Thank goodness Timothy was at school. Michelle was going to pick him up, just in case things got really crazy here in the woods. Not that I was planning on being here any longer than I needed to be. But even with Simon, Cole, and Ivan following me and watching out for me, there was no telling which way this was going to go.
“No.”
The single word chilled me to the bone. My breath caught in my throat and my heart stopped beating for a while. I knew this was it, the moment I had been waiting for, but now that it was here, I was too scared to turn. The moment I laid my eyes on him, this would get real, and I was scared for that.
Do it for Timothy, I reminded myself. This is for him, all for him.
For my son, I turned to look at the stranger who was once the love of my life, the man I followed around the country because I trusted him and thought his job as a fisherman was important to him, to our family.
“There is no way,” he said, bemused, then tossed his head back and laughed nastily. “Have you not been getting my warning notes? Have you not figured out that I’ve come to get you back? I cannot believe you came here alone, without your body guards. This is just…well, it’s meant to be, isn’t it? For you to be doing whatever it is you are doing right by my little house.”
“Hiking,” I whispered back, knowing he probably wouldn’t buy it. “I didn’t know those warning notes were for me. I thought it was just a crime spree.”
Brady’s smug smile would have really gotten to me if I wasn’t playing him. “Oh, you really are naïve, aren’t you, Miranda? But you always have been. Of course that was all me. It always has been me. I thought you would have figured that out by now. You didn’t even realize that it was me in your store that time? Thanks for the cash, by the way, that kept me going.”
“Is that what you always did?” I whispered. “Steal? Because I thought that we were living an honest life.”
He tossed his head back and roared with laughter. “You should just be glad that I got so good at the stealing. That was what kept us going. That was what allowed me to do all of this.”
Thank God I had my recording device on. Now I just needed to get him to admit to everything more specifically. I really needed this to work out in my favor.
“What do you mean?” I asked cautiously. “All of what?”
Brady stepped closer to me, and it honestly took every ounce of strength within me not to recoil. He disgusted me now, I despised him, but I couldn’t let that show.
“Don’t act like you didn’t see me at Lake Arrowhead with my red-haired friend.”
The memory hit me like a wrecking ball. How could this asshole be so callous about all of this? He even smiled a little brighter as he talked about the dead red-haired woman in his boat. The she-wolf who did not deserve to die.
But I would get justice for her, no matter what.
“You know I threw her overboard once she was already dead. I saw you running away.” His words were now being whispered in to my ear. I squeezed my eyes closed and tried not to panic as I prayed the recording device was picking everything up. “I knew then that I would have to kill you too. I never wanted to, you were the one she-wolf I was planning on leaving live. At least until Timothy is an adult. But you fucked that up, didn’t you? And now I need to make sure you don’t tell anyone anything about me and where we have been. The trail of bodies I left behind. Because I am not going to get caught now. Not until every she-wolf is dead and under water as well. Because that is the only place for them. You were always going to go there too, but I guess you’re just getting your invitation early.”
“Why?”
He grabbed a clump of my hair and tugged it. “Because you’re fucking monsters, all of you. You trick innocent men like me and get me to marry you before we know that you are just a disgusting beast.”
Fuck. Heat burned through my left side, like a weird sharp pain that didn’t seem to have a source.