“Neither does mine!”
Everybody turned toward the door. Colin was closing it. Then he immediately showed them the remote control. Everybody froze. Including Edmund, who had just removed the tape from Maude’s mouth.
“If I press this tiny little button right here,” Colin said, “this entire guesthouse will burst into an explosion that will rock the very foundations of this entire estate.”
Natasha was confused. “What are you talking about?”
“This house is wired,” he said. “All of you are trapped in my lair this time.”
“All of us?” Natasha could not believe it. “That’s not the plan, Colin. What are you talking about?”
“If I press this button, all of you will be ashes and dust again.”
“But Mom and Dad are in this house. You said it was just supposed to be her and Edmund. Not everybody!”
“Get over there,” he ordered them. “Now!”
“But Colin--”
“Don’t but Colin me, do as I said!”
Natasha, terrified, hurried over to the left side of the room with her parents, away from the door.
“You too, Eddie,” Colin said. “Get away from her.”
But Edmund was frozen in place. His little brother? It can’t be!
“Now!” Colin yelled at Edmund as he hurried toward Maude. He didn’t want him untying Maude. “Get away from her! I want you to feel helpless, too, when she goes up in flames.”
Edmund held his hands up as if Colin was the police, but he didn’t leave Maude’s side. “What are you doing, Colin? This isn’t you. This can’t be you!”
“Why not? Because I’m not you? I’m not the smart one? I’m not the great looking debonair one? I have always hated you,” he said with passion.
“But why are you doing this?” Edmund asked. He was mystified.
“I am going to be the heir to the Keating fortune. Me! The youngest one. That’s why!”
Natasha was stunned. “But you said you were going to set it up so that I would be the heir. Because I’m the oldest and the rightful heir. You told me---”
“I told you a pack of lies!” Colin said, his hand resting just beside that button on the remote control. Everybody was watching his hand. But Maude was watching him.
“It was so easy to fool you. All I had to do was go to the love of your life. To Ross Hampton and rope him in. He knew you were angry with him when he married his second wife and still left you as his mistress. He knew you had given his wife all of those incriminating documents. And her stupid ass went to Hamp and told him about it. That’s why he killed her like he killed his first wife.”
Maude was right, Edmund thought.
“I got him to claim he was an eyewitness to the murder of his second wife, and that he saw you commit the crime, just as he claimed he was an eyewitness to the murder of his first wife and saw some other woman commit the crime. But it was enough to get you arrested.”
Natasha was still confused. “But you and Hamp said my arrest was just a ruse to get Edmund to come to Dillon to help me.”
“It was. We stood a better chance taking him out in Georgia than in Baltimore. That’s why Hamp got Maude fired from that newspaper.”
“And that’s why I gave her that list like you said,” said Natasha.
“But our heartless brother sent her right back in the middle of the night just like I thought he would. That was why I arranged for that attack on her at the guard booth. I needed him to feel guilty enough that he would at least check on his sister as Maude was asking him to. And it worked,” Colin said with a grin.
“And he got you out of jail too,” he said. “That was my first chance to take you and Edmund out all at once. But the idiots Hamp hired couldn’t even get that right. That’s why I picked you up in that BMW at that car crash because I didn’t want you blabbing your mouth about what went wrong. But Edmund was my main focus. Father wasn’t about to leave his legacy in your unstable hands. Edmund was right about that. But that’s why I had to take him out.”
He looked at his big brother again. “He’s always been the strongest one of us. I had to take him out. I had hoped to kill two birds with one stone when he got your charges dropped and I had both of you at your house. It was supposed to be so easy. And it turned out being a nightmare. My men got killed and every one of your asses walked away virtually unharmed exceptfor Wyatt. Then I had to take Hamp out, along with Edmund since I knew he would show up with Maude, to avoid him from talking. But I mistimed that explosion. Eddie and Maude had already left. I got Hamp, but they walked away scot-free. Again!”
