Causing Havoc

by Lori Foster

  Rigid, Dean gave one nod. He reached Gregor, caught him by the back of the neck and yanked him away.

  Gregor hadn’t been expecting that.

  He actually fell on his ass. An instant later, Jacki was there beside him, seeing if he was hurt.

  “Where’d you go, Roger?”

  “Nowhere.” Roger straightened his clothes, still seething. “I just needed some time to think, so I stayed in my house for a few days.”

  “Convenient,” Dean told him, “that while you’re playing hooky, someone is trying to shoot me.”

  “I’m in no mood for your ridiculous accusation, man, so back off.”

  “The hell I will.”

  Roger squared off with him. “So you want to settle this in private?”

  “Yes.”

  That startled him, probably because Dean had previously refused to fight him. But Roger didn’t back down.

  Grim and determined, he started to agree—until Gregor got back on his feet and planted himself between them.

  “C’mon, Dean, you don’t really want to kill him.”

  Cam said, “No, he does not. Now knock it off, Dean.” And to Roger, she said, “I won’t have you fighting my brother.”

  Roger looked at her askance and marginally complied. “Look, Cam told me what happened and what you think. But it wasn’t me.”

  Shoving Gregor to the side, Dean demanded, “Then who else?”

  On the explosive edge, Roger snarled, “How the fuck should I know, you arrogant ass.” He came chin to chin with Dean. “I imagine you’ve got enough people pissed off to make a baker’s dozen.”

  Dean gave an evil smile. “You’re not seeing my sister alone. I don’t trust you.”

  Cam threw up her hands. “I thought you weren’t that kind of brother!”

  “I wasn’t.” He glanced at her, chagrined. “But I am now.”

  “Well, that changes things,” Gregor said with a shrug. “Go ahead and smash him, Dean. He has it coming.”

  Roger dropped his head, laughed hoarsely, and then raised his face to see Cam. “I haven’t slept much in the last few days. But Lorna left a message on my machine, saying that you had something important to tell me, so I’m here. If you’d just spit it out now, I could get away from this overbearing ass of a brother you have.”

  Cam blinked at him. “But…Aunt Lorna told me that you have something you have to tell me.”

  Roger locked his jaw. “I do. But your brother has refused us any privacy, and I’m afraid I’ll insist on it before I make you hate me.”

  Hate him? Dean studied Roger and wondered what was going on now.

  Cam deflated. “Oh Roger, I could never hate you. I wish you’d believe that.”

  He turned away and stared into the night.

  Cam touched his arm. “I love you, I really do. I just can’t marry you yet.”

  “Not last year. Not now.” Roger shrugged off her hand. “And no time in the future.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  Dean suddenly had the awful suspicion that they were at cross-purposes, and he tired of it. “She won’t marry you as long as she owes you money.”

  Roger jerked around at that. He looked at Dean, then stared at Cam. “What’s he talking about?”

  Embarrassed, Cam ducked her head.

  Dean answered for her. “She doesn’t want financial debt to come between you. And that makes me wonder why the hell you’re so determined to keep her in your debt.”

  Confused, Cam shook her head. “Keep me in your debt?”

  “I feel like an interpreter, for God’s sake.” Dean sighed. “Roger’s keeping you in his debt by paying off stuff that’s insignificant, but holding on to loans that you can’t immediately pay off. I know he forks over money to Lorna left and right.”

  Cam stared at Roger. “You do?”

  “No offense, honey, but your aunt is sometimes difficult to tolerate.”

  Dean smirked. “And it’s easier to give her money so she can absent herself?”

  “Yes.”

  “That doesn’t explain why you’ve kept Cam in your debt.”

  Roger looked from Cam to Dean and back again. He leaned back against the brick wall of his hotel. “It’s easy enough to figure out. The only way I know for sure that I can keep her is to keep her in debt. As long as she owes me, she won’t cut ties with me.”

  Gregor snorted. “Now ain’t that fuckin’ sweet as molasses?”

  Jacki slugged him harder this time. “Gregor, will you shut up?”

  “Not until he explains why the hell he thought to comment on your body one way or the other.”

  Cam looked rather curious about that one, too.

  Running a hand through his hair, Roger shrugged. “I saw her worrying about it.”

  “You did?” Jacki asked.

  “You were looking at the roof, where he”—Roger indicated Gregor—“was working. Then you’d look at your…” He nodded at her chest. “You’ve never made any pretense of liking me. I saw that your lack of curves bothered you. I thought that maybe solving the problem for you would be a good way to ingratiate myself to you. You’d get what you wanted, and I’d gain your gratitude.”

  “This is incredible.” Cam shook her head as if dizzy. “You actually thought that would endear you to anyone?”

  “Other than Lorna, everyone important to you dislikes me.”

  “I don’t need anyone’s approval, Roger.”

  That seemed to set him off again. “Well, good for you.” He sneered. “But nothing else I’ve tried has worked! I figured getting in good with the people you care about couldn’t hurt.”

  Cam went nose to nose with him. “This is insane. I already told you that I love you.”

  “Then marry me, damn it!”

  “All right!”

  Silence fell.

  Until Roger dropped his head forward on a groan. “I don’t believe this.” New tension gripped him. “Now that your aunt is ready to expose me, you finally say yes.”

  Dean still felt that something wasn’t right—and it centered around Roger. “Expose you for what?”

  “I suppose it doesn’t matter anymore. If I don’t tell you, Lorna will.” He cast an evil eye on their audience, accepted that no one was about to budge, and turned back to Cam. “I told you about your parents, how they drank too much, how your mother and father were unfaithful to each other.”

  And suddenly Dean knew. He closed his eyes, calling himself a dozen times a fool for not figuring it out sooner.

  “Yes.” Cam watched Roger, her heart in her eyes.

  Dean wished for some way to spare her. “You’re the son.”

  No one understood except Roger. “That’s right.”

  “I remember Grover told me that my mother’s lover had a family.” Dean recalled the story as if it had happened yesterday. “When my mother died, the guy she’d been cheating with was so grief stricken, he left his wife and kid.”

  “He was a drunk, always depressed over something,” Roger said in a toneless voice. “I had just turned eleven when everything changed. Your parents died, and my life fell apart. Not a whole lot of difference, except that you all still had family.”

  Cam bit her lip, and her eyes grew teary. “You didn’t?”

  Roger shook his head. “After my father disappeared without a word, my mother cried for a month. She barely noticed me, she was so busy cursing my dad one minute and praying for him to come back the next. Finally she just gave up. I came home from school, and she was gone, too, just like my dad. The only difference was that she left a note, saying she wouldn’t be back.” He half laughed. “Dad didn’t even do that much.”

  Cam started to touch him, but Roger moved away. “People found out, of course. That’s why I got shuffled off to a foster home, then another one and another one.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Cam whispered. “I had no idea why you had grown up in foster homes.”

  Roger’s hands fisted, his shoulders tensed.
“I’ve lost everything I ever wanted.” He turned to face her. “I didn’t want to lose you.”

  “You won’t.”

  He laughed. “Lorna told me how you’d feel about me. She told me you’d never be able to look beyond the shame of being with me. If everyone else in town realized who I was, the gossip would never end. You have to admit, it’s one hell of an irony for me to fall in love with you.”

  As if no one else existed, Cam looked at Roger and said softly, “It doesn’t matter.”

  “I was going to tell you,” he said. “I took a few days off to work up my nerve. I’d tried everything to win you over, and when I realized it wasn’t going to happen, that you’d never marry me, I figured I owed you the truth at least.”

  Gregor stared at everyone in confusion. “If you were eleven when all that happened, doesn’t everyone around here already know who you are?”

  “No. I lived a few counties over, and when I went into the foster program, I was away for a few years. By the time I came back, I had a new name and I’d changed a lot. From grade school to junior high, some boys become men.”

  Cam reached for him. Roger tried to dodge her, but Cam wasn’t an easy woman to shake off once she set her mind on offering comfort.

  Dean knew that for a fact.

  Hugged up to Roger’s chest, Cam said, “I don’t understand why you wanted to meet me here to tell me this.”

  Roger finally put his arms around her, his cheek to her head. “I didn’t.” He hugged her tight. “You’re the one who wanted to meet here.”

  Cam leaned back to frown at him. “No. Aunt Lorna said you were here, and you needed to see me.” With an apologetic smile, she told Dean, “I’m sorry I didn’t call you. Lorna and I agreed that it really wasn’t necessary. I knew Roger couldn’t be the one doing those—”

  Roger stiffened. “Lorna.”

  Dean’s heart almost stopped. “She called me, Cam, to tell me you were coming here.”

  “But that doesn’t make any sense. She told me not to call you.”

  “She called me, too, she knew that I’ve been at home—I thought she told you that’s where I was.” Roger said. “Your aunt knows how I feel about you, and she’s the one who encouraged me to loan you money, to keep you indebted to me so you couldn’t walk away from me. Today she told me that you needed to talk to me, so that I should meet you here.”

  Bewildered, Jacki said, “But why?”

  “You have money,” Dean told them with sudden realization.

  “Plenty,” Roger agreed. “I found out some time ago that you had a sizeable inheritance. Your aunt has diverted funds and hidden them for herself. She hates the thought of Dean being here, poking around and uncovering what she did with your finances. She was in charge of it until you turned twenty-one.”

  “I’m twenty-three now,” Cam pointed out. “No one has notified me of any inheritance.”

  “Because your aunt had full control for so long, she’s been able to cover it up.”

  Jacki crossed her arms over her chest. “You knew this and never told Cam?”

  “Lorna told me that if I did, she’d reveal my secrets. I didn’t want to lose her.”

  “Idiot.”

  Roger paid no mind to Jacki’s insult. He kept all his attention on Cam. “I figured that once I convinced you to marry me, I’d tell you everything then.”

  “Jacki’s right,” Cam said. “You should have told me.”

  “I know that now. I’m sorry. For a lot of things.”

  “But I’m wondering,” Gregor said. “What’s the old bird up to, sending everyone here to meet?”

  Cam suddenly stumbled away from Roger. Her hands to her mouth, she said, “Oh no.”

  “What is it?” Roger asked.

  “Dean…after you left today, Aunt Lorna tried to convince me that you didn’t really care about Jacki or me. She said she knew the truth, that the only one keeping you in Harmony was—”

  “Eve.” The word barely whispered out of Dean’s mouth before he turned and started running.

  Behind him, Gregor yelled, “Should I call the cops?”

  And Roger, right behind Dean, shouted, “Yes.”

  DEAN barely killed the engine before he jumped out of his car and hit the ground at a run. Without knocking, he charged into Eve’s house. “Eve!”

  No answer.

  Strides long and heavy, he looked in Eve’s bedroom, through the great room, and finally trotted into the kitchen. He drew to a halt.

  Eve sat in a chair, her head pulled back by the fist Lorna had twisted in her hair. A long butcher knife, the blade bloody, swung back and forth as Lorna paced behind Eve.

  CHAPTER 22

  DEAN saw the blood on Eve’s arm and prayed the cut wasn’t too serious.

  “Lorna?”

  She jerked, adding pressure to Eve’s hair.

  “Dean? You aren’t at the hotel, bludgeoning poor Roger to death?”

  “No. I’m here.”

  “That’s unfortunate.” Almost in apology, Lorna said, “I threw away the paintball gun when I saw that you’d called the police. I’m not sure how the whole fingerprint thing works and I knew it would look suspicious for me to have it after what happened.”

  Dean watched her closely. “I assume your prints wouldn’t be on file.”

  “No. Of course not.”

  “If you have a suspect, you can take prints and see if they match.”

  “Oh.” Lorna considered it. “I suppose I should dispose of the ladder, too, then. I just never considered it. I’m not that type of person, you understand. I don’t have a criminal mind. Other than Roger’s father, I’ve never physically hurt anyone.”

  Dean had started to ask her about his tires, too, but she effectively threw him off with that disclosure. “Roger’s father?”

  “Grover left that piece of trash on the curb in front of the house. But that wouldn’t do. I couldn’t take over the parenting of two young girls with the evidence of their black past right there for all the neighborhood to see. Surely you understand that?”

  With an eerie calm settling around him, Dean leaned in the door frame. He kept his stance deceptively casual, but given the opportunity, he’d be on Lorna in a heartbeat. “What did you do with him?”

  She smiled. “I brought him in, of course. I got him coherent, and then I promised to take him to see your mother. I convinced that miserable idiot that she wasn’t dead after all.”

  “And then you killed him?”

  “He killed himself by living a disreputable life!”

  Dean couldn’t look at Eve. Not yet. “How did he die, Lorna?”

  “It all worked out for the best.” The hand holding the knife rested on Eve’s shoulder. Chortling as if delighted with herself, Lorna said, “I waited until night, after Cam and Jacki were asleep. I gave him a bottle of whiskey to fortify himself during the drive, then I drove him to a dirty little lake located well out of town.”

  “He got drunk again?”

  Lorna nodded. “I realized the man was an alcoholic. To tell you the truth, he made more sense inebriated than he did when sober.”

  Dean waited as she sorted through the memories.

  “After he was good and drunk, I told him your mother was hiding, waiting for him. I had planned to just leave him out there, but we were standing near the edge of the lake when he fell and didn’t get up again.” She shrugged. “I don’t know if he hit his head or just passed out.”

  “So you helped him into the water?”

  “Yes.” She looked up at Dean, her gaze vague and dull. “For all I know, he’s still there.” Suddenly her hand tightened on Eve’s hair with a vicious yank. “Why didn’t you just leave town as you should have? Everything would have been so much simpler.”

  Eve gasped, and that small sound almost stopped Dean’s heart.

  Think, Dean. He had to calm himself. He’d seen more than his share of blood—but always on big, muscular men who paid no attention to it. Blood cause
d from sport, not from a deliberate attempt to cause pain.

  Not on Eve.

  Roger wouldn’t be too far behind him, and surely, Gregor had already called the police. They were liable to blaze up with lights flashing, sirens full blast.

  Would the commotion push Lorna over the edge?

  Carefully Dean stepped away from the wall. “Lorna, I think Eve’s hurt.”

  “It’s just a little slice.” In her own defense, Lorna explained, “She tried to take my knife from me.”

  Eve whispered, “I’m sorry, Dean. She took me by surprise.”

  He shook his head at her. Maybe if Eve stayed quiet, Lorna wouldn’t think too much about her or the passing of time. “The money doesn’t matter, Lorna.”

  Her gaze shot up to his. “Ah, so you know about that?”

  “Roger told me.”

  “That ingrate.” Full of affront, she shook her head. “He’s been a vast disappointment.”

  “It doesn’t matter, Lorna. You deserved the money.”

  “I really did,” she agreed.

  “And I have enough of my own. More than Roger, in fact.” That was a lie, but Lorna wouldn’t know it. “I can take care of everyone, including you.”

  “You’d do that for me?”

  “I owe you for taking care of Cam and Jacki all these years. All you need to do is put the knife away.”

  “I can’t.” She paced again, as far as the length of Eve’s hair would allow. “This girl is wrong—you’ll never care about me. Your parents didn’t. They liked Grover, but they thought I was a bore. I heard them say so. A bore and a prude and unwanted.”

  Jesus. She was still hurt over something twenty years old? That thought gave Dean pause. He hadn’t wanted to admit it, but until his sisters and Eve had made everything right, he’d been hurt, too.

  But not like this.

  Not the way he’d be hurt if he lost Eve.

  “They designated you to care for their children, Lorna. That means they respected you an awful lot.”

  “Ha.” Lorna actually laughed. It was a dry, crackling sound tainted with madness. “They burdened me with them because they didn’t have anyone else who’d take them in.”

  Dean prayed that neither Cam nor Jacki would ever know of those particular words leaving Lorna’s mouth.