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“If it was perfect, Vanna wouldn’t be dead, would she?”
Jolene hesitated, clearly caught off guard that he’d managed to figure out she was responsible.
“You really are too clever for your own good.”
“Why did you kill her?”
Jolene regained command of her composure, sending him a mocking smile. “Because she became engaged. To your brother, I believe.”
Kaden jerked as the unexpected words bit into him. Like tiny shards of ice. “You murdered her because she was engaged to Darren?”
“Yes. It made her greedy.”
He struggled to understand what she was implying. “Vanna wanted more money?”
“No.” Jolene looked exasperated by his question. “I would have given her money. She wanted her child back.”
Kaden’s mouth dropped open, his brain trying to grapple with the shock of Jolene’s revelation. No, it wasn’t shock. It was whatever was beyond shock.
Of all the reasons for Vanna to be in Pike, the very last one he would have guessed was that she wanted the baby she’d bartered away.
“Christ,” he finally breathed.
Chapter 28
A silence as thick as the winter snow settled around Kaden as he stared at Jolene in disbelief. His words felt stuck in his throat as the woman abruptly tilted back her head to laugh. Was she amused by Vanna’s death?
“The stupid bitch showed up one morning with a suitcase of money claiming she changed her mind,” she said, shaking her head in disbelief. “She said she was getting married soon and she wanted her baby.”
Kaden cleared the lump in his throat. Had Darren’s gentle devotion touched a thread of decency inside Vanna? Did she finally realize her child wasn’t an asset to be sold off?
With an effort, Kaden shoved aside all thoughts of his brother and what might have been. Later, he would sort through his tangled emotions. Right now, he had to keep Jolene distracted.
“What happened?”
“Exactly what you would expect to happen,” Jolene said dryly. “Tate burst out of his office and promised he would take care of it. As if I would ever trust him. They drove off before I could tell her exactly what she could do with the money.”
“Do you know what happened between them?”
“Of course I do. I’m not stupid.” She tossed her golden curls. “I followed them to this very spot.”
Kaden glanced around the room, a niggling alarm sounding in the back of his mind. There was something he should remember. Something that had to do with Tate whisking away his pregnant lover to this place.
It took a moment, but at last he dredged up the memory of the envelope stuffed with evidence, and the picture that revealed Tate and Vanna standing in front of the building. That explained why they’d been there, standing in the snow. It also explained the piles of cash, although Kaden had jumped to the conclusion that Tate was giving it to Vanna. It’d never occurred to him it might have been just the opposite.
Kaden blinked, hit by another realization. “You took the picture.”
“Yes.” She tilted her chin to a defiant angle, as if she wasn’t quite as confident as she wanted him to believe. “I needed evidence that Vanna and my husband were in the habit of trading cash for their own child. Like she was a piece of property. If there was ever a custody case, I wanted proof I was the only fit parent.”
Kaden had to admit the woman was smart. A crazed lunatic but smart. The most dangerous kind of killer. Kaden cast another covert glance toward Lia. She was near the bunk bed. A couple more minutes and she would be in position to grab the gun.
“How did Burke get the picture?” he asked. Not only to keep Jolene distracted but because he was genuinely curious.
“I gave it to him. Ryan and I have been . . . close over the years.” Her lips twitched, the dimples deepening as she confessed to her affair with the businessman. Kaden grimaced. They called Vegas “Sin City,” but obviously small-town America was seething with its own dirty secrets. “I knew he’d keep it safe. Then I warned my husband I had the means to destroy him and his career if he tried to take my child away from me.”
“Wait.” Kaden held up his hand, sensing he’d missed something important. “Did Tate take the money from Vanna?”
“Naturally.” Jolene glared at the corpse with blatant loathing. “My husband was nothing if not predictable.”
