Defending Morgan (Mountain Mercenaries #3)(79)

“Get out,” Arrow mumbled from next to her. “She put something in the cookies. I only had one and a half. I can’t move. Get out now.”

“I can’t leave you!” Morgan said, completely freaked out. It was as if she’d walked into the twilight zone.

“Leave!” Arrow ordered, but his voice was weak and unsteady.

“No one is leaving,” Ellie scolded them. She was standing in front of them holding the plate of cookies she’d retrieved from the kitchen. “In fact, I think more cookies are in order. Look, they’re your favorite, Morgan. S’mores. I made them just for you and your boyfriend.”

“Mom, how’d you make Dad pay?” Morgan asked. She ignored the way Arrow gripped her thigh. She knew he wanted her to make a run for it, but she wasn’t going to leave him there with her obviously unstable mother. He hadn’t left her in Santo Domingo, so there was no way she was leaving him now. In the back of her mind, she knew it wasn’t the same thing, but she didn’t care.

“I took away the only thing he ever wanted from me.”

Morgan stared at her mother in horror, knowing what she was going to say before she said it.

“His daughter. I took you away from him and watched in glee as he suffered. And it was glorious.”

“Mom,” Morgan whimpered. “It was you? You had me kidnapped?”

“Yup. And your father was beside himself. Boo-hooing to whoever would listen. I took you, and there was nothing he could do about it!”

“I was raped,” Morgan whispered. “Beaten. Starved.”

“All the better to make him feel guilty!” Ellie crowed.

“You don’t even care?” Morgan asked in disbelief.

“That he felt bad? No way!”

“No, Mom, about me!” Morgan yelled. “I was in hell, and you did it to get back at Dad?”

“It worked too!” she bragged. “Until this asshole had to go and rescue you. Your father had the grand reunion he’d been praying to have for an entire year. He had you back, and that wasn’t part of my plan. He got to be on TV. His name is known throughout the country now, and he got even richer than he was before as a result. His stupid company’s stocks soared! That wasn’t supposed to happen. He hadn’t suffered enough!”

“What about me? Hadn’t I suffered enough?”

Ellie waved her hand as if her daughter’s words were unimportant. “But I decided to show him. His precious daughter was going to get sick. Reeeeally sick. No one would be able to figure out what from. Some tropical disease. But then you had to ruin that too by leaving and coming back up here! I had it all planned out. You’d slowly get sick from drinking my special blend of orange juice. But you always did have too much of your father in you. Ruining everything.”

“That’s why my stomach hurt and I had headaches?” Morgan asked, shaking her head. “You were poisoning me? With what?”

“My friends scored me some ethylene glycol. I could’ve just gotten some antifreeze from the store, but it’s a weird green color. You might’ve noticed. I wanted the pure stuff. I was skeptical that it would work, but look at your boyfriend—I’d say it works just fine!” Ellie laughed.

Morgan turned to look at Arrow. He looked awful. And all because her mom had poisoned him. She could barely wrap her mind around what was happening.

“Why Arrow?” Morgan asked. “He didn’t do anything to you.”

“Oh yes, he did!” her mom countered. “First, he found you. Second, he was able to get you out of the Dominican Republic without being caught by my friends. Third, he convinced you to come back up here. And fourth . . . I just don’t like him or his stupid friends.”

Morgan clenched the hand that wasn’t holding on to Arrow. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She’d known her mom had been to the doctor often when Morgan was growing up, but she’d had no idea what for. Now she realized it had to be for some sort of personality disorder. There was no way her mother had been this psychotic her entire life and it hadn’t been noticed.

“Mom . . . I didn’t know you felt like that. I don’t even like Dad. I was visiting him because I thought you wanted me to.” Morgan tried to placate her mother. If she could get her to think she was on her side, maybe she’d have a chance of getting out of this alive. And getting Arrow to a doctor.

“Liar,” Ellie said calmly. It was all the more scary because of the way she said it. “I know what you’re doing. You’re just trying to make me let down my guard. But it won’t work. Don’t you see, baby? You have to die to show your father that he can’t make a fool out of me. He can’t sleep with his secretary right under my nose and get away with it!”

“I didn’t have anything to do with that,” Morgan said softly, still trying to reason with her mother.

But there was no getting through to Ellie Jernigan. She was lost in the delusion her mind had created. “You need to eat these cookies, baby,” she cooed. “They’re your favorite. You won’t even taste the poison.”

“No,” Morgan said. “I need to call the police and get Arrow some help.”

“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that,” Ellie said with a sigh. Then she put the plate of cookies down on the table and reached for her purse on the floor. She was fiddling with it when Morgan looked at Arrow to see if he had any bright ideas about what to do. She saw all his attention was on her mother.