Forged in Desire (The Protectors #1)(99)

“Liz, why don’t we go somewhere else to discuss this? Away from here for more privacy.”

“This place is just fine and we have all the privacy we need for you to tell me why you deliberately ruined things between me and Frazier.”

“I didn’t ruin anything,” Margo said, hoping against all odds that she would get through to her.

“Yes, you did. Now everything I worked for over the past two years means nothing. I planned it all. I saw Frazier. I set my goal to have him, but, thanks to you, it’s over. I paid someone to get rid of you just to see Frazier suffer, but the man I hired backed out.”

Margo stared at Liz, not believing her admission. “You hired someone to get rid of me?”

A haughty Liz lifted her chin. “Yes. I suggested that he turn you over to human traffickers. I even paid the bastard a down payment. He was going to get the rest when the deed was done. Now I have to take care of you myself.”

“You won’t get away with it.”

“Why not? I’ll shoot you and make it look like a robbery. Of course that means I’ll have to shoot your client, as well, and—”

“I don’t think so. Now drop your gun before I shoot you.”

Both Margo and Liz glanced at Claudine, who stood in the kitchen doorway holding a gun.

“I said drop the gun and don’t think about trying something stupid. I’m a very good shot, lady, but if you want to call my bluff, go ahead,” Claudine warned.

Liz stared at the woman and, as if deciding not to call Claudine’s bluff, she dropped her gun.

*

WHAT THE HELL! Striker had been about to crash the little party in Margo’s kitchen when he’d seen Claudine Bernard enter the scene. Where had Claudine come from?

He couldn’t help but grin. It seemed Claudine wasn’t just the it’s-all-about-me bride-to-be he’d taken her for. The woman definitely surprised him. She was the last person he’d think would tote a gun, but in this case, he was glad about it. She had disarmed Liz Tillman.

He was about to come out from behind the plant and let Claudine know he would handle things from here when Claudine’s next words stopped him cold.

*

“CLAUDINE, WE NEED to call the police,” Margo said in a rush, inching away from Liz to pull her phone from the back pocket of her jeans.

“Don’t move, Margo.”

Margo blinked at Claudine’s harsh command. “Why? We need to call the police.”

Claudine smiled. “We don’t need to do anything. In fact, this woman’s timing is perfect.”

An uneasy feeling settled in the pit of Margo’s stomach. “I don’t understand. What do you mean her timing is perfect?”

“Then let me explain things,” Claudine said while still holding the gun on both Margo and Liz. “My plan all along was to kill you, Margo, and that was after I took care of your father’s illegitimate brother, Roland Summers.”

“Illegitimate brother?” Liz asked, speaking for the first time since dropping her gun. “There’s an illegitimate brother?”

Other than flashing Liz an irritated look, Claudine ignored her question and then said to Margo, “The guy I hired to kill Summers botched up the carjacking, and Summers survived.”

Margo’s head began spinning. Claudine planned to kill her and had been responsible for Roland’s carjacking? “But why? What did we ever do to you?”

“Your father and Summers drove my father to commit suicide.”

Margo was convinced Claudine had come unhinged. “What are you talking about?”

Claudine sneered at Margo, as if Margo should already know the answer. “Summers was going to blow the whistle on his fellow officers, who were on the take. They set him up, and Summers went to prison.”

“Prison?”

“Yes, prison. Then Summers’s wife and your father were able to get him a new trial.”

“And what was wrong with that when an innocent man had been sent to prison?” Margo asked, still having a hard time following Claudine. Uncle Roland had been a cop? He’d served time? What crime did they pin on him?

“Those bad cops forced my father, a good man and the fire captain in this city at the time, to falsify reports. They swore they would harm his family if he didn’t follow their orders.”

“And what reports did your father falsify?”

“The ones that said the cause of the fire that killed your parents was electrical.”

Margo felt a lump in her throat, and the pulse in her neck began thrumming. “Surely you’re not saying the fire that killed my parents was deliberately set.”

Claudine rolled her eyes. “Of course it was. Don’t be stupid. Did you honestly think five cops would willingly go to jail? They figured if they killed your parents and Summers’s wife, that Summers would get the message and call off the investigation and the new trial. But he didn’t.”

Margo felt weak in the knees. Her parents and Roland’s wife had been murdered?

“Those bad cops were eventually arrested and sent to jail. Fortunately, Dad wasn’t linked to any of it, but the guilt he felt for falsifying that report eventually drove him to commit suicide. I was only fourteen and was the one who found him. He’d hung himself, leaving a note confessing everything. I never gave it to anyone. I kept the note all these years.”