Page 35 of One Little Memory
Was Phoenix getting weaker? Or was he trying to lure Anderson in, making him think he was getting weaker?
Anderson swung his gaze back to Phoenix, and his eyes narrowed. She took a chance and moved ever so slightly toward the bed. Her towel was there. If she threw it and dove at the same time to distract Anderson, maybe Phoenix could take him out.
She moved a little more and grabbed the towel. She tried to catch Phoenix’s eye. He steadfastly refused to look in her direction.
“Why did Kevin take all the money?” she asked. It was the first thing that popped into her head.
Anderson sneered. “He blamed me for everything going wrong at the heist. Said Graham’s death was my fault. Graham was his best friend. But it doesn’t matter now. He’s dead. You hit him with the car, and then it was easy. He begged me to help him. I half carried him back to the house and told him I had to take him to the hospital, but he couldn’t go without paying so he was going to have to tell me where the money was because hospitals were expensive. He caved instantly. Right after the heist, he got into a bad car accident and he didn’t do well with pain after that. He became a wimp. No tolerance.” He snorted. “I couldn’t believe he just blurted out where the money was.”
“So, you shot him with the gun that he was using to shoot at Jo. But how did you run her off the road?” Phoenix glanced at her then.
Wait. How had he known she was being shot at? There was no time for questioning that now. She moved her hand slightly to draw Phoenix’s attention to the towel. His gaze flicked downward and then back up again. She saw the hesitation in his eyes. He didn’t want her to do it because it put her in danger, but he needed to realize they didn’t have a choice.
“Once I shot Kevin, I hightailed it after you. I wasn’t sure I’d catch you, but the rain was coming down hard and you’d slowed down. I managed to catch up with you pretty quickly. It was easy after that.”
She gritted her teeth.Easy?For him. For her it had been a nightmare. She focused on what she had to do. “So you had to live under Kevin’s thumb for all these years.” She grinned. “You weren’t free either. Oh, you were out in the world, but you were tied to your brother. You needed the money, and you had to beg for it. He had you.” She goaded him. “You weren’t in charge. You had to be a nice guy to the world because you needed them to like you and spend money in your store. Your brother could bethe asshole that you wanted to be because he had all the money. How did it feel to beg for scraps?”
Anderson’s gaze hardened. “Shut your mouth, you little bitch.” He took a step closer to her.
It was now or never. Live or die; this was her moment, the one she’d worked all those years for. If she succeeded, her father would go free. If not, it didn’t matter if she made it. She just couldn’t see him suffer any longer. Phoenix was the only regret she had. She would’ve liked to get to know him better. He was special. He was the type of man she could spend the rest of her life with if she lived past this moment. She threw the towel at Anderson and dove for the floor.
CHAPTER 17
The gun jerkedin his hand, and the shot was deafening in the small space. Anderson’s eyes went wide before he looked down at his chest. A big red splotch was growing in the middle of his rumpled shirt. Phoenix’s aim had been true, and he’d hit the man center mass. Anderson dropped his gun and sank to his knees. Then he fell face first onto the floor.
“Jo,” Phoenix called out as he kicked the gun away from Anderson. He bent down and touched two fingers to the man’s neck. No pulse.
“Jo,” he said again. She was in a heap on the floor next to the door.Please, God, let her be okay. He went over to her and touched her shoulder.
She opened her eyes and looked up at him. “Oh, Phoenix,” she said as she sat up and threw her arms around him. “It’s over. It’s really over.”
The door burst open, and the place flooded with cops. Falcon came in with them. He was beside Phoenix in the blink of an eye. “Are you okay? Phoenix, man, are you good?”
Phoenix stood and pulled Jo to her feet. “Yeah, Falcon, I’m fine. Jo, this is my brother Falcon.”
Falcon nodded to her, but his gaze searched his brother’s form, lingering on the blood on his neck. Phoenix reached out, and Falcon wrapped his arms around his brother. It felt good to hug Falcon. It had been a lot of years since they did, and with everything going on, it just seemed necessary to remind each other that they were brothers and would always look out for one another.
“Um, Phoenix, you, okay? You got a lot of blood on your neck. Did you get shot?” Chief Bowers was standing in the doorway.
“Nah, Chief. Anderson hit me from behind with something, probably the butt of his gun, but I’m okay.”
“Anderson?”
He pointed to the man on the floor. “It’s a long story. I’ll fill you in.” He started to move, but the room tilted a bit and he stumbled.
“Get him to the ambulance,” the chief said.
He wanted to object, but his head hurt too much. He just needed to sit down for a minute.Just one minute, he thought as he closed his eyes.
“He’s fine.Just a slight concussion. He should wake up soon.” It was Hazel’s voice. The mechanical beeps and the smell told him he was at the hospital. Opening his eyes seemed like a lot of work. Laying there with his eyes closed seemed so much better.
“Stop being lazy, man. I know you can hear us. You have a tell.”
His brother’s voice seemed overly loud. He cracked one eye and squinted at his brother. “Do you have to be so loud?”
“Made you open your eyes, didn’t it?”
“Fine,” he grumbled. He looked around the room. Hazel was still there.
