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Behind her, through the seat, she felt movement.
“Well, he had a little help,” Hedges admitted, caught up in his story, seemingly unaware that Noah was rousing. Oh, dear God, if there was a way out of this . . .
“From you?” she asked, her eyes never moving from Hedges and the gun.
He snorted. “And I thought you were supposed to be smart.”
She waited, ears straining for any signs that Noah was awake, while her mind was trying to piece together what Hedges was talking about. “Your father had help from . . .” She felt some pressure on the back of her seat. Was Noah signaling her? She couldn’t tell.
Hedges was waiting for her to finish her sentence, baiting her, she realized.
And then it dawned on her.
“Seneca,” she whispered, her heart freezing.
“There ya go!” He waved the gun. “Give the lady a prize!”
“She stole Adam from me and brought him to . . . you?” Remmi said, disbelieving and silently praying for a miracle.
For a second, she thought she heard the whine of a car’s engine . . . She pressed her foot on the brake a little harder, the Subaru still idling.
“Not to me,” Hedges said. “She took Kyle to my brother, actually, but only temporarily, until she killed him.”
“She what?” No! Remmi must have heard wrong. “Seneca killed OH2?”
He snorted his disgust. “Shawna,” he said. “Shawna killed him. Can you not get the names straight?”
“I don’t believe she would—”
“She’s a woman of many talents, as it turns out. Excellent nursemaid. She helped raise the kids and gave my father a chance at life again. He’s still in a wheelchair, but he gets around okay. You know what they say about the love of a good woman. And a damned good murderess, if she needs to be.”
“I can’t believe that—”
“Oh, believe.” He was so much calmer now that he was in control, that he had Noah and Remmi unable to thwart him. He almost seemed to revel in telling his story.
She sensed that he liked drawing this part out, of having the power, of terrorizing and informing, almost bragging, while she was literally a captive audience.
“But Shawna won’t like the fact that I had to get rid of you. She was really fond of you, so this will have to be my little secret.”
“Why are you doing this?” she asked and, from the corner of her eye, saw something shift in the back seat.
Hedges was into his story. “If it all hadn’t fallen apart, if that damned book hadn’t been published, if you hadn’t started nosing around . . . But you wouldn’t give up. You just had to keep poking and prodding, trying to find my kids . . . and that just can’t happen.”
“The police know,” she said. “You can kill me, but the police will find them and tell them. The reporters? They’ll be coming, too.”
“But none of them know all the
secrets, do they? Only you.”
She saw now, through the slight crack between the two front seats, that Noah had positioned himself behind Hedges. There was just enough light from the dash to catch a glimpse of Noah angling his head back and raising his cuffed hands.
“You killed Didi,” she said flatly.
“Of course I did.” He sounded pleased with himself. “And I’d do it again, the way that bitch fucked me over, I would gladly—”
From the corner of her eye, she saw Noah gather himself. “Now!” he yelled “Now!”
She took her foot off the brake and hit the gas as she flung open her door. The car bucked forward. She rolled out, bouncing and scraping in the gravel, avoiding the rear tires. Scrambling to her feet, she watched in the incandescence of the dash lights.
