Tell Me True (Call Me Cat Trilogy #3)(31)

She held a gun to my head and was about to pull the trigger when Jon pushed me to the side. "Mother, don't."

Her hand fell. "Jon? You're… you're dead."

"No. I'm not. I faked my death, Mother."

She blinked rapidly, not trusting her own eyes. "Why?"

"To draw out the Midnight Murderer." He sounded so sad, like a lost little boy.

She held her hand out to her son. "Come to me, Jon. Come to me, son. We can leave this all behind. We just have to get rid of everyone who can hurt us first."

He shook his head. "I'm sorry, Mother. I choose Cat."

I froze in that split second, knowing what he was about to do, shocked that he could really do it.

He raised his hand, which held a gun, and fired a bullet into his mother's forehead.





Chapter Thirty Six


Dangerous Games


THE DAY JIM DISAPPEARED


JIM WAITED AT a remote table in the corner at the coffee shop, his tattoos and dangerous look ill-fitted to the yuppie upper-middle-class clientele this establishment usually catered to.

I slipped in across from him and accepted the coffee he offered. Of course he knew how I liked it, being the stalker that he was. "Why did you want to meet without Ash?" I asked. Ever since he called me over and asked for a meeting, I'd been playing every scenario out in my mind, worried and wondering what he'd found.

"I know everything, Catelyn."

This could be a trap. A game to get me to reveal more than he'd discovered, so I waited for him to continue.

He smiled. "You play this well." And then he laid out my full plan, the plan that no one knew but myself. He really was the best P.I. money could buy.

"Why didn't you take this to Ash?"

"I might. I haven't decided. I want to know why first. I think I do, but I want to hear it from you."

"You know how my parents died," I said. "How my mother was raped in front of me and my father, and how they were both killed as I watched. How the Midnight Murderer stalked me, tortured me and tried to kill me. It has to end. I'm ending it."

"This is a dangerous game, Catelyn."

"I know. But I'm not going to be the one to lose this time."

"I can't get involved, but I won't stop you. I'll keep your secret, but if you get yourself killed, which you likely will, I'm telling Ash the truth. He deserves to know in that event."

It was more than I'd hoped for and I shook his hand. "Agreed."

"If anyone asks," he said, standing, "you know nothing about where I've been or where I'm going. Good luck, and don't hurt that man of yours. He really does love you."





Chapter Thirty Seven


Betrayal


PRESENT DAY


JON DROPPED HIS gun and grabbed me. "We're safe now, Cat. We can be together. You still want to be together, don't you?"

I looked up into his handsome face, a blond lock of hair falling into his eyes, and wondered what I should say. He'd just killed his mother. His blue eyes were glossed over and he surely had to be in shock.

I shook, in shock myself that he could kill his mother like that without hesitation.

"Jon…" I pulled away just slightly and had him sit on a trunk. "Jon, I…"

He glanced away and stared past my shoulder. "Cavin?" His eyes widened. "Cat, you have to—"

Three shots and Jon fell forward and crumbled to the floor like a pair of old pants. "Jon!"

I turned to see Cavin holding Mrs. Davenport's gun. "This has been an unexpected party," he said, a gleam of madness in his eyes. Had the whole world gone crazy?

"What did you just do?"

"I had to tie up loose ends. It's probably for the best. The charade had to end eventually."

I sunk to my knees, everything in me spent. "It was you all along, wasn't it? You were there that night. You raped and killed my mother."

"You always were a clever girl, just like your mother." He ran a finger over my cheek and I shuddered and pulled away. He laughed. "Just like your mother. I'm going to have fun with you, just like I did your mother. I've waited so very long for this."

He held the gun to my temple as he tore open my shirt, exposing my bare breasts, and ran a hand over one. "You might even be more beautiful than her."

My stomach cramped and my vision blurred. I trusted him. Saw him as my protector, my mentor. "She trusted you. She never suspected you would turn on her."

"That's the beauty of it." He knelt before me, running a hand through my hair as he held the gun steady. "Poor Catelyn. You know, she did in fact set up a trust for you. Nothing shockingly huge, she had a lot of debts to pay as she tried to pull out of our little club, but she made sure you were taken care of."

"But…"

"I was the executor of her will. Whoops. Forgot to tell you that, didn't I? Well, I had to see what you were made of. You were her daughter, but you were also his daughter. The man who made her weak and pathetic. The man she was going to give up everything for."

"My father was a better man than you could ever be."

"And look what that got him," Cavin said. "I've killed and lived to enjoy it. I have people of every walk of life in my pocket. Your daddy is dead. Who won that game, eh?"