A Margin of Lust (The Seven Deadly Sins #1)(76)

"Where."

"Where what?" Mo's voice rose.

"Where's the leak? She's going to ask me for details. You want this to be believable, don't you?"

He huffed and walked to the window. "Okay, okay. You're right. I'm being hasty. Let's just calm down and make a plan." He faced her. "What's the plan?"

"It could be a slab leak. That happens pretty often in California," Gwen said.

"No, there's a basement. How soon we forget." His face contorted into a nasty grin.

"Okay then, the basement is flooding." Gwen ignored his cruelty. The conversation was surreal. They were concocting a plan to lure Fiona into danger with as little emotion as if they were making dinner plans.

"That's good. A pipe burst and the cellar is flooding. That will bring her out. There's a lot of storage. She doesn't know what's in the wine cellar, but she may assume there's something of value there. She's a greedy bitch. She'll come for the money."

Mo pushed the call button and handed the phone to me.

"Hello," Fiona's voice answered. Until that moment, the call had been an idea, an abstract. It's easy to throw an abstract to the wolves to save your skin, but now the abstract was someone Gwen knew.

"Hi," Gwen's voice was shaky. Mo would most likely kill her, but she planned to tell Fiona to stay far away.

"Sorry I can't come to the phone right now, but your call is important to me. Leave me a message, and I'll call you back. Promise." A long beep rang in Gwen's ear. Relief mingled with disappointment.

"Answering machine," Gwen said.

Mo's face flared red. For a moment, she thought he was going to backhand her again. Instead, he took the phone and threw it across the room. It cracked into the wall leaving a gouge.

He brought his face inches from hers and screamed. "Why do these things always happen to me?" He jerked away and threw himself against the French doors so hard she was amazed he didn't break the glass. His right hand crawled up his chest and neck and buried itself in his hair.

"Nothing is ever easy. I plan and I plan and I plan and I plan and look what happens. I think I'm... I think I'm cursed." He looked at Gwen, his eyes pleading for understanding. "I always thought curses were superstitious nonsense." His hand flew up and a tuft of hair fluttered to the floor. The hand burrowed again.

"When this place came on the market, I thought my luck had changed. It was perfect. This had been her home. He'd sat with her here." His left hand drew a circle where furniture must have once been placed. His right was busy. Another wisp of hair floated from his head.

"I'd thought it was my mother's fault. That he never accepted me, you know?" His monologue changed course again. Gwen couldn't make sense of his ramblings, but didn't dare speak. She scarcely breathed. He was so volatile; a careless word would be like a match to spilled gasoline.

"I thought it was my mother who cursed me." He stared out the windows at the ocean, his face expressionless. Only his hand seemed alive. It plucked at his hair like it was weeding a flowerbed.

"I was wrong," he said, his head snapping toward Gwen, his words and movements so abrupt she started. "It was Fiona. She took his love, his attention, his money. She took what was mine. You understand what I'm saying?"

Gwen nodded because he seemed to expect a response.

He leaned forward and held his palms to the ceiling. Strands of brown hair dangled from the fingers of his right hand. "The only way to break her power is to get rid of her."

"But, he's gone. Your father's gone. What good would it do?" Gwen believed he was past reason, but she had to try. "You've got the wine. Just take it and go."

"That's what I'd planned to do." He paced across the room in short, quick steps. "I thought it would redeem the lost years, you know, to have something of his."

"It would, wouldn't it?"

"No," he spun on her. "There's no room for me. Not while she's alive." He resumed his pacing. "I don't want to kill you, Gwen; I really don't. I feel we've become, if not friends, at least allies. I helped you. I got rid of Lance. And, I know you wanted to help me with my project."

Gwen's heart knocked against her ribs. She'd come to grips with the idea of dying when she'd been tied in the dark—almost welcomed it at some points. Now that she'd tasted life again the idea of leaving it was sharp and painful.

"We'll try Fiona again." Gwen tried to match his matter-of-fact tone.

"No, it's no good. She knows. Somehow she knows." he said. "You tried. I appreciate that, but I'm going to have to come up with another way." A click punctuated his sentence—the sound of a blade pushing up through the box cutter's protective cover.





CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX


Art heard a sharp click.

"I won't say anything. You don't have to do this." Gwen said.

The fear in her voice made him want to leap through the doorway, but he restrained himself. He'd waited for the police as he'd promised Mike, for about three minutes. Then he'd gotten out of his car and walked through the dilapidated wooden gate. Mo's blue sedan sat in the drive, hidden by an oversized fig tree.