CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Cara
“No! No, no, no, no!” a powerful voice shouted from somewhere, strong enough to penetrate the fog in my mind and bring me out of my drug-induced stupor. “I’ve told you over and over again, no one else is going to be murdered.”
Garrison Hart. That was him talking. My eyes started to flutter, but I quickly stopped trying to open them.
They might have me drugged out of my mind on pain killers or whatever the hell they were giving me, but I was just lucid enough to realize they wouldn’t want me hearing whatever the hell their plan was.
What did he mean ‘no one else’? A sick feeling spread through my stomach, but I willed myself to stay in control. I couldn’t let them know I was awake.
“You’re being na?ve, Daddy,” Nora said, scathingly.
“There are way too many loose ends.” She listed them, and I listened, becoming more and more afraid.
“The flight attendant, that skanky Sara girl, Kelisha, and, of course, Cara. And what about the nurses you hired? Do you think all of these people are going to remain silent?”
When she said Kelisha’s name, I had to fight a gasp. What did they do to her? Did they hurt her, too?
There was a big sigh. “No,” Garrison said, sounding resigned. “No, I don’t.”
“We have to kill them. Just paying them off isn’t going to work. They’ll keep coming back for more and we’ll just have to do it anyway…”
Her voice dropped off and she let out a squeak as Garrison must have grabbed her.
“You listen to me, Nora. I don’t want anyone else to die to clean up this mess of yours. Do you understand? Not one more person. I handled payments to most of those people you mentioned. And we can frame Ashton for all of it.”
“We can’t frame him for the electrician. What motive would he have had for killing him?”
Garrison’s voice turned cold. “No one will ever find the electrician. I had some of my people take his body out to Wambaw Swamp. The gators will make short work of what’s left of him. But that was never supposed to happen. I didn’t want to have that man killed. His death’s on you, Nora.”
“Hmm.” She hummed. “I’m okay with it. I think Cara, Kelisha, and that Sara girl should get dumped out at Wambaw, too.”
“You might be right about the MacAllister girl, but that’s the only other one.
I halfway believe Edward killed her from what they’re saying on the news, even though I know she’s still alive.
What a dumbass. The only way he could’ve made it easier to frame him for her murder is if he’d pushed her out of the airplane mid-flight while videoing the whole thing.
” He snorted. “Yeah. I’ll have my guys handle her.
But she sure as hell ain’t going into Wambaw.
You don’t dump two seemingly unconnected missing people in the same damn place, Nora.
I think The Hatchery out at Lake Moultrie would be better for her. ”
“Whatever. I still think you should ‘disappear’ some others, too…”
“You’re talking nonsense. You don’t have a damn clue how to handle this.
Monty and Cara can go to some private island somewhere after they’re married.
No one will even know who they are. I’ll buy Kelisha and her wife a mansion wherever they want and give them a ton of money.
Money gets things done, as you well know. ”
She scoffed. “For a while, anyway. And you’re dead wrong if you think Kelisha is going to keep her mouth shut. Cara’s her favorite. She fucking knows what we’re doing to her star dancer. She won’t sit by and just let it happen.”
He made a sound of frustration. “If she wants that pretty real estate agent wife of hers to remain alive, she’ll take the money and keep her mouth shut.
” He made a sound of frustration. “Why the hell did you have to do all this? It was bad enough Monty was obsessed with Cara. Why did you have to come along and make it all so much worse?”
“Let me go,” she whined. “You’re hurting me.”
He must’ve dropped her, because there was a sound like she hit the floor or the wall.
“That’s right,” he said. “You listen to me. You got us into this mess. But we’re going to get out of it my way.
Cara will just be gone—like she vanished.
And we’ll act like Monty was so torn up over it, that he couldn’t cope and either did something to himself, faked of course, or he disappeared, too.
We can pin this all on Edward Ashton. Every last bit of it. ”
Nora snorted. “Really? I’m pretty sure one of those bitchy neighbors saw Eric taking Cara. His face was covered, but his body is nothing like Edward’s. And he’s about five inches shorter than him.”
“I can convince her she’s wrong,” Garrison said, ominously. “We’ll just find these people’s weak spot—there always is one—and exploit the hell out of it. Just like we’ve done with Eric.”
Nora laughed. It was a mean laugh, one I didn’t think I’d ever heard from her before. “I can’t believe he thought doing whatever we asked would keep his father out of jail. What an idiot.”
“Shut your mouth. We still need him to pull all of this off,” Garrison hissed. “We’ll get Cara out of here tonight. There will be plenty of distractions—no one will notice. We’ll fly her and Monty to the private island. She can have surgery on her knee there, and then they’ll get married.”
“She doesn’t want him, though…”
Garrison laughed without mirth. “She’ll change her mind when we tell her if she doesn’t do what we say we’ll dump her body somewhere and use that look-a-like sister of hers as a replacement.”
I couldn’t contain the strangled gasp that came out of me. These people were monsters.
“I thought you didn’t want to murder anyone else,” Nora reminded him.
“Ah, in some ways you’re right about killing more of them.
I’d just tried to leave that kind of stuff in my past. I sure as hell didn’t think my youngest daughter would be the one kid to take after me on this kind of shit.
But killing Cara if we have to? You’re not wrong.
One more wouldn’t hurt anything. Especially someone who didn’t want to be with my kid.
Stupid woman. Just like Ashton choosing Cara over you.
What an idiot. But he’ll pay for that, that’s for sure.
” He paused and listened. “Now hush. I think she might be waking up.”
“Monty took after you, too,” Nora said defensively as she and Garrison walked away.
“Nah, he’s just weird. He’s not mean as hell, and he ain’t a fucking murderer.”
Nora laughed. She actually laughed.
Then I heard the sound of their retreating footsteps briefly before they were buried in the plush carpet runners that ran the length of their beautiful marble hallways.
I opened my eyes and looked around helplessly. I had to get out of here. Nora and Garrison were insane. I had to try and save the people they wanted to hurt. I had to help Kelisha. I couldn’t let them kill Sara or frame Edward. And I’d never let them take Livy.
I tried to move my leg, but it felt as if someone was stabbing me with sharp knives. The sheer enormity of the pain took my breath away. I couldn’t make a sound—my mouth just opened in a silent scream.
I collapsed back on the pillows, careful not to twist the tubing coming from my hand. I’d accidentally done that before and had been surprised by how much it hurt. I shut my eyes to hold them back, but a few tears managed to squeeze past my eyelids anyway.
I wasn’t going anywhere. Not without help.
And there wasn’t a soul around willing to help me.