Read Online Last Chance (Liar Liar #3) by C.A. Mason - Free Book Online

mouth shut.”
    My heart raced, but I had to maintain my composure. Thankfully, the Aviator sunglasses shielded my eyes. I’d gone there praying to catch a break, but I wasn’t sure if it would really happen.
    “What happened, Jim?”
    “My neighbor dated Maura before she hooked up with Coop.”
    Maura had told me about all of her exes, and only one came to mind as a possible suspect. “Your neighbor?” I looked up and down the street, wondering which house he may have lived in and whether he was still here. “Who?”
    “Ben Lang.”
    That was the name I’d expected to hear, and it still made my blood boil. He was Maura’s first, the man she’d been dancing with at the bar. “Yeah, Maura mentioned him. What was your take on the guy?”
    “He was a little weasel.” Jim looked disgusted as he crushed his cigarette butt in a tin tray. “He thought he was all that ‘cause he was goin’ to an Ivy League school on a scholarship and dating one of the richest girls in town. ‘Course when Maura dumped his sorry ass for cheating on her, that all changed. I think he really thought she was gonna marry him and he’d have access to her daddy’s fortune.”
    “He told you that?” I asked, clenching my jaw. “That he was using Maura for her family’s money?”
    “Not in so many words, but the way he bragged about having an in with the old man told me all I needed to know.”
    Maura had told me her parents liked Ben, that they approved of the relationship because even though Ben didn’t come from a wealthy family, they believed he was trying to better himself, improve his lot in life. They’d respected him for that. “Was he pissed when Maura dumped him?”
    “Oh yeah.” He laughed. “He was madder than hell. The night it happened, he pulled into the driveway screeching his tires and got into a fistfight with his kid brother. The cops even showed up, but they didn’t haul either of them in.”
    “Huh.” So the kid had a temper. Interesting. “How’d you know that was the night Maura broke up with him?”
    “He told me the next day.”
    “So y’all were close?”
    “No. Like I said, I couldn’t stand him. But I sat out here a lot ‘cause the old lady wouldn’t let me smoke in the house. He wandered over sometimes, mostly to brag and rub it in that I was stuck in a dead-end job.”
    “Sounds like an asshole.” I watched Jim light up another cigarette. “Did Matt know you lived across the street from Maura’s ex?”
    “No, I didn’t think I should mention that to him.”
    “Why not?”
    “Like I said, Coop was a hot-head. He was real jealous about Maura. I figured if he knew where her ex lived, he might come ‘round here makin’ trouble. I didn’t want to get caught in the middle of that shit.”
    “Can’t say I blame you.” My cell phone buzzed, but I ignored it. Nothing could be more important than this. “So you mentioned saying something to Ben. What was it?”
    “I got sick of him shooting his mouth off, saying he could have Maura anytime he wanted her. She was really into Coop. So I told him she’d done things with Coop she never woulda done with him.” He smirked. “I may have even told him that Coop had turned her into a dirty little whore, got her hooked on all kinds of crazy shit.”
    I wanted to kick the shit out of him for saying those things about Maura. “You gave him details?” I kept my voice even and my breathing steady even as I clenched my jaw.
    “Yeah. I told him some of what Coop told me, just to shut him up.”
    “How did he react?”
    “He was pissed.” He laughed. “I definitely got the reaction I was hopin’ for.”
    I looked at the run-down house across the street. “Does he still live around here?”
    “No, but he still lives in town. Last I heard, the bottle got the best of him. He’s working as a mechanic at Riley’s.”
    “What happened to his fancy education?”
    “He got kicked out of school not long after Maura was raped. I guess his