She headed deeper into the house, maneuvering through the darkened rooms like a homing pigeon. By the time she got to the bedroom with the light beneath the door, she was pitched to throw one hell of a fit.
She turned the doorknob and shoved the door inward. It slammed against the wall with such force that it knocked a picture to the floor.
“You sorry-ass piece of shit!” she screamed, and picked up a vase from a nearby table and threw it at both of them.
Charles flew out of that bed as if he’d been shot, holding his hands over his crotch, like that would hide what he’d been doing.
“Aunt Nita! What the hell are you—”
She threw a paperweight that missed Charles and went straight through the window beside the bed. The sound of shattering glass punctuated the sudden silence, and it occurred to Nita that Andrew had yet to say a word.
“Well, hell, Andrew Bingham! What do you have to say for yourself?” she screamed.
“Nothing, actually. This is just business,” he drawled, and began looking for his clothes.
“Have you no sense of decorum? What were you thinking, screwing multiple members of the same family? You’re not half the stud you purport to be. Your hair is thinning, for God’s sake.” She didn’t give him time to respond as she lit into Charles, who was desperately trying to get dressed. “And you, you little bastard! You knew he was mine!”
“You don’t have the market cornered on an itch that needs to be scratched!” Charles shouted.
Nita stepped forward, grabbed him by the arm, and raked her fingernails down the side of his face and neck.
He cried out in pain, and then slapped her so hard she staggered backward, fell over a chair, and hit the floor butt first. The moment she went down, Charles grabbed his shoes and ran for the front door.
Nita got up cursing.
“You little bastard. I’ll teach you to lay a hand on me!” she shouted, and chased after him.
Andrew was still smarting from her remark about his hair and disgusted with himself for letting it matter. He’d hoped to get a few more months out of this gig, but considering the legal mess the family was in now, it was probably a lucky break for him that it was over.
He heard the front door slam as Charles left the house, and then heard it slam again as Nita followed. He glanced out the window just in time to see both of them driving away. Now it was his turn to make an exit. He dressed, patted his pockets to make sure he had everything, then proceeded to go from room to room, recovering the video equipment he’d hidden here months ago. It had motion detector switches that turned it on, and a timer that turned it off after two full minutes of no activity. He’d changed the discs every week and had recorded plenty of his encounters with Charles. Never could tell when they might come in handy.
He snagged one camera from the bedroom, a second one from the living room, and the one he’d secured in the kitchen area last. Then he locked the house and tossed the key in the lake.
He drove all the way back into Eden with only one thought. Get his things from the hotel where Nita had put him up before she thought to have him locked out, and then get the hell out of Eden. His time in paradise was over.
Seventeen
The race between nephew and aunt back to Eden was straight out of a Hollywood movie. Their headlights were small bright patches in the vast darkness, leaving them with the misconception that they were isolated and beyond human law. The speed limit did not exist, and the two-lane road became their racetrack. Before they cleared the lake area, Nita barely missed hitting a deer, and once they were out on the highway, rather than slow down, Charles kept his speed and ran over a possum with a sickening thump that made his gut knot.
They were neck and neck more than once, until they were forced to slow down because of oncoming traffic, but they always accelerated again through the next open stretch of highway.
Once Charles thought Nita was actually going to force him off the road, and then she took a curve too fast and fishtailed before spinning out. He looked up in the rearview mirror with a sense of relief that he was finally ahead, but when he looked again, her headlights were behind him again and gaining ground. At that point he pushed the accelerator all the way to the floor, and by the time he passed the Eden city limits his tires were screeching as he rounded every bend.
He needed to get home so he would have protection or face the reality of an actual fistfight with a woman twice his age. In desperation, he took a shortcut through a residential neighborhood, which cut off ten blocks, but he still didn’t breathe easy until he pulled in beneath the portico and ran for the door.
Jack was on the phone in the office when he heard the front door slam. He looked up just as Charles raced past, caught a glimpse of the bloody scratches on his face and neck, ended his conversation and ran out into the hall.
“Charles! Stop! What the hell happened to you?” he shouted.
Charles slid to a halt, but before he could answer the front door flew open. Nita entered the foyer in an all-out sprint.