“Well, you could have gotten some help for that,” Weston said, studying him closely. He couldn’t see a killer in him as much as a man who had been pushed to the wall. But he was a killer nonetheless, particularly since he had a handgun in his hand.
“I just couldn’t take it anymore, and I shot Gregory,” he said. “As I stood there, staring down at the body, my wife came down the stairs and started screaming at me, telling me how she loved him, and he was the father of her child. She just wouldn’t stop. I turned the handgun around, and I started wailing on her, and all of a sudden I had two bodies on the floor. She wasn’t dead, but she might as well have been, so I loaded them up and drove them over to the edge. Took the dog with me thinking to kill her too, just clean the slate. But she jumped out and took off. I put my brother in position and pushed the whole mess over the cliff. I knew it was so far down that nobody would bother trying to get it back up again. But the damn thing wouldn’t even burst into flames, though I’d figured it would for sure. So then I had to climb down and light it on fire.” He sagged in place but kept the gun ready. “It’s not the way I wanted things, and I loved my wife, but I just couldn’t stand the thought of her having an affair with him.”
“So she did know it was him then?” Weston asked to clarify Grant’s earlier story.
He nodded. “I wanted to believe she didn’t know, but there was no way I could, when she blurted it all out.”
“Right. Well, son, you got a pile of trouble on your hands,” the detective said.
“You’re not kidding,” he said, “and then that stupid bitch showed up.”
“What bitch? Your wife?”
“No, the one who was with the loan shark. Both of them out of Vegas,” he said. “She said she could score up here too. But then something happened between her and the loan shark, and he up and left her behind.”
“Are you talking about Angel?” Weston asked, dumbfounded.
Grant looked over at him and frowned. “Yeah, Angel. What do you know about her?”
“I know she’s nothing but trouble,” he said. “Any idea what she’s doing here?”
“No. Something about a baby, but she didn’t look like she gave a shit about the kid, just that she had a deal going.”
“Sounds like something Angel would try,” Weston said, disgusted.
“I don’t know,” Grant said, “she was kind of unnerving.” He looked over at the sheriff. “I can’t stay here in hiding forever,” he said. “You might as well take me in.”
“I’d like to,” he said, “but you’re the one holding the handgun.”
“I know,” Grant said. “A lifetime locked up or eat a bullet.”
“Don’t eat a bullet,” Weston said. “There’s always another answer.” Then another loose thread surfaced in his mind. “Was that you taking potshots at me earlier?”
“Yeah, too bad I missed. However, I could kill two more,” he said, looking at the men before him, as if contemplating it. The detective shook his head. “And then you’ll just get hunted down, and you lose your home anyway.”
“It’s gone already,” he said. “Apparently my bloody brother and my lovely wife mortgaged the hell out of it and took the money. Paid the loan shark, and he’s gone, but now I’ve got nothing but a massive mortgage.”
The longer he talked, the more he stared at the gun. Weston was afraid he would do something serious about all this. That was not how Weston wanted this to end, but unfortunately he had no way to know if that was on Grant’s mind or not. He just didn’t trust him.
“There’s always another answer,” Weston said in a calm voice. “I’m sorry that things turned out the way they did, but—”
“Not for me,” Grant said, as he fired a single shot.
Chapter 17
When Weston walked up to the front door, the look on his face had Daniela racing toward him. She came to a stop about four feet away, her eyes round and her hand going to her mouth.
He held a finger to his lips and said quietly, “I’ll go have a shower.”
She nodded mutely, studying the bloodstains all over his shirt. She swallowed hard. “Is any of that blood yours?”
He gave her a small grin and shook his head. “No. It’s Grant’s.”
Her shoulders sagged with relief. “Did you have to kill him?”
“No,” he said, “but, once we had him cornered with the truth, he ended up blowing apart his own head.”
Her mind flashed on the image. “Well, as much as I’m glad it’s not you, I’m sorry you had to see that.”
He acknowledged her concern with a nod, followed by a shrug that only partially hid the pain. “I’ve seen it before,” he said. “Unfortunately war leaves us with images we can never get rid of.” And, with that, he took the stairs two at a time to get out of sight before Sari saw him. Daniela appreciated his concern, although, at her age, Sari probably wouldn’t understand what the blood was anyway. It was more the pain in his eyes that bothered her.
Just as she headed back to Sari, her phone rang. It was her sister.
“Are you sure you want to cancel?”
