Brain Storm by Cat Gilbert (detective books to read .TXT) 📖

my feet as I talked to her. “Because Brown was the one that attacked Sean and threw him off the cliff, before he came after me. Brown knew who the buyers were. He betrayed Hughes, just as Hughes betrayed you.”

I was on my feet and bent back down to pick up the towel to mop at my face, making sure not to make eye contact with her.

“The people who killed Brown must have been the buyers,” Keith said, jumping ahead to the logical conclusion. “not some hillbillies robbing the place like Hughes suggested. So how did you manage to get away?”

“There was no one else there. I lied about that.” I said, having decided to take the chance and tell them the truth, in order to drive home my point. “I killed Brown. Then I poured gasoline on him and set him on fire. The evidence was all right there. You would have known if Hughes had bothered to tell you.”

She was dying to ask me how I did it. How I’d killed him. If Brown had gotten the jump on Sean, he was more than a match for me, yet here I was, and Brown was dead. She wouldn’t ask, though, and admit that Hughes had kept the information from them, and I certainly wasn’t going to volunteer anything. Better to let her wonder.

“This complicates things.” Vivian turned to Keith, apparently done with me. “We have to assume that they know who she is.”

“Oh, it’s worse than that, Vivian,” I said quietly, dabbing gently at my face until she turned back to stare at me. “I’m pretty sure they know where I am too. Unless you think Hughes was the type to walk away from large sums of cash.”

She stared at me, fury in her eyes that I dared to talk to her like that, but she didn’t make a move toward me. I was right, and she knew it. Odds were good that Hughes had made arrangements other than the ones she had planned for tonight. She had much bigger problems to deal with than me right now.

“We need to talk.” She motioned to Keith, as she stepped away from me and headed toward the door.

“Get them ready to go,” he ordered Lars, as he fell into step behind her.

As soon as the door shut behind them, Lars grabbed the chair, setting it upright and sat me back down on it, this time, a little more gently than before, but not by much.

“That was stupid,” he growled out, as he checked the damage done to my face. “Smart, but stupid. Now, they’re not sure who to trust.”

“I notice they trust you. Didn’t even think twice about leaving you in here with me.”

He sighed as he squatted down beside me to unlock the cuffs, and I could tell he was frustrated.

“You don’t trust me. I get that. Considering the circumstances, I don’t blame you, but we don’t have time for it.”

He sat back on his heels, and I rubbed my wrist, glad to be free of the cuff. I looked at him, searching for the earpiece he was usually wearing, but couldn’t see it. For all I knew, Vivian was outside listening to our whole conversation.

“I’m not wired. Too much interference around here for it to work. Look, you either trust me, or you don’t. There’s nothing I can do about it. I know what you can do. The power you really have, okay? Not that little show you put on for them.” He jerked a thumb toward the door where Keith and Vivian had disappeared through. “I screw up, and you can take me out, no hard feelings. Just make sure I’ve actually screwed up before you do and make sure you take them down too because I’ve put too much time into this to have you mess it up now.”

For a guy who’d not said but one sentence since I’d met him, he’d turned into quite the chatterbox. And he was right. There was nothing he could do to convince me to trust him.

He picked up the towel and pressed it to my cheekbone in an attempt to stop the bleeding.

“This is going to need stitches. You shouldn’t have let her hit you like that.”

“She wouldn’t have believed me if I’d volunteered the information. That’s not the way she works.” I pushed his hands away, and grabbed the towel from him, succeeding in irritating him further. “Besides, she’s more a slapper, than a puncher. It’s not so bad if you know it’s coming.”

“So were you lying to her?”

“No,” I lied, remembering the look on Mama D’s face after she’d killed Brown to save me. “That was the truth.”

Connors walked up while we were talking and stood quietly nearby listening. Hughes hadn’t bothered to secure him. He either didn’t think of Connors as much of a threat or knew he didn’t need to bother doing it. Why was he here? Was he like Brown? Was he working for them, or did he have his own agenda?

He’d been so angry about Abby. There was no way I was wrong about that, but Brown had felt the same way, and he was one of them. I’d been so certain he was innocent just a few minutes earlier. Now I just wasn’t sure. I hated this. Hated not knowing who to trust. I didn’t have any trouble not trusting Lars but Connors I liked, and I felt like a traitor for suddenly doubting him, when he’d done nothing to deserve it.

“It’s all right Taylor. You don’t have to trust us. I don’t know how you could trust anyone after tonight.” Connors voice, so soft and gentle, practically echoing my thoughts, nearly brought me to tears. “In fact, you shouldn’t. Not knowing who to trust, always looking over your shoulder is a distraction. You know that. That’s why you told Keith and Vivian what you did. It’s a good strategy, but it can work against you just as easily as for you. Decide right now to trust no one. Not tonight.”

“He’s right,” Lars agreed. “Quit worrying about it and concentrate on stopping this.”

They were right. I couldn’t afford to trust them. Couldn’t waste the time second guessing myself, always afraid of making a mistake. Not now. The decision to stop wondering and just not trust them was an immediate relief.

“Good,” Lars snapped out, sensing I’d made my decision. “Connors. Just so you know, if I find out you are working for them I’ll kill you myself.”

“Ditto,” Connors challenged back, causing Lars to raise a skeptical eyebrow.

I looked at them standing there, Lars, big and fierce, towering over the professorial doctor, both of them threatening to kill each other and felt a ghost of a smile slide over my lips. We’d be lucky to survive the night.

“Deal,” Lars growled out before turning back to me. “We’ll cover your back, but assume that our intent is to stab you in the back instead. The Doc and I will follow your lead. We’ve done pretty well so far letting you run with it.”

“Within limits,” Connors corrected him. “Too many more blows to the head and I’ll have to doubt your reasoning abilities. He’s right about that cut, Taylor. You need stitches.”

“Right now, we need to concentrate on getting out of here.” I looked over at Connors, wondering how long it had been since he’d eaten. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m managing for now. It was hard to stay ... calm, given the circumstances. I thought she was going to kill you. I understood what you were doing, but it was still hard to sit there and let it happen.”

Lars looked at Connors in disbelief. It was easy to see he didn’t think of him as a threat any more than Hughes had, which was fine because I knew differently. I knew how much control it had taken to sit there and do nothing with Hughes within inches of him. I knew he understood how important it was that we follow the trail to the end.

“You know, I would have never let Keith kill you,” I told him, hoping he could hear the sincerely in my words.

“Oh, my dear. The thought that you would have, never even crossed my mind.”