AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You sure you don’t want us to stay, boss?” asked the man to my left in an English accent similar to Kerr’s.
“I said leave us,” he bellowed.
As if I’d pressed play on a soundtrack, Burns’ words began to repeat inside my head.
“If you find yourself in Kerr’s presence, play to his arrogance above all else. He’s a misogynistic narcissist who will not consider you the least bit of a threat.”
I expected Kerr to get up, but he didn’t. Instead, he motioned for me to sit in the chair opposite the desk he sat behind. I ignored him and folded my arms, incredulous that the assholes who had delivered me to him hadn’t frisked me.
“Sit!” he shouted, standing and slamming his hands on the desk in front of him. He’d startled me and caught my reaction. He smiled, shook his head, and sat down. “Tiffany Joy, at last we meet.”
I sneered but didn’t respond.
“So much like your aunt. You’re weak like she was. Your only power is in your pen. Otherwise, you are mute.”
“You didn’t know her very well, and you don’t know me at all.”
He smiled like he had when he startled me. “Ah, she does have a voice, but where is the reporter, eh? Are you too afraid I’ll kill you to ask me any questions?”
“You’re going to kill me whether I ask or not, just like you did Barb and Nancy.”
He shrugged. “Yes, well, that is probably true.”
“Does your wife know you killed her aunt like you did mine?”
He nodded slowly. “She knows I had no choice.”
Burns’ voice was back in my head. “He’ll want to brag, show you how powerful and almighty he is. He sees himself as a descendant of the Argead Dynasty—like Alexander the Great before him—he’ll want you to know that no one has defeated him.”
“All those years, she bested you.”
His eyes scrunched. “She did nothing of the kind.”
“You had no idea where the evidence was, not until Nancy overheard Barb tell me about the safe-deposit box.”
“You see patience as failure; that is your problem. You rush, so anxious to have the scoop that, in your haste, you miss the real story.”
“Enlighten me, then. What is the real story?”
He sat back in his chair. “People like you believe you can expose the injustices of the world, sit on your high horse, and damn those who, for years, have fought for your freedom. You, Barb, the rest of the media, none of you understand how the real world works.”
“I’m sure you’re going to take the opportunity to tell me.”
“I often wondered what Barb saw in you that she believed was worth saving. That’s what it was all about, you know? It wasn’t her own life she wanted to protect. It was yours.”
“What do you mean?”
“The bargain she made with me. As long as you were left alone—left alive—she would not release the evidence she claimed she had on Operation Argead.”
“Why did you kill her, then, and not me?”
“Once I knew it truly existed, it was only a matter of time until you led me to it. Unfortunately for Nancy, she couldn’t produce the key. All she had for me when I arrived at the apartment was that you’d taken it with you. From that moment on, there was no need to keep either woman alive.”
“You shot them.”
He shrugged again as though the statement meant nothing to him. “As I said, it was only a matter of time before you led me to it. Once I left the apartment, I called your aunt’s attorney to inform him of her death. I anticipated that within hours, I would have the evidence in hand that you now possess, and would be on my way back to England. But you made me wait, didn’t you?”
“What was it you said about patience being a virtue?”
