Peril in Pensacola

by Lucy Quinn

  “Evie!” called out Fred Price, a short, stout man who happened to own the place. “Please tell me you didn’t just con another customer out of her clothing.”

  “I didn’t! She gave it to me and even thanked me for taking it.” Evie squinted her eyes at Fred. He had a surveillance camera set up to monitor the reception area. Supposedly for safety reasons, but Evie wasn’t so sure that was why. “Don’t you have anything better to do than spy on me from your office?” she asked as the bell rang to announce another customer’s arrival.

  Fred let out a low growl of frustration as Evie quickly greeted the new customer. Evie pasted on a show-stopping smile and said, “Hello. Welcome to Price Cleaners! How can I help you?”

  It was a woman with a small boy, and Evie knew just how to make the child’s day. When the woman said she was there to pick up the Parker order, Evie looked at the little boy. “I’m Evie. What’s your name?”

  “Spencer.”

  “Spencer, I’m going to need your help to get your Mom’s clothes. Do you think you can help me?”

  Spencer nodded.

  “Great. So, see this big conveyor belt? It can only be turned on with”—Evie darted her eyes to the left and right as if she was afraid to reveal a secret and lowered her voice—“magic.” Spencer’s eyes widened. “And you’re the one who has it.”

  He shook his head. “No, I don’t.”

  “I think you do.” Evie moved over to the conveyor and placed herself next to it so that the boy couldn’t see the switch. “I want you to hold out both your hands and stare really hard at the machine. Using your mind, tell it to start.”

  Spencer looked up at his mother, who was smiling. She said, “Go ahead, honey.”

  The boy scrunched up his face and held out his hands. “Move, machine!” he called out.

  Evie hit the On button with her shoulder, and the conveyor whirled to life. “You did it!” She gave Spencer a look of exaggerated shock. “I knew you were magic.” She turned to Fred, who had been watching the whole thing. “Did you see that?”

  Fred rolled his eyes at Evie before saying to Spencer, “That was amazing. I could use a man like you. When you’re old enough for a job, come see me.” He muttered under his breath to Evie. “Because I’m about to have an opening.”

  But Evie knew her performance meant he wasn’t going to fire her. She was good with people, and he knew it. Once Spencer and his mother left, Fred said, “You’re lucky you’re so good with kids. You can keep your job one more day.”

  Evie really did have a gift for dealing with people, and she knew just what Fred needed to feel good about his decision. She grabbed his hands and gushed, “Thank you, Fred. You won’t regret it.”

  “Humph,” he grumbled as he pulled away from her. “And no more magazines. Make a dent in the phone calls to overdue orders instead.”

  “Will do!” Evie said with a salute.

  Fred returned to his office, and she reached under the counter to grab the stack of tickets for orders that had been waiting for more than a month. It was her job to call and remind customers to pick up their garments. She only made it through four reminders when an older woman in her late sixties walked in clutching her handbag as if someone had just tried to rip it form her grip.

  “Miss Nancy, how nice to see you again today. Did you forget something?” Evie asked, smiling at the woman. Miss Nancy was a regular who was in every week without fail and almost never brought in the same thing twice.

  “No. I didn’t forget anything.” Miss Nancy thrust a bright blue Post It note at Evie, her hand shaking slightly. Her lips were pursed, causing her bright red lipstick to crack. “Did you leave this in my pocket?”

  Evie glanced down at her own handwriting and nodded. “I know it’s hard to keep up with fashion trends, so I figured I’d give you a heads-up before you wore that sequin blazer again. It’s cute in an unexpected way, but the cut isn’t quite right for your body type and the fur on the cuffs and collar… Well, I think we can all agree that mink isn’t exactly socially acceptable anymore.”

  “This note says my jacket makes me look like a disco ball that needs a haircut!”

  Evie glanced down at the blue piece of paper and bit down on her bottom lip. She’d been in a bad mood when she’d left the unsolicited advice, and it was glaringly obvious she’d gone too far because Miss Nancy was craning her neck, peeking into the back area, no doubt looking for Fred. “Uh, it was just a little humor. Of course, you would never look like a disco ball. With that tiny waist, I’m sure you’re the envy of the bridge club.”

  “I don’t play bridge,” Miss Nancy snapped. “What, do you think I’m eighty?”

  “Of course not,” Evie said quickly, trying to recover. “You couldn’t possibly be a day over forty-five.”

  Miss Nancy snorted. “Nice try, little lady. But it’s too late to clean up this mess. I checked the pockets of my other garments and found a ton of unsolicited notes on everything from hemlines to unflattering colors.” The woman raised her voice as she added, “Do you have any idea who I am?”

  Evie shook her head. She just knew the woman as an eccentric lady who always showed up with interesting clothes that never quite hit the mark for Evie. “I was just trying to be helpful,” Evie said nervously. Maybe she had gone too far. But when Miss Nancy hadn’t commented on the notes before, Evie thought maybe she liked the advice. “Fashion is sort of my passion and—”

  “Your passion?” Miss Nancy let out a huff of laughter and swept her gaze over Evie. “That dress is a bad knockoff from the Donna Karan line six or seven years ago. And the pants you had on last week? They had so many wrinkles they looked like you’d fished them out of a Cracker Jack box. Do me a favor and look up Nancy Lemon when you get a chance.”

  “I—”

  The woman held up her hand, cutting Evie off, and stepped into the back room.

  Evie started to go after her, but she heard Fred call out, “Hey, Nancy. Long time no see. We keep missing each other.”

  Whatever Nancy said, Evie didn’t catch it as another customer strolled in looking for his suit. She hurriedly retrieved it for him and was just about to dash into the back to apologize again when Fred appeared from the back room with his arms crossed and a scowl on his face.

  Evie swallowed. This wasn’t going to end well.

  “Is it true you left fashion advice in the pockets of Miss Lemon’s garments, Evie?” His tone was low and full of disappointment.

  “Yes, but—”

  He held up his hand in much the same way Nancy had just a few moments ago. “Have you been doing this to all of my clients?”

  “Not to… for,” Evie stressed. “And not all of them. Just the ones who could use a few pointers.”

  Fred ground his teeth together, making a muscle in his jaw pulse.

  “It’s her or me, Fred,” Miss Nancy said. “I won’t have some young fool telling me my creations aren’t flattering.”

  Warning lights went off in Evie’s head. Creations? Nancy Lemon?

  “Oh, no,” Evie said out loud, clutching at her chest. “Lemon Fashions? Home of the perfect cropped pants and the best darn bra a girl can buy? That Nancy Lemon?”

  Miss Nancy beamed. “I did design the perfect bra.”

  “Ohmigod!” Evie squealed, pulling her shirt up to expose the red satin number that gave her the perfect amount of support and showed off her impressive cleavage. Made more impressive with the magical bra. “You are my favorite person in the entire world, Miss Nancy. A perfect genius if you ask me,” she gushed. “I’m a huge fan of my cropped Lemons. I have three pair.”

  “So, you like my sportswear line, but not my runway. Interesting.” She cast a glance at Fred. “A designer with less confidence could really get messed up with her advice. Better do something to nip this in the bud, or I’m finding a new dry cleaner come next week. Your choice.”

  “It’s no contest,” Fred said, still glaring at Evie. “This is the final straw, Evie.”


  “But—” Evie started.

  “You’re fired, Evie. Go home.” Fred took Miss Nancy by the arm and escorted her out the door while Evie blinked, wondering how she’d ended up giving advice to a famous fashion designer. “I was only trying to help,” she said again to herself as she grabbed her handbag and the McQueen dress from the back room and left with her head held high.

  3

  The door that separated the upstairs offices of Two to Mango from the stairwell to the restaurant below shut with a heavy thud from its hurricane-proof sturdiness as Lindy left Dora alone with Steve Franklin. The man’s dark eyes were black with his anger, and Dora was nearly shaking in her shoes as he asked, “Did you find what you were looking for in Marco’s office?”

  Dora shook her head as she looked down at a pen on her desk. She was a terrible liar and she knew it.

  “You did!” Steve cried out, and Dora jumped when he slapped his hands onto her desk and leaned over it toward her. “You little sneak,” he growled out.

  Dora had witnessed Steve laying into waitstaff who’d made him unhappy before, but she had never seen him this angry. It was looking more and more like he knew exactly what she’d found on Marco’s computer, and that made him dangerous. She stepped back from the desk, eyeing the door with the hope she could escape. “I didn’t find anything. I swear.”

  “How did you get into his computer?”

  “I didn’t!” Dora cried out as she backed up against the wall with the intention of sliding along it until she got to the door.

  Steve stepped in her way, but instinct kicked in and Dora bolted around him toward the exit. She wasn’t fast enough, though, and Steve grabbed her arm and yanked her back against his body, wrapping an arm around her waist. She gasped when a hard object was jabbed into her side, and she glanced down to see Steve was holding a gun.

  The urge to cry was strong as Dora began to whimper. Flashes of her life’s dreams played in her head: a handsome groom putting a ring on her finger; her imaginary children on swings; and Evie laughing as they frolicked in the waves as old women.

  “Please, I don’t know anything. I—” She inhaled sharply with pain when Steve dug the gun further into her side.

  “I bet you know plenty, and that’s too much for a smart girl like you.”

  He’s going to kill me, she thought. Dora was as conflict averse as a person could be. She would rather eat an overcooked steak than send it back. She’d let someone cut in front of her in line instead of standing her ground. And she was the type to hand her purse to a potential mugger before he had the chance to snatch it. So what she did next shocked her as much as it shocked Steve.

  Dora stomped her foot on top of his with all the strength she could muster and twisted in his arm to release herself as he reacted to the pain. She lifted her knee toward his groin and connected. Hard. Steve let out a groan of pain as he doubled over, and Dora grabbed the barrel of his gun.

  For a split second, she felt the hard metal of the weapon in her fingers before Steve realized what she’d done. He pulled back, but she wasn’t going to die without a fight. Somewhere deep down inside of herself, Dora found the strength to grab on to the pistol with her other hand and push it toward the ceiling while she held on tight. She stumbled forward and into Steve’s chest as he pulled harder.

  The gun exploded with searing heat that singed Dora’s blouse as a loud bang made her ears ring. Then a deafening silence settled around her as time nearly stood still. I’m dying, Dora thought as she sank to her knees with the weight of Steve pulling her down with him, clutching at her as if she were his life preserver. She watched his face as he opened his mouth and blood bubbled out of it.

  When it spilled over onto her chest she stared in horror as reality slapped her in the face. Dora wasn’t the one dying. When Steve’s eyes went blank, she didn’t need to check to know what she’d done. She’d killed Steve!

  Even though the third floor had been soundproofed to keep the restaurant noise from interfering with work in the offices, Dora couldn’t be certain the sound of the gun hadn’t been heard somewhere below. Marco Franklin was not the kind of guy to listen to excuses before acting, and if he found his father lying on the floor in a pool of blood while Dora was still there, she really would be dead. She needed to get out of there. Fast.

  People say you never know how you’re going to react in an emergency situation, but anyone who knew Dora would have bet money she was the type of woman who would freeze. They would have lost that bet, though, because she hopped up and sprang into action.

  She grabbed the extra outfit she kept hanging behind her door. Without giving it a second thought, she quickly stripped out of her bloodstained clothes and into a travel-friendly shift dress and another pair of flats. Gathering her discarded clothes, she rolled them into a ball and shoved them into the tote bag she carried every day before she left her office.

  She jogged down the stairs and exited the building still on autopilot, and it wasn’t until she was behind the wheel of her Toyota sedan that she began to shake. Dora knew she was in shock, but the fear that an entire restaurant had heard a gun go off and that Steve’s body might have been found by now was a powerful motivator, and it kept the adrenaline rushing through her veins long enough for her to drive home.

  When she got inside her rental, locked the doors, and closed all the blinds, Dora allowed herself to fall apart. She went to her kitchen in search of the bottle of wine she kept in the fridge but didn’t manage to open the door. Instead she turned her back to it, leaned on the cold metal surface, and slithered down to the floor as her sobs finally escaped.

  4

  Dora wasn’t sure how long she cried, but her burning eyes and mucus dripping from her nose finally forced her need for cleanliness to kick into gear. She got up from the kitchen floor in search of a tissue and began to process what she’d done. The financial information she’d uncovered definitely pointed to a money laundering scheme which she now knew both Steve and Marco were involved in. And considering Steve had jammed a gun in her side, she was pretty sure he would have killed her if she hadn’t—

  Dora’s stomach clenched hard, and she barely made it to the bathroom to vomit up the entire contents. The tile floor was cold under her knees as she sat back and tried to think of what she should do. Lindy knew Dora had been in the office with an angry Steve just moments before the gunshot. And it wouldn’t take a genius to know Dora was there when it happened. She had to turn herself in.

  But she’d fled the scene, and anyone who had been raised on TV knew that was a darn good sign of guilt. Even worse, she was Two to Mango’s accountant. When the truth came out about the money laundering scheme, who would ever believe she didn’t know about it?

  She chuckled dryly to herself as she stood up to brush her teeth. She’d underestimated Marco as a man who was so concerned with appearances that he didn’t have brainpower to devote to his business. Apparently, he was far cleverer than she’d imagined, because he’d managed to run his scheme right under her nose.

  Even though she looked guilty, Dora knew in her heart she had to go to the police.

  Hello! The police, Dora thought as she hit her forehead with the palm of her hand. Dora’s next-door neighbor, Brian, was a policeman. Even though he was almost two decades older than she, they’d become good friends over the years. They collected each other’s mail when one went away, had shared a vegetable garden one year until they’d both realized neither had a green thumb, and even exchanged romance-gone-wrong stories over a few beers more than once. Brian was a man Dora could trust.

  She grimaced as her empty stomach rolled again when she had to dig past her blood-soaked clothing to find her phone, and she called Brian to ask for his help.

  It was less than a minute before Brian let himself in through her back door with a bottle of her favorite wine his hand. The moment Dora saw him she burst into tears, and he opened up his arms to her. “I don’t know what’s going on, but you just cry as long as y
ou need to before saying a word.”

  Dora wanted to let the kind man’s embrace comfort her, but the truth was that wasn’t going to happen any time soon. Since she didn’t have many tears left, she managed to control herself after a few moments and stepped out of Brian’s embrace to whisper, “I killed someone.”

  His eyes widened slightly before he said, “Damn. This calls for whiskey.” He walked into her kitchen, put the wine down on the counter, and reached into the cabinet over the fridge for the hard stuff.

  “Brian?” Dora asked in disbelief at his calm reaction. “Did you hear what I said?”

  Two glasses thumped onto the counter as he retrieved them. “You think you killed someone.”

  “Not think. I did!”

  Brian gestured for Dora to take a seat at the kitchen table and handed her a glass of amber liquid. “Drink this and then you can tell me what happened.”

  The whiskey sloshed in her glass as Dora raised a shaky hand to take a sip, and after a hefty amount of alcohol burned its way down her throat, she relayed the entire story to him.

  When she was done Brian got up and opened up the drawer where she kept plastic bags and pulled one out. He put it over his hand like a glove and grabbed her tote bag. “These the clothes?”

  She nodded.

  He rummaged through the bag as he said, “I’ll take care of them, but Dora, you need to listen very carefully to me.”

  Brian’s serious tone scared her, and Dora said, “Okay.”

  “I want you to pack a bag, and I’ll drop you at Evie’s house to hide. If the police come looking for you, do not let them know you’re there.”

  “I don’t understand. Why would I hide from the police?”