Lang, Chloe - Wilde Love [The Brothers of Wilde, Nevada 6] (Siren Publishing LoveXtreme Forever) (11 page)

Sam was talking to her like they were still buddies. But they weren’t. The girl wanted her dead, and Jessie wanted to live.

Jessie had seen the slashed tires in the parking lot. It would be too late for her Wilde men to find her.
Think, Jessie. There’s got to be a way out of this. Keep the killer talking until I can free my hands.

Jessie tried to sound calm, though her heart was running like a race car’s engine. “Quite the plan you’ve cooked up here, Sam.”

“Thanks to me. My last plan should’ve worked beautifully. I had everything set. I trusted that snotty-nosed Rich to not fuck up. But you’re too smart of a bitch for him. That’s for sure.”

“I’m not too smart. Not as smart as you, obviously.” Jessie scanned the place for whatever might work to get free from this nightmare.

“Don’t be condescending to me, bitch. You’re the one who fucked up your investigation.”

“True. I never put you behind everything. You really are brilliant. How did you set the fire in the cafeteria? You were at Norma’s Diner according to a long list of witnesses.”

Samantha turned around and set the wires back on the rock. They were attached to a big, black box. A shiny, silver laptop was next to it.

Jessie looked at the young woman. She looked so innocent in the low, yellow glow coming from the droplight hanging on a bolt in the rock wall. “Please, Sam. I want to know.”

“Might as well tell you everything now, considering you won’t be leaving here alive.”

Don’t think about what Samantha’s planning. Just keep her talking.
Panic scratched at all Jessie’s nerves, but still, she couldn’t help but wonder what had twisted such a bright mind to do such horrible things. “I’m listening.”

“I didn’t start the fire. Paul did. He also was the one who wired the electric panel to short-circuit. We got more than we planned for, but so be it. Some people have to get hurt to make a point.”

“A point to whom?” Jessie spotted a shaft right behind Samantha. If she could push the laptop down it, then the remote firing program it held likely wouldn’t be accessible to the young woman.

“Austin Wilde, that’s who. Paul hated him, so getting him to come around to my plan was a snap. Sure, I had to fuck the old geezer half a dozen times, but a girl’s gotta do what she has to in order to get what she wants.”

“Did you kill him?” she asked meekly.

“Yes. He called me a week ago. Stupid idiot was filled with guilt. I knew it would only be a short time before he snapped and ruined everything.”

“When I saw you in the kitchen at Norma’s, he was threatening you.” Jessie wanted to keep the maniacal girl talking while she executed her plan. Luckily, Samantha had placed her next to one of the Old Wilde Mine’s walls.

With her rigorous training for her job at the agency, Jessie was no stranger to mines. Though her hands were tied behind her back, she still was able to stretch out her fingers. She touched a rock surface. The loose stone in the wall might work to save her. It had a sharp edge that she could use to cut her restraints.

“Yep. I’d just told him that if he didn’t do what I wanted, I was going to tell his wife everything.” Samantha grinned. “You came in and misread everything.”

“I guess I did.” Paul King had actually been trying to warn Jessie about Samantha. He’d told her to leave Wilde in the kitchen that day. The guy wasn’t a saint, but he wasn’t a devil either.

“So when he announced to me that he was ready to go to the sheriff and confess everything, I knew what I had to do. I could pin everything on Paul just by putting a bullet in his wife. So, I did.”

There wasn’t anything sane in Samantha. She was nothing more than a cold-blooded killer.

Jessie needed to keep her wits.

She needed Samantha to keep blathering on if she was going to keep the woman from hearing the sawing of the strands of the rope. “What about the explosion that almost killed Pappy Jack?”

Samantha pulled her cell out of her jeans and looked at the screen. “Another five minutes of talking about this, that’s all.”

“Agreed.” Jessie quietly began her work to loosen the stone.
I’m going to need a manicure after this.
That silly thought steadied Jessie’s nerves just enough. Destroying her nails, she began working her plan to escape. “I want to hear everything, Sam.”

The delusional, brilliant woman grinned and continued, “I hadn’t told Paul about your brakes or the mine explosion, but he had an idea I was behind it.”

Continuing her quiet attempt to free the rock with the little sharp edge, she asked, “You and Rich?” Though she’d tried to sound calm, her nerves had prevented that.

“Jessie, it’s okay to be scared.” Samantha patted her leg, and Jessie felt sickened by the touch. “Anyone would be terrified.”

Jessie froze her fingers in place, knowing if she moved them, her captor would feel the motion. “I suppose so, but I still want to know how you did all this. It really is remarkable. Go on about Rich. You got him to go along with your plan.”

“You’re getting smarter.” Sam removed her hand from Jessie’s thigh, and the rock removal began again.

“Thank you. I appreciate that,” Jessie lied.

“A couple of blowjobs and kisses, and presto—my own little slave. Rich is a whiz with cars. I got him to climb into the Old Mine and set the first round of explosives, but the little bastard got tripped up coming back and got hurt. That was before you came to Wilde and fucked up everything.”

“I didn’t mean to, Samantha.”

“I know, Jessie. But that doesn’t change the fact that you did fuck up the whole shooting match.”

Jessie couldn’t feel any sympathy for the crazed woman. She’d done some horrible things and needed to pay the price, but something had pushed the poor girl to bats-in-the-belfry land. Jessie wanted to know what—or who.

“So you and Rich planted the explosives?”

“I was too soft then. I should’ve blown his ass up in the mine, but instead, I made sure someone found the prick to take him to the hospital.”

Jessie resisted smiling when the rock was freed into her hand. Going on a hunch, she asked, “Still, it was a nice thorn in Austin Wilde’s saddle, yes?”

Samantha nodded, and Jessie knew she was on to something. Everything inside the woman seemed to center around the eldest Wilde brother. Paul clearly had a grudge. Rich probably didn’t but would likely do anything for the one who’d enchanted him.

Almost free. Please, God, don’t let Sam hear.
“Austin had to deal with the Feds showing up to investigate all the accidents. Quite ingenious.”

“You think that’s something, Jessie.” Samantha’s lips curled up in a wicked self-admiration. “I bet you didn’t know I killed Phoenix’s horse, Demon.”

Jessie’s hand shook, almost causing her to drop the stone. Thankfully, she was able to keep it secure. The memory of watching Phoenix suffer as the old horse died filled her with heaviness for him. There wasn’t a chance in hell Jessie could feel any sympathy for the crazy bitch, ever. “How?”

“I work at the diner but moonlight at our local vet’s as a tech. Boy, it’s come in handy. I read everything on the Internet about how to kill a horse in a way that could fool the best vets. Jessie, did you know there was a lot of insurance fraud in horse racing a while back? Those bastards got away with a ton but finally were caught. Why do you think?”

“I don’t know.”
How long will it take for this damn rope to cut through?
Panic was setting in.

“Maybe you’re not so hot like the Wilde brothers think.” Sam snorted. “I knew no one would think Demon’s demise was anything more than old age. I was careful when I electrocuted the glue bag, placing the nodes where his saddle had rubbed. Just as I suspected, the vet chalked everything up to colic and didn’t even notice the tiny burns on Demon’s skin.”

The way Samantha recounted the gruesome tale, like it was something to be proud of, made Jessie sick to her stomach. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Such cruelty came from a dark place.
Keep her talking. That’s one of my tasks. The other is to get free of this damn rope.
“And the photos of me and the brothers?”

“All me.”

“Getting my boss’s e-mail would be simple, but how did you get my dad’s?”

“I’m really proud of that. Remember when your laptop came up missing that first day at the mine?”

“I do.”

“Paul snagged it without anyone’s knowledge. I gave him a nice little drink, much like the one I gave to Tank. I knew then that Paul was going to become a liability to me.”

“What was in the drink, Samantha?” Jessie wished the completely insane woman wasn’t such a whiz. She imagined what Samantha might’ve accomplished had she used her brain for good instead of evil.

“Paul had a bad heart, so the dosage of the drug I used was quite light. That he almost ran you over was pure kismet. Even I couldn’t have planned for that. Too bad he survived. From then on, he was very suspicious of me, but I denied, denied, denied. Then I fucked him whenever he got that look in his eyes.”

“So you had my laptop? Is the bank president in on this, too?”

“No. I placed a nasty little tracker on it and made sure Malcolm’s little flunky found it. I knew that Malcolm returning it would throw all of you off my trail. It worked like a charm.”

“What did your tracker do?”

“Jessie, you’re very consistent to log out of your office’s server, but you never turn your computer off. Around two in the morning, my little code would fire up on your laptop, and I could do anything I wanted with it. Download. Read e-mails. Anything.”

“And you found my dad’s e-mail. Amazing.” Jessie recalled the e-mail she’d written and then rewrote to send to her boss. This bitch had made sure the more sinister e-mail made it to her boss even after she’d deleted it.

“What can I say? I’m the light in my mother’s eyes. I’ve loved computers since I was tiny.”

Jessie was running out of things to inquire about, and she sensed Samantha was about to return to her monstrous work. “Why me? Why do you want me dead, Sam?”

“Austin Wilde is why.” The girl turned back to her wires and began wrapping them furiously. “I hate that fucker.”

Jessie’s hunch was right that Sam had it in for Austin. “What in God’s name did he do to you?”

Samantha jerked back around. “He fucked up my dream. I’m supposed to be the one with the Wildes, not you. Everyone in town expected that. My mom. Everyone. Since Jackson and Phoenix were closer in age to me, I did everything to snag them. But they held back. I knew it wasn’t them. Someone else was pulling their strings. Dallas and Denver, though sexy as hell, I didn’t even try to seduce. I knew if I was to get the five brothers to marry me, I had to prove to Austin that I was the one. So, I broke into his office. It wasn’t hard at all to get a key to it. I’m a girl who knows how to get men to do her favors.”

“That’s how you unlocked the door tonight.”

“Give this woman a certificate. Right.”

“What did you do after getting into his office?”
There can’t be more than a strand or two left on this damn rope.

“I took off my clothes and waited. I tried to unlock the door to his secret room but couldn’t. Tonight I saw it was nothing more than a naughty closet. He’s a fucking fraud.”

Jessie knew arguing with her would probably set the little monster off. Instead, she continued, “What happened when he found you in his office?”

Jessie’s fingers were sore, but the final strand broke.
I’m free.
Her ankles were still tied to the chair, so her only chance to push the laptop down the chasm was to lunge with all her might.