Tangled Thing Called Love: Life and Love on the Lam (A Loveswept Contemporary Romance)

by Juliet Rosetti

  “Oh, no, you don’t!” Oscar lunged at Mazie, clutching a sprocket wrench, swinging it viciously at her head. The blow would have connected if Bodelle, frantic to reach Channing, hadn’t blundered into Oscar, throwing him off balance. The wrench clanged on the cement, missing Mazie by a hair. She rolled away from Oscar, flinging fistfuls of gunk at him, and desperately attempted to scramble upright, but he stretched out a long arm and snagged her by the skirt.

  Someone pounded on the garage door, and the sound was audible even above the thundering rain.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Everyone’s head swiveled toward the door.

  In that distracted second, Mazie eeled out of Oscar’s grasp, staggered to her feet, and darted behind a truck. Hopscotching between vehicles, she stripped as she moved, tearing at the dress, rupturing seams, seesawing it down over her hips. Buttons pinged like bullets. And then it was off. Kicking aside the dress, she blundered through the maze of vehicles, leaving an oily trail in her wake, grateful for the shadowy lighting.

  The door-banging continued. “Mazie?” someone yelled. It was a woman’s voice. It was the voice of a woman accustomed to yelling at four kids. It was Holly Greenberg!

  “In here!” Mazie called back, but her vocal cords, bathed in corrosive chemicals, produced only a husky rasp. Holly didn’t hear her, but the homicidal whack job stalking her did, abruptly changing tack and charging in her direction. She barely had time to squeak behind a car before he pelted past. Rubbing her palms against her oil-soaked pantalettes, she smeared black gunk onto her face, arms, and brassiere. Mazie Maguire, beauty queen commando.

  “She’s got to be in there!” came Holly’s voice. “I can see her umbrella thingie on the floor.”

  “Break the freakin’ window.” Was that Darlene Krumke?

  “With what?” Holly snapped. “The sledgehammer I always carry in my purse?”

  If Holly and Darlene tried to get in, who knew what Oscar and Bodelle might do to them. Realizing that she had to warn them, tell them to phone the police, Mazie slipped off her shoes. Greased, oiled, and barefoot, keeping to the cover of the parked vehicles, she padded silently toward the front of the garage. Halting a few yards from the bay door, she crouched behind a tire rack to scope things out. Channing had managed to flounder out of the grease pit and was lying on the edge of it, looking like a walrus that had been in an oil spill.

  Mazie tensed herself and was just about to make a dash for the door when Oscar came running up. Apparently he’d forgotten her giant-fireball warning because his gun was drawn. “She ain’t back there,” he told Bodelle, keeping his voice low. “Must be hiding up here somewhere.”

  “Well, find her fast,” Bodelle hissed, “before one of those ditzes phones the police.”

  More pounding on the door. “Mazie?” That was Rosie Martinez.

  “Oh for God’s sake—what a bunch of pussies.” Was that Tritt-Shimmel’s voice? “Move the hell out of the way!”

  Footsteps receded, there were a few seconds of silence, and then a powerful engine revved. A squeal of tires, a vrooooom, and an earsplitting crash as the garage door suddenly exploded. A pink Hummer all-terrain vehicle burst into the garage, screeching to a halt a foot from Mazie. Not a single scratch marred the Hummer’s bomb-resistant body, but the wooden garage door was now in splinters. The Hummer’s engine shut off, its door opened, an elegant high-heeled foot set down on the floor, and then the tall, red-sequined body of Tabitha Tritt-Shimmel unfolded itself from the vehicle. Oscar and Bodelle stood frozen, staring openmouthed at the rubble, the Hummer, and Tabitha.

  Where the garage bay door had been, there was now an enormous gaping hole. A plume of dust rose from the wreckage and out of that dust marched three figures, shoulder to shoulder: Darlene Krumke, Holly Greenberg, and Rosie Martinez, outlined against the silvery rain, the beauty queens from hell. They looked as though they used their perfume bottles as Molotov cocktails and their sashes to garrote their rivals and their brassieres as catapults to launch the decapitated heads of their enemies.

  The 25th Anniversary Miss Quail Hollow Pageant rolled out on the oil-stained floor of the BZ Garage.

  “Watch out,” Mazie yelled. “Oscar’s got a gun!”

  “Well, hell—so do I!” Darlene was cradling a grease gun she’d picked up out of the wreckage.

  Oscar drew a bead on Darlene. Moved to Rosie, jerked toward Holly, unsure who to cover. Every woman looked frothing-at-the-mouth insane. Should she rush him from behind, throw something at him? Mazie wondered. Too dangerous—even an accidental shot might hit one of the women.

  Not knowing what else to do, she yanked on the tire rack lever. Eight tires, neatly lined up in a row, bounced to the floor with rubbery thuds. The noise made Oscar whip around, and in that moment Holly picked up a heavy wrench and hurled it at Oscar’s hand. He gave a shriek of pain and the gun went flying, skittering across the floor, disappearing beneath the undercarriage of the maroon van.

  Holly Greenberg, winner in the Previously Unsuspected Talent category.

  Eying the three menacing women moving toward him, Oscar decided to cut his losses. He bolted for the rear door.

  “Don’t let him get away!” Mazie yelled, but Darlene was way ahead of her. Snagging one of the wobbling tires, she bowled it at the fleeing Oscar. The tire hit him in the back of his knees, he flew ass over teakettle, he hit the floor with a painful-sounding bounce, and he lay there stunned.

  Darlene Krumke, winner, Lifestyle and Fitness category.

  Darlene and Holly were on him in a flash, and while he was still stunned, they dragged him over to the lube rack, ripped off their sashes, and tied him to one of the struts of the lube rack.

  “We phoned the police,” said Rosie, clutching a pneumatic nut drill and looking eager to use it. “What did these sons of bitches do to you, Mazie?”

  “Ladies! Language!” chirped Bodelle, who had apparently decided to brazen this out. “You are Miss Quail Hollows—you need to be models of decorum—”

  “Decorum my ass,” Mazie shouted at her. “You were going to drown me in that grease pit!”

  “I was in the pit too,” Channing piped, heaving herself to her feet and schlipp-schlopping toward the others, drizzling oil. “Fawn’s down there. Fawn tried to grab me and drown me, but Mazie saved me.”

  “Be quiet, Channing,” Bodelle snapped. She drew herself up to her full height, raised her chin, and regarded the queens coolly. Despite everything that had happened tonight, not one hair on her head was out of place, not one drop of oil sullied her white pants. She dropped her voice and in confidential, I’m-letting-you-in-on-a-secret tones said, “As you can see, Channing is not well. She hallucinates; she imagines all sorts of things. We control her condition with medications, but it’s been hours now since she had her pills, and really—we need to get home so we can take care of things.”

  She made to move past, but Darlene blocked her. “You threw Mazie in that grease pit?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” Bodelle was in full damage control mode now. “Obviously, the stress of the pageant has been too much for her. She’s been making all sorts of wild accusations. She slipped and fell on the greasy floor. You should see to it that she gets proper medical attention.”

  Rosie slapped the drill on her palm menacingly and spoke through gritted teeth. “You keep dishing out those lies, Bodelle, and I’m going to drill a hole in your skull and let all the bullshit drain out.”

  Rosie Martinez, top scores in the Scariest Threats competition.

  “I want to thank all of you for electing me Miss Congeniality,” Channing said, wiping imaginary tears off her cheeks, leaving white semicircles in her blackened face. “I promise I will uphold the highest tradition of the … of the … of the traditions.”

  The other beauty queens stared at her as though they’d realized for the first time that Channing had a little pull string on the back of her neck.

  “Won’t you all join me for marshmallow and cocoa
sandwiches?” Channing asked, smiling, gesturing toward the Winnebago.

  “That’s enough, Channing,” Bodelle snapped. “Come along now—we’re leaving.” Her face tightened into hard lines as she regarded the women. “I intend to report all of you to the pageant officials. Your behavior, your vulgarity, your vandalizing private property—I will see to it that each and every one of you is disqualified from the pageant and retroactively stripped of your titles.” Shouldering her handbag, she about-faced and marched away, not bothering to check whether Channing was following.

  Mazie couldn’t believe the woman’s arrogance! She’d just been implicated in one murder and had nearly gotten away with another, but she was still behaving as though she were the lady of the manor and the rest of them were manure-caked peasants of less worth than farmyard animals. Flabbergasted at the woman’s chutzpah, she and the other queens just stood there gaping as Bodelle, nose in air, strode briskly away.

  Her route took her perilously close to the edge of the grease pit. Where she was halted by Tabitha Tritt-Shimmel.

  “What did Channing mean about Fawn being down in there?” Tabitha asked, arms folded across hefty chest.

  Bodelle heaved a sigh. “She has these—delusions.”

  “My husband is in the waste disposal business,” Tabitha said. She studied the pit again, then glanced back at Bodelle. “Did you know it’s illegal to store toxic stuff?”

  Bodelle waved a hand dismissively. “Nothing to do with me. My brother runs this business.”

  Tabitha looked toward the pit again, then moved closer to Bodelle, who took a nervous backward step. “So there’s no body down there?”

  “Of course not!”

  “Then why don’t we put one down there,” Tabitha said. Her arm shot out and she gave Bodelle a hard clip. Screeching, Bodelle grabbed at air, then did a backward cannonball into the pit, landing with a dull blup and going under.

  Winner, Best Personal Interview, Tabitha Tritt-Shimmel.

  “Aww—darn!” Darlene said. “I wanted to do that.”

  Rosie started clapping. The others joined in, vastly enjoying the spectacle of Bodelle Blumquist floundering in toxic sludge, and they were all too engrossed to notice that Oscar had broken out of his bindings. The sudden roar of an engine made them whirl around. He was in Tabitha’s Hummer, shooting backward across the garage floor. The big vehicle rocked side to side as it bumped over the wreckage, then stalled as it slammed up against a chunk of twisted metal. The engine whined and the wheels spun as Oscar frantically tried to bulldoze over it. He jerked the vehicle into first, wrenched the steering wheel sideways, and tried again, Hummer-dozing backward through the debris.

  Someone came running up the street, dashed up the garage driveway, and stood, chest heaving, outlined in the red glare of the Hummer’s taillights. Only one man had shoulders like that—Mazie would have recognized Ben Labeck’s silhouette anywhere. He took in the situation at a glance—crashed door, cursing Hummer driver, vengeful beauty queens.

  Mazie yelled at him to be careful, but her voice was drowned out by the whine of the Hummer’s engine and the shriek of the Furies, who were climbing over the wreckage, trying to get at Oscar.

  Labeck waded through the debris, yanked open the Hummer’s door, and hauled Oscar out with such force that both men fell down. They grappled with each other, staggering around through the broken wood, glass, and metal. They were matched sizewise, both of them big men, although Oscar had more weight in the chest and stomach. They spilled off the wreckage and onto the driveway apron, rolling around on the asphalt, first one on top, then the other, cursing, kneeing, punching, head-butting. It was brutal. And pointless, because it didn’t matter whether Oscar got away. What mattered was that Ben didn’t get hurt.

  “Ben—stop—let him go!” Mazie yelled.

  “Don’t listen to her!” Darlene yelled. “He tried to kill Mazie!”

  “Get him, Ben!” Holly called.

  “Shut up!” Mazie wheeled on them, furious. What if Oscar pulled a knife on Ben—what if he had another gun? What if a rusty nail slashed Ben—him with his fake tetanus shots! She snatched up a chunk of wood from the splintered door and danced around the brawling men, her club upraised like a baseball bat, waiting for an opening so she could clobber Oscar.

  Darlene yanked her back. “He’s handling this fine on his own, honey—never wreck a guy’s chance to be a hero.”

  She was right. Labeck threw a punch that sounded like a watermelon being dropped on a cement floor and Oscar gave up, flinging his arms over his face and groaning, “No more.”

  A siren wailed, red lights strobed, and a police car hurtled down the street, skidding to a stop inches away. Johnny Hoolihan got out and took in the scene: Oscar, bleeding from a broken nose; Labeck, breathing hard but looking as though he wanted another go at Oscar; angry beauty queens all talking at once; a demolished garage door; the Blumquists, looking like tar monsters; and Mazie in slimed pantalettes. He shook his head, closed his eyes for a tick, then opened them and said, “Do I even want to know what the hell is going on here?”

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  “You look familiar,” Dr. Ringwalla said, wrapping a blood pressure cuff around Mazie’s arm. “You’re the nettles woman, aren’t you?”

  “The wrong persons nettled her,” said Ben Labeck, who was holding Mazie’s free hand.

  The doctor laughed at the lame joke. “What interesting lives you must lead,” she mused.

  “Interesting is too mild a term.” Ben turned Mazie’s palm over and kissed it. “How are you feeling?”

  “Hungry.”

  Dr. Ringwalla’s eyebrows rose. “That’s good! We don’t know what kind of pollutants you ingested, Miss Maguire—possibly heavy metals, lead, or chlorine—but if your stomach is healthy enough to feel pangs of hunger, you may not have been too adversely affected. We shall, however, be requiring you to submit to further tests tomorrow.”

  They were at Platteville Community Hospital for the second time in two days, and Dr. Ringwalla had drawn the unfortunate lot of being on duty again. Despite Mazie’s protests that she was perfectly fine, she’d been loudly voted down at the garage and carted off in an ambulance to the emergency room. Ben had ridden with her, and the medical techies had turned their attentions to his swollen eye, possible fractured knuckles, a scraped knee, and other souvenirs of his fight. Bodelle, Channing, and Oscar had been taken to the emergency room by separate ambulances, but unlike Mazie and Ben, they’d been under heavy police guard. Johnny Hoolihan hadn’t wasted any time arresting all three of them.

  For the next half hour, Mazie was subjected to heart monitoring, temperature taking, and blood drawing. Meanwhile Ben had his cuts tended to and was x-rayed for fractured knuckles.

  “And have you had any tetanus shots today, Mr. Labeck?” asked Dr. Ringwalla, eyebrows raised, when a bandaged Ben came in to check on Mazie.

  He grinned. “Sure. One before breakfast and one before lunch.”

  “Speaking of lunch,” Mazie said.

  “I’m on it.” Ben left in search of food, although Mazie was quite certain the cafeteria had long ago closed.

  “You should now lie back and rest,” the doctor told Mazie. “However, should you feel up to it, a friend is waiting outside and wishes to know whether—”

  “Holly—is that you out there?” Mazie called.

  “Bet your sweet ass.” Holly Greenberg poked her head through the curtains. She was still wearing her pageant gown, its fabric grease-stained beyond repair, but her eyes were dancing with excitement and she was ear-to-ear smiles. She came in and gingerly hugged Mazie, who introduced her to Dr. Ringwalla.

  “It must be nearly midnight,” Mazie said. “You should be home with your family.”

  “Are you nuts? My biggest excitement for the past fourteen years has been discovering that the little stick hadn’t turned blue that month. No way am I missing out on all the drama. TV vans are parked wall to wall on Main Street, half a do
zen more are outside this hospital, and I think I just saw a nurse that looks suspiciously like Wolf Blitzer.”

  Mazie laughed. The image was just too grotesque.

  “How are you feel—” Holly began.

  “Never mind about that. Tell me everything I missed. How come you and the Avenging Beauty Queens showed up when you did?”

  Holly moved a blood pressure cuff off a chair and plopped down. “After you left the boat, us remaining queens held a powwow. Since you now had an ironclad alibi for your whereabouts—you were busy boffing Mr. Buff; and I’ll never be able to suck a Life Saver again without getting twinges to my girlie parts—that left only one person who could have shoved Sophie. Who, we asked ourselves, wanted to win the pageant badly enough to kill for it?”

  “Just taking a winger here, but—Channing?”

  “Bingo. When we started comparing notes, we discovered that Channing was also the only person who could have slashed your dress and syruped your keyboard.”

  Mazie nodded. “She admitted it to me. Just before she tried to beat out my brains.”

  “What normal thirtysomething woman pulls those middle school stunts?”

  “I think stunted is more like it. Emotionally, Channing is about twelve years old.”

  “Yeah, but a dangerous twelve,” Holly said. “It finally occurred to us that if she’d tried to kill Sophie, who was tied for first place, she might do something to you, too. That was the point where we decided we’d better check up on you. It was actually Tritt who organized the rescue party.”

  “I’d figured she was more likely to run over me with that Hummer than rescue me.”

  “I guess I’ll have to take back some of the things I said about her.”

  “Me too.”

  “But not all of them.”

  They laughed. “I still can’t believe you actually knocked Oscar Woods’ gun out of his hand with a wrench,” Mazie said. “Where’d you learn how to do that?”

  “I’ve been practicing. It was going to be my talent.”