Over the Line (43 page)

"God's will?" Jase shook his head. "I've always thought God was benevolent."

She didn't much like that. The narrowing of her eyes on him told him so.

Yeah, that's the ticket. Get pissed at me, you sick old bitch. Point that gun at me.

"The Lord works in mysterious ways. Presents Himself to us mortals in varying forms—takes various forms of retribution. Alice Perkins needed to die because she had been making noises about revealing Janey's paternity. She'd been demanding more money of my husband."

"Ah. So your husband had been paying her bills."

Her face grew dark. Hatred spewed with each word. "For too long. Ever since she approached him at the revival in Tupelo years ago, he'd been depositing money in her account. You were so spoiled, child."

She glared at Janey, her attention once again devoted to her. "But you probably didn't appreciate how much better your life became once your whore of a mother started blackmailing Samuel."

"For that alone, your mother deserved to die. But when she started hinting that she knew about the other children my husband, the great prophet, had sired—well. I simply could not let that happen."

Jase had to divert Tonya's attention back his way somehow. When that gun went off, he didn't want it aimed in Janey's direction. "So where's your husband's blame here, Tonya? Why isn't the great Samuel Black on the block? Why does all the blame fall on the women?"

She cut a murderous gaze back to Jase.

That's it. That's a good old bitch. Stay pissed at me.

"My husband is subjected to horrific temptation on a daily basis. Legions of devils work on him relentlessly. They seduced him into fornicating with those pitiful, hope-starved women and producing the devil's children."

"That's why they were all killed?" Janey said, disbelieving. "Because your husband slept with them?"

"Because I could not take the chance that they would decide to talk."

"Ah," Jase nodded, "and that's because if anyone found out that your husband is a womanizer who abandons his own children, the money might quit flowing into the ministry, right?"

Murderous transitioned to snide in the blink of an eye. "Why, yes, there is that," Tonya agreed.

"Well, you had us all fooled," Jase said, drawing her attention back to him again. "We thought it was Edwin Grimm. But you had the hearts planted, didn't you? And the note—'We're both orphans now.' The Lord must truly be on your side."

"Because I am on the side of right. And because I was smart enough to hire someone to plant those horrible bloody hearts. And yes. The note was clever."

"Very clever. But answer me something. Why didn't you just have Marshall kill Janey right away? Why the elaborate production? And why the nineteen-seventy-nine Pontiac Lemans?"

"Ah. The Lemans. It was only fitting. You were conceived in the backseat of a Pontiac Lemans; did you know that?" She averted her gaze to Janey again. "It wasn't supposed to be found. That was to be my little secret. My little private revenge."

"And Janey?" Jase asked, and repeated his question to regain Tonya's attention. "Why not kill her right away?"

"Because, young man, I didn't know where Alice Perkins's list was. And yes, she threatened my husband that she'd make it public. Until I knew whether Janey had recovered it, I had to keep her alive."

"So that was your man again in Tupelo."

"Marshall? No. Just someone I hired to do some investigating."

"And when he didn't find the list for you," Jase speculated, "you decided the path of least resistance was to kill the other women. They were, after all, expendable."

"One must do what one has to do in the cause of right."

"How is Janey on the side of wrong? She's an innocent in all of this."

"Innocent? How can the devil's spawn be innocent? Her evil comes out in her blasphemous music. Even Samuel recognizes that. He's watched Satan's words spew out of her mouth over the years. And he's known that eventually she'd have to be sent to hell, where she belongs."

"So why isn't my father here?" Janey asked defiantly.

Jase swore under his breath, and shot Janey a
be quiet
look.

She ignored him. "Why isn't Samuel Black holding the gun? Why did he send you to do his dirty work?"

"There is nothing dirty about my work. My work is the Lord's work. In this mission, I am His instrument. And I grow weary of all this talk.

"You must die, too, of course," she said, glancing at Jase. "Pity. You're such a pretty young man."

"It will hurt my mother," he said, grasping at straws to buy some more time. "To see me die. As a mother yourself, you must know that. Must sympathize."

She drew back her shoulders, lifted her chin. "I have no children."

"No? How sad. A God-fearing woman like you. Why would the Lord deprive you of children?"

"I was ... I was barren."

Liar. Oh yeah, I have her number now.

"Barren? Or frigid?"

Pay dirt. She glared at him, all of her attention focused in a mad, intent stare.

"Yeah, I think I'm getting the full picture here now," Jase goaded. "Couldn't be a real wife to Samuel, could you? So he had to go to other women because you wouldn't let him in your bed."

"I... I was not... frigid. I have been a good wife. A good wife."

A tear streamed down her face, leaving a macabre black track of mascara in its wake.

She lifted a hand to wipe it away—and that was when Jase made his move.

He leaped off the couch, used the coffee table for a springboard, and launched himself at Tonya. They both went down in with a crash. He heard more than felt the gun go off against his side before he reared back and did something he'd promised his mother he'd never do: He hit a woman. Hauled back and delivered a solid right hook to Tonya Black's glass jaw.

She went out like a light.

And when he rolled to his back, heard his breath whistle through the hole in his lung, it was lights-out for him, too.

The next time Jase opened his eyes, it was two days later.

"Hey," an angel said softly. An angel with brimming brown eyes and long blond hair.

"Hey," he whispered, swallowed what felt like a bucket of sand, and tried again. "Hi."

"I'm getting tired of you making me cry, Iowa."

"Not... worth ... the ... effort," he managed.

"You're going to be all right," he heard her whisper, and felt the moisture from her tears on his face before he let the darkness take him under again.

Two
weeks later

 
"She
what
?"

Jase shoved aside the hospital sheet and was halfway out of bed before he realized he was wearing one of those ego-deflating hospital gowns that left his ass bare for the world to see.

"She canceled the rest of the tour," Max said, grinning at the sight of this burly, albeit beat-up, bodyguard grumbling about Janey's decision.

"She can't cancel. She never cancels. Not for anything."

"Never had a good reason to cancel before."

Jase looked up, saw her standing in the hospital doorway, grinning, her arms full of flowers.

"And don't you look yummy, with that incredible tush just... out there for the nurses to see."

"I've seen better." The day nurse—a sixty-something matron with a big laugh and a wicked gleam in her eye— followed Janey into the room. "Course, it's been a while."

"Why did you cancel the tour?" Jase blustered after the nurse had made certain he'd swallowed his pills, and left the room.

"I thought we'd established it was because I had a good reason."

"Me?"

"You."

He fell back onto the bed with a huff. "Janey. We're talking about your career."

"My career can hold. You can't."

"I figured it was that way with you two," Max said as he stood and headed for the door. "Three's a crowd, so I'll just let you duke this out without an audience. Don't beat him up too bad, snooks. After all, he did save your life."

"You don't have to leave," Janey insisted. "We might need a referee."

"I have a feeling you'll do just fine. Besides, got a meeting to go to. I'm expected."

Jase glared at the door after Max left; then he glared at Janey.

"I'm proud of him," she said, adding the bouquet to the dozens that already filled the hospital room. "He hasn't missed a Gamblers Anonymous meeting since he joined."

"Okay, yeah, fine. I'm happy for him. Happy that his ticker is on the mend. I'm not happy with you."

"Guess what? I don't care. Now, did you eat your dinner?"

"Hell no. The food is crap. It's like they lost the salt-shaker or something."

"Poor baby. They've abused you terribly in here, haven't they?"

"Damn straight," he grumbled. He hated this. Really, really hated being an invalid. Two weeks in a hospital bed was two damn weeks too long.

"Word on the street," she said, easing a hip onto the side of his bed, "is that if you're a real good boy, you might get sprung tomorrow."

"Then there isn't a need for you to hang around another day and play nursemaid, is there?"

An evil and intimate smile tilted her beautiful lips. "I thought you liked it when I played nursemaid."

Oh, God, did he. Just last night, she'd shown up wearing a nurse's uniform and nothing else under her long jacket. Then she'd proceeded to crawl up onto the bed, straddle him, and administer a little first aid of the mind-numbing variety.

"Janey, we have to talk."

She rolled her eyes. "Here we go with the talking again."

"You refuse to take me seriously."

"What I refuse to do is let you talk me into believing what that pea-sized brain of yours has convinced you is the right thing to do."

He let his head fall back. Closed his eyes.

"What are you so afraid of?" So much confusion, so much frustration, so much everything, colored her tone that he realized it was past time he was straight with her.

Straight with himself. He'd had a lot of think time in here. And he'd finally figured things out.

"Okay, listen. Just listen. And give me a minute to get this out."

"I've got all the time in the world," she said gently.

"It's going to sound . . . whiny."

"I don't care what it sounds like. I just want to know."

He let out a deep breath. Winced when it burned like hell and got it together. "Look ... things don't work out for me."

"Don't work out how?"

"No questions. Just let me do this in my own time."