Dark brown eyes that watched her carefully, short brown hair, a tattoo on the back of his hand, and extending from the grip he had on it a weapon lifted and aimed for her heart.
Lowry Berry.
“Didn’t expect to see me, did you, Cami?”
That was the voice. Low, evil, rasping with dangerous intent as he stepped from the wall, reached over, and locked the door securely. Cami stared at the weapon.
“How did you get in?” She could feel terror rising inside her.
“I have my ways.” His smile was soft, hesitant. That boyish, apologetic charm that had fooled so many for so long.
“Don’t do this, Lowry,” she whispered as the teacher stared back at her, the dark brown of his eyes heavy with remorse. “Why did you even come here? Whatever you’re involved in, I didn’t know anything about it and I don’t care.”
“And you wouldn’t have recognized my voice either, would you?” he asked regretfully, the little Texas twang in his voice sounding dark and sinister now rather than friendly and a bit shy as it had the night he had asked her to dance at the Spring Fling Social.
“You were calling?” She knew it was him. The minute she had swung around and seen him, she had known.
“Your sister knew too.” His voice dropped further as Cami felt her heart fall to her stomach.
She could see it in his eyes. That silent admission that he was the reason Thomas Jones had managed to take Jaymi.
“What did you say?” No, this couldn’t be true. Lowry had been Jaymi’s friend. She would have trusted him. She would have felt safe with him.“I didn’t have a choice, Cami, just as I don’t have a choice now.” He took a step toward her as she stepped back.
“You’ll never get me out of this house, Lowry,” she warned him roughly, tears thickening her voice. “Rafe will be up here any minute. And even if he isn’t—”
“I got into the house, didn’t I? I got in, and I slipped right up the stairs while y’all sat in the kitchen chitchattin’ about your whys and your whens. And all these years, those boys never figured Jaymi was given to Thomas for the sole purpose of framin’ them just enough to get their asses thrown in prison.”
She was going to throw up.
She could feel it roiling in her stomach, thickening in her throat.
“How did you get in?” Her entire body was shaking, trembling in fear and in anger.
His smile was gentle as he looked around her bedroom.
“I like your room,” he said, staring around. “The soft cream and smoke color of the walls with the heavy, dark brown winter curtains.” He tilted his head and looked at the furnishings, the bedcovering. “Feminine softness without the prissiness,” he sighed. “Jaymi wasn’t like that, was she?”
Cami shook her head. The delay would give her more time, and it would give Rafe more time to get upstairs.
“She was girly to the bone.” Lowry smiled in reminiscence.
“What did you do, Lowry?” Cami whispered tearfully.
She couldn’t believe he had done something so cruel. That he could have been involved in Jaymi’s death.
He had been her friend. She had dated him a few times. They had always laughed that he was the brother fate had taken from her.
“What do you think I did?” he asked Cami softly.
A sob jerked at her body, stealing her breath for a precious moment. “You helped Thomas Jones kill her, didn’t you?”
There was no hiding from it. And there was no denying it.
He nodded slowly. “I picked her up. Jones was waiting for me. I was to take her to him, just like I did the other girl. The one Crowe was fucking. That lobbyist’s daughter that he met at a party the week she died.”
“I didn’t know about her.” Keep him talking. She had to keep him talking.
“Not many people did know about her. But once they were on trial for murder, then she would have been brought up.”
“By who?” And why? There were so many questions, but she wanted to keep him talking, right here, right now. She was not leaving the house with him.
“Now see, I don’t know that.” He shook his head as he moved to the dresser next to the door and leaned casually against it, as though it were simply a casual conversation as he kept the weapon trained on her. “I get a picture and my orders and I do what I’m told.”
“But why, Lowry?” she whispered again, this time desperation shadowing her voice. “Why would you betray your friends this way? Who could possibly make you hurt the people who care about you?”
“The person who knows that even though I can’t kill my friends, I won’t take the chance of going to prison if the cops find out that I’m the one that raped those three teenagers in Aspen the year Jaymi died, and at least two a year ever since. And I can tell you, Cami, I wouldn’t survive prison.” He straightened and waved the gun toward the door before coming back to her. “Now, you be quiet. Real quiet. There’s this little bug in the kitchen, and I listen through here.” He pulled an earbud free before tucking it back into his ear. “Your friends are still in there, but I’m not betting they’ll stay for long and we need to get out of here.”
“Why?” Her breathing hitched. “Where are you taking me, Lowry?”
“Because I don’t have a choice,” he sighed. “It’s what I was ordered to do, and I can’t ignore the order.”
“Why?” she whispered desperately. “Who has such a hold on you that you would do something so evil?”
Sorrow darkened his eyes. “I don’t know who he is,” he said regretfully. “I just know he was Jones’ partner. He’s the man that’s going to kill you, Cami.”
Like hell he was.
Did he think she was going to give in without a fight? That she would just lie down and die for him with a warning like that?
“Was Jaymi that easy, Lowry?” Cami asked, confused by his demeanor and the fact that he had managed to kidnap her sister.
“She missed her husband an awful lot, you know,” Lowry commented softly. “I think she knew. And I think preferred dying to living without him. But she didn’t know who would kill her until we arrived at the clearing and I had to help Thomas tie her down.”
He blinked quickly.
“Tears from a murderer?” Cami sneered suddenly. “From a child rapist without a conscience?”
His lips trembled. “I lose sleep.” It was a whine. It was a childish attempt to make himself look better, though he knew that wasn’t possible. “I feel guilt, Cami. I hear her telling me, though, that she was happier in his arms. In her husband’s arms.”
“You’re hearing your own demented wishes,” Cami cried out as he flinched, then looked around wildly as though expecting Rafe to suddenly materialize.
“Shut up,” he hissed, fury blazing in his eyes.
“Shut up?” She laughed, a broken, hollow sound. “Why, Lowry? Why should I shut up? Why should I obey you when you’re going to kill me anyway?”
Her lips parted to scream.
“Lowry?” Cami swung around as Amelia stepped from the bathroom.
There were tears on Amelia’s cheeks; her emerald eyes were filled with pain and with betrayal.
Lowry hadn’t been just Cami and Jaymi’s friend. He had been Amelia’s as well. He had helped her and Cami evade curfews when they were younger and slip out when they were grounded.
Since Jaymi’s death, he had been too distant to aid in anything. He’d withdrawn, and now Cami knew why.
Lowry stepped back, shocked, as Cami watched the gun in his hand carefully.
He didn’t know whether to aim it at Amelia or aim it at Cami. It swung wildly between the two of them as his dark brown eyes grew even wilder and a sense of helpless bafflement tightened his face.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” he hissed.