Say You're Sorry

Just completely out of character.

“All right. Be careful. I love you,” Grandpa called. “Do you have a flashlight?”

“I do.” Morgan patted her tote bag and left the house.

Outside, the darkness loomed. But as she walked down the driveway, motion sensing security lights lit up the front yard like a runway. She glanced up at the camera affixed under the eaves of the house.

Grandpa had installed it with the security system almost as a joke to catch a neighbor who didn’t clean up after her dog. But now Morgan was glad for the extra surveillance.

Years ago, none of them had ever dreamed they’d need a security system in Scarlet Falls, let alone in their rural development. But these days, there seemed to be no escaping crime.

Chapter Four

Lance Kruger hunkered down in the front seat of his Jeep and stared at the one-story motel across the street. In the center of the long building, the curtains of room twelve were drawn tight. The camera on his passenger seat, complete with telephoto lens, waited.

His phone vibrated, shimmying across his dashboard. The display read SHARP. His boss.

Lance answered the call, “Yeah.”

“Catch them yet?” Former Scarlet Falls detective Lincoln Sharp had retired after putting in his full twenty-five and had spent the last five years as a P.I.

“Got individual photos of each of them entering the motel room. They haven’t come out yet.” Photos of a lusty good-bye in the parking lot would solidify Mrs. Brown’s claim of adultery.

“They’re still in there?” Sharp whistled. “Impressive. I wouldn’t expect Brown to have that much stamina.”

“He probably fell asleep.”

Sharp snorted.

“If you can’t sleep, you can always take over tonight’s surveillance.” Lance shifted in the seat, trying to get comfortable.

“I’m too damned old and creaky to sit in a car all night long,” Sharp said. “Why do you think I hired you?”

“You’re fifty-three, not ninety-three, and since when do we take divorce cases?”

“Family favor.”

Mrs. Brown lived next door to Sharp’s cousin. Since Mr. Brown had already been reported for sexual harassment, Mrs. Brown was hoping he wouldn’t want the affair with his coworker made public. Full-color glossies would provide excellent leverage when it came time to divide marital assets and settle on alimony.

But the whole business left Lance with a foul taste in his mouth. “We’re bottom-feeding.”

“At times.” A teakettle whistled on Sharp’s end of the line. “Let me know if anything goes down. I’ll be up.”

Sharp ended the call. Lance set down his phone, stared at the motel room door and willed it to open so he could go home. But nothing happened.

Whatever he’d expected when he left the Scarlet Falls PD three months before, this wasn’t it. Through the fabric of his tactical cargo pants, Lance rubbed the thick scar tissue on his thigh where a bullet had ended his police career. His leg was almost healed. But almost wasn’t good enough. As much as he wanted to be on the force, he would not be responsible for another officer getting hurt because he couldn’t keep up.

After the first four weeks of unemployed boredom had nearly driven him insane, he’d latched onto Sharp’s offer to join his PI firm like a K-9 on a bite sleeve. For the last two months, he’d been Skywalker to Sharp’s Obi-Wan.

Lance shifted position, stretching his leg. If he was going to spend this many hours sitting in his vehicle, he was going to have to trade up to a larger model.

Headlights swept across the pavement, and a familiar Cadillac slid crookedly into a slot in front of the motel room. Lance’s spine jerked straight.

Was that Mrs. Brown?

The door of the Cadillac flew open and bounced on its hinges. Mrs. Brown slid from the vehicle and stood on wobbly legs. She staggered toward the door of the motel.

Oh, shit. Alcohol had never helped anyone make better decisions.

Lance bolted from his Jeep, but he was too far away to intercept her.

Mrs. Brown stopped ten feet in front of the door. She dug a handgun out of her purse, leveled it at the door of the motel, and pulled the trigger.

Boom. The gun jerked in her hand. Wood splintered. Lights turned on in windows across the low building.

And Lance’s heart did its best impression of a cardiac event. He skidded to a halt as Mrs. Brown fired again. Lance flinched, his body pouring sweat as he remembered last November’s shooting.

Get it together.

Now was not the time for a flashback.

He pulled his phone from his pocket, pressed 911, then gave the operator the address. His brain told him to return to his vehicle and wait for the police to arrive, but he couldn’t do it. This crappy little motel was on the edge of town. Scarlet Falls would have just a few cars out on graveyard patrol shift. Having one nearby was unlikely.

Mrs. Brown was angry and drunk, a deadly combination. God only knew who she might shoot before the police arrived.

Lance swallowed the throbbing pulse in his throat and forced himself to move forward.

“Mrs. Brown!” he called, nearly deafened by the hammering of his own heart. “Please put the gun down.”

“No,” she called over her shoulder. “I’m going to shoot his pecker off.” She refocused her aim—and her rage—back on the door and yelled, “Leonard, git your ass out here.”

As if Mr. Brown would come out after she’d announced her intention of blowing a hole in his privates. He was already probably trying to squeeze his beer gut out the bathroom window.

“Ma’am, you can’t shoot him.” Lance’s pulse echoed in his ears as he eased forward. The gun wasn’t pointed at him, but if she turned . . .

Mrs. Brown yelled, “Why not? The rat bastard is cheating on me.”

“I know,” Lance commiserated. “He’s a bastard. That’s why you’re going to divorce him, right?”

He took another step.

She paused. Her face tilted as she considered her original revenge plot.

“If you shoot him, you’ll be arrested.” Sliding another foot forward, Lance held his hands in front of his chest in a nonthreatening posture. “Then where will you be? Jail.”

The muzzle of the gun dropped a few inches.

“You want to get even, right?” He eased forward. “Wasn’t that your plan? To make him pay?”

She nodded, her eyes glistening with moisture. She sniffed. “He didn’t even bother to hide what he was doing. Everyone in town knows what he’s been up to.” Humiliation amplified the distress on her face.

Lance nodded. “He is an inconsiderate, lying scumbag. That’s why you’re dumping him. Everyone knows you won’t take this sort of behavior from him.” Lance played up her pride. “He’s going to be paying for what he did to you for a long time.”

Her lips flattened into a bloodless line as she imagined her revenge.

He jerked a thumb toward his Jeep. “I already have photos of both of them going into the motel. Soon you’ll be able to get him out of your life for good.”

“But I love him!” she wailed, her face crumpling.

For Pete’s sake . . .

How could she possibly still be in love with her cheating, lying, asshat of a husband?

“Mrs. Brown, lower the gun,” Lance said.

She complied, the muzzle of the gun pointing toward the blacktop.