Pretty Little Wife(91)

She didn’t want him to say the words, so she did. “Kill them.”

“Now you get it. You put the animal down.”

“Jared . . .”

He actually smiled at her. “Aaron didn’t have the stomach for it. He liked to mess with girls, have sex with them. It was this weird conquer them thing he had. But you know that because you were his biggest prize.”

She couldn’t let her mind go there.

She reached into her pocket and brought out her pocketknife. Tucked it into her palm. “This is your cabin.”

His gaze bounced to her fingers then back up to her face. “Now you’re catching on.”

“You bought it in his name.”

“I like to think ahead. Have an exit strategy.” He shrugged and his voice took on a joking tone, as if he were enjoying this.

The pieces came together in her head. “You kill them. He, what, finds them for you?”

“No.” Jared made a face. “Come on. You’re smarter than that.”

“Apparently not.”

He stood up and took a step toward her. “I made him come with me now and then. He wasn’t into the stalking and hunting, but he’d do it if I ordered it.”

Her panicked breath came in pants now. “Why would you do that?”

“To keep him in line. If I needed to. You know, just in case.”

“In case what?”

“You.” He pointed the hammer at her. “He thought it was funny that he thrived on doing the very thing that broke you as a kid. All right under your nose.”

“He was a twisted piece of garbage.”

“Careful. That’s my brother you’re talking about.” Jared chuckled. “But he could be reckless. Making him come here, having him move a body or help me dispose of one, kept him culpable. I could control where my DNA ended up and, if needed, use his.”

“Frame your own brother.”

“He was hardly innocent.” He frowned at her. “I honestly thought you’d leave him. Either way, there was a chance that you’d turn him in, which had the potential to blow back on me, and I couldn’t let that happen.”

Memories flooded her brain. All the meals together. The talks. The things she’d told him. How they’d joked about being alike.

The idea that she’d been feeding him information all along, that no part of their relationship had been real, made her knees buckle. She fought to stay on her feet and concentrate. To stay outside of swinging range of that hammer.

“I installed some cameras of my own across the street from you and around your house. They came in handy today when I saw you walk past the media and all of your new fans at your house and get into Tobias’s car.” He leaned against the rocker. “The way you messed with the neighbor’s alarm weeks ago in order to make him turn it off? Brilliant. I admit at first I didn’t know what you were doing. The walks up and down the street. Sneaking into their yard at night.” His smile fell. “But then one morning Aaron’s car left very early, and you were driving, and I knew you’d launched some sort of plan.”

He’d watched. He’s seen her plotting, working on strategy. He’d been there, at least through a lens, on that final morning.

“Oh, you were bundled up and wearing what looked like one of Aaron’s suits, but I could make out your face. Good thing I’d already left my conference in a loaner car.”

“That could have been traced back to you.” It would have. Ginny would have figured that out with a little time.

“Not when you pay with cash and use a license stolen from a drunk guy in the bar.” He shook his head, as if impressed by his own ingenuity. “I still had to break every speed limit to get back to Ithaca in time and take care of the scene before dawn.” He snorted. “And getting his car off the school grounds without being seen?”

“How?”

“I could only take it a few blocks. Parked it in plain sight in a neighborhood, covered in a tarp for two days while I figured out a safe route back to the cabin.” He pretended to drive. “But imagine my surprise when I found Aaron slumped over the wheel with the engine running and the tailpipe blocked.”

Dead. She’d killed him, and Jared had found him. It all made sense now. He’d tracked her and watched her and stepped in to save Aaron. “But you were too late.”

“I was.” He nodded. “I tried to revive him, but you’d been very thorough. Good for you.”

The singsongy sound of his voice made her sick. It chipped away at her focus. Took her back there, made her relive the panic over the notes and her fear that Aaron was still alive.

She tried to focus. To hear every horrid detail. “But you stabbed him.”

He made a tsk-tsking sound. “I have spent a good deal of the last few months protecting you. Telling Aaron not to fight back. Watching. The stabbing was one more example. It was meant to throw off the police.”

“He was already dead.”

He shrugged again, as if they were not talking about killing and defacing his own brother. “Honestly, things seemed to be collapsing because of Aaron’s extracurricular activities, so I thought it was time to pull up stakes and move on. You going rogue just moved up my plans. But I needed it done my way. With the cabin being found and Aaron taking the blame. That meant adding your plan to mine, which I admit was not a perfect fit, but it looks like it worked out. Aaron will get the blame. I’ll leave town in horror, change my name, and then start again.”