One Hot Forty-Five

by B. J Daniels

  He fumbled for his gun, pulled it from his shoulder holster, but she got in another hard blow with the duct-tape roll before he could even backhand her with the pistol.

  He stumbled back, tripped over an icy rut and went down hard, knocking the air out of him. He managed to hang on to the weapon—he just couldn’t get it aimed at her before she took off into the trees on one of the snowmobile trails.

  In the dim light, snow seemed to hang in the air, tiny crystals that danced around him as he struggled to his feet, torn between the pain from the fall and the raging anger caused by his injured pride and failure to kill Violet Evans.

  She’d disappeared into the trees. He considered only a moment about going after her. He couldn’t shoot her anyway. The report of the gunshot would echo across the mountain and alert Corbett.

  Too bad Claude wasn’t here. He’d go after her. Claude, though, had been better at killing. He didn’t mind the mess.

  Ed swore under his breath as he slammed the trunk and headed back toward the open driver’s side door. He was still furious. He liked things neatly tied up.

  Maybe she would trip in the woods and break something and not be able to get back up, and freeze to death and they wouldn’t find her body until spring.

  That thought made him feel a little better as he slid behind the wheel of the car with a groan. He’d been shot and now hurt all over from the fall. Anger and frustration coursed through him, warming him. He stared out into the night, daring her to come back for more.

  She didn’t.

  And after a few minutes, the cold crept back. He started the car and turned on the heater. The night wasn’t as dark as nights in Texas because of the blanket of snow on everything.

  And to make matters worse, it was snowing more heavily now. At least it would make his approach more quiet, he thought as he drove back up the road a short way and pulled over.

  He could see lights behind the dirty windows of the new cabin being built high up on the mountainside. He killed the engine and climbed out into the falling snow. The quiet was almost his undoing. He ached for Houston, the noise, the confusion of buildings and people.

  He checked his weapon, then started up the mountain, following the tracks the pickup had left on the narrow road. It was time.

  VIOLET HADN’T GONE FAR WHEN she’d fallen, tumbling down into a small, snow-filled gully. She lay there, staring up at the sky, angry and scared.

  She didn’t think he’d come after her. But then again she couldn’t be sure of that. She pushed to her feet and heard the car drive off. He was leaving?

  She listened, the sound of the car’s big engine the only one on the mountainside.

  He didn’t go far before he pulled over. Then there was only the falling snow and silence.

  Violet retraced her footsteps back to the empty snowmobile parking lot. Her head hurt, and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept or eaten. It made her irritable.

  “Forget about him. You have bigger fish to fry,” her grandmother said beside her.

  This time Violet didn’t mind her grandmother being here. She didn’t like being alone on this mountainside. It felt too quiet, too isolated and alone.

  Also, she’d had a lot of time to think in the trunk without her grandmother’s constant nagging. Her grandmother had never liked dark, cramped places so hadn’t shown up until now.

  “Someone put you in those places when you were a girl,” Violet said with sudden insight. Her grandmother suddenly didn’t seem as large next to her. “Your mother? Is that who did it to you? Why you did it to me when my mother wasn’t around?”

  “Are you going to stand around here and freeze to death or take care of business? Your mother—”

  “Hated you, you evil old harpy.” Violet could see her grandmother clearly now. The stooped shoulders, the drooping skin of her neck, the harsh, bitter line of her thin lips. But it was the eyes, dark and small as raisins, that had always glinted with malice.

  Only now Violet saw something else behind the malice—misery and pain. The two fed off each other.

  “Where are you going?”

  Violet didn’t answer. Nor did she look back. She walked up the road, leaving her dead grandmother standing in the ruts, snow falling all around her.

  DEDE TURNED AND SAW LANTRY’S expression. Her heart began to pound. “What is it?” she asked as she stepped back over to him.

  She’d been so disappointed in Frank that she hadn’t wanted to touch the necklace. It disgusted her. She thought she’d known her husband. The stolen diamond necklace proved she never had.

  “Lantry?”

  He held the necklace up. The stones flashing in the firelight. “It’s a fake.”

  “What?”

  He handed the necklace to her. It felt heavy and cold.

  “It’s not even a good copy.” His gaze came up to meet hers.

  She felt as stunned as he looked as she studied the necklace in her hands and saw what he meant. “But I don’t understand. Why would Frank hide worthless jewelry in the boat?”

  Lantry was shaking his head as if equally perplexed by this turn of events. “Why get himself killed for this, unless he didn’t realize he didn’t have the real thing?”

  “Frank wouldn’t have been fooled. Not if this was the way he’d made his fortune to begin with. But why hide this in the boat and give it to you? It makes no sense.”

  “Or does it?” Lantry said.

  Her eyes widened as they both seemed to come to the same conclusion. “Inside jobs?”

  He nodded. “The homeowners had to be in on it. Which meant Frank was working with the people he robbed, stealing the phony jewelry, letting the homeowners collect the insurance and keep the real jewelry, paying Frank off with some of the insurance money.”

  Dede stared down at the necklace as a thought hit her. “But why would Frank keep this?”

  “It’s proof that the homeowner was in on the burglary,” Lantry said. “These were wealthy people he was helping steal from the insurance companies. Is it possible he was blackmailing them later? He had the duplicate jewelry to prove they were in on the thefts.”

  Dede stared at the necklace, again feeling sick. “Quite an operation. But the last burglary was Tamara Fallon, his former assistant from the old days. Surely he wasn’t planning to blackmail her.” She felt Lantry staring at her and looked up to meet his eyes.

  “Dede, didn’t you say that Frank changed when Ed and Claude and Frank’s former assistant, Tammy, turned up? Isn’t it possible that Frank kept these particular duplicates to keep them from ever involving him again? I know it’s a long shot, but if you were right and Frank really did want to change…”

  She smiled at him, touched that he would try to put a good spin on this horrible situation.

  “He had Tammy right where he wanted her as long as he had the duplicates stolen from her house,” Lantry was saying. “It would prove she was in on the burglary, and if she really was in the middle of an ugly divorce and was trying to get as much money out—”

  “But why would Ed and Claude go to so much trouble to try to get the duplicates back? Unless they think the necklace is the real thing. Isn’t it possible that if Frank double-crossed Tammy, she double-crossed Ed and Claude?”

  “Stranger things have happened. It might explain why Frank’s dead and the police think they’ve found Tamara Fallon’s body in a canal outside Houston.”

  Earlier, she’d heard a sound and thought it was the pop of the logs burning in the fireplace. But this time, she knew with certainty that the sound she heard hadn’t just come from the fire—but from the back of the cabin.

  As she turned, she saw a shadow fall across the floor. “Lantry—”

  It was all she got out before the man stepped into the room and she saw the glint of the weapon in his hand.

  He motioned to the necklace still entwined in her fingers. “I’ll take that.”

  Chapter Twelve

  All Lantry saw at first wa
s the gun aimed at Dede’s heart—and froze. The man holding the weapon was short and stocky, and Lantry had the feeling he’d seen him before.

  “That’s it, Mr. Corbett,” the man said. “Don’t do anything rash, or I’ll have to shoot her.”

  “Let me guess. Ed, right?” Dede didn’t sound afraid, and that amped up Lantry’s fear for her twofold.

  Ed gave a slight bow of his head in response. “I’ll take that necklace now.”

  “You killed Frank for this?” Dede demanded, holding up the necklace. Lantry could hear the fury just under the surface. “You killed my husband for this?”

  Ed shifted nervously as he watched Dede wind the necklace tighter around her fingers. “If you want to blame someone for Frank’s death, you only have to look as far as that mirror on the wall.”

  Dede froze. “You’re blaming me because you killed Frank?”

  “Easy, Dede,” Lantry warned, but he suspected she wasn’t listening. He could see the rage etched on her face. She closed her hand into a fist around the necklace.

  “If he hadn’t been so busy trying to protect you, he’d still be alive,” Ed said, his own tone laced with anger. “I didn’t want to kill Frank. But he forgot his loyalties. He betrayed us because of you.”

  Dede had her head cocked to one side, a stance Lantry had seen before. He didn’t have to see the fire in her eyes to know that any moment she might launch herself at the man—to hell with the fact that he had a gun on her.

  “He didn’t betray you. He just didn’t want any part of you or this burglary,” she said, biting off each word.

  “You don’t know anything about Frank. He was one of us. He knew the cost of betrayal. He got greedy and wanted all the money for himself.”

  Dede opened her fist and let the necklace dangle from her fingers. “You think this was about money?”

  “That necklace is worth almost two million dollars.” His gaze flicked to Lantry. “Not chump change to some of us.”

  Just as they’d suspected, Ed didn’t know the necklace was a worthless duplicate. Lantry thought it might be better to keep it that way.

  Before Dede could spill the beans, Lantry jumped in. “There’s no reason for bloodshed, Ed. You should have come to me right away. I’m a reasonable man. We could have made a deal for the necklace. It would have saved you a lot of time and effort. You wouldn’t have had to kill Frank.”

  Ed seemed to relax a little, though he shifted his gaze to Dede every few seconds as if afraid of what she might do next. He wasn’t the only one.

  “We’d heard stories about you,” Ed said. “We weren’t sure you would be agreeable. But then, every man has his price, doesn’t he?”

  “Exactly. You could have cut me in. Much less messy that way.”

  Ed smiled. “A man who thinks like I do. I can appreciate that.”

  “Maybe it’s not too late,” Lantry said.

  Ed laughed. “Under the circumstances, I’m not sure that’s in my best interest.”

  Ed had killed Frank and probably Tamara Fallon. Clearly, the man had nothing to lose.

  DEDE HAD BEEN SO FURIOUS SHE’D almost blown it. As her blood pressure dropped a little, she realized what Lantry had right away.

  Ed thought the necklace was the real thing.

  She blinked, feeling lightheaded. She couldn’t help but think of Frank when she looked at this man. He’d killed her husband, and for what? A pile of worthless glass and metal.

  She had wanted to scratch the man’s eyes out and take her chances with the gun in his hand.

  Irrational thinking. She was thankful that Lantry had kept his senses. Ed seemed amused by Lantry, although she could tell he was watching her out of the corner of his eye, not sure what she might do next.

  Dede shivered and realized Ed had left the back door open when he’d come in. That first sound she’d heard must have been him breaking the door lock.

  She glanced toward the open doorway and the darkness beyond. Something moved through the falling snow behind him.

  Someone else was out there.

  “I’ll take that necklace now. Nice and easy,” Ed was saying.

  “Why should we give it to you, knowing you plan to kill us either way?” Lantry asked.

  “Like you said, there’s no reason for more bloodshed,” Ed said with a smile, lying through his teeth.

  “What was it you had on Frank?” Dede asked.

  Ed seemed surprised by the question. “Didn’t he tell you?” He laughed. “No, of course, he didn’t. He was ashamed.” Ed’s smile died abruptly. “Ashamed of his own brother.”

  “Brother?” Dede had barely gotten the word out when a figure materialized out of the snow and darkness behind Ed.

  Dede felt a start as the person stepped into the dim light. Violet’s face was bruised badly on one side of her face, her eye swollen and discolored. She carried something in her hands.

  Dede didn’t see what it was until she raised her arms and swung the large chunk of firewood at the back of Ed’s head.

  Ed must have sensed someone behind him or seen Dede’s surprised expression. He started to turn, swinging around, leading with the gun.

  Dede threw the necklace at him in a high arc. She saw the indecision on his face. The fear that someone was behind him and the irresistible need to catch what he thought was an almost two-million-dollar diamond necklace.

  Greed would have won out but he was half-turned, the gun already coming around to point at whatever was behind him. Ed twisted back, reaching with his free hand for the necklace as the chunk of firewood clutched in Violet’s hands made contact with his skull.

  Dede heard the thwack and the gunshot, both seeming simultaneous. Before she could move, Lantry grabbed her, taking her down to the floor, covering her with his body as a second shot was fired. She heard a cry, then the sound of a body hitting the floor.

  It all happened in a heartbeat. Lantry was on his feet, Dede scrambling up after him.

  The deafening sound of the gunshots echoed like cannon booms inside the cabin. Violet’s cry of pain and the sound of Ed’s body hitting the floor were followed by the thud of the chunk of firewood landing next to him.

  Dede looked toward the doorway to find Ed lying at Violet’s feet and Violet clutching her chest, her fingers blooming red with blood. Violet’s gaze met her own as the older woman slowly dropped to her knees and fell forward beside Ed.

  Lantry lunged for Ed, snatching the gun from his hand—but there was no need. Dede could see death in the dull glaze of his eyes. She shook off her inertia and rushed to Violet’s side.

  The woman had saved her life. Again.

  “Violet? Violet, can you hear me?” Dede looked over at Lantry. “We have to get her to the hospital.”

  THE AMBULANCE AND SHERIFF’S deputies met them twenty miles out of Landusky. Dede sat in the back of the patrol car watching the falling snow as Violet was loaded onto a stretcher.

  She could hear Lantry arguing with his brother outside the car.

  “Damn it, Lantry, you don’t know how lucky you are that you’re not on your way to the jail,” Shane said. “I fought like hell to get you released on your own recognizance pending further investigation into this case.”

  “You can’t let them send Dede back to that mental hospital. She doesn’t belong there. I’m telling you that all of this was her ex-husband’s doing.”

  “She pulled a gun on a deputy and took you hostage at gunpoint.”

  “I’ll say I went of my own free will.”

  Shane swore again. “Lantry, I’ll see that she’s protected, twenty-four seven, but I can tell you right now, she’s got to go back to the hospital for a mental evaluation.”

  “I’ll pay to have someone come here and do the evaluation,” Lantry argued. “Help me with this, Shane. This woman is innocent. She’s been through hell. If she hadn’t come to Montana to warn me—”

  “I’ll see what I can do, all right?” Shane said, raising his voice over the sound
of an ambulance taking off for Whitehorse.

  Lantry climbed into the front of the patrol car and turned to look through the steel mesh at her.

  “I hate to see you at odds with your brother,” she said quietly.

  He smiled and her heart took off at a gallop. “Shane and I are fine. It’s you I’m worried about.”

  “Your brother’s right. I’ll be safe in jail. Both Ed and Claude are dead.” Ed had confessed to killing Frank. Violet would back up her story about what happened in the van. There was that matter with the gun and the deputy, but even if she had to spend some time behind bars, she was just grateful that it was over and said as much to Lantry.

  “It won’t be over until you’re cleared and free,” he said with conviction. “You’ve been through enough.”

  His brother climbed behind the wheel and took off after the ambulance. Lantry fell silent. Dede watched the snowy landscape glide past as flakes fell like feathers from the ice-black sky overhead.

  LANTRY SAT IN HIS BROTHER’S office, legs stretched out, his eyes dull from lack of sleep.

  As Shane returned from down the hall with Dede, he stood up. Dede looked as awful as he felt. He drew her into his arms.

  “Lantry, if you’ll wait down the hall,” Shane said to his brother after a moment. Lantry let go of Dede but didn’t move.

  “I’ll be fine,” she said.

  He nodded and reluctantly left the room, closing the door behind him.

  “I need to ask you some questions,” Shane said. “I understand you hired a private investigator to follow your then-husband.”

  Dede nodded. “Jonathan O’Reilly.”

  “A private investigator by that name was found murdered the same week as your husband and Tamara Fallon. His office had been ransacked, all files and computers destroyed,” Shane said.

  Dede looked sick. “You don’t think—”

  “No, we don’t believe you had anything to do with the murders, given the evidence we’ve uncovered.”

  “What kind of evidence?”

  “You said Ed told you that Frank was his brother, right?” Shane asked.