by Gina LaManna
“You never know when something will be relevant.” I locked the door and began my trek over to the greenhouse, sensing Ellen was wrapping up the call. “What is it?”
“Today, after your appointment,” Ellen said. “Kendra didn’t come back.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, she went to lunch about the time you were at the shop. Then after, when I tried to get her to ring you up, she was nowhere to be found. I thought she was taking a long lunch, but she wasn’t. She told one of the other girls she didn’t feel well and was going home.”
“You’re right,” I agreed slowly. “It could be nothing, but it could also be something.”
“I was just thinking, we were talking about Shania and the case, and maybe it upset her?”
“Maybe,” I said. “Listen, I appreciate your help, Ellen. Really.”
“I hope it was helpful. I was angry with Shania, but I didn’t kill her.”
“I believe you,” I said. “And if you hear from Kendra, will you let me know?”
“I—okay.”
Ellen and I disconnected as I reached the greenhouse.
“Matt, you won’t believe what I just heard!” I called out. “I saw the sign, by the way. Thank you for putting that up. My mom loved it. Where are you?”
“Here I am,” a voice said from behind me. “But you’re going to want to stop right there and drop your phone. Or you die.”
Chapter 20
I stopped at the sound of the voice and turned. I’d already made it well inside the greenhouse and, now that I blinked, was realizing that it was darker than I’d anticipated. The sun had begun to set as dusk slowly morphed into night, and the huge glass panels so good at letting in light, were now letting the blackness seep in instead.
“Kendra,” I said carefully. “What are you doing here?”
“Thought your boyfriend was out here, hm?” Kendra stepped into the greenhouse too, closing the door partially behind her. “He packed up an hour and a half ago. Wasn’t going to wait all night for you. But I was. I would have waited as long as it took—you just made it easy coming back here, walking right into my arms.”
“Why are you doing this?”
Kendra held a long pair of hair-trimming shears in one hand. She brandished them like a sword. “I said drop your phone. Now.”
As I let the phone fall from my hands, my brain was already working ahead to figure out how to disarm the receptionist. The shears she had were long, and I sensed she knew how to use them. If she lunged and jabbed at the right spot, I wouldn’t stand a chance.
I glanced around the greenhouse, but my phone was out of commission in a pile of weeds, and unfortunately, Matt hadn’t left his tools in the greenhouse. There were a few old, wooden raised garden beds, but short of pulling a splinter from a board, they wouldn’t do me much good. Neither would the piles of leaves and debris, dead plants and little critters that shuffled through the darkness.
I debated screaming, but Kendra shook her head.
“Don’t you dare,” she said. “One wrong move, and I’ll have these in your throat.”
I swallowed hard, taking full advantage of my throat’s capabilities while I still had them. “I’d prefer that didn’t happen.”
“Well, then, you should have left the case alone,” Kendra said. “I tried to warn you when I slashed your tires, but you didn’t get it.”
“Ironically, I had given up the case the night before you did that,” I argued, “but the next morning, I was really annoyed that someone had ruined my perfectly good car.”
“That thing isn’t a perfectly good car,” Kendra said, looking confused. “It’s a piece of crap.”
“But it’s my piece of crap.”
Kendra just shook her head. “Put your hands on your head.”
I did as she asked, resting both palms against the back of my skull. Footsteps sounded as she made her way deeper into the greenhouse. Eventually, she was close enough for me to feel her breath on my neck.
“You should have let it go,” she murmured. “This wasn’t any of your business.”
“You framed Matt!”
“They made it too easy,” Kendra said. “Shania thought I was an idiot.”
“How do you figure?”
“She was leading me on.”
“Because of her offer to take you along to the new salon?”
“Because of everything!” Kendra blurted. “We used to be friends. She was the one who convinced me to go to school. I enjoyed my job as receptionist at Butternut Babes, and I would have been happy to stick around doing that indefinitely.”
“You were friends with Shania?”
“I thought so. We’d go out to lunch, or have a girls’ night, or whatever. She got to talking about how great it would be if I got my license, and we could go into business together.” Kendra pressed the tip of her scissors to the side of my neck, pinning me against the wall of the greenhouse. “I got to thinking the same as her, that it could be fun and lucrative, and did I really want to be a receptionist for the rest of my days?”
“You went back to school then to get your cosmetology license.”
“Correction: I went into debt to get my license. I needed my job at Butternut Babes,” Kendra said. “So last week, when I got to talking to our lawyer—”
“Sandy—”
“Yes, Sandy,” she said. “It turns out, my name was suspiciously left off the paperwork. I wouldn’t have thought too much of it, but Ellen’s name was left out, too. I confronted Shania about it.”
“The day you killed her?”
“Of course not,” Kendra scoffed. “I gave her the chance to explain. And do you know what she told me?”
“As a matter of fact, I don’t.”
“She told me she’d decided to take things in a different direction. That me and Ellen weren’t as motivated as her, and we’d be holding her back.” Kendra gave a raspy laugh, and the scissors pressed painfully into my skin. “The nerve of her! I went to school, went in debt for this project.”
“Why’d she decide to go a different route?”
“Financial reasons, why else?” Kendra said. “She figured that she was putting the money down, and she was bringing her clients over, so she didn’t need me and Ellen around taking up space. Costing her money. It was a stupid decision; together, we would have created a booming business.”
“It sounds like you got the raw end of the deal,” I said sympathetically. I still had my hands on my head and dared not move. Every time Kendra gave that dry, soulless laugh, the scissors jabbed too close to the veins in my throat, and I worried she’d puncture something critical. But with my back pressed to the greenhouse wall and a blade in front of me, I didn’t have much room to wiggle away.
“I did,” Kendra said. “I told Ellen we should do something about it, but she told me to let it go. How could I let it go?”
“You were going to lose your job,” I said, putting the pieces together. “With Shania leaving and taking her customers along with her, the salon was looking to cut some costs.”
“Exactly,” Kendra spat. “And I was the first to go. I would have been in debt and jobless all because of her.”
“And now that Shania’s gone, you get to keep your job.”
“I’ll pay off my debt, maybe even take her spot,” Kendra said. “It’ll all work out. Karma, yeah?”
“Karma is right,” I said. “And if you hurt me, you’ll have some bad karma headed your way. Because I had nothing to do with any of this.”
“I tried to warn you away. I gave you chances, but you’re oblivious,” she said. “I’m sorry, but this is the end of the road for you. I can’t afford to have you turning me in when none of this was my fault.”
“It was your fault,” I pointed out. “You killed Shania. Speaking of, how did you know she’d be at Matt’s? That was tricky framing him.”
Kendra’s voice took on a tinge of pride. “A bit, yes. But I’m not stupid like Shania thoug
ht. After she told me she’d decided to go a different route, I played it real cool—like I didn’t mind. Like I supported her.”
“Even though you were planning to kill her.”
“She didn’t need to know that.”
“I see.”
“She told me she was going to Matt’s to ask him if he wanted to contribute capital to the start-up costs.”
“Why would she go to Matt?”
“Shania never got over her breakup with him,” Kendra said. “It was obvious to everyone. I mean, I knew it, Ellen knew it—even Chris Tucker knew it.”
“Hence the reason Chris is so jealous of Matt.”
“Exactly,” she said. “And it’s the same reason it was so easy to find out when Shania would be at Matt’s. I called Chris, dropped a sly hint that I’d heard Shania and Matt were talking about business, and he went a little off the rails. Looked at her phone, mentioned she’d been talking to him. All I had to do was follow Shania around for a few days and be ready.”
“Why’d she go to the back door?”
“Because she thought Chris was following her,” Kendra said. “It was like killing two birds with one stone. She was annoyed he didn’t trust her, and he was annoyed she was talking with her ex. They were so focused on each other nobody saw me coming.”
“And the murder weapon?”
“A bat,” she said simply. “I tossed it in Butternut Bay. You’ll never find it. I’m not one of those stupid TV criminals who leaves it in a dumpster two blocks away.”
“Smart,” I said dryly. “You really thought this through. What about Shania’s car?”
“I took the car key off her, drove her car back to her place. Walked to a supermarket nearby and called a cab to take me back to my car.”
“But the keys were found on her.”
“Not the car key. I guess nobody’d gotten around to actually checking her keychain. Then again, the thing had so many keys one would’ve thought she was a janitor.”
“Lucky.”
“It’s not luck; I just don’t make mistakes,” she said. “In fact, these shears belong to Ellen. Everyone heard you talking to her in the salon, knew she came away from your little meeting upset. When I leave these behind, they’ll be traced to her.”
“But Ellen was on your side,” I said. “She didn’t do anything to you.”
“No, but I don’t want to go to prison,” Kendra said simply. “Shania deserved what she had coming, and so do you. Get on your knees.”
“But—”
“Now!”
I knew if I got on my knees, I’d never get back up. Kendra’s hand didn’t so much as tremble as she dug the edge of her scissors into my neck hard enough to make me wince. When I didn’t move immediately, she gave me a quick jab.
I felt the skin break, and though the wound was superficial, the sight of bright red blood on the tips of her scissors made my stomach roil. A trickle of blood dripped down my neck. I stalled, mapping out a plan of attack as I took a deep, steadying breath.
Bending my knees, I made like I was going to kneel on the dry, old grasses covering the ground. However, when my first knee hit dirt, I swung around and lunged for Kendra’s legs.
Unfortunately, she was prepared. She jabbed the scissors toward me, and I yanked my leg back just in time to avoid a pair of shears to the thigh. I lunged for her again, but she leapt deftly out of the way.
Kendra’s red hair swung behind her, tied loosely out of her face with a ponytail. I pulled myself to my feet and stood, facing her, as we circled one another.
“Matt can’t hear you from here,” she said. “And even if you scream, it’ll be too late. My car’s parked behind the woods, and Matt will never be able to find me in the dark.”
My gaze was busy darting around for something, anything to use as a weapon. However, Matt was too neat. After his work earlier today, he’d picked up all the tools and debris and packed them away somewhere out of sight. Short of pulling up some crusty weeds, I was out of luck.
I backed toward the doors of the greenhouse, thinking maybe I could run, but Kendra began circling me to the side. The sound of the newly hung sign was incessant as the breeze picked up outside, whipping crinkly leaves against the glass exterior. The moon was just beginning to rise, but it wasn’t high enough to provide any sort of light. As a cloud passed in front of it, the greenhouse was cloaked in darkness.
“Don’t get any ideas,” Kendra said softly, her voice coming to me from much closer than I expected. “You’re done, Jenna. This will be so much easier if you just—”
I didn’t let Kendra finish talking. I’d circled my way toward the front of the greenhouse, managing to step one foot outside. The incessant clanking of the sign had given me an idea, a bold and risky decision that would expose my position to Kendra. If it didn’t work, I’d be a sitting duck.
There was a crack as my foot landed on a stick. My position was given away, and I had to make my move. Reaching up, fingers trembling, I clumsily began unhooking the Green’s sign from the two chains holding it in place over the entryway.
By the time I had one side unhinged, Kendra had spotted me in the doorway.
She sprung out of the darkness, arm extended, the long, gleaming silver scissors pointed directly at my gut. Just before she struck, I managed to release the other side of the sign. Holding the slab of wood like a bat, I swung at Kendra’s hand as she tried to wedge the shears between my ribs.
I connected with a loud, resounding crack. The shears dropped to the ground, and Kendra screeched in pain, shaking her hand as she pulled it to her chest. She curled around it as I stood, dumbfounded and frozen in shock.
“You broke my hand!” she screamed.
“You tried to kill me!” I yelled back. “I’ll swing again if you come after me.”
Kendra’s lips curled into a smile. “If you think that’s all I brought—”
“Jenna?” a male voice sounded from behind me. “What’s wrong? Who is that?”
“Stop right where you are, Matt,” Kendra said, pulling a gun from somewhere around her waist. “I told you, Jenna. I don’t make mistakes. I don’t leave things to chance. And unfortunately, now you’ve drawn your little boyfriend into this mess as well.”
I felt Matt’s presence in the darkness. He sidled up next to me, hands raised. I weakly dropped the sign and raised my hands as well.
“Are you okay?” He glanced in concern at my neck. “She hurt you.”
“I’m fine,” I said. “She tried to kill me.”
“And she broke my hand,” Kendra snapped, pointing the gun at me. “Get into the greenhouse, both of you.”
“How’d you know I was here?” I asked Matt as we shuffled inside. “You must have been outside before she screamed. Otherwise, you couldn’t have made it to my side that fast.”
“We brought you dinner,” he said cryptically.
“We?” I murmured, looking up at him.
Before I had time to wonder, however, my question was answered.
“I’m going to need you to drop your weapon, Kendra,” Cooper’s voice rang from outside of the greenhouse. “Drop the weapon and back away from it or I’ll shoot. Now.”
The moon reappeared just in time to flash light onto Kendra’s face. Her mouth crumpled from a look of pride into one of ugly dismay. She hesitated, the gun outstretched, still pointed in our direction.
I could see the moment she made her decision. Her eyes went dull as she leaned forward and tossed the gun onto the grass. Then she raised her hands and put them behind her head before taking a step back.
“None of this is my fault,” she said, going down to her knees.
“We’ll let the courts decide that,” Cooper said, moving quickly across the grass and pulling out a set of handcuffs. “Kendra Koehler, you’re under arrest for the murder of Shania Boot, along with the attempted murders of Matthew Bridges and Jenna McGovern.”
Kendra rolled her eyes as handcuffs were snapped over her wrists. “G
ood luck trying to prove it.”
“You confessed!” I cried. “You told me everything!”
“It’s okay, Jenna,” Cooper said softly. “It’s over. It’s done. She’s going away for good.”
Matt reached for me, his arms gently coming around my shoulders to pull me against his chest. I found myself shaking, shuddering. As my tense muscles finally relaxed, I collapsed against Matt. His hand came up, stroked through my hair.
“Thank you,” I murmured against his chest. “But how did you know—”
Matt leaned his cheek against my forehead. “You remember the other day how we both brought you coffee?”
I nodded.
“Well, apparently we both thought you could use some dinner,” Matt said. “We were outside, wondering where the hell you’d gotten to after it became clear you weren’t going to open the door, when we heard the scream. Cooper put two and two together and sent me in as bait, nice guy that he is.”
“Right,” Cooper said sarcastically. “That’s exactly how it all went. I didn’t see you complaining about going to Jenna.”
“Now, now, gentlemen,” I said, my voice still holding a hint of a tremble. “Let’s not argue. Can we focus on the important bit?”
“What’s that?” Cooper asked.
Matt looked on curiously.
I took a step back, let myself chance a smile. “What’s for dinner?”
Epilogue
“I had a very nice time tonight,” Matt said, holding my hand as he walked me to my front door. “Did you enjoy our dinner?”
I grinned. “A thousand dollars’ worth.”
Matt grinned back, spinning me to face him under the moonlight. A week after Kendra had been arrested in the greenhouse, Matt and I had finally connected on the outstanding dinner date I owed him from the Bachelorette Ball.
He’d pulled out all the stops and taken me to a place in Sugarland Shores that was the finest dining south of the Twin Cities, or so he claimed. The entire dinner had been relaxing and enjoyable, the food delicious and the conversation free-flowing. The only part that had been confusing was whether or not we were there as friends, or as something more.
