Selena shifted one step to her left, opening a cleaner angle and drawing Renee’s focus away from Connor.“Bradley, don’t move unless I tell you.”
Bradley whimpered.“Okay.”
Renee looked at him with soft irritation.“You were so confident in your living room.”
“I don’t know what you want.”
“You know.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Your wife Sheila knows,” Renee said.“She knows enough to step back from you in her own house.She sleeps upstairs as we speak, trying to escape from your betrayal.”
Selena watched the gun.Renee’s finger rested along the trigger guard, not fully inside it.Controlled.Practiced.Not a woman waving a weapon in panic.
“Renee,” Selena said, “how did you find out about Bradley?”
“People talk.”
“Melania’s?”
A tiny flicker moved across Renee’s face.
Selena kept her voice even.“You heard women talking about Sheila?Sandra told us.”
“They were laughing with pain in their mouths.”
“They were gossiping, Renee,” Connor said.
“Gossip has more truth to it than you think.”
Connor took half a step forward.“You murdered Warren Holt because he was having an affair, didn’t you?”
Renee’s gun shifted by a fraction.
Selena said, “Connor.”
His jaw worked, but he stopped.
Renee looked at him now.“Warren was cruel.He made Sandra feel small for years.Then he humiliated her again, as if leaving her hadn’t been enough.I never figured outwhohis bit on the side was.But I knew she existed.Sandra had convinced me of that much.I tricked him into meeting me, telling him I was going to expose him, then finished him off.”
“And Victor?”Selena asked.“You sneaked out from Sandra’s while she was asleep, didn’t you?”
“There was no other way.Victor lied to Marlene until she doubted her own mind.I watched it happening from afar.Janet told me first.You mustn’t blame her.Men are predators.They prey on the hurt.She would talk and then apologize for talking.Victor was the one to blame for it all.”
Bradley made a strangled sound.“Lady, please, I don’t even know you.What’s this got to do with me?”
“No,” Renee said.“You don’t know me.But I know your kind.And that’s enough to know what to do with you!”
Selena edged another step closer.The distance between them was still too much.Fifteen yards, maybe.Renee could fire before Selena reached her.Connor could shoot, but Bradley stood in the wrong place, and Renee’s body was half shielded by him.
Selena softened her voice.“Renee, I know this is really about your husband Gary.He never got the chance to confess his affair to you.I understand what betrayal can do to a person when they’re on the wrong end of it.”
Renee smiled sadly.“Do you?”
“Yes.”
Connor glanced at Selena, but she did not look at him.
