To Die For

My jaw dropped so far it almost hit the floor. “What?” I squeaked. Never in a hundred years would I have expected Jenni to make such a preposterous offer. Jenni was really good at looking out for number one, and no way was that my number. “I can be my own bait, and I won’t even need a wig!”

“Let me do this for you,” she begged, and to my surprise tears welled in her eyes. “Let me make it up to you for what I did. I know you’ve never forgiven me and I don’t blame you; I was a selfish bitch and didn’t think how much I’d be hurting you, but I’ve grown up, I truly have, and I want us to be close the way you and Siana are close.”

I was so flabbergasted I couldn’t think of anything to say, and that’s not an everyday occurrence. I opened my mouth, then closed it again when my brain remained in neutral.

“I was jealous of you,” she continued, still talking fast, as if she had to get it all out before her courage failed. “You were always so popular and even my friends thought you were the coolest person they knew; they all tried to do their hair like yours, and buy the shade of lipstick you wore. It was sickening.”

Now there was the Jenni I knew. I felt comforted, knowing the aliens hadn’t taken over my little sister’s body. Wyatt was sitting quietly, taking in every word, his gaze sharp. I wished he would go into another room, but I figured I had a better chance of growing wings and flying.

“You were the best cheerleader, you were cute, you were athletic, you were the class salutatorian, you went to college on a cheerleading scholarship, you pulled down really good grades and got a degree in business administration, and you married the handsomest guy I’d ever seen,” she wailed. “He’s going to be governor someday, maybe a senator or even president, and he fell into your hand like a ripe plum! I was so jealous, because no matter how pretty I am I’ll never be able to do everything you did and I thought Mom and Dad loved you more. Even Siana loves you more! So that’s why when Jason made a pass at me, I took him up on it; because if he was looking at me, then it must be because you weren’t that great after all, and I was.”

“What happened?” Wyatt interjected quietly.

“Blair caught Jason and me kissing,” she confessed in a wretched tone. “That’s all it was, and that was the first time, but everything blew up at once and they got divorced. It’s all my fault, and I want to make it up to her.”

“You’ll have to find another way,” he said, his words matter-of-fact. “There’s no way in hell I’d set up either you or Blair as bait. If we used that plan at all, one of our female officers would masquerade as Blair. We’d never risk a civilian.”

Jenni looked stricken that her grand plan should be so summarily turned down, not just by me but by Wyatt, too; in the end, his was the approval that counted, because he had the authority to either nix the plan or put it into motion. He’d nixed it.

“There must be something I can do,” she said, and a tear streaked down her face. She looked pleadingly at me.

“Well, let’s see.” By this time I’d found my voice. I tapped my bottom lip with a fingernail while I thought. “You could wash my car every Saturday for the next year-after I get a car, that is. Or you could regrout my bathroom, because I really hate doing that.”

She blinked at me as if she couldn’t quite make her mind wrap itself around what I was saying. Then she giggled. In the middle of the giggle she hiccuped a sob, and that was a very strange sound combination. It startled me into my own giggle-which I’ve tried hard to stop doing because of the image thing. I’m blond; I really shouldn’t giggle.

Anyway, we ended up hugging and laughing, and she apologized five or six times, and I told her she was family and I’d choose her over Jason Carson any day because he was a lowlife bastard who made a pass at his seventeen-year-old sister-in-law and I was better off without him.

Whew. Family dramas wear me out.

Wyatt had to take Jenni home. They asked me to come along, but I elected to stay because I felt that I needed some alone time to get my emotions settled. I had tried to forgive Jenni and to some extent I had, because the lion’s share of blame belonged to Jason; he’d been an adult, and married, while teenagers aren’t the best in the world at making rational decisions. Still, it had always been there in the back of my mind that my own sister had betrayed me. I had tried to act normally toward her, but I guess she knew there was a difference between Before and After. What surprised me most was that she cared. No, what really surprised me most was that she’d ever been jealous of me; Jenni is gorgeous, and has always been gorgeous, from the day she was born. I’m smart, but not as smart as Siana. I’m pretty, but not in the same class with Jenni. I was sort of middle-of-the- road in our family. Why on earth would she be jealous?

I started to call Siana to talk things over with her, but decided that I’d keep this private between Jenni and me. If she was serious about mending our relationship-really mending it-then I wasn’t going to sabotage the opportunity by maybe blabbing something she wasn’t comfortable with others knowing.

Wyatt was back within the hour. His dark brows were drawn down in a scowl when he came in the door. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me you blackmailed your ex into giving you everything you asked for in the divorce? Don’t you think that’s something that could be considered as motive?”

“Except Jason didn’t shoot at me,” I pointed out. “And he thinks he got the negative.”

He did the green-eyed laser look. “He thinks?”

I blinked my eyes at him, and put on my most innocent expression. “I mean, he knows he got the negative.”

“Uh-huh. Does he know he got all of the copies?”

“Um… he thinks he did, and that’s what’s important, right?”

“So you blackmailed him, then double-crossed him.”

“I look at it more as insurance. Anyway, I’ve never needed to use the picture and he doesn’t know it still exists. I haven’t had any contact with him since our divorce was final, and that was five years ago. That was why I knew Jason wasn’t trying to kill me, because he wouldn’t have any reason to.”

“Except he does have reason to.”

“Well, he would if he knew, but he doesn’t.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose, as if I’d given him a headache. “Where are the copies?”

“In my safe deposit box. There’s no way anyone saw them by accident, and no one else knows I have them, not even my family.”

“Okay. I strongly suggest that, when this is over and you can come out of hiding, that you get those copies and destroy them.”

“I can do that,” I allowed.

“I know you can. The question is: Will you? Promise me.”

I scowled at him. “I said I would.”

“No, you said you could. There’s a difference. Promise me.”

“Oh, all right. I promise I’ll destroy the pictures.”

“Without making any extra copies.”

Sheesh, he wasn’t the most trusting guy in the world. It pissed me off that he’d thought of that, too. Either Dad had been giving him advice again, or he had an unnaturally suspicious mind.

“Without making any extra copies,” he repeated.

“All right!” I snapped, and made plans to maybe accidentally drop his television remote in the toilet.

“Good.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Now, are there any other little secrets you’re keeping from me, anyone else you’re blackmailing, any revenge thing going on that you neglected to mention because you didn’t think it was relevant?”

“No, Jason’s the only person I’ve ever blackmailed. And he deserved it.”

“He deserved worse than that. He needed to have his ass kicked up around his shoulders.”

Slightly mollified by those sentiments, I shrugged. “Daddy would have done it, so we didn’t tell