That’s when it’d gleamed to life in his aunt’s eyes…that cold, calculating look.
“I could pay you a lot more if she was dead,”Jane had said.“If you help me kill her, I’ll give you twenty-five percent of the money Richard left behind.”
Carter had been shocked to his core by her suggestion. He’d known there was no love lost between Mia and Jane. But a mother murdering her own daughter? It was unfathomable. Horrific.
He’d said exactly that to her. Which was when she’d told him whatreallyhappened to Andy. About how Mia had gotten into Jane’s pain pills and,“stuffed her face full of them before feeding the rest to Andy like candy.”
According to Jane, the housekeeper had found them in enough time to rush them to the hospital to have their stomachs pumped. Mia had survived the incident without any permanent side effects. Little Andy hadn’t been so lucky.
Apparently, the overdose had fried his brain. And from the onset of puberty, he’d lived with terrible mental illness.
Carter might have been able to forgive Mia for the pill incident. After all, she’d only been a little thing. What hecouldn’tforgive was what she had ultimately done to her baby brother.
When Jane told Carter about the vicious letter from Mia that Jane found beside Andy’s body, Carter had instantly understood how Jane could so callously speak of ending her daughter’s life.
“She was sick and tired of him, and she made sure he knew it,”Jane had said with tears standing in her eyes.“Because Andy idolized her, he decided ending his own life was the only way to make her happy.”
Mia acted all sweet and quiet and gentle. But in truth, she was a selfish, murderous bitch.
That’s all it’d taken to have Carter agreeing to Jane’s plan. He figured he was helping take a vicious criminal off the streets. Sending a stone-cold killer where she belonged.
To hell.
If he and his friends happened to make a little pocket change in the process? All the better. And when his conscience tried to remind him that the three peoplewithMia didn’t deserve to die, he simply ignored it.
“Who cares about evidence left behind on an island in the middle of nowhere?” Jane added with a huff, pulling Carter from his thoughts. “Who’s even going to see it?”
“Someone will eventually,” Kenny stated with certainty. “There might not be a call to start a search for ’em yet, but there will be soon. And dollars to doughnuts, someone’s gonna stumble onto the island. If they find a crime scene, they’ll open an investigation. And again, that’s the last thing we want, right?”
Even though the radios had continued to broadcast nothing but business as usual, Carter knew Kenny was right. Sooner or later the plane would be reported missing, and the search would begin.
He ran a hand through his hair. “I say we motor up to the island, shoot them, and load up their bodies. We’ll get rid of any blood left behind, cover up any tracks we leave in the sand, and make sure the island looks like no one ever set foot on it. We can weigh the bodies down and dump them overboard at intervals between here and Key West. Let the ocean do what the ocean does best. Eat, eat, eat.”
“But we only have the one gun,” Robby pointed out. “And there are four of them.”
“Four people against a twelve round clip?” Kenny scoffed. “I’ll take those odds any day.”
“So what?” Robby shook his head. “You plan to jump out of the boat and start sprayin’ bullets?”
Kenny grinned. “You got a better idea?”
Robby blinked and looked at Carter for guidance.
Sighing heavily, Carter admitted, “It’s our best option at this point.”
“But won’t Mia recognize you?” Robby asked, and then pointed at Jane. “Andher.Won’t she be suspicious about what you’re doin’ all the way out here when you’re supposed to be in Chicago?”
“Once we get closer, you’ll pilot the boat,” Carter told Robby. “Aunt Jane and I will hide around the back of the pilothouse until it’s done.”
“All right.” Kenny rubbed his hands together like a cartoon villain.
Robby—looking unconvinced by Carter’s newest plan, but not having a better idea—took the binoculars and made his way to the bow of the boat.
Carter had restarted the engines when Robby turned toward him, alarm in his eyes. “What now?” Carter cut the engines, feeling his patience fraying another inch.
“Look!” Robby moved across the decking so he could shove the binoculars into Carter’s hands.
“What am I looking for?” Apprehension lifted the hairs on the back of Carter’s neck at the same time he lifted the magnified lenses to his eyes.
