Read Online True Lies by Ingrid Weaver - Free Book Online Page B

going until her fingers touched something smooth. It was a rectangular package the length of her forearm, wrapped tightly in thick brown paper. She sank her nails into the end and tore it open. There was plastic under the paper. And white powder under the plastic.
    “No,” she repeated, as if saying it enough times would make what she was seeing untrue. He had lied to her all his life. Why couldn’t he have lied about this, too? The trouble he’d gotten into as a kid, the vandalism, the joyriding, the petty theft, all that she’d been able to smooth over for him. But this? What could she do this time? With a sob, she wrestled the crate into her arms.
    “Emma,” Simon said, hurrying to her side. “What are you doing?”
    Clenching her jaw, she carried the crate to the end of the dock.
    “Oh, my God, no!” he cried, catching up to her just before she could heave the box into the lake. “No, don’t destroy it. They'll kill me. Emma, please!”
    She hadn’t known she could feel such rage. It rose like a red mist in her brain. “Drugs! After our mother killed herself with drugs. After I ruined what was left of my reputation to give you another chance. After I moved here for some peace, you bring this to my very door!”
    “Help me, Emma. Please. I don’t know what to do, I don’t know how to get out of this. Can’t you see that I have to do what they say?” He struggled to pull the crate out of her grasp. “Please, Emma. I'm in too deep to stop now.”
    “You have to stop. You have to turn yourself in.”
    “Go the police? Trust them? If the mob doesn’t kill me, prison will. Don’t you remember what happened to our father? He was a broken man by the time he got out. He couldn’t survive. Don’t do the same thing to me.”
    At the painful memories his words evoked, her arms went slack. She released her grip on the crate.
    Simon carried it away and stored it with the rest, then closed the tailgate and got in the driver’s seat, slamming the door shut.
    The noise made her whip around. She strode forward and clutched the driver’s door at the open window. “No more, Simon. it stops now. You tell them that.”
    He inhaled shakily. Tears glistened in his eyes. “I'm so scared, Emma. And ashamed. Please, can you ever forgive me?”
    She didn’t answer. She couldn’t. Emotions had thickened her throat.
    “Emma. Please.” He wiped his eyes with the backs of his knuckles, the same way he used to as a child. “I'm begging you. Don’t send me to prison. I couldn’t survive it. We're all that’s left of the family, don’t turn in your own brother.”
    What else could she do? Oh, Lord, what could she do?
    This was her brother, the child she had coddled and sheltered. The people who owned those drugs would kill him if he didn’t deliver. They would probably kill him if he sought help from the police. Or if they didn’t, then prison would finish the job, just as it had with their father. She had to decide, to choose between her brother and the law.
    The law. Since when had she felt any obligation to the law? But how could she make him stop this unthinkable thing he was doing without betraying him?
    Simon’s chin trembled. “I owe them a lot of money, Emma.”
    “And I've got a lot of money. I'll bail you out. As always. I'll pay your debt to get you out of this, but it stops now. You tell them to find someone else, because you're not doing this again, for any reason.”
    “But how—”
    “It stops now,” she repeated. “Call me after you tell them. I'll arrange to get them the money.”
    He reached through the open window and squeezed her hand. “I love you, sis.”
    Right now, she couldn’t bear the thought of him touching her. She raised her palms and backed away. “Get off my property. Just get out of my sight before I change my mind.”
    Simon knew he had pushed her beyond her limit. He didn’t say another word. He started his engine and drove over the hill.
    She watched him disappear along