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“It wasn’t hard,” Marissa huffed. “That doggie door is very easy to jimmy. I just had to wait until the mutt wasn’t around.”
My gaze darted to the left, where Star had been sleeping. He was nowhere in sight, and my heart thumped in my chest. Where was he? Was he hiding?
“I’m still confused about the gun,” I said, my hands up near my chest.
“Put the gun down, and we’ll talk, Marissa,” Hazel said from behind me.
“You don’t get to tell me what to do, Hazel Lago, or should I say Cane. Nice touch there. For once, your stupid addiction came in handy.”
At first, I thought my heart would pound out of my chest, but suddenly I was worried it was about to be shattered to smithereens. Had Hazel been lying to me all along?
Hazel stepped to the side and walked around my chair, putting herself in the line of fire. Everything in me screamed to protect her, but I didn’t know how. Not when I was on the wrong side of the gun.
“Wait,” Hazel said, her body stiff as she faced off with this unstable woman. “Were you involved with Dr. Felding’s crimes?”
Marissa started to clap slowly, jostling the gun each time she did. “It took you long enough. This small-town love affair must have muddled your brain, Hazel. You’re usually much quicker on the draw.”
“I don’t understand. Felding was the doctor. How did you get involved in this?”
Marrisa’s shrug said we were in real trouble, and probably weren’t getting out of this one alive. My heart broke knowing that whatever secrets Hazel was keeping, she didn’t think she could trust me with them. That decision meant we’d never have a life together like we’d imagined. We’d have no life at all if this woman had her way.
“Travis is the doctor, but his claims of innocence are true. He had no idea I was using his practice to file extra claims for real, fake, and dead patients. It wasn’t hard. Florida has a high geriatric rate, and with so many elderly people requiring care, it was easy to slip those claims in and have them pay out.”
“Why on earth are you still here then? It’s been over a year!” Hazel exclaimed while I watched her anger boil to the surface. “You could have left town months ago.”
“This is where your high and mighty thinking goes wrong, dear Hazel. You assume I stopped filing the claims when he was arrested. You’d be wrong. He wasn’t the only doctor I was using for this purpose. It’s good that you zeroed in on Felding and didn’t dig any deeper. It afforded me so much extra time and money. While you were here playing kissy face, I was raking in millions of dollars in payouts. I appreciate the assist, but our time together has now come to a close. It’s getting a little too hot to stick around Florida, so I decided on a little detour to Michigan to cool off, end your perfectly pretty life, and abscond with my riches like Robin Hood.”
“Robin Hood steals from the rich to give to the poor, you idiot,” I muttered.
“That’s exactly what happened. I stole from the rich to give to the poor. Me. I’m the poor,” Marissa hissed, tapping herself in the chest with the gun. The woman had clearly never used a gun before. “Not anymore, though. Now the only poor one will be pitiful Hazel. I imagine the funeral will be touching. Too bad I can’t stick around for it.”
“Were you the person who hit me in the park in September?” Hazel asked. It felt like she was buying time to formulate a plan, but I only had one. If I got the chance, I’d take it. It would result in me taking another bullet in this life, but if it kept Hazel safe, I’d gladly take all the bullets in that gun.
“What? No. I didn’t even know where you were until three days ago. It’s a shame that didn’t finish you off. I could have saved a trip.”
“Did you help Travis escape?” Hazel asked as she inched to the side more until she was in front of me.
I couldn’t let things go down this way. She would kill us both if I didn’t do something, and I wasn’t okay with that. Moving my chair was going to be difficult, though. It wasn’t as though I could hide what I was doing.
“Now why would I do that?” she asked, starting her pacing again. When her back was turned, I rolled to the side of Hazel, who gave me a side eye that could wither weaker men. “The idiot ran because he was terrified of going to prison. He cut off his ankle bracelet and took off for greener pastures. Too bad he didn’t get very far. Hard when all your assets are frozen and you have no friends willing to stick their necks out for you. When I heard he was back in custody, I decided it was time to get out before I was next. The FBI was breathing down my neck and I didn’t like the smell of their breath.”
“You do realize once the FBI knows their witness is dead, they’re going to know it was you.”
Witness? Was Hazel in the witness protection program? None of this made any sense! I was about to die because of something that happened in Florida. Something Hazel brought to this town and didn’t think would impact us? I drew a deep breath and tried to remember that she couldn't tell anyone if she was in witness protection.
“Maybe,” Marissa said. “But by then, it won’t matter. I’ll be on the beach in the Maldives. Don’t worry,” she said, turning back to Hazel. “Every Christmas, I’ll have a candy cane in your memory.”
“You’re never going to get away with this,” Hazel said, shaking her head.
“Maybe not,” Marissa said, her face twisted in a sadistic smile as she walked toward us. “But it will make me feel better to watch you go from high and mighty to broken and small, the same way you always treated me!”
“I did no such thing, Marissa!” Hazel exclaimed.
Anger, hurt, pain, and fear rocketed through me at the terror in Hazel’s voice.
“I treated you like an equal!”
The fist Marissa threw was so fast Hazel never saw it coming. Her head twisted to the right, and blood flew across the room. “Ha!” Marissa exclaimed, her body shaking with rage. “You acted like you’d done me such a favor by getting me that job and rescuing me from a life on the streets.” She paused and tapped her chin with the gun.
