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Loneliness doesn’t kill, though. It aches, it taunts, but it doesn’t kill. He could survive loneliness.
“Van in sight. ” Natches came to attention as the white panel van drove into the cabin’s yard.
He wrapped the strap of his rifle around one hand, held it steady against the branch, and caressed the trigger with the other. He’d have to take Bedsford out first, then Johnny, if it came to killing.
He would protect Crista. Rowdy and Dawg had protected him, saved him. He could do no less for them now.
Crista pulled the van to a stop beside Alex’s car and stared at the vintage ’67 navy blue Camaro. She stared at the car and would have winced at the fury Alex was going to experience if he ever learned his baby made it out of the garage he kept it locked in.
He was going to explode all over Johnny Grace with a force that would strip the man’s flesh from his bones and make him pray for forgiveness.
If Johnny managed to live past Dawg, that was.
“You know, Johnny just signed both your death warrants with that car, right?” she asked as Bedsford straightened behind her. “Alex will hunt you to bell and back. ”
“He’ll have to find us first. ” The side panel door opened, and he turned back to her with a wave of the gun. “Come on, lady. Let’s get this over with so we can get the hell out of your fine little county. ”
Crista moved stiffly from the driver’s seat, her gaze on the gun in his hand before moving past it and stepping out into the dirt clearing to face Johnny.
She stared at him, her gaze going over the clothes he wore. One of her best dresses. The wig was a near-perfect match to her hair, and with the makeup he had used, his features were almost similar.
And he was leaning against the Camaro, a wide smile on his face as she watched him silently.
“You did good, baby,” Johnny told Bedsford quietly as the other man moved to him.
Johnny lifted his face and gave Bedsford a quick kiss while keeping his eyes on Crista.
“Poor Crista. ” Johnny sighed as Bedsford moved away from him. “You should have kept your distance from Dawg. I could have helped you out a bit here if you had. Besides, torturing my cousin was one of the points of this game that I enjoyed the most. ”
“How sad,” Crista whispered, meaning it. “You’ve spent your life coveting everything Dawg is and has rather than building your own life. Why?”
His eyes narrowed on her. “Because it should have been mine. Haven’t you figured it out yet, Crista? I actually thought Dawg would have figured it out, but he was never smart enough to put two and two together. ”
She stared back at him, old gossip whipping through her mind as she traced his features, his build.
He looked like his mother, nothing like his father, so it was impossible to tell.
He chuckled, a low, frightening sound. “You remember, don’t you? After Ralph Grace died, the rumors began slithering through the county like snakes that refused to die. Mother was pregnant when she married Ralph. Unfortunately, Ralph wasn’t the father, no matter how much he thought he was. ”
It was sickening.
Crista glanced away from him, her eyes closing momentarily at the thought of those old tales.
“Yes, Chandler Mackay was my father. ” He sounded girlishly pleased at relating that information.
“I was actually born first, by a few days. Brenda Mackay, Dawg’s mother, knew, of course, and used it to force our father to sign it all over to Dawg in his will. The stupid bitch, she should have taken her little bastard and left then rather than hang around and steal everything that should have been mine. ”
Crista felt her knees weaken at the fury in Johnny’s voice.
Incest. Chandler Mackay, it had been rumored, had been sleeping with his sister for years before she married Ralph Grace, and then again, after the other man’s death. There were those who swore that Chandler Mackay had had a hand in Grace’s death himself.
She turned and looked at Bedsford then, watching as his gaze roamed around the area, eyes narrowed, as though searching for something.
“Your boyfriend here thinks you’re going to run to Nicaragua with him, Johnny,” she said, more to distract Bedsford than anything else. “I told him you would never leave Somerset or Dawg. What would be the point of all this if you couldn’t torture him with it?”
A self-satisfied smile shaped Johnny’s lips as Bedsford turned to him.
“Our plans may change now that I have you here. ” He shrugged his shoulders as though it didn’t matter. “Why leave Somerset when, like you say, I can stay here and torture all parties involved?”
