by JB Lynn
Alyssa shrugged. “It might. It’s not like we have anything else to go on.”
“Oh contrare,” a woman trilled.
“Au contrair,” Alyssa corrected as Armani limped into the room, Jane following behind.
“You say ‘au,’ I say ‘oh,’” the crazy psychic teased. “Either way, you’re wrong because you have me.”
“How’d you know I’d be here?” Alyssa asked.
“I have my ways.”
“I called her,” Jane interjected.
“You called her?” Alyssa moaned, dropping her head into her hands.
“You’re the one who said she might help,” Jane reminded her. “And she brought a friend.” She beckoned someone else into the room.
“Tara!” Gerald smiled.
“Daredevil!” She grinned back and hurried over to high-five him. “Hell of a job you did driving in that park.”
“Apple pie!” Armani yelled excitedly. “I love apple pie.”
“It’s a tart,” Jane corrected mildly.
“Pie, tart, galette. If it’s fruity and crusty, I love ’em all.” Armani sank into the seat beside Gerald and extended her good hand. “And who might you be?”
“Shouldn’t you know?” Alyssa asked snarkily.
“Gerald,” he told the crazy woman shaking his hand. “So you’re the resident psychic?”
“I have my gifts.” She fluffed her hair.
“So she says,” Alyssa griped, her worry about Pete making her tone sharp.
“Oh she does.” Tara once again made a point of showing Alyssa her wedding ring.
Alyssa frowned. “I’m sorry. Why are you here?”
“I brought her,” Armani began rummaging in her oversized purse. “Harry, her husband, my boss, was none too pleased with me when she went home looking like a drowned cat.”
“Rat,” Jane and Alyssa corrected simultaneously. “A drowned rat.”
“She jumped in a stream to save a cat—she looked like a drowned cat,” Armani argued.
Alyssa was pretty sure a soft chuckle escaped from Gerald.
“I second Tara’s vote,” Jane said tapping her own wedding ring. “Armani does have gifts.”
Preening beneath the praise, Armani blew air kisses at her two true believers.
Alyssa noticed that Gerald was watching the whole show like it was the best entertainment he’d had in ages.
“Pick!” Armani commanded loudly, shaking a purple cloth bag in front of Alyssa’s face. “Pick seven.”
Deciding to play along to get things moving, Alyssa did as she was told and pulled seven Scrabble tiles from the bag.
Armani put them down on the table in alphabetical order. A E E H R S V
“Hmmph!” Armani said, peering back into the bag as though expecting to find something else inside it.
“Something wrong?” Tara asked.
“Not wrong, but strange,” Armani said slowly.
“How so?” Jane asked, leaning closer to get a better look at the letters.
“He picked the same letters and he figured out what they meant.”
“Who?” Tara asked.
“Pete,” Armani explained.
“And what do they mean?” Jane asked.
“Save her.” Armani stared at Alyssa intently. “Save who?”
Alyssa blinked, trying to dismiss the memories rushing her. The knowledge she’d failed before to save someone ate away at her, making her feel physically ill.
“Save who?” Armani pushed.
“I don’t know.” She swallowed her nausea.
“Are you sure?”
“Well, Brady wanted me to protect Mrs. Michelman,” she said slowly. “So maybe I’m supposed to save her?”
“You’ve got to pick the right door,” Armani reminded her.
“I don’t know what that means,” Alyssa wailed. “I don’t know what any of this means. All I know is that Pete—Pete…” She trailed off as two tears leaked from her eyes and coursed down her cheeks.
“What about me?” Gerald asked quietly. “Can I pick?”
The four women stared at him.
“I’m really not big on people asking to pick.” As she spoke, Armani gave Tara a strange look.
“Desperate times, desperate measures?” Gerald suggested.
“I don’t think—” Alyssa began.
“Please,” Gerald interrupted.
Slowly, Armani put the letters Alyssa had chosen back into the bag. “You’re a believer?”
“In you?” He shrugged. “The jury’s still out. But I believe in things I can’t necessarily understand.”
Apparently, that was a good enough answer because Armani held the bag out to him. “Seven.”
He laid his tiles on the table.
D E G I N R R
“Grinder,” Armani decreed.
“Derring,” Jane suggested.
“Red ring,” Tara murmured quietly.
Jane’s phone rang, startling them all.
“Hello?” she answered. She listened for a moment and then put the phone on speaker. “Okay, go ahead.”
“We need someone who can drive under pressure,” Tom sounded almost giddy. “Feel like you’re up to another act of derring-do, Gerald?”
The five people in the dining room stared incredulously at the letters.
“Gerald?” Tom asked sharply.
“Yes,” Gerald said. “Count me in.”
“We’ll be there in ten minutes,” Tom said before disconnecting the call.
“You a believer now?” Armani challenged Gerald.
“You have no idea.”
Chapter 30
A flash of light blinded Pete as the door to wherever he was being held crashed open.
He squeezed his eyes shut against the assault. Blinking, it took him a few minutes to focus. When he did, he knew three things.
Three men in cartoon masks were watching him.
One wore a bird.
One wore brass knuckles.
One held a gun.
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” the man with the gun began. “It’s up to you.”
“Did you steal that line from a movie?” Pete quipped.
“We should just kill him,” Brass Knuckles said.
“I should just kill you,” the gunman said, waving his weapon in the direction of the man who’d dared to speak. He swung it back toward Pete. “Who did you tell?”
“Tell what?”
“What you found out.”
Pete stayed silent, trying to figure out what they thought he’d figured out.
“Gonna play tough guy, huh? We’ll see how long that lasts.”
Knowing that his brother and friends would be looking for him, Pete sent up a silent prayer. Hurry, Tom.
“I need to tell you something,” Gerald burst out the moment Jane, Armani, and Tara had left in search of applet tart.
Alyssa glanced around the dining room. They were the only two people there.
Gerald glanced at the letters still laid out on the table. “I do believe. I do.”
Alyssa half-expected him to click his heels together three times. “What do you need to tell me?”
“It’s illegal.” He shook his head. “But I don’t see another way. It’s like…” He looked to the letters again.
Alyssa waited, not following, but recognizing that he was having some kind of intense internal struggle.
“Red ring,” he muttered, his gaze boring into Alyssa’s. “Mrs. M. is changing her will.”
“That’s the work Brady has got you doing for her?”
He nodded. “If you repeat this to anyone, I’ll never get to practice law. Do you understand that?”
His intensity sent a shiver up her spine. She knew that he wasn’t the kind of man who’d break a confidentiality agreement easily. She knew he was about to confide something important. “I understand,” she pledged.
“Mrs. M. is leaving ten percent of her estate to Mr. Burberry and his desc
endants, enough to keep them in caviar and fourteen-carat gold-flecked kitty litter for a couple of decades.”
Alyssa thought it was an odd bequeathal, but she didn’t understand why Gerald had begun to shake during the revelation.
“That leaves ninety percent to someone else,” he said slowly.
“Who?”
Stressed, he ground his palms into his eye sockets.
She leaned forward in her chair. “Who, Gerald?”
“Her grandson, Jacob.”
Surprised, Alyssa sat back. “Ralph has a kid?” The idea sickened her.
Dropping his hands from his eyes, he looked right at her. “No. Her biological grandson.”
“But she told me she doesn’t have children,” Alyssa argued.
“She thinks she doesn’t have children. At least, not one that survived,” Gerald explained sadly. “She was pregnant when her first husband’s plane disappeared. Almost nine months. The stress of his death sent her into labor.”
“And she gave up the baby?”
Gerald raised his eyebrows. “Can you imagine that woman EVER giving something up?”
Alyssa shook her head slowly. “So what happened?”
“I’ve made such a mess of this.”
“You? How could you be responsible for any of this?”
“Because I’m the one who figured it out.” He got out of his chair. “I’m the one who started this whole mess.”
Before he could explain any more, Jane called from the other room, “They’re here!”
Gerald headed for the door, Alyssa hot on his heels.
“Alyssa, you can’t go,” Jane called as they breezed past them and outside to the pair of trucks waiting in the driveway.
“We know where they’ve got him,” Tom called from the front passenger seat of Jackson’s vehicle.
“How?” Alyssa asked.
“Your big friend went to the hospital and talked to the guy who tried to kill you at the park. Apparently, he’s pretty persuasive.”
Alyssa looked to Roscoe, who was getting out of the truck Mauricio drove, for confirmation. He shrugged sheepishly.
“Gerald, you ride with Mauricio,” Tom ordered.
Instead of getting into the truck, Gerald spun around and grabbed Alyssa in a tight hug. “Your message isn’t save her,” he whispered. “It’s her vase.”
Before she could ask what that meant, he ran over and hopped in Mauricio’s truck. The pair of vehicles tore out of the driveway and raced away, leaving Alyssa and Roscoe to watch them.
When they were out of sight, she muttered, “I don’t suppose her vase means anything to you?”
“Mildred’s?”
She looked at him. “What do you mean?”
“She almost died in the house fire because she wouldn’t leave that or the picture of her first husband,” Roscoe explained. “Why? Does it mean something to you?”
“Tell me about this vase.”
“I dunno. It’s old. Pink. Ceramic. Has a weird lid. She keeps fertilizer or something in it.”
Alyssa considered what Gerald had revealed to her and suddenly Roscoe’s description made sense, if it was something else.
“Fertilizer or ash?” she asked excitedly.
Roscoe thought about it for a moment. She saw the truth dawn on his face. “It’s not a vase. It’s an urn. It’s not fertilizer. It’s someone’s ashes.”
“But if Gerald’s right, they’re not the ashes she thinks they are.”
His captors were back. He had no idea how long they’d been gone. The sensory deprivation was messing with his sense of time.
“This is all Brady’s fault,” the man in the bird mask said.
In the distance, Pete heard a sickening thud, and then a car alarm went off.
“Take care of that,” the man in the bird mask told Brass Knuckles.
As the third man left, Pete swiveled his gaze toward the bird. He knew that voice.
“If that idiot girl he’s run off with hadn’t interfered, Brady would have never gotten involved.” The man pulled his mask off. “And we wouldn’t have ended up here,” Ralph concluded.
Pete stared at Mildred’s stepson.
Ralph grinned maniacally. “Care to wager a guess on why I let you see my face, Mr. Hanlon?”
Pete remained stoically silent. He knew why, but he wasn’t going to give the prick the satisfaction of hearing him say it. Instead, he stared past him, at the doorway. That’s when he saw a movement. It was fast and no one else noticed it because they were all watching him, but he knew he wasn’t alone. The cavalry had arrived.
Disappointed, Ralph frowned. “Because I’m going to kill you.”
“You?” Pete mocked, trying to keep his captors focused on him. “Are you going to kill me? Or will you have one of your little girlie, mask-wearing henchmen do it?
“I’ll do it!” Ralph shouted, grabbing for the gun held by his cohort.
Everything was a blur once they started arguing over the weapon. Pete tried to kick the third kidnapper, and in doing so, tipped his chair over so he couldn’t see what was going on. There was a swarm of activity, a chorus of curses and groans, and then silence.
Pete held his breath, unsure which side had won the battle.
“Need a hand, little brother?” Tom asked.
“Naaah,” Pete joked weakly. “I got this.”
Chapter 31
“You seem different than when we first met,” Roscoe asked as he drove Alyssa across town to meet with Mildred.
“How so?”
“I thought you were a loner, but now…”
“I was a cop,” she said quietly. “Did you know that?”
Roscoe shook his head.
“And now I’m not. I miss that camaraderie. Feeling like people have my back. Knowing I’m part of something.”
“I have your back,” Roscoe told her firmly.
“I know.”
“So do Pete and Gerald and Jane.”
She nodded, tears prickling the back of her eyes. She knew that. Roscoe was right. She was different. She’d found a new tribe to belong to.
Roscoe shifted in his seat uncomfortably. “You know my story, right? What happened?”
“Pete told me a little,” she confirmed.
“My sister, Betty, she’s one of those people born under a dark cloud. Bad luck. Worst taste in men. Terrible choices. And I was always trying to make it better. Take care of her, ya know?”
Alyssa nodded.
“I had that fight with her junkie boyfriend and he ended up dead. I ended up with nothing. No job. No family. No friends.”
“I’m sorry,” Alyssa murmured, patting his arm.
“I don’t usually do that.
“Do what?”
“Unload on people.”
“I’m not people. I’m your friend.” The words rolled smoothly off her tongue because they were true.
“Thanks for saying that.” He pulled the truck into a parking spot in front of the building they were going into.
She heard the doubt in his tone. “I meant it. We’re a team. That’s what friends do.”
Twisting in his seat, he looked her in the eye. “They share things?”
She grinned. “Like apple tart.”
“Sure.” He sniffed indignantly. “Ignore my sparkling personality and use me for my baked goods.”
Laughing, she leaned over to kiss his cheek.
That’s when the rear windshield shattered.
A sharp crack made her instinctively duck a millisecond before the broken glass fell inward.
“What the—?” Roscoe bellowed.
“Gun!” she shouted, dragging him downward.
She huddled on the truck’s floor, while Roscoe, too big to slide beneath the steering wheel, draped himself off the middle console and gearshift. They waited for the next shot, but it never came.
“What should we do?” he whispered.
She didn’t have a clue. “I don’t suppose you have a gun?�
��
“Actually…” He fumbled with his keys and handed her one. “Glove compartment.”
She glanced upward. The glove compartment was over her head. If she moved to unlock it, she risked exposing herself to the shooter.
“Wait,” Roscoe whispered desperately. “I forgot I moved it after I got clocked at the Michelman house.” He stared at her intently. “It’s in the center console. It’s loaded, but the safety’s on.”
She shook her head, realizing he wanted her to make a grab for it. The only way she’d be able to do that would be if he lifted himself off of it, which could very well put him in the sights of the shooter.”
“Blow the horn,” she urged. “Keep pushing it in a random pattern and someone will notice. Someone will call the cops.”
He reached toward the horn. “Eight bullets.”
He threw himself upward and off the console, opening it as he rose up.
Despite being horrified by his self-sacrificing choice, she automatically reached for the pistol, fully expecting to be covered with his blood by the time she picked it up.
But she wasn’t. She retrieved the gun and he lay across the console again, without another shot being fired.
“Are you hurt?” she asked disbelievingly.
“I’m fine.”
“That was really stupid. What were you thinking?” she whisper-screamed.
“That I wanted to give my friend a fighting chance,” he hissed back.
They froze in place, staring at each other.
“Maybe they’re gone,” he suggested finally.
“You folks okay in there?” a man called.
Alyssa turned the safety of the gun off.
“I’m Xander,” the man continued. “I’m a friend of Pete’s. And Jackson.” He hesitated. “And Tom. Sorta.”
Roscoe eyed Alyssa. “What do you think?”
She chewed her bottom lip, trying to think of an answer a true friend of Pete would know. She could tell from the location of his voice that he was slowly circling the truck.
“Look,” Xander offered. “I’d call them, so they could confirm it, but I left my phone upstairs. At least just tell me that you’re both okay.”
“Ask him to name Pete’s brothers,” Alyssa whispered.
“Who are Pete’s brothers?” Roscoe shouted.
