Locked, Loaded, & Lying
Page 31
“When we were kids, Grandmother made me do the brat’s homework because God forbid a van der Kellen should flunk out of high school. Then the brat wanted to move here, so I was forced to go too, and keep an eye on her. All these years I did whatever Grandmother ordered. I constantly hid what a fuck-up Tiffany was in every part of her life! And my reward? She wins the seat.”
“But obscene pictures with Vannini wouldn’t have done anything,” he pointed out. “You know she never suffered consequences.”
“Wait,” Leo said in a trembling voice. “How did you even think up the Vannini angle?”
She scowled at Vannini, who stared at the gun with wide, frightened eyes.
“On the way to the bar, Tiffany told me Roberto had called earlier from the Denver airport. He was coming for her, and she wanted to make sure to avoid him. Then she told me his secret.” She threw the Italian a scathing glance and sneered at Lock. “It was about you, asshole.”
He shook his head. The woman five feet away was a lunatic. The secret was Vannini doping. He didn’t recognize even a sliver of Marcy’s logical level-headedness in this rant.
“…but she was angry you blew off the auction.” She paused and wiped spittle from the corner of her mouth, the gun turning sideways. “We get to the bar, and she stumbles right past Roberto. Duh! Wants to avoid him and yet Tweets where she’ll be. Typical, stupid Tiffany. It clicked then. If I could get a roofie in her—”
“Where would you get a roofie?” Leo interrupted.
“Wolf sold me one. He has them in a tic-tac container.” Her lips drew back exposing her teeth, but it was not a smile. “It’s the only way he can have sex. He date-rapes women. Lock knows that.”
Lock’s insides shuddered. He’d never bought into those rumors about his friend. Just another If Only mistake.
“So if you could get a roofie in her then…” Leo prompted. He sounded brave, but Lock could see by the way his brother stood that his left leg had numbed up, pretty much paralyzing him. Even without a gun, escape was no longer a viable option. He tried feeling out 911 again.
“Then Roberto manipulates her into depraved positions. Maybe I’ll even bring in the German Shepherd next door.”
Vannini sputtered, and she shut him down with that crazed glare. Turning back she shrugged like they were imbeciles. “I take pictures. He’d have her silence, and I’d force my grandmother to finally understand how spectacularly wrong Tiffany was for the board. It was my birthright.”
“You were going to blackmail your own grandmother with pictures of Tiffany?”
“No, asshat. I was going to be the hero and save the van der Kellen name.”
“I…I’m lost,” Lock said, pressing the larger space near the bottom of the screen and trying to dial again.
“I’d show the old bitch these heinous photographs! Pretend I’d intercepted them before the van der Kellen name could be extorted. Grandmother would be so grateful. She’d finally realize the idiocy and danger of appointing that airheaded coke addict to the board.
“Giving Tiffany the seat was Grandmother’s way of telling me she doesn’t think I’m good enough to be a van der Kellen. She never has. I’m older, smarter, but God forbid, I’m not pretty or vivacious.” With her free hand she scrubbed the freckles on her face like she could wipe them off.
Somehow he was hitting the wrong keys and coming up with busy signals. He spoke loudly to cover the noise and tried again. “So when I drank the Cosmo by accident, and your blackmail scheme went up in smoke, you decided to come over and stab her?”
“Of course not, jackass. I went to her condo to get her to drink another dose, but she’d almost sobered up. So I begged her to see reason. I was right for the board. She’d hate it. She knew it. She even agreed that she knew it.
“But that’s when she told me she’d broken up with you and was moving to New York. A fresh start. So what if she couldn’t deal with the board responsibilities. That’s exactly what she said. ‘So what?’ She fucked me over just like Grandmother did. Then”—another shrill laugh—“then she ordered me to go get her a yogurt. Oh, I marched into her kitchen all right!”
Lock pictured Tiffany’s brutalized body beside the Jacuzzi. The butcher knife sticking out of her neck. His throat constricted. Smartphones were not meant to be dialed blindly. He should have been figuring out a way to tackle the gun away, but had to know one last thing. “Why frame me?”
“You fucked me and forgot me,” she shrieked. “I could have handled that, but no, you meet my darling cousin and capture America’s adoration over your twisted love affair. Just one more idiot choosing her over me.” Her upper lip curled back in a grotesque smile. “It was almost orgasmic leading you downstairs and ordering you to play in all that blood. You kept trying to wake her.”
He swallowed the bile rising in his throat, heart hammering. Somewhere in his deep, shadowy memory, her words rang a familiar bell.
“But all these months,” she said frowning inwardly. “Wondering about your defense. Wondering if I’d overlooked something.”
Chills ran through him. “You’re insane.”
“Am I? I’m on the board. And you and your little friend are dead.” She raised the gun.
“We called 911 before we walked in,” Leo blurted, his voice trembling on the lie. Lock briefly closed his eyes.
“Sure you did.”
Please God let 911 have worked this time. Lock didn’t hear a busy signal, but he didn’t hear a voice asking his emergency either.
Marcy clicked the safety off.
“Think a minute!” He held up a quivering hand. “Your neighbors will hear the shots. You’ll fuck up your position on the board doing this.”
She held out the gun to Vannini. “Kill them.”
He backed away, morgue white and sputtering Italian.
In a split second, the gun roared. The kickback jolted Marcy’s arm. Vannini staggered and toppled sideways, clutching his stomach. Completely ignoring his agonized wails, she faced Lock again, aiming at his chest.
“Roberto began dating a model in 2006,” she said in a singsong voice. “Her sister was the lab technician for the Torino games. He bribed her to switch samples so it looked like you were doping. Too bad for him that his very ugly public breakup with the model last year coincided with Tiffany visiting her in Milan. That’s the stupid secret she knew. That’s what brought Roberto over here to shut her up.”
Lock gaped at the man writhing on the ground. The humiliation of those Games. The fact that still no one believed he’d been clean, no matter what he said.
If Vannini hadn’t been in the throes of death Lock would’ve strangled him.
“Who’s first?” Marcy swung the Colt between the two of them. “Your friend will be the murder victim, and you the suicide?”
“Marcy, don’t do this,” Lock pleaded, his mouth parched. For the love of Christ, what could he do? Aside from a massive espresso machine to his right, there was nothing to use as a weapon.
“I’m not his friend, I’m his twin,” Leo said, because of course that was a fact Marcy needed to know right about now.
Lock heard sirens, but figured he was hallucinating because Marcy didn’t react. Instead, surprise flickered across her face. “Really? Who was born first?”
“I was,” Leo lied. “By sixteen minutes.” And shit if he didn’t lie perfectly for the first time in his life.
“Good enough.” She swung the gun from Lock to Leo. Her finger tightened on the trigger. Time freeze-framed to a halt. Leo was going to die. Because of him.
In agonizing slow motion Lock leapt diagonally in front of his brother, arms and legs spread, like the time he dove off the roof with cardboard wings.
He felt the blow to his chest a nanosecond before he heard the gunshot, but felt nothing. As momentum pushed him he arced a backhanded blow to Marcy’s head. She fell against the corner of the oven, landing limply on the ground. He followed with a bone-crushing thud. A wave of searing pain ripped into
his chest.
The front door crashed open, boot steps stormed the house. It’s too late, he wanted to say, it’s over, but surprisingly, he was struggling for breath.
“Over here! My brother!” Leo cried.
Hands turned him onto his back. Concerned faces clustered above him, all cops. The guy on the right uttered an obscenity, the tone holding horror and finality.
I’m perfectly fine, Lock wanted to say, but his brain demanded some goddamn air. He kept inhaling, but there was no oxygen.
“Looks like the bullet pierced his lung.”
Leo’s ashen face came into view, looking so stricken Lock wanted to goof on him, but the band around his brain tightened, and wit wouldn’t come.
“I’m here—you’ll be okay,” Leo whispered.
Lock heard his jacket unzipping, his shirt ripping, then strong fingers pressed on his chest, on the damn bullet hole. He writhed in agony as the pain amplified, knifing through him.
“Ahhh…” His shout came out as a breathy whisper.
“Don’t talk,” Leo commanded. “Just shut up.”
Lock tried to shake his head. Listen, he pleaded with his eyes. Gathering every ounce of energy and willpower, he opened his mouth and formed sounds. “Jo-Jo…”
“Stop talking! Just breathe!”
The sharp, burning pain in his chest spread, and the relentless crushing inside his skull made him dizzy. He squeezed his eyes shut. Piercing sirens grew louder, hurting his ears.
“Breathe, goddamn it!”
Lock inhaled and inhaled, not finding air.
“Don’t you die on me! Don’t you fucking die.” Leo sounded like he was crying.
Lock opened his eyes, the sluggish action sapping the last of his energy. I’m not going to die, you dork. He was sure he said this aloud, but couldn’t feel his lips move.
“You shouldn’t have jumped in front of me.” Leo’s voice broke as tears streamed down his cheeks. “Why would you do something so stupid?”
Because you’re my twin. Lock felt his mouth open a fraction and tried again. Please, God, let him hear this. Because I love you.
He exhaled the tiny oxygen left in his lungs and let his body relax, welcoming the cool darkness and the blessed silence.
Chapter Forty
Lock floated up from the abyss of grayness and groggily blinked into painful fluorescent-light. His chest felt like an elephant crushed it, and he’d trade his fortune for a sip of water. What the hell? He stared at his surroundings, taking in the moon outside the window, the multiple IV bags funneling into a tube plugged into his sore right arm, and the stark hospital walls. Hospital?
It all rushed back. Marcy, Vannini, Leo…Jordan!
He tried to sit up, but excruciating pain sliced into his chest. Hissing, he collapsed, panting on the pillow just as the door clicked open. Leo came in with a burger sack and a book, closing the door quietly behind him before catching Lock’s steady gaze.
“You’re awake. You just missed mom and dad.”
“Tell me I killed her.” His words came out sluggish, his tongue thick with thirst. Leo dumped his things in a chair.
“Nope. Just knocked out. Vannini was DOA, and you almost were. The bullet hit your rib, then fragmented and nicked your right lung. You’ve spent three days in ICU and two here. They performed several surgeries—had to crack some more ribs to get at all the shrapnel.” He poured a cup of ice water, and fed the bendy straw into Lock’s mouth. “Bottom line,” he said cheerfully, “you’re in bad shape.”
He appreciated Leo’s pretense at keeping their brotherly warfare going. And the water was elixir. Lock sucked down every drop.
“I could crush it in a downhill race,” he gasped, as Leo put the cup down. “Just help me up.”
Leo nodded at the door. “You don’t want to go anywhere. A mob’s camped out there—mostly female fans. But the 911 call recorded enough of Marcy’s confession that Parker’s chomping at the bit to be the first one to tell you all the charges have been dropped.”
Lock grunted.
“And some top USSA official arrives at dawn every day, commandeers the only comfortable chair in the lounge, and waits to beg your return.” Leo cocked his brow. “And don’t get me started on your sponsors and their muffin baskets…”
Lock attempted a grin.
“Your friend, Doctor Clutchfield, took over your care and ordered a family-visitors-only policy,” his brother continued, “so the crowd just keeps growing and waiting.”
His grin faded. “Jordan…”
Leo pulled the chair to the bedside. He moved his burger sack and book and sat down.
“I want to see her, Leo,” he muttered.
“Lock—”
“Find Clutch. He’ll let her in.”
“She…she isn’t here.”
“In the waiting room?”
Leo’s pause lasted too long, and Lock felt an unbearable tightness squeeze his already painful chest.
“She left Colorado. Once the police finished questioning her, she asked them to drive her to the airport.”
Her father! Had something happened? The extortion deadline was Monday. Why would she have left so quickly? Within hours of him taking a bullet to the lung?
“Has she called?”
“No one can get through to you here. But she hasn’t called my cell.”
Every scenario his frantic mind ran through ended with her or her boss having at least one minute free, sometime in these last five days, to check on him. Lock closed his eyes and tried to keep his mind perfectly blank. His chest hurt something fierce now, and he gulped shallow breaths.
“I’m sorry,” his brother said. “I don’t know why she wouldn’t call.”
A few moments of silence went by, and Lock concentrated on the noises beyond the door. Evidently it was dinnertime. Nurses chatted loudly with patients as trays clacked, rolling tables squealed, and doors closed.
He drew on his championship mental will and faced his brother impassively. Leo stared back, obviously waiting for a reaction, so he managed a careful shrug. “She came for the story. No biggie.”
“Maybe she’s in Alabama fighting the charges.”
Lock nodded. “You’re right. Solitary confinement doesn’t have phones.”
His brother snorted. “She’s not in solitary.”
“That’s my point, dumbass.”
“You’ll hear from her again.”
“Just like the rest of the reporters who keep in touch.”
“Knock off the pity party. I was trapped with the two of you and your combustible attraction all week. She cares for you, all right? I don’t know why she bolted, but she’ll be back.”
“The topic’s already boring me stupid. Move on.”
“Don’t be an ass, Lock. Jordan—”
“Do not say her goddamn name again,” he hissed out, then needed to gulp oxygen into his geriatric lungs. He gritted his teeth against the now agonizing chest pain.
Christ, she took lying to a whole new level. She’d used him just like all the rest, but because he’d blathered everything to her as Lock, all the dark, disgusting stuff in his rotten soul, she also knew how much walking away would destroy him.
Crafty.
The nurse came in with a cheerful smile and a tray of food that smelled like garbage. It was the last straw, and he snarled obscenities until she retreated with it, red-faced and shocked. His brother looked like he wanted to start in with a prudish reprimand, but tightened his lips and offered up part of his burger instead.
They munched in silence, and Lock spent every ounce of energy keeping the mask of boredom in place. As hard as he resisted, visions of Jordan trampled his sanity. The flashes of vulnerability in those dark-blue eyes, the jut of her stubborn chin when she bossed him around, the sheer ecstasy on her face in the throes of coming. He choked down the last bite, fighting the overwhelming urge to slump into a fetal position.
“Why did you jump in front of that bullet?”
 
; The question blindsided him, but at least it dissolved the images of Jordan. He scowled at his own clenched fists. Half of him wanted to snap at his brother to leave him alone, and the other half tried to think up a smartass Lock and Load response. But then he remembered the pressure of Leo’s hands on his chest and the tears in his eyes. Lock owed him an honest answer. He looked him in the eye. “I guess I was sick and tired of you getting hurt for shit I’d gotten us into…” He stopped for more oxygen. “That bullet was meant for me. No way was I gonna let you die. And I didn’t know how else to stop her.”
His brother swallowed and glanced away.
“Hey.” Lock kept his tone light because his body couldn’t handle any more emotion. “You saved my life too, dude.”
“We both expected me to react like that.” Leo glanced at his watch. “But I never expected you to do what you did.”
As he was about to agree, a thought occurred to him. “Actually, what you did took more courage ’cause of your past.” He knew he’d hit a nerve by the way Leo stiffened. “You said yourself I wasn’t expected to live, and yet you still worked on me. If I had died, you’d blame yourself for your twin’s death. When you’re still, idiotically, blaming yourself for those other three deaths.”
Leo let out a long-suffering sigh and smiled faintly. “This topic’s boring me stupid. Move on.”
“Okay by me.” Lock groaned as he shifted in bed. “Can you help me brush my teeth? My breath is so bad I want to gag every time I open my mouth.”
His brother exaggerated a look of relief. “I wasn’t going to say anything…” He smirked as he collected the hospital supplies and helped Lock. When he stuck the toothbrush in the bedside drawer, he glanced at his watch again.
“Missing a reality show?”
“Naw.” Leo’s ears turned red, a sure sign of a new crush. “Shift change. There’s this night nurse, Jessica. She’s…I don’t know. She’s really nice.”
Lock hid his grin. Really nice? That was the clearest description his bestselling brother could come up with?