“Fingers touching it,” Jack said.

“My thoughts exactly.”

“So you sent it skidding, the flash drive fell out, and—”

“And I hid it,” Jack finished.

“Now what?” Kate asked.

“Now we go home and open it and I hope we see Sylvia’s book,” Sara said.

“But...” Jack trailed off. He didn’t need to say what he was thinking. Sylvia’s account of all the horror Janet had done wasn’t going to clear Tayla. As Sara had said, You can’t kill people no matter how horrible they are.

Kate clasped the flash drive in her hand. “Maybe this will satisfy Everett enough that he’ll forget about the White Lily Kidnapping.”

“Ha!” Sara said. “He’ll write about Janet, then about Charlene. He’ll make a trilogy of it. Base a career on it. He’ll—”

Kate put her head on her aunt’s shoulder. “We’ll do what we can.”

“Yeah,” Jack said. “All that we can.”

When they got home, Kate and Jack sat on each side of Sara as she put the flash drive into the side slot of her computer and brought up the contents.

“A woman after my own heart,” Sara said. “Sylvia used WordPerfect.”

The title page read Evil at Home.

“Not pulling any punches, is she?” Kate said.

Sara flipped to the first page. Janet Beeson says she wasn’t born evil but I don’t believe that. She left too many tears in her wake. Too many dead bodies. What else is the definition of evil?

The three of them drew in their breaths.

Sara closed her computer lid.

“Can she do that? Use a person’s real name?” Kate asked.

“No,” Sara said. “Not while the person is alive. No wonder Sylvia was planning to leave the country. But then, maybe she was going to change the name in the book to something fictional.”

“Do you believe she was?” Jack asked.

“No. I think Sylvia Alden had come to the point where there was only one thing in the world she cared about: her daughter. If she could get Lisa out of danger, I think Sylvia planned to expose Janet.”

“To keep her from hurting others,” Kate said.

“That would be my guess.”

“Mind if we read more?” Jack asked.

“I think I should print out two copies,” Sara said. “Jack and I get one, and Kate, you can read on the screen. We’ll make notes and later...”

“We’ll share our horrors?” Kate suggested.

“Exactly.”

Sara ran the 321 pages off on her fast black-and-white printer, then handed Jack his copy and gave Kate the laptop.

They went to their separate bedrooms and began to read.

Tags: Jude Deveraux Medlar Mystery Mystery
Source: readsnovelonline.net