Missy shrieked, then clamped a hand over her mouth. Ron hustled into the living room, new beer in hand.
“Sorry.” Missy laughed. “My phone just scared the bejesus out of me.”
He didn’t smile, or nod, or respond. Instead his eyes got a faraway look.
The incoming call was from Mrs. Wise. Missy went back and forth on taking it. She was in Ron’s living room so didn’t want to be rude and take a call. But at the same time, she was interested to speak to Mrs. Wise after their earlier, bizarre conversation.
“I’m sorry.” She smiled apologetically. “I have to take this.”
Ron nodded.
Missy stood and headed out of the house. She took the call as she stepped off the porch onto the lawn.
“Mrs. Wise?”
“Hi, Missy.” The woman’s voice was a whisper. “I’m sorry about earlier, but I couldn’t talk then.”
“Is everything okay?” Missy asked.
“Yes.” Mrs. Wise hesitated. “Well, no, not really. Let me be plain. Missy, I know why you were calling earlier.”
“You do?” Missy looked over her shoulder to see if Ron had come out or was watching her from the house. She didn’t see him anywhere.
“Yes.” Mrs. Wise took a deep breath. “I know about Karen and Connie. My husband does not. He was right in the room with me, so I’m sorry if I was abrupt.”
“Oh.” Missy didn’t know what to say.
“Karen didn’t feel comfortable telling him.”
“I’m…sorry.”
“It was a very difficult time for her and she started questioning everything in her life. She was really depressed about her job and about her weight and everything was just piling up on her.”
Missy said nothing.
Mrs. Wise went on. “When she and Connie broke up, she started spiraling. She actually started seeing that Ron Moore again.”
That Ron Moore. She’d said his name like it was a curse word.
“You didn’t approve?”
“No.” Mrs. Wise sighed. “Of all the people that should have understood her weight problem, Ron didn’t. He kept pressuring her about it. He thought everyone had been too easy on her and what she needed was tough love.”
Missy’s breath caught in her throat. “Things must have happened quickly, right?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean…” Missy looked over her shoulder again. No sign of Ron anywhere. “Karen broke up with Connie only a month ago and—”
“No, she didn’t.”
“What?”
“Connie broke up with Karen, not the other way around.”
That was what Connie had told Missy, but she hadn’t believed the woman. But if Karen had told her mother this, that meant it was true.
So Connie hadn’t been lying about doing the breaking-up.
Mrs. Wise was still speaking. “And that happened more than a month ago. It’d been maybe four or five months…the only time Karen saw Connie was at those meetings. She avoided Connie.”
“Why?”
“Karen felt betrayed, like Connie had tricked her into a relationship when she was vulnerable. But I think Connie still cared for her and was just trying to make sure she was alright. Karen kept telling her to stay away from Ron. It was the right thing to tell her, but I don’t think Karen was ready to hear it.”
Missy’s knees felt weak.
“Missy, are you there?”
“I have to go,” Missy said.
“Is something the matter?”
Missy looked around, not seeing Ron anywhere. “Listen, Mrs. Wise, I need your help. This isn’t going to make sense but I’m at R—”
Then Ron smacked the phone out of her hand.
Chapter Nineteen
R on’s boot made a crunching sound as he squashed her phone, then he picked up the pieces and tossed them carelessly aside.
“Ron, what are you doing?”
Some small part of Missy was still hoping that this wasn’t actually happening, that this tall, broad-shouldered man with clear emotional issues hadn’t had anything to do with Karen’s death.
But a larger part of her knew that wasn’t true.
Ron reached behind himself and pulled out a gun.
Missy gasped and held up her hands. Not only was he bigger and stronger and knew how to fight, he also had a gun on him. It wasn’t exactly pointed at her, but with a quick flick of the wrist he could have shot her inside of a second.
For a moment, Missy stood in horrified silence. Her whole body locked up. She’d started to tell Mrs. Wise she was at Ron’s house but the man had smacked the phone out of her hand mid-sentence. She racked her brain, trying to remember if she’d gotten his name out in time—
Ron started crying.
They were standing on his lawn, so there was a chance a neighbor across the street could see. But the houses across the way were mostly dark. After all, it was almost ten o’clock on a weeknight. The neighbors, for the most part, were probably in bed. And even worse, Ron’s lawn wasn’t very well lit. She’d be lucky if someone casually glanced out their window and even noticed the pair of them on his lawn. And even if that happened, it wouldn’t be obvious to them that Ron even had a weapon pointing in her general direction.
Missy thought about screaming, but then thought better of it. Any sudden movement or sound might scare him, scare him right into pulling the trigger instinctively, and at this distance he wasn’t going to miss.
Her legs began trembling and Missy wanted to squeeze her eyes shut and just disappear. She wanted to throw herself to the ground and beg for mercy. But she didn’t think that would help either.
She should have called Tyler. She should have finished her text to him before taking Mrs. Wise’s call. It was hard to believe, standing here right now, that both those decisions would have life-or-death consequences, but they did.
The only thing Missy could do now was try talking to him.
Ron wiped under his eyes with his free hand. He wasn’t really looking at her.
“Ron…” It took her a moment to find her voice. Her first words came out as choked squeaks. “Ron, I know you didn’t mean to hurt her.”
His chin dipped to his chest and he took a deep breath and held it. It seemed like he was trying to hold his tears in.
“I know you loved her,” Missy said, not really sure if she believed what she was saying or not, just knowing that words were here only defense at this point, and a weak one at that.
“More than anything,” he said.
Missy nodded, trying to understand, trying to see it from his point of view. Now that she’d had a moment to think it through, she thought she knew what had happened.
“You didn’t mean to hurt her,” she said again.
Miserable, he shook his head and finally brought his tear-filled eyes up to look at her. The gun was still pointed at the ground between them.
“You were trying to help her, weren’t you?”
He nodded vigorously and wiped under his eyes again. “Her low self-esteem made our relationship impossible, she was constantly down and always worried I’d cheat or leave her. I couldn’t take it so I called off the engagement…”
“And you regretted that decision ever since,” Missy filled in.
“No woman ever gave me the time of day,” Ron said. “No woman except Karen. I realized I’d made a mistake right away, breaking off the engagement but I knew I’d hurt her real bad so I couldn’t just go back…”
“You never stopped loving her.”
“Never.” He looked away and the gun lowered a fraction. If she could just keep him talking, she had a chance. As long as he was speaking, he wasn’t shooting her. “I reached out a few times but she rejected me. She said she didn’t want to get hurt again.”
“That must have hurt.”
“Not as bad as I hurt her,” Ron said, sounding very sincere. “She was special. But she just couldn’t get over being obese. It sucked the life right out of her an
d sapped her self-esteem.”
Missy wasn’t sure about where to take the conversation next, but knew she had to keep him talking. Slowly she lowered her hands and tried to relax. The more tense she was, the more tense he’d be.
She smiled sadly. “Then she called you?”
Ron tipped his head back and closed his eyes. He was getting worked up again. Missy couldn’t let that happen.
“It must have been so good to hear from her,” Missy said.
“It was,” he blurted out, his voice full of agony. “I thought I was the luckiest guy in the world. But when we started talking again, I realized she was even worse than when we’d broken up. Her job sucked, she felt like Connie had just taken advantage of her, and her weight was the worst it’d ever been. Therapy wasn’t helping. I just wanted to solve one of her problems. I thought if she lost a lot of weight quickly, she’d feel so much better about herself and maybe she’d get her self-esteem back…it would never work without her self-esteem, I knew that from the first time we were together.”
“So you…” Missy couldn’t bring herself to say the actual words.
“I went online and spent time on some diet forums. A bunch of people on there said that tape worms worked and they hadn’t had any problems. I did my own research too.”
Missy recalled all the articles she’d found. Ron had probably read the same ones.
She said, “Diarrhea, dehydration, death, but I didn’t see any stories where someone had actually died.”
“I didn’t either. She had arrhythmia so I didn’t want to give her any of those over-the-counters that sped up her metabolism.” He laughed ruefully. “I thought that wouldn’t be safe. So I bought the tape worm pills off some guy.”
“How did you get her to take them?” Missy asked, not able to help herself. The gun was now pointed at the ground.
“When we got together, she had one of her migraines and I gave the pills to her. They were generic-looking, she thought they were for the headache.”
Missy couldn’t help it now. She was crying again. “You were just trying to help.”
“I killed her.” That gun was inching up again.
“Ron, you didn’t kill her. She died. There’s a difference.”
The gun was about halfway up. Missy raised her hands.
“The cops won’t see it that way.”
“It was an accident.” Missy shook her head, knowing her argument was weak and that Ron was right. The cops would not see it that way. “You should get an attorney and bring yourself in. They’ll listen to you.”
“Murder, manslaughter, negligent homicide…” Ron shook his head. “I’ve done my research, Missy. I know they’ll get me on something. I can’t go to prison. I can’t go to prison.”
“You don’t know that, Ron.” She tried to put as much conviction in her voice as she could, but the words came out sounding pretty feeble. Ron would go to prison for something, and his sentence would probably be several years.
“I can’t go for a week, Missy. And I can’t have her death following me around the rest of my life. I’ll never get a job again or be with another woman or…my life is over…”
“Ron.”
The gun was pointed at her now.
“Ron, please.” She had run out of things to say. “Please.”
“I’m sorry I killed her, Missy.” Ron could barely speak through the tears. “I loved her more than anything, and I know you were her best friend.”
“So now you’re going to kill me?” Missy asked, her anger battling with her own fear. “Right out here on your lawn? You won’t get away with that.”
He took a step forward. “No. I’m going to do it in my basement. Come on.”
She had no choice now. Missy made up her mind to scream and try to run for it. She wouldn’t be able to get in her truck and drive away, but she could at least try to get to a neighbor’s house.
Ron took another step.
As she opened her mouth to scream, a car came squealing around the corner down the block, its high beams cutting through the night. Ron froze and looked over his shoulder, giving Missy her chance to run. She spun and ran as hard as she could, mis-stepping on the uneven lawn and tumbling across the grass. Every bounce and jolt and tree root hurt as she rolled to the sidewalk, while she tried to make sense of what she was hearing. More tires squealing, brakes jamming, men shouting, and in the distance now, a siren.
Missy dared to pick her head up and look across the lawn. Two cops had disarmed Ron and pushed him facedown into the grass. A third came up from behind, stuck his knee in Ron’s back and started putting handcuffs on the man.
Missy was crying. But she was also smiling. And laughing too. Just about every emotion flowed through at the same time. A few moments later, another police officer came over to help her up. It was Paul Johnson.
“You okay, Missy?”
She just laughed, grateful to be alive.
Chapter Twenty
I t was very brave of you,” Connie said.
“Stupid, actually,” Missy said. She gave the other woman a sheepish grin from across the booth in the diner. “Thank God I took that call from Mrs. Wise. When I got cut off, she knew something was wrong. If she hadn’t called Paul Johnson…”
Missy shivered at the memory of the other night. Ron had been prepared to kill her.
“I still think it was brave,” Connie said.
Missy couldn’t take the compliment. She had to be honest with Connie.
“Not really. I thought it was you.”
“What?”
“I didn’t think I was in any danger when I went over there.”
Connie was still incredulous. “You actually thought I did it?”
Missy nodded. She had thought about holding back on the other woman, but it was better this way. She believed in being honest, even when the truth was unpleasant.
“Because we broke up?” Connie asked.
“Because at the time, I thought she had broken up with you, I saw you get into a heated argument at the Diet Club, and honestly, you seemed a little…unbalanced.”
Connie’s eyes narrowed. “My friend had just died.”
“I know, and I’m sorry.” Missy sat back in the booth. “But look at it from my perspective.”
Connie looked out the window, not answering her for a moment. A male customer walked by and did a double-take when he passed Connie, as if he recognized her but couldn’t place her. Missy hid an embarrassed smile. There was one way he might have recognized her…
Connie was still looking out the window. “Karen was curious but she wasn’t a lesbian. Not really. When I realized that, I broke it off with her.”
Missy said nothing.
“You were her best friend,” Connie said.
Missy sighed. “We were close, but not close enough for her to tell me about you. Or what was actually happening.”
Connie’s eyes snapped back around to her. “She was in a bad place.”
“And I had no idea. That’s all I’m saying.”
Connie nodded. “Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”
Missy said nothing.
The other woman got up out of the booth and grabbed her purse. “Do we really know anybody?”
Missy had been struggling with that question lately. “Yes.”
Connie looked at her strangely. “How can you say that, after what you just went through?”
“Because I knew her well. Maybe not completely, we can’t ever know anybody completely.” Missy had been thinking about Karen, but now she was thinking about Tyler Brock. They had been so close all those years ago but she had never seen their break-up coming. “I think we can know people, we just have to pay attention.”
Connie made a noise and started walking out, but Missy grabbed her arm.
“What?”
Missy looked up at her. “Karen told people you were in the Club, didn’t she?”
Connie nodded. “That was wrong of her. It was a betrayal.”
> “Why did she do it?”
“She logged onto my chat room anonymously and started telling all the men there that I was trying to lose all my weight. The guys that go on there are into a…certain look. Karen thought they’d leave if they found out I was trying to slim down.”
“But why did she do it?”
“I guess she wanted to get back at me. She felt like I’d taken advantage of her. It’s one of the reasons we had that argument you witnessed.”
“What was the other?”
Connie pursed her lips. “We hadn’t been together for awhile but I still cared about her. I was worried about her seeing Ron. I told her as much, but she threw it all back in my face.”
Missy let go of Connie’s arm. But the woman just stood there, as if giving her permission to ask another question.
Missy said, “If you don’t think we can know someone, how can you stand there and say you knew Karen wasn’t a lesbian?”
Connie smiled ruefully. “She was a jealous woman but you know that? She never got jealous when it came to me.”
Missy wanted to look away. She’d asked a hurtful question without knowing it.
“All those men that paid to see me…it didn’t bother her. But when she’d heard that Ron was dating again, the claws came out. It was like somebody had flipped a switch.”
Connie turned to leave, but Missy couldn’t leave things like that with her. She doubted she’d ever see the woman again but having bad blood didn’t make any sense.
“Wait.”
Connie stopped again. Missy got up and hugged her. It took a moment, but Connie finally hugged her back.
“I’m sorry,” Missy said.
“She was a great person,” Connie said. “I’m sorry too.”
“At least Ron is going away.”
“Not long enough,” Connie said. “He’ll probably get a few years and only serve one. That’s how the courts work.”
Missy was surprised by her attitude. It seemed like Connie was speaking from some kind of personal experience. Missy didn’t pry though.
Missy DeMeanor Cozy Mysteries Boxset Page 40
