“My, how you’ve changed.”
A grin filled his face. “Yeah, and don’t use up all the butter.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“If we have to sit here waiting to die, I’d better find something good to watch on TV.”
“How about one of those Lifetime movies?”
“Please. No man-bashing. I think I’ve been beaten up enough by members of my family tonight.”
“Fine, but no more zombies.”
“It’s a deal.” After setting the popcorn in the microwave, I wiped the counter and gazed out the kitchen window. For a rental, this was a pretty decent house. It wasn’t as valuable as the houses across the street that sat directly on the water, but the woods and foothills behind us were just enough to give the feeling of being surrounded by nature. I gazed into the dark woods, and my thoughts drifted off to Amelia. That was the last thing she ever saw.
The microwave beeped me back to reality. I grabbed the hot bag and dumped it into a bowl. Mitch had discovered a movie about an infestation of bees. I grabbed a couple of water bottles and joined him on the couch.
“Thanks.”
“Just don’t eat it all.” Mitch’s hands could get half the bowl in one grab.
“No. Thanks for what you did tonight. With Mom, I mean.”
“Well, she was wrong.”
Mitch jolted and then smiled. “Will wonders never cease?”
There was a rustling on the porch. Luigi started to growl, confirming we weren’t just hearing things.
“What is it, boy? Is someone out there?”
Luigi answered with another growl that grew into a bark.
Rising from the couch, I turned out the light and slipped to the window. Mitch snapped off the television, causing the entire room to be bathed in darkness. Using the light of the moon, I searched the porch. There was a dark form sitting on the front steps. It was sitting there like it was perfectly natural to be there without an invitation.
“Mitch,” I whispered. “Someone is out there.”
“Hold up,” he said. He ran to the next room, returning in less than a minute. He was holding something in his hands. He darted to the window and opened it a crack. “I don’t know who you are, but there’s a gun pointed right at your head. Put your hands up and turn around.”
This was it. This was the killer, come to end our lives. The person on the steps stood up, and I instantly knew it was not a woman. It was a man. I sniffed the air for cigars but couldn’t smell a thing. As the person’s face came into the moonlight, I knew instantly who it was.
Ryan Bradford had come to call.
“Ryan? What are you doing out there?” I turned on the porch light, nearly blinding him.
“Gabby. Are you all right?”
“Of course, I am. Why are you sitting on my front porch in the middle of the night?”
“Can I come in?” he asked.
I debated for a moment. I was glad to see him, but sitting on the porch alone in the dark was weird.
“I suppose. Why are you here?”
As he stepped across the threshold, Mitch put the “gun” down, which was a flashlight.
“I’m here because of the utterly stupid thing you said at dinner. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Do you want to get yourself killed? Really? Because that’s what you set yourself up for.”
“I was protecting her,” Mitch said.
“Right, with a flashlight,” Ryan said.
“I was.”
“Well, so was I.”
I couldn’t hold back my smile. Ryan’s actions warmed my heart in an indescribable way. “You were? Is that why you were sitting on my porch?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t need to do that. Besides, the police were just here.”
“I heard about that, but what you don’t know was that Katy was arrested too.”
“What about Timmy?”
“He’s with Tim and Darla for now.”
“Katy was in on her brother’s burglaries?”
“In on it? She orchestrated it. When she found out where Tim lived, she knew she could bleed him dry for money while her brother lifted valuables from the lake houses.”
“What did she plan to do when they moved on to another community to rob?”
“Somehow, I don’t think she thought that far ahead.”
“So, is Tim really Timmy’s daddy?”
“We’re not sure yet, but a paternity test will establish that.”
A silence fell between the three of us.
Ryan spoke first. “I know the two of you think you’re fine over here holding a vigil for the killer, but with your permission, I’d like to stay.” He scrambled for something in his pocket. “Oh, and I brought you something.”
He placed a small box in my hand. “It’s the nicotine patch. If I’m going to find myself thinking about you night and day, maybe I want to have you around for a while.”
I fingered the box. I had never tried the patch, but looking into Ryan’s eyes, suddenly I wanted to. Maybe I could actually quit this time. Maybe I finally had a reason. “Thanks.”
Mitch and I exchanged glances. “It’s okay with me if it’s okay with Gabby,” Mitch answered.
I said, “You know, we’re probably all wasting our time, and then there’s that smidgeon of a chance you’re the killer.”
Ryan’s blue eyes continued to bore into me, starting to make me uncomfortable.
“Fine. You can stay.”
“Great,” Mitch said settling back onto the couch. “The bee movie just ended, but how about we catch some vampires next.”
“Oooh, vampires,” I said.
“Doesn’t sound like your sister likes vampires, Mitch.”
“Fine, but I will under no circumstances commit to anything that has a love story.”
We ended up finding a spy movie with plenty of testosterone chase-and-shoot scenes, and I settled on the couch between Mitch and Ryan. An hour later, I lifted my head from Ryan’s shoulder. The movie had switched to a haunted-house story, and the three of us, ever vigilant, had fallen asleep. Luigi was scratching at the door, and I realized in all the excitement, Mitch hadn’t put him out.
“Luigi, be quiet,” I whispered. Luigi responded with another round of furious scratching. “Okay, hold on.” I scrambled up from the couch, not waking either man. As I made my way to the back door, I crunched on a shredded bag of cheese puffs. Luigi must have gotten into them while we slept and eaten so much he was sick again. What a dog. I opened the door to let Luigi out before I had another mess to clean up. Instead of running down the deck stairs to experience gastric explosion, the dog stood there, looking out into the blackness.
“So, go already,” I told him. Luigi just stood there, making me wonder if he had absorbed any of those frightening movies we’d spent the evening watching.
“How about if I step out a few feet with you, will that help?”
I didn’t dare turn on the porch light, fearing the light seeping into the living room would wake my brother and Ryan. I stepped out onto the back deck, relying on the fading moonlight to guide our way. Luigi padded over to the steps and gingerly stepped down as if heading into an ocean full of hungry sharks. Once at the bottom, he stood there, looked back at me, and then started working his way out into the darkness. I gazed at the moon rising above tall pine trees surrounding the house. There was a slight chill in the air … and there was something else. A feeling crept into my thoughts. I drew in a sharp breath.
“Luigi. Hurry up.” Hoping he would show up in the darkness with his tail wagging, I peered out into the backyard. “Luigi?”
Again the feeling started settling into me. She was here. I could feel Amelia. Without my sketchpad, I couldn’t produce anything, but there was no denying the feeling. She was here.
“Amelia? Is that you?” There was no answer, but a cold breeze crossed my shoulders, causing me to shiver.
“Amelia?”
Ever so faintly, I
heard a voice, “Yes.”
“Is it you, Amelia? Where are you?”
At first, there was no sound except for the wind in the trees, then a small voice answered. “The trees, Gabby. Come back to the trees.”
I stepped off the porch with as much trepidation as Luigi, not sure if I too would encounter the equivalent of a shark. My heart was tapping on my ribs as I made my way into the darkness. “Amelia? I’m trying to catch your killer. You know my brother loved you.”
I continued to talk. “He wants to bring your killer to justice.”
“The woods, Gabby. Come to the woods.”
The voice was familiar. As I came closer to the woods surrounding our small yard, I picked up on something. Something I didn’t expect. It was cigar smoke.
Chapter 36
Just a few feet in front of me, the golden ember of a lit cigar glowed. It was not Amelia waiting for me in the woods, it was the subject of my drawing. Why had I been so stupid as to go outside in the middle of the night? Where the heck was Luigi?
“You’re not Amelia.”
“Dang. You are a psychic girl.” Jane threw her cigar butt into the damp leaves and then ground it out with her boot.
“I knew it. I couldn’t believe it. “
“Yeah, then why didn’t you tell Sheriff Bennett? Could it be he thinks you’re full of crap and so do I?”
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
“Kill you, of course,” she giggled to herself. I couldn’t believe this was the same caring, wonderful woman who was so patient with Gigi.
“You can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because Mitch knows, too. He saw your picture. If you kill me, he’ll send the sheriff after you. He loved Amelia and feels like it’s on him to solve her murder.” I was lying, of course, but she didn’t know that. I had never shown him her picture for this very reason. The face in my drawing had been so contorted with anger that even I had been unsure as to who it was.
“I wish old Mitch had come along a little sooner. I could have blamed him for her murder when Billy was still alive.”
“Why? Why would you kill Amelia? You’ve dedicated your life to helping others.”
“What do you think you know about me? You just look at me and, like Gigi, put me in a category. I’m the good-hearted companion to the less fortunate. To you, I’m incapable of anything outside of my job. I’m a human being. I can fall in love just like anyone else.”
“So why did you do it?”
“Because of Billy. She killed him.”
“I thought he was murdered in a botched burglary.”
“He was killed by his wife.”
“So why didn’t you just go to the police?”
“I loved him. I loved him more than anything, and she would have just sullied his name. She didn’t love him like I did.”
“How do you know she killed him?”
“She wanted to get back at me. She knew we were having an affair, and even though he knocked her around all the time, she still wanted to hurt me. She tried to tell me he would have killed her. Tried to make me take her side. Whatever she got she deserved. I did it for Billy. I hated her.”
“So you strangled her with a wire?”
“Yes. Then I tried to make her sink to the bottom of Lake Henry.”
“It was you that night in the woods.”
“Yes, and now I have to do something about you. I tried once with the brakes, but that idiot jumped in and rescued you. Now I’ll do it right and finish it.” Jane stepped forward and produced a small piece of wire, turning it about in her hands. It was if she was visualizing it going around my neck. Taking steady, calculated paces, she started coming at me.
“You don’t want to do this.”
“Oh, but I have to. I don’t want to, but I have to. I enjoyed your company, for what that’s worth. You were a great friend to Gigi.”
“Where is Gigi?”
“At home with her mommy and daddy. I made sure to let the Tobii run down so she couldn’t text you. Lucky for me I saw your last text.”
Having nothing else to lose, I lowered myself to the ground and started searching in vain for some sort of weapon. When my hands lit upon a rock, I stood up with it raised against her.
“Don’t come any closer,” I told her.
“You’re going to need a bigger rock than that,” she said and lunged at me.
I screamed and tried to hit her with the stone. But she had height to her advantage.
Jane pushed me to the ground and climbed on top of me. I made as much noise as possible before the wire cut off my airways. I rolled side to side to get her off balance and continued to scream.
Her voice became sweet and coaxing. Obviously, a technique she used in subduing clients. “You just need to settle down, Gabby. It’ll all be over in a minute.”
Then the wire was around my neck, squeezing hard. I tried to utter one more scream, but the air was thinning out in my throat and a felt dizzy.
Then I heard a scream. Jane’s scream.
Luigi had come out of nowhere and was now attacking Jane from the back, plunging his teeth into her flesh.
“Get off of me, you mutt,” Jane demanded, but that didn’t slow down Luigi, the dog who never seemed to care about me before this moment. He took a chunk out of her arm, causing her to drop the garrote. I scrambled backward into something solid.
I looked up to see Ryan standing there with a gun—a real one, not a flashlight—pointed at Jane.
Mitch stood next to him.
“It’s all over. We’ve called the police.”
“Get this dog off of me,” she shouted as Luigi continued to growl. Mitch called him down, and sensing a chance to escape, Jane turned to run off into the woods.
“And this one is for Amelia,” Mitch said. “Luigi, attack.” Luigi obeyed the command and chased after Jane, pulling her to the ground.
Jane screamed. “Okay. Okay. I’ll come with you. Just call off this stupid mutt.”
Mitch called off the dog again. Jane stood up, and as Mitch grabbed her by the arm, they began plodding back to the house.
“You are an unbelievable lady, you know that?” Sheriff Bennett said to me as he put the handcuffs on Jane twenty minutes later. “How did you know it was her?”
“It might have something to do with this.” Mitch pulled out my sketchbook, which was opened to the picture of Jane. I never even knew he went inside to get it.
“Is this supposed to mean something? You drew a picture of her?” The sheriff asked, still not seeing the significance of my drawing.
“I drew the picture before I knew she was the killer. I wasn’t sure because she looked so different, but it was her.”
Jane shook her head in dismay. “I never believed in all that stuff you and Gigi were talking about. If you’d asked me, I thought you were both full of it.”
Now it was the sheriff’s turn to shake his head no. “You had a vision about all this? You can’t be serious.”
“She is, Sheriff,” Mitch assured him. “I know you’re a man who operates on facts, but all you have to do is just suspend your disbelief for a moment, and you’ll see. My sister saw the whole scene. She saw the murder, the victim, and the killer long before it happened.”
As Marlin took Jane away, the sheriff turned toward me. “Is that true? Did you see it all before it happened?”
“Yes.”
“And the cigar butt. How did you know Jane smokes cigars?”
“I didn’t, but when I found one in Darla’s yard I knew it belonged to the killer. Now I’m sure she was there watching Amelia when she cleaned. She was having an affair with her husband, Billy, and believes Amelia was responsible for his death.”
Mitch cocked his head to the side. “No way.”
I put a hand on his shoulder. “From the sounds of it, Jane might be right.”
The sheriff shook his head and then stopped. “You found that cigar butt in Darla’s yard? You
said you found it at the crime scene.”
Mitch scrunched up his nose. “About that. We knew you wouldn’t believe Gabby got a reading off of a cigar butt found on somebody’s front lawn, so we kind of …”
“Stretched the truth?” The sheriff finished his sentence for him.
“Something like that,” I squeaked out. Once again, the sheriff shook his head and joined the other officers. Tim and Clarence ran over to where we were standing on the back deck.
Clarence grabbed me by the shoulders. “Are you all right, Gabby?”
“I’m fine. With a little help from your son and my brother, and of course the incredible Luigi the Attack Dog, I fared pretty well.” Luigi had settled down on the porch with a bag of corn chips Mitch had kindly agreed to give up, even though we were now officially on a budget. It was a reward well deserved.
“Thank God,” Tim said, running his fingers through his hair.
“You’ve had a pretty tough night, too. I heard about Katy getting arrested,” I said to Tim. “Where’s little Timmy?”
“He’s with Elise.”
“Where’s Darla?” I had to know. I assumed she’d be watching Timmy. Of all the women in the world who are forced into motherhood, I knew this one could be disastrous.
“She, uh, decided we needed to take some time apart. She packed up her paints and headed out. I guess I’m alone again.”
Mitch patted him on the back. “That’s not true, dude. You have Timmy and Katy. Well, at least when she gets out of jail, you do.”
“Katy has decided she needs space too. She thinks she’ll do less than six months in county and then said she wants her kid back,” Tim said.
Clarence leaned over, “What she doesn’t know is, if the DNA test comes back with Tim as the father she’ll have the battle of the century on her hands.”
“Good for you,” I said.
“Amelia was a sweet girl. A girl who married the wrong guy and trusted the wrong people. Sometimes I think about what would have happened if we could have kept going. Had a real relationship.” Mitch sighed, and his voice began to break. “If you wouldn’t mind sharing the number with me, I think I’d like to talk to her parents just to tell them what a wonderful daughter they had.”
Color Me Dead (Henry Park Book 1) Page 19
