“That’s right. What’s your stake in all of this?”
“Every dime I have is invested in Mashburn & Tully. I’m not going to raise my child in poverty.”
“Surely you don’t think you’re going to get away with this?”
“Surely I do. It’s too bad about the girl, though. I didn’t expect that little wrinkle. Although, I could take her with me and raise her myself. That would be better than the deal she has now.”
Priscilla shot eye-daggers at Liz.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Liz said. “It’s true. And you need to learn now you can’t count on men. The dummy I paid to kill your daddy in prison—that didn’t work. Randolph refuses to die. And the dummy I sent out here to follow Carlotta accidentally killed an FBI agent trying to get an address out of him, then he walked into a bus.” She scoffed. “I have to do everything.”
“Can I remove their gags?” Carlotta asked.
“Only Valerie’s. No tricks.”
As if she’d try anything clever with two of the most important people in her life in the room. She smiled at her mother. “Hi, Mom.” As gently as she could, she untied the two knots in the strip of cloth.
“Do I know you?” Valerie said.
“Yes,” Carlotta said. “We’ve met. I’m your daughter.”
“Of course you are.”
“Hurry,” Liz barked. “Their gate-watcher will be back in an hour.”
Carlotta smoothed back Valerie’s hair from her cheek. “Mom, have you seen any counterfeit money?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Liar,” Liz yelled. “Where is it? Where’s the three hundred million Randolph stole? There’s only a half million in that dinky little townhouse in Atlanta. He had to put the rest of it in a warehouse somewhere. I want the key.” She raised the gun and fired into the ceiling. The boom shattered the silence, and Valerie whimpered.
“Did that shake your memory loose, Valerie?”
Valerie glared at her. “I never liked you.”
“But Randolph did. If you hadn’t been such a pathetic drunk, he would’ve left you for me.”
“Maybe that’s why I got sick,” Valerie mused. “So he would have to stay with me.”
The profound statement gave Carlotta hope her mother was still in there somewhere.
“Where is the money?” Liz demanded.
Valerie looked off into space. “If these walls could talk, they might tell you, but I’m not going to.”
Liz walked over and pushed the end of the gun into Valerie’s hair. “Start talking now, crazy lady, or I’ll blow away what little brain you have left.”
Priscilla mumbled against her gag, trying to say something.
Liz nodded for Carlotta to remove it. As soon as the cloth was loose, Priscilla said, “It’s in the walls, behind the paneling. Please don’t hurt my mommy…or my sister.”
Carlotta would have to thank the tike for that sentiment later. For now, Liz was pushing her toward a section of wainscoting.
“Tear it out,” Liz said.
“With my bare hands?”
Liz sighed. “Stand back.”
She shot into the paneling at the seam, and it gave way enough to reveal something was behind it. Another shot into the seam sent bits of paper flying into the air.
Liz laughed. “This is too perfect. A woman with dementia leaves on the stove, sets a fire, and burns the entire house down, with all that evidence inside. And a few victims.”
She walked to the gas stove, turned on all the burners, and tossed a few kitchen towels on top to get a blaze going. Then she gave Carlotta a sad smile. “Sorry, Carlotta, but I don’t have time to tie you up.”
She lifted the gun and Carlotta closed her eyes. When the boom sounded, she thought getting shot in the face hadn’t hurt as bad as she’d expected.
In fact, it hadn’t hurt at all.
She opened her eyes gingerly to see Liz lying in a crumpled heap, a small dart in her neck.
“Birch!” Priscilla shouted, grinning down at the floor.
Birch lay with his head and one arm inside the doggie door, pointing a gun at Liz. “It’s a tranquilizer,” he said. “She’ll be out for about thirty minutes.”
Carlotta grabbed a knife and cut her mother’s and Priscilla’s bindings. “Take Mom out the front door,” she yelled to Priscilla, coughing through the smoke. She tried to get close to the stove to turn off the burners, but the flames had caught the curtains and were spreading fast. She could hear Birch battering something against the back door, but the oxygen was quickly being sucked out of the room. After a deep breath in the crook of her elbow, she put her hands under Liz’s shoulders and dragged her deadweight body down the hall and out the front door into the tumbled rock yard. Carlotta fell to her knees, wheezing and coughing.