Page 121 of Half Baked

“You smothered him with a pillow.”

“With Jimmy-boy’s help over there.” He gestured in the direction of where the orderly still lay. “I was in and out with no trouble at all.”

“So why kidnap me? Bergan was dead. There wasn’t any threat to you.”

“Because, by process of elimination, I’d figured out that old George here killed my brother and decided to use that to my advantage.”

“If you hated Billy so much, why did you care who killed him? He set you up to get arrested.”

“Maybe so, but he was still my brother.”

He must have decided he was done bragging about his exploits because his eyes shifted from amused to deadly in the split of a second. He started to lunge for me, and I realized I’d boxed myself in. I was three feet from the wall.

Kipsey gave me a self-satisfied look as he took a step closer. “Got nowhere to run, little girl.”

He wasn’t prepared when George tackled him from the side, throwing him sprawling to the ground. The knife was knocked out of Kipsey’s hand and went skittering across the floor.

George grabbed Kipsey by the hair on the back of his head, then slammed it onto the unyielding floor. “Youkilled Andrea? I’m going to kill you, you son-of-a-bitch!”

I looked up to see if the men with the guns were about to shoot at George or me, but they were all sprawled on the ground.

George continued to slam Kipsey’s head, and it was clear he was either dead or unconscious. I slowly approached them. “George? You can stop now. He’s not going to hurt either one of us anymore.”

George stopped and looked down at the blood on the floor and Kipsey’s broken face and released his hold.

I held my right hand out to him. “Come on.”

He stared down at Kipsey and a new fury filled his eyes. If Kipsey wasn’t dead, George planned on finishing the job.

“George,” I pleaded, realizing that I’d started to cry. I moved a little closer, my right hand still extended. I was trying to ignore the pain in my left arm as I held it at an angle against my stomach. “Please? I want to go home, George. I want Noah.”

My words seemed to shake him out of his stupor. He climbed off Kipsey and got to his feet, only to wobble a bit.

That’s when I saw that the front of his shirt was drenched in blood.

I stared at him in horror. “Did you get hurt?”

He shook his head, but his eyes were becoming glazed as he reached down to his right side in confusion. “Maybe I did.”

I rushed over and helped him down to a sitting position, putting his back against the wall. I started to look for a phone, but I could hear the wail of sirens outside. I hoped to God they were coming here. Had Noah put it together and figured out where I was being held?

“Let’s just sit here and wait for the ambulance,” I said as I squatted next to him, terrified by the amount of blood on him.

He shook his head. “They’re gonna arrest me for murder.” His gaze landed on the pile of men. “A whole pack of ’em.”

“You killed those men in self-defense,” I protested. “They won’t charge you for that.”

His gaze lifted to mine. “Not with Billy.”

“You thought he killed my mom.” It was then I realized how I knew him. He’d been in the coffee shop multiple times.

“Nah,” he said with a short laugh. “He liked her too much. She was a spitfire. You take after her. He never would have killed her. I’ve always known that.”

“Did you know Kipsey did it?”

“I never laid eyes on the man until a few months ago when he walked into my shop and tried to convince me to become partners in a stolen auto parts ring. I turned him down, not that it stopped him from tryin’.”

“Then why kill Billy?” I asked.

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