Page 20 of One Little Memory (Cherry Valley Novella)

Jo wiped the steam off the mirror with her damp towel.

She studied her reflection. Did you kill Gus Marchand?

She waited for a sign, a reaction, anything, but she just felt numb.

Her mind was blank. Surely, if she killed a man, she would feel something.

The brain worked in mysterious ways, or so Dr. Cahill had said.

It could be protecting her by not letting her remember things.

She ran her hands over her face. This was all just…

puzzling. Regardless of what she remembered, she just had to trust in the system.

She froze. Trust in the system. Why did that ring bells for her? A flash. A man. He was smiling. Had she been a little girl when someone said that to her? And then the memory was gone. She tried to remember more, but she couldn’t. The nothingness was back.

She took a last look around the bathroom, making sure she didn’t leave it a mess for Phoenix.

That was probably the last shower she was going to get to take on her own for a long while.

Great. She pulled open the door and walked out.

The apartment was empty. It was also dark.

She glanced at the clock by the TV. It was well after nine p.m. No wonder it was dark.

She walked over and turned on the bedside lamp and then whirled around.

The older man with the salt and pepper hair was standing by the fridge. He had a gun pointed at her.

“Who are you?” she demanded.

He smiled mirthlessly. “No one you need to know.”

The room spun. She staggered backward and sat down hard on the bed.

That smile. That voice. Bile rose in her throat.

She put her head between her legs to stop herself from passing out, or vomiting, or both.

And then it clicked. Everything fell into place.

It was as if someone had lifted a white sheet from all of her memories and now she could see them, feel them again. She knew everything.

“You!” she said as she sat up straight. “It was you!” Her heart pounded in her ears. Adrenaline raced along her veins.

“Ah, well, it was too good to be true. I was hoping you really didn’t remember, not that it would have stopped me from killing you. You were always going to be too much of a risk.”

She stared at the man. “You killed your own brother.” The horror of what had happened washed over her. All her memories snapped into place. This man was an animal.

His smile faltered. “He deserved it. Bastard. All these years, he would only share the money in dribs and drabs. I had to practically beg him every time I wanted some. It was all your father’s fault.

If he hadn’t shot Graham, then the money would have been split up evenly.

But Kevin—that was his real name, Kevin Anderson, my brother, got the money on the way out of the bank and then disappeared with it.

I had to lay low and scrape by on the little I had. It took me months to find him again.”

She couldn’t believe it. For the last twenty years, she’d searched for this man, Angus Anderson. He’d been the mastermind behind the bank heist. “You stole all that money and blamed my father.” The urge to smash this man in the face was overwhelming.

He smiled again. “We really couldn’t have done it without him.”

She lunged off the bed, but he swung the gun up. “But he didn’t help you!” she screamed.

“Oh, but he did. He just didn’t know he was doing it.”

She couldn’t believe it. All those years of searching, of working as a paralegal to help her father by saving every cent to try to hire yet another lawyer to get him freed, and it all led to this. “You left him to rot in jail for your crime.”

“Yes, that worked out well, I thought. If only my brother wasn’t such an asshole.

Oh, well. He’s dead now. And thanks, by the way, for providing the opportunity.

You hitting him with the car was just the break I needed.

He finally told me where the money was, and then I shot him.

Now, it’s your turn.” He raised the gun.

I’m so sorry, Dad. I tried to get you out.

“Arthur Marchand, put down your weapon.” Phoenix was standing just inside the door with his gun raised. He had blood on his neck, and he didn’t look so steady on his feet, but he’d never looked better to her.

The gunman turned and pointed the gun at Phoenix.

“His real name is Angus Anderson. He robbed a bank with his brother Kevin Anderson and another man named Graham Walters. My father was a guard at the bank. They tricked him into telling them information, and then they blamed the heist on him. He’s still in jail for their crimes. My father had nothing to do with it.”

Anderson smiled. “That’s true, actually. The only thing William was guilty of was having poor judgment.”

“You bastard!” she said.

“Put the gun down,” Phoenix demanded. “I won’t ask again.”

“You first. I have no intention of going to jail. If I wasn’t willing to do it all those years ago, I’m sure as hell not going to do it now.

You can’t prove I did anything. I’m going to make it look like this sweet little miss here shot you.

I happened by to ask you about my brother’s case and found her standing over you, so I shot her. ”

“Except I do have proof. The football team saw you driving by the stadium when you were supposed to be home. They will all identify you. They also saw you coming back from pushing Jo over the cliff. You can’t get rid of the entire team.”

His face hardened.

“Jo, go out the sliding door.” Phoenix wouldn’t take his eyes off Anderson, but she knew he wanted her out of there.

She moved toward the door, but Anderson swung the gun back in her direction. He glanced between the two of them. “Don’t move,” he commanded.

She didn’t know what to do. Anderson was an evil man, and she wanted him dead so badly she could taste it, but she also didn’t have a weapon, and the chances of her being successful were slim. He was armed and seemed fine with killing.

Phoenix shifted slightly so that he was leaning against the counter. “Marchand, or whatever your name is, you’re finished. You’re not getting out of this. You can’t kill us both and walk away. You’re not that good.”

Was Phoenix getting weaker? Or was he trying to lure Anderson in, making him think he was getting weaker?

Anderson swung his gaze back to Phoenix, and his eyes narrowed. She took a chance and moved ever so slightly toward the bed. Her towel was there. If she threw it and dove at the same time to distract Anderson, maybe Phoenix could take him out.

She moved a little more and grabbed the towel. She tried to catch Phoenix’s eye. He steadfastly refused to look in her direction.

“Why did Kevin take all the money?” she asked. It was the first thing that popped into her head.

Anderson sneered. “He blamed me for everything going wrong at the heist. Said Graham’s death was my fault.

Graham was his best friend. But it doesn’t matter now.

He’s dead. You hit him with the car, and then it was easy.

He begged me to help him. I half carried him back to the house and told him I had to take him to the hospital, but he couldn’t go without paying so he was going to have to tell me where the money was because hospitals were expensive.

He caved instantly. Right after the heist, he got into a bad car accident and he didn’t do well with pain after that.

He became a wimp. No tolerance.” He snorted.

“I couldn’t believe he just blurted out where the money was. ”

“So, you shot him with the gun that he was using to shoot at Jo. But how did you run her off the road?” Phoenix glanced at her then.

Wait. How had he known she was being shot at?

There was no time for questioning that now.

She moved her hand slightly to draw Phoenix’s attention to the towel.

His gaze flicked downward and then back up again.

She saw the hesitation in his eyes. He didn’t want her to do it because it put her in danger, but he needed to realize they didn’t have a choice.

“Once I shot Kevin, I hightailed it after you. I wasn’t sure I’d catch you, but the rain was coming down hard and you’d slowed down. I managed to catch up with you pretty quickly. It was easy after that.”

She gritted her teeth. Easy? For him. For her it had been a nightmare.

She focused on what she had to do. “So you had to live under Kevin’s thumb for all these years.

” She grinned. “You weren’t free either.

Oh, you were out in the world, but you were tied to your brother.

You needed the money, and you had to beg for it.

He had you.” She goaded him. “You weren’t in charge.

You had to be a nice guy to the world because you needed them to like you and spend money in your store.

Your brother could be the asshole that you wanted to be because he had all the money. How did it feel to beg for scraps?”

Anderson’s gaze hardened. “Shut your mouth, you little bitch.” He took a step closer to her.

It was now or never. Live or die; this was her moment, the one she’d worked all those years for.

If she succeeded, her father would go free.

If not, it didn’t matter if she made it.

She just couldn’t see him suffer any longer.

Phoenix was the only regret she had. She would’ve liked to get to know him better.

He was special. He was the type of man she could spend the rest of her life with if she lived past this moment.

She threw the towel at Anderson and dove for the floor.