Sweet Murder

by Tegan Maher

  I wondered where Adelaide and Cheri Lynn were. I was shocked they weren't both floating over us trying to tell us how important it was for us to get out. Stating the obvious seemed to be a superpower they shared.

  When I caught movement out of the corner of my eye, I was sure it would be one of them. Instead, it was Violet. She walked over to the mantle and started picking up the pictures of Raeann and Jake.

  "I'm pretty sure there's not going to be much left after this place blows, but I'm gonna take these just in case. It wouldn't do to have any pictures of the guy y’all know as Jake turn up."

  I looked at her like she'd lost her mind because, obviously, she had. I tried to ask her what was wrong with her, but couldn't speak around the gag in my mouth.

  Shelby was moaning. I was relieved she was coming around. I worked the rag with my tongue until I'd stretched it enough to push it out of my mouth, though my head still felt like it was full of cotton.

  "What in the name of God is wrong with you? You can't just blow people up, then walk away."

  "Oh, I have no intention of walking away. I'm going to work from my office in the Bahamas to develop this place and make enough money that I can go anywhere and do anything I want for the rest of my life. If I never see another dog thermometer, it'll be too soon."

  Jake chose that minute to enter, dressed like he'd just come from a business meeting. If Raeann wasn't tied, he would have been a dead man. As it was, all she could do was scream muffled invectives at him, though most of them weren't hard to decipher, especially the ones involving his mother and suggestions to do the anatomically impossible, but those were the mild ones. She’s creative when she’s got a mood on, and this definitely qualified. He walked around her, careful not to get within kicking range. That was smart of him because if she got a shot, he'd be spitting out his nuts.

  "We're going to have to tie them to the chairs. Otherwise, they might get loose. They shouldn't have come to this soon. We'll have to give them another shot before we leave." Violet was digging for something in her purse and Jake was messing with the stove.

  My head was starting to clear and I focused on a large pottery vase that was only a few feet from where Violet was picking through the pictures. Shelby nudged me with her foot.

  The vase? She motioned toward it with her eyes.

  I tried to remain passive and keep my eyes straight ahead so they didn't notice anything strange. Yeah. Her, then him. I can't do it by myself. My head's too fuzzy.

  Me neither, but together?

  I drew in a deep breath, struggling to shake the fog from my head. Okay. On three.

  One ... two ... three!

  We managed to get the vase just a few feet above her before both of us gave out, but it did the trick. It crashed onto her head and she dropped like a sack of potatoes.

  The crash startled Jake and he rushed to Violet's side, unable to understand what he was seeing.

  "Ah. The town gossips weren't lying when they said you two could do freaky hoo-doo stuff. I thought it was just redneck superstition. Well how about this?"

  In three strides, he was beside Shelby. He reached under his suit jacket, withdrew a gun, and pointed it directly at her head. With his other hand, he pulled a full syringe from his outside pocket, pulled the cap off with his teeth, and plunged it into her neck. She collapsed against him.

  I tried to summon enough energy to do something, but the gas was getting thicker and making me light-headed. He shoved another needle in Rae, then me.

  The last things I remembered were the smell of eggs, a pleasant floating sensation, and seeing Adelaide and Cheri Lynn yelling at each other and working to raise the kitchen window even though their hands kept passing through. Silly girls. Why didn't they just pass through the walls like they always did? Of all the final hallucinations I could have had, my messed-up brain chose that one.

  Chapter 31

  I

  found myself floating back to consciousness yet again, except this time I wasn't tied up and I wasn't greeted by the smell of rotten eggs. I peeped one eye open to see whether I was dead or not.

  I could see the sky through a canopy of pecan leaves, and a cool breeze was tickling across my body, but there was an absolute absence of noise. Not like silence, but a total vacuum. Nothing. Okay, so the hearing thing was a little freaky, but none of the points were a dead giveaway—pardon the pun—one way or another. Seeing as how I'd never asked Addy if she could feel the breeze, I could be a ghost.

  Next, I tried moving my head and it felt like somebody was driving a railroad spike through my temple. I cringed. Okay, so not dead. I shut my eyes again and let my brain and body assimilate before I tried opening them up again. This time, I felt more aware and was able to turn my head a little sans railroad spike.

  Raeann was on one side of me and Shelby was on the other and we were in my front yard. There was an ambulance parked several feet away, alongside a police cruiser. Sound started to filter back in. My vision was suddenly blocked by a giant, semi-translucent head—Cheri Lynn's to be exact. Except blocked wasn't quite the right word. Shaded, maybe.

  "She's awake, Ms. Adelaide!" No sooner had she uttered the words than Adelaide was hovering over me, too. Their individual transparencies kind ran together, like those tissue-paper projects you make as a kid. Blue and pink make purple. That struck me as hilarious for some reason, and I giggled.

  "And I think she's stoned from the drugs and the gas," Cheri Lynn said. "Either that or the knock to the noggin rattled something loose." She furrowed her brow as I giggled again. A bird flew above us, seeming to go in one of her ears and out the other. "Either way, I don't think she's quite right just yet."

  "Well, leave her to it, then. Lord knows she's earned a few minutes of vacation without leaving the farm. Raeann's stirring, too."

  Their voices drifted away and blended in with the other sounds. I caught bits and pieces of conversations from cops and medics, and I even thought I heard Cody's voice at one point, but it was all a distant buzz.

  After a few minutes, a medic knelt beside me. "Ms. Flynn, we're going to load you up and take you to the hospital for observation. We're pretty sure you're going to be okay, but we want to make sure, because you inhaled quite a bit of gas fumes, and that lump on your head should be looked at."

  "Okay," I sing-songed. Right then, whatever they decided to do was fine with me as long as I was left to float. A brief flash of clarity revealed that if I was okay with going to the hospital, I probably needed to go—but the thought drifted away as the incredible fluffiness of the clouds caught my attention. They lifted me onto a gurney and tucked a blanket around me, and I drifted back to sleep.

  When I woke up the next time, I was in a hospital bed. Oddly enough, Will was sitting beside me looking anxious and guilty.

  "Noelle, I'm so sorry!" he said as soon as he realized I was awake.

  "Why?" He hadn't had any part in this had he?

  "I should have seen this coming. She'd made comments about being unhappy, and about wanting to move back to Atlanta, especially after Hank started pinching me and money got tight. She even talked about what a goldmine your farm was, but I never thought she'd do something like this."

  "Well, to be fair, most people wouldn't suspect that the person they love is a homicidal sociopath, so I think I'm willing to forgive you. But I do expect some free vet services. You can float Max's teeth if you want to. That would be a serious win-win for me."

  The corner of his mouth lifted. "You always did have that funky sense of humor. Thank you."

  "She said the same things to me about my house. I thought she was just being a friend and educating me. I never thought she was going to do something like this either, so if you're guilty, so am I."

  He rose to leave, but I reached out to him.

  "Don't go yet. I know it's probably hard to go through again, but two of the four people in my life who would visit me in a hospital are, I assume, in the hospital with me." When I spoke, my throat felt
raw and scratchy and dry. I reached for my water with the standard-issue hospital bendy straw, but Will grabbed it and handed it to me before I could pull the stand toward me.

  "Well, from what we can gather, Violet met Frank—Jake—at a restaurant in Atlanta." He flinched when he said that, and I know it had to hurt. "He was there for a real estate convention and she was visiting her folks. We'd been having problems for a few months at that point. Somewhere along the line, they ended up ... sleeping together ... and then it became a relationship.

  "When Adelaide died, they saw the perfect opportunity to make a fortune. They figured you'd sell at least most of it to them, but when you turned Jim down and wanted to keep the whole thing intact, they went to Hank. Well, Jake did. Violet stayed behind the scenes."

  Huh. That explained why Hank had cut my brake lines. He really did want me dead. Man, death by pie poisoning couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. I had to remember to thank Cheri Lynn again the next time I saw her.

  "I guess, in a nutshell, the grand plan was to get rid of you and get your place. But then they found out Raeann becomes Shelby's guardian and trustee, so they had to factor that in.” He scrubbed a hand over his face.

  "Our guess is that they planned for you to die in the wreck, and Shelby to die in the barn—or maybe that part really was an accident or intended for you—then Jake was taking Raeann skydiving. The chute wouldn't have opened. When plan A didn’t work, they planned the explosion. You know the rest."

  I examined all the facets of their plan. They pretty much covered everything. The sad part of it was that it likely would have worked. Hunter had recently mentioned that an application had been filed for gas line repairs, and that was what Hank seized on. The house could have blown up. It happens enough in old houses that nobody would have been the wiser.

  The only loose end would have been Gary Wilkenson, but thanks to me he probably would have been taking a dirt nap too, if Hunter hadn't stopped them when he did.

  "So, the only question left then, is how did we get out of the house?"

  "Addy and Cheri Lynn popped straight over to the Clip N Curl and told Coralee what was going on. She called 911 and raced straight out to your place herself. By the time she got there, Max had dragged you and Shelby out by the ropes tied around your feet, and almost had Rae out."

  I heaved a sigh. Not that I wasn't extremely grateful to the lop-eared pain in the ass, and I would definitely be showing it, but it was going to cost me a fortune in scotch and butter mints, and I had no doubt I'd hear about it every time he wanted something for the next eighty years or so.

  We sat in silence for a few minutes while I digested all the information he'd just doled out. Will looked absolutely tragic sitting there hanging his head, but he looked much better than he had the day of the fair.

  "Hey!" I said, flicking his arm. "This is not your fault."

  He just gave me a lost little smile and patted my hand. "Is it horrible that, aside from what happened to you and Cheri Lynn, I feel better than I have in months? Violet and I fought all the time, the books weren't adding up at the clinic and somehow we were in the red, and I had Hank bleeding me dry.” He paused and shook his head.

  "I found a savings book for an account at an Atlanta bank with almost a hundred grand in it," he said, grinning. That was the first real smile I'd seen from him in months. "She was considerate enough to use the same password for that account as she does for all the others, so online banking was extremely convenient. Then I changed all the passwords, just in case."

  I smiled and squeezed his hand. "Good. Do something for yourself. You and Cody go on a fishing trip or something. You've earned it."

  He took a deep breath and nodded. "That's not a bad idea at all."

  "And you may want to use some of it to file for divorce, too. Just sayin'."

  He laughed and rolled his eyes, then waved goodbye as he headed out the door.

  Shelby, Raeann, and I were released the next morning and I took a few days of much-needed sick time to get my poop back in a group.

  Rae came over the night we got out of the hospital and we'd gone through the whole post-breakup, man-hating routine, complete with wine, ice cream, and Netflix. Since this one took bad luck in men to a whole new level, we sprung for the good stuff and bought a bag of truffles, too.

  The one good thing that had come of it was that she no longer had any interest in jumping off bridges or out of airplanes. She finally had to agree with me that folks who do that are crazy. The proof was in the pudding with that one. She ran into the doctor who had taken care of Shelby when she’d fallen off the ladder and they were having coffee, though she’d placed a strict moratorium on personal relationships for at least six months, or until she could do a full background check.

  Anna Mae showed up at my front door a few days later.

  I'd been baking, so I wiped my hands on my apron as I motioned her in.

  "Hey, you! You look amazing!" Her color was back and her eyes had regained their gleam. That haunted look was gone.

  "Oh, I feel a hundred percent better, all right. I'm getting my half a mil from his life insurance policy today."

  "Well, well! Then I assume the wine is on you tonight? And not that cheap stuff, either."

  "Actually, I come bearing a little better gift than wine."

  "Sweetie, I'm not sure that's possible after the week I've had."

  She was practically vibrating with excitement, so I decided to quit messing with her and let her spill it. She handed me a pink-camouflaged envelope with my name on it. I had no idea what it was, but I'd once gotten one just like it with a wedding invitation in it. Surely she hadn't gone and done that again already. Her taste in men was equal only to Raeann's.

  "Well go ahead—open it!" She was bouncing on her toes and grinning like a five-year-old on Christmas morning.

  I slipped my finger under the flap and pulled out a fancy thank-you card. When I opened it, a check fell out. I understood my name and the amount separately, but didn't know what to think about them being side by side on the same check. I closed my eyes and popped one open to check it again.

  "Mama Doolittle says no matter what kind of rabbit trail you went down to do it, you found Hank's murderer and she never goes back on her word. There's your fifty grand." She jumped up and down—hats off to her surgeon because her boobs didn't move an inch—and squealed the last few words. I have to say, I was feeling pretty school-girly myself.

  I looked at the check again just to make sure it was still there, then leaned against the table to keep from falling over. "Holy crap, Anna Mae. I don't even know what to say!"

  She stepped up to me and brushed that stupid curl out of my face, then looked me in the eye. The laughter didn't entirely fade from her pixie face, but she did look a bit more somber. "You don't have to say anything, sugar. You earned every penny of it and then some. Just do with it what you want, and be happy."

  I pulled her into a hug. "Thank you, Anna Mae."

  I still couldn’t hardly believe it. I had fifty grand, and my taxes were paid for another whole year, so it was free and clear. I was so discombobulated that I sank into a chair and flicked a wrist to turn off the oven without even thinking about what I was doing. She just arched a brow when my gaze shot to her, then moved to stand beside me so she could sneak a couple of Snickerdoodles off the cooling rack.

  "Ain't nuthin' I didn't already know, sugar." She winked and closed her eyes as the cookie melted in her mouth. "'Sides, anybody who's ever tasted your baking has to know there's magic involved."

  We just stood and enjoyed not worrying about things for a few minutes as I poured us a glass of wine. The topic of insane amounts of money made me think of Hank's secret bank accounts and that giant stack of cash in the safe. I hip-checked her and grinned. "So, what are you going to do now that you're a free and independently wealthy woman?"

  "Well, I've decided to give back a lot of it. I don't want to know what was in that black book of Hank's, but I do w
ant to make things as right as I can. Between me, you, and the fencepost, there was almost three million dollars, countin' the bank and the safe."

  I whistled. Even though I knew there was quite a bit of money in the safe, I never suspected there was that much.

  "I've asked the sheriff to go through the book and figure out which of the people in there were good folks that Hank was stickin’ it to. I'm not talkin' about crooked judges and paid-for cops—far as I'm concerned, they don't get squat. I mean folks like Will and Bonnie and Jim—good people.

  "I want him to give me an amount, and I'm going to give him the cash so he can make sure it makes it back into the right hands. Through the mail, so that they remain anonymous. He said he was doing a full tax audit and notifying folks who've paid too much, so Benny down at the post office won't know one city hall envelope from another. Their secrets are theirs and died with Hank."

  "Anna Mae! That's perfect!" I wiped a tear off my lashes with my knuckle. I'd been so worried about what would happen to those poor people.

  She shrugged. "Well, like I said, I'm not givin' it all back—just the part that he skinned good folks for. I'm gonna let that tight-wadded SOB pay for something nice for us, too, because I've earned it and because it'd really get his goat. He never wanted me to have friends.” She took a sip of her wine and grinned like she was up to no good.

  "I'd like for you, Raeann, Bobbi Sue, and Coralee to go on a cruise with me. I've always wanted to try one of those drinks in a coconut with the little umbrellas, and I can't imagine doin' it without the four women who stuck by me through this whole mess! Plus, poor Raeann! That girl just can't catch a break with men!"

  I barked out a laugh at the irony. Anna Mae stuck around for a few more minutes and we chatted about what kind of car she was going to trade Hank's fancy, pride-and-joy pickup for, then made plans for the five of us to get together to plan the cruise the following day.