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“Well, good ‘ol Dusty there got him drunk, then shoved him in the pool. When he kept struggling and it looked like he might make it to the side, Dusty got in with him and held him under.” Wylde pointed to the screen again. “It’s all right there. He left the old man there until someone found him a day later. Gave the concrete time to dry so no one could tell anyone had exited the pool, and time to erase the security footage. Just so happened, the system was the basic model so there was no outside monitoring. Your boy there planned this pretty good, Rage.”
“He killed his own father?” I couldn’t stop the question, though I spoke so softly I wasn’t sure anyone could hear me.
“Afraid so,” Wylde continued. “He thought he’d get more insurance money than he did.”
“That policy was for half a million dollars! How much more did you need, you fucker?” Rage thundered at Dustin. I got it. Rage might not have had the best relationship with his father, but he was still Rage’s father.
“Apparently, more than he got.” Wylde glanced my way and my stomach knotted. “Uh, Rage, Sting…” He jerked his head to the side.
“Is this about me?” I had to know. I got a sinking feeling I wasn’t going to like what came next.
“I’m sorry, honey,” Wylde gave me a sympathetic look. “Maybe you should take a break for a bit. Yeah?” His gaze shifted to Rage.
“Are you accusing me or protecting me?” I almost dreaded the answer. I got the feeling that this wouldn’t be good no matter what happened.
“Honey, you’re a complete innocent in all this. I have some things I’d rather share with Sting and Rage first, though.” Wylde spoke kindly, almost with pity.
“Just do it,” I whispered. “Get it all over with. I need to get back to Cassie.”
“Pepper…” Again, Wylde looked at Rage before he spoke. “Dustin killed your mother, too.”
Chapter Eight
Rage
My gaze snapped to my brother even as I heard Pepper’s breath hitch. I was going to kill this bastard, and I was going to do it with joy in my heart. His whole life I’d looked after him because I thought it was my duty. It hadn’t been his fault my old man was a womanizer. I’d formed a bond with him when he was little and had tried to nurture him as best as I could. I’d gone to the military right out of high school, so I was gone more than I was home until he was in his teens. I’d thought we’d kept at least a semblance of a relationship, but either I was wrong, or the six years I’d spent trying to stay away from Pepper had changed him. Either way, today was the last day he drew breath.
“But… but my m-mother d-died from h-hypoglycemia.” Pepper’s voice quaked, and she wasn’t going to be able to hold it together much longer. Who could blame her? I knew now why Wylde had wanted to tell me and Sting so I could break it to her. Done was done, though.
“Honey, she was a known diabetic. She took insulin. He switched the medication on her to something stronger. At the dose she thought she was taking, even at night when she probably wouldn’t have taken as much, it was enough to bottom out her sugar while she was asleep. Not a very precise method, but effective in this case.”
“Wouldn’t the coroner have done an autopsy?” Sting asked the question. I already knew the answer to that. I’d been there with Dustin at the hospital. Because I thought he needed the support as well as Pepper. It was the only time he’d ever been there for Pepper. I didn’t think about it at the time, but looking back it was damned suspicious.
“Not necessarily. If the ER doc is willing to sign off on the death, then the coroner isn’t required to look into it more. They simply assumed she’d either taken too much accidentally or that her glucose meter gave her a false reading and she took too much based on that.”
“She was on a sliding scale,” Pepper offered quietly. “I remember the doctor telling us almost exactly the same thing.”
“Yeah. I read that in her medical chart.” Wylde looked sheepish. “I had to look into everything regarding you and Dustin, honey. I know it probably seems like a violation of privacy, but I had a feeling…”
“You were right,” she said softly. Moving around me, Pepper looked over where Dustin still sat. They’d tied him to the chair now so he couldn’t thrash his way free. “Why? My mother was my best friend, Dustin. Why’d you hurt her?”
“Why that method?” Sting asked Wylde sharply. “Wouldn’t it be easier to push her down the stairs and let everyone think she tripped?”
