"I'm at the bakery, ready to close up."
Brian cleared his throat. "Don't go near this guy, Sally. I mean it. Call him back and tell him to get his cookies elsewhere."
The wheels began to turn inside my head. "Maybe we could try to trap him. He's coming in tomorrow morning for his order. What if you waited on him instead of me?"
To my surprise, Brian seemed to be considering the idea. "Let me see if I can track him down tonight. If not, that's a possibility. Now close up the shop and go home." His radio sounded in the background. "I need to respond to this call. Talk to you later."
My phone's battery had a 2 percent charge left, so I plugged my charger into the wall and left it on the wooden block table before dialing my parents' landline. No one answered. That was strange. I left a message and asked them to call me back when they got home. I'd wait a few minutes, and if they didn't respond, I'd phone Mike.
I removed both trays of cookies from the oven and set them in the metal rack. They smelled wonderful. The aroma of chocolate was soothing when I didn't feel my best. I was afraid I'd overdone it today and walked slowly into the front room. Darkness had settled over the town, and the snow was coming down at a furious pace. As I started toward the front door to lock it, the baby gave a hard, sharp kick that left me breathless and winded. I had to sit down in a chair, and I grabbed the back of another one for support while gritting my teeth through the pain. This didn't feel like the false ones I'd been having for days. As I tried to gain my strength back enough to stand, a shadow passed in front of the window, and I panicked. The bells rang before I could even rise out of the chair.
Farley waved at me and moved over to the bakery case, both his hands shoved deep in his pockets. His gray eyes were cold and aloof and sent a chill through me.
"Sally, I came for my order."
Terror seized me as I clung to the chair. "Sorry, Farley. We're closed. It's not ready yet anyway."
He chuckled in a low, menacing undertone that formed icicles between my shoulder blades. "I'm sure you can find me something. Don't worry. I've got plenty of time to kill."
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
If I hadn't been in such pain already, I would have tried to kick myself. I wouldn't be in this predicament if I'd gotten to the door sooner. Help was only a phone call away, so I reached into my stretchy pants pocket for my phone. My phone! I'd left it to charge on the backroom table. Okay, maybe we're wrong. Maybe he's not the killer. Freddie hadn't sent the pictures yet, so they might reveal something different.
"You didn't tell me what Magnolia had to say," he said.
Somehow, I had to make it into the back room without him following me. I tried to act casual. "Oh, she wanted to know if the police had information, but they didn't tell me anything. They never do. I told her what happened with Leroy and Lyle. You heard about that, right?"
He waved a hand dismissively. "Yeah. That's old news." His eyes traveled to the bakery case. "Oh, you've got my favorites." He pointed to the Christmas tree cookies Josie had frosted before she left.
"Would you like one?"
He licked his lips in anticipation. "I'll take six. Man, they look good. Much better than those gingerbread cookies you gave me last time."
This confirmed my earlier suspicion. I was positive Farley was the one who'd killed Damian, and I tried to remain calm. "You like strawberry, huh?"
Farley's eyes, cold and devoid of emotion, searched mine. A shiver went down my spine, and the baby gave another sharp kick that had me dropping the waxed paper and clutching my belly in pain.
"You okay?" Farley asked, his voice deadpanned. "And yeah, I love strawberry. Guess it's kind of an addiction."
Shaking, I reached for a piece of waxed paper and somehow managed to place the six cookies in the bag. I leaned against the case for support. "The baby's active today." I handed the cookies to him. "Do you have any kids?"
His mouth twisted into an ugly expression, and I winced at my unfortunate choice of words. Stupid, stupid, Sal. In my defense, I was in so much pain that I could barely stand or think straight.
He ignored my question. "How much for the cookies?" His voice was so low that I could barely make out the words.
I swallowed hard. "Six dollars. You can leave the money on the counter. I'm not feeling well. Good night." I turned and managed to make it into the back room, but I still felt those eyes on me, burning a hole through my skin. The bells jingled, and I breathed a long sigh of relief. Thank God. Farley had gone, and he didn't think I'd suspected him. Somehow, I'd managed to pull it off. Another contraction hit me, and my knees buckled. Oh no. It looked like my time might have finally come. If this was what labor was going to be like, then knock me out right now.
The contraction passed but left me feeling weak and out of sorts. Breathing heavily, I grabbed my phone to call Mike and saw that Freddie had sent the pictures. Distracted, I thumbed through them quickly. The first one was a close-up of Tatiana. It must have been the photo that ran in the paper after her death. She had been a striking girl with long, shiny black hair and green eyes that resembled jewels. The next picture was of her on the boat, the water serving as a backdrop. The difference between the two shots was disturbing. In the later one, Tatiana's hair had dulled, her skin was a sallow-looking color, and her bloodshot eyes appeared dazed.
The next photo showed Damian standing across from her on the boat, and they seemed involved in conversation. The last shot must have been of the bridal party that Freddie had mentioned. A group of women were dancing, and Tatiana was talking to one of them. In the background, Damian was sitting at a table, his eyes pinned on her. A man in a hooded sweatshirt was sitting next to him. I enlarged the picture on my phone for a better look. The man's head was bent forward, and he was holding a cell phone in front of him, but it looked like Farley. I started to send the picture to Brian, when a step sounded behind me. A chill went down my spine.
"Nice shots, huh?"
I gasped. Farley was still here, and he'd seen the photos. I tried to place the phone back in my pocket, but he grabbed my wrist so tightly that I cried out in pain. He studied the screen, and then it went black. "Damn it," he growled. "Don't you know how to keep a phone charged? What were you planning to do with those pictures?"
"Nothing," I whispered.
Farley swore and then pushed me to the floor. I tried to grab the leg of the table to break my fall but missed and went down in a heap on my backside, groaning with pain. Another contraction immediately began and left me immobilized. He pulled out a knife from his pocket, and I whimpered. "No. Please don't.'
He ignored me and opened the back door into the alley, looked both ways, and then slammed it shut. The knife's silver blade glinted under the bright ceiling lights. "Don't worry. I already locked the front door, so we won't be disturbed. Now get up," he ordered me.
"I can't," I moaned. "I think I'm—"
Impatience seeped into every inch of Farley's face. He muttered an expletive, reached down, and yanked me roughly to my feet. I was so dizzy that I almost fell over, but he held tightly to my arm. Sweat ran down the small of my back. "Please don't hurt me," I begged. "Think about my baby."
His face was so close to mine that I could smell the frosting on his breath. "You aren't giving me much choice here, Sally. You know the truth. It's written all over your face."
"I don't know anything," I lied. "Why don't you go ahead and leave, and I'll act like this didn't happen. Leave me and my baby alone, and I'll never say a word. Honest."
"You shouldn't have been snooping around," he snarled and held the tip of the blade near my chin. He looked directly into my eyes, but I sensed he saw someone else. "Tatiana shouldn't have lied to me. She didn't give me a choice." He moved his face away from mine. "One of your cop friends came to the car wash today. When he asked about the boat accident and Tatiana, I knew they were on to me, and I figured you had to be involved too."
Brian hadn't told me he was planning to stop at the car wash. Not that it m
attered anymore. I had more important things to think about, like figuring out how to keep myself and my baby alive. Farley kept one arm wrapped around my throat and placed the knife's blade under my chin. My head was spinning, and my legs were so weak I couldn't walk. I had to try to stall until help arrived. Had my father tried calling me back? Mike must have called again by now, but there was no way of knowing since my phone was dead.
"Lyle and Leroy were friends of yours?" I managed to choke out.
Farley snorted. "I never should have trusted those two losers. We all hung out together for years. I thought they were trustworthy—and that Lyle had some kind of brain. Nope, they managed to screw everything up. And I never told them to carjack anyone! They claimed that their car stalled and they spotted you at a traffic light. They figured you'd be an easy target. After they held up the jewelry store and called to tell me, I told them to ditch your car." The knife in his hand shook against my skin. "You want something done right, gotta do it yourself. Know what I mean?"
Fear lodged in my throat, and my voice was hoarse. "You killed Damian because he knew about what happened to Tatiana, di…didn't you? You pushed her over the side of the boat, and he saw you."
An ominous silence filled the room. To my surprise, his grip on me released slightly. He moved the knife away from my throat, but it wasn't enough for me to make a run for it. I clutched the side of the table with one hand, and he made no attempt to stop me. His gaze met mine, and the expression in his eyes changed—to one of sadness.
"I did care about her," he said after a beat. "Tatiana was a major addict though. No matter what you might think, she was hooked before we even met. Then she quickly got worse. She couldn't hold a job, turned her back on her family, and wouldn't get help. She kept hounding me for freebies, and finally, I couldn't take it anymore. I told her we were done."
"It was your baby she was carrying?"
In a fit of sudden rage, he stabbed the worktable with his knife, and I jumped. Okay, wrong thing to say. I had to get out of here, but how? I couldn't even walk. Having a baby in the presence of a killer was going to be far worse than having it at Gianna's wedding.
"She wasn't even going to tell me about the baby," Farley said between clenched teeth. "She slipped and mentioned it to Damian. By the time I confronted her, it was too late. She'd already had an abortion." His face turned the color of a flame. "I had a right to know. That was my kid."
"Of course," I said in my best sympathetic tone.
Farley seemed to be lost in his own little world. "Damian agreed to help me get rid of her, but afterward, I knew he regretted it. I thought he'd start asking for some of my stash to keep quiet, but he stopped using altogether. Instead, he asked for cash to keep mum. At first it was only a few bucks here or there, but when he saw the money I was making off of Leroy and Lyle, he started asking for more. I was planning to leave the country when I had enough saved, and he ruined my plans."
"So you had to kill him."
"He kept threatening to squeal until I couldn't stand it anymore," Farley said. "The night that he mentioned running into you, everything fell into place perfectly. Now someone else had a motive to kill him. When I came here and saw the alarm wasn't on, I knew it was fate." He chuckled under his breath.
I doubled over in pain. "Can I sit down on the floor for a—"
He interrupted me, lost in his own thoughts. "Lyle and Leroy were like my own robots. They did what I said, no questions asked. They seemed happy with the money they were earning, but that damned Damian was just too greedy. Lyle and Leroy told me that they killed a guy before. I believed them, but they must have lied. So, I told Leroy to kill Damian." Farley seemed to come out of his trance. He grabbed my arm and pushed me away from the table. "Are you listening to me?"
"Yes." My legs were giving out under me. "Please let me sit down."
He let go of me, and I thankfully slid to the floor, clutching my belly. I had to get to a hospital, but there wasn't much chance of that. No one even knew I was in trouble. Mike thought I was comfortable at home by now. Josie assumed that my father had picked me up. After weeks of people hovering over me, not allowing me to breathe by myself, the irony of the situation did not escape me. My time had finally come, and no one was here to help me except for a cold-blooded killer. A classic Sally moment.
Farley seemed oblivious to my pain and distress. "And what did they do? They chickened out on me at the last second. I had no choice but to get rid of Damian myself."
"Weren't you afraid that Lyle and Leroy would tell people you had killed Damian?"
Farley laughed again. "You did meet them, right? Nah, I wasn't worried. Damian had a lot of enemies. He owed people money. Those two clowns were the biggest saps ever born. It's a shame that you had to find Damian's address in your car though, thanks to those two idiots. Can you believe I even had to write down the freaking address because they couldn't remember it?" He shook his head ruefully. "It's so hard to find good help these days, ya know?"
"Totally," I choked out as I stared up at him. Farley was fingering the blade of the knife thoughtfully. If I only had something to stab him in the leg with. I glanced around me and spotted a fork under the stove a few feet away. I inched backward slightly. He didn't seem to notice.
"How could Tatiana do that to me?" Farley's voice shook with rage. "She should have told me. She killed my baby, so she didn't deserve to live either."
"I'm sorry." I tried to sound grief-stricken for him, but it was difficult, given what he had done to Tatiana. The entire scenario sickened me. One thing I had learned a long time ago—never try to argue with a psychopath. There was no winning. I slid backward on the floor a couple of more inches. The fork was almost within reach. I stretched out my hand behind my back, praying he wouldn't see.
Farley's jaw tightened. "I know what's going on in your mind. You're trying to think of how to get away from me. Forget it, Sally. There is no way. Your life is over."
Panic surged through me and mixed with nausea. I tried to remain calm. "You went to a lot of trouble to pin Damian's death on me."
"Not really," Farley said. "He was costing me money, and I needed it to stop. I used my picks to break into the bakery, and with no alarm to worry about, it was a piece of cake. Or cookie. Ha-ha, get it? Then I spotted that cake thingy with your name on it. So, it really wasn't trouble until you started sticking your fat nose into everything."
My hand closed around the fork as Farley saw it. He jumped forward and smacked it out from under my hand. I grabbed him around the leg, and he kicked me in the chest, leaving me winded. I cried out in pain, and my back connected with the hard tiled floor.
"Get up," he growled, but I couldn't move.
Spots danced before my eyes, and I struggled not to pass out. If I did, I was a goner for sure.
Farley muttered another swear word and lifted me roughly to my feet. I stumbled against him. "You're done asking questions," he hissed. "You did this all to yourself. Time to go now."
He was shoving me toward the back door. The room began to spin. I clutched at the doorway and tried to catch my breath. "Why don't you just drop me off at the hospital on your way to Mexico, okay?"
Farley shook his head sadly. "Sorry, but I can't let you live. You'd go to the cops. I'm gonna have to kill you, and put you in the trunk, then dump your body somewhere. Now move it."
"I can't—" I gasped. It was too difficult for me to move. "Please. I think I'm going to faint."
"Stop stalling. I told you to move it!"
He gave me another shove, and I stumbled against the door. "I'm in labor."
Farley laughed as he opened the back door. "That bites."
The pressure on my bladder was so intense that I couldn't bear it any longer. A trickle of water ran down my leg. "Oh God," I breathed. "I really am in labor."
Farley's eyes were large and terrified as he stared at the small puddle on the floor and swore. "You've got to be kidding me! Why does this stuff always happen to me? Well, i
t just means I'll have to kill you quicker." He started to pry my hands from the doorway.
"No!" I sobbed. "Think about my baby. What about your baby, the one who never got to live? Do you really want to see that happen to another innocent child?"
Farley's face froze into immobility for a moment, and then he instantly recovered and tried to drag me out of the kitchen. "Sorry, Sally. I don't have a choice."
As he tried to push me, I caught sight of the rolling pin in the dish drainer a couple of feet away. There was no way to reach it. He caught my eyes moving around the room and gave me another push. I stumbled and almost fell. From the doorway, I stared down at the pavement in the alley and spotted a pair of black boots. Maybe I was hallucinating.
"Who the hell are you?" Farley barked from behind me.
I looked up and found myself staring at an elderly man with a shock of white hair. He was wearing a red bomber jacket and a Santa hat. "Nick," I choked out. It was the same man who'd helped me after the carjacking.
Somehow, I managed to get to my feet as Farley pointed the knife at him. "Get out of my way, old man, unless you want to die too."
Nick folded his arms across his chest. "I hope you're taking Sally to a hospital. It's obvious that she's in labor."
Farley took a step toward Nick while I groped backward, feeling for the rolling pin.
"I said to get out of my way, old man. You're no match for me."
Nick roared with laughter. "That's what you think, hotshot. You don't know anything about me."
"Who are you?" Farley asked again, and I thought I detected a note of fear in his voice this time.
He took another menacing step toward Nick while I brought the rolling pin down on his head as hard as I could muster. Farley dropped the knife and staggered backward. Nick gave him a shove, and he fell into my cookie rack. The rack and Farley went down in a heap with an ear-splitting crash.
Nick glanced around the kitchen. "Sally, do you have anything to tie him up with?"
I clutched at my belly, gasping for breath. "Do you have a phone? I need to call for help. You could use his knife to cut the ties off the aprons hanging on the wall. They should be strong enough to hold him."
Ginger Snapped to Death Page 17
