Page 44 of You'll Be the Death of Me

“What is happening?!” Tommy cried, and backed out of the room, still swinging the broom.

Dell dodged it and followed him. “Just ridding the house of pests,” she said with another delighted cackle. She found another lamp on a side table in the hallway and threw it on the floor with a shatter.

Tommy screamed again and leaped back right as someone turned a key in the front door.

“Whoa!” Jason blurted when Tommy whipped around andaimed the broom at him. “What is going on?” He glanced over his shoulder at the reporters outside before closing the door on them.

“Jason!” Dell called, forgetting he couldn’t hear her.

“Stay back!” Tommy warned, and thrust the broom at Jason.

Jason threw up his hands and frowned. “Okay, but why?” He leaned to the side and clocked Dell’s wedding dress floating in the hall. “What the—?”

Tommy was heaving breath, sweating, and looking seconds from fainting. “Are you part of this? I know you and her have some crazy-ass best friend bond. Did she put you up to this?”

“First off, rude,” Jason said. “What Dell and I have is beyond anything your tiny brain can understand. And second, put me up towhat?”

“This!” Tommy howled, and pointed at the broken lamp in a pile on the floor. “Andthat!” he added, and thrust his arm at the dress. “And what’s written on the floor in there!”

Jason looked at the lamp and then at the dress. Then he pushed past Tommy and marched toward the office where he’d pointed. “Dell, what are you doing?” he quietly muttered when he passed the dress ghoulishly hovering in the hallway.

“Having some fun,” she responded to only her and Cole’s ears.

“How did you know about the nuts?” Tommy demanded, his voice shaking.

Jason turned around to face him, standing in the office doorway once he read the word spelled out in dirt beside the broken photo frame. “You mean that Dell is allergic to them?”

“I mean that we were going tousethem to—” Tommy cut himself off with a frightened gasp.

Jason didn’t miss a beat. “Use them to what, Tommy?”

Tommy shook his head and started backing out of the room, broom still clutched in one hand.

“Hey! Get back here!” Jason called, and stomped after him. “Use them forwhat,Tommy?” He reached for Tommy and grabbed his arm.

Tommy was too frightened to fight back, and for once, Dell would not have blamed her best friend for decking her fiancé in the face. They stood nose to nose, Jason seething and Tommy all but quivering.

“You really did do something to her, didn’t you?” Jason hissed.

“No!” Tommy defended.

“Then what were you talking about?” Jason demanded, and shook him by the arm. His hand had turned white from grasping him so hard.

Dell came closer in her dress, wondering if Jason was going to get a confession out of him simply due to fright.

Tommy flinched at the dress and squawked out a terrified sound. “Fine! We were going to use the nuts to kill her! Mother wanted me to marry her for her trust, but then Dell told us she doesn’t even touch it. And even worse, she’s so goddamnedgoodthat she was going to give it all to charity! That’s why we changed the prenup and hired someone to serve walnut cake on our honeymoon. It was my job to throw her EpiPens overboard. She’d be gone, and we’d be rich before anyone got the chance to stop it. It was all Mother’s plan!”

“Yes,” Dell victoriously hissed. “Got you.”

Jason stared at Tommy as if he were trying to burn a hole through him with his eyes. “You were going to... kill Dell?”

With guilt written all over his face, Tommy tried to squirm out of Jason’s grip. “Not at first. The situation got out of hand. Ithought I’d have access to her money when we married. I didn’t know she doesn’t touch it.”

Jason’s anger ballooned into the room. He gripped Tommy even harder and leaned in. “So you were going toKill.Dell?” His question slid off his tongue like venom.

Tommy cowered. Dell smiled with a renewed sense of horror bound up in satisfaction that she’d been right, and now someone else alive knew it.

“I—I didn’t want to. Not at first. But my mother—”