“That’s awfully convenient, isn’t it, fact that Aaron boy you were always so chummy with growing up is getting sent off to prison for doing your husband wrong? Stealing all that money. What a shame. And here you are, playing the innocent card. Guess that’s the way it’s always been, hasn’t it? Playing us for fools while you ran around manipulating everything to get your way?”
Regret slithered through my spirit. Should have known it back then, in the days when my Rynna had run away. Oh, how my girl had pined after that Aaron boy, eyes always dreamy anytime he wandered in for a piece of pie, her whole world made when she’d finally caught his eye.
Wasn’t until I was watching this video that I realized those two were to blame for her running.
Janel and Aaron.
Same as they both were to blame for what was happening to Rex.
This time I wasn’t about to turn a blind eye.
Janel froze at the door that she was pulling open. Slowly, she edged around to face me, her voice going dim. “What did you just say? Because it sounded to me like you were accusing me of something you shouldn’t be.”
The videotape felt heavy in my hands. An overbearing weight. “You know . . . all these years the register has been coming up short. So many times that I thought I was goin’ crazy or maybe I just couldn’t count. But I figured I needed proof that it was time to shut the place down and retire if I couldn’t handle running the day-to-day. Imagine my surprise when I sat watching the video from last night.”
Janel blanched. White as a ghost.
She knew as well as I did what was on this video. Had considered telling her about the new cameras going in, but thought better of it, figuring I was either going senile or somebody was stealing right from under my nose.
Just had no idea of the enormity of the stealing that’d been going on.
The blip of video had been caught in the middle of the night in the back office, Janel and Aaron arguing about the fact Aaron was going away for embezzling from RG Construction.
“You’re the idiot who went and got yourself caught,” Janel seethed.
“And you’re the one who put me up to it. You’re the one who has the money, and I’m the one who’s gonna land in jail? I don’t think so, Janel. This was all your idea, and you’re gonna tell him. You’ve been controlling things for years. It’s about time it stopped.”
“The hell I am. Rex doesn’t know shit, and it’s going to stay that way. You do what you’re supposed to do. Follow through, like a man, because from where I’m standing, you don’t look like anything but a pussy.”
She edged closer to him, slid a hand up his chest. “Besides, it won’t do either of us any good if we’re both behind bars. We still have all that money they never accounted for. I’ll hide it, and when you’re out, we’ll pick back up right where we left off. Now that you’re out of the office, Rex is gonna need someone to take over. Who better than his loving wife?”
Then they’d been kissing—along with other unsavory things that’d made my skin crawl. I’d been flooded with sympathy for that poor man who’d not done anything but work himself to the bone to take care of his family, Rex having no clue he was being betrayed.
Janel set Frankie on her feet. The cute thing toddled forward, barely keeping balance as she blabbered around the two fingers she had stuffed in her mouth. Janel rolled back her shoulders. “Messing with me would be a mistake, old lady.”
Probably so, but I couldn’t regret it. Not when that little girl squealed, innocent joy. Not when I knew the woman standing over her was nothing but poison. The only thing Janel was good for was destruction, and I wasn’t gonna stand aside and watch her ruin anyone else.
“Seems I’m holding all the cards this time, now, doesn’t it?”
In a flash, Janel came blazing down the steps and rushing my direction. I rasped out in surprise when her fingernails dug into the skin of my wrist. “Give it to me.”
Even though she was hurting me, mocking laughter rolled from my tongue. Anger for my Rynna. Anger for Rex. Anger for any other person she’d done wrong, because I was betting these two weren’t her only victims. “Take it. Plenty more where that came from. All set up and ready to go straight to the police.”
She stumbled back a step. “I think you’re bluffing, Corinne Dayne, because if you had anything on me, you would have already run and snitched to the cops, just like your prissy granddaughter did when she went tattling to my mom. Two of you are just alike. What is it you think you want from me?”