Raina pitched herself toward the side. Even if her hands were bound and she was wearing a burlap hood, she was determined to draw it out.
“Shit! She’s going to make us capsize!”
She felt herself grabbed roughly, but the hold wasn’t strong. She jerked violently—slamming her head forward, as she’d seen done in the movies.
It hurt! It hurt to bloody hell!
But oddly, it seemed to have done something. She heard cursing. “Now I’m covered in this fetid water, and shit, oh, shit! There’s an alligator over there—”
“Leave it the hell alone!” another voice said.
This time, when Raina was grabbed, it was with strength. And she suddenly recognized the second voice as it said, “Oh, please. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to do this.”
“It will all be thrown on you, so grow up! Or you’ll have a witness against you, and you know damned well, the rest of us will come out okay. Even Daddy will be forced to testify against you!”
The burlap bag was wrenched from Raina’s head.
She was glad to see that, at the very least, she had head-butted Loretta Oster. The chubby-cheerful teacher was drenched in the swamp water, trying desperately to free herself of the grass and muck clinging to her.
She was stunned to see the face of the man holding her. The miserable, tearstained face of her once-upon-a-time flame, Tate Fielding.
It made no sense.
She stared at him, astounded. If he wasn’t about to kill her, he would be truly pitiable. He was sobbing softly.
Tears were streaming down his face.
“Tate?” she said.
“I’m sorry. Oh, God, I’m so sorry!”
“Toughen up, frat boy!” Loretta snapped. “Come on, we’ve got to get this over with. I have to get back, and now, how do I explain this? I tripped into the damned water?”
“Wait!” said Raina. “Who killed Fran Castle?”
“Why, honey, your friendly neighborhood chaperone,” Loretta said. “You kids were too full of yourselves to realize I wasn’t there until the damned buses arrived. But of course I wasn’t alone.” She paused, still angry and irritated over her condition. “Tate! Damn you, come on. Grow a pair of balls and finish the stupid bitch!”
“Wait!” Raina demanded. Tate would listen to her, she knew. Tate wasn’t a killer. He was being forced into this for some reason. “Hey, you’re going to kill me. So, humor me! Tell me, please, tell me what has been going on. Did the two of you kill Jennifer Lowry?”
“I’ve never killed anyone,” Tate said. “And I’m so sorry, Raina—”
“Shut up you ball-less wonder!” Loretta shouted. “If you can’t do this, give me the damned knife. I won’t have a problem, I assure you!”
She had a chance, Raina knew. She had a chance because Tate Fielding wasn’t a murderer. He might have known what was going on, but he wasn’t a murderer himself.
And Loretta...
Could she take her? The woman didn’t even have the knife yet...
“Who started all this and why?” she demanded.
Loretta laughed. “Why is it they just never want to believe it could be a woman?”
“I know!” Raina said. “And you are so good—or so it seems. I mean, there’s no money trail. I’ll admit, you naturally fell under suspicion, but what I can’t figure out is, why? Did you know Fran Castle—did she do something? I mean, Tate is here now, and Jordan obviously knew something, but they were kids then, so... Oh, I get it! Jefferson Fielding. It was him!”
“No, you don’t you get it. Jefferson is as big an ass as the rest of them! I knew Jefferson because his son was in one of my classes. That idiot needed to get rid of a witness—at the time, it wasn’t Fran Castle. It was a man named Gabriel Mercury several years before Fran. But as to the money, well, you’ll never find it. Jefferson is great at hiding money, but he’s such a wuss that he regretted what happened to the witness.”
“What happened?” Raina pressed. Loretta seemed to be on a roll.
“The man sort of fell off a building. I say sort of because, well, Jefferson was yelling at him. Accident? Maybe. But I was there, and I saw it happen—and after that I had the man in my pocket. Once I had him, well, I had a way to wash some money, you know? It’s amazing how much can go through an attorney’s office without raising any suspicion.”
“You always had help. I know you had help. Two people attacked and then killed Jennifer Lowry,”