Page 61 of Barbed Wire and Burglary
Wow! That was rich coming from a soon-to-be-convicted felon.“I’m not the one driving a stolen truck,” she reminded.
Elise gnashed her teeth. “You’re the reason it didn’t work out between Aaron and me. You saw me as a threat, didn’t you?”
Aurora wasn’t sure what the demented woman behind the wheel was talking about, but she knew it was best to play along and keep the woman talking.Hostage handbook tips 101.“A threat to his happiness, I suppose, and his wallet. Definitely his wallet.”
“Like it would’ve killed you Cannons to part with a few measly dollars!” Elise pressed harder on the gas pedal, and the truck sped up.
Measly?Was she forgetting about the millions of dollars in life insurance proceeds that she’d stolen?
While Aurora scrambled for an answer, she watched the speedometer top a hundred miles per hour. She nervously gripped the dashboard, wishing she’d been allowed to put on her seatbelt. Without one, she wouldn’t survive a collision.
It took her an extra second or two for her brain to register that Elise had moved on to a different subject. “With me as a sister-in-law, you would lose your personal watchdog,” she spat. “You wanted your brother all toyourself, following you around the country like a faithful hound.”
It wasn’t true. For one thing, Aaron hadn’t become Aurora’s self-appointed bodyguard until well after his relationship with Elise had ended. Secondly, Aurora was constantly begging him to find whatever closure he needed so he could move on with his life, especially now that she was promised to A.J.
“Honestly?” She spoke slowly since her main mission was to keep her captor talking, even if it meant spewing colorful word salads on her own part. “I think he mainly felt sorry for me. After we lost our parents, he considered it his responsibility to look after me. It had nothing to do with you.” Not directly. Aurora doubted Aaron and Elise’s relationship would’ve worked out, regardless.
“Nothing to do with me,” Elise repeated angrily. “Story of my life! My birth parents tossed me away like trash. My adoptive parents only wanted a kid to complete their white-picket-fence image. Even that was only to compete withyourparents’ white-picket-fence image. As for your brother, he only dated me because our parents liked the idea of their Ivy League children making a match of it. It’s never been about me! Ever!” Her voice rose to an indignant shriek.
Aurora waited until her voice faded before answering. “I get it. I was adopted, too.”
“No, you don’t,” Elise retorted furiously. “You were given a job and a title. Real ones! You were worshipped like a princess by the mighty Cannons, whereas I had to fight for every cent of my allowance from my stingy parents. All those stories about my shopping habits? Lies! Lies! Lies! Why else would a Hathaway apply to become a glorified secretary at Diamondback?”
Aurora was no longer sure what to think, but all she could do was listen. Elise’s tirade was far from finished.
“I worked my fingers to the bone for your father, and again for your demented uncle!”
Demented!Poor Uncle Cary! If Elise truly viewed him as mentally unstable, why had she bothered burying him alive? It was the dictionary definition of overkill.
“And what did I get for my efforts?” Elise pounded the steering wheel with a fist. “Not even a holiday bonus!”
“That must have been disappointing,” Aurora muttered and immediately wanted to kick herself. She’d been gunning for empathy, but her words came out sounding more lame than anything else.
“It was,” Elise fumed. “I had no choice but to take things into my own hands. When you want something done right…” She gave an ugly chuckle.
Taking things into her own hands apparently included murdering Uncle Cary and kidnapping his niece.Yay, me.Aurora drew a sharp breath, sensing that her time was running out.Where are you, Aaron?Of all the times her brother had breathed down her neck about personal security, now would be a good time for him to get back to doing that.
Please, God! Rattle his and A.J.’s chains for me!She doubted it was a proper prayer, but she was kind of new at the whole praying thing. Surely, the great, big God of everything would overlook any lapse in heavenly protocols on the part of a newbie believer.
“Slow down, will you?” She spoke without thinking, hoping the truck would run out of fuel before her driver flipped it into a ditch.
Her words caused Elise to mash the accelerator allthe way to the floor.
Mercy!Another glance at the dashboard quenched Aurora’s hope as quickly as it had bloomed. Aaron’s gasoline tank was registering as full.
She was out of ideas for how to extricate herself from the mess she was in. It was her fault for ignoring A.J.’s warning and walking into it with her eyes wide open. She’d literally jumped into her brother’s truck.Talk about looking before you leap—right into her abductor’s clutches instead of her next bickering session with her brother.
The world’s most incredible brother, whom she might never see again. The thought made her draw a ragged breath.I should’ve told him.A tear slid down her cheek. She should’ve thanked him for all the sacrifices he’d made for her, instead of taking a bite out of him every chance she got.I should have told him how much I love him.
More tears dripped hotly down her face. Hardly knowing where the words came from, she hollered, “You’re never going to get away with this! You know that, right? Even if I don’t survive, they’re going to find you and arrest you.”
“What?” Elise abruptly let up on the gas pedal. “Oh, honey!” She dissolved in hysterical laughter. “The sad part is you really believe that.”
“Because it’s true.” Aurora wasn’t sure if their reduction in speed was a good thing or a bad thing.
“You want to talk about the truth? How about we talk about my truth?” Elise fell into another fit of laughing. “My truth is, I hacked into your parents’ assignments from the JSA and discovered they’d been put on a joint task force with the FBI to retrieve the Collector’s stolen gems. My truth is, I altered their marching orders and sent them on one fool’s errand after another while I back-drafted them like a NASCAR driver, snatching the gems frombeneath their noses. My truth is, when they figured out what I was doing, I sabotaged the steering mechanism on their helicopter and collected their life insurance, then made it look like your uncle had pocketed the money. My truth is, I continued using the Cannons’ trophy children to continue retrieving the last of the Collector’s treasure. My truth is, I silenced your uncle after he got suspicious and installed a pair of security cameras to spy on me. My truth is, I almost succeeded in taking Diamondback’s successor CEO out of the picture, and you can rest assured I’ll finish the job before nightfall. My truth is, you won’t be around to warn him. Should I keep going, or have you heard enough?”
Aurora was too numb to say anything. When Elise had first bragged about “taking things into her own hands,” Aurora hadn’t grasped just how dark her soul was.
