Asking for Trouble - Leslie Kelly [87]
“Get down or I’ll shoot you right now,” the woman called, still oblivious to Simon’s presence a few yards away.
Lottie, however, wasn’t oblivious. She looked past the woman and saw him there. They quickly made eye contact, but she didn’t make a single gesture that might tip her attacker off.
Smart? The woman was brilliant. And she had more guts than any man he’d ever met. Because slowly, calmly, she nodded at the woman and slid down the rock, wincing slightly.
Later, when he had her alone, he’d peel off her shirt and kiss the skin of her stomach, which he knew she’d just scraped. Then he’d kiss every inch of the rest of her body to make sure she was alive and safe and his.
“You’re Louisa Mitchell, I presume?” Lottie said. Then she raised her voice, and Simon knew she wanted him to hear what she said. “Louisa Harrington Mitchell?”
The woman visibly started. From a few feet behind her, Simon saw the way her whole body went rigid. “How did you figure out who I am?”
“You were sloppy,” Lottie snapped. “You left a trail a college student like me could find so you’ll certainly never get away with whatever it is you’re trying to do here.”
Simon immediately stiffened as well, shocked as the implication washed over him. Harrington. He knew that name, it was imprinted in his mind.
This woman was connected to the couple who’d attacked him.
Lousia didn’t move and her arm—the one with the gun at the end of it—didn’t come down. “And just what is it you think I’m trying to do here?”
Lottie shrugged, still appearing calm, though he knew she had to be terrified. He’d looked down the barrel of a gun. It sure as hell wasn’t fun. “You’re obviously trying to scare Simon into selling this house. But killing me isn’t going to accomplish that—he’ll never let you have it.”
The woman laughed. That sound was almost worse than the sound of a gunshot because Simon instantly realized she was completely willing to kill again. “If your crazy lover killed you, then threw himself over the cliff in remorse, who do you think will care if someone else comes along and buys this old relic?”
Lottie’s face went pale. Simon stepped forward, determined to stop this now, but she narrowed her eyes and gave a tiny shake of her head, telling him to stay back. Maybe she was waiting for a sign—some signal that the woman had let her guard down. She’d tell him when he could make his move, obviously having a better view of what was happening.
It killed him to wait. But if he moved too fast and the woman was able to get a shot off…Lottie could be the one killed. He stayed put.
“No one will believe that.”
The woman shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. Besides, I don’t need to own this place to do what needs to be done.”
Lottie looked confused. “But I thought you were trying to reclaim it. For your…family.”
He had no idea what she was getting at. But the woman apparently did. “How the hell do you know that?”
“What, that you and your sister and brother in Charleston are descendents of Josef Zangara? That you’re trying to get this house back out of some kind of weird, twisted self-righteousness?”
Holy shit, now he was really confused. Lottie had obviously been very busy while he’d been gone. How she’d put all of this together in such a short time was something he really wanted to find out. When this was over.
Soon. Please soon.
“Just because that bastard who killed my sister inherited this house when he isn’t entitled to it doesn’t mean that’s what I’m after.”
“So what are you after?” Lottie asked, her voice low, as if she was trying to calm a vicious animal.
Which she was.
“Money.” The woman sounded so matter-of-fact. “My dear old great-grandfather hid a fortune in the walls of that house. A million dollars in cash, at least. And it belongs to me.”
Lottie said nothing. She just waited. Simon, though, shook his head slowly, beginning to understand what had happened. What utter folly the whole ugly scheme had been.
“My brother, sister and I were the only ones who believed it and we cut ourselves off from