Torn Between- Seduced by the Billionaires Page 18

  “Thank you, God,” she gasped as she saw the unmistakable medical file in the third desk drawer she opened. Whatever god she served must have known Tyler didn’t have a chance to secure it after his office encounter with Cami. She grabbed the folder and headed down the hall to collect her pawn, when she discovered him still on the couch, sound asleep.

  Using the extra time, she went over to the copier, checked her iPhone for the number and used Cami’s personal code to copy the entire thing. The unexpected freedom to replace Tyler’s folder, pin the crime on Cami and get away without detection made her giddy. She put the file back in its spot, and gave Aaron one more look before walking out the side door, leaving him sound asleep, exposed, on the employee lounge couch.

  “I looked it up,” Jasmine spoke quietly into her phone as the elevator descended. “My manager makes $36,000 a year. Get a check ready.”

  “Mr. Jennings will meet you at the Grafton Towne Center in an hour,” Eddie said as he hung up the phone. Taking out his checkbook, he chuckled at the girl’s forward nature and brash confidence. “It’s nice to be young,” he thought as he made the check out for $5,000 dollars.

  Two days later, Eddie was not as happy with youth or his game as he hoped. Looking at the useless file set out on his desk at The Spreader Bar, he called his assistant. Eddie kept all of his confidential files about the cure at the bar, reasoning that if corporation or home were ever raided, this office would be the last place law enforcement would go.

  “Yes, Mr. Dunning?” Harold answered efficiently. Lately his stomach seized with fear every time Eddie’s number appeared on his screen.

  “Get me that fucking Russian, and get him over here now.”

  ***

  “I need a gift basket,” Cami told Maralee over dinner. “Put in some oils, coffee, and a massage and add a free spa day for two.”

  “Who’d you kill?” Maralee asked casually. She knew her friend only ordered gift baskets when she needed to apologize.

  “I haven’t killed anyone,” Cami responded pointedly. Her annoyance at Maralee’s secret and possible confession to Andrew Sovich instead of her best friend was rising past the point where she could hide it much farther. “Send it to Kendra Jackson at my office.”

  “You’ll have to do better than that,” Maralee teased, thinking it was all as simple as a spilled cup of coffee or a fight over copier toner. She settled back to hear the story and almost fell out of her chair as Cami described her frustration with Tyler and the heated sexual encounter in his office that was, judging by the smiles on everyone’s face but Kendra’s, heard by everyone.

  Instead of laughing, or commiserating, Maralee acted with an emotion Cami didn’t expect. She was furious.

  “It’s Eddie Dunning who’s done this to you!” Maralee charged, locking her jaw.

  “Oddly enough, this is the one thing he didn’t have anything to do with,” Cami retorted. “I am so sick of your judgment. You’ve probably fucked half the men in this town by the light of the full moon. How dare you judge me! Tyler Bach is my boyfriend!”

  “And your boss,” Maralee charged back. “And your patsy who doesn’t know just where your loyalties lie or who they have been lying down with. Can’t you see Eddie is ruining your life?”

  “I see you have a lot of time to mind my business when you should take care of your own. Your loan is due, and your ‘friend’ isn’t going to be here much longer to help you.”

  Maralee let the calloused way Cami mentioned both her business problems and Andrew wash over her, but her teeth were stuck into Eddie Dunning and she couldn’t let go.

  “Well, I’ll tell you what I can mind. I can mind my own gathering and Eddie Dunning is OUT!”

  “No!” Cami cried as if stabbed. “You can’t. You can’t refuse him. Everything depends on it. I depend on it. You depend on it!”

  Out of control and screeching, Cami realized her secret had just crawled out from the fresh dirt it was buried under and there was no way to stop it now.

  “What are you talking about?” Maralee asked, her anger abated as her confusion grew.

  “He knows, Mar. He knows and I know and if he gets cut off from the gathering, the whole town will know too. You’ll be gone. Not off to some Russian village with Dr. Sovich. You’ll be in prison and he will get deported. He knows. He knows and I’m the only thing keeping you safe!”

  “He knows what? That Dr. Sovich is my secret friend? That we share tea and talk about Russia? Why is that going to send me to jail?”

  “He KNOWS!” Cami locked her jaw and hissed, thinking the stress on the word would trigger Maralee’s subconscious but it only confused her more. Cami sat down and tried to regain her composure. “Eddie has these pictures. Your diary. The arrow in your closet. The blood on it. He knows it was you who killed your father. He showed me. I…know it now too.”

  “Oh Cami,” Maralee stammered, tears coming to her eyes.

  “I have to keep submitting to him until we can figure a way to help you. I did like the sex at first, but now it’s just the deal I made to keep you safe and out of jail. I don’t blame you, Mar. Your dad had it coming. But I wish to God I had heard it from you.”

  “Cami, oh Cam.” Maralee hugged her friend tightly as a track of tears made its way down her cheek, lodging in the soft blonde hair of the little priestess. “Goddess bless you. You thought I…and you…oh Cam, I love you.”

  “You can’t keep Eddie away,” Cami was still on point until Maralee whispered in her ear.

  “I didn’t kill my father.”

  ***

  The leather flap cracking against her latex leggings made Tyler jump to attention, his eyes blinking wildly, his nakedness momentarily forgotten. The new leather cuffs on his wrists seemed to weigh down his arms with the same force his sheer terror made his penis rise.

  “You better be at attention,” her sultry voice teased his ears as easily as her crop magnified his senses. The woman ran the leather instrument up his thigh as he gasped.

  “Please, Mistress, be gentle,” Tyler whimpered. “It’s my first time.”

  Chapter Seven

  Cami sat back in her chair blinking away Maralee’s words and trying to wrap her mind around the idea that someone was lying to her, but she had lost track of who it was. The tears streaming down Maralee’s face weren’t from guilt or regret. They were love. Pure love.

  “Eddie showed me,” Cami began again. “The arrow that killed your father. It was in your closet. He had someone break in and take pictures of your diary, the arrow, the blood still on it. I saw them with my own eyes, Mar.”

  The little priestess spoke slowly, and gently. “Yes, you did. It’s true. I have the arrow that killed my father in a box in my closet. But I didn’t kill him.”

  “I don’t understand,” Cami confessed.

  “I am only telling you this once. There are other people involved. It’s more than a secret. It’s a life debt,” Maralee began hesitantly.

  “You can trust me. You could have trusted me with this all along,” Cami affirmed.

  “Remember when we lived in the apartment off Rathskeller? The studio with the futons?” Maralee started, giving herself time to work up to the actual event.

  “Ha ha, ‘Rat Killer Apartments.’ Geez, remember how the bathroom roof leaked straight into the toilet?” Cami laughed. Those were tough times for them both, but now they were precious, funny memories.

  “Yeah. I was going to massage therapy school and working two jobs because Dad was going to take Mom out of Happy Day and put her in some nasty state facility.”

  “Bastard,” Cami gave her usual response every time the topic of Jim Snow arose.

  “I was serving someone at Burger Heaven and for a moment thought I saw a ghost or spirit. I walked right off the patio. I followed it over the little hill behind BH and tried to catch it. I thought Diana sent a messenger.”

  “Of course you did.” Cami rolled her eyes.

  “Anyway,” Maralee huffed. T
his would be hard enough without Cami’s interjections. “I followed the spirit back across the highway to the Lucky Deuce motel on Route 31. Only, when I got to the door I saw it go into and knocked, I discovered it wasn’t a spirit at all.”

  “You never told me this! You knocked on a strange door at that roach motel? Jesus, Mar, You could have died!” Cami blurted.

  “Well, I didn’t,” Maralee bickered back. “Now shut up so I can tell you this! Anyway, I knocked—not knowing what to expect—and Jennifer opened the door.”

  “Jennifer, your sister?”

  “No, Jennifer Aniston. OF COURSE, JENNIFER MY SISTER.” Maralee’s volume finally had the effect she wanted. Cami stopped talking and Maralee was able to finish her tale.

  She told of her shock in seeing her sister who had been gone for seven years. Jennifer was taller than Maralee remembered, but her stark blonde hair, liquid blue eyes, and signature “pointy Snow chin” were dead giveaways. Maralee threw herself into her sister’s arms and hugged her for a long time. They talked through the night. Any other person would have been fired for just walking out of their job to “chase a spirit” or raised an alarm if she didn’t return home at night, but even then people knew the youngest Snow was “different” and didn’t think much about it.

  Jennifer told her little sister about college, moving to Canada, marrying too young, and getting settled. She knew their mother was in the asylum and saw the news about Katelyn’s death at the hands of an abusive lover, but couldn’t come to the funeral because her husband was controlling her every move.

  “One day, I smelled another woman’s perfume on his laundry and I challenged him. He slapped me so hard I fell on the floor,” Jennifer stumbled through her own story. “I just stayed down. I learned that from all those times with Dad. At that moment, I knew I ended up in the one relationship I swore I’d never have. It was just a matter of time before I had a room beside Mom or a grave beside Katelyn. So, I did what I could do.”

  “You left him?” Maralee was alternately shocked and saddened. In her dreams, Jennifer had gotten away and gone off to live a wonderful life.

  “No, I did this,” Jennifer held out her forearm to reveal a deep scar running from the wrist, across the vein, nearly to the elbow.

  “Goddess,” Maralee whispered in hushed sorrow.

  “But, a neighbor called the cops when she heard the slap and Steve slamming the door. They found me in time—just in time—and saved my life. I decided it was fate. I was meant to live and there was a purpose in my life I needed to fulfill. Since then, I’ve been getting my life together and working. I met a neat man and we’re dating. I just need to fulfill the job fate has for me and I can go on with my life.”

  “You’ve come back to get me, like you promised?” Although years had passed since Jennifer’s little car pulled out of the driveway, Maralee’s child heart still believed her sister’s word.

  “I came back to kill Dad,” Jennifer intoned.

  “What? No! You can’t. That’s not fate. That’s not what the Goddess wants. That’s homicide,” Maralee protested.

  “I love you, little sis. But this is my fate and you and your helpless Goddess can’t stop it. I’ve been emailing Dad, pretending to be a woman from DC. Sending him fake pictures and sex talk.”

  “Ewww,” Maralee’s nose crinkled.

  “He’s going to take off work and pretend to go hunting. He thinks he’s meeting her at a cabin in Covington Woods. I’m going to meet him, and I’m going to kill him.” Jennifer opened her small travel case to reveal a.22 pistol just perfect for her hands. Maralee fought and argued through the night, passing out from exhaustion in the wee hours.

  When she woke up, Jennifer and the gun were gone. Maralee walked through the chilly morning air to the woods famous for good game and dotted with small rental cabins and bow hunting tree stands. Not sure what cabin Jennifer was in, or how to find any of them, she wandered around lost, calling Jennifer’s name aloud.

  Jim Snow arrived at the cabin ready for a good time. Opening the door his “internet lover” told him would be unlocked so he could climb into bed and take her in rough silence, he looked around to see an empty nightstand, abandoned bed, vacant bathroom, and as he scanned to the left, his oldest daughter standing in the corner with a gun pointed at his head.

  “Close the door, Daddy.”

  Maralee never knew if Jennifer had a speech in mind, or even a plan other than to drag her hypocrite father into the woods. She was wandering lost when she heard a gunshot and began to run in its direction. She arrived to find Jennifer sprinting through the woods with Jim Snow right behind her, the gun lying on the cabin floor where it landed when Jim knocked it out of her hand.

  “You’re gonna pay, you little bitch,” Jim was screaming, spit flying from his face. He caught Jennifer by the ankle, pulled her down and climbed on top of her. Maralee tried to run to help her sister, but tripped and rolled down a side hill. Unable to get traction, she crawled on her hands and knees up the steep embankment. Reaching the top where she could see, the vision pushed the air out of her lungs.

  Jim was straddling his oldest daughter, a rock in his hand ready to bash her in the head. His eyes had the same vacant look his daughters remembered from all her past punishments and his face was beat red.

  “Do it!” Jennifer commanded. “You’ve been killing me since you had me. Finish the job!”

  Jim raised his hand as high as it would go.

  Maralee screamed into the open air.

  Jennifer closed her eyes.

  WHACK!

  The arrow came from above striking Jim Snow, honored businessman and Elder of Eighth Street Presbyterian Church, directly in the heart. He died instantly, his hand still holding the rock he intended to embed in his daughter’s skull.

  Maralee reached Jennifer in time to hold her and they both looked in the direction the shot came from. It had to be a bow hunter in a stand, but who could shoot a man with such precision? At first, a thin shadow appeared and as Maralee squinted and put her hand up over her eyes to block the sun, a familiar figure crested the hill. The boy’s face registered only confusion when he realized there were two blondes on the ground instead of one.

  “I thought it was you,” the boy said to Maralee. “I thought he was killing you.”

  “This is my sister. You saved her life,” Maralee stammered. “Our lives. All our lives. Dustin Riley, you are a gift from the Goddess twice over.”

  “What?” Dustin mumbled, addressing the girl who lost her virginity in his arms a few years before and never spoke to him again after that night. He changed his gaze to see her dead father lying on the ground with his hunting arrow stuck in the man’s chest. Dustin had slept with many girls (by his own account) but none took ahold of his heart like Maralee Snow.

  “The Goddess sent you to me when it was time for me to give myself to her, and she sent you again today.”

  “Dustin Riley killed your father?” Cami finally interrupted the tale. “Dustin Riley from high school? That boy you screwed at the prom?”

  “Homecoming,” Maralee corrected absent-mindedly. “He was out bow hunting. He thought Dad was killing me, and he shot him. I took the arrow and swore on the Goddess none of us would ever say a word. Jennifer went back to Canada and I haven’t heard from her since. Dustin took an oil rig job that fall. I haven’t heard from him either. I was afraid if I threw the arrow away it would end up in the wrong place—so I just kept it in my closet where Eddie’s spy found it.”

  “Dustin Riley,” Cami kept repeating like a mantra. Maralee left her friend in the dining room and went to make some tea. They both needed a little quiet time. Cami was reeling in shock, and Maralee got lost in the rest of her memory, the part even now she would share with no one but the Goddess.

  Dustin looked at both of the Snow girls, and then sank to his knees, trembling. He loved Maralee since the night at the bonfire she stretched out underneath him, and never gave up hope she would one day lie with
him again. He didn’t understand too much about “giving your sex to a goddess,” but he could tell she used him that night for something. Still, he kept her in his heart. If she had given him ten minutes of her time any day after their homecoming coupling he would have told her he’d die for her. Now, he killed for her. Only, it wasn’t really her.

  “I killed a man,” Dustin gurgled, nearly throwing up. “I just killed a man. I’m going to go to jail. Probably forever. Oh, God.”

  “You were saving my life. You’re not going to jail,” Jennifer grumbled, pushing herself off the ground. “Surely America still has jury trials.”

  “No one is going to jail,” Maralee took charge. “Because no one is going to know. Jen, get back to the cabin, pick up that gun and lose it. Go home. I’ll take the arrow. Dustin, you come with me. We’ll leave Dad here. Someone will find him. No one talks, no one tells, no one goes to jail.”

  Maralee gave the arrow a mighty pull, but the barbed edges made it hard to pull out. Dustin ended up breaking off the shaft and using a knife to edge the tip from Jim Snow’s chest. Maralee sent Dustin ahead and waited until he was down the hill to say her final farewell.

  “All those prayers to Diana have been heard,” she intoned stiffly. “You finally got what you deserve. Goodbye, Daddy.”

  Dustin’s hands trembled as he attempted to grip the steering wheel of his old pickup. He popped the clutch and the truck stalled. Maralee ended up driving them back to her tiny apartment. Cami was at work for the day, so Maralee brought him in to calm him down.

  “All we have is some cheap rum and RC,” she said, pouring a hefty dose of each into an A&W mug. Gratefully, he took the glass and gulped half of it down before wincing and setting it down.

  “God, that’s awful,” he said, wiping the gross concoction from his lips. “I…I killed…I killed your dad. And you’re making me drinks?”