Marked Down for Murder (Good Buy Girls)

by Josie Belle

  She had just reached the first floor when a commotion sounded from the emergency room, which was off to her right. She pushed through the doors with the panicked thought that something had gone wrong with Joanne and she was in the emergency room instead of the maternity ward.

  She was halfway into the room when a stretcher with Blair Cassidy on it was wheeled by her. She only got a quick glance, but a medic was moving with the stretcher and holding a pad on Blair’s shoulder. Even as they rushed past her, Maggie could see that the gauze was saturated with blood.

  Maggie hurried to catch up. “Blair? What happened?”

  The medic looked at her. “Are you family?”

  “No, but—”

  “Maggie?” Blair opened her eyes, looking for her. Maggie hurried to walk along beside her.

  “I’m here, Blair,” she said. She put her hand on Blair’s free hand and the other woman grasped her fingers tight.

  “Tell Summer that I love her,” Blair pleaded. “I know I wasn’t the best mother, but I tried. I really tried.”

  Maggie whipped her head in the medic’s direction and hissed, “How serious is this?”

  He glanced between the two of them and apparently decided that holding hands qualified Maggie to ask questions.

  “It’s a gunshot wound,” he said.

  “Gunshot?” Maggie squawked.

  “I might not make it, Maggie,” Blair said. “Promise you’ll tell Summer what I said.”

  Horrified, Maggie said, “Yes, yes, of course.”

  “And if you could . . .” Blair paused to cough, and Maggie looked to see if she was coughing up blood. No, there was none, but it sounded awful just the same.

  “Hang in there, Blair,” she said. She felt utterly useless.

  “Maggie, if you could . . .” Blair paused to cough again. “If you could see your way to cutting Sam loose so that he can be with his one true love, my daughter, Summer, it would make a dying woman breathe her last breath in peace.”

  Maggie gaped at her, and then she heard the medic snort.

  “You are not dying, Mrs. Cassidy. Far from it,” he said. “The bullet just grazed you. It’s a flesh wound. A few stitches and some antibiotics and you’ll be just fine.”

  “Is that true?” Maggie asked Blair.

  Blair gave the medic a sour look and jerked her hand away from Maggie. “If I do die, you’re both going to be sorry.”

  “No doubt,” Maggie agreed, just to be nice. She looked at the bloody gauze on Blair’s shoulder and hoped like heck that the medic was right. It seemed like a lot of blood for a grazing. “But I don’t understand. How did you get shot?”

  “I was checking on Summer’s shop,” Blair said. “I was just locking up when this truck came out of nowhere. It jumped the curb and the driver got out and shot me!”

  How could that have happened across the street from her shop without her knowing? Maggie realized that in her race to the hospital to be with Joanne, she must have just missed it.

  “What sort of truck?” Maggie asked. “Did you see the driver? Can you describe them?”

  “I don’t know. No, I had my back to them,” Blair said. She sounded truly rattled, and Maggie didn’t blame her one little bit. How terrifying. “It all happened so fast.”

  “Excuse us, ma’am,” the medic said. “We need to get her in there.”

  “Oh, all right,” Maggie said. Then she leaned forward and said, “I’ll tell Summer what you said, you know, if I need to.”

  Blair gave her a wan smile as they wheeled her into a room where a doctor stood waiting. Maggie turned around to find Sam striding down the hall toward her. She cringed. None of what had just happened was her butting out; in fact, it was very much her butting in. Sam was going to be so mad. Any hope she had of him forgiving her for what happened earlier was about to be blown to smithereens.

  “Maggie!” Sam broke into a run. Maggie didn’t get a chance to say anything as he scooped her up and held her close. When she leaned back to get a look at his face, he kissed her.

  When he pulled away, she was left breathless and weak-kneed while he ran his hands all over her as if to reassure himself that she was in one piece.

  “Oh, man, I think I just had four heart attacks. I heard the call on the radio that there had been a shooting in front of one of the consignment shops in town,” he said. He cupped her face. “You’re okay? You’re really okay?”

  “I’m fine,” Maggie said. Then he kissed her again. She hugged him close. This was infinitely better than him being miffed at her.

  “Sam, it wasn’t my shop,” she said. “It was Summer’s. Blair was locking up and a truck jumped the curb and stopped in front of her and the driver got out and shot her.”

  “How is she?” he asked.

  “The medic said the bullet just grazed her and that she’ll be okay.”

  Sam frowned, and she could tell he was thinking it over, sifting through the facts in his cop brain.

  “I promised Blair that I’d go and tell Summer that she loves her,” Maggie said. Sam opened his mouth to speak but Maggie held up her hand. “I know you want me to butt out, but honestly, in a town this small, it’s virtually impossible. That being said, when I made that promise to you I did mean it. I just didn’t know how hard it would be to keep it.”

  “It’s okay,” Sam said. “Deputy Wilson pointed out to me, in her usual subtle way, the impossibility of my request. Although she did say it was impossible because you’re terminally nosy.”

  “She did not!” Maggie protested.

  “Yes, she did,” he said with a laugh. “Now don’t get your nose out of joint over it.”

  “Hardy har har,” Maggie said. She was so relieved that things were good between them, she didn’t mind the teasing. In fact, it made her feel as if they were a-okay.

  “So how did you find out about Blair?” Sam asked.

  “I was here because Joanne—oh my god, Joanne!” Maggie cried, and then she turned and began to jog out of the ER. “She’s having the baby!”

  Sam watched her go with a grin. “I’ll be up as soon as I can.”

  “I’ll text you if there’s news,” Maggie said.

  Then she blew him a kiss and bolted back up to the maternity ward. She was just rounding the corner when she slammed into Ginger, who was pacing. She almost knocked her down but Claire leapt forward and caught her.

  “Sorry!” Maggie cried.

  “Where have you been?” Claire asked.

  “We thought you were already here, and then we heard sirens,” Ginger added. “Lord-a-mercy, we had you dead in a car accident.”

  “I’m sorry. I was here, but I was down in the ER,” Maggie said. “While I was waiting for you, Blair Cassidy was brought in. She’s been shot!”

  “No!” Claire and Ginger gasped together.

  “Yes,” Maggie said. “She was checking on Summer’s shop, and when she was leaving, a truck hopped the curb in front of her and the driver got out and shot her. Then they sped off.”

  “Did she see who it was?”

  “No, she seemed fuzzy on the details. But I’m sure Sam will help her remember more.”

  “First Bruce, now Blair—who do you suppose has it in for the two of them?” Claire asked. “Maybe they were bank robbers like Bonnie and Clyde and now the law is coming to get them.”

  “No, the law doesn’t hop out of a truck, shoot you and take off,” Ginger said. “This is personal.”

  “I don’t know why,” Maggie said. “But whoever it is, they seem willing to go to any extreme to get the Cassidys.”

  Ginger shuddered. “I’m not overly fond of Blair, but I can’t help but feel sorry for her. I can’t even imagine how terrified she must be.”

  Maggie gave a wry glance. “Not terrified enough to miss the opportunity to ask me to dump Sam as a m
other’s dying wish.”

  “She. Did. Not,” Ginger said.

  “Oh yes, she did,” Maggie said. “I almost fell for it, too, but the medic told me she was going to be fine, so I made no promises that I’d have to break.”

  “Wow. Bruce did say she was a terrier when she made up her mind that she wanted something,” Ginger said.

  “I’d say ‘terror’ is more like it,” Claire said.

  The doors that led to the maternity ward opened and Michael and Joanne walked out. Maggie could tell by the look on Joanne’s face that her hopes to meet her baby had been dashed once more.

  “False labor again?” she asked.

  Joanne didn’t say anything. She opened her mouth to speak, but the only thing that came out was a weepy wail as she started to cry.

  “I am so tired of being this big beached whale who can’t tie her own shoes and never sleeps,” she said in a sob-studded stammer that the others had to strain to decipher.

  As one, the Good Buy Girls formed a huddle around her, patting her back and hugging her. Michael stood awkwardly and charmingly in the thick of it, never leaving his wife’s side.

  “So is this what you four do right before you hit a sale?” he asked. “Huddle up?”

  “Hush!” Ginger shushed him. “You’re here in a support capacity only.”

  “Okay,” Michael agreed, and clamped his mouth shut.

  “Now think of this pragmatically,” Claire said. “The closer you are to your due date when you deliver, the stronger your baby will be.”

  “And,” Ginger chimed, “when the time comes, you get the awesome push diet.”

  Joanne sniffed. “Push diet?”

  “Yeah, you push that baby out and you lose an immediate twelve pounds,” she said. “And the bigger the baby is, the bigger the weight loss for you.”

  Joanne chuckled while she wiped the tears from her eyes.

  “And the baby will have built up all of its immunity,” Maggie said. “Which will be excellent timing given that we’re on the tail end of the flu season.”

  “You’re right. I know you’re right,” Joanne sniffed. “I just feel like such a boob. I swear I really thought it was the real deal this time.”

  “Not your fault,” Claire said.

  “Yeah, the baby is probably giving you a few practice runs so that by the time it is really happening, you’ll be all, ‘No big deal,’” Ginger said.

  This time Michael laughed. “That baby has our number.”

  The huddle broke up as the rest of them started laughing. Michael hugged Joanne close and said, “Come on, let’s get you home so you can try to get some sleep.”

  “I’ll walk you out,” Ginger said.

  “Me, too,” Claire said.

  They looked at Maggie and she said, “I think Sam is still in the building. I’m going to try and find him.”

  She gave Claire and Ginger a meaningful look and then looked at Joanne. She didn’t think Joanne needed to hear about people being gunned down on the street. She had enough on her mind as it was. They both nodded. At the main floor, Maggie left them to go back to the ER.

  She was just pushing through the swinging doors when she saw Dot entering from the other side with Summer Phillips beside her.

  “You!” Summer cried when she saw Maggie. “What did you do to my mother?”

  Chapter 17

  Maggie looked at Dot. “She did not just say that, did she?”

  “She’s a little distraught,” Dot said.

  “My mother has been shot!” Summer cried. “I am more than distraught.”

  “Summer, I am sorry about your mother, but when I spoke to her—” Maggie began, but Summer interrupted.

  “You spoke to her? When?”

  “Just a short while ago,” Maggie said. “She asked me to tell you that she loves you and that she knows she wasn’t the best mother but she tried.”

  “Oh, my god,” Summer cried. “She’s dying, isn’t she?”

  “No, she isn’t,” Dot said. “We would have had you over here a lot earlier if the situation were critical. Your mother will be fine.”

  Dot gave Maggie a reproving look. Maggie shrugged and said, “I’m just telling her what Blair told me to say. It’s not my fault she was feeling dramatic.”

  “And it didn’t occur to you to filter it? Shoot, from what you just said, even I thought she was dying, and I know better,” Dot said.

  “Sorry,” Maggie said. “I wasn’t thinking. I was here because Joanne was in labor—”

  “Did she have the baby?” Dot asked. She looked so excited that Maggie hated to dash her hopes.

  “False labor,” Maggie said.

  “Aw, man,” Dot said. “Again?”

  “Hello? People? My mother!” Summer said.

  “Oh, yeah, come on,” Dot said. “Sheriff Collins told us to meet him in room 132.”

  Maggie started to walk with them, and Summer scowled at her. “Why are you coming along?”

  “To see Sam,” she said.

  “Oh, yeah, that’s right,” Summer sneered. “You’re in looove.”

  Somehow she managed to make it sound cheap and tawdry, as if Summer had any call to criticize her relationship. Maggie felt her temper beginning to heat.

  “Says the woman who was found in a motel with Tyler Fawkes in his underwear,” Maggie scoffed.

  Summer whirled on her, her bleached-blonde, extension-enhanced hair flying. “Don’t you say anything bad about Tyler!”

  “It wasn’t Tyler I was insulting,” Maggie said. She gave Summer a pointed look.

  “Why, you—” Summer’s hands extended like claws and Dot had to hold her back before she sank them into Maggie’s face.

  “Will you two quit it!” Dot snapped. “Good grief, you’d think you were still in kindergarten. Wait, I take that back. That’s an insult to five-year-olds, as they certainly behave better than you do. Now let’s go.”

  Maggie moved to walk on the other side of Dot so that she wasn’t in clawing range of Summer. She felt badly about tiffing with the other woman. Summer had been having a rough couple of days and Maggie should be more understanding, but oh, that woman could get under her skin faster than a tick on a dog’s ear.

  When they reached the room where Blair was being treated, Sam was standing by the door. He looked surprised to see Maggie with Dot and Summer, and his eyebrows lifted in question.

  “False labor,” she said.

  He gave a pained look as if he knew that it hadn’t been received well by the parents. Maggie shrugged, and he nodded.

  “How is my mother?” Summer asked. “Is she . . . is she dying?”

  “No!” Sam said. His reaction was so strong that Maggie suspected he’d been getting quite an earful from Blair. “I think the doctor will let you in to see her now. In fact, I could use your help in getting her to talk to me about what happened.”

  Summer gave him a quick nod and started toward the door.

  “I’ll wait right here,” Dot said. “Remember, I’m your ride home.”

  From the way she said it, it was clear to everyone that “home” meant “jail.”

  Maggie stood beside Dot while Sam and Summer went in to see Blair. A nurse came out while they waited, and Dot took the opportunity to wedge her heel in the door, leaving just enough of a gap so that they could hear what was being said.

  “You are sneaky,” Maggie said.

  “Shh,” Dot hushed her. “The preferred terminology is ‘innovative.’”

  “Mama, are you all right?” Summer asked. “Where were you shot? What did the doctor say? Are you in a lot of pain?”

  “Summer! Thank goodness you’re here. Oh, and look at the two of you,” Blair cried. Her voice was slurred, as if she’d had a martini or two, which made Maggie think they’d loaded her up
on pain meds. “It makes a mama’s heart full to bursting to see her baby with the man of her dreams.”

  Maggie exchanged a glance with Dot, who put up her hand as if to say, “Wait for it.”

  “Mama, Sam is not the man of my dreams,” Summer said. “And you really need not to be thinking of my love life when you were very nearly murdered.”

  “Blair, I need you to tell me everything you remember from right before you were shot,” Sam said in his most officious sheriff voice.

  “Oh, dear Sam, look how intent he is upon finding the person who harmed his lady love’s mother,” Blair said. “You should hang on to him, Summer. He’s a keeper.”

  “Mother!” Summer sounded as if she was finally at her wits’ end. “Sam is not mine to hang on to.”

  “Of course he is, dear,” Blair said. “Just look at the two of you. You make such a lovely couple—not like you and that knuckle-dragger Tyler Fawkes. Honestly, what were you thinking shacking up with him?”

  Maggie couldn’t stand it. She had to peek. Sam was standing on one side of the bed and Summer on the other. Sam looked irked, Summer had her eyes shut as if praying for patience, while Blair swiveled her head between them, looking delighted.

  “Ladies, could we please stay focused on what happened tonight?” Sam asked. “Blair, about the truck that stopped in front of the shop—what do you remember?”

  “It was a dark-colored vehicle,” she said. “It was clearly not an import; just big and clunky, nothing worth noticing.”

  “Yeah, except that your shooter was driving it,” he said. “So, anything you can remember, anything at all, would be really helpful.”

  “Tyler is not a knuckle-dragger!” Summer burst out as if completely unaware that they had already changed the topic. “He is a good, kind man, and any woman would be lucky to have him.”

  “Uh-oh, them’s fightin’ words,” Dot said. She squeezed in under Maggie to get a glimpse of the action through the crack in the door.

  “Now you listen to me, Summer Phillips,” Blair said. If she was feeling weak from blood loss or woozy from meds, it did not show. “I did not raise you to settle for some no-account, minimum-wage-earning loser. What does that man even do?”