Murder for the Halibut (28 page)

“Get up, Beau,” Emily ordered before turning to face Jordan. “Grab a couple of scarves
out of the top drawer behind you.”

“You’ve got the wrong guy, lady. I don’t know you from Adam,” Beau said indignantly.

For a man with a gun so close to his head, Beau Lincoln was being awfully confrontational,
dangerously so, in fact. Whatever had made Emily think he’d caused all the grief in
her life was at the core of her anger right now. Coming across with attitude wasn’t
the best way for him to defend himself and diffuse the raging volcano building inside
the woman.

“You just met Beau a few days ago, Emily. And although I’d have to agree he’s a slimeball,
how could he possibly be responsible for all your pain?”

“Shut up about that, Jordan,” Emily screamed. “Just get the scarves.”

Jordan did as she was told and handed a red and a blue scarf to Emily, thinking the
expensive silk accessories probably cost more than her own entire outfit.

Emily threw the red one back at her. “Tie up his legs.”

“Emily, do you really—”

“Just do it, Jordan, or I’ll shoot him right now.”

Jordan bent down and wrapped the scarf around Beau’s legs. He didn’t even try to resist,
making Jordan think he’d finally realized Emily was not fooling around and that she
was close to going off the deep end.

“Now tie his hands behind his back,” Emily growled. “Tight enough so he can’t feel
his fingers.”

“Honestly, Emily, you have mistaken me for someone else. Please don’t do this to me,”
Beau whimpered, fear in his voice now.

Emily stepped in front of him and did a slow 360-degree turn in front of him, giving
him an up-close look. “Brianna Sloan. Recognize the name, moron?”

He shook his head. “Trust me. I would never forget a woman like you.”

“Then how about my grandmother’s brownie recipes?” She spit at him. “Does that ring
a bell?”

“What are you talking about? I never—” He stopped, his mouth open, his eyes filling
with terror as recognition washed over his face. He lowered his head. “I thought you
were dead.”

She slapped him across the face so hard a red handprint appeared on his cheek. The
wound over his eye began to bleed again, but with his hands tied behind his
back, all he could do was blink when a drop of blood slid down his face.

“I may as well have died. You never even bothered to come to the hospital to find
out about me or your baby.” Emily’s voice broke, and she paused. “You told me you
loved me on more than one occasion, and I believed you, but all you wanted were the
recipes. I heard you were bragging about how you duped me into giving them up right
before you dumped me.” She turned away to swipe at a tear sliding down her cheek.
“You called me a two-bagger—said the only way you could even touch me was with two
bags over my head.” She swiped a plastic bag off the table and in a second had it
over his head.

Beau tried to protest but only succeeded in falling across the bed.

“Guess you’re just a one-bagger,” she said, curling her lips in a sarcastic smile.
“How does it feel now?”

“Emily,” Jordan shouted. “He’ll suffocate. I know you’re not that cruel.”

“Do you think he gave a flying flip about how cruel he was to me? I’ve waited a long
time for this.”

She allowed Beau to fight for several more minutes before yanking the bag from his
head. As he gasped for air, coughing uncontrollably, she jerked him to his feet once
again.

Standing directly in front of her, he finally managed to catch his breath and begin
breathing normally.

He stared defiantly at her. “There’s no way you could be Brianna Sloan. I have no
idea why, but you’re lying through your teeth. Even the most expensive plastic surgeon
in the world couldn’t take that fat, pimply faced
mouse of girl and turn her into you. So, what’s your angle? Are you looking to get
some easy money out of me?”

Emily’s arm swung back so quickly, he was unprepared when she delivered a solid left
hook to his chin. Screaming in pain, he fell backward, hitting his head on the edge
of the table, which elicited a slew of obscenities from his lips.

Emily didn’t even flinch. She was beside him in a flash and shoved her foot hard into
his chest, the stiletto heel digging into his skin while he screamed in agony.

“All these years I’ve been thinking about what it would be like when I finally got
my revenge. I wondered what you’d say when I confronted you. I have to admit I thought
you might be at least a little remorseful. Never in a million years did I expect to
see you act like that same cocky jerk who ruined my life back in Ranchero.” She took
her foot off his chest and glared at him. “For God’s sake, Beau, I was only fifteen
years old. You could’ve been arrested. Lucky for you I lost the baby when I ran from
you and ended up wrapping my dad’s car around the bridge abutment and refused to tell
the authorities who the father was.” Her voice caught. “I prayed you’d come to see
me once you found out how injured I was. When that didn’t happen, I wanted to die
right along with your bastard child.”

Jordan hadn’t said a word throughout this entire confrontation, thinking maybe if
she let Emily release all the pent-up anger that must’ve been smoldering all these
years, she could talk some sense into her. The most important thing now was to get
the gun out of her hand.

At first Jordan believed, as Beau had, that this was just a case of mistaken identity,
but after hearing Emily’s
story, she remembered Wayne Francis telling a similar one earlier in the week. He,
too, thought the girl who had been so humiliated by Beau had ended up in a terrible
accident and died that night.

“Emily,” she began, wanting to comfort her friend, despite the fact she still had
Goose’s loaded gun in her hand. “I can’t even imagine how much pain you were in back
then. Young love can be devastating, but hurting Beau now won’t take that pain away.
I promise if you give me the gun, I’ll go with you to talk to anyone you want once
we’re back on shore.”

“Oh, I’m not going to hurt him, Jordan.” She laughed. “I’m going to kill him just
like he did to that innocent girl so long ago. My father couldn’t even look at me
after he’d discovered I’d been pregnant. Said I had disgraced him with his congregation
and he could no longer look any church members in the eye.”

Jordan inched a little closer to Emily. “Is that why he sent you to Columbia to live
with your aunt and uncle?”

Emily lowered her head but not before Jordan saw the pain in her eyes. “He couldn’t
get rid of me fast enough. Since I had no friends and had been airlifted to Children’s
Hospital in Dallas the day of the accident, no one bothered to visit me. He conveniently
told everyone I had died of complications. When I was discharged, he drove me straight
to the Dallas airport and put me on a plane—not that anyone in Ranchero would have
recognized me, anyway. My face was so badly mangled I didn’t look anything like I
used to.”

Her voice dropped to a whisper. “He preached fire and brimstone all my life, so I
don’t know why I expected him to do anything other than condemn me for my sins. When
he sent me to live with his sister and her husband who ran a missionary school in
Colombia, he said he hoped God would forgive me because he never would. How ironic
that he died hating me. He never did see me as the victim in all this.”

“What about your mother? Didn’t she have a say in your going to Colombia?”

“He ran her off long before I ever really got to know her. Then he blamed me for all
her cheating. Said I was just as bad as her.”

Jordan took a chance and moved another step closer. Keeping Emily talking seemed her
best strategy. At least then, she wouldn’t be making good on her threat to kill Beau.

“Look at what you’ve made of your life. Something good did come out of all that pain,
Emily.”

“It’s Anna,” she corrected. “And if you call being treated as a slave from the minute
my plane touched down in Bogotá, then yes, my life did change. My uncle, who was at
least a hundred pounds overweight himself and had breath that could have stopped a
train, used to tell me how ugly I was and that I was fortunate he could see past my
looks to the beautiful girl I was inside.” She sniffed back her tears. “Yeah, I was
lucky, all right. Lucky enough to work like a dog and never allowed to have any friends.
He even farmed me out to some of the families around the school to babysit, but I
never saw any of the money,” she said sarcastically.

“Why didn’t your aunt try to stop him?” Jordan asked.

Emily huffed. “She was more afraid of him than I was. But I got my revenge on him
just like I’m going to do with Beau. One night when he was all liquored up, I slipped
a
little drain cleaner into his beer. It was just enough to make him violently ill,
and while he was in the hospital I took a bag of emerald stones that he’d stolen from
one of his church members. I boarded the next plane back to Dallas.” She snickered.
“I would have loved to have seen his face when he pulled up that plank of wood on
the floor and discovered his precious gems were gone. Even my aunt didn’t know they
were there. He had no clue he’d spilled the beans to me one night while he was drunk.”

Jordan turned when Beau moaned, and she saw him grimace in pain. She had to find a
way to get the gun from Emily, then get out of there and bring back help.

But Emily wasn’t through talking.

“In Dallas, I used some of the emeralds to hire a world-renowned plastic surgeon.
He literally had to wire my jaw shut and remake my entire face. Because of it, I lost
eighty pounds. When I looked into the mirror for the first time after surgery, an
entirely different person stared back at me. That’s when I decided to go to New York.
I thought if I changed everything about my life, maybe the resentment wouldn’t eat
at me every minute of the day. I couldn’t remember the last time I had slept through
the entire night. Still can’t.”

“Emily, look at you. You have so much more than Beau does. And you don’t have to get
revenge. He’ll probably go to prison for the rest of his life for killing his wife.”
Jordan knew that was reaching, but right now she didn’t have anything else up her
sleeve.

“I didn’t kill her,” Beau protested, before Emily kicked him in the back.

“Shut up. Even hearing your voice makes me angry.” She shook her head. “You were the
one who was supposed
to die, you jackass. Not your wife. She was just another innocent victim of yours,
like me. Stefano wasn’t supposed to die, either.”

Jordan was confused at the reference to Stefano. How did the Italian chef who’d died
of an allergic reaction play into this story? She couldn’t resist asking about it.
“You killed Stefano?”

Emily’s eyes darkened. “He was a casualty of war, so to speak, although I don’t think
there were too many tears shed over his death.” She got right up in Beau’s face. “I
remembered you telling me how your mother had died of an allergic reaction to nuts.
You said that’s why you never ate any of my grandmother’s brownies with nuts in them.
You even mentioned that right after you started college, you’d been rushed to the
hospital with breathing problems because you’d accidently eaten pecan-crusted fish.
The doctor warned you never to eat nuts again if you wanted to stay alive.”

“Then how did Stefano end up with them?” Jordan asked.

“I specifically asked everyone involved with the competition if they had any food
allergies. The idiot kept his a secret. When I found out Beau hadn’t even bothered
to return the questionnaire, I decided it was the perfect way to kill him without
casting any suspicion on myself.”

“So you just randomly put the ground nuts in Stefano’s basket?”

“I had no idea whose basket they ended up in that day, but it didn’t matter. I knew
Beau would taste all the food, and my mission would be accomplished.” She smirked.
“You have to admit, Jordan, it would’ve been the perfect murder.”

The loud knock at the door startled all of them, and Jordan screamed.

“Emily, open up. It’s Alex Moreland. I need to talk to you.”

“She’s got a gun, Alex,” Jordan yelled before Emily turned it on her.

“I didn’t want to involve you in all this, Jordan. You’re the only person besides
George who has ever been kind to me without wanting something in return.”

Alex’s voice screaming outside the door for the purser was enough to throw Emily over
the edge. Her eyes widened, and she used her free hand to jerk Beau to his feet.

“Move,” she commanded, prodding him in the back with the weapon. “Jordan, get over
here. I need your help.”

Emily opened the door and shoved Beau out to the patio. When his body was pressed
against the railing, she pointed to his feet.

“Grab on and help me lift him over the side.”

When Jordan was slow to react, she screamed, “Hurry before your boyfriend breaks in
and I have to kill him, too.”

Without thinking of the consequences, Jordan lunged for the gun, but she had grossly
underestimated Emily’s strength, which, as it turned out, was considerable.