~*~
Eric ripped the earpiece from his ear and threw it onto the table. “Damn it!” He picked up his phone and unmuted it.
“What happened?” Bethany asked.
“They just arrested Shooter Magee.”
“For what he did to you?”
“No. What he did to your father. He rigged the card game your father lost. He had nothing to do with the rest of it.”
Eric put his phone to his ear and listened to Tyson’s phone, still hidden in his pocket. “Tyson? Tyson?” he repeated. When there was no answer, he lowered the phone, but didn’t yet turn it off. He’d been recording the call just in case they’d needed the evidence. He didn’t see any reason to stop the recording until Shooter Magee had been driven away.
Douglas stood with his back against the refrigerator. His arms were folded over his chest and his ankles were crossed. He hadn’t taken his eyes off of Bethany since he’d walked through the door.
“You look so much like your mother,” he said as if he hadn’t been paying any attention to what Eric and Bethany had been talking about.
Bethany turned her attention to Douglas. “You knew my mother?”
A grin formed on his mouth. “Oh, I knew her. I knew her very well.”
Eric wasn’t sure where this conversation was headed, but he didn’t like it. “Doug, why don’t you head home? Doesn’t seem as though we got any information we were looking for.”
Doug didn’t react or seem as though he’d even heard him.
“You have her hair. Her color eyes. Even that same dimple in your cheek.”
Bethany pushed from the table.
“I don’t know how you knew my…”
Douglas moved closer to Bethany. “I knew your mother on levels no one else knew her.”
“Doug, that’s enough. It’s time for you to…”
Douglas withdrew his gun and pointed it at Eric. “Shut your mouth. I’m so sick of listening to you. I’ve listened to you my whole life and you’ve never had anything to say.”
“Please put the gun down,” Bethany pleaded. “I’m not my mother.”
“She left Georgia when you were two. Your father turned her away and she left.”
“He didn’t want us.”
“I wanted her. Don’t you understand? I loved her.”
Eric felt the pressure build behind his eyes. “That’s the older woman you were having the affair with?”
Doug cocked the gun. “I told you to shut up. You have no idea what we had. Your uncle was an idiot who neglected her. She was such a woman and she loved me.”
Eric heard Bethany sob. “This isn’t true. My mother wouldn’t do that.”
Douglas moved closer to her, forcing Bethany to step back until she was pressed up against the wall. “We could have it all again, Violet.” He lifted his hand to her cheek. “We could love like that again.”
“I’m not Violet,” Bethany’s voice shook under her tears. “Violet is dead.”
Douglas’s face contorted in near pain. “Don’t say that ever again,” he growled as he wrapped his hand around Bethany’s throat.
“Get your hands off of her,” Eric charged toward him just as Douglas pulled the trigger of the gun.