Mrs. Fix It Mysteries: The Complete 15-Books Cozy Mystery Series

by Belle Knudson

  It wasn’t hard to imagine Kate would be stuck in this building for the next two weeks, at least. And that estimate was conservative. The first floor, alone, could take that long, and there were three more floors above her that were very well in the same state of disrepair.

  Justina rushed to the doorway, filling it. “I’ve got to head out. Something’s come up at the office. Should I leave you the keys?”

  “Is it a spare or would I have to drop it off?”

  Justina pulled the key ring from her purse where at least fifteen apartment keys clanked against one another.

  “It’s the only set, but I won’t need to get back in here. Until you fix the place up, you’ll have the building to yourself.”

  Kate accepted the key ring, tucking it into her overalls.

  “Call me if you need anything,” said Justina before hurrying through the apartment and out the door.

  As soon as it was quiet, she reviewed the list of supplies she had been noting and decided to give Larry a call. If Larry could gather the order, then she could swing by the hardware store on her way home and load her truck up with as many items as would fit in the bed.

  Luckily, Larry picked up right away and had no problem helping her out. As she itemized the materials for him, holding her cell between her ear and shoulder so she could easily flip through her notepad, she made her way out of the building and locked up.

  “Do you know what color tiles you would like?” he asked, referring to one of many supplies Justina had discouraged her from bothering with.

  “It really doesn’t matter,” she said. “Whatever is the most cost effective will do.”

  “You still have options,” he said. “Our most affordable tile brand comes in baby blue, sand brown, soft yellow, white...any of these sound good?”

  “Which color will hold up to scuff marks the best?”

  “I’d guess sand brown.”

  “Let’s go with that one. Can we order carpet?” she asked, knowing Grayson’s didn’t have rolls of carpet on hand.

  “Sure,” he said. “But you really have to come into the store and take a look at our vendor catalogues. Each have dozens of colors, and I can’t walk you through it over the phone.”

  She agreed, telling him she would swing by in a few hours, and then ended the call.

  As always, Kate had forgotten to eat properly, but that wasn’t what was bothering her. She was in desperate need of a cup of coffee. She would also have to remember to put her coffeemaker and canister in her truck. If she were going to be working here day in and day out, she would need to keep a fresh pot on.

  Jason was on her mind, not that he’d ever left. She had been firm during the voice-mail message she had left. She was sure she had sounded serious, and yet he hadn’t gotten back to her. She wondered if he had given Jared a call and was tempted to see, but it wasn’t lost on her that every time she checked in with Jared to get word about her other son, it put pressure on him.

  She tried not to let the urge get the best of her, as she walked to her truck and set her notepad on the passenger’s seat. She rounded to the driver’s side and glanced at the building, as she popped the door open. But before she climbed in, she spotted a shadowy figure beyond one of the second-floor windows that wasn’t boarded over.

  Curious, she neared the entrance door and unlocked it. She stepped into the entryway as quietly as possible, straining to hear someone on the second floor. After a moment of listening, she heard the distinct sound of footfall overhead. She hadn’t heard a thing in the hour she had spent with Justina. Perhaps there was a squatter upstairs who knew to be quiet when the real-estate agent had arrived, but was now under the false impression everyone had left.

  She padded up the stairs as quickly and soundlessly as she could, and was cautious about peering around the landing in the direction she had heard footfall. To her surprise, she saw Gillian O’Reilly holding a cardboard box.

  The second Gillian realized she wasn’t alone, she shrieked, dropping her box. “God, you scared me,” she said.

  “What are you doing here?” Kate asked, approaching the young woman.

  Gillian collected a few personal items that had spilled out of the box then picked it up, cradling it against her hip. Sheepishly, she admitted she lived here. “And I’m not the only one.”

  “Other ex-cons have been squatting here?”

  Gillian confirmed it with a nod and said, “And they’re not going to like having their homes rented out to them. Why is that woman so interested in this building anyway?”

  “She’s in real estate.” Kate shrugged. “Where are you going to go?”

  Gillian sighed. “I have no idea, but I’m not going to get arrested for living in a condemned building. I’ll figure something out.” After a moment of staring down the long barrel of her predicament, her eyes snapped up to Kate. “I should be thanking you. Amelia Langley called me. She wants me to work at the inn.”

  “That’s great! When do you start?”

  “Tomorrow.” She groaned at the thought. “I’ll have had a terrible night’s sleep and no shower.”

  “Can I give you a ride somewhere?”

  “I don’t know where I’m going,” she said, though she quickly accepted.

  “Who else is here right now?”

  “Just a few people. Most of the squatters work over at the amusement park, and they won’t get back until after dark.”

  “How have you all been getting in the building? It’s boarded up and the front door is locked.”

  “Through the basement. Out back, there’s a door. I guess it was locked, but someone busted it open. We keep it propped.”

  They made their way out of the building, and once again Kate locked the front door. As she led Gillian to her truck, she said, “Starting tomorrow I’m going to be here repairing the place.”

  “I’ll tell the others,” she assured her.

  Kate took Gillian’s box, set it in the bed of her truck, and then settled behind the wheel, as Gillian climbed into the passenger’s seat and fastened her seat belt.

  As they drove off, the young woman told her, “Be careful working there. Try not to be there at night.”

  “Why?”

  “With everything happening around town,” she began in a tone that unmistakably referenced the drug ring, “I think they’re coming to the building at night to recruit.”

  “The drug dealers?”

  Gillian locked eyes with her and nodded.

  When Kate reached the center of town, she slowed, pulling up to the curb outside of Bean There. “Can I get you a cup of coffee?”

  “No, that’s okay. I have to make a few calls and figure out my night,” she said, indicating the pay phone around the corner. She popped her door open, but didn’t get out. “Tell your son to be careful, too.”

  “Jason?”

  “He’s been getting too close to the wrong people, and it’s going to backfire.”

  “What has he been doing? Who has he been talking to?” she asked urgently, grabbing Gillian’s arm. The young woman said nothing. “Where’s Becky?”

  “I told you I don’t know about Becky,” she said impatiently, yanking her arm free. “And I’m only telling you about Jason because he hasn’t been listening to reason. He isn’t one of us. He’s not an ex-con, but he’s starting to act like it, throwing his weight around, and I’m telling you, he’s pissing off the wrong people.”

  “Who?”

  Reluctantly, she offered, “Dark Donnie.”

  “What’s his real name?”

  Gillian pressed her mouth into a hard line. “I hope I don’t regret this,” she said. “Drake Kramer.”

  Suddenly, Kate was reeling. Drake Kramer? As in Donna Kramer?

  “They’re related?”

  “Brother and sister,” Gillian stated.

  Drake was also the person who had told Kate that Dean Wentworth had been behind the explosion. Before Donna was killed, she had implied that just because Drake had
said Dean was behind it, didn’t mean it was true.

  Kate remembered the initials on the boxes of drugs she had found at the shed—KD. She had thought they stood for Kramer, Donna, but they could just as easily have been noting Drake.

  Ruminating this, Kate began mumbling, “Donna, Donnie.”

  “You wouldn’t know it just looking at them, but Donna and Donnie were twins. Donnie had his name changed to Drake when he became an adult to differentiate.”

  “Twins?”

  “Which is why Jason thinks he has an in with the guy. He thinks they’ve been bonding. But Jason is wrong. And now he’s mixed up in something...”

  Kate grabbed Gillian’s arm again, but this time kept her grip loose. “Did Drake...” she couldn’t say it out loud, couldn’t tip Gillian off that her own son had shot Donna. As it stood, only Kate and Jason knew. If anyone else did, it would risk word getting around town, ultimately resulting in her son’s arrest. So she kept her question as vague as possible. “Did Drake put someone up to killing Donna?”

  “Yeah,” said Gillian. “And we both know who that someone is.”

  “How did you find out?”

  Gillian’s eyes turned round as if it pained her to have to put it plainly to Kate.

  “Someone saw him?”

  “No,” she said in a quiet voice. “Jason reported back to Drake.” She sighed and rubbed her eyes. “Drake is smart. He knows how to play the long game. He’s like a chess master. He used Jason and he’s going to make sure Jason goes down for this, but not until he’s done using your son. The reason I know is because Drake’s making an example out of Jason to terrify the rest of us. If you think rumors fly between the residents of Rock Ridge, I’m telling you, the convicts are even worse.”

  “But Jason is only pursuing this to find Becky,” she pointed out, trying to make sense of it all. How could even the promise of finding his fiancée compel Jason to kill?”

  “That’s all I know,” she said softly. “And I wish I didn’t know that much.”

  Gillian climbed out of the truck and shut the door.

  Kate sat in a stupor. She simply couldn’t believe it. She felt like she was standing on a railroad track, trying to get a freight train to come to a screeching halt. It wasn’t going to, and she knew it.

  Chapter Eight

  “Jason, this is your mother. You have got to call me back. I’m worried sick for you.”

  Kate didn’t just hang up her cell phone after leaving her son a panicked voice mail. She threw it at the dashboard and flinched when it ricocheted, bouncing off the hard plastic and flying in her face.

  “Damn,” she grumbled. It had tumbled between the middle console and the side of her seat. She wedged her fingers down the crack, clamping the edge of it between her fingers, and carefully extracted it. The screen was cracked. “Awe, come on,” she complained before setting it on the passenger’s seat.

  She glanced through the windshield at Bean There. This time, a cup of coffee no matter how strong and hot was not going to fix this.

  Dusk was falling over Rock Ridge. One at a time the streetlamps brightened along Main Street. Bean There looked inviting, but how would she muscle through pleasantries with Clara in order to get a cup of joe? What if she ran into someone? What if she ran into Carly? She cringed at the thought. She wouldn’t be able to conceal her distress if she ran into her best friend.

  But it had been Carly who had tipped her off about Dark Donnie. Her florist friend had heard the man whose alias she’d only just discovered was a regular at Drake’s Firing Line. Well, clearly, thought Kate. Dark Donnie and Drake Kramer were one in the same. Carly had also told her that Dark Donnie had a reputation of taking out bad guys before they could kill someone innocent. At the time it had sounded a lot like what Jason had done. Was Dark Donnie grooming her son, all the while harboring the dark intention of throwing him under the bus? It would seem so according to what Gillian had explained.

  Kate was in agony for Jason. Knowing her son thought he would best an experienced criminal had Kate’s stomach in knots. Jason was under the impression he was getting closer to finding Becky. Had Drake taken Becky? Was he behind her abduction, and subsequently, Ashley’s? Or was he an opportunist? Had Jason stumbled into his dark world of peddling drugs through Rock Ridge, causing Drake to lure Jason with promise of finding Becky and thus roping him into his drug ring to do his dirty work?

  Unless her son got in touch with her and finally told her the truth, she would have no way of knowing.

  She remembered the key, the addresses, and the envelope in her overalls. The key either belonged to Donna Kramer’s former house or to Drake’s Firing Line, which was the second address on that piece of paper.

  She checked the clock on the dashboard as soon as she turned the engine. It was barely six, and the firing line wouldn’t close until eight that evening. There wouldn’t likely be any way to sneak around if the shooting range was bustling with customers, not to mention Drake, so she started off down the street, heading towards Donna Kramer’s house.

  By the time she pulled up the long driveway, having driven to the rural end of Rock Ridge, Kate’s stomach was churning, both hungry and sickened over what she might discover.

  The house looked dark except for a subtle glow through one of the first-floor windows. Kate took a deep breath and climbed out of her truck. She was quiet about shutting the driver’s side door. She glanced up and down the street. In both directions, there were only a few houses in the distance, but it didn’t seem like anyone was home.

  Quickly, she padded up the walkway, pulling the envelope from her pocket and plucking the key out. She fit it into the door and a surge of excitement washed through her that she was able to turn the key, unlocking the door.

  She held her breath as she stepped inside and waited for her eyes to adjust to the dim light. She didn’t close the door behind her, not entirely. She didn’t want to risk the sound of a click when it struck the doorjamb, so instead she left it open a crack and scanned the entryway, which was bare.

  Stepping around the entryway, she came into the living room. Other than a couch and coffee table, the room was just as bare. Donna Kramer had moved to Rock Ridge under the auspices of working at the amusement park. Evidently, she was one of the executives sent by the amusement park corporation to oversee the construction of the park. During her short stay, she had struck up an unlikely affair with Dean Wentworth, as well as Tommy Barkow, a man she had ended up killing. Given the secret relationship Donna had undergone with Tommy, and judging by the threadbare living room, Donna might have been in Rock Ridge much longer than the amusement park project’s inception, long enough to oversee a drug operation and keep Tommy Barkow in line as he turned coca plants into street-grade cocaine.

  She turned the corner and found the kitchen. It was dim, but unlike the living room, it looked lived in. There were dirty dishes in the sink and a few newspapers resting on the kitchen table. She smelled coffee, though it wasn’t fresh, then spotted a coffeemaker on the counter. After nearing it, she placed her hand on the glass carafe. It was warm.

  Turning for the living room, she tried to visualize which window she had seen glowing. There was a hallway at the far side of the living room, so she quietly crept down it, remembering the light had been coming from that side of the house. She paused, listening out for sounds in-between each step.

  Up ahead on the left there was an open door. Light spilled into the hallway through the gap in the doorjamb and as Kate neared it, she heard rustling within the room. Though it was faint, it sounded like someone flipping a newspaper open.

  She realized her hands were trembling. Fear ratcheted up her spine. She had no way of knowing who she would find on the other side of the door. Would they be armed and dangerous? Would she be able to talk her way out of trespassing? She wasn’t even holding her tool kit.

  Scraping together every last shred of gumption she had and reminding herself she wouldn’t be able to help Jason if she did
n’t have the guts to see this through, Kate pushed the door open.

  Immediately, a young woman bolted to her feet, shrieking and dropping a newspaper. The sheets cascaded over the coffee table in front of her, but Kate’s gaze was locked on the blonde in disbelief.

  It was Ashley. Her blue eyes were wide and her mouth gaped open. Taking quick stock of the room—it looked like an entertainment den—Kate saw no sign the woman had been abducted and was now being held against her will. Quite the opposite, in fact. There was a steaming mug of coffee on the coffee table. The television, though muted, was playing the evening news. And Ashley looked freshly showered. There were no bruises or abrasions on her face or wrists. If Kate didn’t know better, she would’ve thought the woman was enjoying any other evening, relaxing at home.

  Except that she wasn’t at home.

  “Kate?” she asked in delayed response to having been caught, but quickly launched into a strange display, sighing with relief and rushing towards Kate. “Thank God you found me! Are the police here? I’ve been held captive!”

  “Ashley, stop!” she blurted out, throwing her hands up so the woman couldn’t embrace her. “What are you doing here?”

  “I was kidnapped. Haven’t you been watching the news?”

  “Nothing about this situation screams ‘held against your will’,” she pointed out.

  Ashley furrowed her brow at her then seemed to decide on what to say next. “They’re going to get back any minute.” Grabbing Kate’s arm, she pulled her into the hallway. “We have to get out of here. It’s not safe.”

  “Stop!” she yelled again. “You’re a terrible liar. Now what in the hell is going on?”

  “You don’t believe me?” she challenged, stepping up to Kate in a threatening manner.

  “Not for a second.”

  “If you’re not here to rescue me, then I’ll rescue myself,” she asserted. “But they took my cell phone so I’ll need yours to call the police.”

  “What’s wrong with the house phone?” she sneered, exposing Ashley for the clumsy criminal that she clearly was.