a bonus rather than a necessity.
    Jack must have seen my doubt. “Desperate people don’t think things through, and these two are desperate. But let’s not give them a lot of time to consider other options. We should do it tonight, after we’re sure Fowler has turned in and won’t have a good alibi to confuse things.”
    Despite all my misgivings, I agreed. Having pulled a similar switcheroo with Jack before, I should have known better than to think he’d told me everything that was going on in that twisted mind of his.

E IGHT
    Time was of the essence, so Jack and I set up our sting for just after midnight the very same night. Talking Douglas and Heather into playing the bait was every bit as difficult as I’d thought it would be. I told them I’d called Fowler and arranged for them to turn over the video in return for a promise that he would let bygones be bygones. Since no one in their right minds would believe Fowler would actually go for such a deal, I acknowledged that Fowler was more likely to show up with the intention of killing them once he got hold of the video.
    Not having enough money to fund herself if she tried to run away and create a new life where Fowler couldn’t find her, Heather was desperate enough to take the risk, even if it meant having to confess to her blackmail. Douglas was another matter. He was scared, but he was also an arrogant bastard who thought he was smarter than everyone else, that he was such a good crook he could disappear himself so thoroughly that even Fowler couldn’t find him. Of course, I don’t know if he’d have been quite so confident if he didn’t also believe I could pull off my sting without him. He figured he’d let me and Heather take all the risk. If everything went as planned, he’d be off the hook without any consequences, and if it didn’t, he’d go to his Plan B and make a run for it.
    He was right that I could have done the sting without him. All I needed was someone to play the helpless victim so Jack could incriminate Fowler both on video and with eyewitnesses. But I wasn’t about to let Douglas off so easy. I wanted to save both his life and Heather’s, but I also wanted them to pay for their crimes. Maybe they would learn a valuable lesson from this whole nightmare and turn over a new leaf when they got out of jail. So I might have played a little bit dirty. I might have been wearing a wire myself when I talked to Douglas about the plan, and I might have manipulated him into making a number of confessions that could get him in trouble if the police ever got hold of the recording. If that put me in some kind of moral gray area, well . . . I was okay with that.
    I arranged for our meeting to take place on a wooded running trail that would see little or no foot traffic late at night. The last thing I wanted was innocent—or not-so-innocent—bystanders getting in the way and screwing things up. Besides, Heather and Douglas would expect Fowler to meet them somewhere spooky, and a running trail in the middle of the night definitely fit the bill. The spot was just isolated enough to give us a modicum of privacy but not so much that we couldn’t park nearby. Best of all, it was outside the D.C. city limits, so I could legally carry my .38 Special. Not