The Eleventh Hour

by Anina Collins

  And then as he pulled his chair out to sit, the light from the candle in the center of the table glinted off his handcuffs, and I suddenly felt like all the oxygen had been sucked out of the room.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Excuse me, Miss McGuire, did you decide on what you’d like tonight?”

  I looked up at the young man with the freshly scrubbed look standing next to my table and mumbled, “Nothing. I think I need to go. I’m sorry.”

  The waiter smiled meekly, clearly confused by my change of heart from just a few minutes earlier. “Okay. There’s no check, so I hope you have a good night.”

  He walked away, and as I stood to leave, the fear that I wouldn’t reach Alex in time raced through me. I hurried toward the door, but as I passed Derek’s table, I felt his hand clap onto my forearm.

  “Is something wrong, Poppy? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  I looked down at where his hand held me and swallowed hard. “No, I’ll be okay. I just heard from my father. He needs me, so I’m going across the street to help him.”

  Derek released his hold on me and smiled. “Maybe I’ll stop in after dinner to say hi to him and see how he is. I haven’t had a chance to stop in lately with this case taking up all my time.”

  “Yeah. I better go. See you later.”

  Tearing out of the restaurant, I ran at top speed to my house to get my car. Panting by the time I reached home, I jumped behind the wheel and started the car before I called Alex to let him know he’d been right all along.

  His phone rang until it went to voicemail and I heard his steady voice instruct me to leave a message and he’d call me back when he could. At the beep, I began speaking, more like rambling, but then I stopped and calmly said, “Alex, I need you to call me back as soon as possible. It’s a matter of life and death. Please call me back as soon as you get this message.”

  I stuck my phone in the cup holder next to my seat and put the car in gear. I couldn’t wait around at my house for him to call me back. He had every right to still be angry with me, and if he was, he wouldn’t be returning my call anytime soon. No, I had to go to him before it was too late.

  Although I’d been known to put the pedal to the floor a few times in my life, never before had I driven as fast as I did getting to his house. I arrived to find it just like I had that first time I was there. Nearly all the rooms were dark, except for one toward the back. Instead of parking in the driveway this time, I drove a little ways further and found a spot hidden in between two tracts of trees about a hundred yards away from his house.

  Doubling back, I reached his house and banged on the door, but he didn’t answer. I pounded on his front door over and over, praying he’d hear the noise and open it, but nobody came. Adrenaline coursed through me at the thought that something had happened to him. Had the murderer gotten to him already?

  I had to get his attention some way, so I crept around the side of the house in the hopes that I might be able to see him through the window in that single lit room. I reached it and standing on my toes, I peered in. One light illuminated the room that looked like an office or a study, but no one sat at the desk or in either of the two leather wingback chairs. The real fear that Alex lay inside the house hurt or dead settled into my brain, and I knew I had to do something.

  Ideas raced through my head. I could call him again and tell him I was right outside his house. No, he hadn’t returned my call, so it was unlikely he’d answer another one. I could text him. Yes! If he was still safe inside and had his phone on him like he always did, he’d get the message that I was there so he could let me in.

  I pulled my phone out of my pants’ pocket and typed out a text, but when I pressed SEND, nothing happened. Looking up at the top of my phone screen, I saw I had no bars.

  Damnit! I knew sticking with that small carrier would come back to haunt me someday. Why did it have to be at that very moment?

  I had no choice but to go to drastic measures. I crouched down and rooted around on the ground for a rock big enough to smash through the window so either I could get his attention or I could get into the house to find him. Either would work. The problem was in the dark it was difficult to find much of anything, and all I kept picking up were tiny stones that wouldn’t do the job.

  Then I felt something that might work. A little heavier than I would have liked, I barely was able to lift the rock. Struggling to get to my feet with it in my hands, I turned around to hurl it at the glass and saw the red and blue lights of a police car coming down the road toward the house.

  Had Alex called them thinking he had an intruder on his property? Dropping the oversized rock to the ground, I crept along the side of the house toward the front to watch and listen.

  The car stopped in Alex’s driveway behind his Mustang. Derek got out of the car and walked slowly up to the front door to knock on it. In the darkness, he examined the area and then took out his flashlight to shine it around him and I saw it wasn’t Derek but Dominick.

  Why would Dominick drive all the way out here instead of sending one of his officers?

  As I hid in the darkness, I heard the front door open and Alex ask what was wrong as he turned on the front porch light. I heard in his voice the same confusion at seeing the chief of police of Sunset Ridge there at his door.

  “Hi Alex. Is Poppy here?”

  He hesitated for a moment and then answered, “No. I haven’t seen her since yesterday.”

  “There’s been another murder tonight. I’m worried she might be in danger.”

  “Another murder? You mean in addition to Alicia Jenkins?” Alex asked.

  “Yes,” Dominick said in a somber voice. “If you see her, call me. Her father would never forgive me if I let anything happen to her. Our families have been close since we were kids.”

  “I’ll make sure to tell her if I see her.”

  I watched as Dominick returned to his police cruiser and drove away down the road. If I’d been afraid before, now I was terrified. Another murder? Who?

  When his tail lights were no longer in sight, I bolted toward Alex’s front door and once again banged on it desperately to get his attention. This time, thank God, he heard me.

  The door opened and there he stood facing me for the first time since I’d said those horrible things. There wasn’t a lot of time for me to apologize, but he had every right not to want to speak to me until I did, so I said what needed to be said.

  Looking at those brown eyes that had been so full of hurt when I stormed out the last time, I saw some of that pain still lingered as he looked out at me. Hating that I had been the cause of that in him, I said, “I’m sorry for what I said, Alex. I had no right, and I’m so sorry for being that person.”

  He stared at me for what seemed like forever before he nodded. “You’re not that person, Poppy. Come in.”

  I stepped inside the room that unfortunately held that one terrible memory for me and hoped this time would be different. Alex closed the door and said, “Maybe I should have handled things differently. I’m not the type of person to get all excited about a case, but I know you are. Maybe if I’d remembered that…”

  “I know I jump to conclusions and that’s not what a good detective does. I’m new at this, so I’m going to make mistakes. I know now the mayor isn’t the killer.”

  The thought of yet another person dead because of my interference crushed me, and I hung my head. “I just wish I’d known in time before Alicia and now this new victim paid with their lives.”

  Alex gently put his arm around my shoulders. “Alicia’s death isn’t your fault, Poppy, and there is no new victim. Dominick lied.”

  I turned to face him and saw he was telling the truth. “What? Are you sure?”

  “I’ve had the police scanner on all night, and there’s been no mention of any new murder. He lied.”

  “Oh, my God! Why?”

  Alex nodded. “I don’t know, but I have my suspicions.”

  “Please don
’t do that thing you do with making me wait to find out what you’re thinking. I don’t think I can handle it now.”

  He took a deep breath and let it out before he spoke. “I think one of the Hampton brothers is the murderer.”

  The news that Alex thought one of the two people I’d known practically all my life was a murderer made my head spin. The excitement of the night also made me lightheaded all of a sudden, and I stumbled toward the couch to sit down.

  “Are you okay? Did something happen to make you come out here?”

  I got my bearings back and took a deep breath, only now realizing how close I came to being in danger. “Yeah. I went back to Diamanti’s tonight because I was still convinced Jefferson Girard had killed Geneva and then Alicia because she was about to tell me who the mystery man going into Geneva’s house was. He and his wife were there, and I took my spot at a table near them to watch what they did. That’s when Derek joined me.”

  “What did he say?”

  I hung my head and admitted the sad truth. “Nothing bad. I just can’t believe it was one of them, Alex.”

  “You had the clue that made me realize it could be right in your hand.”

  Now I was really confused. “What do you mean?”

  He handed me the letter I’d received about Candy Skerrit at my office. “I thought about what you said about the handwriting and then tonight when I stopped in to see Derek at his office just as he was leaving I saw the same handwriting on note right on his desk.”

  “So was it Derek who did it and Dominick who tried to throw us off the scent or vice versa?”

  Alex shook his head. “I don’t know yet, and I’m not just making you wait to know what I think.”

  “I must have seen both of their handwriting dozens of times in my life. How could I have been so stupid not to notice?”

  He sat down next to me and said in his nicest voice, “You weren’t stupid. You just let the personalities of those involved in this case get in your way. That’s all I meant when I said you were too close to the case.”

  “So Alicia’s death is my fault. If I’d been any good at this whole solving crimes thing, I wouldn’t have gotten her killed because I would have known who the murderer was.”

  “Alicia’s death isn’t your fault, Poppy. You didn’t kill her.”

  I buried my face in my hands and closed my eyes. “I feel so terrible about what happened. First I was awful to you, and then one of them killed her. Why?”

  “Because the murderer thought she knew what he’d done. He had the perfect way to manipulate her into letting him in the house, and then he did what he had to so his crime could remain a secret.”

  “If I’d been any good, I would have been onto him days ago. I didn’t know until I saw Derek tonight, though. I watched him walk back to his table at Diamanti’s and when he went to sit down, the light of the candle on his table hit his handcuffs and all of a sudden what Shelley said about seeing a glint of silver in the light came flooding back into my mind.”

  Alex patted my leg. “So which one is it? Derek, the charming guy everyone loves but nobody respects, or Dominick, the chief of police and hater of you poking your nose around in his police cases?”

  At that moment, I wasn’t anywhere close to being sure, but I knew Alex was. “Dominick?”

  Nodding, Alex sighed. “Yeah. That handwriting is his. I snuck a look at something he signed on my way out of the police station tonight and saw it was the same as the note he wrote his brother and what you called the male handwriting on the note pointing us to Candy Skerrit. He tried to make it look like someone else’s writing, but he didn’t do a very good job. But who would ever think the chief of police would be a killer?

  “I should have known something was wrong when he didn’t immediately ream me out when he found out I was working on this case. That was so out of character for him it should have been a huge red flag. A neon red light pointing an arrow at his head.”

  “You’re being too hard on yourself. For what it’s worth, I want you to know you weren’t entirely wrong about the connection between Jefferson Girard and Geneva Woodward.”

  I lifted my head and stared at him, curious to know how I wasn’t wrong. “Really? How do you know?”

  “After you left, I did a little digging for myself and even drove up to Vermont to that little town where they’d first met. Everyone involved in that love triangle and the missing woman is dead, except for Jonas, who is now the former mayor, so the truth is finally out. I spoke to the police up there and found out it wasn’t Geneva who was having the affair with him. It was her twin sister, Genessa.”

  Now I was confused. “So who was found dead? Or was the article wrong?”

  “Genessa. Want to guess who her murderer was?”

  Smiling, I said, “Well, I think I’m going to fall back on my favorite suspect and say Jonas who is now Jefferson Girard.”

  Alex shook his head and chuckled. “No. Geneva herself. It seems Geneva was having an affair with her sister’s husband while Genessa was having her own affair, and when she found out about Geneva, she confronted her. They fought, and Geneva pushed her sister down the grand staircase in the Woodward mansion in town. Because they were so wealthy and influential, the family covered it up by making poor Jonas a scapegoat and paying him off to leave town.”

  “Wow, and there I was accusing him of killing yet another person.”

  “I wouldn’t take it too much to heart. Girard has kept the family’s secret all these years, so he’s guilty of that, at least, in addition to his tax cheating. He isn’t exactly a shining example of innocence.”

  Thinking back to what Jeannette McMurphy told me about Geneva’s nasty visits to the mayor all the while he was in office, I finally understood why she may have hated him. “I guess we know why Geneva was always so difficult with the mayor. She knew he had the goods on her.”

  Alex added, “And he lived in mortal fear that she might at any moment let the police in Vermont know where the supposed murderer of Genessa was and then everything he’d done to build a life here would be gone. Little did he know the truth had come out about her death years ago.”

  We sat there quietly before I asked the most important question. Turning to face Alex, I tucked my leg underneath me. “What are we going to do about Dominick?”

  He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “That’s the question. As the chief of police, he’s not exactly someone we can just accuse of murdering two women. The issue is complicated by the fact that Derek is his brother, so going to the police may be a problem. I’m going to have to find proof he’s the murderer.”

  “Wait. What happened to we? Why can’t we work on finding proof that he’s the murderer?”

  Alex grimaced and stood from the couch. Folding his arms, he shook his head. “I believe he already thinks you know something, Poppy. It would be too dangerous for you to work on this anymore.”

  I jumped to my feet, furious that he was cutting me out now that we were so close to solving this case. “No! How exactly does it make me any safer not working on the case? What am I going to do until you get him? Hide out in my house terrified that every time someone knocks on my door or every time I hear a strange noise that it’s him come to get me?”

  Alex’s eyes filled with a look of concern. Gently, he touched my shoulder and said, “You can stay at your father’s. You’ll be safe there. I won’t need long to get the proof. Now that I know he’s the murderer, I know what I’m looking for.”

  I pushed his hand off my shoulder and set my feet to stand toe-to-toe with him. No way was I being sent off to my father’s like some helpless little girl.

  “You can’t do this. I won’t let you. It’s not fair that I’ve worked on this all along and now when we’re so close—you hear that? We’re so close. Now that we’re so close to getting Geneva’s murder solved, you want to hide me away while you get to do all the real detective work.”

  “This isn’t some TV show, Poppy. Dominic
k is a real murderer. It’s dangerous for you to be involved in this anymore.”

  “Why would it be safer for me to hide out at my father’s? You don’t think Dominick the real murderer will get to me there? I’m not even sure my father owns a gun, for God’s sake. What are we supposed to do if he comes after me? Throw bottles of booze at him? Maybe some shot glasses?”

  Clearly frustrated, Alex shook his head. “Poppy, you’re in danger. Why can’t you see that?”

  “If I’m in danger, then what better place could there be for me than by your side? You won’t let me get hurt, and you’re a former cop. I think that has to trump what my father has going on with no gun but a bar full of mixed drink ingredients.”

  He opened his mouth to recite another laundry list of reasons why my not working on the case anymore would be best, but from outside the flashing red and blue lights of a police car stopped him. Quickly, he said, “Listen to me. Go into the hallway and stay there.”

  I didn’t give him any trouble and did as he ordered as he went to the kitchen to get his gun. At the first sound of someone knocking on the front door, he put his finger to his lips to tell me to keep quiet as he passed me on his way to answer it and undoubtedly come face to face again with the murderer.

  The sound of the door opening made my blood run cold, and I held my breath as I listened for what would come next.

  A voice said, “Alex, I need to see Poppy. Now.”

  And then I heard nothing but the sound of my heartbeat pounding in my ears and drowning out everything else.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Alex said nothing for a long moment, but then finally answered, “She’s not here, Derek. I haven’t seen her since yesterday.”

  I waited for Derek to apologize and ask Alex to let him know if I showed up, but instead he said, “I know she’s here, Alex. I saw her Jeep parked a few yards down the road. I need to speak to her.”