The Inheritance by Jasmine Cresswell

Author:Jasmine Cresswell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MIRA Books
Published: 2013-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

Twelve

For a long time Belle couldn’t move. Then a fly buzzed past her, brushing her cheek before settling on the floor by Donald’s chest, its proboscis dipping hungrily into the congealing blood. Sickened, she instinctively moved to shoo the fly away.

That simple gesture seemed to break some internal logjam, and her stomach started to heave precipitously. She plunked herself down on the nearest chair, gripping the seat and breathing deeply until she was sure she wouldn’t throw up. Poor Donald! Poor, silly Donald, whose desire for easy money had apparently gotten him involved way out of his league. If he’d only been honest with her and acknowledged up front what he really wanted from their relationship, she could have warned him that amateur crooks tangled with the Joubert family at their peril.

She couldn’t bring herself to examine Donald’s body more closely, but she found a towel in the half bath next to the kitchen and threw it over him, covering his wounds. Donald might not have been the honest, good-natured person she’d once imagined, but he hadn’t deserved to die in such a horrible way, and she couldn’t bear to think of insects dining on his remains until officials got here and took him away to the morgue.

She ought to call 9-1-1, but as soon as the thought entered her head, Belle realized that she wasn’t going to notify the police about what she’d found. Donald was past human worries, so nothing she did now was going to make any difference to him, but her actions could have a very big impact on Tony’s safety. Her loyalty had to be with her brother who—please, God—was still alive. Until she had a better fix on where Tony was, Belle didn’t intend to do anything that might offend his captors.

It was so damn difficult to think clearly. Had the kidnappers ever really planned to trade Tony for her father’s disk, or was her summons to this hotel room part of some bizarre and complex setup? She couldn’t imagine any reason why somebody would have gone to so much trouble simply to have her find Donald Gates’s dead body, so—unless her battered brain was overlooking the obvious—the fact that Donald had been shot and left lying on the floor behind the bar must mean that something had gone very wrong with the kidnappers’ plans.

Belle wasn’t cheered by that thought. Criminals whose plans went awry tended to behave stupidly. In her experience, stupid and criminal were really bad characteristics to mix. Add in violent, and you were looking at a disaster in the bud. If Tony was a captive of the same people who had killed Donald—and probably Marge—his odds of survival seemed frighteningly low.

Belle clung to the hope that the kidnappers wanted her father’s disk badly enough to keep her brother alive. If she was right, and they really did intend to strike a deal with her, then the only smart thing for her to do now was get the hell out of

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