Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 78227 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78227 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
“When you’re right, you’re right.”
I’ve never seen my father like this.
He’s usually hot with emotion. Red Joe, as Donny and Dale say.
But today? His rage—which I would normally expect to see during something like this—is absent.
It’s been replaced with…
An icy cold exterior.
And frankly? It’s frightening.
Especially after what he’d told me about his own father and how he’d resorted to tactics not unlike what Dad is doing now.
Perhaps it’s true that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
But I make a vow, here and now, that once we get through all this? Once we put it all to rest for good? I will never, ever hold a gun to another human being unless it’s to defend my family or myself.
Perhaps Dad feels that’s what he’s doing. And in some ways, he’s probably right.
But this new side of him that I see? I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.
Don’t turn your back on him.
My mother’s words echo in my mind.
I won’t turn my back on my father, but we will have a talk after all this. Because if he continues with these tactics? I don’t know how I can stay loyal to him.
But then I look before me at the jewels we’ve uncovered. I consider the barns on our property.
Without Dad’s tactics, we would’ve still found the barns. It’s our property, after all, and we would’ve thoroughly searched it.
But the jewels? Would we have thought to look underneath the kennels?
Probably not.
I place the ring back in the black velvet bag and draw the string.
And only then do I notice something.
Brittany.
Brittany, who doesn’t seem disturbed by any of this.
I’ve known something was off with her—that she’s hiding something—but I never thought she could actually be a part of this. Those red fingernails…
Brittany breached her ethics—if indeed she ever had any—ten years ago, when she stole the tranquilizing drug from her father’s clinic and injected it into Rory and Callie, letting Pat take those incriminating photographs.
Once you cross the line…
Not that I’d know. I’ve never crossed that line. But wasn’t it Dad who told me that once you cross the line, it becomes easier and easier to keep crossing lines?
Which means two things.
First, it will now be easier for Dad to hold a gun on someone else. Great.
And second… Brittany has probably been crossing lines since she drugged Rory and Callie ten years ago. Maybe before then, even.
She’s a good actress. I’ll give her that.
And as I move my gaze between her and her father, something dawns on me. Doc’s features are extended. His jaw is dropped. He has no issue making eye contact with me or Dad. Perhaps it’s because there’s a gun pointed at him, and he needs to be alert at all times.
Or maybe…
Maybe he has no idea how the rings got switched.
Doc thinks this is the ring that he was paid with.
Brittany, on the other hand…
Oh. My. God.
She knew all the time. She knew what her father was doing.
“It’s you,” I say.
Brittany doesn’t meet my gaze. She tries, for sure, but she’s looking past me.
“What do you mean?” Doc says. “I’ve told you all along she has nothing to do with this.”
“Maybe not, but she knows. Don’t you, Brittany? You know a lot more than you’re letting on. You know a lot more than your father thinks you do, don’t you?”
She shakes her head vehemently. “They’re lying, Daddy. I swear to God, they’re lying.”
“What I’m trying to figure out”—I rake my gaze over her in an attempt to further interpret her body language, her stance, her facial expression—“is whether you were trying to help your father or hinder him.”
“Brittany…” From Doc.
“He doesn’t know what he’s talking about, Daddy.”
“Don’t I?” I hold up the pouch containing the ring. “This is not the ring your father was given for payment, is it?”
“How should I know?” she gasps out.
“You. You’re the one who left these things in the safe-deposit box in Donny’s name.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” This time she gulps.
I glare at her. “How did you get in? How did you get a safe-deposit box open in Donny’s name? And how the hell did you get into Uncle Talon’s house and leave that key for Donny in his medicine cabinet?”
My father’s eyebrows rise. Yet he still holds the gun trained on Doc. Man, nothing fazes him. Where is Red Joe?
“Sheraton,” Dad says, “tell your daughter to start talking. My son has a gun as well, and he can put it right to her head.”
Man, I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to hold my gun to another human being. Especially not a woman.
And especially not if…
If Brittany left all those things for Donny, she’s the reason we know anything about this.
She’s the reason…
“I know you’re not trying to protect us,” I say to her. “It’s Lamone, isn’t it? He truly is our relative, and it’s him you’re trying to protect.”