The Killing Game(50)
“Yes! What does she want? OMG,” she muttered again and began chewing on her thumbnail like a pit bull on a bone.
Scott held himself back from yanking her hand from her mouth. He also hated the way she verbalized texting shortcuts, but she was his meal ticket. She might not realize that fact, but he sure did. “Well, good. It’s about time they got back to us. That f*cking Carter’s been refusing my calls. Goddamn Wrens.”
“Don’t say that. You know how much I loved Greg.”
Scott’s black mood slipped into further decline. “They screwed you over, Meems. All of ’em, not just Greg. And now you’re goddamn Ebola.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re the plague, ding dong. The f*cking plague.”
“But I’m not pregnant anymore,” she said in that little baby voice that made his teeth hurt.
“I. Know. That.”
It pissed Scott off to no end that Mimi had been out playing volleyball on the beach last summer and jiggled the damn thing free. Oh, he’d heard that it just happened that way sometimes, women miscarried all the time, but he didn’t believe it. If she’d taken care of herself, they’d still be sitting pretty. A little bun in the oven, the only heir to the family fortune. He’d wanted to crow with laughter when they’d gone into those expensive offices and let the Wrens know that Gregory stick-up-his-butt Wren had f*cked his sister senseless and would now pay the price. Woo-wee! Scott had been on cloud nine. Couldn’t wait to twist the knife and cut out a hunk of that Wren dough for himself. Oh, he knew the Wrens. Had damn near grown up with Carter and Greg . . . well, at least during the summers, when the Wrens visited their lake place. He knew how rich they were. He’d seen them from afar and had speculated on their money even when he was a kid. Scott knew the value of a dollar, yessirree.
He’d planned to find a way to be just like the Wrens, though some of his money-making plans hadn’t quite worked out. Like that alfalfa farm . . . shoulda been a gold mine, but his own shitty luck had held out and he’d lost every dime he owned on that venture. He’d been toying with becoming a marijuana grower. Hell, they were making bank in Washington, and now Oregon was about a year behind and he could get in while the getting was good. But meanwhile, dear little Mimi had been growing into a woman. A real woman at that. With her long legs and perky tits—a little small, perhaps, but they stood up nice—Mimi had stepped across Greg and Carter’s paths . . . with only the smallest push from Scott.
Carter hadn’t shown much interest, but Greg’s eyes had followed little sis in a way that had made Scott chortle. He’d arranged for Meems to be in the same building with Wren Construction, telling her to pretend she was visiting one of the law firms. And then Greg had headed out to lunch and she’d literally run into him, the oldest trick in the book, just dumb, little old Meems accidentally falling into his arms, spilling the contents of her purse. One thing led to another and they were meeting for a drink or two. Happy hour spilled into happy evenings together, during which Greg had admitted his marriage was all but dead. He’d been ripe for the picking and it hadn’t taken long at all for Mimi to wangle him into the sack and then ka bam! Bonanza! A new Wren in the nest!
He’d hustled her down to the Wren offices and it had been perfect. Just perfect. The best day of his life. They’d all been there: Carter and Emma and Greg and Andrea Wren, the poor, misunderstood, cheated-on wife. It was such a coup! Andrea had been weirdly contained: no hysterics, although her face had drained of color. All the drama was from Meems, who was crying, swearing she loved Greg, the stunned idiot, and making a damn fool out of herself, which was all the better. Neither Carter nor Greg acted like they even remembered Scott, though he knew they did. As far as they were concerned, Scott was just dog shit on the soles of their shoes they’d scraped off years earlier.
In that one moment, Scott had been triumphant. Bet you don’t forget me now, he’d thought smugly, even while he’d been jealous of the man for being married to such a sophisticated beauty. How had he given that up to shtup Meems? Libido was a bitch sometimes, he guessed, though he, Scott, would never let a woman’s vagina get between him and his goals.
But then, Jesus, the guy died. Just like that. One moment Scott was in the catbird seat. The next he was scrambling around to keep the remaining Wrens aware that they had a new heir on the way. Scott had tried to contact Carter almost immediately, but he never got past the receptionist, who kept coolly putting him off. Cunt. Who the hell did she think she was? No minimum wager was going to keep him from getting to Carter and Emma and the ice queen widow.
And then . . . the f*cking volleyball game during which Mimi lost the baby. He’d nearly lost his mind. What? What? Unbelievable. Mimi had still been weepy over Greg’s death and had gone to the beach with friends to feel better. Scott had warned her to be careful, but had she listened? God no. When did Meems ever listen? The only saving grace was that the Wrens didn’t know the baby was gone. So, okay, the big score was no more thanks to stupid Meems, but there had still been time to devise a way to get a slice of Wren cash. Maybe they’d like to pay for an “abortion,” say. He doubted any of them was going to want to share with Greg’s bastard. He’d been just getting ready to make the first move on his new plan, a tearful Meems saying she couldn’t keep the baby and a late-term abortion was sooo expensive and dangerous, and probably not even legal, but there were ways . . .