I really was hoping she was that stupid, Felicity thought. She heard the sound of a distant car, and she glanced to her left. The barn was up on a hill and a short distance away was a long stretch of road. She could see headlights in the distance. If she ran down the hill, she hoped that she would be able to make it in time, and without getting shot in the back or hit by the oncoming car. She breathed deeply; the moon was behind the clouds again. Geeze, I hope I don’t run straight into a tree, she thought and then began her rapid descent down the hillside.
Felicity ran as fast as her legs could carry her; she nearly tripped once running down such a steep slope. She could hear Nadine shouting after her, but she left her in the dust. She ran through the thick collection of trees, and her lungs started to burn. Wearing her thin flats, she could feel every rock, stick, and small puddle underneath her feet. At one point, she tripped over a bundle of pinecones and scratched her palms. She sat for a second in pain but didn’t have time to assess any injuries. She jumped to her feet, realizing she had lost a shoe but she didn’t have time to worry about finding it.
She took off toward the road and glanced back for a split-second to see that Nadine had already reached the bottom of the hill. She could hear the car coming down the incredibly empty road. What if the person didn’t stop for her? Or worse, what if the car hit her? It wasn’t as though she had time to debate with herself. Nadine was clearly intent on killing her tonight. She ran out into the road and waved both hands; her left foot, the one missing its shoe, landed on a small rock and she gritted her teeth. “Help!” Felicity cried out, and the car slammed on its breaks.
The lights from the vehicle were blinding, but she ran over to the passenger’s side and the driver pushed the door open. “Thank God,” she said as she hurried around, quite eager to jump into a complete stranger’s car in order to avoid Nadine. “Please, help me. Someone’s trying to kill me!”
“Felicity, get in,” she heard a familiar voice she didn’t care to hear.
“Mack!” she shrieked when she saw who had come to her rescue that early morning.
“Get in!” he shouted, and there was an honest panic in his tone.
Felicity hesitated, but only for a moment. She could hear Nadine screaming for her just beyond the trees. She breathed deeply and she took the risk, climbing into the car with Mack. He sped off, and as they were pulling off, Felicity heard another gunshot. The back window shattered, and Mack let out a surprised shriek as they left Nadine behind in the middle of the road. Felicity took a deep breath and leaned back in her seat. Her hands shook slightly; Mack had just rescued her, but she certainly didn’t feel safe.
Chapter 13
The road was completely dark that night. Felicity lived a short drive from Main Street and the local police station, but this long, winding road was quite a stretch and seemed to be even longer than usual. There were no street lights in this area, only the light of Mack’s headlights and the natural light of the moon allowed them to see the road ahead. “All right, Mack,” Felicity said firmly, rubbing her sore foot that had endured a barefoot sprint through the woods. “Start talking.”
“She’s crazy!” Mack exclaimed. “She shot out my back window!”
Felicity shook her head and then subtly started recording their conversation on her cellphone. She never knew what could wind up being potential evidence. “Not what I meant, Mack. What do you know?”
“What do I know?” he whaled. “I know that I slept with the wrong married woman, that’s what I know!”
“Did you kill Jamie?” Felicity asked.
“You’re insane! I’m not the one who just chased you through the woods with a gun!” Mack snapped. “Nadine pushed her off the roof, all right?”
“Why were you serving Jamie drinks, then?” Felicity questioned. “And I found your military pendant at the scene of the crime, Mack. So you better start talking, or you’re going to—”
“My pendant? I gave it to Nadine to hold onto at the party after Jamie ripped it off my shirt and broke the back off,” he said. “Jamie kept harassing me at the party, and at one point, she ripped my pendant clear off my shirt. I didn’t want to lose it, so I asked Nadine to hold onto it for me. That’s all!”
“The drinks, Mack,” Felicity insisted upon an explanation.
The man grunted. “Look, Roger and I go back. I didn’t want him to find out about Nadine and me. I thought she was going to leave him, but apparently they have some prenuptial agreement that was really going to screw her up if she got caught having an affair. Jamie figured us out and she showed up at the party to confront us. I was just buying her drinks to try to win her over. You know, be nice. Smooth talk and try to convince her to keep her mouth shut.”
“After talking to David, it sounded like you were trying to do a lot more than that!”
“All right, all right—it’s nothing like that. I just was trying to get her drunk enough to tell me what she knew and to see if she had any proof, okay? That’s all! I would never hurt a kid! Nadine was supposed to go home, but she wound up hanging out with David at the bar for a bit, and he told her about Abigail having to lock a drunk girl up on the roof. After the party, Nadine came back to my place and we hung out like we always do. I had no idea Nadine did it until just a few hours ago when I told her about you asking me a bunch of questions. Then she laughed like it was nothing and said she would handle it, and then she took my gun and headed out here. I followed her because she was acting like a lunatic who had just outright told me she pushed some poor kid off the roof of a building! I wasn’t sure what she was headed out here to do!”
Felicity wasn’t sure she believed Mack’s story. The distant sound of a roaring engine alerted her; she didn’t see any headlights behind them, but she sat upright in surprise. “Someone’s following us. Speed up. I think it’s Nadine!”
“She’s crazy!” Mack declared and rammed the gas. Headlights turned on behind them, and Mack cried out in surprise. Seconds later, the car behind them rear-ended them and sent them flying forward. They spun for a moment before Mack had the car back in control again. He screamed and cussed, continuing down the long stretch of road and increasing his speed.
The smell of burnt rubber filled Felicity’s nostrils; Nadine was right behind them, blaring her horn and occasionally ramming their back end. “She’s going to knock us off the road!” Felicity cried out.
There was a stop sign up ahead, and there was a black car approaching rapidly perpendicular to them. “Speed up!” Felicity demanded, and Mack obeyed, ramming his foot down on the gas pedal.
Felicity’s heart fluttered slightly as they just barely zipped through the stop sign without being hit by the black vehicle approaching at full speed, clearly not seeing the stop sign themselves. Nadine’s car ran the stop and the black vehicle rammed head-on into Nadine. Glancing over her shoulder, Felicity could see that the black vehicle had jammed its brakes, to no avail, in an attempt to avoid the collision. The larger vehicle stood strong, though its front end crumbled upon impact while Nadine’s small car began to flip several times before landing upside down in the nearby ditch.
Mack slammed on his brakes, stopping the vehicle a few yards from the accident. He gasped and gripped the wheel of the car, turning his knuckles white. There was smoke coming from both the black vehicle and from Nadine’s tiny car. Felicity and Mack exchanged nervous glances, but ultimately they climbed out of the car to check on the accident victims.
“Geeze, you ran that stop sign, Jack!” a familiar voice snarled. “You about broke my neck!”
Felicity saw Jack climbing out of the drivers’ seat of Jefferson’s car. “You all right, Jefferson?” Jack asked, seeming incredibly stunned by the ordeal.
“My door is stuck! Get me out of here!” Jefferson roared. “You totaled my car! My leg is stuck!”
“Guys!” Felicity shouted, and the two men glanced in her direction.
“Felicity?” Jack questioned. He then glared at Mack, and his entire body s
eemed to stiffen in his anger. “You!” he declared and began a quick march toward them.
Mack stood behind Felicity and then took several steps back in fear. “Easy, Jack, it wasn’t him!” Felicity warned. “I was wrong! Back off!”
Jack gritted his teeth and then looked toward the vehicle that was upside-down in the ditch. “Aww man, who’s in there? Are they okay?” He started toward the ditch, but Felicity stopped him.
“Call an ambulance and go help Jefferson out of the car,” she said.
“Whoever that is could be really hurt,” Jack protested. “Jefferson’s fine. He can wait.”
“It’s your aunt,” Felicity said. “She was trying to kill me.”
Jack’s eyebrows raised, and he instinctually hurried toward the car. “Aunt Nadine!” he called out for her, but didn’t receive an answer.
Felicity looked over her shoulder at Mack. “Call an ambulance,” she stated. “And tell the 911 operator to send Officer Patrick Waverly down here immediately.”
Mack nodded and stepped aside to call 911. Felicity hurried after Jack. He was leaning into the car. “She’s alive,” Jack said over his shoulder toward Felicity as she climbed down into the ditch. “But she’s hurt, and she’s knocked out.”
“Don’t move her,” Felicity said.
“I know that,” Jack said. “I am trained in this sort of thing, you know?” He grew quiet for a moment. “Why did you say she was trying to kill you?”
“Because Mack told her that I was asking questions about Jamie,” Felicity said. “She must have figured out that I was piecing everything together. I’m sorry, Jack, but your aunt was the one who killed Jamie, and she tried to kill me to keep my mouth shut about it too. She chased me through the woods and shot at Mack and I. Mack saved me.”
“But why?” Jack questioned.
“To keep her affair a secret,” said Felicity. “Mack says there was some sort of prenuptial agreement, and if Roger found out about the affair, she would have been cut off from all of his money.”
A few grueling minutes passed and soon they heard the sound of sirens in the distance. Two patrol cars arrived on scene first, and Jack backed away from his aunt to let them handle the situation themselves. The ambulance arrived a few minutes later, and the paramedics worked with the officers to get Nadine out of the car and onto a stretcher. The woman mumbled slightly, but she did not awaken.
A firetruck had to come cut Jefferson out of his car, but apart from a bloodied nose, he was mostly unharmed and declined an ambulance ride. Patrick was among the officers who had arrived on scene, and the man looked positively grim as he rounded up Felicity, Mack, Jefferson, and Jack while the other officers taped off the area as an active crime scene. “So any of you care to explain why I am in the middle of this empty road at five in the morning?” Patrick asked.
“My car is a good ways back in a ditch,” Felicity said. “And the evidence is still there.”
Patrick pointed his thumb in Mack’s direction. “But you said that evidence pointed toward this guy?”
Mack held up both hands defensively. “I just saved her life!” he claimed and nodded toward Felicity.
“True,” Felicity said. “I was looking at it wrong. The pendant I found up on the roof did belong to Mack, but if what Mack says is true, Nadine had it on her. He claims Jamie broke the pendant, and from some of the photos I have from the party, I’d say it was likely that he might have gotten into an altercation with Jamie.”
“It’s true!” Mack swore. “I gave my pendant to Nadine to hold onto because I didn’t want it to get lost.”
“You realize I’m going to be arresting you for aiding and abetting.”
Mack quickly interrupted Patrick. “I didn’t know! I didn’t know that Nadine had killed Jamie until just a few hours ago. Then she started talking about hurting Felicity, and I chased after her to keep her from doing something stupid!”
Felicity watched as Patrick’s eyes did a sweep of the scene that lay before them: shattered glass, burnt rubber, and two completely totaled vehicles and a third with bullet holes. The young officer then said in the most sarcastic tone conceivable, “Good job with that, Mack.”
“If you’ll take me back to my car, I can show you what evidence I have,” Felicity said. “Though I’m pretty sure after what all Nadine did and said tonight that it won’t be entirely necessary.”
“I should probably call my uncle and tell him what’s going on,” Jack said. “The man is pretty clueless. He probably has no idea what Nadine has been up to.”
Mack went slightly pale at this, but he said nothing. Before leaving with Officer Patrick to go to her own car, she gave both Jack and Jefferson a quick kiss on the cheek as a thank you for rushing to her rescue. Mack was placed in the back of another patrol car and taken in the opposite direction toward the station for questioning, as were Jack and Jefferson while the remaining officers stayed behind to clear the scene and wait on a unit.
Felicity sat in the passenger’s seat of Patrick’s patrol car with a calm demeanor as they headed back toward her home—back up the eerie drive where Nadine had chased her only a half-hour or so ago. “So Nadine chased you through the woods with a gun?” Patrick asked, and she nodded. “Are you okay, Felicity?”
“I’ll be fine,” she assured him. She then laughed. “Honestly, I just wish I knew where my other shoe wound up.”
He laughed at her. “Are you serious?”
“Well, Patrick, it was a really nice pair of shoes,” Felicity said and laughed a little bit herself. It was hard to believe it was finally over, but she felt satisfied with how things had turned out. Jamie was going to get justice for her death, and that was all that mattered now.
Chapter 14
“All right, all right! Everyone hush!” Felicity called over the chatter. “Jefferson, would you turn the television up?”
“On it!” Jefferson hopped up out of his comfortable seat and hurried to the far side of the shop where a television hung from the wall.
They were hanging out after hours at Overton’s Events along with Monte, Veronica, Dawn, Autumn, and, yes, even Jack. The news story about Felicity solving another localized crime was just beginning to air as Jefferson passed out the to-go coffees he had picked up down the street only a few minutes before. The reporter gave Felicity quite an introduction, calling her “Senoia’s own personal Nancy Drew” before Felicity’s face lit up the television screen for her big interview.
Autumn squealed, “You’re on TV!” as though this was the single most miraculous thing that had ever happened to any of them.
“Give it a rest, Autumn,” Jack said. He was dressed in his officer’s uniform; his sabbatical had finally ended, and he was going to have to head to work shortly.
Once the interview ended, Monte and Dawn both clapped dramatically as though Felicity deserved an Oscar for her performance. Felicity laughed, embarrassed. “Well, I’m glad they did a tribute to Jamie during the story. She was a smart girl. She would have made a great detective with the way she spied out her aunt.”
“You know, Felicity,” Jack said, becoming very serious. “What you did for me and my family, it was amazing…but you realize how dangerous it was, right? Jamie lost her life trying to be…well, trying to be an amateur detective. I’m really grateful for what you did, but, well, maybe leave it to the professionals in the future, you know?”
Felicity nodded, but she crossed her fingers behind her back. When things got personal for her, it was far too difficult to let it go. “You know I’m always careful, Jack.”
Jack laughed. “Sure,” he said and then smiled at both her and Jefferson. “I really don’t know how I could ever repay you two for what you did for my sister.”
“You could pay to replace my car,” Jefferson huffed.
“Not going to happen,” Jack said. “Who drives without insurance?”
“Who runs a stop sign you can see from two miles back?” Jefferson retorted. “I don’t get why I had to pay
a fine for driving without insurance when you’re the one who wrecked my car to begin with!” Jefferson sat on the arm of the couch, since Jack had stolen his seat.
“Oh, save it,” Jack said, grabbing Jefferson by the ankle and giving him a pull. Jefferson tumbled off the side of the couch and into Dawn, who was seated beneath on one of Felicity’s bean bag chairs.
“Jerk!” Jefferson griped as Dawn shoved him off.
“Relax, Jeffrey,” Jack said with a short laugh. “I’ll help you pay to replace your car, but only if you put insurance on it this time. “
“Speaking of…why did you run that stop sign anyway?” Felicity asked.
“I was just in a hurry to get to you,” Jack said, and Felicity blushed slightly.
“Ooh!” Dawn suddenly yelped, interrupting Felicity’s wandering thoughts. “Hey, guys, listen to Monte’s big news! He finally figured out a new career path!”
“Oh?” Felicity questioned.
“I knew it—he wants to join the party planning game,” Jefferson teased as he forced himself between Jack and Veronica to have a seat.
“Definitely not,” Monte said. “Especially not with you two. It’s downright dangerous working here! I’m going to start working as a DJ for Abigail. She fired Mack. I don’t have a lot of experience, but she’s willing to let me shadow some of her other DJs for a while.”
“What!” Autumn laughed. “Oh, Veronica, you and I are going to be the only ones in our posse left at the hospital when Dawn finishes her degree!”
“Looks that way,” Veronica said.
“All right, guys, it’s been fun, but I’ve got to get to work,” Jack said and rose to his feet; Jefferson immediately scooted over and claimed his spot.
“We still on for the game next Sunday, right?” Monte asked.
“I’ll be there,” Jack promised before heading out.
“So…” Jefferson said once Jack was out the door. “You guys are watching the game together?”
A Fatal Fall: A Senoia Cozy Mystery Page 9
