by Gail Oust
“What’s stoppin’ y’all?” Reba Mae asked, though her attention was still fixed on Troy.
Cheryl’s mouth tightened. “For starters, your chief of police is a control freak. He’s gotten the notion into his head that I had something to do with my husband’s death.”
CJ stuck out his chest. “I went with her when McBride called her in for questioning. Never a bad idea to have an attorney present.”
“Isn’t that conflict of interest?” I fumed. “What kind of son are you, CJ? You should be jumping up and down with joy that McBride’s looking for suspects other than your mother.”
He had the grace to look shamefaced. “Business is business,” he muttered. “Nothin’ personal.”
“McBride subpoenaed Cheryl’s phone records. The audacity,” Amber said indignantly.
“He insinuated I was a liar,” Cheryl said. “That I had something to hide.”
“Don’t give him no never mind, darlin’,” CJ counseled. “McBride’s a small-town boy playactin’ a big-city cop.”
Cheryl looped her arms through Troy’s. “It’s not my fault he assumed I was in California when he called to tell me Chip had died.”
“Hmm.” I struck a thoughtful pose. “Think that might be because you told him you had to book a flight?”
Amber prodded the foursome toward the bleachers. “Y’all, halftime’s nearly over. Let’s get back to our seats.”
I scanned the crowd for sight of McBride’s navy blue uniform, but if he still circulated among the crowd, he was impossible to detect. I wanted to tell him about Troy Farnsworth’s grandiose plan for a chain of fitness clubs—financed by Chip Balboa’s estate. I also wanted to let him know what Melly’s research had turned up.
“C’mon, hon,” Reba Mae said. “I’ve lost my cravin’ for Oreos. Let’s watch us some football.”
I couldn’t really get my head back into the game. Judging from the way Reba Mae kept hopping up and down and hollering, she didn’t share my problem. According to the brightly illuminated scoreboard, it was near the end of the third quarter. The game was tied and the Brandywine Bearcats had the ball. Sean Rogers, as quarterback, called the next play. Before he could find an open receiver, he was taken down hard by a player twice his size.
And he didn’t get up.
The refs blew their whistles, halting play. The coach ran over and conferred with the referees. The rowdy crowd of fans grew eerily silent as EMTs trotted onto the field. Sean was lifted onto a gurney. As he was carried off the field, he raised a hand toward the spectators. The gesture was met with deafening applause. Through a haze of tears, I watched Lindsey chase after the gurney.
CHAPTER 27
AFTER SEAN WAS INJURED, I completely lost interest in the game and decided to leave early. Fortunately, since Reba Mae and I had driven to the high school separately, this didn’t present a problem. I might not have been in the mood for football and crowds, but I wasn’t quite ready to pay a late-night visit to the Beaver Dam Motel just yet. Lindsey had phoned to let me know she was accompanying Sean to the hospital. She’d gone on to add that she’d probably be home late, since the doctors were talking X-rays and CT scans.
The streets were nearly deserted. People were either at the game or snug in front of their televisions. Temperatures dipped into the fifties. I was glad I’d worn my Brandywine Bearcats sweatshirt to ward off the chill.
Rather than drive around aimlessly, I decided to check on Melly. This would be her first night back in her own home. I didn’t really expect I’d be able to convince her to return to my place, but …
After turning down Jefferson Street, I rolled to a stop in front of her house. Even though Melly was a night owl, not a single light burned. Strange, I thought. Her Ford Taurus was in its usual spot in the drive, so I assumed she was home. I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel while I examined my options. I could drive on, pretend I was never there. I could phone and risk her wrath at waking her. Or I could march up the front steps, pound on the door, and insist she tell me what was going on.
Frustrated, I stared at the house. Still dark; still no signs of life. Tired of waffling in indecision, I got out of my car and ran up the steps. I rang the bell, and then when no one answered, knocked on the door. Feeling like a nosy Nellie, I cupped my hands around my eyes and peered through a narrow gap in the living room drapes.
I didn’t see any cause for alarm. But I felt it. Danger. Every instinct screamed a warning. The feeling was as real and as creepy as finding a long-legged spider crawling up my leg. I hadn’t lost sight of the fact that there was a killer on the loose. One who might be hidden in plain sight—or lurking in the shadows. I cast a nervous glance over my shoulder, half-braced to have an assailant burst from the shrubbery, and felt absurdly relieved when that didn’t happen. I returned to the door, twisted the knob, and found it locked. Just then, I remembered a key Melly had given me years ago to use in case of an emergency. Did this qualify? Guess that depended on how one defined emergency. I dug my keys out of the pocket of my jeans. A sliver of moon shed only a feeble light as it ducked behind clouds. I fumbled, trying to find the right key—then fumbled again, trying to fit it into the lock. After a couple of unsuccessful attempts, I heard the tumblers click and felt the door give way.
“Melly,” I called as I stepped inside. “It’s me, Piper.”
I’d feel like an intruder if she suddenly appeared and demanded to know why I was prowling around her house in the dark. Shadows cloaked the house in gloom, making the familiar seem unfamiliar. I gnawed my lower lip, wishing I were elsewhere—anywhere but here—knowing I couldn’t leave until I knew Melly was safe.
“Melly,” I called again, louder this time. A quick look around, top to bottom, I decided, then vanish. My look-see would be much easier if I could shed a little light on the subject. I groped for a wall switch, found one, and flicked it.
Nothing happened.
I tried again. Still the same results. Melly’s house was old. Fuses probably blew all the time. No big deal. I wished I carried a flashlight. A small, powerful one like the techs did on CSI. I vowed to heed Ned Feeney’s motto in the future and “be prepared.”
Feeling distinctly uneasy, I rested my hand on the newel post of the staircase. “Melly!” I shouted. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.” She had been so eager to return home, to sleep in her own bed. Could she be upstairs, sound asleep in spite of the racket I was making?
The grandfather clock on the landing bonged the hour of ten. The deep resonant tones aggravated a dull throbbing in my head. I rubbed my temples and tried to formulate a game plan. A bead of perspiration trickled down my spine. The house was warm, much too warm. Stifling. Melly must have the thermostat set at eighty-five degrees. It didn’t help any that I wore a heavy sweatshirt.
I yawned, starting to feel drowsy. I needed to conduct my search and get out of Dodge. With both arms extended, I navigated around the living room furniture. I narrowly avoided tripping over an ottoman. My shin connected with a corner of the coffee table.
“Damn!” I cursed out loud.
I heard a soft thud when I knocked a knickknack off an end table and onto the carpet. I’d pick it up later, provided I didn’t step on it first. Feeling a bit like Christopher Columbus upon reaching dry land, I arrived at the window at the far end of the room and flung open the drapes and sheers. Voilà! Meager light filtered in.
I stood still for a moment to get my bearings. My head felt as though tom toms beat against the skull. I had Tylenol in my purse, but I’d left my purse under the seat of my car. As I started to traverse the room, a wave of dizziness washed over me, causing me to lose my balance and fall across the sofa.
And find Melly.
“Oh my God, Melly,” I stammered, scrambling to my feet. “I’m so sorry. I hope I didn’t hurt you. I didn’t see you lying there.”
Melly didn’t move. Didn’t say a word.
I was relieved to discover her body felt warm to the touch. I sent u
p a prayer of thanks when I detected the shallow rise and fall of her chest. A heart attack? Stroke? Had the stress of finding a corpse in the cellar finally been too much?
I needed to call for help, but my cell phone was in the car, along with the Tylenol. I knew Melly had a phone mounted on the wall in her kitchen, near the pantry. “Hang on, Melly,” I pleaded.
Hugging the wall to steady myself, I worked my way down the hallway toward the kitchen. I snatched the receiver from the cradle and held it to my ear. No dial tone. I tapped the plunger impatiently. “C’mon, c’mon.”
Still no sound. The line was dead. Thermostat set to tropical. House darker than Hades. Now no phone. Overkill, I thought. The “kill” part of the word clanged repeatedly through my throbbing brain. Someone was trying to kill Melly.
I turned and half ran, half staggered back the way I’d come. The combination of heat and headache was making me nauseated. “Don’t worry, Melly. I’m going to call for help.”
I shoved open the front door and practically tumbled onto the porch. Bending forward, hands on my knees, I took in great gulps of cool night air to clear my head. That revived me enough to clumsily sprint to my car. I feverishly retrieved my purse and dug through its contents. Impatient when I couldn’t find my cell, I dumped everything on the seat. Finally, phone in hand, I punched in 911.
My knees sagged with relief when Precious Blessing answered. “Honey, please don’t tell me you found another body.”
“Precious,” I gasped, “something bad’s happened to Melly. Send an ambulance. I can’t remember her address.”
I hurried back inside the house as fast as my wobbly legs would carry me. And that was the last thing I remembered.
* * *
“Mom?” I opened my eyes, and Lindsey’s worried face filled my vision. “You’re going to be okay, Mom. The doctor said you’ll be fine.”
“Of course I’m going to be fine, sweetie. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“You don’t remember?”
“What happened?” I drew in a deep breath of pure oxygen piped through a plastic tube in my nose. Gazing around, I found myself in a small curtained-off cubicle. A series of green squiggles and red blips tangoed across a monitor affixed to a wall. A blood pressure cuff was secured to one arm. A sensor stuck to my index finger like a clothespin. Fragments of memory began to coalesce. I shoved myself into an upright position. “Melly?”
McBride pushed aside the curtain surrounding the gurney I lay on. “Your former mother-in-law is going to be all right, but the doctor wants to keep her overnight for observation.”
Comforted at hearing this, I eased back down on the pillow.
McBride turned to Lindsey, who held my hand. “I need to talk to your mom for a couple minutes. I think your boyfriend would like some company, seeing as how most of his friends have gone home.”
“Sure.” She squeezed my hand, then left.
“Sean’s here?” I asked, my thoughts still foggy.
McBride lowered himself on the chair Lindsey had just vacated. He looked a little rough around the edges. His dark hair was disheveled, as though he’d run his fingers through it a time or two. A hint of five o’clock shadow darkened his jaw, but rather than detracting from his rugged appeal, added to it. “The kid suffered a knee injury in the third quarter.”
Details of the football game drifted back. The memory of Sean being carted off the field clicked into place. “Is he going to be all right?”
“They’ll know more when they get the results of a CT scan.” McBride withdrew his ever-present notebook from a shirt pocket. “Tell me everything you remember about your visit to Melly Prescott’s.”
“Okay.” Easier said than done in this case. Why was thinking so difficult? “Since this was her first night home after discovering Chip’s body, I drove over to check on her. I saw her car in the drive, but no lights were on inside the house. She didn’t answer when I rang the bell or pounded on the door, so I used a key she’d given me years ago.”
“And then what?
I frowned, trying to knit the pieces together. “The light switch didn’t work—it must’ve blown a fuse—so I didn’t see Melly at first. The heat was turned so high that it gave me a headache, made me dizzy. I lost my balance, fell, and landed on top of Melly. She was unconscious. I tried to call nine-one-one from her landline. When I couldn’t get a dial tone, I ran to the car for my cell phone.”
“That it?”
“Mm-hmm.” I vaguely remembered being carried in a strong pair of arms, but I didn’t think he needed to jot that in his little black book. “What’s going on? Come on, McBride, I have a right to know.”
“Now, that sounds more like the Piper Prescott I’ve come to know.” He almost smiled before turning serious again. “The doctors are treating you and Melly for carbon monoxide poisoning. They’ll know for sure when the lab results come back. Doc put a rush on them.”
“Carbon monoxide?” I repeated in disbelief. “That can be deadly. I need to see for myself that Melly’s really all right.” I tore off the oxygen tube and swung my legs over the edge of the stretcher. Before my feet had a chance to reach the floor, my vision grayed, my ears buzzed.
“Easy now.” McBride scooped me up as effortlessly as though I weighed no more than a child and laid me back down. He refitted the cannula in my nose. “Here, take a couple whiffs of oxygen before you try any more heroics.”
I wanted to glare at him angrily, but simply didn’t have the energy.
McBride stepped away from the gurney. “You done good tonight, Piper. You saved Melly’s life. Doc said if you hadn’t shown up when you did, she would’ve died.”
“I still don’t understand how this happened. What causes carbon monoxide poisoning?”
McBride shrugged. “Faulty central heating systems, hot-water heaters, gas fireplaces, or a blocked chimney flue are common culprits.”
“Melly’s house is old. She probably hasn’t had the heating system checked in years.”
“That’s a possibility.”
Something in his voice signaled a Code Red. “Out with it, McBride. What aren’t you telling me?”
His expression turned impassive. “We found a note.”
“A note?” I felt anxiety bubble inside me. “What kind of note?”
“Until we can rule it out, we’re treating the incident as an attempted suicide.”
CHAPTER 28
THE FOLLOWING MORNING, I drove around the hospital to a side door marked DISCHARGE AND ADMISSIONS. I waited behind a sedan while an elderly man was wheeled out by a nurse’s aide. The woman assisted him out of the chair and gently eased him into the vehicle’s passenger seat. After handing over a large bag of personal possessions, she waved him off.
The glass doors slid open, and Melly appeared in a wheelchair. Judging from her sour expression, she wasn’t happy. I got out of my car and ran around the hood to open the door.
“I wish everyone would stop treating me like an old lady,” Melly fussed. “I’m perfectly capable of walking out of this place on my two feet.”
“Sorry, ma’am, hospital policy,” answered a beleaguered aide. The instant Melly was safely in my VW, the aide spun the wheelchair around and disappeared back inside.
“What took you so long?” Melly demanded querulously as she readjusted the air vents.
I snapped the buckle of my seat belt. “I got here fast as I could. As it was, I was afraid I’d get a speeding ticket.”
“Hmph!” Melly snorted. “I hope I never see the inside of that place again. All this commotion over a faulty furnace. Unbelievable!”
“Carbon monoxide poisoning can be deadly,” I commented as I put the car into gear.
“If someone says that to me one more time, I’m going to scream. I’ve heard that said at least a dozen times since last night. I don’t need to hear it from you.”
“Yes, ma’am. I got the memo.”
Melly shot me a look. “No need to be a smart mouth. I’ve never been
subjected to such a trial in my entire life.” She stared out the windshield. “From the way everyone kept watching me, you’d think I was a criminal. Why, I couldn’t even go to the bathroom without being followed.”
Did she realize her situation was considered an attempted suicide? Had McBride told her about a note he or one of his minions found? Perhaps last night Melly hadn’t been in any condition for questioning. I cast a sidelong glance her way. Except for the fact that without makeup she looked pale, and her orderly pageboy suffered a severe case of bed-head, she didn’t seem any different after her ordeal.
“Don’t bite my head off, Melly, but I need to ask: Are you feeling any aftereffects from last night? Headache, dizziness, confusion?”
“Confusion?” she snapped. “Do I seem confused?”
“No,” I admitted. “Irritable, but not confused.”
Instead of being insulted, she took that as a compliment of sorts and settled back in her seat. “CJ dropped by the hospital early this morning. He gave me an ultimatum. Until my heating system is thoroughly inspected, I either stay with you or with him—and Amber. I chose your place rather that mausoleum he calls a home.”
“Good, it’s settled then.”
“I refuse to be treated as a child.”
I hid a smile. “I’m brave, but not that brave.”
* * *
Lindsey had manned the register at Spice It Up! while I was away. Upon seeing her grandmother, she rushed over to hug her. “Meemaw, I’m so glad you’re okay. You had us so scared.”
Casey danced around their feet, apparently echoing Lindsey’s sentiments. Or not wanting to be excluded from the lovefest.
Melly stroked Lindsey’s long blond hair. “No need to worry about me, dear. I’m a tough old bird.”
Lindsey pulled back, satisfied her world had righted itself again, and asked, “Mom, mind if I go visit Sean? He texted. Said he’s bored and wants company.”
“Go right ahead. Tell him we’re sending positive thoughts his way that his injury won’t require surgery.”
“Will do,” she said as she bounded out the door.
