You Betrayed Me (The Cahills #3) - Lisa Jackson Page 0,163

sister and, in truth, to get her hands on a little of the Cahill estate, had gone along with the scheme.

Now, though, she wasn’t convinced that they could pull it off.

Or that she wanted to.

Her feelings for James had changed all of that. Even though she was more than a little morose, as after him telling her he needed “a little space to process what was going on,” she’d actually seen him with Rebecca—twice since Sophia had told him about the baby.

What kind of father would do that?

It pissed her off and made her sad and messed with her already volatile hormones. And here it was, almost Christmas. All of her dreams about them sharing the holiday together seemed to be crumbling. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. Not with a baby on the way.

She hadn’t told Julia about the baby, didn’t know how her sister would take the news. She would confide in her, of course, but later, when Julia wasn’t so damned uptight.

Julia parked a few yards from the front door, and as Sophia climbed out, the wind slapped her in the face, stinging her eyes. She noted the small windows running along the front of the home.

“No electricity,” she thought aloud.

“It runs on propane from a propane generator.”

But she didn’t hear it running.

“Plumbing?”

“Water tanks collect the rain and snow. The house has all been retrofitted,” Julia said. “It’s mobile and compact, kind of an all-in-one home.”

“Where’d you get it again?”

“A friend of a friend’s estate when the owner died suddenly.” Sophia understood; the paperwork was tangled up in red tape that was yet to be untangled. “And this land?”

Julia actually smiled, her eyes twinkling mischievously. “Well, that’s kind of cool, really. This is all part of James Cahill’s property. He bought it years ago, for expansion. But no one ever comes up here. I had the house brought up here on the sly, with a little help from Gus way back in September before the snows, and . . . I thought it was ironic that it was a tiny house James’s company had constructed and he didn’t even know I bought it and had it hauled onto his own damned land, property he never visits and won’t use for years, I figure. It all seemed fitting somehow.” She appeared pleased with herself, as if she thought she was oh, so clever.

“So Megan’s inside?” Sophia asked, eyeing the place skeptically and walking toward the door, Julia just a step behind.

“That’s what I’ve been telling you.”

“Locked inside?”

“Well, of course. Until she comes around . . . I can’t let her out. It would spoil everything.”

“If she comes around.” Sophia was shaking her head. This wasn’t right. And the women who had died, been murdered? “We can’t do this. Julia, really, we can’t lock someone up. I don’t know what I was thinking . . .”

“The same thing I was: about the money.”

The tone of her voice stopped Sophia short. It sounded as cold as this blustery December day.

“Yes, but I was wrong. We both were. We have to find a way to get out of this. We have to work with Megan, explain that we made a mistake, convince her to understand and—”

She felt it then. Something hard against the back of her neck. In an instant she knew. Julia had a gun, the barrel pressed against her nape. Oh, God, no—She swung and started to spin, but it was too late.

The next second, her life swam before her eyes.

* * *

Once they caught up with him, Bruce Porter rolled over like a dead fish. He’d been out of town, visiting his sick brother, he claimed, but was back for the holidays, and the thought of going to prison again was enough to get him talking.

“Look, I don’t want no trouble,” he said as Mendoza and Rivers stood on the front porch of the little bungalow he shared with Andie Jeffries. In stocking feet, he stood on the other side of the screen door, wearing jeans, a T-shirt, and a baseball cap. A television was rumbling in the background. “For God’s sake, we’re supposed to go to Andie’s folks’ house in an hour.”

“Just tell us what you know about Gus.”

“Oh, fuck. Give me a sec.” He reached to the side, and Rivers had his own hand on his service weapon, but Bruce was only grabbing his jacket. He slid it on, stepped into a pair of nearby slippers, then pulled the door shut behind him.