Page 151 of Valor

“How did she know too much? All she saw was someone loading up supplies.” I try to wiggle my toes again, breathing a sigh of relief when I feel them move—just a bit—in my shoes.

Almost there.

“Mrs. Yates, community staple she was and all that, answered quite a few questions for me. About medications that could be used to subdue someone. How high the dosage should be. How frequently it should be administered. Even after you were found and opened your big mouth about it, she didn’t put the pieces together. She came to me to tell me what she saw that day on the loading dock. But even though she hadn’t put the rest together, the second she talked to Gibson, he would have.” She smiles wistfully at the mention of his name. “He’s the smartest man I know. It’s taken quite a bit to outmaneuver him. Especially since your arrogant brothers returned to town.”

Arrogant has never been a word anyone has ever used to describe my brothers. They’re kind, level-headed men, and the fact that she just insulted them adds another layer to my anger.

“You used her.” I take a labored breath.

“I wouldn’t have had to kill her if you hadn’t escaped! I had a perfect cover for that. A perfectly reasonable explanation for why I was asking her those questions. But then you got out and you just had to open that big mouth of yours.” She grips my face and squeezes. Pain shoots up both sides of my face, radiating from where she’s pinching my cheeks with her hand. “And now, you’ll have to be dealt with. I learned from my mistakes last time. I won’t make them again. This time, you don’t get to live. By the time I’m done with you, there will be nothing left for them to find.”

She releases my face and grips the chain between the handcuffs binding my wrists. The deputy starts humming as she drags me out of her kitchen and down the back steps of her porch. Warm sunlight hits me in the face as the back of my head hits wood.

I open my mouth to scream, but a barely audible, “Help!” comes out.

All while she just keeps humming. A tune I don’t recognize, even as I know I’ll never forget it. Not for as long as I live. Which, right now, is not looking like very long.

We stop moving, and she releases the handcuffs. I fall back against the grass, and my head lolls to the side. My gaze lands on a mound of fresh dirt and a flowering bush still in the temporary pot she bought it in.

Dread coils in my stomach. “Please,” I urge. “Please stop. It’s not too late.”

“Oh, it is too late. For Manny. For Carla. And now, for you. You really should’ve just stayed in that room. A month, maybe two, and you could’ve gone free. I would’ve even looked like a hero for finding you.”

“You’re deranged.”

“I’m the only one who sees the truth. That people like you—selfish people—cannot be allowed to hurt good-hearted people.”

“I didn’t hurt anyone.”

“Not yet. But you would’ve broken his heart. Something I will never do.”

“If you kill me, you’re breaking his heart.”

“It’ll heal this time. And I’ll be there to make sure it does.”

“That’s what your big plan is, then?” I ask as more of the paralytic wears off and I can move all ten fingers and toes. “You stole my stuff, are you planning to try and take my place? Some kind of twisted fake out?” Every word is a fight to get out. “They’ll figure out that you shot my dad. You’ll never get away with it. Gibson and my brothers are likely hunting you down as we speak. I bet they’re already on to you.”

Her cell rings, so she turns it around so I can see the screen.Gibson.“They’re not on to me,” she says cooly. “And they never will be.” Reaching forward, she tugs the gag she’d secured around my mouth earlier back into place. I choke on the dry fabric as she puts the phone on speaker. “Brown,” she says.

“You haven’t sent me the location of the car.” Gibson’s angry voice washes over me like a safety blanket just out of reach.

I call out to him through the gag and fight against the hold, but the deputy simply takes a few steps back and grins at my struggle. “I’m sorry. I’m canvasing the area. Trying to see if anyone saw who dumped it. I’ll send you the ping as soon as I get back, but if you just head south out of town, it’s sitting on the side of the road about ten miles out. You can’t miss it.”

“On my way.” He ends the call, and my hope dies alongside it.

“As I said. I covered my tracks.” She leans down and lifts me with a grunt, then drops me into a wooden box partially buried in the ground.

Panic claws at my chest.

It tears at my throat.

“And now I’ll cover you with a nice layer of dirt. Don’t worry, I got a pretty azalea to plant right over the top of you. Your final resting place is going to be gorgeous.”

I whimper against the gag in my mouth.

“Oh, I’m sorry. How rude of me.” She tugs the gag out of my mouth. “Any last words?”

“They will catch on,” I tell her, tears in my eyes. “And when they do, whether I’m alive or dead, there will be hell to pay.”

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