I didn’t. One of many tragic mistakes I made that day. “I eventually found Lukas coming out of the primary bedroom.”
Lukas pointed his knife at Stella. “Stop talking before you say something you can’t take back.”
Did he really think he could save his reputation and mine after all of this? I kept my focus on Hanna. “There wasn’t a knife on the stairs by then. I could see blood on the upstairs carpet and a pile of clothing, or what I thought in all the chaos was clothing, on the floor of the primary bedroom. Was it a body? Did you kill Victoria after Aubrey left you? Did she see you together or hear you or did she figure it out because you were up there half dressed?”
Aubrey nodded. “He worried Mom would find us. He’s the one who suggested I use the passageway to escape. But you didn’t follow me. Did you, Lukas? She discovered you. She figured out what you were doing. It makes a sick kind of sense.”
“This is pure fiction. There’s no evidence. This is nonsense being spewed by a known liar whose own grandfather hid her away.” Lukas made hisyou’ve got to be kidding meface. The one that said the person talking was being ridiculous.
I’d seen it too many times over the years. It was effective. Annoying.
Without hard evidence, the answer to who killed Victoria came down to Aubrey or Lukas. For the first time in my life, I didn’t believe him. I believed her. She didn’t pretend to be decent. He couldn’t handle being flawed.
“You and Stella were my main suspects for killing Mom butnow I’m thinking just you, Lukas.” Aubrey let out a harsh laugh. “Mom would have ruined you for touching me. Is that why she had to die?”
All those years of feeling lost and ashamed, thinking I destroyed our marriage by dragging him into a terrible scene that he then had to lie about to save my career. In reality he left me to put distance between him and his crime. He walked out to cover his sick choices.
The screech cut through my murderous thoughts. I saw the library shelf move. Jeremy dove out of the passageway and plowed into Lukas. Knocked Hanna and Lukas to the floor and sent the knife flying.
Then the gun went off.
Chapter Seventy-One
Aubrey
The shot lodged in the coffered ceiling. I lowered the gun and aimed it at Lukas’s chest. “Did you actually think I’d come to a knife fight without a gun?”
Lukas lay sprawled on the floor on his side, lifting his upper body and balancing on his elbow. Jeremy had landed hard but kept his hand on Lukas, pinning him down. Jeremy also kept his gaze on the knife a few feet away. It would take a lunge to grab it, and Hanna blocked the path.
Lukas held out a hand. “Give me the weapon.”
The days of him telling me what to do were long over. I didn’t even like that part back then. “Get a fucking clue.”
“What’s the plan here?” Leave it to Hanna to jump right to the big question.
“What does it look like? We’re going to end him.” I pointed the gun at Lukas. His fat head stayed in my sights. All those afternoons at the shooting range had taught me how to fire and how to hit a target.
“We’re?”
Marni’s voice. She stood beside me.
“Nice of you to join us.” I didn’t mean that, but still.
Marni’s gaze shifted from the gun to the bodies on the floor. She snuck a peek at Stella, but Stella was glaring at Lukas, clearly too busy contemplating what he would look like with a bullet hole in his forehead to notice.
I snapped my fingers to get Marni’s attention. “Don’t even think about touching the gun. I now know you started the mess that day that ended my family. You and your affair and that damned bracelet, not Hanna. Remember that.”
Marni slowly nodded.
With that done... “Ladies and Jeremy. The bottom line is simple. Lukas can’t win.”
“He’s going to prison.” Stella didn’t sound convinced of her own argument. It was more like she said it out of habit, because she was supposed to be all law and order.
“Don’t be ridiculous. He’s a smarmy attorney. He argues for a living.” He was a liar who picked the pieces of the law he wanted to follow and absolved himself from the rest. “He’ll argue his way out of trouble. Hell, he fooled you for years.”
Stella’s gaze snapped to me.
Too much? I couldn’t tell yet. I needed Stella pissed and ready to fire but at him, not me. I’d shoot her without hesitation but that wasn’t the goal here. I wanted his blood.
