Page 83 of Rebels and Roses

“Tom was hedging his bets, you see,” Zack continued. “He figured with several women, at least one of them would get pregnant. If they all did, well, that was fine, too. He would make even more money. I’m not sure the Kemp grandparents thought this through all that carefully. I think they were getting older, wanted great-grandchildren, and panicked a little.”

“So, Fiona tried to make Tom look unbalanced to Erica so that she would dump him?” Lucy queried. “Then when that didn’t work, she killed him?”

“Fiona says that Tom dying was an accident, but his being here in Winslow Heights wasn’t. When Tom would tell her about being followed and watched, she’d purposely bring uphow Cooper worked with law enforcement and so forth. She was pushing Tom - in a roundabout way - to come to Cooper for help,” Tate explained.

“Why?” Jane asked. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“It does if you look through her eyes,” Zack replied. “Remember, she was desperate to break up Tom and Erica. If he flew off and came here, she could point out that he was clearly losing it. So, she kept talking about how amazing Cooper was. She was surprised when Tom stole her phone, but she wasn’t upset about it at all. It meant that he’d taken the bait. She gave him a few days and then followed. When she talked to her brother, and he and Erica were still together, she knew she had to take a different route.”

“Why Cooper?” Lucy asked. “Why him?”

“Because she’d heard for years how terrible the law enforcement was here in Winslow Heights,” Zack said. “She figured she’d come to some backwoods town, get Tom using again, and she wouldn’t have to worry about cops getting in the way. If he wouldn’t use, she’d already decided that she’d pay some college girl to accuse Tom of sexual assault. She thought that an inexperienced sheriff would mangle the case, he’d get off, but that Erica would still end the relationship.”

“And that’s my fault,” Cooper said under his breath.

Jane reached out to place her hand on his, shaking her head.

“This was all her. Not you.”

“She came to this town with a purpose, thinking she could get away with luring Tom back to drugs,” Tate said. “Get him using again. She knew that Erica wouldn’t stay with Tom if he was using again. Tom had told her that, although he hadn’t mentioned the baby. For obvious reasons… Or Cassie and the baby either. He’d marry one of them, and he’d win. Fiona swears that the overdose was a complete accident. She just wanted him to use, not to die. She swears she loved her brother and wouldn’twant him dead. She just wanted the money. But she was not going to prison for something he basically did. She said she didn’t even have to try all that hard to get him to use. She said that he admitted to her that he hadn’t really stopped, he’d just cut down a bit.”

“She thought she was in the clear when he died,” Cooper said, shaking his head. “That she’d win eventually because dead men can’t get married and have a baby. She was sad, but hey, she’s going to inherit tens of millions.”

“Pretty much,” Zack agreed. “What she wasn’t telling anyone while she was here, was that she was engaged to a guy back in Miami. They were planning on getting married at Christmastime.”

“She had it all planned out,” Jane said, stunned at the duplicity of the woman. Her own brother, for heaven’s sake. If he had been clean, she’d been willing to screw all that up - for money. “Except that Erica was pregnant. That had to throw a wrench in her plans.”

“She panicked,” Zack said. “She realized that she’d lose their little competition if the baby belonged to Tom. Erica wasn’t afraid of taking a paternity test, so the chances were good that Tom was the father. Fiona decided that she had to get rid of Erica another way.”

“Drowning her,” Lucy replied. “But how did Jane get caught in this?”

“You were in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Cooper said, a muscle ticking in his tight jaw. “If you hadn’t gone over there that day, nothing would have happened to you. But because you offered to talk to Erica for me, you were there just as Fiona was drugging Erica’s coffee. She couldn’t push you out of there, and she didn’t know what to do. She decided to drug you, too. After all, she’d be killing two birds with one stone. She’d getrid of any sort of would-be witness, and she’d be hurting me at the same time. A win-win as far as she was concerned.”

“Finn said that she smiled when she explained that part,” Tate said, his expression fierce. “Like it was funny or some shit like that. That woman is diabolical. You’re well away from her, brother.”

“I swear she wasn’t that bad when we were together,” Cooper replied. “Or maybe she was, and I just didn’t see it.”

“She had a lot of people fooled,” Tate said. “Don’t feel badly about wanting to see the best in her. And she probably wasn’t this bad back then. She wasn’t desperate for a huge influx of cash then. It’s when the chips are down that you see someone’s true colors.”

Jane had certainly seen Cooper’s. He’d risk his own life for hers. Her ex wouldn’t have even gotten wet in the rain for her. She’d chosen far better this time.

Everyone chatted and munched on some food brought by Tate from the tavern, but eventually, they drifted off to get back to their own lives. Jane wasn’t at death’s door, although the way Cooper was acting, a bystander would be fooled into thinking she was.

He had leaned down to clean the last of the glasses from the coffee table - a chore she’d offered to help with and only got a scowl in return - when a business card floated out of the breast pocket of his cotton t-shirt. They both reached for it, but she was first since his hands were full. It was a card for a local realtor.

“Are you looking to expand the theater? Is the newsstand looking to shut down?”

Zack and Cooper hadn’t even opened the movie house yet, but already it looked like it might be successful. There was a great deal of interest and excitement, but the actual opening would show whether their forecasts were correct. The twobrothers would never get rich off of it, but that’s not why they were doing it.

Cooper had disappeared into the kitchen with the last of the dishes, so his voice was slightly muffled when he answered.

“Actually, I was thinking of maybe buying a house. The secret’s out about my identity so I don’t have to pretend I’m destitute or anything.”

“A house? That sounds kind of…permanent.”

As in he was intending to put down roots. Staying.

Her heart beat a little faster, and she could feel herself smiling. She’d known that they were together, a couple, but that didn’t mean that he would be happy to settle down in a small town in Illinois. Cooper was a wanderer at heart. Would she and Winslow Heights be enough for him?

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