To Love and to Perish - By Lisa Bork Page 0,79

to see if he was yours. She didn’t want to. You were arguing with her when the deer crossed the road. You swerved to avoid the deer, lost control of the car, and hit the tree.

“Poor Monica.” Beth said her name as if it left a bad taste in her mouth.

Brennan sagged against the stove, a lost and bewildered expression on his face. “When did you decide to go after Matthew and the money?”

“When he came knocking on my door six months ago, asking about Monica. He’d found her diary and he suspected she was his mother. I’d got by on nothing for years. And no men ever wanted me for long once they got a peek at my scars. But Matthew couldn’t wait to spend time with me. I was the link to his mother. And I played him just right. I told him he reminded me of her and how much I loved her. It was the perfect time to move in on him, when he felt so betrayed by James and Suzanne.”

Bile crept into the back of my throat. Beth was venomous.

Brennan cleared his throat. “But why kill Wayne?”

She waggled the gun in my direction. “When she showed up in his office asking questions about me, Wayne had a few of his own. He talked to me, and then he decided to get in touch with you. I knew the two of you would figure it out. I needed to marry Matthew first. So I called in the message from you and Wayne went running. All I had to do was beat him here.”

Brennan closed his eyes.

I felt something touch my ankle and recoiled. It was Cory’s hand. He’d gotten loose from the cord while Beth talked.

He lowered his hand back flat to the floor. His other hand moved to the same position as though he was ready to push up to his feet, but he remained motionless, perhaps waiting for the ideal moment.

Beth didn’t seem to notice his movements or the fact he wasn’t tied up anymore.

Brennan’s chin had sunk to his chest. He seemed speechless at this point in the face of Beth’s brutality.

I knew he wouldn’t be any help overcoming her chained to the stove as he was. I couldn’t count on Cory, even though he’d managed to untie himself. After a blow to the head, he might not get on his feet fast enough to be of help.

My gaze slid back to the knife block, then dismissed the notion. Guns trump knives every time. Although Beth’s hand drooped from the weight of the weapon every once in awhile, she could still get it in position fast enough to kill me. Even if I threw the knife block at her, she could duck and shoot me at the same time.

I had no idea what to do.

Brennan’s eyes were closed. I didn’t know if he was grieving for his lost friends, thinking about how to save us, or simply praying for a miracle.

Beth glanced at Brennan and curled her lip in distaste. Then her gaze slid to me. I looked away, knowing animals always felt threatened by eye contact. And Beth seemed like an angry tigress to me.

Her gaze dropped to Cory. Her eyes narrowed and she took a few steps forward to train the gun on him.

A loud crash came from the front of the house. Startled, I jumped in my chair. The front door must have slammed against the wall from the wind.

Beth twirled around to investigate, leaving her back to me. I leapt to my feet and shoved her as hard as I could. She fell to her knees, dropping the gun, which skittered across the wood floor and came to rest under the kitchen cabinets.

“Cory, get the gun.”

I heard him scrambling behind me as Beth crawled across the floor, her hand outstretched, reaching for the gun.

She was much closer to the gun than Cory and completely blocking both our paths to it, so I jumped and planted my butt in her back like a wrestler, slamming her to the floor and knocking the wind out of her.

Cory tumbled over us and fell next to the gun. He got it in his hand and clambered to his feet. He threw the gun inside a drawer and stood with his back to the closed drawer, shaking.

Before I got off Beth, I felt around in her pockets. The right pocket of her leather jacket held a keychain, plus one single key. I pulled them