by Roslyn Woods
“Wow. Will she do time?”
“I don’t know. She knew she was lying, setting me up. But I think it’s a first offense. Maybe she’ll do probation.”
“What about Hector Arena?”
“He’s dead. Ray shot him about an hour and a half before he came here to find the money.”
“Oh, God!”
“Yeah, well, as awful as that sounds, my guess is, Hector Arena had it coming. He was a truly bad guy. In addition to what Ray told the police, there’s evidence that after he killed Danny he kept his body in a freezer for a couple of weeks before the night you saw him take it down to the river.”
“Turns out Ray is a pretty bad guy, too. I never thought he’d bring a gun to your house. He’d been your friend, and I was pretty sure he knew who killed Amanda, but it was still hard to imagine. I guessed wrong until I saw him. Then I just knew it was him.”
“It’s hard to believe,” said Dean.
“And I have a confession to make.”
“Yeah?”
“Till I saw Ray pull into the driveway in that silver Subaru Forrester, I thought your friend Jason was the killer. I even asked Gabe to make the same call to him that he made to Ray.”
“Why?”
“From a distance he looks like you. He drives a gray SUV. I saw him that night at Danny’s Place. I thought he was a bad guy.”
Dean chuckled. “He’s actually a very good guy. He’s one of the least pretentious people I know. He’s high up at Dell, but he spends most of what he makes taking care of his mom and his three younger sisters. He’s sent them all to college, bought them all cars. Now he’s helping them with their kids.”
“I totally misjudged him.”
“He has some rough edges because he had a tough childhood. No dad. Poverty. When he was nineteen or twenty he got in trouble for beating up his mom’s boyfriend. Jason caught the guy trying to molest his little sister. He put him in the hospital, but he himself ended up in jail for a while.”
“Oh my!”
“Yeah, I’m sure I’d have done the same thing if I caught someone trying to hurt my little sister.” Dean smiled and shook his head. “I know why he was at Danny’s Place the night you went over there with Margie and Donald.”
“Why?”
“He just told me he’d been following Ray around himself. He was trying to figure out what was going on. Apparently he’d thought Ray was crooked for a while. When Amanda was killed, well, he just knew Ray had to have something to do with it, and he didn’t want to see me blamed.”
“I had it so wrong. I couldn’t believe your best man could be violent enough to—”
“He’d just killed Hector when he came over here, and he was pretty high, so he wasn’t using a normal person’s judgment.”
“And apparently I wasn’t using very good judgment when I planned how to get him to talk!”
“I would never have let you do it.”
“And yet, you would still be in jail, and you’d have the prospect of a lengthy trial ahead of you. We don’t know what would have happened.”
“And there’s still a death penalty in Texas. You may have saved my life. We were just very, very lucky you weren’t hurt worse.”
Chapter 61
Christmas lights were twinkling on the tree in Margie’s front window as Shell and Dean pulled into the driveway.
“I’ll carry the cookies and fudge, and I’ve got the wine in this bag over my arm,” said Dean as they got out of the Cherokee.
“Okay. I’ve got the rolls and the cranberry sauce,” said Shell.
“Oh my goodness!” said Margie, eyeing the fudge and cookies as they came in the door. “We’ll never be able to eat all that gorgeous stuff, but I’m willing to put in the effort!”
“Hello, Miss Shell,” said Carmen giving her a hug. “I think you look like your arm is all heal now! You finally ready to paint?”
“I am! I can’t wait to see those colors on the walls!” she turned and saw Rita Anderson next. “Rita! I’m so glad you could come!”
“I wouldn’t have missed it, dear,” said Rita. “And I brought my green beans and cherry pie.”
“Ooh, that sounds so good!” said Shell, embracing the older woman.
“And I bring my tamales,” said Carmen
“We’re going to have a feast!” said Donald. “Carmen and Rita, where have you been all our lives?”
“We were just waiting to be friends with you, Mr. Donald!” said Carmen. “And Angel bring his special eggnog!”
“Really Angel?” asked Dean. “You make eggnog?”
“Yes. It is our family tradition,” said Angel with a formal tone and a slight bow.
“Well, then you’re invited every year from now on!” said Dean. “By the way,” he said, turning to Carmen and Rita, “I have a little something for each of you.”
“What?” asked Carmen. “We said no present, Mr. Dean!”
“It’s not from me. It’s from my mom,” he said.
Dean pulled two small boxes from his coat pocket. One was for Rita, and one was for Carmen.
Rita opened the small box and found the pearl brooch she had wanted from among Lana’s things. Carmen opened hers and found the emerald necklace she had admired.
“It is too much, Mr. Dean!” she said with tears in her eyes.
“It’s not, Carmen. Mom loved you, and she’d want you to have it.”
“I never thought I’d see this again,” said Rita, “but you found it!”
“Yes. It was among the things that had been taken and left in the apartment at Steiner Ranch.”
“Well I hope you recovered the rest of the things you were looking for,” she said.
“Not everything. I never will,” said Dean. “But I found some things I want Shell and Margie to have, and we all thought you ladies should have these.”
“I’ll cherish this because your mother actually wore it quite a lot, and it always made me feel happy. She was such a good, lovely woman,” said Rita.
“And I will cherish, too, Mr. Dean. I never have something so beautiful!” said Carmen as Angel attached the clasp at the back of her neck.
“My mom loved both of you and thought of you as her dear friends,” said Dean, “and I hope you’ll always be ours, too.”
“Of course we will!” said Rita.
It was a lovely night of delicious food and wonderful company. Toward the end of dinner, Donald clanged his glass with his fork. “We actually have an announcement,” he said, pausing and looking around the room with a glad expression on his face. “Margie and I want to thank everyone for coming. And we’d like to explain why Margie is refusing all the lovely booze y’all have brought,” he said happily. “We’re expecting a baby in about six month’s time!”
Of course, Shell knew already, but there was certainly a joy attached to the announcement. There were hugs and congratulations from everyone.
“Well,” said Rita gazing happily at the expectant couple, “I hope you’ll let me give you a baby shower!”
“Only if I get to help,” Shell added.
“And I too,” Carmen piped in.
“Okay,” said Margie, “but you have to let me do the cake.”
“Who could argue with that?” Donald asked. “And Dean and Angel and I will be happy to eat any cake that’s leftover from the shower.”
“Especially if it’s chocolate,” Dean added.
About the Author
Roslyn Woods, an oil painter and watercolorist, has quietly written fiction for years. She lived in Barcelona as a child, the daughter of two writers. Roslyn now lives in Austin, Texas with her husband and her dog, a lovable mutt.
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Also by Roslyn Woods
Have you read Book 1 of the Michelle Hodge Series?
The Point of Death (Book 1)
Twenty-four year old Shell Hodge is in the final stretch of her quest for a master’s degree in art history when tragedy strikes at her art co-op near the University of Texas at Austin. She finds the body of beautiful and charismatic Dr. Leone, her art teacher from UT, and she is forced to endure an aggressive interview by the police. Believing that the approach of the detectives—targeting the students who cared most about their teacher—is unlikely to result in the capture of the real murderer, Shell embarks on her own search for answers. A circle of clues leads back to her best friend’s ex, Jeremy. Meanwhile, that same best friend, Margie—an aspiring chef and a successful baker—has some ideas of her own about Jeremy, one of them being that she wants to keep her little dog and herself as far away from him as possible. Enlisting the help of a handsome psychologist seems like a good idea at first, but learning that he also has a secret and that it, too, leads back to the murder victim, puts Margie on an emotional rollercoaster, while Shell winds up at the point of death when she finds herself facing a killer.
You have just read The Murder Motif (Book 2)
Romancing the Brush (Book 3)
THE STORY CONTINUES…Thirty-year-old Shell Hodge seems to have it all: a great life with Dean, the man of her dreams, and an art career that is taking off. But when one of the partners in her gallery, Garrett Hall, is murdered, Shell’s life seems to go into a tailspin. She is thrown into a fearful state as memories of her parents’ deaths surface, and she finds herself worrying about her relationship with Dean while she puzzles over Garrett’s murder. To make matters worse, Shell’s ex-boyfriend intrudes into a family visit at just the wrong moment, causing a rift between herself and Dean just when she needs him most. She is on her own again, and a killer is on the loose. Will she and Dean work out their troubles before something worse happens, or will it be too late? Shell has gone missing…
The Girl With the Dragonfly Tattoo (Book 4)
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