Hell to Pay
(What Doesn’t Kill You, #7):
An Emily Romantic Mystery
by Pamela Fagan Hutchins
Hell to Pay (What Doesn’t Kill You, #7): An Emily Romantic Mystery Copyright © 2016 Pamela Fagan Hutchins. All rights reserved. Printed in the United State of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and review.
SkipJack Publishing books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use. For information, address SkipJack Publishing, P. O. Box 219, Burton, TX 77835.
First U.S. Edition
Pamela Fagan Hutchins
Hell to Pay (What Doesn’t Kill You, #7); An Emily Romantic Mystery/Pamela Fagan Hutchins
ISBN-13 978-1-939889-36-2 (SkipJack Publishing)
To the other pea in my pod, Eric.
Contents
Dedication
Accolades
Foreword
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Excerpt from Saving Grace (What Doesn’t Kill You, #1): A Katie Romantic Mystery
Chapter One
Excerpt from Puppalicious and Beyond
I am not a whackjob.
Froggy Went A' Courtin'
Excerpt from Going for Kona (What Doesn’t Kill You, #4): A Michele Romantic Mystery
Chapter One
Excerpt from How to Screw Up Your Kids (Parenting and Blended Families)
Despite Our Best Efforts
How did the Bradys do it?
Excerpt from How to Screw Up Your Marriage (Successful Relationships)
Bring me a bucket.
There's nothing under the canoe, honey.
Excerpt from the Clark Kent Chronicles (Parenting ADHD & Asperger's)
"My mother is ruining my life."
Where It All Began: Lacrosse Gloves Make Sense to Me
Excerpt from Hot Flashes and Half Ironmans (Women's Health and Athletics)
I don't ask much.
Putting The Fun Into Dysfunctional
Excerpt from What Kind of Loser Indie Publishes, and How Can I Be One, Too? (Writing, Publishing, & Promotion)
1 • EARN (NO) MONEY ALL BY YOURSELF {On the financial implications of traditional versus indie publishing}
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Books by the Author
Other Books from SkipJack Publishing
Accolades
For Pamela Fagan Hutchins:
2015 WINNER USA Best Book Award, Cross Genre Fiction
2014 USA Best Book Award Finalist, Cross Genre Fiction
2014 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Quarter-finalist, Romance
2013 USA Best Book Award Finalist, Business: Publishing
2012 Winner of the Houston Writers Guild Ghost Story Contest
2012 WINNER USA Best Book Award, Parenting: Divorce
2011 Winner of the Houston Writers Guild Novel Contest, Mainstream
2010 Winner of the Writers League of Texas Manuscript Contest, Romance
What Doesn’t Kill You: Katie Romantic Mysteries
“An exciting tale . . . twisting investigative and legal subplots . . . a character seeking redemption . . . an exhilarating mystery with a touch of voodoo.” — Midwest Book Review Bookwatch
“A lively romantic mystery.” — Kirkus Reviews
“A riveting drama . . . exciting read, highly recommended.” — Small Press Bookwatch
“Katie is the first character I have absolutely fallen in love with since Stephanie Plum!” — Stephanie Swindell, Bookstore Owner
“Engaging storyline . . . taut suspense.” — MBR Bookwatch
What Doesn’t Kill You: Emily Romantic Mysteries
“Fair warning: clear your calendar before you pick it up because you won’t be able to put it down.” — Ken Oder, author of Old Wounds to the Heart
“Full of heart, humor, vivid characters, and suspense. Hutchins has done it again!” — Gay Yellen, author of The Body Business
“Hutchins is a master of tension.” — R.L. Nolen, author of Deadly Thyme
“Intriguing mystery . . . captivating romance.” — Patricia Flaherty Pagan, author of Trail Ways Pilgrims
“Everything about it shines: the plot, the characters and the writing. Readers are in for a real treat with this story.” — Marcy McKay, author of Pennies from Burger Heaven
What Doesn’t Kill You: Michele Romantic Mysteries
“Immediately hooked.” — Terry Sykes-Bradshaw, author of Sibling Revelry
“Spellbinding.” — Jo Bryan, Dry Creek Book Club
“Fast-paced mystery.” –—Deb Krenzer, Book Reviewer
“Can’t put it down.” — Cathy Bader, Reader
“Full of real characters and powerful emotions.” — Rhonda Erb, Editor
Foreword
Hell to Pay (What Doesn’t Kill You, #7): An Emily Romantic Mystery is a work of fiction. Period. Any resemblance to actual persons, places, things, or events is just a lucky coincidence.
Hell to Pay
(What Doesn’t Kill You, #7):
An Emily Romantic Mystery
Chapter One
Disco lights whirled around me, or was it the room? My inner party animal had atrophied, not that I’d ever been a real heavyweight. If it wasn’t for the fantastic people-watching—and the fact that this was the celebration party for the burglary acquittal of our firm’s client Phil Escalante the day before, and his engagement to Nadine, one of my best friends in Amarillo—I’d’ve bagged this shindig. Instead, there I was with tendrils of fake smoke floating past my face, ten feet from a DJ dressed in a black latex fetish costume and spiked dog collar and spinning 70s tunes.
A tall woman maybe ten years older than me appeared out of the low lights and sidled up to me, engulfing me in the odor of cigarettes. Her vanilla hair sported a generous dollop of dark chocolate roots, which was pretty funny to me since she had a body shaped like a cone. A waffle cone. A waffle cone with sparkly sprinkles from the spinning ball overhead. Behind her trailed a paunchy man of roughly her height. His eyes had locked on me in a way that made my skin crawl with leeches that weren’t there.
Rick James’s “Super Freak” ended. The silence in the cavernous L-shaped room was immediate and complete, but short-lived. A clamor of voices from the one-hundred-or-so guests resumed, their voices echoing off the bare walls and drop ceiling.
&n
bsp; “Hey, Foxy Loxy,” the man mouthed at me. Or did he? Surely not. It was hard to tell with the lights playing tricks on my eyes.
The woman spoke past me. “You and your wife got any plans later?” Her bellow seemed to fill the room to its farthest corners, even with all the other voices. I winced and shrank under the eyes that shifted our way.
Not Jack, though. The horse rancher cum criminal attorney was nothing if not unflappable. His topaz eyes twinkled. “Emily’s not my wife.”
The man surged toward Jack. “You’re not together?”
“I’m his fiancée,” I said through my recently tightened braces and painfully rubber-banded teeth, leaving out “and he’s my boss.” I waved my big, fat teardrop-shaped diamond at him to accentuate my point, then I pinched Jack’s arm where my hand was looped through its crook. I’d capitulated to the mouth gear when my childhood orthodontist saw the gap between my front teeth and insisted I needed Invisalign, then filled my mouth with metal instead. Payback for never wearing my retainer, I guess.
The man and woman looked at each other and nodded. She asked, “Care to join us? We’ve got a room at a no-tell hotel nearby.”
Jack’s whole body shook and I didn’t dare look at him. I was a sucker for his laugh. In fact, I was a sucker for everything about him, from his lived-in boots to his permanent tan to his Apache cheekbones. Before either of us could think of an appropriate response, Phil interrupted.
“Millie, Pete, leave my poor friends alone.” He clapped a hand on my shoulder and gently pushed me aside to clap his other onto Jack’s. “They’re not swingers. And this isn’t a swingers social. I’m out of the business.”
The space between Millie’s eyebrows narrowed and puckered as drops of light rained down on her face. “It’s a free country, ain’t it?”
“Well, sure—”
“We’re not intewested.” Ugh. Between my braces and the booze, I sounded like a toddler with a lisp. “But thank you.”
The man shrugged. “Didn’t know you blew spit bubbles when we made the invite. I think I’ll pass.”
My lower jaw unhinged. I straightened my powder-blue spring-weight top. I sputtered but nothing came out. This time Jack’s laugh was audible, and he squeezed me past Phil and over to him.
Millie leaned toward Phil, her voice derisive. “Those Mighty is His Word folks got you running scared.”
Jack and I looked at each other, and his raised brows mirrored mine. The Mighty is His Word congregation was the self-appointed sin police in these parts, and they had harassed Phil’s swingers club and its patrons relentlessly. Phil swore the group had a mole, since the dates of the events and identities of the members weren’t public information. He’d decided to find out, so he let himself into the pastor’s personal quarters to investigate. That would have gotten him two to twenty if the jury hadn’t latched onto his excuse that he’d entered the unlocked rooms thinking he was still in the church and only looking for a restroom. That, and if he hadn’t picked Jack as his attorney. Jack was good in the courtroom. Very, very good.
Beside Phil, Nadine appeared, a combo of Amazon warrior and Macbethian witch. Her long black hair was pulled back in a jet-hued scarf, kohl liner rimmed her eyes, and a long-sleeved black dress held her in place, somewhat. A shiny pair of black biker boots completed her ensemble, and it looked like she’d dressed Phil to match. He put both his arms around her ample waist and grinned into her even more ample cleavage, located conveniently at his eye level. The music restarted: Rod Stewart crooning “Hot Legs.”
Phil chuckled. “The Mighty is His Word fuckers? Nah. They don’t scare me. I’ve just gone straight. Love’s made a changed man of me.”
Not that Phil had changed much. He and Nadine had recently opened Get Your Kicks, an adult novelty store, in the same downtown building we were celebrating in, that used to house his swingers club. Not like in the same room we were standing in now, but in the corner of the L where they had carved off and re-created retail space. But sexual mores aside, I didn’t know a kinder, more generous soul than Phil. In the four months they’d been dating, he’d become the father Nadine’s sons had never had and the defender of her honor from every lech that assumed she was slinging more than drinks at the Polo Club.
“My hero,” Nadine said. Her voice teased, but her eyes shone like she meant it, and I knew she did.
Phil released Nadine and pulled his cell from a belt-loop holster. I could just barely hear it ringing. Staring at the screen, he held up a finger. “Business calls, my sweet.” He turned slightly away from the three of us and starting talking into his phone.
From where I stood, I couldn’t hear Phil, but I saw the tightness in Nadine’s face and the hunch of her shoulders. Just as things were getting awkward with all of us standing around staring at each other while Phil yakked, his call ended.
He turned back to us, his face dark. Then he grinned so fast I wondered if I’d even seen the unhappy expression. He tilted his face to kiss Nadine. “I’ve gotta hit the head. Bring you a drink when I come back?”
“Crown and Coke.” She watched his retreating figure with a look on her face I hadn’t seen her direct at Phil before. Distrust? Concern? Doubt?
My eyes shifted to Phil, too. What struck me as odd about him was that he didn’t have an empty drink in his hand. Phil never went drinkless. I’d never seen him sloshed, but he was always well lubed, as my Dad liked to call it.
Millie whispered to her friend and they left without further comment, heading in the same direction as Phil.
I leaned in to Nadine. “Everything okay?”
She nodded, still watching Phil, but the look on her face didn’t agree. Then she turned to me and smiled. “I can’t believe you got those braces. You look fourteen. Hardly old enough to be the mother of a six-year-old.”
Thirty-one was closing in on me, fast. “If Betsy’s adoption gets approved.” Which wasn’t a sure thing, even though it was one of the most important things in my life. I looked for wood to knock on, but there was none. I rapped lightly with my knuckles on Jack’s noggin instead.
“Hey, what’s that for?” He rubbed his head.
“Superstition.”
His left eyebrow shot up.
Months had passed since I’d applied to adopt Betsy. We’d overcome her kidnapping and the death of her parents. We’d found her missing Mexican birth certificate and applied for a Special Juvenile Immigrant status visa, which would give her permanent resident status if granted. We hoped to hear back on approval in the next two months. I’d endured the home study and done pretty well, I thought. Still, the state of Texas, in its infinite wisdom, hadn’t approved me yet, and I was getting anxious. Meanwhile, Betsy languished in a foster family with eleven other kids. A Mighty is His Word family at that. I believe in God, and I go to church, but there’s religion and then there’s full-on daffy, and the Mighty is His Word group struck me as the latter.
Nadine turned to my fiancé. “What do you think of her braces, Jack?”
His gaze heated my cheeks. As my oh-so-classy, tactful mother had said to me the week before, Jack had me hot to trot. Smiling, he put a palm to my flaming cheek then tapped my lips with his index finger. “I’m kind of partial to her gap, second only to her bangs.” I opened my mouth to object—he gave me unending heck about the volume of my bangs—then closed it. “But I like Emily no matter what she has on.” He put his lips to my ear and his words were a nibble. “Or not on.”
I inhaled him slow and deep. Leather, sunshine, furniture polish, and the lingering scent of our afternoon romp brought back our conversation from earlier. Now that I’ve moved out of the office into a real house, this Murphy bed isn’t getting any use, he’d said as he opened the cabinet and put his hand on the mattress. Poor neglected Murphy bed, I’d purred while untucking his shirt. The memory of it coupled with his ear nibbles did yummy, squirmy things to me now.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, get a room,” a voice gayer than RuPaul’s broke in. I didn’t have
to turn to know it was Wallace Gray. Wallace downplayed his sexual orientation by day, but vamped it up off hours. I didn’t blame him for his daytime subterfuge. Amarillo was not a blue city, and Texas was not a blue state.
I blinked away my bedroom eyes as Nadine exchanged cheek kisses with Wallace. Jack and I got to pay our homage.
“Something’s different with you.” Wallace took me by the shoulders and cocked his head. “Did you have a stroke?”
I said, “Orthodontia isn’t a laughing matter.” Or tried to. I shook my head and spat out, “Chihuahua,” accentuating the first syllable with a sh instead of a ch sound.
“Say it, don’t spray it, Bugs Bunny.” He cocked his head at me. “Hey, wait. Was that a new non-curse word? SHE-wah-wah. Like SHE-yutt?”
I nodded.
“I like it. Way to liven up your game there, wild thing.”
I socked his wiry bicep. “Kiss my grits, Wallace.”
He winced and rubbed it even though I’d barely tapped him. “Hey, Nadine, where’s the man of the hour?”
A shadow crossed Nadine’s face. She peered around the open space, through the revelers who had come out in force for the Thursday night celebration. “Bathroom? Bar?” She pursed her lips sideways like a semicolon. “He should be back by now.”
“I’m gonna head that way myself. I’ll let you know if I see him.” Jack patted my behind twice and set off toward the bathrooms.
“Have you guys set a date?” Wallace asked.
Nadine and I said, “No,” both at once. I smiled and shrugged at her.
“We were waiting for the verdict.” Nadine looked toward the bar, then the bathrooms again. “I know Jack was confident all along, but that bitchy ADA was so aggressive and sure of herself, I didn’t want to take any chances.” The ADA in question—Melinda Stafford—had been my mortal enemy since childhood, and I thought Nadine was being too charitable about her.
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