If the Carsons were all killed during a home invasion gone wrong, Emma’s inheritance would go to the charity. On paper, which was where it counted, Margo was a Sister Love founder as well as its money manager. She could, and would, access it all and cut Deacon out. It might take years for the Carsons’ fortune to work its way through probate and legal challenges, but in the meantime, she could live on the cash from their safe. Dave’s fortune would eventually come to her. The money had been meant for her all along. Jenny had just hijacked it for a while, and now it was time to get it back. First she had to send the text.
A minute later, she pulled off at an empty roadside produce stand and looked through her purse for Emma’s phone. She’d taken it from Deacon’s office after she’d caught him getting ready to fuck the girl yesterday. Killing Bethany had rattled her, and she’d started escalating her escape plans, including putting the phone in her purse so she could try to extort another donation from the Carsons. Deacon had stashed the ten grand he’d squeezed from them and wouldn’t fucking tell her where. The idiot was going to give it to the damn nursing home. Then today, when she saw those mercenaries, or whoever they were, taking Emma, Margo had panicked and known she had to act. Now or never.
She texted Jenny and Dave with the same message, which they would assume came from their daughter: I’ll be home soon. If you want me to stay, it’s very important that you’re both there. I have something to tell you.
That should bring both parents to the house. This needed to go well. Monday afternoon wasn’t ideal timing, but she had to make it work. She’d planned this for an evening later in the week, but then everything had gone to shit. She punched the Carsons’ address into her GPS, popped another OxyContin for courage, and got back on the road.
Twenty minutes later, she pulled into the circular driveway and stared at the two-story stone house with towers on each end—like a fucking castle. Queen Jenny had spent her last day on the throne. God, this would feel good. She’d been plotting her revenge for two decades. At first, it had just been a fantasy, a way to process her grief and anger. Then her nightmare marriage to Bruce, the psychopath, had deepened her rage and made her bitter. It had also produced Ronnie, a difficult child who’d been hard to love. But Margo had tried. Even after escaping Bruce, she’d still struggled to pay bills and find peace of mind. Then she’d met Deacon, and he’d seemed like a savior at first, but after a few years, she’d sensed his boredom with her sexually, and nothing she’d tried had recaptured it. The charity had been her idea for bringing more cash into their lives, but she hadn’t realized Deacon would use it as an opportunity to fuck skinny teenagers. He’d also insisted they actually run a soup kitchen to feed hungry vets. Stupid! She’d wanted nothing to do with it. Then Ronnie had come back into their lives and needed something to focus on.
Margo studied the scene. Only one car was in front of the house, but Jenny’s was probably in the three-car garage. No gardeners or hired help in sight. She glanced around the rich neighborhood. Not a soul anywhere. No noise either. Just blue sky and sunshine for these people.
Emma made a moaning sound, and Margo glanced over. The girl was blinking her eyes. Good, semiconscious was perfect. Margo reached under the seat, so glad she’d started prepping for this days ago. She pulled on the ski mask she’d borrowed from Ronnie’s drawer—whatever it was for—and a pair of high-wedge boots to make herself appear taller, like a man. The bulky black sweatshirt over jeans also looked masculine. Would Jenny or Dave recognize her voice? Twenty years had passed since either of them had talked to her, and Margo had smoked a lot of pot and cigarettes in the early years, leaving her voice an alto instead of a soprano. But it didn’t matter; they wouldn’t be alive to tell anyone if they did recognize her.
CHAPTER 31
Margo braced herself. The hardest part would be getting the girl into the house—while keeping one hand ready to grab the Luger tucked into her waistband. The silencer was already in place on the weapon, and the roll of duct tape was in the sweatshirt’s big front pocket. In her mind, she’d been prepping for years, fantasizing about killing Jenny. She could pull this off. Margo glanced at the girl one more time. The ketamine probably wouldn’t last much longer. An old memory flashed, and Margo smiled. She’d been reading Jenny’s Facebook page—as she did regularly to see what the husband-stealing bitch was up to—and Jenny had hinted at some tragedy that would keep her offline for a while. Pleased and curious, Margo had searched news sites for days until she found an article about Emma’s accident. The thought of luring Jenny’s guilt-ridden daughter into the charity and using Emma to get back at her enemy had made Margo’s heart leap with joy.
The only real challenge had been staying patient while they earned the girl’s loyalty. But that had given Margo time to craft a plan. She and Deacon had discussed fraud-based, non-violent ideas for how to access the Carsons’ money, but he didn’t know about her personal grudge. She’d secretly plotted her own scheme, originally planning to share the money with Deacon. But fuck him. Now it was time to take back what was rightfully hers and get the hell out of this miserable, wet state.
Margo got out of the car and moved quickly to the other side. Emma’s eyes were open, but she was still out of it. Margo pulled her out, then wrapped her left arm around the girl’s waist, keeping her right hand free to grab the gun. “Start walking,” she urged. Emma took a tentative step forward. “Just do it!” Margo kept her voice low but threatening.
Emma stumbled forward, and Margo hurried up the stone path, half dragging the girl, pulling in as much oxygen as she could. Emma was skinny, but it was still an effort to keep her up and moving. Margo touched the hood of Dave’s BMW, and found the engine still warm. He’d come home in response to the text. Margo smiled. She was about to see him again in person for the first time in twenty years. She’d been following his life too, but he wasn’t on Facebook, so she’d only had an occasional glimpse from outside his firm.
On the wide stone porch, Margo scanned the area around the ornate double door for a camera and didn’t see one. It was probably hidden. But so was her face. Margo reached for the bronze door handle, hoping to get lucky and find it unlocked. The door pushed open. Hot damn. She wanted to surprise them. Voices from another room pulled her to the right, and she passed through a large dining area with fancy china cabinets.
Dave appeared in the arched opening to the kitchen. He was fatter, grayer, and older than she remembered—but still handsome. He started to speak, but stopped and simply inhaled sharply.
Margo looked around for someplace to dump the girl.
“Is Emma all right? Did you hurt her?” Dave’s voice was tight with fear.
Before Margo could answer, Jenny burst into the room. “What’s going on?”
Tired of the weight, Margo let Emma drop to the tile floor. The girl cried out, sounding more awake.
“Oh my god!” Jenny rushed toward her daughter.
Margo pulled out her Luger and shouted, “Stop!” She stepped between Jenny and the prone girl with duct-taped wrists. “If you want your daughter to live, you will do exactly as I say.” Margo pitched her voice as low as she could. “Walk backward into the kitchen. I want to see your hands at all times.” This room had tall windows with gauzy, see-through curtains, and she needed more privacy.
The Carsons backed slowly through the archway, their eyes glancing between the gun and their daughter. Margo followed, dragging the semiconscious girl with her. Inside the massive kitchen, a table stood in the breakfast nook to the right and a counter with bar stools separated the space from the cooking area. The nook had a window too, so she gestured for Dave to move left. “Empty your pockets, then sit on the end bar stool.”
“What do you want?” Dave pleaded as he put his phone and wallet on the granite counter. “Just tell me, and I’ll give it to you. Please leave Emma alone.”
Margo wanted to instill more fear, so she didn’t answer. She reached into her pocket for the duct tape and handed it to Je
nny. “Tape his wrists, then tape him to the chair.”
Jenny stared, open-mouthed. “I don’t know how to do that.”
Oh fuck. “Are you stupid? Just do it, or I’ll shoot Emma.”
“No!” Tears running down her face, Jenny started to tape her husband’s wrists.
Her stolen husband. Margo sized up her old enemy. Pudgy in her gut and hips, but her hair was still a beautiful blonde, and her face looked good. But Jenny could afford to take care of her skin and get those little cosmetic tune-ups that kept rich women from looking their age. Narcissistic bitch.
Margo stepped closer to inspect the wrist tape on Dave. It was too loose, but it didn’t matter. These people would be dead soon. She just had to make it look like a random home invasion gone wrong. Which it was, except for the random part. “Tape him to the chair and make it tight.”
Jenny fumbled her way through the binding process as Dave asked, “Why do you have Emma? Are you with the Sister Love cult?”
They weren’t a cult! Margo had to bite her tongue to keep from arguing. Instead she said, “I found this girl wandering along the road. Just your lucky day.” She gestured at Jenny. “Tape his mouth too.”
When the bitch was done, Margo pointed the Luger at her. “I want all the cash you have in the house. Open the safe. Or safes. I’m coming with you.”
Jenny looked at Dave, and he nodded.
Suddenly Emma called out, “Mom!”
Jenny started toward her daughter, but Margo caught her arm. “Tape her mouth too. Quickly!”
As she stuck a piece of tape over her daughter’s lips, the mother whispered, “Sorry.”
Margo jerked Jenny to her feet. “Let’s get the cash!”
“The safe is upstairs,” Jenny said, her voice breaking.
Together, they moved through the arch. As they passed the crying girl, Margo threatened, “Stay quiet, both of you, or everyone dies.”
Jenny hustled up a wide set of stairs, and Margo followed. So far, this was going well. She was minutes away from holding a stack of cash that would take her to Arizona and her new life. One without cheating Deacon or her butt-wiping job. She didn’t even plan to take Ronnie. She was done with everyone.
Jenny led her into a plush master bedroom, decorated in shades of pale mint and peach. Envy filled Margo’s body, as if someone had poured poison down her throat. Jenny didn’t deserve this room, and Margo couldn’t wait to end her spoiled life, maybe right here. “Hurry!”
Jenny ran to a big landscape painting and pulled it down. The woman’s hands shook as she turned the knob on the safe, and she had to start over. When the thick metal door opened and Margo spotted the stacks of cash, her heart skipped a beat. Fuck yes! This would buy her a nice apartment in Tucson with a view of the mountains. She looked around for something to put everything in, yanked a pillow off the bed, and removed the case. “Load it all into this. The jewelry too.” She handed Jenny the pale-green pillowcase.
“Not my mother’s ring, please,” Jenny begged.
Margo laughed. “All of it. Even those papers.” She thought they might be stock certificates or something that had value.
While Jenny transferred the goods, Margo couldn’t resist saying, “How does it feel to have your life stolen?”
The other woman’s lips trembled. “What are you talking about?”
“Dave, the fiancé you stole from me.”
For a long moment, Jenny was silent, her eyes flashing as she tried to make the connection. “Margaret?”
Margo grabbed the loaded pillowcase. “Payback time.” She wanted to shoot the bitch right here in her precious mint-and-peach bedroom. But it would be better to kill them all at once, so she could get the hell out immediately after. That way, she could make Jenny watch her daughter and husband die first. Yeah. She liked that idea. “Downstairs!”
CHAPTER 32
Rox squeezed Marty’s hand one last time, then jumped out of his car and ran to hers. The cult girl behind the wheel of Marty’s car waited, so Rox pulled out first, throwing dirt as she raced out of the logging road’s entrance. Margo was long gone, so this effort could be a fool’s errand. Margo had claimed she was taking Emma home, and Rox had doubted it at the time. But Skeeter’s revelation played over in her head. Margo had made the members sign wills leaving everything to the charity. If Margo was desperate—and shooting Marty had definitely seemed like an act of desperation—all of the Carsons could be in danger.
Or not. Maybe Margo had just been protecting Emma. Rox and Marty had been trespassing, and Marty had pulled his weapon. A grand jury probably wouldn’t even indict Margo for the shooting. What the crazy woman planned to do next was the real issue. Maybe she was just taking Emma home. Rox couldn’t convince herself of that. She put in her earpiece and called Kyle. As the phone rang, she silently begged him to pick up.
On the fifth ring, he did. “This isn’t a good time, Rox. Can I call you back?”
“No. Something could be going down. My clients’ daughter is in a car with an armed woman who just shot Marty.”
“What the hell? Where are you?”
“On Barton Road, a couple miles from Deacon Blackstone’s work camp. But I’m headed toward my clients’ home.” Why was she still being discreet?
“Is Marty okay?”
“Yes. It’s a shoulder wound, and one of the cult members is taking him to meet the ambulance.”
“You were doing an extraction? Trespassing?”
Would this call come back to bite her in the ass? Maybe. But if the Carsons were in danger, she needed help. “Sort of, but something else might be happening now, and I’m not sure what it is.”
“You’ll have to be more explicit.” He sounded intrigued but impatient.
“After the shooting, Margo, the other cult founder, told Emma to get in her car and that she would take her home. Then they took off. But I think Emma might be in danger.” That sounded like she was making a huge deal out of nothing.
“Why danger? Did she threaten the girl?” His impatience had worsened.
“No, but all the girls in the cult have signed wills leaving everything to the charity.”
A long silence. “So Bethany’s royalties now belong to the charity?”
“Most likely.” Rox saw the junction ahead and pressed the brakes. She’d been hitting seventy.
Kyle sighed. “This development is interesting, but it doesn’t sound like an immediate situation. I have a brief meeting now, then I’ll call you back and we can talk through this.”
So no backup from Kyle. She should have expected it. Rox made the turn, still thinking. Based on such weak information, would a dispatcher even send a patrol cop to the Carsons’ house? Doubtful.
“Rox?”
She decided to give Kyle more detail and rattled off her clients’ address in Lake Oswego, only about twenty minutes away. “If you can’t reach me after your meeting, send a patrol unit there, okay?”
A slight hesitation. “Sure.”
Rox hung up, disappointed, even though she wasn’t sure what she’d expected. Regardless of how benign the situation sounded, she’d seen the look in Margo’s eyes. The woman was on a mission—and armed. Rox pressed the accelerator.
The drive took less time than she’d expected, with light traffic on a Monday afternoon and her pushing the limits of safety. Two cars were in the driveway at the Carson home. A silver BMW that probably belonged to Dave and Margo’s minivan. Both were empty. Where was Jenny? Rox climbed out, noticing the three-car garage.
With a ten-minute head start, Margo had been inside the house for at least a few minutes. That seemed odd—why would the Carsons welcome her?—but not alarming by itself. Dave being home in the middle of the day was also peculiar. He hadn’t been willing to leave work long enough to see Emma for an hour Friday afternoon, so what was he doing here now? A thought hit her, and Rox was embarrassed by her call to Kyle. Margo was probably in there soliciting another donation. That’s what charities did. And Siste
r Love probably saw the Carsons as a soft target. Rox worried that she wouldn’t get credit for the extraction now. She’d done everything but drive Emma to safety. But if the Carsons refused to pay her the bonus, there was nothing she could do. They didn’t even know her real name.
Rox needed to be sure Emma had made it home. She climbed out of her car and started toward the front of the house. A shiver ran up her spine. This felt like the time she’d done a domestic call during her patrol cop days, the most dangerous call-out. Only then, she’d been armed. Damn. Reluctantly she turned back, unlocked her car, and slipped her Glock into her waistband. The worst place to carry it, but she wasn’t wearing a holster, and it wasn’t a pocket gun.
At the door, she started to knock, but a popping sound startled her. Was that muted gunfire? Her pulse jumped. The sound had come from deep inside the house. A muffled cry, then sobbing followed. Rox pushed open the door and hurried inside. The spacious living room was empty, but she heard talking in the area to her right. Rox scooted across the dining room and braced against the wall next to the arched opening. She peered around the edge, spotting Emma on the kitchen floor with her hands and mouth duct taped. A person in a ski mask paced back and forth, gun in hand. Fuck! Was that Margo? The petite size and shape sort of matched the woman who’d just shot Marty. Beyond the intruder, Dave Carson was duct taped to a bar stool, slumped forward and bleeding from his belly. Jenny Carson was next to him, unrestrained and sobbing. Rox noticed the assailant holding a pillowcase that looked half full of small items. This was a robbery!
Guilt Game Page 20