Aidan grabbed his shirt to yank him up for another swing, but a boot stomped down hard onto PJ’s chest, and the air whooshed from his lungs in a hard oof!
“I wouldn’t move just now,” Frank growled.
PJ squirmed, and Frank ground his boot down until PJ whimpered.
“I wasn’t done with him!” Aidan complained.
“I haven’t done nothin’,” PJ tried.
“Only arson, you ass,” Aidan sneered. “Caught you red-handed.”
“You think Sheriff Watson will hold me once my dad gives him a call?”
“No, I don’t,” Aidan told him. “Not for a minute,”
PJ’s eyes went wide, then he grinned maliciously. “Then I guess you better let me go.”
“Not a damn chance.”
PJ frowned. “But you just said—”
“I said we wouldn’t expect Watson to do his job,” Aidan ground out. “We do expect the FDLE boys in town to hold you for a good long while.”
PJ started to sputter.
“Unless of course you tell us why you’re doing this,” Aidan urged.
“This wasn’t my idea!” PJ cried.
Frank’s boot ground down again. “Don’t you lie to us, boy.”
“I’m not.”
“Where’s your dad? Is he hiding here too?” Frank demanded.
“My dad?” PJ’s eyes went wide with surprise. “He isn’t part of this. He’s got bigger fish to fry.”
“Then who is?” Aidan shouted.
“My stepmom’s the mastermind behind the vandalism out here. She blackmailed me into helping her.”
“Right.”
Aidan and Frank exchanged glances.
Frank pressed his boot down until PJ’s eyes bugged. “I’m telling the truth,” he wheezed. “She wanted to get you and Casey to leave town. She hates the sight of you both.”
The whites of PJ’s eyes showed when Aidan knelt next to his head and balled a fist.
“Evelyn says Casey ruined her marriage to Frank’s brother,” PJ fumbled out quickly.
“Her cheating ruined it,” Frank retorted.
“Maybe so, but you’re both a reminder.”
Frank glared. “So, what’s your excuse?”
“I want Casey back.”
Aidan reared back to swing, but Frank stayed his arm.
“Evelyn said she’d help me get Casey back, but she’s been lying to me all along. She said if Casey didn’t have any place to work and had no money, she’d need me. I could get her back and get her to move in with me.”
“Where is Evelyn now?” Frank demanded.
PJ attempted a shrug. Aidan eyed Frank, and he removed his boot. Aidan grabbed PJ’s shirt and yanked him up, put his fist against PJ’s cheek. “Where?”
PJ blinked rapidly, must have recognized Aidan’s need to pound on him. “She was going to meet Dad at the festival.”
Aidan shook him hard. “If your dad isn’t part of this, then where is he? You got three seconds to tell me.” He pulled back his fist. “One. Two . . .”
PJ swallowed hard. “He went to talk the old lady into selling her airport property once and for all. Said he’d force her if he had to.”
Frank looked at Aidan. “Casey said she was going to find Belle and go to the festival with her.”
Aidan cursed soundly.
“Rory!” Frank bellowed.
The boy appeared in the open doorway.
“Did you call Aidan’s friend Shaunessy like I told you to?”
“Yessir! Mr. Shaunessy said he and the officers would be here in fifteen minutes.” Rory glanced at his watch. “Which is right about now.”
“How did you get Shaun’s number?” Aidan wanted to know.
“He gave it to me,” Frank said simply. “Said to call him if you had any trouble. Guess he knows you.”
Moments later, two dark sedans spewed gravel as they braked to a stop in front of the cart barn.
Chapter 25
Thankful Belle had left her porchlight on now that the sun had gone down, Casey fitted her aunt’s house key into the lock and opened the front door. A single lamp burned on an end table next to the couch. “Let’s get some antiseptic and a Band-Aid on that scraped knee,” she said, closing the door and moving Belle toward the couch. She reached for the lamp on the other end table.
“No, let’s get some issues taken care of instead,” a voice said from the darkened interior of the house. “And leave that other lamp off.”
Archer Bartow stepped into the meager light in the living room, a gun gripped in his right hand.
“What are you doing?” Casey cried.
The barrel shifted her direction. “Isn’t it obvious? This is a random armed robbery. And no surprise with all the tourists in town this weekend for the festival. No doubt, some thugs and thieves must have been attracted too. Now keep your voices down.”
He stepped closer. No more than eight feet separated him from the women. Anyone could hit a target at that range.
“How did you get in here?” Belle demanded.
“Your fifty-year-old door locks were no match for my credit card. Any kid could break in here. Don’t either of you try anything, or I’ll shoot.” Bartow grinned. “Actually, I’ll shoot you eventually anyway. You just ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time, Casey.”
“Someone will hear you if you shoot us,” Belle said.
Bartow wagged the gun at her. “No, they won’t. This little beauty has a convenient silencer built in. Got it from my business partner in Tampa. Plus, the fireworks start in . . .” He checked his watch. “. . . nine minutes. Plenty of extra noise. You should know, Belle, I always come prepared.”
Casey had never been more terrified in her life. For her and for her godmother. Staring down the barrel of a gun chilled the blood in her veins to slushy ice. She couldn’t move, could barely think. Knew she needed a plan and couldn’t come up with one.
Her aunt had gone stark white and stared wide-eyed at the mayor. Could the man be bluffing?
“I’ll sell you the airport property,” Belle whispered as though it took great effort to get the words out.
“Too late,” Bartow sneered. “Besides, I don’t trust you.” He waggled the gun again. “You turn up dead with no will and no beneficiaries, and the local government—” He snickered and patted his chest with his free hand. “—run by me, will have to sell your property. Oh, and to me, and rather quickly. Judge Robbins assures me we won’t search too long for any extended family.”
“Hate to disappoint you, Archer,” Belle said, glaring, “but I have a will. It’s in my safety deposit box at the bank.”
Bartow actually had the audacity to look chagrined. “Um, no, you don’t, Belle. I had my friend George—you know, the bank president?—take a peek. He assured me that no will can be found in your box. Only a deed to this house. I thought it odd there was no deed to the airport property in the box.”
Casey shot a glance at her godmother. She hadn’t answered Casey’s earlier question of whether the rumor about the developer was true. Had Belle sold her property to a golf course developer? To Aidan, to be exact? Is that why Archer’s buddy, the bank president, couldn’t find the deed? Anger dredged up by the thought of that sneak and liar Aidan melted some of the ice in Casey’s veins.
She would come up with a plan. She had to save herself and Aunt Belle, so she could tell Aidan Crosse with no e to go to hell.
“You’re a monster,” Belle hissed.
Casey put a hand on her arm. They needed time to devise a means of escape. If they could distract Bartow, maybe together they could jump him and get the gun away from him. It might be their only chance.
“No,” Bartow calmly answered her, “
just an astute businessman.”
Casey needed to keep him talking. “An astute businessman wouldn’t need to commit murder to win his project.”
His eyes narrowed. “You’re all mouth just like your father Dave.”
“You shut up about my father,” she snapped, knowing she made a grave mistake, but years of anger prodded her on. “You don’t have the right to say his name.”
Archer suddenly broke into maniacal peals of laughter. He looked as mad as Belle had accused, and that scared Casey as much as the gun he aimed at them. No reasoning with a madman.
“My uncle will figure out what you did and track you down.”
“Frank couldn’t figure his way out of a paper bag.”
Casey lunged for him, and Belle leaped forward to grab her. Bartow was already mid-swing with the pistol barrel, and he clipped Belle instead of Casey. Belle dropped to her knees, blood running from a gash on her forehead. Casey shrieked and covered her aunt’s body with her own, waited for the gunshot to end her life.
Instead of pulling the trigger, Bartow laughed. “A do-gooder just like your old man. Give up your life for your aunt. What a laugh!”
Casey glared up at him and pulled her godmother into her arms and covered Belle’s wound with her hand to stop the bleeding. “Let me get a bandage for her head, please.”
Bartow waggled the gun no. “Forget it. She won’t need a bandage soon anyway.”
Casey poked her chin out defiantly. If she was going to die anyway, she’d go out swinging. “My father would’ve stopped you when he was at the bank, not rolled over like your bank president buddy.”
“He couldn’t stop me,” Bartow sneered. His beady eyes looked like onyx marbles behind his glasses with a little deranged gleam tossed in.
“Yes, he could. My dad was a better man than you,” Casey insisted. “You aren’t good enough to lick his shoes.”
“You little bitch,” Bartow spat back. “I’m the better man, you hear me? Dave tried to stop me, and he couldn’t. I won. Dave’s gone, and I’m still here. I beat him.”
Insanity glazed his tiny onyx eyes. Casey stilled.
“What do you mean?” she whispered.
Bartow chuckled low in his throat like a demon from the night. “Your stupid uncle thinks it’s his fault Dave died.”
“That’s a lie!” Casey cried. “My father’s death was an accident!”
“Was it?”
“Yes!”
“Funny. Frank thinks Dave killed himself after Frank told him Evelyn was cheating on him. With me.”
Belle gasped.
“That’s not true!” Casey snapped.
Bartow gave a negligent shrug. “Maybe. But how do you know for sure?” he baited her. “Evelyn believes that.”
“You must have done something horrible to cover up with a monstrous lie like that,” Belle accused, eyes flashing.
“Oh, I did,” Archer said cheerfully.
A soft voice came from the darkened kitchen area at the back of the house. “Archer?”
He jerked around. “Evelyn!”
Casey sprang for the gun, but Bartow was quicker, and she took the barrel blow across her cheekbone. She saw stars and wobbled on her feet. Belle shrieked and pulled her back.
“I said, don’t move! I’d as soon shoot you now as later,” Bartow snarled, seeming more like a rabid dog now with suds of spittle packed at the corners of his mouth. “What are you doing here, Evelyn?”
She slipped into the dim light at the edge of the dining area. “I was looking for you. I spotted your car and followed you.”
He cut loose a disgusted sigh.
“What’s wrong, Archer?” Belle asked. “Got a witness you don’t want?”
He aimed the barrel at Belle’s head, and Evelyn gasped.
“Get out of here, Evelyn.”
For a second, Casey thought her stepmother would bolt.
Instead, her chin came up. “No, I have to know. Did Dave kill himself when he found out I was cheating with you or not?”
Archer rolled his eyes. “Of course not. He knew you were cheating, and he didn’t care.”
Casey’s heart pounded so hard the individual beats hammered at her ears. She did not want to hear whatever came next.
“How do you know that?” Evelyn demanded.
A nasty light shown in Bartow’s unhinged eyes. “Because I told Dave you were cheating. The fool cared more about what I was up to than what you were up to.”
“What do you mean?” She edged into the living room near Archer.
“Yeah, what do you mean?” Casey demanded.
Bartow scowled. “The fool was going to turn me in for having George make Jerry deny loans for me and for laundering money through the bank.”
“Jerry was part of it?” Casey gasped.
Her chest burned, and her lungs hurt. Her father had known about Bartow’s schemes. He’d tried to stop Bartow, and now her father was dead.
“You did that?” Evelyn cried. “Money laundering?”
Casey shot her a how-could-you-be-so-stupid look, and Evelyn glared back.
“Of course, I did,” Bartow admitted. “I had to pay for all those clothes and shoes you love. Money doesn’t grow on trees.”
“I thought you just made loans and partnerships with Cypress Key businesses,” she said weakly.
“Hardly,” he sneered.
“You laundered money for me?” Evelyn looked disconcerted, like she couldn’t decide if that was bad or good.
“Partly. In the beginning. Then the Velasco brothers kept upping the amount of money I had to launder.”
“The cartel,” Casey whispered. Had the cartel murdered her father for Bartow?
Bartow’s gaze shot to her. “How do you know about the cartel?” he growled.
“I-I guessed,” she fumbled out, staring down the barrel of Bartow’s gun. “Cartels always launder money.”
His beady eyes narrowed even farther.
Please don’t pull the trigger yet. I need a chance. One chance. I have to know, and I have to make you pay.
“Archer, what about the money laundering?” Evelyn wailed. “What really happened to Dave?”
Bartow shot a swift glance over his shoulder at Evelyn. “I had to keep up with the cartel’s quota, so the number of loans rejected had to increase to give me more targets. That’s when Dave got wise to my scheme. Even George at the bank didn’t know everything. He just did what I asked on the loans and ignored my deposits as long as I paid him every month.”
Bartow exhaled hard. “Dave threatened to go to the FDIC in Tallahassee. I couldn’t let that happen. So I took care of things.”
Shudders started up Casey’s spine. Her hands shook so she balled them into fists. Deep in her gut she knew Bartow was somehow responsible for her father’s death. Maybe she’d always known.
A rumble sounded in the distance. Archer checked his watch and brightened. “The fireworks have started. Right on time.”
Evelyn stiffened and looked ready to scream. “What did you do?” she wailed again, her voice rising.
“Remember when Dave called you and you confessed about cheating with me?”
“Yes, he asked me for a divorce. The night he died. Right before he killed himself,” she said softly.
“No!” Casey screamed at her. “Dad wouldn’t do that.”
Bartow, the bastard, rolled his eyes again. “The little bitch is right, Evelyn. Why would Dave kill himself over you if he had just asked you for a divorce? Use your brain.”
His wife gawked at him. Her eyes glistened with tears.
“What did you do?” Casey demanded and started forward, but Belle yanked her back when Bartow shifted his aim toward Casey’s head.
“He said no,” she responded in a small voice. “Said he wanted to go for a drive alone and clear his head about us. I told you that night.”
“Yes,” Bartow said, like he complimented a young child for getting the right answer.
“Then he killed himself,” she insisted.
“No!” Archer went wild-eyed. “I followed him.”
“You said you were going to the store! I remember I was mad because you were leaving me when I was upset.”
Bartow smiled evilly. “I had to go. Don’t you see? I couldn’t pass up my chance. It was late, and this is a small town, so I had no trouble finding him.”
“You went after him?” Evelyn whispered weakly.
Casey’s chest squeezed so hard, she couldn’t get a breath. She felt the flush of rage swoop up her neck to her face. Hated that physical indication of emotion was there for Evelyn and Archer to see. Hated the two of them beyond reason.
“I ran him off the road. Of course, I scared him first, so he took the coast curves too fast.” Bartow stared into space as though reliving that night. “The yutz was so predictable. I came alongside and bumped him at the third curve. He spun out right at that big hundred-year-old oak. Bam! Straight into the tree. Hit the sucker head on.”
Belle gasped and Casey couldn’t hold back the sob choking her. The edges of her vision blurred red.
The monster actually looked pleased, like the retelling of a great accomplishment. “Small wonder the car didn’t catch fire,” he finished.
Casey’s whole body shook with rage. She charged without care or thought. “You son of a bitch!”
PAR FOR CINDERELLA Page 35
