Free A Kiss Before I Die by T. K. Madrid Page B

treating it as a piggy bank.”
    “So they killed my dad for your money. That’s still no sense.”
    “Wilcox said it was a mistake. Your father was in my house and Wilcox thought it was me.”
    “ Ha! Right !”
    “He said as much. Your father came into my house, broke into it to find me.”
    “Why?”
    “To warn me. To save my life.”
    “ Jesus , Sammy…”
    He stepped away but she caught his sleeve.
    “ Listen ! Three days ago, I didn’t know any of you people. I don’t need this . I have a house and my parent’s inheritance and I can live without you, any man, or other person. But your father, Tyler, your father figured out what was going on. Your mother was preparing to leave him for Wilcox. So your father came to warn me and to stop Wilcox. That’s when Wilcox murdered your father, thinking it was me . It was an accident, manslaughter , because Wilcox intended to murder me .”
    She extended her arm and pointed.
    “The man in the red Ford? Wilcox sent him to snatch me off the street. I fought him, hurt him, so when that didn’t work, he decided it would be easier to have me arrested, to stall me.”
    He examined her face, as she spoke, watched her eyes, her lips, and listened to her voice and inflection.
    “Tyler, I have dyslexia, I have trouble reading . I need another lawyer to verify the will and that’s what frightened Wilcox . It took him almost three months for us to meet. First, he wanted to give me time to grieve, then he wanted to give me time to think, and all he was doing was cooking the books, before I even got close to the accounts. My only escape is to take Wilcox alive. We already have one key – the laptop. It has the contract, records, all of the other things that will prove what your father understood. Don’t you see it, Tyler?”
    He nodded.
    “All of them…alive.”
    “All of them.”
    “Wilcox?”
    “Him, yes, above all, him.”
    He spit.
    “Let’s do this.”
    They got in the Bronco.
    She drove.
    “Drop me at the edge of the property,” Tyler said. “I’ll snake over to the barn, check what you said and we’ll go from there. What’s your angle?”
    “I’m going to walk in as if I owned the place.”
    “Give me ten minutes?”
    “Sounds right.”
    She stopped a quarter mile from the house.
    He looked at her.
    “You know, if we get out of this alive…”
    “Oh, for god’s sakes…”
    “…I don’t ever want to see or hear from you again.”
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

(18)  The Fiction of Life
    She watched him walk into the snowfall, into woods and darkness. She waited with the lights off. No cars had passed them in well over thirty minutes. She kept her eyes fixed on the road ahead, anticipating headlights, looking for any sign of activity.
    She wanted the police now. Let them come in by the busload. Everything would be settled within thirty minutes. The man – or men – in the house would fall like dominoes once she started. The surprise was hers and Tyler was an unaccounted for ace. The cruiser was probably accounted for, and Ruggles, Sebastian, if he was conscious, would be trying to recount things, although it was a good bet his memory would be influenced by embarrassment.
    Debozy, too, no doubt sober and thinking, remembering, would be coming to judgments both right and wrong, and was one of the jokers in the deck. She had no idea of his allegiances or how good a detective he was.
    She didn’t think Chief Augustine Henderson would be accommodating to anything Debozy said in his defense, so she hoped he would proclaim his innocence, tell her of his fear for his life and that would be all.
    Samantha was worried about Mrs. Burleson. She doubted she’d be harmed, but then murderers are rarely rational, and when one mistake occurs – like killing a former cop while in your murderous employ – others tend to follow.
    Her parents had been trained, had been