Page 118 of Deadly Misfortunes

"Thanks, Janie."

"I'll send you a copy of pictures of us having dinner and the receipts for the movie and for dinner."

"Sounds good. Thanks so much for helping us with this."

"I love him, I'm sure you can tell. I'm not going to let him take the fall for something he didn't do."

"I agree. And the thing of it is, if he didn't do any of this, the attempted murderer is still out there, and we're not safe."

"Exactly!"

Then they ended the call.

Sascha soon got the photos and receipts for the time of the accident, though she didn't know the actual date of the first one herself. "Is this when you were involved in that first accident?"

Gregory pulled off the road and examined the receipts and the photos. "Hell, yeah. So Red is clear for that time period anyway."

"Do you think he was working in conjunction with someone else?"

"No. I've always thought it was a one-person job."

"I still wonder if Belinda knows anything." Sascha looked for the woman on Google and found her phone number. Then she called her and put it on speakerphone. "Hi, this is Sascha Lassiter, Gregory Landry’s fiancée. Brendan says he committed the crimes of attempting to murder Mr. Landry.” Sascha fibbed a little. “But he couldn't have. He has alibis for the time period." He didn't have alibis for all of them, but Belinda might not know that.

Belinda didn’t say anything.

"You called me and warned me that someone was out to get Gregory." Again, Sascha didn't know that Belinda had called her, but she presumed it had been her since Janie didn't do it. Unless it was some other random person. Which she didn't believe.

There was a significant pause, and then finally, Belinda said, "Yes. I called you. I worried when I saw you had been in the accident. It was all over the news."

"Right. Well, thanks for warning me. But we already knew someone was after Gregory. Do you know who?"

"Why would Brendan say he did it? Forget it. He's always trying to get their approval."

"You mean your parents'?" Sascha asked.

"I gotta go. Sorry about what's happening to Gregory. And to you. Neither of you deserve it." Then Belinda hung up the phone.

"One of her parents is involved," Sascha said.

"We thought it was a man."

"But it could have been a woman."

"He’s protecting someone in his family," Gregory guessed.

"That's what I suspect after what Janie and even Belinda said. He's always trying to prove something to his parents, to win their love, but he can never measure up. Maybe he doesn't know for sure whether one of them was after you, but he suspects as much. Maybe someone said something to him, and then rather than outing the person, Red goes to work for you to protect you."

"Well, hell."

"I know, right?"

28

Once Gregory pulled back onto the road, Gregory’s PI called him. He answered it on Bluetooth. "Yeah, Hank?"

Maybe Hank would provide them with the real story.

"I checked into Brendan's girlfriend, specifically learning if she had an alibi for the times that someone tried to kill you. She has been working in Austin all this time, so she has an airtight alibi. Then I checked on Brendan's sister. Belinda also lives and works in Austin, and she was cleared. I checked on Brendan's dad because we thought a man had come after you. He was in the hospital with a heart attack when you were going to pick up the dragon birthday cake. He does live in Dallas and is divorced from Brendan's mom. So he couldn't have been involved in the one accident."