Twisted Game, Nora Kane [the giving tree read aloud .TXT] 📗

still have feelings for her?”

“No, I do like to feel my judgment is better than to be dating murderous psychopaths.”

“You’re dating me.”

“You’re not a murderous psychopath.”

“I killed four people.”

“Every one of them had it coming.”

“Depends on who you ask. The little goth chick in the parking lot has me down as a cartel hitwoman.”

“I wouldn’t worry about her. She’s just looking for some attention.”

Margot sat up and found her phone.

“What are you doing?”

“I just thought I’d check something.”

“Are you going to look up Cassandra’s Coastal Crime Alert?”

Margot didn’t reply as she typed ‘Cassandra’s Coastal Crime Alert’ into the search engine on her phone.

“Is that a yes or no?”

“Shit,” Margot said as she found Cassandra's YouTube channel.

‘What’s wrong?”

“If she wanted attention, she got it. This video has over ten thousand hits and it’s going up.”

“Seriously?”

“Look for yourself.”

Radcliff took the phone and saw the video entitled, ‘Is this disgraced former cop turned sleazy P.I. actually the feared cartel assassin known as the Viuda Negra?’

“Black widow?” Radcliff asked as he spit out the English translation, “Is that really a thing?”

“Ten thousand people think so.”

“Actually, eleven thousand now.”

“Great.”

“Should we watch it?”

“I have a feeling it’s going to take me a step closer to becoming a murderous psychopath, but yeah, I don’t see how I can’t watch it now that I know about it.”

“Should have never looked.”

“I was hoping she had like ten followers. I thought it might make me feel better.”

Radcliff hit play. The video started with still shots of various newspaper articles detailing Cartel killings on both sides of the border while Cassandra talked about a killer known as Viuda Negra.

“I guess her whole ‘newspapers aren’t a thing anymore’ line was bullshit,” Radcliff said as the camera lingered on the gory details of the crimes in the story.

“Yeah, I also noticed the only proof of this Viuda Negra person even existed is her say so. I’d bet she made her up.”

“I suppose I could ask around, but yeah, it sounds like fiction.”

The newspaper articles switched from cartel killing to the shootings Margot was involved in. Cassandra continued to narrate. She strongly rejected the ruling that these shootings were justified and claimed—without proof—that the police were covering up for Margot.

“Does she mean the same police who wanted to throw me in jail? Does she have any idea how hated I am with you guys?”

“I don’t hate you.”

“True, but you’re the exception and it wasn’t that long ago you were slapping bracelets on my wrists and hauling me in for questioning.”

“Fair.”

Cassandra went into Mal and his history as well before cutting to footage of Margot and Radcliff leaving county lockup together.

“Perhaps Margot Harris owes her freedom from prosecution to her rather cozy relationship to some of our local police. Here she is exiting county lockup with homicide detective Rick Radcliff. They have been seen socializing on more than one occasion and it’s not a stretch to say they have more than a professional relationship,” Cassie narrated as the footage showed the two of them walking along.

“I’d like to think we have more than a professional relationship,” Radcliff said.

“Me too; if not, you owe me some money.”

The video cut to Cassie asking Margot her question and Margot telling her, “If I wanted to hit you, there wouldn’t be a damn thing you could do to stop me.”

“She edited that part a bit,” Margot said. “It makes it sound worse than it was.”

Radcliff agreed.

“Twelve thousand people think I’m some sort of cartel assassin now.”

Radcliff shrugged. “Just because they watched it, doesn’t mean they believe it.”

“Let’s hope so. This is the kind of hassle I don’t need right now.”

Chapter 5

“You lied to me.”

“What? No, ‘Hey Phoebe, how's your day going’ or ‘I really like the way that convict orange jumpsuit you’re wearing brings out the color in your eyes’?”

Margot leaned across the table so she was face to face with Phoebe. “I don’t care about your day or your eyes. I’m trying to help you and I can’t if you lie to me. Especially when that lie gets me on the wrong side of a misunderstood businessman like Harry Lee.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean he’s not a very good alibi if he left you alone while the crime was being committed.”

“I was with him just like I told you.”

“Yeah, but you left out the part where he left at eight-thirty. Did you know your husband was on his phone from eight-forty-six to eight-fifty-four?”

“Okay, what does that have to do with anything?”

“Good thing you’re pretty, Phoebe, because you’re kind of dumb. It means he wasn’t stabbed until sometime after eight-fifty-five. You want to know how long it takes to get from the Palms to your place at eight-thirty at night?”

Phoebe didn’t answer.

“Kind of puts you home in time to kill your husband and his girlfriend.”

“But I wasn’t there.”

“It’d be nice if we could prove that.”

“What happened to innocent until proven guilty?”

“It’s a nice idea, but the bloody dress they found stuffed in your trash can seems to have put the ball in our court.”

“Anyone could have put that there.”

“Okay, but since you were seen wearing it earlier in the day, it would help if we could show you couldn’t have been there.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Then where were you?”

“I stayed in the room. They’re nice rooms and I figured if Tim didn’t expect me back until eleven, I ought to stay out until eleven. It was part of our unspoken arrangement.”

“Unspoken arrangement?”

“What you don’t know can’t hurt you.”

“You sure he was in on the arrangement?”

“He pretended to buy that I was going to hang out with some girls from the golf