He slapped her, sending her face first into the back of the couch. Tears welled in her eyes from the pain. She pushed up, trying to focus on him and what he might do next.
“You have a trust fund. You think I don’t know about that?” He jerked her upright by her hair. “You bragged about it enough when we were growing up.”
“I…I…I can’t get to it yet,” she gasped out. “It’s restricted until I reach thirty-five or get married. I couldn’t get a dime from it if I wanted to.”
“Fuck,” he shouted and threw her by her long hair onto the floor. “I should kill you for leading me on.”
“You took the money from my safe,” she said. “That had to be enough to get you away somewhere safe.”
He snorted. “That wasn’t enough to get me out of the country. I need big money. Enough to set me up in South America. Somewhere with no extradition treaty with the US.”
“What about the jewelry store you robbed next to me? Surely he had some good stuff there?”
Slade’s face took on a manic expression. He began pacing around the room. “Naw. I haven’t found a buyer for that crap. What to do…what to do?” he muttered as he walked.
She found her footing and stood. She had to do something. Slade was just manic enough to kill her since he’d just found out she had no value to him.
He swung the gun toward her. “How much did you say you have in your bank account?”
Looking down the barrel of a gun made her flinch. “Not much. Maybe a thousand.” Even as the words left her mouth, she realized she probably should have lied and given him a much higher balance. If he thought he could get more from her when the bank opened, it might have bought her more time tonight. But damn her mouth and lack of ability to lie when she was scared to death.
“Fuck,” he shouted again and dragged his hand through his hair. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Gesturing with the gun toward her purse, he said, “Give me your purse.”
As she picked up the purse, she thought about swinging it at him. Maybe she could dislodge the gun from his hand. Ack. Stupid idea. She’d watched way too much television. She was a baker, not a boxer.
He waved the gun as she took a step toward him. “Slow,” he said. “Drop the purse on the table and move back.”
She did, but he wouldn’t find much in there. There was a secret compartment in her wallet where she hid five-hundred dollars of mad money, but he’d never find that. Should she give that to him and hope that he’d go away?
Was he going to kill her no matter if she gave him money? If he was going to shoot her no matter what, she’d rather go down fighting.
She glanced around the room looking for something, anything, that could be used as a weapon. When she got out of this, if she got out of this, she was going to get that concealed weapon license she’d been meaning to apply for.
Her eyes alighted on a black and white onyx tray she’d brought home from a vacation in Mexico. The thing was heavier than shit. It would crack him good if she could figure out how to get to it and then get him to stand still so she could brain him with it.
Yeah, she needed a better plan.
Slade dumped out the contents of her purse on the coffee table and tossed aside items of no value, such as tissues, lipsticks and a mirror. Papers from her wallet were tossed onto the table as he searched for any money she might have stashed in the various pockets and slots. His grip on the gun grew lax.
Until she came up with a better plan…she eased toward the tray sitting on the high table under the front window. She’d made three steps when Slade leveled the gun on her.
“Where the fuck are you going?”
She nodded toward the ginger jar on the table. “Checking the ginger jar. Sometimes I stash some mad money in there.”
“I’m watching you. Don’t try anything funny.”
She reached the table, knowing full well there was no money in the ginger jar. At best, she could hand him a fist of dust from it, but that’s about it.
The stomp of boots on the porch reverberated through the door. Slade’s head and full attention snapped toward the door. This might be the only chance she had. She wrapped her fingers around one end of the tray and lifted it from the table as her doorbell rang.
“Porchia? You in there?”
Darren. What was he doing back here?
Slade’s gaze never moved from the door. He raised his gun and pointed. The doorknob twisted and the door eased open.
“Porchia?”
Darren stepped through the door.
“Don’t fucking move,” Slade growled.
Porchia hauled back and slammed the thick onyx tray across the back of Slade’s head. She heard the crack of bone at the same time as the crack from the gun.
Blood gushed from Slade’s head as he slumped to the floor.
She glanced at Darren expecting a broad smile for her actions. Instead, he was looking down at the bright red blossom on his white shirt from the bullet shot by Slade.
Not knowing if Slade was dead or unconscious, she didn’t dare let him regain use of his gun. She kicked the gun across the room as her front door slammed open and four deputies followed by Sheriff Marc Singer stormed into the room.
Porchia didn’t go to the hospital with Darren for a number of reasons. The main one was that she figured the last person the Montgomerys would want to see was the person who’d gotten their son shot.
Of course, Marc Singer had her sequestered in her kitchen and wouldn’t let her leave, but she also didn’t put up much of a fight either. The sheriff had a dead man, a shot man, an unconscious deputy and a job to do. Porchia understood that. However, she was going nuts not knowing what was happening with Darren.
The paramedics hadn’t told her anything either. As soon as the cops burst through the door, she’d been hustled out of the room to sit at her kitchen table, and that was where she still sat an hour later.
Crime scene investigators were combing through her entire house, not just the living room. From her restricted position, she could see black fingerprint dust on tables in her living room. If she understood correctly, the technicians were also dusting the rest of her house. She suspected, but did not know for a fact, that they were looking for Slade’s fingerprints in other rooms of her house. As far as she knew, they wouldn’t find them, but what if they did? What if Slade had been in her house without her knowledge? Could they jump to the incorrect conclusion that she and Slade had been in cahoots and that she’d had a part in burning down her bakery?
Marc Singer sat again at her table. “Okay, Porchia, let’s go through this again.”
She stood. “Enough. We’ve been through this twenty times. And twenty times, I’ve told you the same thing. Am I under arrest?”
“No,” Singer said. “Sit down”
“Damn it, Marc. You haven’t told me anything and it’s been hours. Do I need to call a lawyer?”
He hiked an eyebrow. “I don’t know. Do you?”
The only lawyers she knew were Darren’s sister and Darren’s cousin. And she suspected neither of them would want to offer their legal services. Even their new associate might feel like it was a conflict of interest to represent her.
Putting her hands flat on the table, she leaned toward Singer. “Don’t you understand? I need to see what’s happening with Darren. No one has told me anything.” She sighed and dropped back into her chair. “His family is going to hate me.”
“Porchia. Don’t say anything else until we’ve had time to talk.”
She looked toward the door. Her mouth gaped in amazement as Jason Montgomery walked in.
“Marc. I’ve been retained to represent Ms. Summers. You are not to question my client any further without my being present.”
“Jason? What? Who?” She shook her head. “What are you doing here?”
“Sheriff? I’d like to speak with my client.”
Singer stood. “That’s fine. I’m done for now anyway.”
Jason sat next to Porchia and
leaned in close so they could not be overheard. “Darren is going to be fine. The sonofabitch is beyond lucky. The bullet slid between his side and his forearm. He has a nice deep trench on the inside of his arm and the outside of his chest. The docs cleaned out the area and patched him up. He’ll be sore and bitch a lot, but he’ll be back to normal in no time. They’re keeping him overnight but just for observation.”
The dam of tears she’d been containing broke. Hot, salty tears streamed down her face.
“I thought he was going to die. I saw the blood and just assumed.”
Jason grabbed a roll of paper towels off the counter and handed her one. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose. “Thanks. But I don’t understand. What happened? All that blood. What was it?”
“The bullet hit enough vessels to give him a nasty injury. The white shirt made the blood loss look a whole lot worse than it turned out to be.” Jason grinned. “Reno told him that he’d been nailed worse by barbed wire than this bullet.”
She sagged in relief from the news. “Thank you.”
“No, thank you. Darren told us what happened. That without your fast thinking, he would be a dead man. We owe you a debt of gratitude. If you hadn’t wacked the other guy on the back of the head, Darren says there was no way the bullet would have just grazed him.”
Flinching, she glanced toward the sheriff and leaned in closer. “I couldn’t think of anything else to do. I wasn’t trying to kill him, only incapacitate him long enough to get away.”
“Don’t worry, Porchia. It was self-defense and if the sheriff’s department sees it any other way, Montgomery and Montgomery will be with you the whole way.”
“Thanks, Jason. I really appreciate it.”
“Where will you be staying tonight?”
Her eyes opened wide. “Tonight?” She looked around at the deputies and technicians still combing her house for evidence. “I hadn’t thought about it. I can call Tina or Tanya or one of my friends. They always have a spare bed.”
“KC and Drake have offered you their spare room. KC said that’s the least she could do for the woman who saved her brother’s life.”
Porchia smiled. “Thanks, but I don’t want to put them out. I can probably get a room at the Evergreen B&B. Now that I think about it, I think getting a room there would be perfect, unless…” She glanced toward Marc Singer talking with one of his detectives. “Unless they decide to lock me up.” She looked at Jason. “Am I going to be arrested?”
Jason took her hand. “No. But I’ll go have a little chat with our sheriff and make sure he sees things our way.”
In the end, Porchia was released for the night after Jason promised she’d be back at the station in the morning for additional questioning.
Since Porchia had been supplying the B&B with rolls and pastries for the past couple of years, the owners not only found her a room, but gave her the largest and nicest suite in the old house. While she valued their kindness, she was too tired and too drained to fully appreciate the amenities the room had to offer. After a long, hot shower, she hit the mattress face down.
She’d been asleep for only about thirty minutes when a knock at the door rattled her awake. If this was Singer with more questions, she was going to tell him to call her lawyer and slam the door in his face.
Shoving her long hair off her face, she staggered to the door. Bracing herself for Marc in his I-am-the-sheriff persona, she stumbled back a step upon seeing the man standing there. Pale but looking better than a recently shot man had a right to, Darren grunted as Porchia threw her arms around him with a cry of delight.
“Careful,” he said. “I’m a little sore.”
“Why aren’t you in the hospital? Jason said you were staying overnight.”
“Stop crying and I’ll tell you.”
“Can’t help it,” she said, sobbing into his shirt. “I thought you were dead, and damn Marc wouldn’t let me leave to go to the hospital. But I wanted to be there. You have to know that. I thought you were going to die.”
“Me too. Probably would have if you hadn’t bashed that guy in the head.”
She smiled through her tears. “Come in.” She pulled him through the door and over to the chaise lounge, making sure to grab the unaffected side. “Sit. Sit. Talk to me.”
He sat and made her sit beside him. “I’m fine. A little sore. A lot embarrassed but fine.”
“I think you should be in the hospital.”
He kissed her. “I needed to see you. I had to thank you for what you did. You were so brave.”
“No, I wasn’t. I was scared to death.” She slugged his good arm. “And what were you doing at my house? Don’t you know better than to walk into someone’s house when they aren’t expecting you?”
“Apparently not.” He kissed her again, sending her heart rocketing around in her chest. “I got home. Everything was fine. I missed you. So I came back. And damn good thing I did too.”
“What has your family told you?”
“Everything. Jason came back to my hospital room, where I swear every member of my family was, and told us all he could without violating attorney-client privilege. Let me tell you, my family is behind you one-hundred percent. I would be dead without you.”
“I am so mad at myself. It’s my fault that you and Mallory both got hurt. It’s my fault that Slade Madden came to Whispering Springs.”
He put his arm around her. “No, it’s not your fault. He was a bad seed looking for a place to sprout.”
“You know about the woman who was killed while I was in the car?”
He nodded. “Also not your fault. You’re the innocent party here. You’ve done nothing wrong. Not back then and certainly not today.”
She kissed him as relief poured through her. “Thanks.”
It was nice to hear him say she was the innocent party, even if she didn’t believe it. Seventeen years ago, she’d done nothing wrong. But now, she should have never let the situation get so out of control.
She hugged Darren around the waist.
Thank God for onyx trays and bad aims.
Chapter Twenty-One
The state fire marshal confirmed the arson of Heavenly Delights. Neither the money stolen from the bakery nor any of the stolen jewelry was on Slade’s body when he died.
It took the sheriff’s department a few days, but Deputy Brody found the fleabag hotel where Slade had been holed up when the hotel’s owner called to complain about a gas smell. Concerned about the odor, the gas company was notified.
In the area on patrol, Brody met the gas company representative at the Stay-N-Play motel outside of town. The scent was traced to room five, which was in the back and on the end of the hotel. Inside, Slade’s limited personal belongings were in the closet, along with two thousand in cash, ten watches, a dozen cocktail rings and a few gold necklaces. In the bathtub were four cans of gasoline.
With Mallory James’s testimony and the physical evidence in the room, the sheriff’s department and the Texas State Fire Marshal’s office closed the case with the finding that Slade Madden had acted alone in the burglary and arson of Heavenly Delights and Randall Jewels and Keepsakes.
Closing the case did not mean slowing the gossip around Whispering Springs. Porchia felt every eye on her no matter where she went. Whispers followed her through stores.
Behind her back, a small group of townspeople who didn’t really know her speculated that somehow she must have been in league with Slade Madden. She had even heard that she had probably killed Slade on purpose to keep him quiet about their dealings. She didn’t try to defend or explain. That would have been a waste of her breath and her time. People would believe what they wanted to believe.
Close friends and those who knew her understood that all the gossip was just that…untrue rumors spread by nosey folks with too much time on their hands, who believed putting another person down would somehow make them look bigger. That never worked, but mean-spirited gossipers never learned.
For Porchi
a, the weeks that followed the fire were as if she were reliving her life from all those years ago. It had hurt then to be the subject of rumors and innuendos. It hurt now. Time didn’t change that.
Meetings with her insurance adjuster and a couple of contractors confirmed what she had feared since the night of the fire. The bakery was beyond repair. The most cost-efficient option was to demolish the damage and rebuild from the ground up. Porchia just wasn’t sure she had the fortitude to go through the months and months required to start again.
Porchia told her employees that they needed to find other jobs. Insurance would pay on her fire claim, but cutting a check of that size took time.
She abandoned the idea of baking from her home and spent days getting all her brides rescheduled with other bakeries, mostly in and around Dallas. Her personal kitchen simply didn’t have the equipment required to produce professional cakes. Once that decision was made and all the cakes had been farmed out, she found herself with too much time on her hands and a mind with nothing to concentrate on except how much she had screwed up her life.
Through it all, Darren stood by her. He made her go out to dinner when she might have stayed hidden in her house. He dragged her to Leo’s for drinks with the gang and out to his house for horseback rides.
And every time they made love, he made her feel like a princess. The very last thing she wanted to do was hurt him in any way. However, one idea circled through over and over. Maybe her staying in Whispering Springs and trying to rebuild after someone from her past had brought so much trouble to town wasn’t the best idea. She had started over in a new, unfamiliar place before. She could do it again, but moving away from a man she loved would be heartbreaking.
As October rolled into November, the days got shorter and the weather got cooler, but she found no answers to all her questions about her future. However, some good did come from those idle weeks. She spoke with her parents more regularly than she had in years.
The initial call to tell them what had happened had been nerve racking. They, of course, had been shocked and scandalized to hear their only child was once again involved in the death of another individual. And while they said all the right words about her losing the bakery, Porchia felt an undercurrent of relief from them, as though they were glad that period of her life was over. When her mother asked her to come home—home—for Thanksgiving, Porchia had cried. It’d been the first time in years her parents had indicated they would like to have her back in Atlanta on a more permanent basis. Could she go home again?
Texas Hustle Page 20
