by Lynn, JB
A moment later, we heard footsteps pounding down the stairs as Templeton came running. I winced guiltily.
“What’s wr—” Templeton asked as he barreled into the room, almost knocking over Leslie in the process. He jerked to a halt when he saw Marlene was being held hostage.
“Sorry,” I muttered.
“Not him,” Mr. Sinister growled. “We want Lee.”
“Archie?” Leslie asked.
“Everyone slowly put your phones on the floor and kick them toward me,” Sinister ordered.
Jack and Templeton complied.
“Mine’s in my purse, which I left on the porch,” I told him.
In the basement, DeeDee began to bark wildly. “Out get! Out get!”
Again, Blondie aimed his gun at the basement door.
“It’s just the dog,” I assured him hurriedly. “She’s locked in the basement with the cat.”
“Ummm, no, she’s not,” Piss meowed. “Your father just came in and let her out.”
“Fantastic,” God whispered so that only I could hear. “The only one with any chance of saving us is the moron mutt. It’s not like anyone’s ever going to mistake her for Lassie and know that we need help.”
“Where is he?” Mr. Sinister asked. “Where’s Archie?”
“He’s not here,” Marlene told him.
Blondie tightened his chokehold. Tears welled in her eyes.
“Hey, hey,” I said, taking a step toward them.
Blondie pointed the gun at me.
“I’ll get you Archie,” I promised. “Just be prepared that the cat might run out of the basement when I open the door, so don’t start shooting,” I added, hoping that would prepare Piss to make her escape.
“I’m ready, sugar,” Piss meowed.
I moved slowly and deliberately across the room, telling both her and the thugs exactly what I was doing. “I’m going to open the door and call him upstairs.”
“Do it,” Mr. Sinister ordered.
I slowly opened the door a crack, allowing Piss to zoom out. A streak of fur flew through the kitchen and into the dining room. Blondie didn’t shoot at her.
Slowly opening the door wide, I called, “Hey, Dad? Can you come upstairs?”
I got no response.
Sinister scowled and Blondie pointed the gun at me.
I swallowed hard, trying to subdue the panic that was rising in me. Under the best of circumstances, my father had a history of letting me down. Under pressure, his dependability level was even more dismal. “Come on, Dad.” I tried to sound like I was coaxing and not desperately begging.
Finally, Dad answered, “Fine, but if your bitchy aunts call the cops on me…”
Leslie opened her mouth to protest the name calling, but Templeton clapped a hand over her lips.
We all listened to him climb the stairs.
Jack frowned, staring at me intently. I knew that like me, he was wondering where Patrick was if my father was at the B&B.
Sinister waved me away from the door. I retreated to stand beside Armani. She used her good hand to grab mine and squeezed hard. I squeezed back, unable to reassure her in any other way.
Archie was frowning when he entered the kitchen. “That damn dog of yours nearly…” He trailed off when he took in Sinister staring at him.
“Don’t,” I warned when it looked like he was going to duck back downstairs.
“You sold me out.” Dad sounded hurt by my traitorous actions.
“I’m trying to protect my family.” I jerked my chin in the direction of Marlene, who now had tears streaming down her face.
“I’m your family, too,” Dad reminded me.
“Enough with the family reunion,” Sinister snarled. “Where is it, Archie? Where’s the gold?”
“Hang on,” Armani said with amazement. “There really is gold?”
Catching her eye I shook my head, signaling this wasn’t the time.
“Yes,” my father told her. “And it really is buried,” he told me spitefully.
I rolled my eyes, unimpressed that for once he’d kind of, sort of, told the truth.
“Hand it over,” Sinister ordered Dad.
My father stared at him defiantly, and I got the sinking feeling that he’d sell out the safety of everyone in the room in order to keep the location of his stupid buried treasure a secret.
“I have a piece in my bedroom,” Armani offered. “You can have that.”
Sinister’s lip curled and he walked toward her. “A piece?”
I felt her begin to tremble with fear, so I squeezed her hand harder.
“You think I’m going to settle for a piece? I want the whole damn thing. Where is it?”
Armani shook her head. “I don’t know.”
He grabbed her chin.
Without thinking, I released her hand and slapped at his hold on her. He responded by grabbing me around the throat. Instinctively, I tried to pull him off me as he squeezed, cutting off my air supply.
Our eyes locked. I’ve looked into the faces of quite a few killers, and this guy had the same evilness shining in his eyes as the rest of them.
In my peripheral vision, I saw Jack and Templeton moving.
“Nobody moves!” Blondie yelled, firing his gun into the ceiling.
Everyone froze.
“Susan is not going to like that.” Leslie stared at the hole in the ceiling.
Sinister frowned at his minion and shook his head.
“Sorry, boss. I got a little carried away,” Blondie apologized meekly.
I tried to suck in air, but his death-grip on my throat was making that a challenge and I was getting a little dizzy.
“Where is it, Archie?” Sinister shook me like a ragdoll for emphasis.
Dad stared at me for a long moment, and I knew he was going to sacrifice me for his secret. My heart broke knowing that I was so unimportant to him, and I began to cry.
“Please, Dad,” Marlene begged. “Just tell them.”
He swung his gaze to his other daughter, who had a gun pointed at her head, and nodded slowly. “I’ll tell you.”
Sinister released me and I slumped back, massaging my throat and trying to catch my breath.
“It’s in the backyard.”
“Which backyard?” Sinister asked.
“This one.”
“If you’re lying to me, Lee…” Sinister threatened.
“I’m not.”
“What on earth is going on in here?” Aunt Loretta and her perfume cloud floated into the room. She wore a midnight blue silk robe that mercifully covered most of her.
Templeton caught her around the waist as she swayed weakly at the sight of Marlene in Blondie’s clutches. “Oh my.”
“That’s exactly what I said,” Leslie told her. Turning to Armani, she confided, “That’s a twin thing.”
Still shaken from Sinister’s attack, Armani didn’t respond.
“Archie!” Loretta gasped as she noted his presence. “Now what have you gotten yourself into?”
“Why are you always blaming everything on me?” he countered with over-the-top hostility.
“Probably because you’re the cause of so many problems,” Loretta countered, brushing Templeton’s support away so that she could lean forward and glare at my father. An assault that really didn’t go as planned since one of her fake eyelashes fell off, looking like the Itsy Bitsy Spider falling down a water spout.
“You put these lies in the heads of my children,” Dad said, stepping toward her. “And now they don’t trust me.”
“Why doesn’t everyone calm down,” Jack suggested nervously.
“Yes,” Templeton agreed, tugging at Loretta to force her to retreat. “Just calm down.”
“Where in the backyard is the gold?” Sinister demanded to know.
“It’s buried out by the tree,” Dad muttered grudgingly.
“Everyone into the next room,” Sinister ordered.
“If they kill us there, the dining room will be ren
amed the dying room,” Leslie predicted.
“Oh, shut up,” her sister snapped.
“No one’s going to die,” I assured the crowd as we all slowly shuffled into the dining room.
At least, I hoped no one would die.
Chapter Twenty-three
Once everyone was in the dining room, Sinister pointed at me. “You, tie the men to the chairs.”
I glanced at Jack, Templeton, and my father. “With what?”
Sinister looked around the room. “The cords on the drapes.” He pointed at Jack and Templeton. “You two sit down.”
Templeton complied immediately. Jack moved more slowly.
I removed the tiebacks from the curtains.
“Susan isn’t going to like that, either,” Aunt Leslie pointed out.
“Tie ’em tight,” Sinister ordered. “No funny business.”
“I’m not an expert in tying people up,” I told him.
Aunt Loretta raised her hand, batted her eyelashes, and revealed girlishly, “I am.”
“Tying men up so that you can have your way with them is something different,” Archie told her.
Pouting, she flopped into a nearby seat and hung her head.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Piss slip into the room undetected. Benny rode on her back. They hid beneath the table.
I tied Templeton first, apologizing as I tightened the cord around his wrists. “Sorry about this.”
“No worries, your aunt does it all the time.” He winked suggestively at Loretta, who tittered like a teenager and batted her one remaining fake eyelash at him.
I moved on to Jack. He caught my eye and then glanced down at his right side. Sliding my hand into his jacket pocket, I removed his lighter and then crouched down to tie him up.
When I was done, I stood, keeping the lighter in my closed fist.
Sinister stared at me. “They’re tight?”
“I did the best I could.”
He came around and checked. Tugging at the bindings of the men. “Pretty good.”
He pointed at Leslie and Armani. “You two sit down.”
They did as they were told. Leslie taking the seat beside her twin so that they could sit shoulder-to-shoulder.
“Let her go,” Sinister told Blondie.
He released Marlene, who stumbled. Dad caught her arm to steady her and then led her to a chair.
“Now, here’s how things are going to work,” Sinister announced. “You two are going to dig up the treasure.” He pointed first at me, then at Dad. “I’m going to stay here with the fam, and if you try any funny stuff…oh damn, it’s still in the car.”
“I could go get it, boss,” Blondie offered.
“Go.”
Blondie ran back out through the kitchen. I eyed the silver candelabra, with Templeton’s almost finished gristmill painting leaning against it, in the middle of the table. Wondering if I could grab it or the vase full of flowers beside it to use as a weapon, I inched toward the table, feeling Jack’s gaze on me.
Sinister pulled out a gun and I froze in place. “Like I was saying, you pull any funny stuff, and your dysfunctional family here are all dead.”
“I’m not family,” Armani said. She pointed at Jack. “And neither is tall, dark, and handsome there.”
Sinister glared at her and she fell silent. He turned his attention back to Dad and me. “You two do as you’re told and no one has to get hurt.”
“Okay,” I agreed quickly, knowing from the expression on Dad’s face that he wanted to argue. “We’ll dig it up.”
“How did you even know I had it?” Dad asked.
I shot him a look, warning him to be quiet.
“Manetti,” Sinister replied.
Archie Lee shook his head in disbelief. “He’d never tell you.”
“Maybe not outright, but it wasn’t too hard to figure out. I had him followed from the moment he got out of prison. First, he goes and takes your beloved Mary out of the nuthouse for a spin.”
I tensed up at the mention of my mother.
“Then, he has his kid, Jay, go ‘bump into’ this one and give her a gold coin,” he pointed to Armani, “which told me he was trying to get a message to you through this kid of yours.” He pointed his gun directly at me.
“Hang on,” Armani interjected. “Are you saying Jay didn’t hire me for my PMS work?”
Sinister stared at her, obviously not knowing she was referring to Psychic Matchmaker Service. “Shut up.”
“I knew this was all your fault,” Loretta griped.
“Mine?” Armani asked, clearly offended.
“Of course not. His!” Loretta pointed to my father.
“Wait,” Jack interrupted in his gravelly voice. “Are you saying that whatever is buried in the backyard has been there since before Manetti went to prison?”
“Before he got him sent to prison,” Archie confirmed, jerking his head in Sinister’s direction. “If he hadn’t killed Griswald then—”
“He killed Lawrence?” Leslie and Loretta gasped together, clasping each other.
“It’s a twin thing,” God whispered drily.
“Not Marshal Lawrence Griswald,” Archie hurried to reassure them. “His brother.”
“Brian Griswald’s father?” I asked.
Dad nodded. “He killed him and framed Manetti for it.”
“And you kept that loot buried all this time for him,” Sinister mocked.
“Jimmy Manetti is a good man. He refused to implicate me even when he knew he was going down.”
“Honor amongst thieves,” Jack murmured grudgingly. “So, the stories are wrong. You didn’t screw him.”
“Don’t believe everything you hear,” Archie told him. “That’s what’s wrong with the world today. Everyone believes the stories that are being spun instead of using their critical thinking skills.”
“In my defense, this all happened before my time,” Jack said flatly.
“But you’ve helped to perpetuate the myth,” my father countered. “Manetti’s a bad guy. I’m a backstabbing friend. You guys in the press think you have all the answers, but you really have no clue what’s going on.”
“I resent that,” Jack began. “I—”
“I’m back, boss.” Blondie reentered the dining room, carrying a cardboard box. I tried to peek inside but the top of the box was folded closed.
He put it down on the table, forcing Templeton’s painting to fall facedown onto the table.
Templeton groaned. “That wasn’t dry yet.”
“I don’t understand,” Jack said.
“The paint. It wasn’t dry,” Templeton explained.
“No. I don’t understand how the Licks gang is involved in all of this.”
Sinister laughed. “People who believe whatever they’re fed and pass it along for the masses to consume. The Licks gang isn’t involved. They’re just a distraction. Let everyone think the gang is to blame and no one is paying attention to the real culprits.”
I stared at the tattoo on Blondie’s hand. “But…”
“It’s temporary,” Blondie revealed proudly. “I put one on every couple of days. A little baby oil and it comes right off.”
“You take these two and have them shovel,” Sinister ordered. “I’ll wait in here with the rest of these fine people.”
I looked back at my family and friends as, gun drawn, Blondie ushered Dad and I out of the room. “It’ll be okay,” I promised them.
“I hope you can keep that promise,” God whispered.
So did I.
Chapter Twenty-four
“Ow, ooch, ow!” I complained as we walked toward the tree at the back of the house. It was a painful trip to make in bare feet, and despite the full moon, I wasn’t able to avoid most of the rocks.
I stopped and bent over to brush something off the sole of my foot, whispering, “Get on my shoulder.”
The lizard scampered up.
I dropped Jack’s lighter into the space he’d just occupi
ed in my bra.
“How come you’re not in police custody?” I asked Blondie.
He chuckled. “The old guy refused to press charges. Said it had all been one big mistake.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Hurry up,” Blondie ordered. “No more chitchat.”
Glancing over at Darlene’s house, I was relieved to see it was dark. I was glad she’d taken the girls for a late night. The last thing I wanted was for Katie or my other nieces to be in danger.
I tried to use the shovel Blondie had handed me as we walked out of the kitchen as a cane to lighten the pressure on my feet, but every step was painful.
“I’m sorry about this, Maggie,” Dad said. “Loretta’s right. I’m always the cause of trouble around here.”
“You’re not the only cause of trouble,” I had to admit as we reached the tree.
“I just thought that once I had my half of the stash…” He trailed off sadly.
“Half?”
“Yeah. Jimmy and I agreed to split it, as long as I didn’t use my half before he said it was time. When he gave Mary that coin, that was the signal.”
“You waited all these years?” The idea confounded me, considering he wasn’t exactly known for his patience or self-control.
“Manetti is a dangerous guy. He may not have killed Griswald, but that doesn’t mean he’s a pushover.”
“Enough talking,” Blondie ordered. “Dig.”
“Where?” I asked Dad.
He pointed to a spot on the ground. “Here, I think.”
“You think?”
“It’s been a long time.”
“Dig,” Blondie ordered testily.
So I drove the shovel into the ground as he and Dad supervised.
“I was going to use the money to take care of your mother,” Dad said while I dug. “I was going to make sure she could stay in that…place.”
“The nut house?” I asked, breathless from my exertions.
“Mental health facility,” God corrected.
“Your mom is in a nut house?” Blondie asked.
Glancing over at him, I noticed his arm was at his side instead of pointing his gun at us. I knew my window to strike would be small, but I was apprehensive about attacking him.
