Wilde Love (The Brothers of Wilde, Nevada 6)

“You’re getting smarter.” Sam removed her hand from Jessie’s thigh, and the rock removal began again.

“Thank you. I appreciate that,” Jessie lied.

“A couple of blowjobs and kisses, and presto—my own little slave. Rich is a whiz with cars. I got him to climb into the Old Mine and set the first round of explosives, but the little bastard got tripped up coming back and got hurt. That was before you came to Wilde and fucked up everything.”

“I didn’t mean to, Samantha.”

“I know, Jessie. But that doesn’t change the fact that you did fuck up the whole shooting match.”

Jessie couldn’t feel any sympathy for the crazed woman. She’d done some horrible things and needed to pay the price, but something had pushed the poor girl to bats-in-the-belfry land. Jessie wanted to know what—or who.

“So you and Rich planted the explosives?”

“I was too soft then. I should’ve blown his ass up in the mine, but instead, I made sure someone found the prick to take him to the hospital.”

Jessie resisted smiling when the rock was freed into her hand. Going on a hunch, she asked, “Still, it was a nice thorn in Austin Wilde’s saddle, yes?”

Samantha nodded, and Jessie knew she was on to something. Everything inside the woman seemed to center around the eldest Wilde brother. Paul clearly had a grudge. Rich probably didn’t but would likely do anything for the one who’d enchanted him.

Almost free. Please, God, don’t let Sam hear. “Austin had to deal with the Feds showing up to investigate all the accidents. Quite ingenious.”

“You think that’s something, Jessie.” Samantha’s lips curled up in a wicked self-admiration. “I bet you didn’t know I killed Phoenix’s horse, Demon.”

Jessie’s hand shook, almost causing her to drop the stone. Thankfully, she was able to keep it secure. The memory of watching Phoenix suffer as the old horse died filled her with heaviness for him. There wasn’t a chance in hell Jessie could feel any sympathy for the crazy bitch, ever. “How?”

“I work at the diner but moonlight at our local vet’s as a tech. Boy, it’s come in handy. I read everything on the Internet about how to kill a horse in a way that could fool the best vets. Jessie, did you know there was a lot of insurance fraud in horse racing a while back? Those bastards got away with a ton but finally were caught. Why do you think?”

“I don’t know.” How long will it take for this damn rope to cut through? Panic was setting in.

“Maybe you’re not so hot like the Wilde brothers think.” Sam snorted. “I knew no one would think Demon’s demise was anything more than old age. I was careful when I electrocuted the glue bag, placing the nodes where his saddle had rubbed. Just as I suspected, the vet chalked everything up to colic and didn’t even notice the tiny burns on Demon’s skin.”

The way Samantha recounted the gruesome tale, like it was something to be proud of, made Jessie sick to her stomach. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Such cruelty came from a dark place. Keep her talking. That’s one of my tasks. The other is to get free of this damn rope. “And the photos of me and the brothers?”

“All me.”

“Getting my boss’s e-mail would be simple, but how did you get my dad’s?”

“I’m really proud of that. Remember when your laptop came up missing that first day at the mine?”

“I do.”

“Paul snagged it without anyone’s knowledge. I gave him a nice little drink, much like the one I gave to Tank. I knew then that Paul was going to become a liability to me.”

“What was in the drink, Samantha?” Jessie wished the completely insane woman wasn’t such a whiz. She imagined what Samantha might’ve accomplished had she used her brain for good instead of evil.

“Paul had a bad heart, so the dosage of the drug I used was quite light. That he almost ran you over was pure kismet. Even I couldn’t have planned for that. Too bad he survived. From then on, he was very suspicious of me, but I denied, denied, denied. Then I fucked him whenever he got that look in his eyes.”

“So you had my laptop? Is the bank president in on this, too?”

“No. I placed a nasty little tracker on it and made sure Malcolm’s little flunky found it. I knew that Malcolm returning it would throw all of you off my trail. It worked like a charm.”

“What did your tracker do?”

“Jessie, you’re very consistent to log out of your office’s server, but you never turn your computer off. Around two in the morning, my little code would fire up on your laptop, and I could do anything I wanted with it. Download. Read e-mails. Anything.”

“And you found my dad’s e-mail. Amazing.” Jessie recalled the e-mail she’d written and then rewrote to send to her boss. This bitch had made sure the more sinister e-mail made it to her boss even after she?

?d deleted it.