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“No. I would have taken care of her. I love her.” Mom shakes her head looking as if Garrett’s offended her. “Taking her wasn’t part of the plan at first. But I got attached and I was taking her with me to save her,” she whispers.
“Save her from what?” Garrett yells in her face, his rage starting to climb back up again.
“From you.” She stares back at him cruelly. “From all of this. This ranch is cursed and she deserves better.”
“Don’t youdaretell me what my kids need! Not when you weren’t there for your own,” he swipes back at her.
“I didn’t have a choice in that.” She loses her cool and screams hysterically, causing me and Wade to glance at each other in concern.
“Of course, you had a fuckin’ choice. You could have gone to the cops, you could have gotten yourself a lawyer. But you didn’t, you left us with a man who killed our grandpa and you never looked back.”
“Wait… whatwasthe fuckin’ plan?” I interrupt when I pick up on something she said earlier.
“You said taking her wasn’t part of the plan. What did you come here to do?” I narrow my eyes on her.
“This was the plan,” Garrett answers for her, taking a document out from his back pocket and tossing it onto her lap. “Over $500,000 our dad had in an offshore account that she knew about.” Garrett looks at her in disgust. “You didn’t come here to build bridges or to get your family back. You came here to get rich.”
Mom closes her eyes as Garrett spits his allegation at her.
“And you know what I’m finding a little suspicious… Those men who broke in and killed Dad a couple of years ago told methey were looking for this too. Said someone had paid ‘em to break in and find it. I can’t imagine many other people knew about it.” He folds his arms over his chest while he waits for her answer.
“No.” Wade shakes his head in disbelief. “Mom, you didn’t…”
“I wasn’t workin’ alone.” She clears her throat as if that makes any difference.
“Mason… This shit’s got him written all over it.” I shake my head and laugh bitterly. That old bastard really has it coming to him.
“No, not Mason. Cora,” Mom announces proudly and when I lift my head back up to face her, I realize me and my brothers are all wearing the same shocked look.
“Cor… Maisie’s Mom?” Garrett checks he heard right.
“I met her back in L.A., she was in a bar drowning her sorrows after her latest failed relationship. We got drinking together, and she opened up about how she selected her men. Turns out I had the perfect guy for her.”
“Mom.” Wade looks broken.
“I helped her find him, I knew he’d been on dating sites for years, I used to make fake profiles and talk to him myself sometimes. Build up his hopes, then dash ‘em again. You know how selective your father was. The fact I knew the man inside out helped Cora make him putty in her hands.”
“You sick bitches.” Wade helps himself to another bottle when it all becomes too much.
“The plan was for them to get married, for her to live the high life for however long she could drain him of it, and for me to get this.” Her eyes drop to the document on her lap.
“That wasn’t just Dad’s, Mom, it was ours. In case anything goes wrong. In case we lost everything. You were gonna…”
“Garrett, I think we’ve already established I’m not the best mother in the world.” She smiles at him sarcastically. When heturns his back and steps away from her, I know it’s so he can retain his rage.
“So what happened, you obviously didn’t get it?” Wade questions her and I don’t like the look I see on her face.
“Bill wasn’t supposed to die that night, it was just supposed to be a home invasion. Somehow, Cora fucked up. I knew she’d end up doing something stupid. But anyway, the contact we’d used to set up the home invasion went black on me. Cora went black on me too, and I figured that maybe she’d screwed me over.
“But she didn’t.” Wade looks at the documents on Mom’s lap.
“By the time I figured that out it was too late. I’d already made her pay for it.” She sighs
“Hang on, are you sayin’…” Garrett snaps his head back around and looks ready to blow. “Did you kill Maisie’s Mom?”
“I’d thought that would be the one thing you’d thank me for.” Mom chuckles to herself. “She was gonna drain your father of everything. When I left here, I promised myself that your father would be the last person who ever screwed me over. I thought Cora had screwed me over.” She shrugs.
I watch all the color drain from Garrett’s face.
