Page 19 of Savage

“Why couldn’t you have just died?” Skye was startled by the questions. “It didn’t matter what I did about you or to you, you just fucking wouldn’t die. Christ, and I really tried, too. Everything that I did, you’d just get up and walk away.”

“Maybe you just weren’t as good as you thought you were.” He said that he’d hired people to kill her, and they couldn’t do it either. “I think a better question would be, why did you want me dead? I didn’t know you at all. But you kept coming after me like you were stupid or something.”

“I am not stupid, you fucking cunt. I’ve been killing women for decades, and you just wouldn’t die.” She asked him how many people he had killed. “Not people but lowlifes that owed someone something. I just wanted you dead, then one day, I saw you with that kid. I’d seen his picture someplace and went to the Connors about it. They didn’t care what happened to you so long as they could get their boy back. Why did you kidnap their kid?”

“He wasn’t their child. They killed his parents to get him.” He snorted and told her that was why they were caught. Freelancing with murder is always going to get you caught. “Yet here you sit with bars around you caught too.”

“You can’t use this against me. I told you that.” She shrugged and told him that she didn’t care what he said. She’d use it if she was asked. “You fucking bitch. I swear to you, I hate people.”

“I’m sure that not too many like you either. You’re a murderer, liar, and a thief.” She looked at the attorney, and he winked at her. “What did you want to talk to me about? I have a busy schedule and I need to keep on track of it.”

“I hired someone to kill you soon. And when they do, I’m going to dance a little dance in happiness. You’ll never be able to thrall him as you have me. He’s a professional.” She told him that he worked for the police. “No, I told you. I hired him right out of the jail cell before he got out.”

“Right. He’s working now, telling them everything you told them about me. In addition to things that you told him about me, you’re also going to be tried for trying to kill off Trevor and the people who hired you to kill him. You tried to get them to pay up, and when they didn’t, you—”

“No. He was in the jail cell right there. You don’t know what you’re talking about.” She told him what he looked like. “No, you’re wrong. Damn it. I know what I’m talking about.” The door opened down the hall and she glanced in the direction of Brenin. He’d been in the jail cell next to Jason’s and had recorded every word of what he wanted done to her. “That’s him right there. See? I told…what is he doing here?”

“He’s my friend. And when they wanted you to confess to murder for hire, they asked him to come in and pretend to be a gun for hire. Didn’t you think it was suspicious that he seemed more up on the laws than you did? Christ, you’re an idiot of the first order, aren’t you?”

Leaving this time, she let his shouts echo down the hallway where she was headed. Brenin asked her if she was all right and it was all she could do not to break down and fall on her face. As soon as she was outside, she sat on the steps and put her head between her knees.

“You told me what he said, but I didn’t want to believe it. He was going to hire you to kill me.” She looked up at him. “I know that you wouldn’t have, but just the thought that he thought it was all right to hire someone to come along and kill me simply because he’d been asked to do it. I just don’t understand where his mind was.”

“He’s probably been at killing for a good long time, and since he was never caught, he felt that he was doing something right. At least that’s what I’m thinking.” She asked him if he’d run into that sort of thing before. “I have. We all have. It’s just the way that some people think about themselves. That they’re something along the lines of the almighty and what they say and do is the way things should be done. I’m sorry that he hurt you, honey. Why don’t you and I have some dinner and a nice cold beer and enjoy the rest of the day without thinking about Jason.”

She took him up on his offer and wondered if Trevor was doing any better. She hoped so. The young man needed to have a good look on life before he got too much older and was jaded. Like her, he was all alone in the world, and she wanted nothing more than to keep him safe and happy for the rest of their lives.

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