Page 34 of Her Billionaire Hero
He had a gun, so I kept my mouth shut until we pulled up to an old two-story house. Not a light was on in the house, leading me to ask, “Does this place have electricity?”
“It does.” He pulled around to the back of the house then parked inside of an old, rickety garage. “Can I trust you not to try to run?” He pulled the gun out and pointed it at me to show me that he meant to shoot me if I ran off.
“Can I trust you not to shoot me?” I sighed heavily. “Preston, I really am worried that you’re having some sort of psychotic episode. Something’s gone wrong in your brain. Let me help you. Let’s go to a hospital and not go into this creepy old house in the middle of nowhere.”
Shaking his head, he got out then came around the car to open my door. “Come on, let’s go.” Taking me by the upper arm, he nudged me in the ribs with the gun. “No funny stuff, got it?”
“Yeah.” Being more pissed than afraid, I did think about what I could do to get the gun away from him without getting myself killed. I’d just found true love and didn’t want to die yet. “You know, if you want to get back together, this is a really bad way to get me to come back to you. I’m just sayin’.”
“Youwillcome back to me, Sloan.” He took me up the back steps then jerked his head at the door. “Open it. It’s not locked.”
Turing the knob, I opened the backdoor to find total darkness. Not even the moonlight penetrated the interior of the house. “Where’s the light switch?”
“We’re not going to turn on any lights until we get to the attic.”
Shivering at the idea of going into the attic of an old, spooky house, I asked, “Why are we going up there?”
“Because that’s where I put him,” he told me in an even tone.
My heart stopped. He’d put some man up in the attic. A man he thought was a murderer. A man he thought had killed my mother. “How did you make sure he didn’t leave the attic?” I worried that a pissed-off killer was lying in wait for Preston’s return and that I’d get killed in the crossfire.
“You’ll see.”
I didn’t like not knowing what I might run into. “Preston, please tell me. I’m afraid someone is going to jump out and bash me in the head or shoot me or stab me or some other horrible thing.”
“He’s tied up. Stop worrying. It’s like you don’t trust me.”
How can I trust you, you psycho?“I’m just afraid. This is scary.”
Moving me up the stairs in front of him, he warned me, “Watch out. These stairs have a few holes in them. Walk slowly.”
We made it to the top of the stairs, then he moved me forward until my foot hit another stair. The staircase that would lead us to the attic. I wasn’t ready for what lay ahead and I knew it. I didn’t want to be a part of what he’d done. But I took the steps, one by one, until we reached to top. I heard the sound of a door closing, then Preston finally let go of my arm and moved around me. A light overhead came on and there I saw the man Preston thought had killed my mother.
“Dad?”
Tied to a chair, his mouth covered by a dirty piece of cloth, my dad’s eyes went wide. As wide as swollen eyes can go. He’d been beaten up badly. So badly that I didn’t have a thought about what might happen to me as I rushed at Preston. But he caught me by the wrists before I could get in even one punch. “Stop or I’ll be forced to stop you.”
I had to keep my wits about me. I had to get my father out of there, so I pretended to calm down. “Sorry. This surprised me. You said you had the man who killed my mother. He didn’t do that, Preston. So, why do you have him here?”
Moving behind my father, he said, “Your father found out about the affair your mother was having. He didn’t know who it was with, but he knew she was having one. If you will recall, I had no idea that Audrey was married. She’d hidden him—and you—from me.”
“Dad didn’t know Mom was having an affair. And even if he did, he wouldn’t have killed her.” I didn’t believe Preston. “And the body was found in one ofyourbuildings. So, if he had no idea that it was you who she was having an affair with, then why would he bury her there?” He must’ve thought I was an idiot.
For a brief moment, Preston’s face fell. My father’s eyes lit up, as if to tell me that I was onto something. It took Preston a moment to come up with something else. “You didn’t let me finish. You’re always interrupting, Sloan. It’s a bad habit. Right there at the end, he must’ve found out that it was me. And that’s why he set it up so that if her body was ever found, then I would take the fall for the murder.”
“My dad and I thought Mom ran off with some man. He, nor I, ever thought she’d been killed. Only you seem to think that.” As my brain spun a tale in my head, I grew angrier and angrier with the man I’d once been married to.
He must’ve seen the anger in my eyes as he said, “You and I will kill your father, who most certainly killed your mother. And then we will bury his body in the backyard. You will help me with that as well. Afterwards, we will leave here, get on a plane to Tahiti, and never come back.”
The story unfolded in my mind. “Here’s what I think. I think youdidknow that my mother was married and had a kid. I think you wanted her to leave us behind and run away with you. But she wouldn’t do that. She wanted to keep things the way they were—you were a side piece. That’s all you were to her. And when she refused to do what you wanted, you killed her.”
My father’s eyes pleaded with me to be careful with what I said. I could see that he was worried about my safety. He didn’t want me to say something that would get me killed. But it was too late. I’d said what I thought.
Preston moved fast, so I did too, running to the door only to find it locked. He hit me hard from behind, knocking me to the floor. Something was thrown over my head, and then I smelled flowers. Lots and lots of wonderful smelling flowers. My eyes closed as blackness crashed down on me.
Chapter Nineteen
Baldwyn
