Page 172 of A Dead End Wedding

"Oh, shut up yourself, Addison. I'm tired of you telling me what to do. Yes, my associate, who slipped that invoice intoyourdocument production. Your stupid people never double-check a discovery production?"

"It was on its way out the door," he said, looking like he wanted to shoot her, too.

"Whatever. We knew he'd found out and was trying to tell somebody. So he drove himself off that bridge. How sad," she said, smirking. "We wouldn't have had any loose ends, either, if you would have just taken a hint and gotten out of town after we had those very personal messages painted on that piece of shit you call a car."

Langley was seething. "Right. No loose ends. Except you hired those damn thugs. What kind of moron tries to get somebody to drop a case by talking to her about his allergies on the phone? Or throwing rocks at her? Or shooting at her doorframe? Let's not evendiscussthe damn alligator!"

He sneered at her. "A little discretion next time, Sarah, if you please."

Sarah snarled at him. "You should talk. You think having a man's throat cut in the museum in the middle of the damn day is discreet? Just because he could testify about the date of the camera shoot? We had a dozen people to testify against him and say he had it wrong, or a big, fat bribe would have been even easier."

"You're insane. You're both insane," I said, my hopes of ever making it out of this alive sinking down to my shoes. "You can't just go around killing people and keep getting away with it."

They both smiled identical smiles of triumph – so horrible I shuddered.

"But we got away with it. And we're going to keep getting away with it," Addison said softly.

I noticed Charlie stirring but didn't look at him, hoping Addison wouldn't shoot him.

Sarah flipped her hair back and shot an almost-flirtatious smile at me. "Too bad that hunk Jake Brody has to be next. He knows too much. We tried to send him on jobs out of town, but he turned them down to stay here and babysit you."

"No! He knows nothing," I said. "Leave him out of this."

"Oh, it's not just him. We may do your precious Aunt Celia just for fun," she said, and something in my mind snapped. I shouted "NOW!" as loudly as I could.

Charlie lunged forward, right on cue, and slammed his head into Addison's side, knocking him off balance. I launched myselfat them, grabbing a lamp on the way and yanking the cord out of the wall socket.

Sarah screamed and rushed me, but I slammed the lamp down on Addison's gun hand before she got there. He yelled, and the gun went skittering across the floor and landed under Uncle Nathan's chair.

Sarah plowed into me and flailed her arms around, hitting me. She clocked me on the side of the head, and I saw funny lights for a second. Addison punched Charlie in the shoulder, and Charlie hit the floor. I saw my chance and swung my foot back and kicked Addison in the crotch as hard as I could. He made a weird moaning sound and sank to the floor like a stone.

Sarah jumped on my back, shrieking, and yanked clumps of my hair out. My eyes teared up, and I screamed and rammed my elbows back. One hit empty air, but the other one knocked into her chest, and it was her turn to scream.

She let go of me and dropped to the floor. "I'm going to kill you," she yelled.

"Not if I kill you first," I said, breathing hard.

Uncle Nathan's calm voice broke in. "Fortunately, I seem to have the gun."

We both whirled around to stare at him. He stood, untied, ropes on the ground, aiming the gun at Sarah.

"What? Uncle Nathan, how did you—" I stumbled toward him.

"I write mysteries, my dear. You think I don't know how to escape bondage?" He grinned at me, unbelievably pleased with himself.

"I'd hug you, but I think we'll turn these creeps in to the police first," I said, picking up the ropes.

Charlie pulled himself up, looking a lot worse for wear. "I'll tie this one up," he said, nudging a howling, writhing Langley with his boot.

I tossed him the ropes and just stood there for a minute, sucking in air and enjoying the idea that we weren't going to die. Nathan stood there, smiling. "Nobody expected the old man to have it in him. Ha!"

Sarah stood there, shooting death glares at us, swearing at us in a low monotone.

"Would it be bad to throw her overboard and make her swim back?" I asked, not all that rhetorically.

Then I slammed my hand on my forehead. "Karl. He must have heard some of all this yelling. Charlie, tie Sarah up, too."

Sarah opened her mouth to scream, and Charlie clamped his hand over it, then he stuffed a rag out of his pocket in her mouth and tied it behind her head. Her face turned an ugly, mottled red with rage, but she could breathe through her nose, so I didn't much care.

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