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“No. He was on my list, but a drunk driver took care of him for me.”
Her dismissive tone turned Bri’s stomach, as did her obvious satisfaction at someone else’s tragedy. If nothing else, Alison and Travis had that in common, given the man’s sick attitude toward the parachute incident.
“What about Les? He wasn’t an old enemy.”
“No. That was unfortunate. But he wouldn’t let go of cases that bothered him, even after he retired. When you told me he’d set up a meeting with you, I had a feeling there was going to be trouble.”
“Your staging of his fire was impressive.” Somehow Bri instilled a hint of admiration into the compliment. “How did you manage to make his death look like an accident? Make all of them look like accidents?”
“Careful planning. I excel at that.” A smug note crept into Alison’s inflection. “The short timeframe with Les was a challenge, though. I’d studied the others for weeks, but with him, I had to think fast. In the end, I decided to stop by his house with Ambien-laced brownies to congratulate him on his retirement. Once he was out, I vaporized bourbon in a nebulizer and had him inhale it. Voila—a drunk, drugged former fire investigator. Ingenious, wasn’t it?”
Bri swallowed past the bile rising in her throat at the woman’s gloating manner. “Very.”
“Ambien was useful with Sophie the night I took care of Nate too. It kept her sound asleep while I was gone.”
And gave Alison an alibi.
The woman had dotted all the i’s and crossed all the t’s.
“You took Les’s Waterford clock, right?”
“Yes. A small souvenir. Dropping it was my one mistake. Ithink you’d have shelved the investigation if you hadn’t found the broken corner. Of course, it didn’t help that his daughter gave you the list she found, either. I knew you’d dig in after that.”
“Is that when you decided I was a threat?” Bri gave the area around her a discreet inspection, searching for something ... anything ... that could help her escape this crazy woman.
“I did start to worry. So I began following you, watching your patterns, in case I had to take drastic action. That’s how I was able to enlist the help of our friend there.” She waved the pistol toward Travis.
“It’s amazing how you’ve pulled all this off.” Bri continued to surreptitiously scrutinize everything within arm’s reach.
“Like I said, I have excellent planning skills.” She stood, and Bri’s pulse surged as she snapped her attention back to the woman. “Tonight included.”
“Tell me about that.” She had to come up with a plan. Fast. “Why do you think you won’t get caught?”
“Because Travis is clearly the culprit. Once authorities find the rental car in the parking lot and discover the history between the two of you, the obvious assumption will be that he came to town to seek revenge. Which he did. Maybe not to this extent, but law enforcement won’t know that. They’ll come to the logical conclusion.”
“But he’s dead.”
“Yes. Poor guy. It happened while you two tussled—and you have the injuries to prove that. He does too. I noticed the abrasion on his chin. In the struggle, you shot him with your gun. But he also got off a couple of shots. Neither of you survived.”
The plan was audacious, clever, and pure evil.
Somehow, Bri managed to hide her revulsion.
How could she ever have been fooled by this woman?
Yet based on all the victims who’d preceded her, she wasn’t alone.
Except she didn’t intend to follow in their footsteps. She was going to win this battle of wits by using the idea that suddenly popped into her mind.
Her weapon of choice would be Alison’s Achilles’ heel—furry little creatures that prowled around in the dark.
Yes, the odds were against her—but in a hand-to-hand skirmish with another woman in similar physical condition, she’d be better able to hold her own than she had in the scuffle with Travis.
If she got that far.
“You’ve really thought this through.” Bri bent down on the pretext of massaging her leg, searching the debris around her.
A few loose pebbles at her feet would do the trick.
