“You’ve thought of everything,” Dan said trying to play on her vanity.
“I think so,” she said. “Anything I’ve missed can’t be very important. You know, there’s a kind of irony in all this.”
“What’s that?” Dan asked.
“All that data you fed into those computers to find the most average American and it all leads to this crazy lying dead over there…it sure doesn’t say much about the average person, does it?” she said raising the gun barrel to chest level.
“How about a deal?” Dan pleaded.
“Deal?” she asked. “What kind of deal are you proposing? I already have money. I’m dumping my husband. I’ve gotten rid of my biggest threat. And I’m about to wrap up the last loose end, you. What kind of deal can you possibly put on the table that might interest me?”
“What if I could show you a way that all of that would happen but you wouldn’t have to leave the country,” Dan said, hoping against hope that she’d at least listen to what he was about to say. This wasn’t some hero movie where he’d use a karate move or pull out a secret knife or even that somebody would come to his rescue; this was a time where his greatest talent, his ability to persuade people to do what he wanted, had to be working to its maximum.
“I know a way you can continue to live wherever you want,” he said. “Look at it this way. A woman of your class can’t stay cooped up in some banana republic no matter how much like paradise it might look right now. You need to be in Paris and Rome and Cannes
He was hoping that she’d see his way even if the reality was that he had no idea how to really make it happen.
“I have a way that you come out of this still owning the company, but we go a new way. We stop doing research for commercials and start making them ourselves,” he said excitedly. The idea didn’t really make any sense, but he was throwing out anything he could think of to keep her off balance so he could somehow make her think he was too valuable to kill.
“Get this,” he said. “We create commercials with subliminal messages in them. We can’t fail. Advertisers will be lining up even more than they are now. You’ll have that ocean of money. The company will be called Justine Edwards, Limited. Get that. Justine Edwards, Limited. It’ll be all you. And I’ll be there to help you make it come true. Imagine if you will. You’ll be one of the most powerful women in America
Dan was racing through his words trying to think of anything else he could say to buy himself more time.
“I already am powerful,” she said calmly, transferring the weapon back to her right hand. “I have the gun.”
Dan heard the first shot barely as it struck the center of his chest. There was no pain as the bullet passed completely through his body striking the wall behind him. He dropped to his knees, his eyes filled with the burning question WHY. By the time she fired the second shot, Dan’s world had ceased to exist; it was now a black pool and he was being swallowed up in its inkiness.
Justine found a bottle of bourbon downstairs and started spilling its contents all over a throw pillow, soaking it as much as she could figuring there was nothing like a house fire to slow down identifying three bodies. While the world was occupied with putting out a blaze, she’d be sipping cocktails in the private jet at 30,000 feet as it took her from a life she despised to one that held nothing but promise…and one hundred and eighty-six million dollars.
Searching further, she found a twelve inch candle which she stood up on a small plate and lit. She then put the plate onto the cushion of the couch and set the pillow so its edge touched at the six inch mark of the candle. Once she left, the flame would burn down to the alcohol-soaked pillow and ignite it, and it would then set off the couch. She figured only good things for her could happen from that.
Exiting out the back door, she quickly made her way to her car and drove away confident that her plan was succeeding. She looked into her rear view mirror at the one suitcase sitting on the back seat, all of her jewelry inside, sparkling reminders of the life she was leaving and the one she was racing toward.
CHAPTER 26
The drive to the private airport took an hour even in the uncrowded streets of evening. As she pulled her car to the side of the hangar, she smiled knowing that by now Slate’s house was probably burning to the ground taking the evidence of her crime with it. The headlines tomorrow would scream that three bodies had been found in the ashes, but none of that would matter to her because she planned to be lying on a beach in the Caribbean working on her tan.
She parked the car and left the keys in the ignition knowing that she would never need them again. She took the gun from the seat next to her and slipped it into her pocket. It would find its final resting place deep in the blue waters of the ocean. She also grabbed the suitcase and proceeded to the side door of the hangar. As she walked inside, she saw the sleek white passenger jet waiting in front of her. Walking boldly across the concrete floor, she arrived at the boarding steps just in time to see a man emerge from the plane’s door. “Hello, Justine,” the figure said. “Fancy meeting you here.”
“Emory!” she yelled back. “What are you doing here?”
“You didn’t expect to see me, did you?” Emory Edwards said. “You were going to take a trip without your loving husband? My first wife would never have done that”
She stood there stunned. There was no way he could have known about her departure, but there he was, standing at the top of the boarding stairs with an obnoxious smile on his face.
“No good to see you Emory?” he said facetiously. “No how are you. What’s the matter, Justine? Normally you never stop talking, and now you can’t think of a single thing to say?”
Her first thought was to drop the suitcase, reach in her pocket, and grab the gun. There were still enough bullets in it to make her dream come through. Unfortunately, she had not reacted fast enough because she now felt the barrel of another gun being pressed into her back. She turned her head to look over her shoulder.
“Hello, Justine,” Bernie Jackson said holding the revolver. “You’ll do me a favor by taking your gun out of your pocket, carefully and slowly, and dropping it onto the floor. Since I found out that you planned to have me killed, I think you better do exactly as I say or the next few moments might prove to be exceptionally fatal for you.”
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