Confessing to the Cowboy - By Carla Cassidy Page 0,38

him over the head with the poker. It was one thing for him to abuse me, but there was no way I was going to allow him to hurt my child. That first blow sent Jason to the ground on his belly and then something snapped inside me and I hit him again...and again. I couldn’t stop hitting him. I killed him, Cameron. Nine years ago I killed my husband and then I took Mike and we went on the run.”

Chapter 7

She trembled from head to toe as he tried to process what he’d just heard. He wasn’t sure at what point he felt as if he’d been kicked in the gut, but he was half-breathless with shock, trying to process what she’d just told him.

In essence she’d just confessed to a murder. What he didn’t understand was why she thought this information might help him with this particular investigation. If her husband was dead, then he couldn’t be here now killing women. This revelation didn’t do much to move his current case forward, but she’d put herself...and him...in a bad situation.

“Are you going to arrest me?” She held her hands out as if expecting him to slap on handcuffs immediately.

“Right now what I’d like for you to do is sit back down. I have some questions for you.”

She nodded and slid back into her chair. “Before you start asking me questions, I have one for you.” Her blue eyes suddenly swam with tears. “I know it’s a lot to ask and I have no right even to consider it, but if I’m charged with Jason’s murder and I end up going to jail would you take care of Matt? He cares about you so much and you’re the only male constant that has been in his life. I know how good you’d be to him and at least I wouldn’t have to worry about his well-being.”

Cameron held up a hand to halt her, the request squeezing tight in his chest. “Mary, you’re getting ahead of yourself here.” He leaned back in his chair and swiped a hand through his hair, still trying to digest what he’d just learned.

“Why do you think what happened nine years ago has anything to do with what’s happening to the waitresses here and now in Grady Gulch?”

As she told him about the anniversary card she’d received and the stuffed frog that had come for Matt, Cameron’s stomach clenched tighter and tighter.

“Don’t you see? It has to be somebody from my past...a friend of Jason’s who knows what I did, somebody who hates me and has decided to hunt me down to punish me, to make me pay.”

“Now? After all these years?” A headache began to pound at Cameron’s temples. “Let’s back up,” he said, needing to know what happened between the moment she’d killed her husband and now. “You beat your husband with the fire poker and then what?”

She frowned, obviously not wanting to go back to that place and time, but knowing she needed to answer his questions. “I finally dropped the poker and realized what I’d done.”

Swallowing visibly, she stared at the wall just over his shoulder. “I was in a panic. I knew that if I called the police and tried to explain what had happened, if I told anyone about the years of abuse nobody would believe me. There were no hospital records to back up my claims. No police had ever been called to our house. I also knew that Jason had important friends who would see to it that I got the death penalty. So, I packed up a suitcase with a few things for myself and Mike. Thankfully Jason kept fairly large amounts of cash in his wallet, so I took that and left. I picked Mike up in my arms and took the suitcase and we walked for what felt like miles before I felt safe enough to get on a bus.”

“To where?” he asked.

“To anywhere. Just away from there, from the death and the thoughts of what I’d done. We wound up in Arizona and stayed there almost a month in a ratty motel room. Every minute of every day I waited for a knock on the door that would be the police to arrest me. I decided it was time to move on and from there got on another bus that took us to Texas. It was in Dallas that I met some street people who got us fake identifications and that’s when I