Rohn Federbush - Sally Bianco 02 - The Appropriate Way (18 page)

Bret looked directly at Sally. “
Enid was his illegitimate daughter, not his lover. He said you and Tim would find out everything. He said we were through. I told him you didn’t know we were lovers. He said you would figure out his connections to me. Enid’s blackmailing racket would implicate him. I was sitting next to the wheel of his car, hugging his ankle. James shook me off. He acted disgusted when he finally told me Matilda was going to divorce me. She was pregnant.”

Bret smiled, “Funny. My butler knew before I did. James shoved his passport in my face. He was leaving me, for good. After he left, I went into the house to kill myself. I own several guns. While I searched for the bullets and loaded the gun, I kept getting angrier and angrier. Why should everyone else be off the hook after
Enid died? I was the only one suffering, because James would leave.”

“It was all your fault!” He pointed at Sally as he had aimed the gun at her the night John died. His volume increased with each word. “I didn’t care if I killed you and Tim. I wanted everyone to suffer.”

Bret stopped speaking for a moment, then said in almost a whisper, “but when John jumped at me, I shot in his direction.”

Sally relived the nightmare.

“I liked John,” Bret said. “He listened to me. He seemed thrilled to be able to visit the castle.”

“But you killed him,” Sally said.

Tim and Matilda asked if they could lunch with Sally at the hotel before she left for
Ann Arbor. She couldn’t deny the couple who appeared to be deeply in love. Matilda was intent on canceling out any fears Sally might hold about Tim’s future. “I think Tim should stay in law enforcement.”

“She wants to redecorate the castle,” Tim said.

“Upstairs, I’m buying a queen size bed for the central room. Mother is going to stay with us, too. I’ll turn the bedrooms on each side of the master bedroom into nurseries.”

“I’m sure you two were meant to be together,” Sally said. “Make room for the Lord in your lives, too.”

“We will,” Tim promised. “We know who to thank.”

“Me, too,” Sally said, thinking of her many blessings and the safe harbor she still owned in
Ann Arbor.

The End

Salome’s Conversion

North Parish

Floating Home

Love’s Triumph

The Legitimate Way {A Sally
Bianco Mystery – Book 1}

The Recorder’s Way {A Sally
Bianco Mystery – Book 3}

Rohn
Federbush retired as an administrator from the University of Michigan in 1999. She received a Masters of Arts in Creative Writing in 1995 from Eastern Michigan University, where she studied under Janet Kauffman and Larry Smith. In 1998, Vermont College awarded her a summer conference scholarship to work on her novel under Ellen Lesser and Brett Lott. Frederick Busch of Colgate granted a 1997 summer stipend for her ghost-story collection. Michael Joyce of Vassar encouraged earlier writing at Jackson Community College, Jackson, Michigan in 1981. Rohn has completed fourteen novels, with an additional mystery nearly finished, 120 short stories and 150 poems to date.

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