Love Inspired Suspense April 2021--Box Set 2 of 2 by Laura Scott (free e reader .TXT) 📕

always being held up to me as what I could be if I only tried. I was a screwup. I was never allowed to forget that.”

“And that means you should kill his friend?”

Smug added mean to the smirk. “No. It means I don’t care that I have to kill his friend and you.”

Paige stared in shock at the casual attitude toward life. “I’m sorry.”

“Are you?”

“I’m sorry for anyone who regards life so cheaply.”

“You’re a fine one to talk. I did some digging on you. Didn’t you get your fiancé killed when you were with the ATF?”

His words sucker punched her. Hadn’t she said the same thing to herself? Hearing them uttered by someone else intensified her guilt.

“Nothing to say for yourself?” The derisive laugh that followed poured acid on the open wound.

“You’re despicable.”

He snickered. “Better that than dead.” He checked the bindings around her wrists and ankles. “Make yourself comfortable while we wait.”

“Tell me how you came up with the idea of blackmail.”

“He didn’t.” A voice from behind caused her to start.

She recognized the voice. That was a twist she hadn’t counted on, though it made sense now. Pieces clicked into place. The same class picture she’d seen at the Hawkins’s home sat on the mantel in the Newley living room. If only she’d made the connection earlier.

He made a half circle around the chair and faced her, a .38 tucked in the waistband of his jeans.

“Calvin Pope Jr. Or do you go by Hawkins like your mother?”

“It’s still Pope.” His face drew into taut lines. “I can’t stomach that woman. The last thing I wanted was to change my name with her, though I pretended to go along with it.”

Paige recalled Liam wondering if Cal and his mother had been working in tandem. Liam had one part of the partnership right but had been off base in the other.

Cal and Jerry. It made sense. Two men the same age, both feeling that life had given them a raw deal.

She looked from one to the other. “You two were in it together.”

“Sure we were,” Jerry said. “We were in the same class until Cal’s ma up and moved them out of town. We stayed in touch off and on. When he read about Sam dying, he came to the funeral. He stayed on after everyone left. We got to talking, and I told him what Sam told me. Cal here’s got a real talent for knowing how to use information.

“It was him who came up with the idea of getting you and McKenzie out to that old trailer. It would have worked, too, if you hadn’t gotten out at the last minute.”

“Pretty neat trick,” Paige said. “Too bad we survived.”

“I knew you and McKenzie were trouble soon as you paid that visit to Ma,” Cal said. “I’d hoped that the Thomas woman would take care of you, but she failed. She couldn’t do anything right.”

“Why?” Paige asked, directing the question to Cal. “Why blackmail Reva? Sure, you and Jerry got some money, but divided two ways, it’s not that much, not worth going to jail for.”

“The money was all right, but when I learned what she’d done to my pa, what she’d done to my family, I wanted payback. You saw how my ma is. I have to live with that day after day and take care of her. Things weren’t good at home before the accident, but they got bad afterward. Real bad, especially after my old man left. All because some spoiled brat decided to play a trick. Reva Thomas needed to be taken down a peg, and I knew just how to do it.”

Revenge.

Paige had dismissed the idea of revenge being the motive behind the killings. From the start, though, Liam had maintained that revenge was involved. He’d been right, but he’d missed the true reason for it.

“I helped Jerry figure out how we could make what Reva had done work for us,” Cal said. “From there, it was simple enough to send the blackmail notes. She was willing to pay through the nose to avoid having her secret come out.”

Cal was obviously the brains of the partnership, causing fear to take root in Paige’s heart. Liam was going to show up, expecting he’d have only Jerry to contend with. Cal Pope presented a much more able opponent. She reminded herself that Liam was more than a match for these two amateurs, but the element of surprise worked in their favor.

She had to free herself. Now.

She twisted her hands, struggling to find some give in her bindings, but Jerry had taken pleasure in making them as tight as possible. Her hands and ankles were growing numb as the circulation was all but cut off.

“Please, I can’t feel my hands,” she said, injecting tears into her voice. Disarm them. Make them see you as helpless.

Jerry smirked. “Not going to work, lady. You might as well stop trying to free yourself. Think I don’t know what you’re doing? I might not be as smart as Cal here, but I know a con when I hear it.”

She stopped struggling against the bindings. Jerry pulled out his cell, checked the time. “Your boyfriend’s late.”

“He’s not coming. I told you.” She injected a note of indifference in her voice. “This was my play. Why should I split the money with him?”

“Oh, I think he’ll come all right,” Cal said. “I saw how he looked at you when you visited my ma. You two ruined a good deal for Jerry and me. Reva would have kept paying. She would have had to if she wanted to keep that fancy life of hers, but you and your boyfriend put an end to that.”

“She murdered three people because of the two of you.”

Cal’s mouth stretched in an ugly sneer. “No skin off my nose.”

She glared at the men. “Don’t either of you feel any regret at all for what you did?”

“I got a bunch of money,” Jerry said. “That’s the best feeling in the world.