Hearts On Fire (17 page)

Chapter 32

    
Lizzie had just
finished
yanking the sweatshirt over her head when she heard the front door
to the shack open. Expecting JD, she whirled around, pointing a finger at him.
“And another thing, you son of a bitch…” The words died on her lips. “Matt?”

     He grinned at her, his
eyes roving around the shack restlessly. “Hey, Lizzie. Ready for a rescue?”

     Despite her anger with
JD, she managed a smile of her own. Why, oh why, she wondered, couldn’t she
have fallen in love with Matt instead of JD all those years ago? Her life sure
in the hell would have been simpler. But, she reminded herself, there would
have been no Sean. And without Sean life would not be worth living. He was her
reason for everything. “We were just getting ready to leave, I guess.” Crossing
the small room, she took him in her arms and hugged him fiercely. “But a rescue
is greatly appreciated.”

     He drew back, his brows
furrowed. “Is it? I mean…” He looked to the couch with the rumpled blankets and
to the fire in the fireplace. He sighed. “You had a lot of people worried
sick.”

     She blinked at him, then
got his meaning. “What? Oh! No, Matt. This wasn’t some planned rendezvous with
JD. I…” God, how to explain it to him? She stepped away from him and headed for
the sofa to put on her socks and boots. “I’m sorry if anyone was worried. Riding
out like I did, alone, was foolish.”

     “Where
is
JD?” he
asked curiously, following her to the couch.

     “Oh, he’s out in the barn
getting the horse ready to leave.”

     Matt stood, warming the
backs of his legs in front of the fire. “So if this wasn’t some tryst with JD,
what were you thinking taking off on a horse with a storm rolling in?”

     Getting the money to the
police had been her plan all along. But she’d wanted to find it herself and
hand it over. She wanted it to be her accomplishment. Oh well, in a way she was
still going to be the one to put an end to it. “I came up here because I think
this may be where Katy stashed the money she took from Julie.”

     Matt’s brows shot up.
“Here?”

     “It’s the only place that
makes sense to me.” She’d pulled on her thick wool socks and now she started
putting on her boots.

     Keeping his eyes on the
front door and a hand in his pocket, Matt asked, “But where around here,
Lizzie? Do you know?”

     She took her lower lip
between her teeth as she tied the laces of her boot. “I have a couple ideas.
Katy and I used to come here to get away from mom and Grady.” She gave him a
smile which said she was sharing a secret with him. “None of the MacGreggors
ever knew we did that.” Only JD. Done tying the laces she looked up to him, her
gaze earnest. “I just want this to be over with, Matt. All of it. And that
money is the center of it. Once it’s out of the picture things will go back to
normal.”

     “I think that’s what we
all want, Lizzie.”

     “That damn money has made
people do some pretty crazy things.” She thought of the knife Grady had held to
her throat and shivered.

     “That it has,” he agreed.
“But it’s a lot of money, Lizzie. A man could start a new life with that much.”

     She’d been searching the
mantel for her gloves but his words stopped her. Well, not so much his words,
but the inflection with which he’d uttered them.

     “I could never convince
Julie to dump that putz Kenny. But I was willing to come in second place
because I didn’t think I really had any choice. When I found out Katy had blackmailed
her and that Julie’d actually paid it… well, suddenly I had options, you know?”

     Turning slowly, her
stomach feeling as though a ball of lead had just been dropped into it, she
asked, “Matt? You?”

     “Yeah.” He ran his
fingers through his hair. “Why the hell not? Maybe it’s my turn at something
good.” He withdrew his hand from his pocket and in it he held a gun. “Your
sister is a slick bitch for a hillbilly, I’ll give her that.” He pointed the
gun at her, all the while keeping an eye on the front door. “I went to the
hospital last night figuring on getting rid of her in a more permanent way but
she’d snuck out. How long do you figure she was faking her little
coma
?”

     Katy had left the
hospital? There was only one reason she could think of. The damned money again.

     “Not to worry though. I
sicced Grady on her and lover boy Josh.” He looked at his watch. “Matter of
fact, he should be just about done there now.” He saw her pale. “Don’t worry,
Lizzie, if it’s any consolation, I don’t think Grady has it in him to kill
either one of them. He’s kinda wishy-washy.”

     “Unlike you,” she
whispered, thinking of the ugly bruises on her sister’s throat.

     “I didn’t set out to kill
anyone, Lizzie, shit just kinda happened. Your sister… let’s just say things
always get heated when we’re in the same room.”

     “You haven’t killed
anyone yet, Matt. You can still—”

     “What? Stop this? Do the
right thing? Fuck that. I’ve been doing the right thing my whole life and it’s
gotten me nowhere. Your sister on the other hand… She’s not making out this
time. I am.” He let out a long breath and looked down at her empty coffee cup.
“You wanna get me a cup of that coffee, Lizzie? It was a long, cold trip up
here and we still have some work to do, now don’t we?”

    
“It’s just a good
thing
for you I draw the line at murder.” Grady had found that though he
wished Katy dead for trying to double-cross him he could not do the deed
himself. Not with a knife, anyway. Scaring someone with a blade was one thing,
but to actually put it in them or drag it across their throat with enough force
to slice them open… He shuddered at the thought of all the blood. Maybe if he
had a gun. But damn Matt had told him no way on that score, afraid Katy or Josh
would manage to turn the tables on him with it. Bastard. “Hey. Wrap that tape
like you mean it, damnit. I don’t want that son of a bitch getting loose till
someone shows up here to untie him.”

     Katy glared up at him.
“He’s out cold. He’s not going anywhere.” Relieved that Grady had decided not
to kill Josh she was still worried about his plans for her. Was he going to
leave her tied up here too? Or was he going to force her to go along with him?
Or… he could kill her, she supposed.

     “He’ll come around sooner
or later and I can’t have either one of you screwing this up for me again.” The
way he figured it he was getting a second chance at all that money. And second
chances didn’t come often for Grady Summers. Nope. It was usually a one shot
deal. He looked at the sickly colored bruises around Katy’s neck and smiled. Matt,
it appeared, did have a killer instinct. He’d do well to remember that himself.
“It’s just too bad good old Matt didn’t squeeze just a little harder.”

     “Yeah, bite me.”

     He wished he could. He
really wished he could. Though murder might not sit well in his belly he didn’t
mind teaching a woman a thing or two about just what she was for.
“Unfortunately, we don’t have the time for fun this morning. I have to be
someplace.” He waved the big hunting knife in her direction. “Bring me that
roll of tape and come here.”

     So it didn’t look like he
was going to kill her. But Lizzie and JD… Matt was a killer. They just didn’t
know it. Her heart hammered in her chest. Would Matt kill them or just take the
money and run? She sauntered to Grady, batting long lashes at him and giving
him what she hoped was her best seductive smile. She knew exactly which head
the guy thought with. “Sure you don’t have some time?”

     Grady licked his lips
nervously. No way could he fall for her line of shit. He yanked the roll of
duct tape out of her hands, never lowering his guard or the knife. “Turn
around.”

     “Oh, I get it. Matt’s
pulling the strings. He warned you off me, didn’t he?”

     “He ain’t my boss. Turn
the fuck around, Katy, or we’ll see just how sharp this knife is.”

     She looked into his
gray-green eyes and saw in them a resolve she didn’t usually see. No, he
wouldn’t fall for her this time. Matt had done his work. The money would be
more important to him than a woman right now. Turning around, she said, “You
know he’s going to kill you, right?”

     “Shut up.”

     “You’re going to meet him
somewhere? Pick him up on a logging trail maybe?”

     “I said shut up.” But he
sounded a little nervous now.

     “He’ll have you out there
in the woods all alone. It’s the perfect setup and he’s got nothing to lose
now. What’s a murder charge when you have that kind of money in your hands?”

     He yanked her wrists
together and started winding tape around them wishing like hell he’d thought to
bring some zip ties or something with him. They would have made this task a lot
easier. “What’s it to you anyway?”

     “Nothing, really, as far
as you’re concerned. It’s the money I’m thinking about.”

     He chuckled. “People like
us always got money on the mind. Well, forget about it this time. You ain’t
getting none of it.”

     “We could still work
together, Grady,” she all but cooed to him.

     His hands stilled, then
he snorted. She’d almost had him thinking about it there for a minute. “Yeah.
Right. You think I’m crazy or just flat stupid? We already tried that and look
what it got me. You tried to screw me over.”

     “Maybe I did,” she
admitted contritely. “But look at it this way. I didn’t try to kill you. Matt
will and you know it. Once you show up with a way out he’ll put a bullet in
your head and leave you for the coyotes to find.” He hadn’t started taping her
hands again and she took it as a sign she might be getting through to him. All
she needed was one shot. Just one shot at him.

Chapter 33

         
It had been so
much easier
to lay the blame of things at Lizzie’s feet. And that’s just
what he’d done, hadn’t he? He’d blamed her for reacting to the wrongs he’d done
to her. And he’d done her wrong not once in her young adult life, but twice.
The first time had been when he’d gone off to college. He’d thought it would be
best for both of them if they separated. Saw other people. It had been a
decision he’d made without regard for her feelings on the matter and he’d made
it without consulting her. Just called her up from the lobby of his dormitory
and told her it was over. Just like that. Then again that summer two years
later. He’d meant to stay away from her, he really had. But all it had taken
had been one chance meeting in the woods one hot, lazy summer day. He still
remembered the way she’d tossed her head defiantly and told him she was seeing
someone else and he could go to hell. That toss of the hair, that lift of the
chin, that fire in her eyes had been all it had taken. He’d wanted her so
desperately he would have done anything to have her again. Including lie to
her. By omission, sure, but a lie just the same.

     And God, what his mother
had done… he could not even begin to comprehend her actions. Arlene had thought
she was overprotective of her children. “Overbearing is more like it,” he
muttered to himself as he climbed the steps to the front porch of the shack.
Well, things were going to change. Starting this minute. He had every intention
of marching into that shack and telling Lizzie just how sorry he was. The look
in her eyes when he’d told her he’d just used her for sex… it hurt him to the
very core. It was a look he would spend his whole fortune to never see again.
He’d been angry and hurt himself, yes, but that had been no excuse to lay her
heart open like that.

     Pushing the door open, he
expected to find her sitting there in front of the fire, her glare on the door,
her sharp tongue ready to go another round with him. The eyes he found resting
on him were not the ones he had expected at all. “Matt?”

     A smile spread across
Matt’s lips. “Well, there you are. We were just discussing you, weren’t we Lizzie?”

     JD’s eyes were
momentarily locked on the gun in Matt’s hand. The gun he had pointed at Lizzie.

     “Why don’t ya close the
door behind yourself, JD? It’s freezing out there and we have some talking to
do before you go out again.” Matt’s smile was amiable. His eyes were cold.

     “What the hell is going
on here?”

     “We’ll get to that. Shut
the damn door and have a seat next to your girl there on the couch.”

     Because he thought he
knew just what this was about and because of the things he’d seen people do for
money, he did as Matt told him. Once he was sitting on the couch he removed his
gloves and hat under Matt’s watchful gaze. “Okay, Matt, I’m sitting. Why is
there a gun pointed at me?”

     “I’ve come to collect my
retirement.” Feeling more at ease with both JD and Lizzie in his sight, he
leaned back on the fireplace mantel.

     “The money Julie handed
over to Katy,” he guessed.

     “Well, that is why Lizzie
hightailed it up here in a storm all by herself.”

     He’d suspected as much,
but hadn’t been certain. Looking over to her now, he asked, “You think Katy hid
the money here?”

     “Yes.”

     The fear in her eyes
along with the hurt he’d delivered to her earlier made him look away from her
again. Back to Matt. They stared at each other for a very long moment before he
said, “Why are you doing this, Matt? For the money? You’ve never given a shit
for it before.”

     Matt nodded. “You’re
right, I haven’t. But now I find myself in a little bit of a jam. I started
something I can’t stop. And in this case, money is the only way to fix it.”

     “He’s the one who tried
to kill Katy,” Lizzie whispered.

     JD let it sink in. Let
the meaning of it sink in. “You?”

     “If it makes any
difference, I didn’t go over to her place that night with the intention of
killing her. Not at first. I went over there for Julie. To get the money back
from that lying cheating whore Katy. But she wouldn’t tell me where she’d
hidden it. So I figured I’d try to convince her she’d better tell me what I
wanted to know.”

     “By wrapping your fingers
around her throat?” Lizzie asked.

     Matt shrugged. “I got a
little carried away. And I thought I’d killed her. Which set the ball rolling,
so to speak. I buried her in the woods a couple miles from her place . You
can’t even begin to imagine how shocked I was to find out that not only wasn’t
she dead but that she’d crawled her way back home.”

     “You and Julie?” JD
asked, as though just catching up. “You’re the mysterious lover?”

     “I do love your sister,
JD. I do. But...” He shoved his fingers through his hair. “Once she figured out
what I’d done… She just couldn’t bear it, I guess. And I couldn’t sit around
waiting to find out if she was going to snap and tell everyone about me. So…
Here we are.” He fixed his gaze on Lizzie. “I need the money. As I said, it’s
the only way out of this jam for me.”

     “Go to hell, Matt,” JD
growled.

     Matt ignored JD and
smiled at Lizzie. “You gonna be as stupid as your little sister and refuse to
tell me?”

     “Of course not. I just…
I’m not entirely positive where it is. It might take some looking around.”

     “You said you had a
couple ideas. I want to hear them. Now.”

     “You tell him where it is
and he’ll kill us for sure,” JD warned her.

     “She doesn’t and I’ll
kill you for sure,” Matt told him. “What’s it gonna be, Lizzie?”

     “You’ll leave with the
money and let us go?” she asked, her voice quavering.

     “Yes. I told you, I never
meant for things to go that far with Katy. She just pushes my fucking buttons
is all.”

     “All right. I have a
couple ideas.”

     “Lizzie…”

     Matt fixed a glare on JD.
“Shut up and bundle up, JD. You’re going out looking while Lizzie and I stay
nice and cozy in here waiting.”

     JD’s heart knocked
against his ribs. “Like hell,” he told him. No way was he leaving Lizzie in
here alone with that son of a bitch.

     Matt sighed. “C’mere,
Lizzie.” When she only blinked at him he waved the gun. “Come here a minute.”

     JD saw her move and
wanted to tackle her. Restraining himself took every ounce of his will power.
But if he moved he knew there was a good chance someone would get shot.

     Matt took her by the hand
and pulled her to him. Standing behind her, he put the muzzle of the gun to her
side behind her ribs.

     “You’ve made your point,”
JD told him, yanking on his gloves.

     “I think I have. But I
don’t think I can trust you to do the right thing, JD. You’ll want to be a
hero, and quite frankly we don’t have time for that shit this morning.”

     If his heart had been
knocking before it began to hammer as the light of what Matt was about to do
next dawned on him. “No, Matt. Don’t.” He stood, but too late.

     The sound of the small
caliber handgun going off in the shack was a loud pop. The tiny thing didn’t
even buck in Matt’s hand. Lizzie jerked against him, her eyes widening first in
wonder, then in fear, then in pain filled knowledge.

     As Lizzie’s knees let go
and she crumpled to the floor, JD, unmindful of the gun in Matt’s hand, rushed
to her, knocking a table out of his way. He didn’t even feel Matt place the
muzzle of the gun at the top of his head. “Oh, Christ. Lizzie.” His hands shook
as he placed them at her side and watched her blood begin to cover his fingers.

     “All right, JD, here’s
the deal. She’s going to tell you where to look and you’re going to do it.
Quickly.”

     JD tore his gaze away
from Lizzie, from her blood, to look up at him. The business end of the gun did
not even faze him.

     “The wound won’t be
fatal. If you get your ass moving. Understand?”

     “You mother—”

     “Or you can call me names
while she bleeds out. The choice is yours.”

    
Arlene stared out the
window
into the cold sunrise. She wondered now, was her son right? Was her
heart as cold as the tip of the highest mountain peak? Was it as black as the
darkest night? She turned to find Josh nursing a cup of strong black coffee and
a headache. “The police will get there before it’s too late,” she told him.

     He’d been looking into
the depths of the coffee cup dangling from his fingertips between his knees. He
looked up at his mother now, his stare blank. He’d be pacing if he didn’t think
he’d fall on his ass.

     “You should have let me
call an ambulance for you.”

     “I’m fine,” he assured
her, unwilling to leave the house until he knew for certain, one way or
another, if his brother was dead or alive. “I’ve been kicked in the head by
bulls harder than this.”

     “And you’re just as
stubborn as one too.” She took in a long breath and stood tall. “So is your
brother. He’ll be fine.”

     Josh closed his eyes as
the room began to spin a little. He wondered where the hell Katy had gotten off
to. Scratch that. He knew damn well where she’d gotten off to. That damn shack.
The money. He’d like to think she was racing up there to rescue her sister but
he knew better. She’d leave that up to the cops. While she made her move for
the money.

     “At least that white
trash hillbilly Grady Summers is behind bars where he belongs now,” she remarked.
She crossed to a small rolling cart which contained the coffee service one of
the maids had brought for them. She poured from a delicate china pot into a
matching cup without allowing one tremor to pass through her hand.

     Josh had woke on the
floor of his living room to find himself untied and Grady Summers tied up and
lying next to him. Katy had been long gone.

     “It’s just too bad his
accomplice got away. That entire family has been nothing but trouble for us
from day one. First the mother over here catting around my husband.” She sipped
her coffee. “It was a good thing I caught that in time and fired the damn
woman. Your father had a hard enough time keeping his willie in his pants, he
didn’t need any encouragement from the likes of her.”

     This was the first Josh
had heard of that. And he just didn’t care. It didn’t matter anymore. But he
wasn’t going to tell her that. He knew she was just as nervous as he was. And
her way was to fill the silence with her own voice.

     “It came as no shock that
her daughters should turn out to be gold-digging tramps either. The both of
them. Elizabeth trying to sink her claws into JD like she did. Getting herself
pregnant with a married man’s child. Trashy. Just like her mother.”

     “Lizzie didn’t get
pregnant all on her own, mother. And I suspect she didn’t hold a gun to my
married brother’s head to get him into bed with her.”

     “No, I don’t suppose she
did. She did worse. She used her body, her feminine wiles on him. She seduced
him with the hopes of trapping him. But I put a stop to that.”

     Knowing Lizzie, Josh
couldn’t see her as a seductress. No, not Lizzie. If he knew better, and he
did, he’d bet his last dollar it had been JD who had been doing the seducing.
And the lying. But again, he wasn’t going to argue with his mother. His head
hurt too much for that shit.

     “And finally the youngest
sister has to try and finish us off by blackmailing your sister and driving her
to try and kill herself.”

     Josh loved his little
sister, but he knew Julie had created her own hell by having an affair and
getting caught by the wrong person. He just wished she would have come to him
when Katy had made her demands. Things would have turned out a lot differently.

     “I only hope none of this
reflects badly upon JD. Next year is an election year, you know. I’d hate for
this scandal to cost him votes.”

     Of course she would.
Everything revolved around her. Risking falling on his ass, Josh stood slowly.
“Votes won’t matter if he’s dead, mother.”

     She reacted as though
he’d struck her. Reeling back, she spilled coffee to the white carpet at her
feet. “Don’t you ever say those words in my house again!”

     Her shrill voice
penetrated his skull and nearly knocked him back to his ass. He wanted to tell
her to just shut up then. Just shut up about JD’s career and about how much it
meant. Just shut up about all of it because none of it mattered anymore.
Instead, he dipped his head and put a hand to it. “Mom, things are going to be
different when JD comes back from that shack.” Best to get her warming to the
idea now.

     “What do you mean?” she
asked suspiciously.

     “They just will. He has a
son he’s going to want to get to know. And Lizzie will be a part of that.”

     “That tramp—”

     “He still loves her,
mother. Isn’t that obvious? He went out looking for her. He chased after her.”

     “He does not love that
woman.” With her typical coldness, she turned back to the window, effectively
shutting him out.