3 Fat Chance

by Rhonda Pollero

  Three soft knocks echoed through my apartment. “Finally,” I sighed, abandoning my laptop.

  Hurrying to the door, I looked out and saw Sam, who did not look happy. His date must not have gone well, I thought as I opened the door.

  Sam rushed in, bumping into me, knocking me back several feet, nearly knocking me on my butt. “Hey, what’s with—” My throat closed, choking off the words when I saw a man—no, Terri…no, Jill dressed as a man—standing in the doorway, holding a gun.

  She stepped inside and slowly closed the door. Her long hair was tucked into a cap. Given her height, build, jeans, and loose-fitting Hawaiian shirt, any witnesses would identify her as a tall, lanky male.

  Sam regained his footing and turned, partially shielding me behind him. “You can have our money,” he said, starting to reach into the front pocket of his pants.

  “That’s okay, I have my own,” she said as she lifted the small gun and fired once.

  Sam crumpled at my feet even though I grabbed him beneath the arms. I fell under the weight, taking him with me. I immediately scrambled to my elbows as blood began to spill from a small hole just above his right eyebrow.

  “Sam,” I cried, shaking him gently and patting his cheek. “Why did you shoot him?” I choked, looking up at the woman.

  She shrugged. “Because he was in the way of my real target and because I could. Get up.”

  Tears burned my eyes as I carefully rolled Sam’s limp body onto the floor. In the process, I felt the outline of his cell phone in his pocket and made the split-second decision to make a move for it.

  It meant turning my back on Jill for a half second, and I half expected her to shoot me in the back. Palming the cell phone, I turned over while slipping it in the back of my waistband as I got to my feet.

  Her gaze flickered to my sofa and she said, “Get it all.”

  I put the files in a pile, then unplugged my laptop’s power cord. As I closed it, I hit the Print Screen key and hoped beyond hope that she wouldn’t hear the wireless printer in the bedroom. “Where are you taking me?” I asked.

  “A three-hour cruise,” she replied sarcastically. “I’d prefer to shoot you right here, right now, but then the cops would get suspicious. Melinda had an intruder last night, and tonight you have one? Nope, they’d never buy it.”

  Arms loaded, I looked back at Sam’s bleeding, motionless body and felt the warmth of tears streaking down my face and throat.

  She poked me hard in the back with the gun as we left my apartment. “Across the lot,” she said, hitting me on the right side of the head toward the familiar car. It belonged to Melinda.

  “I would have opened the door for Melinda. You didn’t need to use Sam, and you didn’t need to kill him,” I said loudly.

  “Keep your voice down,” she snapped, giving me another, harder whack in the head.

  I felt something warm trickle into my ear, then down my neck into my shirt. Jill popped the trunk and directed me to put the files and my laptop inside Melinda’s Lincoln.

  With the gun still trained on me, she pulled a roll of duct tape out and said, “Wrists.”

  As if praying, which I was, I stood still while she secured my hands. Next, she led me to the passenger’s side and shoved me into the front seat. The cell phone jabbed me, then slipped lower so that I was nearly sitting on it.

  “Legs.”

  I complied, and she wrapped the tape several times around my ankles.

  I had a dull sting where she’d pistol-whipped me, but any pain was lost when I thought about poor Sam. I cried softly as she drove onto the highway and turned toward Palm Beach.

  “Shut up. What did you think would happen with all your nosing around?”

  “I didn’t think you’d kill my friend.”

  “Thanks to you, I’ve had a busy night. Luckily,” she began as she pulled the cap off and her hair tumbled over her shoulders, “Martin is on a business trip, so I didn’t have to wait to take care of loose ends.”

  “I’m not a loose end,” I said. “I’m a person. A person who’ll be missed. There’s nothing you can do to me that won’t cause suspicion.”

  “Melinda’s been saying the same thing to me for years. God, she was a pain in my ass.”

  “Was?”

  “Poor thing took a header down her staircase earlier tonight. Hit the marble and, well, her skull cracked like a coconut. The maid’ll find her day after tomorrow. I’ll get a call, pretend to be crushed. Host a lovely funeral for her, and no one will be any the wiser. And for the first time since Martin asked me to marry him, I won’t be paying that bitch blackmail.”

  She drove one-handed, the gun lying in her lap in a loose grip. My eyes flickered between Jill’s profile and the weapon. Testing the tape, I found it snug. I could move my fingers some, but I doubted I could get a grip on the gun and reverse our roles.

  “Because of the robberies or because you killed the real Terri?”

  “Very good,” Jill said. “Except Carlos killed Terri.”

  “At your request, I’m sure. Ow!” She hit me in the mouth. When I tasted blood, I knew she’d split my lip.

  “I also requested he get rid of the body after Melinda went to bed, so the moron stuck it in the garage freezer.”

  I remembered the rusty outline I’d seen on the floor at the beach house and realized it was a perfect shape for a chest freezer.

  “The idiot gets up the next morning and the freezer is empty. Only he didn’t tell me immediately.”

  “Melinda found the body?”

  “Yep. She surprised me by moving it to a storage unit. She kept it there all these years, taunting me from time to time. It was her way of leveling the playing field.”

  “What playing field?”

  “You’re awfully nosey for someone who won’t be alive long enough to share any of this.”

  I braced for another lash from the gun. Thankfully it didn’t come. “I just want to know why I’m dying.”

  “Fair enough,” Jill said as she stopped at the light at the base of the bridge to Palm Beach.

  I considered reaching for the door handle, but in the amount of time it would take me to roll out of the car, she could empty the gun on me.

  “So I’m thirteen or fourteen, and I meet one of the rich guys on the beach. Home from Yale for spring break. He takes me to his house. We take care of business, and on my way out, I wrap a vase in my beach towel. Melinda found it. At first, I thought she was going to turn me in. Instead, she flips the vase upside down and shows me the marks. It wasn’t very valuable, just a decorator item. Then she hits me and says if I’m going to steal, I should steal the good stuff.”

  “Melinda trained you?”

  “Me, then Terri, and eventually Carlos. Terri and I were pretty tight for a while. We shared everything. Secrets, guys, drugs. We’d spend hours in our room, eating red-rope licorice and comparing notes. Terri had a real eye for antiques and art. She always brought back the big-ticket items.”

  “It’s good to have a skill.”

  This time I did get hit on the arm, right on the stitches, which instantly split. I guess my adrenaline was pumping, because I didn’t feel any pain.

  As soon as she crossed the bridge, she turned left on Australian and shrugged off the big shirt, revealing a perfectly appropriate-for-sailing top with gold and navy trim. Obviously, we weren’t headed for the Gilmore estate.

  “If she was so good, why’d you and Carlos kill her?”

  “She met this guy, found Jesus and a conscience. Carlos stole a medallion we couldn’t pawn. Terri found it and was going to go to the cops. We were clearing thirty to forty grand a month, sometimes more. Especially after we learned to break in. Before that, we had to wait until one of us got inside one of the homes. I can’t tell you how much sex I had just to have an opportunity to do recon on a mansion. We’d wait a few days or weeks, until we knew the house would be empty, then stroll down the beach, right up to the home. A few seconds and snap, we were in, o
ut, and back home before those rich bastards knew what hit them. Once we aged out, I didn’t give the robberies a second thought. Carlos went up to North Carolina for a family reunion, and then the dumb bastard nearly raped his own cousin. I figured he’d rot in jail. When I went to work at Gilmore, I had to use Terri’s Social Security number, since she didn’t have a criminal record and I did. Next thing I know, Melinda crops up. The minute Martin and I started dating, she tells me she’s still got Terri’s corpse and the only way she’ll stay quiet is if I share the wealth.

  “I didn’t hear from her for a while, and then I think it was like ten seconds after Martin proposed before greedy Melinda demanded a house.”

  “The estate in Jonathan’s Landing.”

  “Yeah. Only I refused to do it unless she gave me Terri’s bones. She did, then once again, I asked Carlos to take care of it, and what does he do? Puts her back in the Chilian Avenue house.”

  “Good help is hard to find,” I murmured.

  “You don’t know when to shut up, do you?” she asked as she whacked me so hard on the head that I saw stars.

  Jill pulled into the Town Docks. My heart leaped when I saw a man up ahead. Jill cursed when she saw him too, and she shoved my head down so she could wave to the guy, who was unloading a cooler. If I raised my head or screamed, I knew she’d shoot me immediately. Weighing that against the option of living for a while longer, I didn’t scream.

  We drove all the way down to the last slip, where a massive yacht was moored next to a smaller—in comparison—sailboat.

  “Slide this way,” she instructed, grabbing my hair and pulling me across the console. She held me there for a few seconds. Even though it was still before dawn, the marina was well lit, and I suspected she didn’t want to run the risk of being seen with me.

  Another yank and my eyes watered as I nearly fell out of the car onto the gravel parking lot. She’d parallel parked, so it was pretty easy for her to drag me onto the smaller of the two boats.

  I felt the phone slipping down the inside of my pants leg as I hopped along. By some miracle, I bent my leg enough to trap the phone behind my knee as we went aboard the boat. Thanks to the streetlamp, I read the name painted on a life preserver mounted on the deck of the boat. Checkout.

  In the dim light on the waterside of the boat, Jill opened a wide bench and tossed life jackets onto the deck. Then she tossed me inside. I smelled wood cleaner, the ocean, brass polish, and my own desperation. Even with the sound of water lapping, I heard the snap of the padlock close.

  I listened for footsteps, and when I was as sure as I could be that Jill had gone to prepare to take the boat out to sea, I grabbed my pants leg with my bound hands and jerked until I heard and felt my jeans pull free of the tape around my ankles.

  I started to sweat as I bent and contorted in the tight space, furiously trying to get to the phone. It took some doing, but I eased the lump down until my fingertips felt the antennae. My back and legs cramped as I slid the phone out, careful not to let it catch on the adhesive on my ankles or, worse, fall out of my limited reach.

  Tears of relief, fear, and frustration poured unchecked from my eyes when I finally succeeded.

  Disentangling my body, I used the pad of my thumb to dial 911 as I rolled onto my back. As quietly as possible, I started to tell the operator everything and that I needed immediate help. I was nearly finished when the engines roared to life and I heard the hum of the rotary blades below the waterline.

  “I’m on the Checkout,” I told the operator again. “She’s about to pull away from the Palm Beach Town Docks. It’s a sailboat, but it has a motor.”

  “I’ve alerted the Coast Guard and the local police,” the operator calmly said. “Just keep talking to me, Finley.”

  “We’re moving.”

  “Can you tell which direction you’re headed?”

  “No. You have to send an ambulance to my apartment. She killed my friend.”

  “Tell me the address.”

  I did, gulping back sobs between each word.

  “Help is already there,” she said. “One of your neighbors called in a gunshot report almost twenty minutes ago.”

  God bless Mrs. Hemshaw. “Did they find Sam?”

  Before she could answer, I heard the approach of sirens. The engine revved, the boat lurched, and I heard footfalls running toward me.

  I was so scared that I dropped the phone and squeezed my eyes shut, fully expecting bullets to come splintering through the wood.

  Instead, the lock jiggled, the top flew open, and a crazed-looking Jill grabbed me by one leg and one elbow, lifted me as if I weighed nothing, and tossed me into the dark, diesel-scented water.

  The best gifts in life aren’t free;

  you just have to work harder to find the price tag.

  twenty

  I SWALLOWED MY FIRST GULP of oily salt water as I kicked my legs to keep from drowning. I was choking, coughing, and scared. There was enough light from approaching police cars for me to make out the Checkout racing out of the marina. I opened my mouth to yell for help, but the wake of a wave slapped me in the face and forced a second painful rush of water into my lungs.

  I heard a splash in the distance, but my vision was blurred from tears, water, and my tenuous battle to remain conscious. The water rushed into my mouth, and my nose and my chest burned from holding what little breath remained in my body. I was blinded when I sank lower. Just as I tried to process the fact that I was going to die, I felt someone grab my waist and shove me back to the surface. I coughed and sputtered, then let my head fall back against the solid body of my savior. I would have thanked him, but my head swirled into complete blackness.

  “YOU’RE NOT MAKING IT up?” I asked Becky as she held my hand while Doctor Adair, my new cosmetic surgeon best friend, continued to put stitches above my ear.

  She smiled and made a cross over her heart. “I swear to God. I’ll take you to see him as soon as all your cuts are cleaned and tended. The weird part is,” she began with a little laugh, “Sam got shot in the head, but you look worse.”

  “But he’s not dead or brain injured or—”

  “A .22?” Dr Adair asked.

  “Yes,” Becky answered.

  I tried to look at the doctor and was instantly admonished to keep still unless I wanted a big scar. “How did you guess that?”

  “If you’re going to get shot in the head, that’s the best caliber possible. It’s a small projectile.”

  “But it still went into his face,” I argued.

  “I haven’t seen the patient, but my guess is it entered the skull at just the right angle to clip the occipital bone, and that’s enough to change the direction. Then the bullet travels around the skull instead of through it. Still, your friend was mighty lucky.”

  If he wasn’t trussing me closed like a turkey, I probably would have kissed the doctor for explaining how Sam had survived with a relatively minor injury.

  I, on the other hand, had stitches in my swollen lip; stitches on both sides of my head; and a do-over set on my arm. My hair was damp and matted, except for the two places where the doctor had shaved it off to sew me up. I wasn’t in any huge hurry to look in the mirror.

  “What about Jill?” I asked as the doctor finished up.

  Becky gave my hand a squeeze. “Last report I saw, the boat was surrounded by Coast Guard cutters. Looked a lot like Kennedy’s blockade during the Cuban missile crisis.”

  “I don’t think Jill will back down,” I said.

  “I don’t much care,” Becky said. “Is Finley free to go?”

  “I’m off to write the discharge orders now. You will finish all of the antibiotic and use the ointment, and you need someone to check on you every hour for the next twenty-four hours. I stitched you up, but that has no effect on the concussion.”

  “We’ve got her covered,” Becky insisted.

  “Thank you,” I said to the doctor, hearing the speech impediment as my numb lip continued to swell.r />
  Nearly an hour passed before I was wheeled up to post-op to see Sam. He had gauze wrapped around his head, an IV in his arm, and his eyes were bruised and closed. Mine teared just remembering the sound of the shot and the acrid smell of gunpowder and burned flesh.

  Liv was in a chair next to his bed, thumbing through a magazine. Jane was on the opposite side, resting her head on her folded arms at the edge of the bed.

  Machines blipped and bleeped all around me as Liv stood to allow Becky to maneuver me in my wheelchair to his bedside. I ran the back of my hand along his cheek. There was something very comforting about the feel of his warm skin.

  His eyes fluttered open, and he swallowed loudly. “I’ve…never…seen…so…hideous,” he struggled to say.

  I lifted my hand to cover my mouth. “I’m so sorry,” I choked, tears streaking down my face.

  “What?” he said, struggling and obviously in some sort of narcotic haze.

  “If it wasn’t for me, you’d never have been hurt.”

  He reached up and grabbed at my hand. “Crazy woman shot me.”

  “I stole your phone.”

  “Now that,” he said, his voice scratchy, “you’ll have to make up to me.”

  “I will.”

  “Go home. Sleep. I’m fine.”

  “You are a medical miracle,” I corrected. “I’m sure they want to check you over thoroughly.”

  Becky came around to give him a kiss. “I left everyone’s phone numbers with the nurse. You need anything—anything—and we’re here for you.”

  Liv and Jane kissed him too. I couldn’t; my puffy lip wasn’t exactly well-suited for kissing.

  AS I PREDICTED, JILL Burkett did not cooperate. Instead, with news helicopters buzzing overhead, the boat surrounded by about twenty-plus boats and ships, she stood on the deck, stuck the gun in her mouth, and tumbled into the water.

  Me? I’d have left her for chum, but the authorities retrieved her body, ending the one-woman murder spree.

  That was almost six weeks ago, but I still had the occasional nightmare and fading scars to remind me of my ordeal. Grudgingly, Vain Dane—with a push from Tony, according to the prevailing gossip—allowed me to work from home until Dr. Adair removed my stitches. It worked out okay, since my friends worked out a shift system so neither I nor Sam, once he got home from the hospital, was left alone.