The Killing Game(51)

But he didn’t want Andrea Wren to be the one to make the first overture to Mimi. How had that happened? Fucking A. He was pretty sure she’d nix the idea of an abortion at this late date. She’d just had a miscarriage herself, hadn’t she? God. Maybe she would want to keep the baby! That was no good. No good at all.

He needed to deal with Carter or Emma, the true Wrens. They would be more likely to fork over the dough. If he played it right, he might be able to squeeze ten thousand out of them, right? A promise of discretion might go a long way. Or . . . maybe even twenty, if Mimi could be any kind of actress and pretend she was seesawing over losing her precious unborn child.

Andrea Wren, though . . . she had to hate Meems and, by association, him. She couldn’t get in the way now. Scott wasn’t going to let it happen.

“Well, what did you say to her?” he demanded. He wished he’d been paying closer attention, but he always closed his ears to Mimi’s babbling. A sane person could only stand so much. Every time she was on the phone with friends he wanted to yank the cell from her hand and throw it across the room.

“I told her I was busy, but then she said she would stop by Nailed It tomorrow to see me, so I told her to come over now.”

“Come over here? Now?” Scott swooped up his laptop and leaped to his feet. “Goddamn it, Meems! You’re such a f*cking pushover. Go get dressed. And put that baby bump on. Jesus, you should be showing a lot by now. Goddamn it!”

“I can’t lie to her, Scott,” she burbled, her big blue eyes filling with tears.

Scott counted to three and forced a smile. “You have to. Or call her back and get out of it.”

“But then she’ll come to see me at work! I can’t do her nails. I can’t!”

“Well, I can’t be here.”

“What am I gonna do?” Her wail had turned into a shriek.

Scott set the laptop back down on the table, counted to ten, then went to his sister, placing his hands on her shoulders and looking deeply into her dewy eyes. “Listen to me. The Wrens owe you, you know that. Greg loved you and they killed him.” She started to shake her head, but he went on harshly, “They killed him. You know they did. They’d just found out about you and they thought you were in the car and they pushed his car off the road.” This was the lie he’d told her so often he almost believed it himself. Almost.

“It was a single-car accident,” she insisted, saying the words by rote, as if they were in some foreign language. She could mimic the sound, but she had no idea what the words meant.

“Fucking A, Mimi. That’s what they want you to believe. They probably came at him in another car and Greg swerved to avoid them. It only looks like a single-car accident. It could have been his wife who went after him after she found out he was screwing around. She doesn’t want to share her part of their fortune with somebody else’s brat.”

“I don’t think—” she began, but he cut her off.

“True, Meems. True! You don’t think. Not enough.”

“No . . .”

“Yes!” he insisted, his fingers digging into her shoulders.

“Greg said he and his wife had drifted apart from each other. He called her Andi. They couldn’t have children. I thought he’d be so thrilled when I told him I was pregnant, but—”

“Never mind.” Scott didn’t want to hear that again. He was sick of Mimi bemoaning how the news of her pregnancy seemed to send Greg back into his wife’s arms. Counterintuitive, but then, who knew what guilt would make people do? Scott knew Wren’s car slipping over the embankment was just an unfortunate accident, but that wasn’t going to help him now. Mimi had to feel some righteous indignation if she was going to play this right. And she needed to play it right.

“Sweetie,” he went on in a conciliatory tone, “if we don’t get some money soon, we’re gonna be out on our asses. Fucking rent’s skyrocketing, especially around the goddamn lake.”

“We could move back to Laurelton,” she said hopefully.

“This is where we grew up,” he reminded her tightly. “We’re not getting run out by the people with all the money. Gentrification. Goddamn it! We belong here, too.”

She tried to think. He could practically see the wheels trying to turn in her mind, though they were slipping a few cogs.

“Maybe,” she said, “it was those brothers who ran Greg off the road. Those twins.” Her mouth wobbled and more tears filled her eyes.

He had to give her credit for that one. She could almost be right about the Carreras. “That’s not what happened,” he said. He had to keep her on track. “Now listen to me. Andrea Wren’s going to be here soon, so I’ve gotta leave.”

“No!” She gazed at him in fear.

“You need to do this alone.”

“Oh, Scott. I can’t!”

“Yes, you can.” He steered her toward the bedroom and she tried to dig her boot heels into the carpet, but he was stronger and Mimi was always one to give in. “Put on a loose blouse. Where is that damn bun-in-the-oven thing? Get it out and put it on.”

“It’s in the bottom drawer,” she said dispiritedly. She stared at the blue chest of drawers with the white knobs. Mimi’d had it since they were kids and was fond of it, had planned to use it for the baby, whereas Scott had thrown all measure of their earlier life with their single mom away. Depressing stuff.