by Zoe Sharp
For a moment they both stood there, then Olivia said in little more than a whisper. “Adam was learning to drive your truck, Joe - ever since he got his learner’s permit.”
They both turned, in unison, and looked at their children again. Only this time their gaze was very different.
Adam gave his younger brother a vicious jab in the arm. “I told you,” he complained.
Tanner’s cheeks were burning. “Adam, shut up!”
I began to change my mind about which of them had been the ringleader in this enterprise.
The security guard calmly pulled them apart before they could come to further blows. I handed Parker the weaponry I’d collected from husband and wife.
“Good work, Charlie,” he said.
“Same to you, boss,” I said. “If Bill hadn’t analysed those tapes so fast, we’d be scraping bodies out of there right now.” I thought of my own near-miss with the forklift. “Probably mine included.”
Olivia Duvall was looking almost as shocked as her husband. He put his good arm around his wife and for what I imagined was the first time in months, she didn’t pull away from such a public embrace.
“Why?” she murmured then. She cleared her throat, gave her sons a piercing stare. “Why the hell would either of you want us dead … ? I mean, why, for God’s sake?”
Their answer was sullen silence. I glanced back at their parents. They’d been prepared to fight over custody of their ungrateful children in the divorce. Maybe now the fight would be to see who didn’t have to put up with them.
I shrugged. “You gave the reason yourself, Olivia. ‘If anything happens to me,’ you said, ‘every cent goes to the boys.’ Maybe they just wanted Christmas to come early this year.”