Page 138 of Wish You Were Mine

Grace made a sound of disdain. “It doesn’t end there. He followed you when the two of you went mountain biking and laid a branch over the track. When he heard you coming, he fired a shot to surprise you, so you wouldn’t see the branch until it was too late. Of course, he intended Asher to be the one who hit it, not you.”

“Not that that stopped him from coming after me again,” I muttered.

Grace grimaced. “Apparently, that’s actually what gave him the idea.”

I frowned. “How do you mean?”

She shifted position, and I winced as the mattress moved beneath me.

She stopped instantly. “Sorry.”

I waved my hand, not wanting her to stop telling her story. “I’m fine.”

Her mouth turned downward. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah. I want to hear it all.”

“Fair enough.” She drew in a deep breath. “Robert saw how worried Asher was about you, and started thinking how it would be proper justice if he had to suffer through a loss like Robert himself had, rather than just being hurt directly.”

“But breaking Asher’s window was pretty targeted at him,” I argued.

She arched an eyebrow. “That seems like a petty scare tactic to me. I don’t know, but I’d say it was a spur of the moment thing. The fire was more purposeful, and he set that when Asher wasn’t home.”

“He was at brunch at Mum and Dad’s place,” I murmured, suddenly recalling the vehicle that had shot away as we’d left their house that morning.

“They did confirm the fingerprint on the rock was his,” Grace said, “and he confessed to setting the fire.”

My jaw dropped. “Wait. He’s admitted to all of this?”

“Apparently, he’s quite a talker once he gets started. Nate thinks he wants to brag, but I believe, deep down, the guilt weighs on him and he sees sharing his story with the police as a way to lessen the load.”

“Perhaps.” Robert certainly hadn’t seemed like a man with much of a conscience when he’d held a gun to my temple, but he had let Marcy go unharmed, so maybe Grace was onto something. Perhaps he simply wasn’t mentally healthy when he’d done those awful things, and now, reality was beginning to catch up with him.

“That evening you went to dinner at the resort, he meant to run you down, not Frannie, but there were too many people in the way, and she was the one closest to the road, so she was the easiest target.”

“Poor Frannie.” She’d been by to visit this morning, and she’d clearly still been shaken. She’d clung to Marcy the entire time they were here.

“I can’t even imagine how scared she must have been.” Grace’s tone was strained. “If someone kidnapped Finn, I’d lose my mind.”

“Speaking of, where is he?” I asked, only now realizing she hadn’t arrived with him.

“With Heather. I’ll pick him up when I leave here.”

“You’ll have to bring him by later this week so I can have baby cuddles with my nephew.” There was something about holding babies that just made the world seem okay.

“I will.” She smiled. “Is there anything else you want to know?”

“No, thanks.” I’d pieced together most of it. Robert had taken Marcy to the cabin, where he hadn’t thought anyone would look for them, but he’d had regrets and dropped her off where he knew she’d be found. “I’m tired of depressing stuff. What’s been going on with you?”

Grace laughed. “Nothing that can rival getting trapped in a cabin and shot.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’ve been stabbed, Grace. You have plenty of your own exciting stories.”

She inclined her head in acknowledgement. “I’ve been talking with Jewel and Rocky’s descendant, Corie. She’s confirmed a few things for me, corrected a mistake I made, and she even shared a family legend. Want to know what it was?”

A smile slowly spread across my face. This sounded like more fun than dwelling on Robert Warner. “Uh…of course!”

Grace leaned closer. “The family believes that Pearl was left an inheritance by her father.”

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