Chapter 28
Once Gregory pulled back onto the road, Gregory’s PI called him. He answered it on Bluetooth. "Yeah, Hank?"
Maybe Hank would provide them with the real story.
"I checked into Brendan's girlfriend, specifically learning if she had an alibi for the times that someone tried to kill you.
She has been working in Austin all this time, so she has an airtight alibi.
Then I checked on Brendan's sister. Belinda also lives and works in Austin, and she was cleared.
I checked on Brendan's dad because we thought a man had come after you.
He was in the hospital with a heart attack when you were going to pick up the dragon birthday cake.
He does live in Dallas and is divorced from Brendan's mom.
So he couldn't have been involved in the one accident. "
Which left Red’s mother as the only suspect in the family, Sascha was thinking.
"Okay, so then I looked into Brendan's mother.
She lives in Dallas still. She has no alibis for any of the accidents.
She tried to say she was at tea parties or other events with friends, but when I checked with them, they said that she had mixed up her days.
So in every instance, she was available to commit the crime. "
"Which doesn't make sense," Gregory said. "She wanted me to be her son, not Brendan. Why would she try and kill me?"
"Because," Sascha said, "if she couldn't have you, then your parents couldn't."
Hank said, "Yeah, that could certainly be a motive. I couldn't learn if she has any psychiatric issues, but I did find that she had had several interviews with local news shows and podcasts over the years about the baby mix-up. So it's like she can't let go of it."
"Great. What about Brendan?"
"I still haven't found what his alias is."
"Check on Red."
"Your bodyguard?"
"Yeah. He had an alibi for one of the attempts on my life—the first one. I want his other alibis verified. I'm beginning to believe he's covering for someone."
"His mother?"
"Possibly. We all assumed a man tried to kill me. But it's just as possible that a woman could have tried."
"Okay, he didn't go to work for you until after you were in the two accidents."
"And I gave him time off when the truck hit the limo on the bridge. I want to know where he was that time and when I was getting the dragon cake. As I said, he alibied out for the first attempt."
"Okay, I'm on it," Hank said.
Then they ended the call, and Sascha couldn't believe the turn of events. "We need to resolve this because if Red wasn't the one who did this, then the attempted murderer is still out there."
"Yeah."
They sat in silence for a while, pondering the news.
"Red said you should be safe because you have the other bodyguards working for you while he tries to renovate the farmhouse," Sascha said.
"Yeah. Why would he say that if he was the one who was out to get me and now no one should be?"
"That's exactly what I was thinking. I'm still wondering how he or she knew about your movements. We should have asked Red. I didn't even think about it when we were talking to him."
"That's because we thought he had done it and there was no reason to delve into it further."
They had been driving for about thirty minutes back to Dallas, and it would take another two and a half hours to get there. “Should we turn around and ask Red?” she asked.
"I'm afraid they'll be busy with other business."
Sascha drummed her fingers on the console. "Okay, then call him."
Gregory chuckled. "I'm afraid they'll still be busy."
"Yeah, but you can leave a message if he doesn't pick up."
"All right." Gregory called Red's number on Bluetooth.
Red answered to their surprise.
"I hope we're not interrupting anything, but Sascha and I were curious about something."
"What's that?" Red sounded a little winded.
"We were trying to figure out how you knew where I would be when you tried to take me out."
Red didn't answer right away, which, to Sascha, was a dead giveaway that he hadn't attempted to kill Gregory. If he had, he would know just how he managed to know where he would be, even when he wasn't working for him.
"I was watching the house and when I saw you leave—"
"How about that you didn't do it?” Gregory let that sink in before he spoke again.
“That you didn't make any of the attempts on my life?
You have no history of any criminal behavior.
By all accounts, you're a great person. We don't believe you were involved in any of this.
But you did want to work for me to protect me. "
Red didn't say anything. It was as if he were waiting for Gregory to reveal the real culprit.
Gregory finally said, "Okay, so I never thought your mother would want me dead because she had wanted to raise me. But then I realized that if she killed me, or had me killed, my parents couldn't have me. She would pay them back for supposedly taking me from her."
Red was really quiet. Sascha suspected he didn't want to give up his mom, who hadn't shown him the affection he deserved over the years, yet he still wanted to protect her.
"So you don't know how she knew to target me?" Gregory asked, trying to get confirmation.
"No. But she has got the money to pay for a PI to keep an eye on your movements."
"But you know it was her," Gregory said.
"Not for sure, but I suspected it as much," Red said.
"I didn't have any real proof, and she never told me anything, so I couldn't go to the police. All I could do was try to protect you. When you gave me time off after I got sick, I was trying to find out where she was. I was going to confront her. She won’t return my calls.
She wasn't at home, and then I learned that Ms. Lassiter and Raymond had been in the limo and run off the bridge.
That it was deliberate and not by accident. "
"The police said the vehicles had been stolen. So they weren't vehicles you had on the farm that you refurbished. They weren’t vintage, and they weren’t Fords," Gregory said.
Red was silent.
Sascha let out her breath. "Okay, listen, if it’s your mom, she could still come after Gregory if she's not stopped. We thought that once you had acted as though you had done all this, we were in the clear. But now we're not. Is that why you were glad we had other bodyguards?"
Again, a prolonged silence. Then Red finally said, "Yeah. Because I knew it wasn't me. I didn't know it was her, and I still don't know for sure if it is."
"She has no alibis for the times that a vehicle plowed into me," Gregory said.
Red was quiet.
"Everyone else does. Your dad, sister, you, even your girlfriend, though we never suspected Janie had anything to do with it. My PI just checked into her because a woman had called to warn Sascha that her fiancé was in danger. A younger woman."
"My sister. She must know something about this. I never told her why I came to Dallas to work, or what I was working at, or who I was working for."
"So, you think she knows something about this, and that's why she warned Sascha?"
"Yeah, she wouldn't want our mother to go to prison."
“What about the emails that were sent to me?” Gregory asked.
“I don’t know anything about them, and I never called you or Ms. Lassiter about anything related to the attempts on your life.”
Gregory had read Sascha's mind and felt the same way that she did. He had no obligation to feel anything but anger toward Francine Drury.
As far as he was concerned, she needed to go to prison. She didn't deserve to be free where she could continue to attempt to hurt him. Or anyone else in his household if she thought that he was in a vehicle they were driving.
He didn't care if Red didn't want that to happen. She deserved everything she got.
Sascha nodded, agreeing with him.
"Okay, how can I help?" Red asked.
"But you're in Austin now."
"I'll go to Dallas and tell her I need to speak to her about something.
You can have the police arrest her if they feel they have enough evidence to prove she's involved in all this.
I suspect she is, but really, she has said nothing to me about it.
But it sounds like my sister knows about it.
Maybe the police can take her into custody to question her, and she'll spill her guts to save herself, especially since she was trying to warn Ms. Lassiter about it. "
"We'll get a hold of them about it."
"I wonder if my sister warned her because Ms. Lassiter ended up being targeted with Raymond, and she thought our mother had gone too far."
"How did she feel about the whole baby mix-up? Did she believe what your parents did? That Gregory is your parents' son and you are the Landrys'?" Sascha asked.
"She waffles about it. She goes along with our parents so she’s not on the hot seat with them.
But she told me she believed in the science.
The DNA. I mean, Belinda doesn't have red hair either.
She's dark-haired. So if the only reason I wasn't their son was that I wasn't a redhead, none of that flies. "
"True," Gregory said.
"Do you think your sister would come clean about your mother?" Sascha asked.
"Only if she thought she would be implicated and could go to jail herself, unless she revealed the truth."
"Okay, I'm going to get the police involved," Gregory said.
"Do you want me to try and get in touch with my mother?" Red asked.
"Yeah. So the police can take her into custody and question her."
"I'll do it."
Gregory gave him the number of the officer who was involved in pursuing the attempted murderer.
"Okay, I'm off here then." Red ended the call.
"What do you think?" Gregory asked Sascha.
"I hope that the police can get hold of both his mother and sister and learn the truth. Depending on the sister's involvement or her cooperation, I'm fine with her not going to jail, but the mom, if she's the one who did this, yes."
"I sure hope we can get this resolved quickly," Gregory said.
"Yeah, me too."
Then Gregory called the police sergeant working his case. He explained what had happened to Red, his mom, and his sister. He told her that his PI said Francine Drury didn't have any alibi for the times when Gregory was targeted and again when the limo was. But Red and his sister did.
"We'll check with the mother, but that's not enough to go on."
"You said the vehicles had been stolen," Gregory said.
"Yeah, for the first two attempts, the trucks were ditched, but no fingerprints or evidence was left behind. What would the motivation be for her wanting you dead?"
Gregory told her what they knew about her and the only idea that they had come up with. It did sound rather far-fetched.
"Okay, we'll check into it."
Then they ended the call.
"I'm glad that Red isn't the one behind all of this, but I wish he had come out with it beforehand.” Sascha closed her eyes, leaned her head against the car window, and fell asleep for a while.
Gregory smiled at her, glad she was in his life, though they needed to close this chapter with the attempted murderer.
About twenty minutes from home, she suddenly sat up and said, "She's coming for us. If it's her. Or whoever it is."
He didn't think having a bodyguard would have made any difference in fighting the threat. "Where? How?"
"It's one of those big trucks on a high carriage, whatever they're called. Compared to your Honda Civic, we don't stand a chance."
"A jacked-up pickup truck? I never asked this before, but can we change our future in your predictions?"
"The vision I had might not even be about a situation we encounter right now, but at some other time."
"I wish they were more precise."
"Yeah, don't you know it. I always feel that way."
"I'm going to pull off the highway and get gas. Does it happen at a gas station?"
"All I see is her running us over."
"Not of us getting out of the vehicle?" He wanted to do anything to protect Sascha.
That's when he saw a black truck like she had described coming after them, barreling up, dashing around other cars, nearly causing another wreck, and passing an 18-wheeler with barely any room to spare; he laid on his horn.