Say Goodbye (Romantic Suspense #25) - Karen Rose Page 0,145

today, he told himself. He hadn’t died today. But he will.

DJ’s pulse was slowing, his mind gradually clearing again.

He will die, but Mercy needs to be first. Mercy was the greater threat. Gideon was Waylon’s shame and Waylon had paid. Mercy was DJ’s shame.

He’d claimed to have killed her and buried her body. He’d thought he had killed her. He’d lied to Pastor just as Waylon had lied. But DJ had had a better reason. He’d been chased away by a fucking bystander before he could finish the job.

Waylon had known that Gideon still breathed when he’d dumped him. Waylon had wanted Gideon to escape.

I am not like my father. Not in any way. Except for the fact that he had lied and now couldn’t let Pastor find out that Mercy was alive. Pastor would brand him a liar and would never tell him the access codes that the old fucker had memorized.

So he was back to the same plan he’d had before. Mercy needed to die.

Except now Gideon and Daisy Dawson would be on alert, because his brain was stupid and had reacted to seeing Gideon’s face. He hadn’t seen him clearly a month ago, that day in Dunsmuir. He’d been focused on killing Ephraim and Mercy. And then Daisy had shot him.

“Except you just made your job a thousand times harder,” he muttered to himself. “Fuck.”

Now the cops would be looking for a Lexus. He needed another car, but for now he’d change the license plates and keep his gun close. He wouldn’t risk stealing another car right now. Nobody would report the Lexus missing until Mrs. Smythe returned home. He didn’t know the same about any vehicle he could steal today.

He got out of the Lexus on legs that felt like Jell-O. Holding on to the car for support, he opened the trunk, found two matching license plates, and switched them with the set of fakes he’d made that morning.

Then he headed back for the Smythe house, exhausted and in pain. His head hurt, his arm hurt. His body ached.

He needed a safe place to hide, a place where neither the cops nor Kowalski could find him.

Kowalski. He wanted to groan. Now he was fighting a war on two fronts. He didn’t expect to turn the cops to his way of thinking. But Kowalski he might be able to manage.

He considered his father again. Waylon had been afraid of what would happen if Pastor and McPhearson spilled all they knew.

Kowalski had a family. He could be vulnerable if DJ spilled all that he knew. If he couldn’t be persuaded to help DJ, he might be convinced to call off his thugs.

It would be good not to have to look over his shoulder. So that was the plan. Get Kowalski to back off while he looked for another place to live.

He thought about staying with Pastor and Coleen in the rehab center. But Pastor kept whining for him to leave Sacramento and return to Eden, so the rehab center wasn’t a good idea.

He’d have to keep looking for a place, because Mrs. Smythe would be home soon. He’d kill her if he had to—the chest freezer could hold one more—but he ran the risk that her daughter would call to confirm that she’d made it home all right.

So his priorities were building a file on Kowalski, locating a new house, and finding Mercy. He still felt shitty and stupid, but a little more in control now that he had a plan. That would have to be enough.

SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA

FRIDAY, MAY 26, 12:30 P.M.

Portia Sinclair folded her hands atop Liza’s résumé. “So do you have any questions for me?”

The interview at Sunnyside Oaks had gone well and Liza was cautiously optimistic.

“Yes, ma’am.” She hadn’t mentioned that she was only applying for a short-term gig. She hoped that she’d be able to get whatever Tom needed long before she started school. “What will my responsibilities be and for how many patients will I be providing care? On average, of course. I’m aware that your needs will vary from day to day.”

“You’ll be assigned one or two patients during the day, five at night. Sometimes you’ll go as high as three during the day and seven at night, but that is our ratio cap. Will that be a problem?”

Liza blinked. “No, ma’am. My ratios were one to five during the day and one to ten at night. So, no, this won’t be a problem at all.”

“Well, you were working in the veterans’