Page 135 of Over the Edge

EVERYTHING WAS GOING SOUTH.

As the car rolled through the darkness, Heidi behind the wheel, Anthony wiped a hand down his face.

Maybe the fever was messing with both his brain and his nerves, but despite the impressive plan his partner had come up with on the fly, he couldn’t shake the specter of disaster hovering over him. Seat-of-the-pants had never been how he operated. Meticulous planning paid off, as evidenced by the success of the original car incident, the lake attack, and the staged mugging.

But there’d been no time for planning after Lindsey showed up at his door on a mission of mercy.

He looked over at Heidi in the dim car.

If she was nervous, it didn’t show. Her hands were relaxed on the wheel, her attention fixed on the road ahead as she tooled toward their destination.

As if she’d sensed his gaze, she glanced at him. “How are you holding up?”

“Physically, okay.”

“You getting cold feet about this?”

“I don’t like killing.”

“She left us no choice, honey. Besides, you didn’t seem all that squeamish about getting rid of James. I guess love is a powerful motivator.” She reached over and touched his leg, the sudden warmth in her voice in stark contrast to the coldness of her comment about her husband.

“That’s true.” He tried to mask his revulsion as he spoke the lie. Love had nothing to do with Robertson’s murder. Not on his end, anyway.

He turned away and stared out the side window into the darkness.

In hindsight, the irony of his situation with Heidi would be almost humorous if the stakes weren’t so high.

But he hadn’t known her history the night he’d been trolling for funding sources at a society function after his divorce and tagged her as an easy mark. After chatting her up, it had been obvious her love for Robertson was based on dollar signs, and that any feelings she may have had for her husband in the beginning had faded after eight years of marriage to a workaholic. She’d been ripe for the plucking.

Just as James had been when Heidi had targeted the lonely widower at the health club where she’d worked as a receptionist. With no children in the picture, she’d seen a clear path to easy street. A secret she’d shared with her new paramour after confiding that her previous husband had squandered all their money and left her for another woman, pushing her to find a new love interest with deep pockets.

The same way he’d viewed her, once his own money problems began.

A perfect illustration of what goes around, comes around.

The only glitch with his plan? She’d had a prenup that precluded her from getting any of Robertson’s fortune if she initiated a divorce.

By the time he’d found out about that complication, he’d done his snow job too well and she’d fallen for him. Hard.She hadn’t cared about giving up Robertson’s money—until he’d told her his own funds were limited.

And thus was hatched the plan to eliminate her husband.

Greed was as powerful a motivator as love.

“See? I told you it would be deserted.”

Anthony tuned back in to his surroundings, giving the industrial area a sweep as Heidi killed the car lights and swung into an empty parking lot.

“Are you certain there’s no security?”

“Yes. The employee who mentioned it to me a couple of days ago as a potential acquisition said it was abandoned and in such disrepair the owners didn’t even bother to lock it anymore. He said it’s being sold as a tear-down.” She drove around to the back of the structure, where the car would be hidden from the view of any passersby.

“Why would he recommend that you buy this place?” He gave the somewhat seedy surroundings another inspection. “It isn’t exactly prime real estate.”

“It doesn’t have to be for the self-storage facility he proposed we build. But I plan to nix the idea. That’s not a business I want to be in.” She braked. Scanned the building. “However, if someone robbed Lindsey and abducted her, they couldn’t find a more ideal spot to finish her off.”

Her matter-of-fact manner turned Anthony’s stomach.

Thank goodness the car was too dark for her to see his expression of disgust.

---