Flowers for Her Grave - By Judy Clemons Page 0,106
that he would. She wouldn’t be in the way anymore. So I told him…he couldn’t have her. She was dead. He had to come back to me.”
Casey’s breath hitched. “You told Brandon Andrea was dead?”
“He needed to know so he could move on. Back to me.”
“You knew where Brandon was?”
“Of course I knew,” Sissy said. “I put him there.”
It suddenly all made sense. Dylan’s theory about a Sugar Mama. It was true. And the Mama was Sissy.
“Sissy. When did you tell him this?”
Her lips trembled. “Yesterday.”
Oh, God. Yesterday. The day he died. “You told him you killed her?”
“Of course not. Just that she was dead.”
“And what did he say?”
“He said he wasn’t engaged to her. He wouldn’t tell me the truth, either. Even then, even after she was dead. All that time I’d been worried about him wanting Krystal, and I had no idea it was Andrea. The one woman here I liked. And neither of them would tell me the truth.”
“Sissy, they weren’t—”
“I was there, at his apartment, cooking him supper. Cooking for him. And he told me he would be staying only long enough to get his things together, his papers, his money, and then he would be gone.”
“Without you.”
“Of course without me!” Her eyes shone. “I was making dinner for him, in the apartment I was paying for, and he told me I was nothing to him. Nothing.” Her grip tightened on the gun, her knuckles white. “He came into the kitchen, and I …” She gasped, tears choking her.
“You stabbed him, didn’t you?”
“Just once, at first, just a little. And then again. And again. He was so surprised. Blood went everywhere. All over the counter, and the food, and my…my clothes. He begged me to help him. To save him. But it was too late. Too late.” She took a shuddering breath.
“I’m sorry, Sissy. I’m so sorry. Can you put the gun down now?”
She swept it up, pointing it straight at Casey again. “And now you know. But you knew already, didn’t you? That’s why you want to continue his work. Blackmail me some more. Because that’s what people like you do.”
“Sissy, I do not want to blackmail you. I was bringing you the folder so you could get rid of it.”
She was crying in earnest now. Tears streamed down her face. “It doesn’t matter. Not anymore. Brandon doesn’t love me. He never loved me. He loves her. He loves her.” She dissolved into sobs, keeping the gun trained on Casey.
“Sissy. Sissy, listen. Listen!”
Sissy hiccupped, the gun wavering dangerously.
Casey put her hands out, as if that could protect her if the gun went off. “Sissy, they were telling you the truth.”
Her forehead wrinkled. “About what?”
“About not being engaged.”
Her grip tightened on the gun. “But I heard her parents say it. They said she was engaged. That two weeks ago something happened and she stopped speaking about him. Two weeks ago Brandon left.”
“Yes, I know. But Andrea wasn’t engaged to him. She was engaged to Richie.”
Sissy’s face went blank, and then paled so quickly she looked like she was going to faint. “Richie? The little…but I told him he couldn’t come anywhere near here, or I would sue him for everything. He was so…”
“He was a scapegoat. When people got injured you had to have someone to blame, didn’t you, Sissy? He may have been unqualified, but he wasn’t malicious. He only wanted to do good.”
“But I’d hired him. If people looked too closely…Andrea was engaged to him? Not my Brandon?”
Still on about her Brandon. Even after she’d killed him.
“But that means Brandon was telling me the truth. He wasn’t going to marry her. He must have loved me! He loves me, after all!” Her face lit up, and she looked over Casey’s shoulder, out toward the ocean, and the pool.
Casey leapt forward, her hand swinging up to push Sissy’s gun hand away, but Sissy saw her, and her finger was tightening on the trigger, and—
“Hi-yah!” A flattened hand arced through the air, chopping Sissy at the base of her neck. Sissy gave a startled grunt, and collapsed, dropping the gun. Tamille stood in the entryway, hands on her hips, like a superhero. All that was missing was the cape.
Several moments passed before Casey was able to speak. “Tamille?”
Tamille showed all of those shiny white teeth and nudged the unconscious Sissy with her toe. “Good thing I decided to ignore your plea for solitude, isn’t it?”
Casey slumped onto the bottom of the overturned easy chair. “Company does