Page 13 of Buried Too Deep

Sage huffed a laugh. “I’m okay, thanks for asking.”

“I’m glad you’re all right,” Alan said stiffly. Because he was. He didn’t want Sage to be hurt. He didn’t want anyone to be hurt.

Well, that wasn’t true. He wanted whoever had gotten him into this mess to die a painful death. However, Sage was innocent. Of that crime, anyway.

But Sage was spinning out of his control, and Alan didn’t like that.

Sage rolled his eyes again. “What’s on these laptops that was so fucking important?”

Alan winced. At this point Sage was cursing to rile him up. “That’s not for you to know. Did you leave any blood behind for the police to find?”

Sage hesitated again. “No. The vest stopped the bullet.”

“What happened, Sage?”

“I grabbed the gun from her hand. Bitch was strong.”

“What happened, Sage?” he repeated, using his most authoritative voice.

It worked. It always did.

Sage’s shoulders sagged. “We fought over the gun and it went off. Shot her in the chest.”

Horror had Alan sucking in a breath. “You killed her?”

Sage’s gaze flicked up to meet his. “Maybe.”

There was guilt in the young man’s eyes. “What else, Sage?” Because there was more. There was always more these days.

“I was…mad. She’d shot me, for God’s sake. So I took the gun out and…” He looked away. “I might have hit her in the head with it.”

Still more. “What else?”

Sage’s chin lifted defiantly. “I pushed her chair over, okay? I stole her laptop, then chased after the Winslow woman. Cora was carrying a big purse and I just wanted to take it from her. That was all. If Winslow’s letters aren’t on the laptop in Broussard’s email, then she was bringing them in to Broussard herself. But the old woman got in my way.”

“You killed the receptionist,” Alan said heavily.

Another shrug. “Maybe. Cops got there fast. They could have saved her.”

Alan pressed his lips together, gathering his composure. “Did anyone see you?”

“Not my face. I was wearing a ski mask. Just like you told me to.” He tossed the mask on Alan’s desk.

Good thing I told him to wear it. Sage’s face and golden blond hair were highly recognizable.

Maybe more so than mine. The boy’s face was on advertising billboards all over town. He brought in a lot of donations from their female viewers, young and old.

“Did Broussard’s office have cameras?”

“Yes, but none of them caught my face. I was wearing my wig and glasses under the mask, so I was doubly protected. I’m in the clear.”

That’s what I thought, too, all those years ago. But the body Alan had left in that Baton Rouge parking lot hadn’t stayed where he’d put it.

This was his worst nightmare.

He’d waited for a blackmail letter for years, but none had come. He’d waited for the police to show up on his doorstep, but that had never happened, either.

He’d grown complacent.

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