Page 90 of To Die For

Obviously I would never have gone with him if he hadn’t had that pistol jammed in my side, but he did, so I did. I was sort of in shock, trying to wrap my mind around what was happening. Thinking about something else until my subconscious felt ready to face this obviously wasn’t going to work this time. By the time I realized he wouldn’t have shot me in front of witnesses—and there had been a couple of other people still in the department—it was too late; I was already in his car with him.

He made me drive, while he kept the pistol trained on me. I thought about driving him into a telephone pole or something, but I flinched at the idea of being in yet another car accident. My poor body was just now recovering from the last one. I didn’t want to get hit in the face by another air bag, either. Yeah, I know, a bruise is temporary but a bullet can be forever, so maybe I didn’t make the best choice. Just in case I had to drive into a telephone pole, though, as a last resort, I glanced down at the steering wheel to make certain there was an air bag there. The car was a late model Chevrolet, so of course it had one, but after the week I’d had, I wanted to double-check.

The funny thing is, I was alarmed but not terrified. See, the main thing to know about Jason is that he’ll do anything to protect his image. His whole life is built around his political career, polls, and his ambition. How he thought he could get away with murder when at least two people had seen me leaving with him, I don’t know.

I followed his directions while I waited for him to realize this, but somehow he seemed to be in his own alternate reality. I didn’t know where he was taking me; in fact, we seemed to be driving aimlessly around town while he tried to think of somewhere to go. He kept pulling at his lower lip, which, I remembered, was a habit he had when he was worrying about something.

“You wore a black wig, right?” I casually asked. “When you cut my brake line?”

He shot me a nervous glance. “How did you know?”

“Some hairs got caught on the undercarriage. The forensics team found them.”

He looked faintly puzzled, then nodded. “Oh, yeah, I remember sort of catching the wig on something. I didn’t think about any hair coming out because I couldn’t feel anything pulling.”

“They’re checking now for a list of people who bought black wigs,” I lied. He gave me another nervous glance. Actually, it wasn’t much of a lie. When Wyatt found my notebook with the wordwigcircled, he would definitely check it out.

“People saw me leaving with you,” I pointed out. “If you kill me, how are you going to explain that?”

“I’ll think of something,” he muttered.

“What? How can you dispose of my body? Besides, they’ll hook you up to a lie detector so fast your head will spin. Even if they can’t find enough evidence to bring you to trial, the publicity will ruin your career.” See, I know Jason; he has nightmares about anything that might threaten his career. And even though he’d cut my brake lines, I simply couldn’t see him killing me in person.

“You might as well just let me go,” I continued. “I don’t know why you’re trying to kill me—wait a minute! You might have cut my brake lines, but you definitely didn’t shoot at me last Sunday. What’s going on here?” I jerked around to stare at him and the car swerved. He cursed and I hurriedly straightened the wheel.

“I don’t know what you mean,” he said, staring straight ahead and forgetting to keep me covered with the pistol. See? Jason is just not cut out for a life of crime.

“Someone else shot at me.” My brain was racing, and all the separate little links were knotting together, forming a chain. “Your wife!Your wife tried to kill me, didn’t she?”

“She’s crazy jealous,” he blurted. “I can’t stop her; I can’t reason with her. This will ruin me if she gets caught, and she will, because she doesn’t know what she’s doing.”

That made two of them.

“So you thought you’d sort of kill me yourself so she wouldn’t have to? Beat her to the punch?”

“Something like that.” Frazzled, he raked a hand through his blond hair. “If you’re dead, she’ll stop obsessing about you.”

“Why on earth would she obsess about me? I am so totally out of your life; this is the first time I’ve spoken to you since our divorce.”

He mumbled something, and I threw a glare his way. “What? Speak up.” He mumbles when he feels guilty about something.

“It might be my fault,” he mumbled, slightly louder.

“Oh? How’s that?” I tried to sound encouraging, when what I really wanted to do was beat his head against the pavement or something.

“When we argue, I might say something about you,” he confessed, and now he was staring out the passenger window. Really. I thought about simply reaching over and taking the pistol away from him, except he had his finger on the trigger, which is so totally stupid if you aren’t an expert, and Jason wasn’t. If he had been, he would have been watching me like a hawk instead of staring out the window.

“Jason, you dummy,” I groaned. “Why would you do something stupid like that?”

“She’s always trying to make me jealous,” he said defensively. “I love Debra, I really do, but she isn’t like you. She’s clingy and insecure, and I got tired of the way she tried to make me jealous and I started firing back. I knew it made her mad, but I didn’t know she’d flipped out about it. Last Sunday night, when I got home from playing golf and found out she’d actually shot at you, we had this huge argument and she swore she’d kill you if it was the last thing she did. I think she’s been staking out your house or something, trying to find out if there’s something going on between us. Nothing I said made any difference to her. She’s crazy jealous, and if she kills you, I probably won’t even be reelected as state representative. I can kiss the governorship good-bye.”

I mulled all this over for a minute.

“Jason, I hate to tell you this, but you married a nitwit. That’s fair, though,” I added judiciously.

He looked at me. “How’s that?”

“So did she.”

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