50% off Murder

by Josie Belle

  As if Maggie’s humiliation was not complete, at that moment one of the sheriff department’s squad cars lurched into the parking lot and out stepped Sam Collins. She wondered if she were to lay down in the parking lot if she could be mistaken for a speed bump.

  “Good afternoon, ladies.” Sam strode forward. Although, she had to blink the whipped cream off her lashes, Maggie could still see the smile that tugged at the corner of his lips.

  “It was a sneak attack,” Ginger said. “Summer snuck up on Maggie and nailed her with the banana split. It was premeditated. It was assault…”

  “With a deadly banana?” Sam asked.

  Maggie wanted to kick him in the shins or maybe a little higher.

  Joanne thrust a handful of napkins at her, and Maggie tried to wipe the sticky mess off her face, but little bits of paper napkin just got stuck to the goo, making a bad situation worse.

  “That was payback,” Summer said. “You cost me six hundred dollars in hair ex…accessories…”

  “You mean extensions,” Ginger cut in. Her brown skin was flushed with anger, and she was clenching her fist as if she was about to take a swing at Summer.

  “Ginger and Joanne, why don’t you go see if Max has a towel Maggie can use?” Sam asked.

  They both looked at Maggie and dashed around the building in a sprint, confirming to Maggie that she looked even worse than she had supposed.

  “Maggie, are you planning to press charges?” he asked her.

  Much as Maggie loved the idea of having Summer locked up—oh, howdy, how she loved it!—she was honest enough to admit that she deserved the sundae smack-down at least a little.

  “No, no charges,” she said.

  Summer looked triumphant and Maggie almost took it back, but Sam cut in and said, “Perhaps, it is best if you go now, Summer.”

  “If you say so, Sam,” she said. “You’re such a brave man to put yourself between me and someone who wants to cause me harm.”

  She shook out her fake blonde hair and batted her false eyelashes at him. Maggie felt her gag reflex kick in, but luckily she didn’t actually puke. Summer sashayed away, making sure Sam got the best view of her posterior. Maggie was pleased to see that he didn’t notice her seductive stroll, and instead turned his gaze on Maggie. Apparently, he was not as taken in by Summer’s charms as she thought he was. Hmm.

  Sam squinted at her face and then reached forward with a finger. Maggie was proud of herself for not flinching when he dabbed his finger against her temple. When he pulled his finger back, it had something red on it. Maggie’s eyes widened in alarm. Had Summer managed to cut her?

  Sam popped his finger into his mouth and smiled.

  “Raspberry sauce,” he said. “My favorite.”

  “I hate you,” she said.

  “Aw, what’s the matter?” he said. “Did Summer put you in a bad a la mode?”

  Maggie closed her eyes, as if by sheer force of will she could make him disappear. When she opened her eyes, he was still there and he was laughing.

  “I really, really hate you,” she said.

  “Now, there’s no need to get all frosty,” he said. He doubled over, and Maggie had to fight the urge to dump a sundae on him.

  Mercifully, Joanne and Ginger arrived with a wet towel, and Maggie was able to look away from Sam and start to scour off the ick that covered her.

  “So, what brings you three to the Freeze?” he asked.

  It was an innocuous question, and they could have bluffed their way out of it by saying they’d come for ice cream, but Joanne, a terrible liar by nature, turned bright red and began to stammer.

  “Uh…we…uh,” she said.

  “Had to get something from Max,” Ginger said. “You know, just a thing.”

  Sam’s face grew serious, and he looked at Maggie as if he considered her the ringleader.

  “So, a thing, huh?” he asked.

  Maggie glared over her towel at the other two. Clearly, these ladies were lacking in the fine art of keeping their lips zipped.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Just, you know, a bill for services rendered.”

  “Oh.” He nodded.

  Just then the door opened, and Max popped his head out.

  “Maggie, are you okay?” he asked.

  “I’m fine, Max,” she said. “Don’t worry about me. Don’t you have customers to take care of?”

  “Nah, having Hugh behind the counter scared everyone away.”

  “So, Max,” Sam said, “I hear you’re charging for your legal services now.”

  Max looked puzzled and Maggie took the opportunity to ball up her towel and fire it at his pie hole before he could utter a word.

  Sam looked at her, and she said, “Thanks for the towel, Max. I’ll bring that bill over to Claire asap.”

  Max lowered the towel and saw that Maggie was staring at him like a pointer dog at a fallen pheasant.

  “Oh, yeah,” he said. “Right. Thanks.”

  “Okay, well, this has been fun,” she said. “Gotta go shower now.”

  Sam opened his mouth to say something, but she cut him off by raising up a hand. “Stop. Whatever you’re about to say, just stop.”

  He pressed his lips together and looked down.

  Maggie turned and walked away from the Frosty Freeze with Ginger and Joanne flanking her, as good wingmen should.

  “So, that’s it? You’re just going to make like a banana and split?” Sam called after her. Obviously he just couldn’t contain himself. He sounded as if he were actually choking on his laughter.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Maggie saw Ginger start to look back.

  “No, don’t look!” she said. “Let’s try to maintain what little dignity we have left.”

  “What about the e-mails?” Joanne whispered.

  “Not here,” Maggie said. She clutched her purse a little closer to her side.

  She knew Sam was too far away to hear them, but she couldn’t help being a little paranoid.

  “But shouldn’t we give them to him?” Ginger asked.

  “With Hugh right there?” Maggie turned and waved as they passed the front of the ice cream shop.

  Hugh was standing in the Frosty Freeze frowning at them. He did not wave back. Probably, he thought they should buy an ice cream from him, but Maggie figured she had a built-in excuse, since Summer had ambushed her.

  “Joanne, you go back to the deli. Don’t say anything to Michael until I give you the all clear. We don’t want Sam to find out what we did until I tell him. Okay?”

  “What should I do?” Ginger asked.

  “Go home and lay low,” Maggie said. “And the same thing goes for you. Don’t tell Roger anything. I know he and Sam are friends from their football days, and we can’t risk him blabbing.”

  “What are you going to do?” Joanne asked.

  “I’m going home to clean up,” Maggie said. “Then I’m going to make copies of these e-mails and turn them over to Sam.”

  Both Ginger and Joanne looked at her as if they doubted her.

  “What?” she asked.

  “You hate Sam,” Ginger said. They had made their way down the sidewalk to the corner and paused before More than Meats, Joanne and Michael’s deli. “I have a hard time believing that you are willingly going to tell him anything.”

  Maggie opened her mouth to argue, but she knew Ginger was right. She really didn’t see herself calling Sam willingly—ever, even with their current truce. That having been said, this was bigger than their past or her dislike. This was about Claire’s life and the possibility that she could get out of jail sooner rather than later. Like it or not, Maggie had no choice. She was going to have to tell Sam what they’d found.

  “I don’t like it,” Maggie conceded. “But I’ll do the right thing.”

  “Good,” Joanne said. “Because I am really bad at all of this. I’m going to have to avoid Michael all evening just to make sure I don’t blab.”

  Maggie smiled at her. “I’ll text you
both as soon as I give Sam the papers.”

  Maggie gave Joanne an air hug, so that she didn’t get her sticky with sundae residue. Ginger gave Joanne a big squeeze, and they walked in the direction of Ginger’s house. Ginger turned down the side street that led to her historic house, and again Maggie offered up an air hug.

  “Good luck,” Ginger said.

  “Thanks,” Maggie blew out a breath and continued on around the square and down the side street that would lead to her neighborhood.

  She was only a short way from her house when she noticed a car was slowly coming up behind her on the left. She didn’t want to turn, because she felt it would be betraying the fact that she knew she was being followed. No, she was going to try to play it cool.

  With her heart pounding in her chest like a bass drum, she wondered if it was Hugh. Had he figured out what they’d done? Had Max blabbed? Was he coming to kill her, too?

  She glanced up the street and wondered if she could outrun him, or if that would force his hand and he’d run her down with his car. Decisions, decisions.

  Chapter 30

  “Maggie! Hey, Maggie!”

  That was not Hugh Simpson’s voice. Maggie whipped her head around and saw Sam peering at her through the open passenger’s window from his spot in the driver’s seat of his squad car.

  She stopped short and let out a relieved breath. Sam stopped the car to watch her.

  “Are you all right?” he asked. “You look a little freaked out.”

  “I’m fine,” she said. “What happened? Did you think of another pun that you just had to use?”

  He grinned, but when he saw her scowl, he quickly forced it back into a somber expression.

  “Actually, I just came to offer you a ride,” he said. “I figured walking all sticky like that had to be gross, so I thought it would be nice of me to offer you a lift.”

  “It would be nice,” Maggie said. “Making it completely out of character for you.”

  “Aw, come on,” he said. “I’m not that bad.”

  She refrained from comment. He pushed open the passenger door and it swung wide to the curb. The thought of arriving that much sooner to her shower was more temptation than Maggie could resist. She climbed into the car and shut the door.

  “Excellent,” he said. He pulled away from the curb. “Also, I wanted to ask you about the papers you took from Hugh Simpson’s office.”

  Maggie’s hearing went fuzzy. She could not have heard that. No, how could he possibly know about that, unless…Max! Damn it. He wasn’t supposed to say anything until she’d made a copy of the papers.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.

  Sam sighed. “Really? You really want to play it that way?”

  “What way?” Maggie said. Back in the good old days, her mother had taught her a very valuable life lesson: When all else fails, play dumb.

  When times were tough, Maggie’s mother would occasionally float a check at the grocery store, just to keep the family fed, and the bank would invariably call to chastise her. Maggie’s mother always played stupid with a bucketful of charm, and Mr. Costas, the bank manager, always forgave her.

  The money was always repaid to the bank as soon as Maggie’s mother got paid for her work as a secretary at the car dealership in Dumontville, and she kept food on the table. She wasn’t proud of what she had to do, but she had drilled it into Maggie that sometimes playing dumb could help you get out of a tough situation.

  “I’m not buying it, Maggie,” Sam said as he pulled up to her house. “You and I both know that you were not at the Frosty Freeze getting ice cream—well, at least not to eat.”

  Maggie scowled.

  “What exactly did Max say to you?” she asked.

  “That he found incriminating e-mails on Hugh’s computer and that he thought I should read them. Oh, and that you had them in your purse.”

  “I really need to talk to him about knowing when to keep his yap shut,” Maggie said. She pushed open her door.

  “Oh, don’t be too hard on him,” Sam said. He reached over the backseat and handed Maggie her hat, which she had left in the Frosty Freeze. “He was a little freaked out, given that I went into Hugh’s office to talk to him about his account of your ice cream—uh—incident and found your hat.”

  “Hmm.” Maggie took the hat and strode up the walkway to her house.

  “Um, Maggie, the papers?” Sam said.

  She turned to look at him. She didn’t think he’d wrestle her purse out of her arms to get them, but then again, she wasn’t so sure.

  “Would you like some strawberry rhubarb pie?” she asked. “I made it fresh this morning.”

  Sam narrowed his eyes at her. “There you go, being nice to me again. Summer’s ice cream assault must have given you a brain freeze.”

  “Personal differences aside, I know we’re on the same team,” Maggie said. “Come on in. I’ll clean up and give you the papers.”

  “And pie?” he clarified.

  “Yes, pie, too,” she said.

  She led the way into the house with Sam behind her. The house was quiet, so she assumed that Sandy and Josh had gone to the park. Josh did love to feed the ducks.

  Maggie led the way into the kitchen. She handed Sam a plate and a fork and lifted the cover off the pie plate.

  “Help yourself,” she said.

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  “I have to clean up before I go mental,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”

  He didn’t say anything about her still having her purse under her arm, and Maggie didn’t feel the need to point it out. Confident that she had distracted him with the pie, she hurried down the hall into the small office.

  The printer for the computer was also a scanner and copy machine. She wasted no time in turning it on and, while it warmed up, she pulled the sheaf of papers from her purse.

  She had just put the third page in the machine when Sam appeared in the door.

  “Clearly, you think I am a moron,” he said.

  Maggie noted he was still working on his dish of pie. Best to take the offensive.

  “Do you always wander around people’s houses?” she asked.

  “Only when they go to clean up, and I don’t hear water running but I do hear the sound of a copy machine,” he said. He put his fork on the plate and held out his free hand. “Game over.”

  Maggie scowled. She handed him the stack of papers.

  “The one in the machine and the copies, too,” he said.

  She lifted the lid with a huff of disgust and handed him all of the papers.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “What are you going to do with them?” she asked.

  “Read them,” he said.

  He turned and left the office, heading back to the kitchen. Maggie had assumed he’d leave now that he had what he wanted, but instead he passed through the kitchen to the sun porch and took a seat on the wrought-iron furniture.

  “What are you doing?” she asked. She knew her tone was unfriendly, but she couldn’t help but feel that Sam Collins was getting entirely too comfortable in her house.

  “I’m going to read and finish my pie,” he said. “Go ahead and clean up. We can talk more when you’re done.”

  Maggie went to run her fingers though her hair and realized that she couldn’t. The sundae toppings had hardened. For the first time since the incident, she wondered how bad she looked.

  She looked at him suspiciously. He seemed to read her mind.

  “I promise I won’t move from my seat.”

  “I don’t trust you,” she said.

  “On my badge,” he said. “I swear.”

  That gave Maggie pause. For however much she knew him to be a big, fat liar, she also knew that he had been an excellent detective in Richmond. Maggie knew he valued his job above all else.

  “Okay, then,” she said. She turned and left the porch, hurrying to her bedroom, where she shut and locked the door.
Her room was done in shades of cobalt blue and white, and it immediately soothed her. She grabbed fresh clothes out of her dresser and headed to the master bathroom.

  One glance at her reflection in the full-length mirror and she had to stifle a scream.

  Her mascara was smeared, giving her a sunken-eyed look that she was pretty sure would scare off a zombie. Her auburn hair was caked with hot fudge sauce and melted whipped cream. A streak of strawberry ice cream had hardened on one side of her face and a maraschino cherry was stuck in her hair just above her ear.

  She looked like she’d had a brawl with the Good Humor ice cream man and had been beaten severely. She sighed and turned the tap in the shower to scalding. She knew she could wash away the remnants of the sundae, but she feared her dignity was forever lost.

  Sam was sitting in the same spot on the sun porch, but now he had company. Mr. Tumnus had curled up in his lap, and Sam was gently rubbing his head while the cat purred as loudly as a diesel engine.

  “Making friends, I see,” Maggie said as she took the seat across from him. She continued to towel dry her hair, hoping that after two washings she’d gotten all of the sticky out.

  Sam looked up at her and tipped his head to the side.

  “What shampoo is that?” he asked.

  “Some generic brand,” she said with a shrug.

  “It smells like lime and coconut,” he said. “It’s nice.”

  Maggie felt her face grow warm, and she rubbed her hair with renewed vigor.

  “So, what do you make of the e-mails?” she asked.

  “He certainly sounds like he had the potential to commit murder,” Sam said. Then he shook his head. “Who would have thought it of Hugh Simpson?”

  “Or of any of them,” Maggie added.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “Well, you know, all of the people who took loans from John Templeton have good reason to want him dead,” she said.

  Sam’s blue gaze sharpened like a laser pointer, and Maggie knew she had just said too much. Damn it!

  “Maggie, what exactly have you been up to?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” she said. “Just talking to people.”

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Oh, a smart detective like you already knows, I’m sure,” Maggie said. “I’m just trying to gather the facts.”