The Armstrong Assignment (A Janet Markham Bennett Cozy Thriller Book 1)

by Diana Xarissa

  Edward chuckled. “You may be right about that.”

  Janet looked down her list. “I can’t see her shooting at her father, but I can see her tampering with his chainsaw. Again, she probably knew that he’d be fine.”

  “Because she’d left the safety cutoff intact.”

  “Exactly. Then the rat poison. That could have been her again, but I think, if it had been, that she’d have only given him a tiny bit. That he needed to be treated in hospital suggests that he’d had a substantial amount.”

  “If you’re correct, the hotel fire could have been her,” Edward said thoughtfully.

  “There was clearly no way that was going to kill anyone,” Janet agreed. “On the other hand, the stabbing had to have been Tony.”

  “Which means the attempt today may well have been made by Lucy,” Edward said. “I’d lost her in the crowd. She could have been anywhere.”

  Janet sighed. “Even if she isn’t actually trying to kill him, I hate the thought that she’s involved in all of this.”

  “Right now, it’s nothing but an interesting theory.”

  “I wish Aggie were here. She’d be able to help.”

  “Aggie? Your cat?” Edward asked.

  “She’s very intuitive,” Janet explained. “In the past, when I’ve discussed cases with her, she’s reacted very strongly when I’ve talked about the people who ended up being the guilty parties.”

  “Do you want to ring Joan and ask her to list the suspects for Aggie?”

  Janet shook her head. “Maybe, in a day or two. It’s too late to ring Joan tonight.”

  Edward pulled her close. “We should think about getting some sleep,” he whispered before he kissed her.

  Some time later, she snuggled in his arms. “Thank you for not laughing at me,” she said.

  “At what did you think I would laugh?” he asked.

  “My theory about Lucy and Tony, and also the part about Aggie,” she admitted, feeling sheepish.

  “One of the things I love about you is that you think outside of the box. I never would have considered that the attempts were being made by two different but connected people, but now that you’ve mentioned it, there does seem to be some sort of pattern to everything that’s happened. You may not have hit on the solution, but you’ve definitely given me something else to consider.”

  “And Aggie?”

  He laughed. “I told my sister to choose the smartest of the kittens from the litter. When she rang me, she told me that when she went to visit, all of the kittens came rushing over to her, except for Aggie. Aggie sat and studied her for at least five minutes, watching her fuss over the others, and then she walked over and climbed into Margaret’s handbag.”

  Janet grinned. “She’s a clever girl.”

  “She is, and she may well be capable of picking up on your tone when you discuss people. No doubt she can tell when you don’t care for someone and then reacts to that.”

  “But there have been cases where I haven’t cared for any of the suspects, and Aggie still only reacted to the actual criminals,” Janet told him.

  “We shall have to test her, then, maybe on some cases that I’ve solved in the past. It can be a fun project for when we get home.”

  “You think I’m crazy.”

  “Not at all. I’m certain that Aggie is very clever. We need to try to find out just how clever she can be.”

  “Maybe she’ll stop being clever now that we’re married.”

  “Maybe. It’s going to be an adjustment for her.”

  “It hasn’t been much of one for me yet,” Janet said in a low voice.

  Edward pulled her close and kissed her. “You are letting me stay here tonight, aren’t you?” he asked when he lifted his head.

  “I’m a married woman,” Janet said primly.

  “If your husband is dumb enough to leave a woman as wonderful as you alone on her honeymoon, he deserves to be cheated on.”

  Janet laughed. “What happens if Bobby finds out that you stayed with me tonight?”

  “Then your reputation will be ruined,” Edward replied. “I’m more worried about Mr. Jones finding out.”

  “Will you get into trouble?”

  “I shouldn’t. What I do with my time after hours should be my business. Bobby has Mr. Daniels standing guard and a nurse on duty. He should be fine.”

  “I can live with my reputation being ruined,” Janet told him. “I can’t live without you.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.”

  “Oh, and thank you for the marble heart,” she told him.

  He smiled. “My sister gave that to me when I joined the agency. She told me it was a good luck charm. I’ve carried it everywhere I’ve been for the last forty or so years. I gave it to you so it could protect you until we could be together again.”

  “I’m not sure which of us needs it more now,” Janet muttered as she took the stone out of her pocket and put it on the bedside table.

  They were sleeping, with Janet wrapped tightly in Edward’s arms, when her mobile rang. For a moment, Janet wasn’t certain where she was or what was happening. Edward was wide awake in an instant.

  “It’s Bobby,” he said as he handed Janet the phone.

  “Oh, great,” she muttered as she tapped the answer button.

  “Hello?”

  The sound was muffled, and at first, Janet wasn’t sure what she was hearing.

  “…need to do this. We can talk. What do you want?” Bobby was saying. He sounded quite far away.

  The reply came down the line far too clearly.

  “I want you to die.”

  Chapter 14

  “That’s Tony’s voice,” Janet whispered to Edward.

  He nodded. “I suspect that he surprised Bobby and Bobby dropped his phone. I don’t know if either of them realise that he managed to ring you first.”

  “We have to go and help him.”

  “Yes, but we can’t just rush in. We need a plan.”

  Janet jumped out of bed as she heard a crashing noise from the phone. “We don’t have time for a plan,” she told him.

  “Let me arrange for backup and then I’ll go,” Edward replied. “You’re staying here.”

  “I am not.”

  Another crashing sound made them both jump.

  “You are definitely staying here,” Edward said sternly.

  “This marriage isn’t going to last long if you start telling me what to do,” Janet snapped.

  “It isn’t going to last long if you get yourself killed, either,” Edward shot back. “This isn’t a game. Tony is going to kill Bobby and anyone who gets in his way.”

  Janet opened her mouth to argue and then sighed. “Go, then. Go and save Bobby.”

  Edward had been pulling his clothes on while they’d been arguing. He nodded and then headed for the door. “I love you,” he said as he pulled the door open.

  “I love you, too,” she said as the door swung shut behind him. “And I’m not just going to sit here, worrying, until you get back,” she added in a whisper.

  It only took her a moment to pull on a pair of black trousers and a plain black T-shirt. She slipped her phone and her keycard into her pocket and then opened the door. There was no sign of Edward anywhere. The phone had gone ominously silent, but the line was still open.

  Janet looked at the lifts. The lights showed that one was on the ground floor and the other was on the top floor. Edward must have taken it up. She waited a moment to see if it would come back down and then decided to take the stairs. Her keycard wouldn’t let her take the lift to the penthouse level, anyway.

  The stairs were at the opposite end of the corridor from the lifts. Janet slowly opened the door and then listened. After a moment, she eased the door shut and then began to climb. After the second flight of stairs, she started to regret her decision.

  “You could have taken the lift to the tenth floor and then used the stairs for the last flight,” she muttered as she continued on her way,
wishing she were in better condition.

  “…takes care of that,” a voice came down the phone. “I just need time to get this all set up.”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  Janet was certain that the question had come from Bobby.

  “I don’t have to explain anything to anyone.” The cold voice was Tony’s. But where was Edward?

  The phone fell silent again as Janet finally reached the top floor. She slowly pushed the door open and started on her way down the corridor. The lights had been dimmed, but Janet could see light coming from the open lift at the opposite end of the hall. As she got closer, she realised that there was someone lying on the floor, half in the lift and half in the corridor.

  “Edward,” she gasped. She rushed forwards a few steps and then stopped and looked around. The hallway was empty. Feeling as if she might be making a terrible mistake, Janet pushed the button and broke off her connection to Bobby. Then she quickly found Inspector Caron’s number in her list of contacts.

  Hiding in a random doorway, her eyes pinned on Edward, she waited anxiously for someone to answer.

  “Hello?” The man had clearly been woken.

  “It’s Janet Markham Bennett,” she said in a whisper. “I’ve found my husband, but he’s been attacked. I didn’t know who else to ring.” She rattled off the address for the hotel. “You need to come quickly and you need to bring as much help as you can. We’re on the top floor and there could be other injured people.”

  “My dear Mrs. Bennett, I’m afraid...”

  “Don’t argue,” Janet interrupted him. “Edward was trying to stop someone from getting murdered, and now the killer has attacked him and at least three other people. You need to get help here as quickly as you can. I have to go.”

  She ended the call and then continued on her way towards Edward. Afraid to hope, she bent down and touched his cheek. It was still warm.

  “Edward?” she said in a whisper.

  He moaned.

  Janet could see blood pooling behind his head.

  “Don’t move. You have a head injury,” she told him. “I’m going to go and get help.”

  Edward groaned again as Janet slipped the marble heart into his hand. She jumped as the lift pinged and then the doors to the second lift slowly slid open.

  Theodore looked at Janet and Edward and frowned.

  “Oh, thank goodness,” Janet said. “You have to help me. We have to get Edward to hospital, but we also have to help Bobby. Tony is in his room with him and he’s going to kill him.”

  Theodore frowned. “What?”

  Janet sighed. “Tony is behind all of the attempts on Bobby’s life. He’s in his room now, trying again to kill him. Edward came up to try to help and got hit over the head.”

  The man looked at Edward and then back at Janet. “Let’s go and see what Tony has to say, then,” he suggested.

  “We need to get help,” Janet replied.

  Theodore reached down and pulled Janet to her feet. “On the contrary, I think we need to see what Tony has to say right now.”

  Janet stared at him for a moment, and the last piece of the puzzle fell into place. “You’ve been working with Tony,” she gasped. “You’ve been trying to kill Bobby, too.”

  “And things have gotten increasingly complicated,” Theodore complained. “It seemed like such a simple plan.”

  “I think you’ve said enough,” a cold voice interrupted.

  “Tony, I wasn’t sure what to do with her,” Theodore said.

  Tony shrugged. “Bring her inside. It’s turning into quite the party.”

  Janet looked down at Edward and then quickly blinked back tears. He was going to be furious when he found out that she’d followed him. She just had to hope that he’d recover enough to be angry. Pushing that thought out of her head, she let Theodore drag her into Bobby’s room. Tony shut the door behind them.

  Janet looked around and swallowed a scream. The nurse was lying on the floor in a pool of blood. Janet could see a knife sticking out of her chest. Mr. Daniels was lying across one of the couches. While Janet couldn’t see any sign of any injury, she was certain he was unconscious or dead.

  “Where do I fit you into the story?” Tony asked.

  Janet looked at him. “I’m sorry?”

  “Everything was all worked out and then you arrived,” Tony explained. “That’s a complication.”

  “I can just go,” she offered.

  Tony laughed harshly. “You’d go straight to the police and spoil everything. No, you’re going to have to die, too. I just have to work out how to make it all fit together.”

  “What do you mean?” Janet asked. If she could keep the man talking, maybe help would arrive in time.

  “In the morning, my darling Lucy will come up to see her father and she’ll find a horrific and tragic scene,” Tony told her. “I had thought that this guy here, whatever his name is, that he could be responsible for it all, but then Edward, the other security guy, he showed up. He’s a better scapegoat. Once I’ve finished in the other room, I’ll make sure these two are dead and then drag Edward in to finish setting the scene,” Tony told her.

  “It’s all pretty complicated,” Theodore said.

  Tony turned angry eyes to him. “If you’d have done things properly, we wouldn’t be in this mess,” he snarled. “You wanted to make it look like an accident. Fine, great, wonderful, make it look like an accident, but you still have to actually kill the man. All you did was give him warning after warning that someone was trying to kill him.”

  “You say that like I was the only one who failed,” Theodore snapped back. “Your attempts haven’t been any more successful than mine.”

  “At least my attempts were genuine,” Tony replied. “Setting a fire in a corridor doesn’t count as a murder attempt.”

  “You say that now, but it might have worked. I had the sprinklers and alarms on the floor disabled. He could have died from smoke inhalation if he hadn’t noticed the fire and called the front desk.”

  “It was a stupid plan.”

  “So was stabbing him on the airplane. Up until then, anyone could have been behind the attempts. You made sure he knew that it was one of us. I don’t know how you expected to get away with that.”

  “Simple, I made sure Dixie’s fingerprints were all over the knife,” Tony told him with a smug smile.

  But there weren’t any fingerprints on the knife, Janet thought. She bit her tongue. That was information she wasn’t meant to have. But what had happened to Dixie’s prints, then?

  Theodore frowned. “Why would Dixie kill him?”

  “She’s tired of waiting for a proposal. Maybe she didn’t mean to kill him. Maybe she was simply chatting with him while holding the knife when the plane hit some turbulence. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that the police think Dixie is the one trying to kill Bobby.”

  “But you haven’t set her up for all of this,” Theodore said.

  “I have, in a way,” Tony replied. “Edward has been sleeping with Dixie since we arrived in Paris. She talked him into eliminating Bobby for her. It will all be in the letters. I just have to write them.”

  “Can’t you just make it look like a random intruder got in?” Theodore asked. “That would be a lot easier.”

  “It was going to be easy. I was going to make it look as if the security guy attacked the nurse and then Bobby heard them fighting and ran out and got himself shot. Then the security guy turned the gun on the nurse and himself.”

  “What was wrong with that, then?” Theodore asked.

  “Edward turned up to relieve the other guy,” Tony explained. He seemed to think for a moment and then turned to Janet. “Why did you come up here?”

  “Bobby wanted me to come back at two,” Janet explained. “The nurse was supposed to wake him at two to check on his head injury. Bobby wanted me to be here to help translate everything.”

  Tony nodded. “And now we have to find a way to write you
into the story.”

  “You could just let me go,” she suggested. “I’m not involved in any way in any of this. I’m just a woman who happened to meet Bobby when he needed someone who could speak French.”

  “Surely the security guy could just have shot everyone,” Theodore suggested.

  “Why would he do that?” Tony asked.

  Theodore sighed. “Why does it matter?”

  “Because I don’t want to go to prison for murder. Do you? Because if you do, I’ll happily leave you here and call the cops,” Tony nearly shouted.

  “Of course I don’t want to go to prison, but I also didn’t make a huge mess of everything,” Theodore replied.

  “Except you’re the one who was about to get fired, which means we had to act fast,” Tony countered. “I told you to be more careful.”

  “I was very careful. It isn’t my fault that Dixie stuck her nose in,” Theodore said.

  “And discovered that you’d been stealing from Bobby,” Tony added.

  “She’s a lot smarter than Bobby,” Theodore said.

  “Which is why I was so happy to frame her for his murder. You should have told me he was wearing a bulletproof vest.”

  “I would have told you if I’d known. Not that we talk all that often, actually.”

  “We have to be careful. You know that.”

  Theodore nodded. “I still think all of this could have waited until we were home.”

  “Bobby told Lucy that he was going to fire you tomorrow, first thing in the morning,” Tony told him. “That’s why this all had to happen tonight. Now stop arguing with me and help me work out the scene.”

  “You know I’m not very creative,” Theodore replied.

  Tony sighed. “No, you aren’t, are you? I’ve had to come up with every plan and every idea thus far.”

  “I came up with the chainsaw thing.”

  “And then executed it very badly.”

  “I did my best. I’m an executive recruiter, not an electrician.”

  “And not a very good thief, either,” Tony muttered as he crossed to the nurse.

  He bent down and checked her pulse.

  “Is she still alive?” Theodore asked, walking towards Tony.