Chapter 114

114

Heather was just stalling. There were still two men searching the Barratts' house. She couldn't hear them—houses in Hughes Heights were well insulated, after all—but they hadn't come back in.

They had no idea she was in there now. Hope was monitoring them through the security system, when she could. There were dark corners, Hope had told her. Where the cameras didn't quite reach.

But she still didn't like the odds. Not one bit. Even with Gunnar and Miguel outside.

Powell wasn't panicking, but she had a look of terror in her big dark eyes. She was holding herself together, but Heather didn't know how much more the younger woman could take.

"How do you two really see this ending?" Heather asked, looking at Timothy. As long as she had the .45 pointed at his father, she didn't think Trey would do anything stupid. Timothy was about the only person in the world Trey Grundenman had ever cared about.

Except, he had loved Angela. She didn't doubt that. Trey had changed after Angela got sick.

They all had.

"Timothy?"

"I don't know. I just know I don't want to do this. Don't want to see innocent people continue being hurt." Timothy looked at Powell for a moment, then back at Heather. She almost thought he meant it.

Eden favored him. Him and Trey. But with enough of Angela thrown in to offset it. Eden was one of the most beautiful women Heather had ever known. Inside and out. Summer didn't look like him one bit. She was Angela through and through. Samia was a mix between her parents, but with more of Aunt Hope and Aunt Joy thrown in than anything.

"I didn't know about OPJ until a few years ago. I did not create that drug, Heather. I only developed Sopalmitraln for legal medical use as an anesthetic, and I never helped Trey with anything about it. It was years before I knew he'd turned it into OPJ."

She believed him. Mostly. His thing had always been inaction. "But you didn't do anything to stop it. Or end it. That is the problem with you, Timothy. You never do anything to stop the bad. You were always just a poor little victim of fate, letting life happen to you, instead of making choices. It used to drive Angela crazy. I heard her and Bonnie talking about that, you know? Angela adored you, but she wasn't blind to your faults."

"I miss her with every breath." He looked at her for a moment. "I am sorry for…the warehouse. And for what Steve Wilson did to you. So sorry for that. I would have killed him myself, had I known what he had done to you before."

"Sure you would have." Heather deliberately smirked at him. "I know I'm the sister-in-law you have always hated most. Hard to miss…Powell, I wasn't even out of diapers yet when Timothy met me. I'm pretty certain he's hated me ever since."