Chapter Thirty-One
The Mill Village Clinic
What the hell had she done with it?
Juanita looked around the office one more time. Every chart she’d viewed in the past two months was piled on her desk. She’d gone through every damned one.
Why the hell hadn’t she just shredded the lab results?
No, she’d foolishly thought she might need it in the future.
Maybe when Cost forced Shelley to take a home pregnancy test or when her period came.
If things had gotten hot enough, she always could have told him it had been a joke to get back at him for being a bastard.
Otherwise he might have called the lab and thrown his granddaddy’s prestigious name around.
But Juanita had known it would never come to that.
A few days would pass and Shelley would get her period.
No big deal. Cost would breathe a sigh of relief and Juanita would have gloated about how she’d gotten him good.
She’d waited a long time for the opportunity.
But then things had changed. Shelley had gotten murdered before her period came, so Cost had never found out it was all one big fat joke.
Juanita had realized that she could use this situation to her benefit.
Now she couldn’t find the original damned lab sheet so she could shred it!
She slammed the file drawer shut and took a deep, calming breath.
The autopsy was today, but she shouldn’t worry. It wasn’t going to be a problem.
Lots of women had spontaneous abortions. The fact that the autopsy wouldn’t discover a pregnancy would be insignificant. CJ would question the results and the ME would say as much. It happened all the time. Women conceived and then abruptly aborted for whatever reason and never even knew it.
When CJ came to Juanita with that question, she would repeat what the ME would no doubt say.
All she had to do was calm down and keep her cool. No one could prove anything. Well, maybe they could if CJ pushed the issue and requested a copy of the lab results for closer inspection. But there was no logical or compelling reason for her to do that.
Shelley Patterson was dead. There were no grounds to pursue the issue of who the father was since she hadn’t been pregnant at the time of death. The idea that the biological father could have been her killer would be irrelevant since there was no zygote for DNA testing.
Juanita was covered.
She closed her eyes and shook her head.
It wasn’t supposed to have gone this far. She’d lied to Shelley about the lab results just to—
“What the hell are you doing here so early?”
Juanita whipped around. Carter Cost stood in the doorway of her office.
“The better question is,” she said as calmly as her nerves would allow, “what’re you doing here this early?” Her heart bounced around erratically. She shouldn’t have lied to Shelley. But she’d wanted to get back at this son of a bitch so bad she couldn’t help herself.
And she’d done it. Juanita pinched her lips together to hold back the smile that came each time she considered how he’d suffered at the idea that the whore he was banging had gotten knocked up by him.
“Most likely for the same reason you’re here.” He stared at the piles of charts on her desk, then moved in on her, trapping her against the file cabinet. “You think this is funny, don’t you?”
She couldn’t help herself. She smiled. “I think it’s damned hilarious, you egotistical bastard.” The last came out in a snarl.
“You breathe one word of what you know to anyone, and you’ll spend the rest of your life regretting it while I raise that little bastard of yours.”
Fear snaked its way around Juanita’s throat. “You’ve threatened me with that before.” She stared right back into those evil eyes. “I’m not sure I believe you have the balls to tell Mommy and Daddy about your illegitimate son.”
“Don’t you screw with me,” he warned, “or you’ll see just how big my balls are.”
“Oh, I know from experience they’re not that big.”
“If CJ finds out anything about this—”
“That her sister was pregnant?”
“No,” he spat, “I know she knows that part. Did she ask you about the father?”
“Of course she did. I told her it was you and she’s already planning with that detective how to pin the murder on you.” The fleeting instant of fear she saw in his eyes was worth every second of fury that followed.
“You think you’ve got me right where you want me, don’t you?”
She smirked. “I know I do. Shelley Patterson was brutally murdered by someone who had a motive to do it up right. Being the father of her unborn child is motive.” Juanita leaned her head toward her shoulder in the hint of a shrug.
“A scandal like that could ruin you—or should I say your social status? Not to mention I’m sure Mommy and Daddy would cut you off and send you far away before allowing your unacceptable behavior to reflect badly on them. ”
“What’s it going to take to keep your mouth shut? Permanently.”
“Well, let’s see.” Juanita pretended to think for a bit. “I have to consider how upset CJ would be if she knew you’d been secretly screwing her sister for months. Using her in all kinds of sadistic ways.”
“She was a whore. The only difference was she did it with me for free.”
He was so angry now his nostrils actually flared. Juanita loved this. “Still, I don’t think CJ will take it well. She’ll be convinced that her sister had fallen in love with you, which she had, and that you needed to be rid of her. Voila—murder motive.”
“Get to the point,” he warned. “How much?”
Juanita considered all her son had done without the past nine years, not even counting the fact that she’d had to raise him alone because this bastard wouldn’t acknowledge his existence except to threaten Juanita.
She worked long hours; most weeks she worked seven days. She’d managed to get a modest house and a decent car. But she and her boy deserved better.
“One million.”
“You are out of your mind!” His face reddened, and those blue eyes that had so charmed her as a med school student bulged with fury.
“I know how much you and your family are worth, Cost. That’s nothing. Your son deserves every penny of it. And”—she folded her arms over her chest—“that’s just for starters.”
“One hundred thousand,” he offered. “Not a penny more.”
She scooted away from him, started straightening the charts on her desk. “In that case, I guess you’ll learn what it’s like to be a murder suspect.”
He moved in close again, so close she could feel his hot breath on her cheek. “Watch yourself, Lusk. I’d hate to see that boy of yours end up an orphan.”
She turned her face to his, glared into those furious eyes. “You don’t have the guts to kill anyone.”
He lifted a brow. “Don’t I?”