Page 95 of Inevitable Secrets

She didn't want to ask, didn’t want to know, but she couldn’t help herself. “How?” she whispered.

“Well, your father had his accident,” he said, and Taylor could see his high over the explanation. “He and Cedric went for a hike. It was his idea, your father’s own idea,” he said, his eyes gleaming with excitement.

Tears welled in Taylor’s eyes and she subconsciously shook her head.

“Oh no, you definitely want to hear this,” Charlie assured her. “Have you ever heard of a West African carpet viper? They are one of the deadliest snakes in the world, residing in West Africa. Importing one to the United States is incredibly illegal. But money can do amazing things, can’t it, Taylor?”

Taylor had always been told her father had slipped on rocky terrain. That he had fallen while hiking. It had been a freak thing.

“Oh, he did fall,” Charlie replied and Taylor realized she had apparently spoken out loud. “He was bitten after he opened his backpack. The poison took effect and he fell right off the side of the mountain. The difficulty in extracting him allowed the venom more time to work,” Charlie explained expertly. “It was my idea to say Cedric wasn’t with him. I convinced Cedric that he had brought the snake there and then told him to lie about being there. He was just haunted by what he could remember.

“And then your mother—”

Taylor shook her head violently, “No, that was an accident.”

“Oh yes, it was an accident,” he nodded, “that was caused by me making Cedric believe he needed to talk with her. He had gotten clean with her help before. And now he had relapsed, so I convinced him to call her, ask her to come to him, had him tell her it was urgent.”

“Yes, but she was killed in an accident with a dozen paparazzi.”

“Yes, Taylor,” Charlie said smiling, “paparazzi who never would have known she was out if someone hadn’t tipped them off about her potentially being on her way to a sordid affair,” he said, laughing.

Charlie had killed her parents, Taylor slowly realized. The room spun slightly.

“But your Grandfather, he was a tricky one. It was hard to get Cedric to do much to him. I think he was on to me by that point.”

Taylor’s eyes grew large, and her rapid breathing was making the spinning nearly unbearable. But she shook her head—this could not be true.

“Now you are lying. He had cancer, it ate away at him. I saw the tumors and the MRIs.”

“But I replaced the morphine with fentanyl, and the dose was one hundred times the strength of the morphine. It eliminated him much quicker than even I could have anticipated.”

Taylor dug her fingernails into her palms, feeling the pain and trying to wake herself up from this horrible nightmare. She had given her grandfather the pain medication he had needed. She and Cedric. She may have potentially given him his fatal dose.

This wasn’t happening, this wasn’t real.

“It was only you and Cedric after that. And then you disappeared and I thought for sure I could just manipulate Cedric out of the way, but he started to figure it out,” he sneered, shaking his head. “He tried to destroy the company, that piece of shit, tried to burn it down to nothing. He tried to dissolve everything Preston Corp had, to close it down all because he knew there was someone trying to get to him. Trying to get to you.”

A groan behind Taylor had Charlie darting his attention away for a split second, as Taylor assumed Todd stirred a little.

“And that prick,” he sneered at Todd’s limp form, “he got wise. He was on me like glue, for years now. And I needed his help. He was useful but it was not without my having to sacrifice,” Charlie said. Then a slow-moving smile crept onto his face. “But no one else suspected anything. Everyone thought this was all Todd,” he said spreading his arms and doing a small twist. “All of this and even Cedric, just before his last breath, believed it was Todd who was after him,” he bragged. “I even had to drug poor Tappen with the Datura to throw him off my scent when Derrick was in the hospital. And it worked. That, Taylor, that is what is called well played.

“And so now that I took care of all of those before you there is just one person standing in my way.” Charlie slid his right arm up and pointed his gun at Taylor. “You.”

Taylor wasn’t sure she was even breathing. It had all come to this. She was literally facing down the barrel of the gun, and whatever happened next would decide her fate.

“It has been such a chore to get to this point,” Charlie said in annoyance. “Every time I turn around there is something in the way, always someone in the way. Somehow there is always someone defending you. But not now,” he mused, a Cheshire-cat smile creeping across his face as he lifted his gun and used it to brush Taylor’s hair to the side, causing a shiver to run through her. “And so who is going to save you now, Taylor?” he asked in mock sympathy. “Now that every person who has ever protected you is out of the picture, hmmmm? There is no one else to take this bullet for you,” he said. “They are all tied up,” he said, laughing at his own nightmare-inducing joke. “So tell me, Taylor, who is going to save you?”

Taylor swallowed. “I…I don’t know.” She looked down nervously and slid her hands onto the desk behind her. “But I think that maybe, Charlie,” Taylor said, swallowing down her terror, “maybe I will just save myself.” She swung the lamp she had grabbed from the desk behind her and hit Charlie’s arm, sending the pistol flying from his hand.

Baffled, Charlie watched it fly. Taylor seized the opportunity and kicked her toe right into the center of Charlie’s groin, pitching his balls back into his body. The old psychopath gasped, wheezed, and whined like a bitch as he clutched at his groin.

Taylor swung the lamp again and hit the back of Charlie’s head as he bent over in pain, knocking him to the floor and unplugging the lamp, plunging the whole room into darkness. She was frozen in place for a moment, then she heard Charlie groan in front of her and a flame of urgency ignited within her.

Taylor edged along the desk toward the door and, hopefully, help. She moved slowly trying to stay out of Charlie’s path, but he groaned again and reached out grabbing at Taylor’s ankle sending her pitching to the floor. Frantically, she kicked and connected with some part of him, causing him to release her. Taylor scrambled away, crawled around to the side of the desk, and then scooted her way underneath it.

“I am going to kill you, bitch!” Charlie shouted from the other side of the heavy wood.

Taylor held her breath as she listened to him make his way to her. There were thumps as it sounded like Charlie was struggling to stand. And then there was the groan of the desk as he leaned into it for support.

---