Page 114 of Sunburned

I felt like I’d swallowed glass. “Against me?”

“You’re wanted for murder.”

“But you had it on you before you saw my footprints,” I said.

“I saw you coming up the hill from my bathroom window. I waited until you came upstairs so we could talk in private. Why are you here?”

“I didn’t kill Tyson,” I said, dropping my hands.

She flinched. She was definitely jumpy, and she didn’t look like she was used to handling a gun. A dangerous combination. “It sure looks like you did,” she said.

She might be the one brandishing a weapon, but she didn’t know about the cameras recording our conversation in crystal-clear audio and video, thanks to Tyson’s paranoia. I just needed to get a confession out of her without making her want to pull the trigger. “Please, put the gun down. I didn’t kill Tyson, and I don’t want to hurt you.”

She shook her head, keeping the firearm trained on me.

I desperately scoured my brain for anything I could use to compel her to confide in me rather than shoot me.Treat her like an ally?It was worth a try. I swallowed. “We have a lot in common,” I said. “Both of us single moms. Neither of us can go to jail, we have our children to think about. If you’ll just tell me what happened, I can help you.”

She laughed. “You, help me?”

I softened my face and steeled my resolve. “I did once before, remember? The night of the fire. I kept pressure on your wound until the paramedics could get there. I saved your life, but you still have the scar.”

She choked up on the gun, blinking rapidly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I always liked you, Andie.” I tilted my head at what I hoped was a sympathetic angle, aware I was taking a risk. But Laurent was watching the camera feed. Would he have called the police already? I hadn’t given the signal, but he might have thought it necessary when he saw the gun. If he had, I didn’t have much time to get a confession out of her. “And I like you even better as Jennifer. Sobriety looks good on you. So does”—I gestured to her body—“all of it. Good for you, turning your life around.”

“You’re not making sense,” she said, but there was acknowledgment in her eyes.

“I can help you stay out of jail, if you’ll just tell me what happened.”

“You’re the prime suspect in Tyson’s murder,” she said, her voice unsteady. “Not me.”

“Because they haven’t verified your true identity yet,” I said, feigning confidence. “But they work fast. We don’t have much time to come up with a plausible story. If you’ll just put the gun down, we can talk.”

She didn’t put the gun down, but I could tell she didn’t know what to make of me, which was at least better than her wanting to shoot me. She’d already tried to kill me once; this time she might succeed. “I didn’t realize you were pregnant when I ran into you at Goodwill,” I went on. “But it’s so clear now, that your son is Ian’s.”

She adjusted her grip on the gun.

“I understand why you wanted revenge on Tyson,” I continued. “You felt he was responsible for Ian’s death—”

“He was,” she snapped, cutting me off. “You know it as well as I do.”

She realized once she’d said it that she’d betrayed herself, but the cat was out of the bag and there was no putting it back in. She was jittery, her finger on the trigger as she backed away from me.

I considered giving Laurent the signal to call the police, but whose side would they be on when they showed up? Probably not mine. Not yet, even if Laurent had patched them in to the feed from the cameras overhead. I needed to get more out of her. “I can help you,” I offered, putting my whole heart into it, though I had nothing to back it up. “We can help each other.”

“How?” She was going for derision, but the quiver in her voice betrayed her.

“The police didn’t listen to you back then when you tried to tell them Tyson was involved in Ian’s disappearance, because Tyson was the son of a prominent businessman, and Ian was just another missing drug addict. That must have hurt.”

“You have no idea,” she said bitterly.

“But you were smart. You played the long game, taking on a new identity and worming your way into Tyson’s inner circle so that you could tighten the noose around his neck.”

The fact that she didn’t respond told me I was on the right track.

“What was your plan?” I pressed. All of this had been set in motion long before Ian’s foot washed up. “Your end goal?”

“I wanted to ruin his life, the way he’d ruined mine,” she admitted finally. The gun began to sag as she paid more attention to her bitterness than to the deadly weapon in her hand, and I briefly wondered whether I could charge her and grab it. But what good would that do? I hadn’t yet gotten a murder confession out of her, and Cody was downstairs and would surely come to her defense if he heard a scuffle. “I was the one who alerted the Monterey De-Sal center that their environmental impact report should be double-checked.”

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