4 Arch Enemy of Murder

by Vanessa Gray Bartal

  “You might want to be careful who you threaten,” the judge said.

  “So might you,” Lacy returned. “Do we understand each other, gentleman?”

  No one answered, but then Lacy hadn’t expected them to. She had made her point; there was no need to emasculate them and take any more of their precious power. “Very well. Good day, then.” They were so hostile that she backed out of the room, not wanting to turn her back on any of them. She held up just fine until she was outside. By the time she reached Michael, she was trembling.

  “What happened in there?”

  “The less you know, the better,” Lacy said.

  “Isn’t it just my Irish luck to flee a murder investigation and land smack in the middle of whatever this is,” Michael said.

  “You’re not in the middle of this,” Lacy said. “You’re not anywhere near this. They have no idea who you are, and I intend to keep it that way. I protect my friends.”

  “You sound like a Mafioso,” he said.

  “I think maybe I just became one,” Lacy said. “Or maybe I’m Elliot Ness.” They trudged back through the woods, nervously now since they knew there was a lion. Lacy drove Michael home, and then without conscious thought headed to the hospital.

  At some point in the day, Jason must have been awake because Lacy’s name was now on the approved visitor’s list. But as she sneaked up to his room, she heard his mother’s voice. She paused, trying to work up the courage to go in when something his mother said filtered out into the hallway.

  “Elephants and ponies, Jason,” she whispered. Puzzled and too insecure of her place in his life to go inside, Lacy tucked her tail between her legs and walked away.

  Chapter 18

  Two days later, Lacy stood in front of a too-small grave, feeling sad and overwhelmed. In the intervening forty eight hours, Pearl had been set free. And George the waiter had been arrested. Not only that, but he had fully confessed to the accidental murder of Jonah Merleputter and the accidental shooting of Jason Cantor. In a quick-as-lightning plea deal presided over by Judge Kronk, he was sentenced to one year of prison in a minimum security facility. Some of the officers were outraged over the light sentence, but Detective Arroyo, the official representative of the officers’ union, made a statement about intent verses accident--a virtual endorsement of the sentence.

  And on the front page of the paper, a lion had been captured by animal control. Unsubstantiated reports were that someone had kept it as an illegal pet, letting it go when it became too big to handle.

  Lacy was furious that an innocent man had been thrown under the bus by the nefarious group. She had tried to visit George, but he had already been moved. She wrote him a letter, but she wasn’t sure it would ever be received. She wondered what he had been paid to take the fall, and then she thought of his family and their immigration woes. She was filled with impotent rage, but what could she do? The man had willingly confessed. No one would believe her if she said he was coerced by the presiding judge and detective. They had bested her when she thought she had the best of them. In retrospect, she could see that they had recruited George into their group in anticipation of needing a scapegoat. Someday she would level the playing field and make them pay for their misdeeds, but not today. Today was about remembrance for one whose life had ended far too soon.

  “Hey.”

  Lacy hadn’t heard Jason approach. She looked up at him in surprise. “What are you doing here? I called the hospital and they said you weren’t supposed to be released until tomorrow at the earliest.”

  “There was dust on the television,” he said.

  She blinked at him, trying to decipher his meaning. “So?”

  “So? So if there was dust on the television, think of what else they didn’t clean. Disgusting. I had to leave for my own safety.”

  “Just to clarify, you left a hospital against medical advice because it wasn’t clean enough for you?”

  “Sounds about right,” he said.

  “Wow,” she mouthed.

  He smiled, tried to lift his arm, thought better of it, and switched sides. Once she was on his left, he slid his arm around her and cinched her close. “Thanks for coming today. It means a lot to me that you remembered, especially because you didn’t think I was going to make it.”

  She eased her arm around his waist and read the inscription on the small grave silently to herself. Joshua Cantor, beloved son and brother. His birthday was today; the little life had ended at the tender age of seven so many years ago. How differently would Jason’s life have turned out if his brother had lived?

  After a few minutes of silent remembrance, he turned his head slightly and kissed her temple. “Those flowers from you?” he asked. She nodded, and he gave her shoulders a squeeze. “You missed your grand opening Saturday.”

  She shrugged. She had woken in the hospital with him far after the grand opening of the Stakely building, and she hadn’t given it a thought.

  “You were at the hospital,” he said.

  “How did you know?”

  “One of the nurses described a crazy woman with long red hair and scary green eyes. I went out on a limb and guessed it was you. Why weren’t you there when I woke up?”

  “Your dance card was a bit crowded, and I had something I needed to do,” she said.

  “Why do you have a black eye and fat lip?”

  “Riley.”

  “How does she look?”

  “The same,” she said.

  He squeezed her shoulders. “There’s my brutally violent girl. Did you walk?”

  “Always.”

  “Can I give you a ride?”

  “Are you okay to drive?”

  “Sure,” he said. His flippant tone wasn’t convincing, but they were only a few blocks from home. The ride was over almost before it got started. They remained in the car, reluctant to get out. Finally Lacy couldn’t take the tension anymore. Jason followed slowly behind her. They paused on the porch and faced each other.

  There was a part of Lacy that wanted to bury her head in the sand, to pretend nothing was wrong between them. But lack of communication had been their problem for far too long, and it was her turn to take the first step. “Jason, I was wrong about so many things,” she said. “I’m sorry, so sorry.”

  “No, don’t apologize. I went about everything all wrong. I kept trying to make you do what I wanted you to do, to be who I wanted you to be. I’m the one who’s sorry.”

  They stared at each other, the tension and silence so oppressive Lacy felt almost like she was suffocating. “Did you mean it when you said you were done?”

  “Geez, are you crazy? I was mad, but I’m not stupid. I’ve bluffed so many times since you came along. I thought you were beginning to see through me.”

  “Bluffed about what?” Lacy asked.

  “About letting you go, about staying away. Didn’t it ever occur to you that no matter how many times I said it, I couldn’t follow through and actually leave you alone? I made fun of Tosh for being pathetic, when the truth is that I’m the most pathetic man in the universe when it comes to you.”

  “You said Tosh’s name,” Lacy pointed out. He had never said it before unless he had to.

  “The rumor on the street is that he saved my life. Expect me to look for ways to try and kill him so I can save him and repay the debt.”

  Lacy laughed, but it was a wobbly sound, too full of recent terror to be amused. Jason inched closer and rested his good hand on her waist. She slipped her arms around his neck, closed her eyes, and pressed her face to his chest.

  “I’m going to be good with everything now,” he said. “I promise. I’m going to be patient and realize you need to take your time. I know you and he are tight, and I know you have issues with the whole relationship thing.”

  She shook her head.

  “What do you mean no?”

  “I mean that it’s really nice, what you’re offering, but it’s a moot point.”

  “Speak slowly
and clearly for the poor guy who lost too much blood. What exactly are you trying to say?”

  “I’m saying that in that moment when I saw Tosh covered in blood and realized it was yours, nothing else mattered. Not trying to tiptoe around Tosh’s feelings, not my fear of commitment—nothing. I’m saying that I’m in this thing that we have going on, fully and completely.”

  He stared at her, wordlessly blinking for so long that she began to feel like a fool. Had she assumed too much? Had she read too much into their friendship? Had she misunderstood everything? Time to backpedal. “I mean, if you want to be with me. I guess you never really said that you wanted to be in an exclusive relationship. I just assumed, and that’s probably a presumptuous assumption on my part. You see, this is why I didn’t want to do this because I always mess it up. I’m not very good at…”

  “Lacy,” he interrupted.

  “What?” she said. She stared at his chest, afraid to look up and see the gentle rejection in his expression.

  “You’re ruining the moment with too many words.”

  “Oh, sorry. I babble when…”

  He pressed his index finger to her lips and then used it to tip her face up, and then he kissed her. Her lip was still swollen and split, so the kiss was gentle. But it was a very sweet sort of kiss, the kind that promised many more to come. When it was over, she was the first to speak.

  “I need to know what’s between you and Cindy.”

  “Cindy was my first girlfriend, my only serious relationship. She’s beautiful and kind.”

  “Tell me the but is coming soon, Jason.”

  “But zzzzz.” He dropped his head to her shoulder and made a snoring sound. Lacy giggled with far too much relief and delight. “I’m serious, Red,” he said, opening his eyes. “I feel horrible for saying this because she’s so nice, but she bores me to tears. Maybe the friendship she and I have would have been enough before you came back to town, but it’s not enough now. You’ve turned my careful world upside down. Most of the time you drive me crazy, but I love what you and I have going, and I’m not willing to trade it for any amount of normalcy. Do you know what we did last weekend? I spent three hours at her house hanging curtains.”

  Lacy poked him hard in the ribs. “You hung curtains for her?”

  “Baby, I will hang your curtains anytime. Say the word.”

  “That sounds promising and vaguely naughty,” Lacy said. “I have one more question.”

  “Does it involve curtains? Because I don’t think I can hang them until my arm heals.”

  “No, it’s something else. What does the phrase ‘elephants and ponies’ mean?”

  “Where did you hear that?” he asked.

  “Your mom said it.” It was half true, at least.

  “When Josh and I were little, we reached that age where we didn’t want to tell our mom we loved her in public. So we came up with this code. ‘Elephants and ponies’ means I love you so much.”

  “That’s really beautiful,” Lacy said. She gave him a lopsided, misty smile. He returned her smile and brushed her cheek with his thumb.

  “Can you come over tonight? I think I need a nurse, someone to be at my beck and call for a few hours.”

  “I need to run inside and grab some stuff. I also need to call Tosh. He said something about going to Bingo with him tonight, but I don’t think he’ll mind if I back out.” He had been strangely MIA the last few days, despite Lacy’s best efforts to reach him.

  “I wonder how long it will take to get over my knee-jerk reaction to the guy. And by that I mean that I want to jerk my knee into his face.”

  Lacy pressed her hand over his mouth. “Stop. You’re going to like him once you get to know him.”

  “If you say so.”

  “I promise. He’s like the male me.”

  “Yes, but what makes us work is that you’re the female you.”

  Lacy’s laughter died as they walked into the living room because Tosh was there, and he wasn’t alone. In fact he was very much attached to Riley, as in his lips to hers. Lacy must have made a loud sound because from the looks of them, they weren’t going to break apart for anything less than a bellow.

  “Oh,” Riley said. Her cheeks turned a practiced and charming shade of pink. Tosh looked anywhere but at Lacy. Lacy couldn’t catch his attention to read what was in his eyes, and she had no words. She stared at them, speechless.

  “So, uh, this is new,” Jason said to try and fill the awkward silence. “Are you guys together now or what?”

  “Oh, we’re more than that,” Riley said. She jutted her hand in their faces. “We’re married!”

  Jason turned to Lacy. “You’re right; I do like him better already.”

  Lacy didn’t answer. She couldn’t. Instead, she pushed past him and fled out the door.

  *Keep reading for a sneak peek from the next book in the series, Class Reunion of Murder

  Sneak Peek Prologue

  Lacy Steele was a stalker. There was no other way to describe her over-the-top interest in Chester Campbell. Every year of high school, her crush had grown stronger until at last it was unbearable. Today was worse than ever because she couldn’t stop staring at him. The way he worked that tuba was something. Usually Lacy was in front of him in the clarinet section, but because of a morning trip to the orthodontist to have her braces tightened, she was out of marching band practice for the afternoon. She could have gone home; she should have. But she couldn’t tear herself away from the mesmerizing sight of Chester and his tuba. Such grace. Such power.

  That was Lacy’s last coherent thought before she did a face plant in the dirt behind the bleachers where she had been hiding to watch Chester.

  “Geez, I’m so sorry. Are you okay?” Strong hands wrapped around her biceps and pulled her to a standing position, and Lacy came face to face with Jason Cantor.

  She frowned as she brushed herself off and shook free of his grasp. Girls were always falling all over themselves for Jason Cantor; Lacy didn’t want him to think she had been trying to get his attention when in reality she had been spying on Chester. “I’m fine,” she said. The words emerged with a slight spray of spittle. She always spit and lisped the day she had her braces tightened.

  “I didn’t see you there,” he said. “It’s like you were hiding.”

  “I wasn’t hiding,” Lacy lied. She soothed her conscience by telling herself that she hadn’t been hiding from him. That was probably what he meant anyway. He was freakishly good looking, one of those jocks who never went through an awkward developmental phase. Not like her and Chester. They were still in that awkward phase—just one of many things they had in common. Jason, on the other hand, had the well-developed body of a full-grown man. In comparison, Chester was scrawny. But he must be stronger than he looked because tubas were heavy. And he had inner strength, something she was sure Jason knew nothing about. How could he have a strong moral character when the worst problem of his life was deciding which of his fan club to take out on a Friday night?

  “What’s wrong with your lips?” Jason asked.

  “I had my braces tightened. It makes me talk funny.”

  “Does it also make your lips swell?”

  She reached up to touch her now puffy lips. She must have landed on them when she hit the ground, but they already hurt so much she couldn’t tell. “Aw, man,” she muttered.

  “I’m so sorry,” Jason said. “Can I get you some ice?”

  Why was he still there and talking to her? Was he somehow making fun of her? He couldn’t truly be nice enough to care about her lips, could he? “Shouldn’t you be on the field?”

  “Well, yeah, but I can’t just run you over and leave you,” he said.

  “You can,” Lacy insisted. “I’m weawwy okay.”

  “You just said ‘weawwy,’” he pointed out. “You’re not okay.”

  “I am. I wike to tawk babytawk. It’s my thing.” She swallowed something that tasted a whole lot like blood. Her swollen, grotesque mouth
must also be bleeding. Great.

  He chuckled and used his index finger to scratch his temple. “I’m, uh, not sure what to do with you.”

  “Weave me. You’re fwee.”

  “I could send one of the trainers with some ice.”

  Lacy shook her head. She was afraid to speak again, afraid of how it might sound now that her lips were swelling to four times their normal size.