Bonbon With the Wind

by Dorothy St. James

  As I approached the ruins of the old Coast Guard base, my heart began to pound. Was Byrd right? Was I walking into trouble of my own making?

  I hated surprises.

  Hopefully, everything would go according to plan.

  I headed straight for the remains of what looked like a storage building. It was the only building that still had four walls and an opening where a door used to be. This had to be the place.

  Anything? I texted Harley.

  You’re the first person we’ve seen since getting here, he texted back.

  I focused on a thick clump of underbrush where I suspected Harley and Althea were hiding. I couldn’t see anything.

  I glanced around some more. No sign of Gibbons.

  That was good. Right?

  For some reason, I wanted to see them. But if I could see them, others could too.

  I’m heading into the building to wait, I texted before pushing my phone into my back pocket.

  As soon as I stepped foot into what remained of the small building, I knew I wasn’t alone.

  I nearly tripped over my own feet when I saw the man who was waiting for me in the shadows of the building, a building we had all thought was empty. “You-you’re early.”

  His hair was in disarray. His eyes wide with panic. He marched toward me like a man who wanted revenge.

  “You don’t need that gun.” I struggled to sound calm while my heart hammered painfully against my chest. How had our carefully thought-out plan failed so dramatically? He wasn’t supposed to have a gun. And how had he hidden himself so well that no one knew he was here? Certainly Gibbons and Harley would have taken a look around before getting into position.

  I threw my hands in the air. “You-you don’t want to shoot me.”

  He barked a laugh. “Missy, you don’t know what I want.”

  “I think I do know. And I think we can help each other,” I said because I sure as heck didn’t want to get shot.

  I swallowed around a lump in my throat. This wasn’t the first time I’d found myself on the wrong end of a handgun. In the past, I’d been lucky to escape with my life. Had that fantastic luck of mine finally run out? “Big Dog, you don’t want to shoot me.”

  “Weren’t you listening?” With a look of pure rage, he shook his gun at me. “You don’t know what’s going on in my head!”

  I closed my eyes, fully expecting him to pull the trigger and end things right then and there. When nothing happened, I said very quietly, “I know you didn’t kill Joe Davies.”

  He didn’t answer. Had I spoken too quietly? Had he not heard me? I began to repeat myself, talking a bit louder this time when he cut me off. “You’re lying.”

  I shook my head. “No, I’m not lying. For one thing I know what it’s like to be the black sheep of the family. Your brother believes the worst of you. Always has and always will. Well, both my mother and father treat me the same way. It stinks. I’m not going to do that to you.”

  He frowned at that. But his gun remained locked in place.

  “I know you came to Camellia Beach in search of the gold. I know—”

  “There’s no pirate treasure!” he shouted. “That was a lie!”

  “Yes, but Sammy stole gold from the bank. From under your nose. Why was the bank stockpiling the gold in the first place? Was that your idea? Is that why the feds suspected you of the crime?”

  Big Dog shrugged. “I didn’t make any changes to how things were run at the bank. It was the trustees who had lost faith in the federal government. They feared the dollar might collapse, so they started to buy gold bars as a safeguard. Other banks around the country having been doing it too. Or so they told me. I honestly didn’t care.”

  “I see. And after Sammy was released from jail you followed him to Camellia Beach in order to find those stolen gold bars and hand it back to the bank. You wanted to prove to your brother that you aren’t the screw up he thinks you are, isn’t that right?”

  “Not that he’d believe it,” Big Dog grumbled.

  “No, he won’t. Put the gun down. I know you didn’t kill Joe. But if the police come running in here, they might not see things the same way.”

  The hand he was using to hold the gun was trembling. “Maybe I found Joe before the storm. Maybe I no longer care about the gold. Maybe I’m here because I’m looking for revenge. Sammy and Joe are gone. Maybe my task is done.”

  “Come on now,” I said. “If that were true, you wouldn’t be here. You wouldn’t be skulking around in an abandoned storage building. You’d be in another country by now. My arms are getting tired. Can I put them down now?”

  He nodded, but he didn’t lower the handgun. I still had quite a clear view down its shiny barrel.

  “I don’t have the gold,” I told him.

  He rolled his eyes heavenward. “Harley lied, didn’t he? He lied to lure me here.”

  “Don’t be too hard on him. He’s worried about—”

  With an angry growl, Harley charged into the shadowy ruins like an enraged bull. His head lowered, his right shoulder leading the way. He tackled Big Dog with a loud smack. The impact knocked the wind from Harley’s friend. He landed hard with a groan.

  “He didn’t do it!” I shouted as Gibbons and an armed police officer ran into the building behind Harley with their guns drawn.

  No one seemed to hear me. Harley pinned Big Dog to the ground and pried the handgun from his grip. With efficient movements of a man who knew his way around a firearm, which I found in equal parts sexy and frightening, he checked the chamber to see if it was loaded.

  “It’s empty,” Harley looked up at me and said.

  “That’s because he’s not a killer.”

  “He sure has a funny way of showing it,” Harley said, his voice deep with rage.

  “Brandishing a weapon and threatening people with it is a crime,” Gibbons said. He then turned to the officer and said, “Cuff him.”

  “Wait!” I waved my hands in the air, trying to get everyone’s attention. “He had a gun, but he wasn’t threatening me.” As much as I hated to lie, I felt this was one that needed to be told. I looked at Big Dog. “Isn’t that right?”

  “I—” He glanced at me and then at Harley. “Um…”

  “He wasn’t threatening me,” I insisted. “He’s trying to find the bank’s gold, but he’s not breaking any laws.”

  “He’s been hiding from me,” Gibbons grumbled.

  “Not illegally,” I pointed out. “A man has a right to avoid his brother.”

  Gibbons grunted.

  Harley rolled off Big Dog and then offered a hand to help his friend up.

  “Did you have to tackle me so hard? I think you cracked a few ribs, man,” Big Dog complained as he rubbed his chest.

  “He didn’t kill those two men?” the officer asked, scratching his head. “Then what are we doing here?”

  “You’re helping mend a relationship between two brothers,” I said.

  “We’re doing our jobs,” Gibbons said. “We’re following orders that come from the top.”

  Big Dog held up his hands. “I’m not going to let you drag me in front of Silas like a truant teen. I came to Camellia Beach to clear my name—and catch some gnarly waves—but mostly to clear my name. But with Sammy dead and the gold still missing, I don’t see how that can ever happen.”

  “Harley didn’t lie to you,” I said. “We found the stolen gold. The police have it.”

  “You-you found—?” Big Dog’s voice cracked. He quickly turned away.

  “Will you come down to the station with us, Mr. Graham?” Gibbons asked. “We’d like to take your statement regarding the theft and the murders. And your brother would like to see you.”

  “Your brother is not going to apologize or change overnight. You know that,” I warned. “But you owe it to yourself to stop running from him.”

  Big Dog kept his back toward us as he nodded. “You’re right. I’ll go.” The tone of his voice was rusty. “Not that I think i
t’ll make any difference. I wasn’t the one who recovered the stolen gold, so I’m still the failure, the screw up.”

  Harley laid his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Not to us, man.”

  Gibbons and the uniformed officer led Big Dog out of the ruins. Harley looked at me and frowned.

  “He’ll be okay,” I said. “We’re ending this tonight, remember?”

  “I know, but I still feel like a jerk for what I did to him. He is my friend.”

  “You helped him.”

  His shoulders sagged. “He threatened you with a gun. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to forgive him for that. We should have handled things differently. We shouldn’t have pushed him over the edge like that.”

  “We didn’t push him to the edge. He walked right over that particular cliff on his own when he left your apartment and disappeared.” Which reminded me of something. I chased after Gibbons.

  “Who told you that they saw Big Dog going up the steps toward Harley’s apartment the morning after Sammy’s murder?” I asked Gibbons.

  He hesitated before saying, “I suppose it doesn’t matter now that I’ve found Mr. Graham. It was your new friend. Mary. She was Joe’s daughter, right?”

  “That’s what I thought.” I bit my lower lip.

  “That’s a lie. She didn’t see me. After I left that night, I didn’t come back,” Big Dog said like a man who’d been roundly defeated. “Not that anyone is going to believe me.”

  “I do,” I said.

  Big Dog looked at Harley, who’d come to stand next to me and shook his head. “You’re probably the only one who believes that. And here I am. I failed to prove I wasn’t involved with the theft. I failed to recover the gold. And now these guys are going to charge me for Sammy’s murder.”

  “No, Gibbons wouldn’t do that,” I said.

  “That’s for Prioleau to decide,” Gibbons warned.

  No, it wasn’t. The night wasn’t over, and the plan we’d put into place hadn’t worked its way to the end.

  “Althea took my car and is headed to the Chocolate Box,” Harley said as we watched the police lead his friend away.

  I nodded. “Good.”

  At the same time my gut clenched. While the pieces for catching a killer tonight were falling into place as I’d expected them to, that didn’t mean I had to feel happy about it.

  Chapter 30

  Harley drove while I called Chief Byrd to make sure he was still willing to help out with our unwise caper as he’d grumpily called it.

  “I’m already in place. But only because Gibbons sweet-talked me into it. This plan of yours is going to turn out to be a big, fat waste of everyone’s time,” he grumbled and then hung up.

  I hoped to prove him wrong, didn’t I?

  My gut clenched again.

  Harley glanced over at me before turning onto the road that led to the Chocolate Box. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to.

  I had promised Mary that I’d help her find the villain who had killed her father. And I prided myself on keeping my promises.

  A light wind rustled the leaves in the ancient oak tree that guarded the entrance of my shop. The Spanish moss hanging from its sweeping branches waltzed in the moonlight like debutants at an otherworldly cotillion.

  Harley parked my car in one of the parking spots reserved for our upstairs apartments. He then turned off the ignition. We sat there in silence for several minutes.

  “I don’t like the idea of you going in there alone,” he said finally.

  “You have a son, Harley. You have to think of him,” I said.

  He reached across the console to cover my hand with his. “I get what you’re saying, and I don’t disagree. But I also think you need to send Hank into your shop and stay out here with me.”

  “Byrd will be in there, but if we’re going to get a confession, I need to talk with the killer. Alone.”

  Harley squeezed my hand. His eyes darkened with concern. “I hate this.”

  His concern touched me more than I’d expected. I understood how he felt. If our roles were reversed and he was the one going into the shop, I’d hate it too. I’d turn into a warrior woman set on protecting my man. He cared about me. And I cared about him. I cared probably too much.

  “I love you,” I said.

  What. Just. Came. Out. Of. My. Mouth?

  My heart stopped.

  Harley’s heart must have stopped dead in its tracks too. His entire body stilled. The pressure of his hand on mine remained unchanged as we sat in my car staring at each other like a pair of feral cats who’d crossed into each other’s territory and didn’t know whether they wanted to strike or run.

  My head suddenly felt cold. I knew I needed to breathe, but my lungs had seized.

  The words were out there. I couldn’t take them back. Heck, I couldn’t open my mouth to laugh or say something flip that would chase those other stupid, stupid words away.

  They floated between us like living things.

  What would Harley do with those words? Would he use them against me? Would he laugh? If he laughed, I’d die of mortification.

  After hundreds of long, long moments, the corners of his eyes crinkled. Just a bit. The hard edges of his mouth loosened. Just a bit. The grip of his hand on mine tightened. Just a bit.

  “Penn”—my name was a soft prayer on his lips—“don’t panic.”

  Three words.

  Not the three words most women wanted to hear after such an impulsive declaration, but they were the three words I needed in that edge-of-death-by-mortification moment.

  “You go do what you need to do. I’ll make sure everyone is where they need to be.” His mouth lifted into a cautious smile. “And while you risk your neck, I’ll risk mine and go raid Bertie’s hidden stash of Amar chocolates so you’ll have as much comfort food as you might need when this is all over.”

  At a loss for words—he’d promised me chocolate for heaven’s sake—I pressed my mouth to his before hurrying out into the night and toward the shop.

  ~~

  I’d barely made it to the Chocolate Box’s front door when my phone chimed. I read the text. It was from Althea.

  There’s trouble at my shop, she wrote. I need help.

  What was Althea doing at her shop? She was supposed to be at the Chocolate Box coordinating with Byrd. Everyone, even Trixie and Barbie had been given vital roles to play in our plan to catch the villain. Going against my instincts, I’d not kept any part of the plan a secret from my friends. But by doing that, it meant I needed everyone focused on the plan and not running after trouble elsewhere.

  What’s wrong? I texted back, and then added, I need you here.

  She replied with only one word: Hurry.

  I frowned at the screen.

  Well, it was going to be at least another half-hour before our plan got underway. The crystal shop meant the world to Althea. I could understand why she would rush over there if something seemed amiss. Whether I trusted her completely or not, it didn’t matter. Althea was my friend. And she deserved all the help I could give her.

  After sending a group “be right back” text, I jogged over toward the car. Harley was already heading around the building to the steps. When he saw me hurrying his way, he quickly changed course.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “Althea texted that there’s trouble at her shop.”

  “At her shop? What is she doing there?”

  “I don’t know, but she says she needs help. Will you come with me?”

  “Of course.” He slid into the passenger seat.

  While the shop was only around the corner, with our plan already in motion driving seemed safer than walking. I parked in front of her shop. The place was dark.

  “It shouldn’t be this dark,” Harley said. “She’s been keeping construction lights on inside the building all night for security.”

  A light danced around inside. It looked like a cell phone light.

  “Althea?�
�� I called and pushed on the door.

  It opened. The bell above the door chimed.

  “She shouldn’t have left this unlocked,” Harley said, his voice a low grumble. But this was Althea we were talking about. We all knew she wasn’t all that vigilant when it came to security.

  Harley stayed by my side as we entered the store, using our phones as flashlights.

  “Althea?” I called again.

  Still, no answer.

  We stepped further into her shop. Nothing looked out of place.

  “I don’t like this,” Harley said.

  I tried calling Althea’s cell phone. We could hear it ringing in the rear of the shop. And that’s where we found her, in the back office that she’d just finished framing out. She was lying on the sawdust covered wooden floor. A dark puddle of blood pooled around her head.

  “No!” I shouted and ran to her side.

  Why would someone attack Althea? No one was supposed to get hurt. I’d shared my information with my friends. We’d spent hours creating a plan designed to keep everyone safe. It was supposed to be foolproof.

  I found a pulse, but she remained as still as death.

  “Call EMS!” I shouted.

  “Already on—” Harley started to say.

  And then there was a sickening thud.

  I jumped up in time to see Harley crumple to the ground.

  “No!” I shined my cell phone flashlight in his direction.

  The petite Mary stood like an innocent lamb—if lambs held heavy iron pipes. The pipe was one of the pipes I’d stacked for Althea earlier that day. Mary stared with those large eyes of hers as if she couldn’t believe what she’d just done.

  “What are you doing?” I demanded as I dialed my phone like mad.

  “If you don’t want me to hit your boyfriend again, you’d better drop that phone.” While her voice sounded soft, gentle, she lifted her arm, prepared to take another swing.

  I opened my hand, and the phone clattered to the floor, but it fell in such a way its light still shined in her direction.

  “He’s my beau,” I corrected. I never thought my first opportunity to use it would be in response to a crazed killer. “And I’ll kill you with my bare hands if you touch him again.”