Page 120 of Deadly Misfortunes

"What's that?" Red sounded a little winded.

"We were trying to figure out how you knew where I would be when you tried to take me out."

Red didn't answer right away, which, to Sascha, was a dead giveaway that he hadn't attempted to kill Gregory. If he had, he would know just how he managed to know where he would be, even when he wasn't working for him.

"I was watching the house and when I saw you leave⁠—"

"How about that you didn't do it?” Gregory let that sink in before he spoke again. “That you didn't make any of the attempts on my life? You have no history of any criminal behavior. By all accounts, you're a great person. We don't believe you were involved in any of this. But you did want to work for me to protect me."

Red didn't say anything. It was as if he were waiting for Gregory to reveal the real culprit.

Gregory finally said, "Okay, so I never thought your mother would want me dead because she had wanted to raise me. But then I realized that if she killed me, or had me killed, my parents couldn't have me. She would pay them back for supposedly taking me from her."

Red was really quiet. Sascha suspected he didn't want to give up his mom, who hadn't shown him the affection he deserved over the years, yet he still wanted to protect her.

"So you don't know how she knew to target me?" Gregory asked, trying to get confirmation.

"No. But she has got the money to pay for a PI to keep an eye on your movements."

"But you know it was her," Gregory said.

"Not for sure, but I suspected it as much," Red said. "I didn't have any real proof, and she never told me anything, so I couldn't go to the police. All I could do was try to protect you. When you gave me time off after I got sick, I was trying to find out where she was. I was going to confront her. She won’t return my calls. She wasn't at home, and then I learned that Ms. Lassiter and Raymond had been in the limo and run off the bridge. That it was deliberate and not by accident."

"The police said the vehicles had been stolen. So they weren't vehicles you had on the farm that you refurbished. They weren’t vintage, and they weren’t Fords," Gregory said.

Red was silent.

Sascha let out her breath. "Okay, listen, if it’s your mom, she could still come after Gregory if she's not stopped. We thought that once you had acted as though you had done all this, we were in the clear. But now we're not. Is that why you were glad we had other bodyguards?"

Again, a prolonged silence. Then Red finally said, "Yeah. Because I knew it wasn't me. I didn't know it was her, and I still don't know for sure if it is."

"She has no alibis for the times that a vehicle plowed into me," Gregory said.

Red was quiet.

"Everyone else does. Your dad, sister, you, even your girlfriend, though we never suspected Janie had anything to do with it. My PI just checked into her because a woman had called to warn Sascha that her fiancé was in danger. A younger woman."

"My sister. She must know something about this. I never told her why I came to Dallas to work, or what I was working at, or who I was working for."

"So, you think she knows something about this, and that's why she warned Sascha?"

"Yeah, she wouldn't want our mother to go to prison."

“What about the emails that were sent to me?” Gregory asked.

“I don’t know anything about them, and I never called you or Ms. Lassiter about anything related to the attempts on your life.”

Gregory had read Sascha's mind and felt the same way that she did. He had no obligation to feel anything but anger toward Francine Drury.

As far as he was concerned, she needed to go to prison. She didn't deserve to be free where she could continue to attempt to hurt him. Or anyone else in his household if she thought that he was in a vehicle they were driving.

He didn't care if Red didn't want that to happen. She deserved everything she got.

Sascha nodded, agreeing with him.

"Okay, how can I help?" Red asked.

"But you're in Austin now."