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“He’s the brains of your family. You all know it.”
“He’s the one who gets paid,” Booker said suggestively, his eyes roaming over her body.
“He knew you needed him tonight, but he went and made her strip anyway.” Harry jerked his head in Ellie’s direction.
“It’s good she dies. She would sue him, otherwise,” said Booker.
“If he got himself arrested on purpose . . . ,” Clarice shook her head, her mouth tight.
“We’re here for ya, Dee,” Harry said.
Dee?
“Get the gasoline,” she ordered.
What? Delta jerked her head around.
“Douse the grounds around the house. We’ll make it a hellfire.”
Harry and Booker both left the garage.
“What are you doing?” Delta demanded in a squeaking voice.
“Amanda was your enemy. And she didn’t like Ellie much either, come to that, so it’s okay that she’s here. Wasn’t in my plan, but Ellie’s become a bigger and bigger problem as well. Not a Five First, but might as well have been.” She lowered the gun now that Delta was strapped to the chair. “This is how it’ll play: You killed Tanner, and Amanda snapped. Took you out and Ellie, and maybe they’ll even find a link to Zora and Brian’s ‘accident.’ Luckily, Bailey and Penske were put down to murder/suicide, although Chris McCrae and Bob Quintar can’t quite give it up. I heard that they’re still working on it, off the books. I don’t like messing with police, but if they become too big a problem . . .”
Delta tested her bonds, which were tight, but not as tight as she’d pretended when she’d cried out. She needed to alert McCrae, but her phone was in her purse, and her purse was on the ground beside her car, dropped when she’d been seized. And Dee would never let her make the call anyway before she pulled the trigger.
She cocked her head, smiling a little sadly at Delta. “And then there’s Carmen.”
Delta shuddered at her tone and thought of the note from Amanda. Not me & T at bbq. She suddenly got why she’d left it.
“Amanda realized it was you Carmen saw with Tanner,” Delta said on an intake of breath.
“Everyone else thought I was Amanda. The blond hair. But not Carmen. She saw me with him in a . . . compromising position. The preacher’s daughter? I knew she was going to tell. It was pure chance that I had my moment, and I took it.”
“You killed her. You never tried to help her!”
“Bailey wanted to save her, but she got swept away. I reached a hand for Carmen, but then I held her down. I had to.”
She said it so matter-of-factly Delta’s insides chilled.
Delta had a distant memory of sitting in Clarice Billings’s office talking about her career after high school . . . and how she planned on getting married to Tanner Stahd.
She heard the clomp of approaching footsteps. The Crassleys returning.
Delta worked her bonds as best she could, but though they were looser than Booker had undoubtedly meant them to be, they held her fast.
The men were arguing. Pissed-off and angry. At each other and at Gale.
“He shoulda been here. You’re a piece of shit.” That sounded like Harry.
“Fuck you, man.” Booker came in and slammed down several large cans of gasoline. He said to Dee, “The house’ll blow like a volcano!”
“I gotta do everything!” Harry shouted at him from outside Delta’s vision. “If Gale was here—”
“Shut up, asshole.”
Clonk. Harry apparently dropped his load of gasoline cans onto the tarmac. There was a scrambling noise, and Booker yelled, “No!”
