Tangled Web: A Small Town Romance (The Cortell Brothers Book 6) by Giulia Lagomarsino (an ebook reader txt) 📕

conversation. I finally had a plan in place, and if I played this right, I would get all the answers I needed.

I was nervous as hell driving out to Lorelei’s place. After reading up on her some more last night, I was a little more convinced that she really was a black widow. Her file read like a serial killer’s beginning profile. She came from a poor family, her father was an abusive drunk, and her mother died under mysterious circumstances. She was found dead in her chair one day, but an autopsy wasn’t requested. Was it possible that Lorelei had been abused and then snapped one day, killing her mother? Maybe she killed her because her mother had allowed her father to abuse her for so long, and under the pressure, she snapped like a twig.

And as for the boy that had died, he had a heart condition. I had done my own research on his heart condition. Extreme stress, that’s what the articles stated. Under what conditions would a boy at the age of eighteen suddenly be under such extreme stress that he just keeled over and died of a heart attack? He was friends with Lorelei, and they were quite close from what I could gather. Had she pushed him too far? Maybe he found out that she killed her mother. Maybe she had put him under extreme stress to induce a heart attack, therefore making his death look like an accident.

There were just too many question marks right now, but I was about to put the pieces together. I pulled down her long driveway, relieved when I saw that Eric’s work truck was parked outside, along with others from his company. That was good. I couldn’t be killed if there were witnesses, not unless she planned on killing us all off.

I parked off to the side of the driveway, leaving room for others to leave. Although, maybe that wasn’t a smart idea. Maybe I needed to make sure no one could escape and leave me here alone with a killer. I shut off the truck and got out, nervously swinging my keys around my finger. I could do this. It was part of the job. I had agreed to take this job, and to get to the heart of the issue I had to pursue all possible avenues.

I grinned to myself. Look at that? I was talking like an adult and shit. I was pretty proud of myself. That book Eric gave me really opened my mind. I was just about to walk up the steps to the house when I heard a female swearing around the side of the house. Curious, I walked around the side of the house, looking around for anyone that might be a witness for me, but there was no one.

There was an old car parked on the gravel drive next to the house, and the hood was popped on the car. I didn’t know enough about cars to know what this car was, except old.

“Goddamn, son of a bitch!”

Frowning, I walked a little closer, only to duck when something shiny and silver flew at my head. I felt the breeze as it whirred past my head, just barely missing me. If I hadn’t ducked, it would have smacked me right in the head. I could be dead right now. I glanced back at the tool that laid on the ground behind me. It was a wrench. My heart was thundering in my chest and I was sweating already. Murder attempt: 1, but I wasn’t dead yet.

Shaking off my nerves, I turned only to find Lorelei scowling at me. Shit, I hadn’t realized that standing here would piss her off. Was she going to throw another wrench at me? But then she seemed to recognize who I was and her scowl turned into a smile. Devious. I could see what she was doing. Pretending to be all pissed off, only to be happy when she saw me. She was drawing me in.

“Andrew! It’s so great to see you. I honestly wasn’t sure I would.”

I swallowed down my fear and did my best to look confident. “Yeah? Why’s that?”

“Well, you seemed nervous yesterday. I took you for one of those guys that doesn’t know how to handle women.”

I smirked at her, though I was shaking inside. “I handle women just fine on my own.”

Her eyes trailed over my body and when they slid back up to my face, she gave me a saucy smile. “I bet you do. So, what are you doing here?”

“You mentioned that you wanted some help choosing colors, so here I am.”

She smiled brightly at me, like I had just given her the sun and the moon. And it was a real smile, I mean, a real smile for a serial killer. I titled my head, taking her in, trying to see her for what she really was. She was wearing a sweatshirt and tight jeans, work boots, and her hair was pulled high on her head in a ponytail. She had grease smudges on her face and hands, but she was still a beauty. She looked nothing like those pictures though. She looked…normal. Warm eyes invited me in with a soft smile that was somehow bright and gentle all at the same time. And those damn lips, God, I couldn’t get them out of my mind last night. How could this woman be a killer? It didn’t make sense. Then I remembered the wrench that had just whizzed past my head and knocked that sweet and innocent act right out the window. If she knew how to fix a car, she could be a killer. It didn’t make any sense, but I had to keep in mind who she truly was.

“That’s really great. I hate choosing colors.”

I nodded to the car. “Not the girly type that likes to design?”

“I wish,” she sighed. “It’s just not something I’m good at.”

“And the car?”

“My dad’s.”

Ah, the drunk. So,