Page 122 of The Murder Club
“Did you kill her?” Bailey interrupted, her stomach clenched at the fear this maniac had done something awful to the sweet old woman.
“No. That was God’s will,” he unintentionally eased her fear. “But I overheard my dear, sweet mother telling Logan that they would inherit enough money to cover his debts if only Gage would conveniently die. So I helped him along.”
Bailey breathed a sigh of relief. It was ridiculous considering everything that had happened, and was still happening, but she was happy that Nellie hadn’t been murdered.
At the same time she was confused. “Why would you want them to get money when you went to so much trouble to steal it?”
“Logan was foolish enough to share his passwords with Roxanna for his email,” Thorpe explained. “I decided to upload the pictures of Gage lying dead on the floor of the lumberyard and send them to Roxanna with the promise he would soon have the funds necessary to bring her to America.”
Bailey didn’t hide her disgust at the thought of Thorpe taking pictures of a man he’d just killed. Like the corpse was some sort of trophy.
“You intend to frame him for murder,” she rasped. “Just as you intend to frame Eric as my stalker.”
“Very good.” His tone was mocking, as if he was still disappointed she hadn’t figured this all out on her own. “After I arrived I realized it would be much more fun to watch the two of them squirm through a murder trial knowing they’d lost everything. I was even prepared to write a book about their tragic story. A real-life crime thriller. Complete with them committing suicide before they could go to jail. It would have made me a fortune.”
She frowned in confusion. “Committing suicide? Both of them?”
“A logical outcome,” he insisted. “Once the trial started and I’d decided that dear Mommy had suffered enough, I was going to have Logan write a note claiming they couldn’t bear the humiliation before tragically burning the nursing home to the ground, with their dead bodies inside.”
Bailey’s mouth fell open. It was crazy to be shocked. Thorpe Curry was blatantly evil to the very core. But the mere thought he would be willing to casually murder dozens of elderly people was impossible to accept.
“You were going to burn down the nursing home?”
“It was the easiest way to destroy any evidence.” He glared at her in frustration. “But you ruined everything.”
“Me?”
“You had no appreciation for my work. You left the nursing home—”
“I was forced to go,” she interrupted.
“And you refused to join my private murder club,” he continued with his list of complaints. “You were too obsessed with Dom Lucier. That’s when I realized I had to do something dramatic to capture your attention.”
Bailey searched her mind, trying to come up with the dramatic gesture he was talking about. A second later a gasp was wrenched from her throat.
“That’s why you killed Pauline Hartford?”
He rolled his eyes. “And gave you all the clues you needed to figure out it was me.”
Bailey ignored the insult. “Why her?”
“I told you that I needed pictures of Kaden and Lia’s wedding for my book and I did. But I didn’t mention that I made sure to stay in contact with Kevin Hartford. Even giving him money when he needed a little extra.”
“Why?”
“Having access to a local photographer seemed like an asset while I was writing my book. Plus, I knew right away he was a drug addict. They’re so easy to manipulate. Over the years I’ve used them to take care of jobs I can’t bribe others to do.” His sheer indifference revealed that his lack of empathy wasn’t anything new. He’d been using and manipulating people for years. Probably for his whole life. “Still, it wasn’t until he mentioned his overbearing grandmother who was making his life a living hell that I decided he would be a perfect victim to include in our murder club,” Thorpe admitted.
A perfect victim. Just like his grandmother. Bailey shuddered. He could pretend Pauline’s death was part of the game, but she sensed it gave him a perverted pleasure to kill the older woman.
“How did you do it?” Bailey forced out the question.
She didn’t want to know the nasty details, she really didn’t. But as she shuddered in horror she could feel her knuckles at last scrape painfully past the hard metal. Oh my God. She’d done it! Her hand was free.
Relief blasted through her, but she was smart enough to keep her expression carefully bland as she grabbed the cuff to keep it from banging against the tiles. She had to keep Thorpe distracted as she figured out how to get past him.
“Kevin told me that his grandmother liked to have a few cocktails in the evening, so I set the scene by pulling back the tarp on the pool and then leaving on the lights. Once I was ready I hid in the empty house next door and waited for her to come out and shut off the lights.” He paused, disturbing pleasure glowing in his eyes. “One push and . . . bam. She was dead. It was a stroke of luck that Kevin happened to choose that night to come to plead for money. It made him the perfect scapegoat.”
She wanted to look away from his twisted enjoyment at the memory of killing a helpless old woman, but she forced her gaze to remain steady. He was going to make a mistake, she silently assured herself. And then she was going to escape.