The Sometime Sister by Katherine Nichols (e novels for free .TXT) 📗

never planned for me to go on my own. This insight should have made me feel better, but it didn’t.

“Easy, now,” McElroy said, looking up at me. “I know you don’t need a babysitter. I’m just—”

“I don’t care what you are. Just leave the contact information and take this other stuff with you when you go.” I motioned toward the envelope with the pictures.

“Miss Burnette, it’s important you understand why I have to go with you.”

“Okay, but make it quick. I’m not done packing.” I perched on the edge of the chair.

“Mike wants me to go with you because he thinks it’s dangerous. But your mother had another request, one she made when Mike left the room, one she made me promise not to tell anyone. But you need to know.” He leaned forward. “Grace, your mother hired me to kill Ben Wilcott.”

Chapter 12

My mother’s hitman didn’t stay long enough for me to recover from the shock of his announcement. He put on his coat and walked out the door, without giving me the chance to ask for more details.

We watched him drive away. Then Scarlett turned, gave me a reproachful gaze, and ambled to the back of the house.

I stayed at the window, wondering who the hell Justin McElroy was. He didn’t send out murderer vibes, but had I ever met a killer? And if he was planning to kill my ex, did I care? If Ben had something to do with Stella’s death, he deserved to pay for it. He should be arrested and extradited to the US where his money wouldn’t save him from justice. From what I discovered about the Ecuadorian government, I doubted they would be too cooperative. He had always been good at reading people and was smart enough to connect with authorities who weren’t averse to accepting bribes.

While I didn’t find the concept of murdering Ben disturbing, my mother’s role in the transaction concerned me. I wasn’t worried about her getting caught. As a member of the Marines Special Forces, Mike’s friend would be more than competent. He would know how to execute a man and get away with it.

What I couldn’t wrap my head around was the idea my mother had hired him to commit murder. If it had been my grandmother, I wouldn’t have been surprised. Except she wouldn’t have hired it out. Stella’s betrayal had been difficult for her, but she reconciled her conflicting loyalties by blaming everything on Ben. She would have killed him herself.

Still, I couldn’t picture Mom committing or assisting in an act of real violence. Not that she wasn’t tough. She divorced before it was commonplace. With emotional help from Gran, she supported two daughters on her own. As a nurse on a psychiatric ward, she had once tackled and held down a two-hundred-pound man who convinced himself he could fly and was climbing out the window to prove it. But hiring someone to kill Ben was beyond her.

I wanted nothing more than to talk to Stella. My frustration led me to recall a conversation we had a few months before I popped in on her in the shower with my fiancé.

She asked me if I remembered the last time our uncle had been at our house. At first, I hadn’t, so she prompted me.

“Aunt Rita rushed in crazy-eyed and banged up with Lesroy in her arms. Roy followed them in that beat-up old truck of his.”

How had I forgotten that night? Stella and I had just come inside with a jar full of fireflies. We had our usual argument: I wanted to let them go right away; she wanted to keep them to light up our room. I agreed to wait a little while before releasing them. We were on our way to place them on the dresser when the commotion started.

A car door slammed, and our aunt burst in, screaming bloody murder. Seconds later, Roy’s truck crashed into the curb, and he dashed in behind them. Gran, in her old flannel nightgown, stood in front of Rita and Lesroy while our mother stopped him.

I cowered in her shadow and shivered at how easy it would be for him to brush her aside like a cobweb. Only he didn’t even try. Instead, he backed out, arms held out in surrender. He tripped on the threshold, and Mom shoved him the rest of the way. I had forgotten how she faced down a man almost twice her size until Stella reminded me. It hadn’t been her commanding presence. It had been Grandpa’s shotgun, pointed at my uncle’s chest.

After he stormed off, we put Lesroy on the sofa. His eye was swollen shut, and he wasn’t moving. Gran sent us to her room, and I heard her calling an ambulance. Rita and Mom rode with our cousin to the hospital.

“And Gran stayed home,” Stella added. “But she didn’t come to bed. It was just you and me. I was crying, and you held me and kept saying everything would be fine. Then the storm came.”

If I could forget a night like that, how many other memories were bobbing below the surface of my subconscious? And why were they so elusive? I had no immediate answer, but I realized one very important thing: there was more to my mother than I’d thought. It no longer seemed impossible she would do whatever it took to avenge my sister’s death.

Several times I stopped packing and threw everything on the bed. If I stayed put, maybe McElroy wouldn’t bother going. But I didn’t believe that.

About three o’clock, I gave up on sleep. I dressed and logged onto Google, where I searched for Justin McElroy, Atlanta Special Forces Marines. There were lots of McElroys on Facebook and Linked In, but none were mine. I landed on an obituary for Army Major Joseph Allen McElroy from Lawrenceville, Georgia. Surviving family members included his son, Captain Justin McElroy, Marine Corps, Special Operations.

I ran another search on Special Operations and discovered the