Deed To Death

by D. B. Henson

  Gloria pushed away her memories and sat up. She had a lot of packing to do. All the white furniture, including the bed, was going into storage. She was moving to a smaller apartment over a hundred miles away.

  But the move was only temporary. Just until things blew over. After that, she would live in her own house. A brand new two-story just west of Nashville, with three bedrooms and a big back yard.

  She might even get a dog.

  With ten minutes to spare, Dana pulled her car up to the front gates of the horse farm. She was glad to see that the Micheners hadn’t arrived yet. She wanted to go through the house and turn on all the lights, and put some soft music on the stereo system. She liked to set the right mood for the buyers. Make them feel at home.

  She rolled down her window and punched in the security code. When the gates swung open, she drove up the long winding drive and parked her red Mercedes beneath the darkened port cochere.

  Why hadn’t Toni left the outside lights on? It wasn’t as if the sellers couldn’t afford the electric bill.

  Leaving her headlights on, Dana got out of her car and walked up to the front door. A steady cadence of crickets and tree frogs echoed through the hills. The deafening noise was nearly enough to drive her crazy. She fumbled with the lock box. After a few seconds, it opened and she took out the key.

  She unlocked the door and then returned to her car and switched off her headlights. The last thing she wanted was to get stuck out in the boonies with a dead battery. She hoped to show the house and get the contract written up by nine or ten o’clock. That way, she could get to bed at a decent hour.

  She needed her rest. She had an early breakfast date with a young doctor from Vanderbilt hospital. He was a cardiologist. Just like her father. If things worked out as she hoped, she might be spending part of her commission money on a wedding dress.

  Dana grabbed her briefcase from the passenger seat and walked back to the front door. As she turned the knob, she thought she heard a noise coming from inside the house. She knew the owners had moved out before putting their home on the market.

  She paused and listened. All she could hear was the band of night creatures still playing on. It had probably just been the house settling, or the wind blowing a tree branch across one of the windows.

  She pushed the door open and stepped into the foyer. The house was dark and still. She could kick Toni for not leaving on at least one or two of the lights. What was with that girl?

  Dana ran her hand along the wall next to the door searching for the light switch. She found a bank of three. She flipped the first switch. Nothing happened. She flipped the other two. Still, no lights came on.

  “This is just freaking great.”

  There must be a blown fuse or a tripped breaker. That would also explain why the outside lights were off. Now she would have to go back out to her car, rummage through her trunk for a flashlight, and then stumble around the house looking for the stupid breaker box. She could be here all night.

  She leaned down and placed her briefcase on the floor. When she stood back up, she noticed a bright red dot on the lapel of her jacket.

  “What the –”

  Dana barely felt a thing as the bullet pierced her heart.

  CHAPTER 18

  Toni pulled into her driveway and pushed the remote button for the garage door. It felt strange coming home to a house that was all lit up. It looked so cheery and welcoming. Almost like a party was going on inside. She wished that were the case.

  How many competent twenty-nine year olds were afraid to turn their lights off at night? But then again, how many thought they had a killer watching them?

  She drove into the garage, shut the door, and then looked around before getting out of her car. The idea of someone being in her garage seemed unlikely. But she had once read an article in a real estate magazine about thieves who were able to clone garage door remotes. If Brian had hired a professional, he would probably know how to do it.

  She went inside the house and immediately reset the security system. After dropping her purse on the kitchen counter, she noticed her answering machine was blinking. She wondered if the Micheners had called. Or maybe it was Cheryl telling her that they had decided to use another agent.

  She pressed the play button.

  Instead, it was Mark’s voice. “Toni, call me when you get in. If it’s not too late, maybe we can have dinner. And even if it is late, call me anyway.”

  She erased the message. She didn’t feel like talking to Mark. Not now. Lately, he had been so busy trying to psychoanalyze her that he couldn’t hear what she was actually saying. She knew he was just trying to help. But if she needed someone to delve into her psyche, she would call a shrink.

  Her stomach growled and she realized she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. She opened her refrigerator and scanned the contents. She didn’t really feel like cooking. She could order a pizza, but then she would have to unlock the door for the delivery person. It seemed ridiculous, but she didn’t want to take that risk. She decided to polish off the rest of the tuna salad.

  She grabbed a plate, two slices of bread, the tuna, a Coke, and a bag of Chee·tos and took them all into the family room. She piled the food onto the coffee table, pulled off her jacket and kicked off her shoes. She slid her fingers across the weapon holstered on her side. Was she kidding herself, thinking it would actually be enough protection? Maybe so. But it was all she had.

  After slipping off her belt and holster and dropping them onto the coffee table, Toni plopped down on the sofa and switched on the television. An old rerun of Friends was playing on one of the cable channels. She opened the container of tuna salad and spread it across the bread while Joey and Ross tried to find a way off the roof of the apartment building.

  As the friends started down the fire escape, Toni heard a noise outside. She put down her sandwich. A dog was barking. It was close. Somewhere in her back yard.

  She peeked through the slats in the plantation shutters and searched the lawn. She couldn’t see anything. It sounded as if the barking was coming from the end of the house that had no windows.

  Her neighbors to the left had a dog. A chocolate Lab with an Energizer in its tail. She had seen it in their yard a few times, but she had never heard it bark before. Maybe it had never had a reason. Not until now.

  What if the person Brian had hired to kill her was outside right now?

  Toni muted the volume on the television. She stood next to the French doors listening for any other sounds in the back yard. The barking was too loud to make out anything else.

  This was stupid. She was being paranoid again. Dogs barked. It didn’t necessarily mean that anything was wrong.

  Trying to convince herself that the dog was chasing a rabbit or opossum or maybe even a raccoon, Toni went back to her sandwich. She reasoned with herself. If the person after her was in her yard, wouldn’t he shut the dog up? Kill it before it could warn her? That made sense. She had nothing to worry about.

  If the dog yelped in pain, then she could worry.

  After finishing her dinner, she curled up on the sofa. With the TV volume low, she tried to concentrate on an old black and white western. It was no use. She kept thinking about Brian. He had made Scott’s death look like a suicide. What did he have planned for her?

  A thought crossed her mind and she sat up.

  What if the killer was trying to get the dog to bark?

  What if he wanted to lure her out of the house?

  You saw it in horror movies all the time. First there would be a noise outside. Then a scantily-clad teenaged babysitter, or some other beautiful but stupid and usually female character would go out to investigate. The next thing you knew, the killer would be slashing them into little pieces.

  Only this wasn’t a movie. This was real.

  The dog continued barking throughout the night, fueling her imagination and making it impossible for her to let go of her fear. It was after dawn when she finally drifted off to sleep.<
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  Later that afternoon, Toni awoke on the sofa with a kink in her neck.

  She stretched and rolled her shoulders moving her head from side to side. She glanced at the television. Dana Dawson’s picture was on the screen. Then the camera switched to a female reporter standing outside the gates of the horse farm in Leiper’s Fork.

  Toni grabbed the remote and turned up the volume.

  “—killed last night by a single gunshot wound to the heart,” the reporter said. “A groundskeeper found her body early this morning. The police are telling us robbery was the apparent motive. The victim’s purse and jewelry are missing as well as her car. But the police are not yet sure how many items are missing from the home …”

  Dana was dead.

  Shot last night.

  The Micheners.

  Toni picked up the phone. Her hands shaking, she dialed the office. Janet answered.

  “Have you heard about Dana?” Toni asked.

  “Yes. About an hour ago. We were going to call you but—”

  “It was supposed to be me.”

  “What?”

  “Let me speak to Cheryl.”

  Across town, another phone rang.

  “Yeah?”

  “You idiot, you killed the wrong person.”

  “It was dark. They look a lot alike. I couldn’t tell, not until it was over.”

  “Now she knows for sure. What if she goes to the police again?”

  “She won’t. I’ll take care of it.”

  “You better. And no screw-ups this time. I want her dead.”

  Cheryl came on the line.

  “Did you call Davis Michener last night?” Toni asked.

  “Who?”

  “The Micheners. I left you a message on the answering machine. I had an appointment to meet them at Leiper’s Fork.”

  “No. I didn’t get any message. And I listened to the machine the first thing this morning. You weren’t on it.”

  “Did you see Dana last night?”

  “Yes. She came by to get a copy of a termite inspection.”

  “Was she alone in the office?”

  “Well, the copier jammed, so I had to run downstairs. I was only gone a few minutes.”

  That explained it. Dana had heard the message and decided to meet the Micheners herself. Only this time, the consequences of her conniving were fatal. “There’s a number for Mr. Michener on my desk. Get it for me.”

  Cheryl put Toni on hold and then picked back up a couple of minutes later. “I looked everywhere. There’s no number.”

  Dana must have taken it.

  The police probably wouldn’t be able to trace the number anyway. More than likely, the cell phone was either stolen or a cheap throwaway. And Toni knew, the person she had talked to the day before was definitely not Davis Michener.

  She hung up the phone and dialed the number for the police station.

  “Detective Lewis, please,” Toni said.

  “He’s not in. Can I take a message?”

  “No, no message. I’ll call back later.”

  Would it really do any good? Detective Lewis probably wouldn’t believe her anyway. The police saw Dana’s death as a robbery. To them, money had been the object. After all, the house was worth nearly six million. Any thief would assume valuable items were inside.

  Toni knew what the police were thinking. After Dana had let the thieves into the house, she became a liability. So they got rid of her. Only Toni knew better. Whoever shot Dana had missed their target. They hadn’t been aiming for Dana.

  They had been aiming for Toni.

  An icy knot formed in her chest. If she hadn’t stopped by to see Mark, she never would have driven to Goodlettsville. She would have gone to Leiper’s Fork. She would have been on time. And now, she would be dead.

  She went upstairs to the master bathroom and pulled off her clothes. Turning on the water as hot as she could stand it, she stepped into the shower. She stood under the steaming spray trying to knock the chill out of her body.

  Why did Dana have to be such a schemer? Just this once, why couldn’t she have walked away?

  Damn Brian! He should have been the one who died as a child, not Caitlin. By now, he had to know the killer made a mistake. How long did she have before he tried again?

  When the water turned tepid, Toni got out of the shower. After drying her hair, she dressed in a thick cable-knit sweater and a pair of jeans. As long as she stayed locked in the house, she felt relatively safe. But she didn’t really want to be alone. She tried to call Mark, but he was in court. His secretary didn’t expect him back until late.

  Toni wandered through the house, unsure of what to do. As she entered the study, she heard the rumble of thunder in the distance. She parted the shutters and looked out the window. Dark clouds rolled across the sky. A storm was moving in from the west.

  She ran her fingers along the edge of Scott’s desk and then sat down in his chair. She wished she could travel back in time. Turn the clock back to the days when she and Scott were together. Happy. Looking forward to their future. She never could have imagined the way things would end. So much had changed in one short week.

  She leaned back in the chair and watched the pictures flash by on the computer screensaver.

  Scott owned a digital camera, but he seldom used it. He preferred his old Canon EOS 35mm. After getting the film developed, he had taken the time to scan every single photo from their trip to Cozumel onto his computer’s hard drive.

  Shots of them on the beach morphed into scenes of their day spent with Clint and Jill aboard a sailboat. There were pictures of the four of them at the park at Chankanaab Lagoon and on a side trip to the ruins at Tulum. The slideshow ended with a photo of Scott and Toni dining alfresco at a restaurant on the waterfront.

  As the last picture began to dissolve, Toni’s heart nearly stopped.

  It couldn’t be.

  Her eyes must be playing tricks on her. She pulled the photo album from the bookshelf next to Scott’s desk and opened it near the back. She flipped through the pictures of their trip. On the last page, she found the one she was looking for. Taken as a favor by another American tourist, the photo showed Scott and Toni sitting at an umbrella table smiling, his arm around her, his head tilted toward hers.

  And in the background, at a table to the right, sat Gloria Keith.

  CHAPTER 19

  Toni couldn’t believe it. Gloria had been in Mexico. Why? Was she telling the truth about her relationship with Scott after all? Did he bring her there?

  No, it didn’t make sense. He couldn’t have. He had spent all his time with Toni. They were together the whole trip. And yet, it seemed too odd to be a coincidence.

  Toni studied the photo. It was definitely Gloria. Wearing a lime green sundress and holding a margarita, she had her face turned directly toward the camera as if she were posing too. Had she followed them to Cozumel in a fit of jealousy? Or was it just a weird cosmic fluke? One of fate’s little jokes that put them in the same place at the same time.

  Maybe she had been there with her new boyfriend. The table where she sat was at the edge of the picture, the right side cut off. It was impossible to tell whether someone else had been sitting with her.

  Considering the amount of joy Gloria had received from telling Toni she had slept with Scott, it was surprising she hadn’t come over and introduced herself. She seemed like the type that would try to make Toni jealous. But Gloria had never even spoken to Scott. Why?

  It would have been perfectly natural for her to say hello. And actually strange that she didn’t. Toni recalled they had been at the restaurant for at least an hour. Gloria had to have seen them, and Scott must have been aware of her. How could anyone sit that close to an ex-lover for that length of time and not realize it?

  Their tables had been near enough to overhear each other’s conversations. But Scott had never acknowledged Gloria. Even if they had parted on bad terms and he had pretended not to see her, he should have had
some kind of reaction. There should have been a change in his body language. Toni should have sensed something was going on. Shouldn’t she?

  Toni searched through Scott’s desk until she found his magnifying glass. She flipped back in the album to the first page of pictures from their trip. One by one, she examined every photo. Gloria didn’t appear in any of the other shots. But that didn’t mean that she hadn’t been lurking close by.

  Something just wasn’t right. Toni could feel it in the pit of her stomach.

  She put the magnifying glass down and tried to remember everything Gloria had said at her apartment the day before. It wasn’t much, other than claiming she and Scott had been lovers. But she had also said Scott asked her to give him a gun. That was definitely not something he would do.

  Even if he did take the blame for losing the contract on the hotel, he would never have decided to shoot himself. Gloria had made that up. And Toni had called her on it. She remembered the look on Gloria’s face. Total shock.

  Then Toni realized what else she had said to Gloria. The words echoed in her mind.

  I know who killed Scott, and soon I’ll have the evidence to prove it.

  A few hours later, someone had called Toni’s office pretending to be Davis Michener. That someone had killed Dana.

  Gloria was the only person who knew that Toni was collecting evidence against Brian. What if they were working together? They could have been planning Scott’s murder for months. Watching him, waiting for the right opportunity. Going as far as following him to Mexico. Even if they didn’t plan to kill him there, Gloria’s plane ticket would show she had been in Cozumel on the same date as Scott. It could serve as proof they were having an affair. That would make her story seem even more credible to the police.

  Then another idea hit Toni.

  Maybe the reason Scott hadn’t reacted to Gloria at the restaurant was because he had never seen her before. Neither Mark nor Jill knew Gloria. If Scott had really dated her, they should have met her at least once. And Gloria was definitely not someone you would forget meeting.