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“Yeah?” Rye nicked Timmy’s throat, drawing blood.
That spurred Timmy to begin to babble. “She said to get it here so she could destroy the drug herself. That’s all there is of it, right? She didn’t want Hunt to get it. She said Goliad was too loyal to her husband to double-cross him. If Goliad had known what she was going to do, he would have stopped her or told her husband. So she hired me.”
Delores’s fists were clenched at her sides. “Shut up!”
Brynn, breathless with disbelief, looked at Nate. He had nothing to offer. He had backed into the wall and had one hand held over his mouth, whimpering. Richard Hunt’s gaze was trained on his wife.
In his deep, melodious voice, he said, “Delores?”
“They’re all lying, Richard.”
“Are they?” The senator was seething. “Goliad!” he shouted. “Where the hell is he?”
“Brynn.” Rye spoke her name sharply. “Out. Now!”
“Not with the drug.” Richard took a step toward her.
“Hold it, senator!” Rye said. “You touch her, and you’re gonna have a lot to explain to the media. Police are on their way here. And don’t rely on Lambert to lie for you. To save his ass, he’ll sing like a canary.”
Brynn hastily rounded the portable table, giving no regard to Nate, who whined her name as she passed him.
When she reached the open doors, Rye thrust Timmy forward and sent him sprawling at Delores’s feet. Then he banged the double do
ors shut, grabbed Brynn’s hand, and ran with her across the wide entry foyer into the formal dining room where a pair of French doors stood open.
“This is how I got in,” he said as he pulled her along behind him. “We gotta hurry. Wilson and Rawlins are on my tail.”
“Where are they?”
“Their SUV got stuck in a ditch when Rawlins was turning around to chase me down.”
“There’s more to that story.”
“Much.”
He approached the vehicle she recognized as the one that Goliad had used to transport them from the private landing strip. “Goliad,” she said. “Where is he?”
“Can’t be far,” Rye said.
“Are the keys in the truck?”
“With luck.”
The fob was in the cup holder. They scrambled in. Rye left the lights off as he sped down the lane to the main road. When he reached it, he turned right toward the landing strip.
5:44 p.m.
Timmy came unsteadily to his feet and, standing before Richard, pointed a finger at Delores. “She paid me. She didn’t want it to get to you. She said that a plane crash would look like an accident. Then when that pilot—”
“Enough!” Richard barked. “I get the picture.”
Nate was dismayed to find himself in this situation. When, where, had it all gone wrong? This was supposed to be his moment of triumph. Confounded by Delores’s deceit, he said, “You wanted it destroyed? All along? Why?”
Beneath her husband’s incendiary glare, she drew herself up, not with shame over having been found out, but with defiance. She shook back her hair. “For sixteen years, I’ve made all the important decisions. If it wasn’t for me, prodding you, pushing you, politicking for you, you would still be peddling tin houses. I was the locomotive, Richard. You were a cattle car I dragged along.
“Well, it was my turn. Publicly I would have mourned your death. ‘How horrible. He was so strong, so vital. Who could have predicted a rare blood cancer would bring him down? Mrs. Hunt is prostrate with grief.’
“That’s what they would have said.” She laughed. “But then, after the lavish funeral I would throw you, they’d be saying how brave I was to assume your place, your seat in the Senate. This is what Richard Hunt would want and expect from his widow, to take up the torch and carry on.” She smiled beatifically. “And it wouldn’t be too long before they forgot all about you.”
