56

Fool Me Twice

Drew glanced around. A tiny smile touched his mouth when he saw the boathouse spitting out a bright red jet ski.

“Couldn’t have planned it better myself,” he murmured, releasing the throttle.

The cruiser’s angry growling simmered into a purr. Behind him, Kelly made a frantic, panicked sound. Drew turned to her, lifting a finger to his lips.

“Ssh.”

She paused, and then renewed her efforts to unfasten the seat belt. The woman had apparently never been on a boat before, else she would have been able to figure out how to work the safety latch on the buckle.

Maybe it was time to show her.

He walked over, stretching out his arms as if the sun baked down on them and it couldn’t have been a finer day for boating. He tried to ignore the fat drops of rain pelting his head and shoulders.

“Need a hand?”

Kelly stopped, bunching her hands against her throat when he crouched in front of her. He clipped open the seatbelt and carefully drew it away from her.

“Better?”

“What—” she cut off, looking from left to right and then wiping her hands over her face. “Why are we here?”

Drew took his cellphone from his pocket. “Signal, remember? So you could phone that tow truck?”

Kelly blinked at him a few times, and slowly reached for the phone. He grabbed her wrist, tugging her forward in the seat.

“You fucked him again, didn’t you? You and Angel both.”

The woman struggled to get her arm back and then went limp. Her tears didn’t glitter — there wasn’t enough sunlight for that — but they made her muddy-green eyes luminous with moisture.

“Yes,” she said with a sob. She nodded. A tear sped down her cheek, collecting at the bottom of her chin.

“You hypocritical bitch.” Drew put his head on the side, studying her until she squirmed. “Lecturing me about morals, when you can’t even go one week without fucking my brother? Twice? Did you get us mixed up again?”

She sniffed loudly, using the heel of her free hand to swipe at her eyes. Then she shook her head, her lips trembling when she forced her eyes back to him.

“You know what they say, Kelly.” He rose to his feet, chin on his chest to look down at the woman. “Fool me once… shame on me. Fool me twice, shame—”

“Drew!”

He turned, face expressionless as he watched Bryce scramble onto the cruiser’s swimming platform.

“Glad you could join us, bro,” Drew said, his voice thick. He glanced back at Kelly. “She was just telling me how much you were having, back at the lakehouse.”

Bryce froze, holding out both hands. “You okay there, peaches?”

“Yeah,” Kelly said with another sob.

Drew laughed and slid his cellphone back into his pocket. “Why wouldn’t she be?”

“Because I know you, Drew.” Bryce’s hands dropped to his sides, but his right hand kept tensing. “You don’t let things go. You let them fester like a sore. Until they pop… and then all sorts of crazy things start happening.”

He laughed again, crossing his arms over his chest. “Nice visuals. Very poetic. And what bad things, pray tell, am I planning?”

“Got no fucking clue,” Bryce said, his fingers twitching. “But no way you’re going through with any of them.”

He barely managed to suppress a flinch when Bryce yanked a gun from behind his back. When his brother aimed it at his chest, he kept his eyes fixed on Bryce’s face. His eyes, his mouth, his jaw.

The man was as high as an astronaut orbiting Earth.

Drew put out his hands, slowly enough that even Bryce’s hopped-up mind couldn’t construe the movement as a threat.

“Now, Bryce…” he said in a low, careful voice. “I think you might be overreacting a little, don’t you?”

“What? No! I know you.” Bryce shook the gun. “You think I don’t know what you did? I fucking know you.”

“What did I do?” Drew shrugged, both his hands facing Bryce palm out as he shrugged. “Just treating Kelly to a boat ride—”

“Not her!” Bryce’s mouth contorted into a snarl. “Juliet!”

“Juliet?” He glanced at Kelly.

She glanced from him to his brother with wide eyes and a parted mouth while she massaged her wrist where he’d grabbed her.

“Fuck!” Bryce yelled, drawing his eyes back. The man’s jaw bunched.

“Bryce?”

He shook the gun again, his lips working before words came out.

“You could just have divorced her, you know.” Bryce’s voice began shaking. The gun dipped, its tip wavering and bobbing the tighter Bryce’s face became. “Why didn’t you just fucking divorce her?”

Drew put his head to the side and slowly lowered his hands. “But she’s dead. Why would I want to divorce my dead wife?”

“Instead of killing her! You could have divorced her instead of, instead of—”

“Killing her?” Drew cut in with a laugh. He put a hand on his chest, turning to Kelly. “He thinks I killed my wife.”

Kelly’s face went white. She gripped both sides of the seat and pushed herself to her feet, staggering away from Drew.

“Now you’ve gone and upset Kelly,” he said.

But when he turned back to Bryce, the man was right in front of him.

He ducked.

The air above his head swirled at the force of Bryce’s swing. His brother reeled, thrown off balance by lack of impact.

Drew’s lips curled into a snarl as he grabbed his brother’s waist and ran them both back. Bryce grunted when they met with the cruiser’s railing.

Something struck him hard on the back of the head. Hard enough to send stars scattering across his vision. He yelled, wrenching himself free from Bryce and touching the back of his head.

Blood coated his fingertips.

“You fuck,” he spat.

Bryce caught him when he charged again, and they both tumbled to the deck. Drew got a knee in his brother’s groin, but Bryce simultaneously landed an elbow on his nose. He fell back with a gurgling cry, both hands over his face as blood spilled down the back of his throat and filled his mouth with liquid copper. Bryce was silent, but his face had paled as he curled in on himself.

The gun wasn’t in his hands anymore.

Drew spun around, leaving an arc of red in his wake, but he couldn’t see the gun anywhere.

Kelly tottered away from them, turning and retching violently over the side of the boat.

Bryce’s fist caught the side of his jaw when he turned back. His teeth clacked hard, severing a chunk of his tongue. He spat it out, but his mouth just filled with blood again.

“You had it all worked out, didn’t you?” Bryce yelled, drawing back his arm for another punch.

He laughed, easily ducking Bryce’s wild swing. The man was too wired to aim correctly, too hot-blooded to think. Unable to calculate. To wait.

“Did I now?” he asked, wincing at the pain those words produced. He spat out another mouthful of blood and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“You rigged her car. Cut her brake lines. Fucked with her ABS. Something. I know you did.”

“Strange.” His words were muffled now how he was trying to keep his tongue still. “Investigator didn’t find anything.”

“Course not!” Bryce swung again. Missed again.

He drove his shoulder into Bryce’s side, throwing the man to the deck with the help of his own unbalanced momentum. Bryce’s breath left him in a blustering snort when they struck the deck.

They struggled, Drew trying to grab hold of the man’s arms before he could twist onto his back. He managed to get his arm around his neck, but Bryce was bucking so hard that he lost his grip and was sent hurtling over the deck where he slammed against the stern of the boat.

“You were there!” Bryce screamed as he surged to his feet. He stood for a moment, swaying, and then stormed forward. “You waited for her to fuck out. For her car to go over the side. Then you went and fixed it!”

Drew wanted to laugh, but Bryce kicked him in the face before he could get more than a chuckle out. Blackness and stars whirled as his skin went ice cold.

“Did you watch her die? Huh?” A fist landed on his cheekbone. The bone cracked, rendered both as sound and sensation. “Did you watch her taking her last breath while you went under that hood and got rid of all the fucking evidence?”

Blood splashed from his mouth when he laughed. Bryce drew back his arm, the muscles in his jaw bunching and his eyes glittering with phenomenal rage.

“Don’t,” came Kelly’s tremulous voice.

There was a soft click, somehow too loud despite the pattering of rain on plastic and skin.

“Bryce, please, don’t.”

“Jesus,” Bryce muttered, his arm dropping an inch. “Kelly, don’t—”

“Stand up.”

“Kelly, he—”

“Get up. Please, Bryce.”

Bryce obeyed, but with a reluctance that made his legs stutter. He lifted his hands, tossing his head to get his hair from his eyes.

More rain fell now. Still big drops, but more. The sound of them hitting the boat and the water slowly grew louder. There was barely any light left in the day — the clouds had ripped twilight from its bed more than two hours earlier and were ushering in an early night.

“Thanks, Kelly.” He spat out blood, grabbed the railing, and hoisted himself to his feet. “You know, I think he’s gone mental. I mean, here I am—”

“Shut up, Drew.”

His eyes flew back to Kelly. Her face was still unnaturally pale; her lips pinched, her eyes narrowed.

“Kelly…”

“You’re both going to stop talking.” She cocked her head. “And sit. Both of you. Opposite sides.”

When none of them moved, she gestured with the gun.

When they still didn’t move, she shot a round into the coaming.

“Jesus!” Bryce was on his knees, hands over his head, a split second before he was.

They both peeked out at Kelly from under the umbrellas of their arms, Bryce looking as shocked as he felt.

“Got your attention, did I?” Kelly yelled, her voice breaking. “Get. Get!”

She gestured wildly with the gun, making him flinch. Bryce scrambled into the closest seat, hands gripping the sides.

He could feel his brother’s eyes on him as he made his way to the opposite side of the boat. Taking his seat with as much decorum as he could muster — what with a strung out chick like Kelly holding a gun on him — he turned and glared at Bryce.

“Good.” Kelly dropped the gun, and then lifted it toward Drew. “Put on the belt.”

“Sure thing, sweetheart,” he muttered, clipping himself in.

“You too,” she said, the gun swinging to Bryce.

He did as she said, eyes never leaving her face. Drew looked at them, a frown growing between his eyebrows. For someone who’d slept with him twice, Kelly sure wasn’t very trusting of his brother.

The woman gave them each a nod and lowered the gun to her side. “Now…” she took a breath, glanced up at the sky like she’d just realized it had started to rain, and shivered. “None of you move.”

She fumbled in her pocket and took out her cellphone. Her face melted with relief when she glanced down at the screen. Her head dipped as she began tapping out a number. The gun dangled from limp fingers at her side, forgotten.

“That’s how you did it, isn’t it?”

Drew looked up at the sound of Bryce’s voice. He shrugged. “Sounds like a lot of work. Would’ve been easier just to divorce her.”

Bryce threw back his head and snorted. “You?”

“Why’d I spend so much time and effort on someone who didn’t love me anymore? Where’s the logic in that?”

Bryce sobered immediately. He dropped his head, eyes burning through Drew as his lips curled into a sneer. “It wasn’t about her. It never was.” The man sat forward, making Kelly look up from the phone. “It was about me.”

“Hey, sit still.” Kelly put the phone to her ear, pointing the gun at Bryce. “And shut up, both of you.”

Drew ran his tongue over his teeth. It hurt like a bitch, but at least it had stopped bleeding. He gathered spit in his mouth and sent that pink blob splashing to the floor between his feet.

“Hello? Yes! Please, you have to send help. There’s been a fight. Uh…” Kelly’s voice trailed off.

When he lifted his head, Bryce’s face had lost all expression. “It was all about me,” he repeated quietly. “You did it to get back at me.”

Drew cocked his head to the side. “You know what, Bryce? Yeah. It was all about you. But that’s the way it’s always been, isn’t it?”

“Yes, I’m fine. No, I’m not in danger.”

Drew looked up at Kelly. Her lips began trembling as she swung the gun to him. “Please, hurry. It’s lot 15A, Pine Drive, Blackwater Lake…”

He dismissed her, turning his attention back to Bryce. The man tugged his hands guiltily away from the seatbelt, dropping his eyes. It was undone now. But was he planning on going for Kelly, or him?

Smiling, Drew sat back in the chair, hooking his thumbs over the seatbelt like a cowboy. “You know, I thought the impact would have killed her.”

Bryce’s eyes snapped up to his. His fingers flexed before curling into two tight fists.

“But it didn’t.” He put his head to the side, studying Bryce. “She was hanging upside down from her seatbelt—” he twanged his own seatbelt “—moaning and groaning.” He swayed from side to side, his smile inching up.

Bryce’s lips began trembling. “You fuck,” he hissed.

“Want to know what she said to me, bro?” He let the word trail from his mouth, slow and deliberate.

Bryce shook his head. For a moment, he thought a raindrop had gotten caught in those long lashes, but then the man blinked once — hard — and set free a pair of tears.

“She thought I was you,” Drew whispered, sitting forward in his seat.

Now, with Bryce so intense on his face, on his words, his brother wasn’t paying attention to his hands. Wasn’t watching them move slowly closer to that latch.

Kelly neither. He could see her from the corner of his eye. Could see the phone lowering. How it dangled at her side. The gun was still on him, but it would take a miracle for her to shoot anything higher than his ankle at the angle she pointed it.

She seemed as rapt as Bryce, at that moment. Perhaps it was the unraveling of the story, or the drugs pumping through her system, but she was as lost as his brother.

“When I came down the embankment? When she saw me?” Drew shrugged. “She called out your name.”

He shifted forward, lacing his fingers and resting his chin on them. The belt was loose now, but neither Bryce or Kelly seemed to have noticed.

“See, the windshield, the windows — they were all gone. Shattered. ‘Cos the car had rolled so many times. So I could hear her just fine. And she called for you. Said it hurt. That she couldn’t get out. And you want to know what I told her, Bryce? Want to know what I said to her, right before she died?”

Bryce was shivering now. His mouth was in a grim line, a deep crease between his eyebrows. He shook his head, black eyes imploring for mercy.

A mercy he would never receive.

“I told her I didn’t love her. That I never had. I told her I was using her to get back at Drew.” He pointed to himself with his thumb. “Back at me.”

Bryce’s eyes squeezed shut. He shook, his head swaying from side to side as his body fought against the revelation.

“She died thinking you used her.” He sat back then, grinning as his brother shook. “Now isn’t that fucking ironic?”