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“Had to find the insurance policy.”
It clicked. “And when it wasn’t there, you went to the storage facility.” She frowned. “But how did you know about that?”
“Found the receipt on your kitchen counter. Noticed indentations in the carpet like you’d moved some things and figured I’d try there. And what do you know? Gold.”
“Why am I still alive? You could have killed me when I was unconscious.”
“Well, if the bald tires on the car had worked, it would have looked like an accident and I’d be well on my way to collecting my two mil. But once you saw my face—and thought I was Adam—I figured you’d be telling everyone that, so ... I had to tweak the plan. Convinceyou—and everyone else—that Adam was alive. I already had a head start on that since his family believed he was just hiding from you, but now that you’d seen me and I realized you thought I was my brother ... well, the rest of it kind of fell in place. I already had his ID, his birth certificate, all that. I just had to stay one step ahead of everyone. As to why you’re alive now? Because I had a question I want answered too.”
“What question?” She might as well give him what he wanted.
He frowned. “What were you doing at that address after you left the cemetery office?”
She told him about the pictures and the teen who’d been buried there.
He raised a brow. “So that’s what you were doing there. Clever. I didn’t even think of that. That’s kind of disappointing for me, but whatever. It all worked out in the end. The grave was dug up and the body wasn’t Adam’s.” He shifted the weapon and Lainie tensed.
“How did you know about the dry cleaning?” she asked.
“Adam told me, of course. It was such a simple thing to take in a few shirts and pick them up in Adam’s name. The guy was new, he had no idea. And since no ID is ever required, it was just one of those things that was so random that it had to be believed.”
“You let the receipt fall out of the car on purpose.”
“Of course. And you did exactly as you were supposed to with it. And everything else I’d set up. I thought I did really well in the measly two weeks I had to put everything together. Removing the headstone so you didn’t have to get an exhumation order was pretty brilliant, don’t you think? All of it was, if you think about it.”
She didn’t want to think about it. Her mind circled back to his friend at the hospital. Someone who’d lost a loved one because of—“She killed herself. Over a man. Orrather a woman whostoleher man. Someone who luredhim away from her.”
“Bridgette,” she said.
Michael paused. “What?”
“It was Bridgette’s sister, wasn’t it?”
“How did you put that together?”
“She said something about her sister at work one day and was so bitter about her suicide and the fact that a man dumped her. She was in love with Adam, wasn’t she? And that’s why Bridgette helped you. To get back at me for stealing Adam from Elle.” Even though she hadn’t known Adam had been dating someone when they met.
“You’re definitely smart.”
Lainie bit her lip, trying to keep her voice from wobbling. “Why me?” she asked. “Out of all the people in the world, why did Adam pick me?”
He studied her a moment, glanced at the clock on the mantel, then back at her. “I asked Adam that and he said it was because you were an easy mark. Very trusting and needy. You let your family run all over you, and you never complained about getting stuck with the dirty jobs at work. He called you the perfect victim without an interfering family to keep him from his goals.”
He was right. Her family wasn’t nosy about her business. They pretty much ignored her and anything she did. Except when it interfered with whattheywanted.
The perfect victim.
His words pelted like sharp arrows. They were nothing she hadn’t said about herself, of course, but this was different.
This was ... she didn’t know what it was, but ...Whywas it different?
Because she no longer believed it.
Because of James.
And now she had to live so she could tell him.
But Michael lifted the weapon and aimed it at her.
