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“Go on.”
“You’re not gonna like what I’m about to say. I was on the brink of blacking out when I realized what I think I knew from the moment I met him. He was a lunatic.”
“Don’t—”
“No, Laura. You’re going to hear this. He was insane. At least on some level. What man in his right mind, married to you, would ask another man to have sex with you? Pay him to. For any reason.”
She didn’t produce an answer, and Griff hadn’t expected one. “I’m convinced now that doing away with me was his intention all along.” She was about to protest, but he spoke before she could. “Think about it. He was fanatical about keeping our agreement a secret. In order to guarantee that, I had to die. Leaving me alive was untidy. For a compulsive cleaner, I was an unacceptable wrinkle in the bar towel, a water spot on the granite. He insisted on perfection, and for his plan to be perfect, I had to be eliminated.” He paused, then said, “Him I could understand. But I wondered about you.”
“Me?”
“Were you in on it, Laura? Was this your plan, too?”
“I’m not even going to honor that with a response.”
“Why’d you go to Austin that day?”
He listened as she explained the circumstances. “Whatever happened that night, I wasn’t a part of it,” she said with heat. “I didn’t even know you’d been to the mansion until Rodarte told me your fingerprints were on the murder weapon.”
He dragged his hand down his face. “I didn’t think you would plot my death, but when my lights were going out, the question did flash through my mind. Were you conveniently in Austin so you wouldn’t have to witness my murder?”
“You truly thought that?”
“Uncanny how clearly you see things when you think you’re about to die. You’d refused to talk to me after our last afternoon together.”
“You know why I didn’t, why I couldn’t, talk to you, Griff.”
“Guilt.”
“Yes.”
“So maybe the only way to rid yourself of your guilt was to do away with me.”
; She looked at him, her gaze unflinching.
He sighed. “Okay, I know better. But that’s what went through my mind. But then, just as I was about to lose consciousness, a worse thought occurred to me. You were in on Foster’s secret, too.”
She looked at him without reaction for several seconds, then recoiled. “What are you saying?”
“After you gave birth to the child, what if he decided that you were a threat to his secrecy, too?”
“Foster loved me. I know that. He adored me.”
“I don’t doubt it, Laura. But his mind was more twisted than his body. What if he began seeing you as a flaw to his perfect plan? If you were out of the picture, he would be the only one on earth who knew the truth about his heir’s parentage. You would be a living threat and, as such, would have to go.”
“He would never!”
“Maybe,” Griff said without conviction. “But it was the fear he would that saved my life. It gave me renewed strength. I started fighting that Salvadoran son of a bitch like something just let out of hell. I bucked. I kicked. I clawed. Even tried to bite him.
“But I was starved for oxygen. My coordination was for shit. I could barely think. All I accomplished was to use up my reserves. It was then I realized that the only way I’d survive was to pretend to succumb. I went limp.
“‘Good, good, good,’ I heard Foster say. Manuelo let go. I had the presence of mind to fall facefirst onto the rug so I could hide that I was breathing. Foster said, ‘Muy bien, Manuelo. Muy bien. Muy bien.’
“I could hear Manuelo gasping for breath. He was standing close to me. I partially opened one eye and saw his right shoe inches from my head. I grabbed him around the ankle and yanked his foot out from under him. Gravity did the tough part.”
Manuelo went down hard, landing on his back. Griff lunged on top of him and drove his fist into the man’s nose, felt cartilage give way to the thrust, felt blood on his knuckles. But Manuelo wasn’t dispatched. He placed the heel of his hand beneath Griff’s chin and gave a push that could have snapped his neck if he hadn’t averted his head in time.
