Sleuthing Women II

by Lois Winston

  “You killed Warren?” Her tone was a mix of bewilderment and horror.

  “It was Nora, actually.” Peter began pacing in front of her. “She knew the cops would suspect you. And then when they offered you a plea deal, well, it seemed like a decent compromise. You could have gone along, done your time, and lived. She was sure Warren wouldn’t have told you the terms of the trust. Once we realized you knew, it was clear we needed to shut you up. Pity, money is such a convincing motive, too.”

  Ariel struggled to free herself, twisting and tugging to no avail. She was breathing hard, half-choking on her sobs. “You won’t get away with this. My attorney knows about the trust. If you kill me, the cops will find you.”

  “You’re going to disappear, Ariel. Everyone will think you’re a fugitive. They’ll be looking for you, not a body.”

  Another momentary ray of light as Nora moved into the dining room. She was carrying a small suitcase. “Okay. We’re ready. Let’s get her into the trunk.”

  I listened hard for the sound of police sirens. Nothing.

  If help didn’t arrive soon, it would be too late.

  I looked around the sparsely furnished hallway. No ready fire irons or baseball bats. Not even a heavy vase. And then I remembered the pepper spray in my purse.

  At least I hoped it was still there. I’d carried it for years. I wasn’t sure it even still worked. I reached into my purse and fumbled around in the clutter at the bottom. Lipstick, hand cream, pen, a stick of gum, and finally, the slender canister I was banking Ariel’s life on. And my own.

  With pepper spray in hand, I set my purse on the floor and risked a clearer view into the dining room. Nora was working to untie Ariel’s bound feet.

  Peter moved closer. “Let me just cut the rope,” he said. “We need to get out of here.”

  With a silent prayer, I burst into the dining room, aiming the spray at Peter’s eyes. He backed away and crouched down, his hands to his face, dropping the knife in the process. He was coughing and gagging.

  “Jesus Christ. I can’t see. I can’t breathe.”

  I scrambled to get to the knife but Nora was there first. She grabbed it from the floor and started slashing wildly in my direction.

  I raised my hand with the pepper spray but the knife caught my forearm, and the stream of spray missed her face. Blood streaked down my arm. I tried the spray again, but Nora sensed victory and kept slashing. The knife connected with my face, just above my right eye. At first I felt nothing but the sharp sting of the cut, then blood began pouring down my face, obscuring my vision.

  I sprayed the canister blindly, waving it in Nora’s direction. I didn’t get the direct hit I had with Peter but it was enough to send her running to the kitchen sink to splash water on her face.

  Peter was still crouched on the floor, moaning.

  “Oh my God,” Ariel cried out. “You’re bleeding like crazy.”

  “I know.” I pressed my hand to the wound above my eye but it did little to stop the flow of blood. I realized the knife had also gotten my cheek. “We need to get away quickly.”

  Ariel’s wrists and torso were still bound to the chair, and with blood pouring from my face and arm, I was unable to see well enough to untie her. I was growing light-headed and unsteady. We weren’t in the clear yet.

  I knew we didn’t have much time. Peter was getting to his feet and Nora would be back any second.

  I grabbed the back of the chair and tried dragging Ariel out the door. It was hard going.

  “I can use my feet,” she said. “Nora got them untied.” She leaned forward, weight on her feet, and slowly turned. I reached for her arms, half guiding her, half pulling. Thank God the chair was narrow enough to fit through the doorway.

  Peter was to his feet now, stumbling toward us.

  “Warren’s golf club,” Ariel said when we reached the hallway. “In the closet by the front door.”

  I grabbed for it and swung at Peter, hitting him in the head. He fell to his knees, swearing.

  Finally, I managed to get the front door open and both of us outside. I began yelling, hoping to arouse a curious neighbor or two. Ariel joined in.

  One of the many benefits of living in a nice neighborhood is nice neighbors. A number of them poured outside instantly.

  “Call the police,” I yelled.

  “And an ambulance,” Ariel added.

  But the 911 dispatcher had done her job, and help arrived right then in the form of the local police.

  “What’s going on here?” a heavy set cop asked.

  “They were going to kill her,” I managed, and then passed out.

  TWENTY-THREE

  What happened next is something of a blur for me. I regained consciousness fairly quickly, I think, but I was disoriented and unable to focus my thoughts. The voices around me sounded far away and faint, although when I opened my one clear eye I saw a flurry of feet and legs nearby.

  “Hold this against your eye,” a female voice told me. A young woman in a blue paramedic uniform knelt beside me. She pressed a thick gauze pad into my hand. “I’m going to tape up your arm.”

  In the background I heard Ariel trying to explain what had happened, but her account was so scattershot the cops kept interrupting for clarification. She was still seated in the chair, but unbound. She was shivering, and someone had draped a blanket around her shoulders.

  All I could focus on was the fact that she was safe. That we were both safe.

  I closed my eyes but opened them again when I heard a commotion near the entrance to the house. Ariel must at least have been coherent enough to make it clear that Nora and Peter had tried to kill her and were still inside, because they were being brought out in handcuffs. Peter was still wheezing and coughing, his eyes swollen and red, his nose running. Nora was merely angry. Seething, in fact.

  She veered toward Ariel and spat out venom. “You’re nothing but a stupid, gold-digging hairdresser. You had no right to marry Warren, and you’re not going to get one cent of the trust money.”

  A cop pushed her ahead toward a waiting cruiser.

  When I tried to lift my head for a better view, the world began swimming around me. “We’re going to get you on a gurney,” the paramedic told me. “You’re going to be fine but you need to have those wounds looked at.”

  She and her partner wheeled me to a waiting ambulance I hadn’t even known was there.

  ~*~

  I have only vague memories of the ride to the hospital, or of being stitching up. I do remember the stitching seemed to take forever.

  There was no pain after the shots of topical anesthesia and “something to help me relax,” but I could swear several hours had passed when the doctor announced he was halfway through.

  “Only half way?” I croaked.

  “These are nasty cuts. They went through to the muscle. You’re going to have a scar no matter what, but I’m guessing you’d prefer something that didn’t leave you looking like Frankenstein. ”

  “That bad?” It hadn’t felt like much at the time.

  “You’re lucky the knife missed your eye,” he said philosophically.

  Easy for him to say since he wasn’t the one who would end up with a scarred face. But I had to admit scars were a small price to pay for eyesight.

  I’d been drifting in and out of sleep while the doctor worked, and now I let myself float again into dreamland.

  When I woke up, I was in a room with several other narrow beds. A nurse stood next to me taking my blood pressure.

  “Your ride will be here soon,” she said.

  “My ride?”

  “Unless you’d prefer to spend the night in the hospital. But I’m pretty sure insurance won’t cover that.”

  “Who did you call?”

  “Your ICE contact, Sabrina Ashford.”

  “ICE?” I started to protest that I was a natural born citizen.

  “In Case of Emergency,” the nurse explained.

  “Oh.” There’d been a pub
lic service push a few years back advising that people list an ICE number in their cell phone contacts.

  “She said she was your sister,” the nurse added.

  “She is. But she lives in Arizona.”

  “So she told me. She suggested I call someone named Bryce Keating.”

  Now I was fully awake. “He’s coming get me? He agreed to do it?”

  “You sound surprised. He was quite concerned, but I assured him you were okay.”

  Okay in the medical sense maybe, but I wasn’t feeling okay enough to face Bryce. What if he vented his anger at me? Or gave me the cold, silent treatment and confirmed that he was washing his hands of me? All I wanted to do was close my eyes and forget the past few days had happened.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  “So you got in a knife fight, huh?” Bryce said as he walked up to my bed. A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth but his eyes were solemn and concerned.

  I nodded. The nurse had brought me a clean hospital gown and bagged my bloody clothes. I’d caught sight of my face in the mirror while I was changing, and it was wretched. Thick black stitches, knotted at each end, ran like bad embroidery above my right eye and across my cheek. I looked like a Halloween monster.

  Bryce touched my forehead. “Does it hurt?”

  “They shot me full of topical anesthesia. I didn’t even feel the stitches going in. But it looks terrible.”

  “I’ve seen worse.”

  Not exactly reassuring.

  Bryce studied his hands for a moment. “I’m glad you gave the hospital my name,” he said finally.

  “I didn’t. Sabrina did.”

  “Oh.”

  “I didn’t think you’d agree to come. I was sure you were mad at me.”

  He smiled thinly. “I was.”

  “I was afraid you never wanted to see me again.”

  He shook his head. “Not so. Definitely not so.”

  “I hurt you, Bryce. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what came over me. It had nothing to do with you. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”

  He gazed at me for a long, steady moment, saying nothing.

  “I’d had a bad day, was in a bad mood. That’s no excuse, I know, but . . .” I felt my eyes well with tears. “You’ve been ignoring my calls and texts. I am so sorry. I’d do anything to go back in time and do it differently. Can you ever forgive me?”

  Bryce smiled, a true warm smile. His eyes met mine. “I already have.”

  The impact of my narrow escape from physical danger, along with the commensurate, and perhaps more profound, relief at knowing I hadn’t lost Bryce forever overwhelmed me. I began crying in earnest.

  “Why didn’t you answer my calls?” I blubbered, wiping my eyes.

  “I was on special assignment for the day. Out of phone range for much of it, and in important meetings for the rest. I didn’t get back until this evening.”

  “But I called last night, not long after you’d left.”

  “I know that now. But at the time, I was upset. I turned off my phone.”

  “So you weren’t trying to get even with me?”

  “I won’t say the thought didn’t cross my mind. But no, I wasn’t trying to get even.”

  The nurse arrived then with some forms for me to sign, and a wheelchair.

  “I can walk,” I protested.

  “Hospital rules,” she announced with a touch of humor. “No point objecting. Everyone tries but rules rule.”

  ~*~

  “How are you really?” Bryce asked when we were in his car.

  “Shaken. Not sure I ever want to look in a mirror again, but otherwise fine.”

  “You’re beautiful, even with the stitches.”

  I smiled, leaned back in my seat and closed my eyes. I was exhausted and elated at the same time.

  “The answer is yes,” I said.

  “What’s the question?”

  “Yes, I want to marry you. Assuming you’ll still have me.”

  “You’re serious? You’re not saying that just because you’re drugged up or something?”

  I opened my eyes and looked at him. “I’ve never been more serious in my life.”

  Bryce grinned let out a loud whoop, something between a yodel and cowboy howl.

  “How soon?”

  I laughed. “I’d like to at least put on some clean clothes first.”

  “We’re going to have a great life together, honey.”

  “That we are.” I no longer had any doubts.

  I closed my eyes again and drifted off, counting my blessings and wondering why it had taken me so long to say yes.

  ~*~

  Kali’s adventures continue in other books in the Kali O’Brien mystery series.

  About the Author

  Jonnie Jacobs is the bestselling author of fifteen previous mystery and suspense novels, and several short stories. A former practicing attorney and the mother of two grown sons. she lives in northern California with her husband.

  Connect with Jonnie at the following sites:

  Email: jonnie@jonniejacobs.com

  Website: http://www.jonniejacobs.com

  Books by Jonnie Jacobs

  Kali O’Brien Legal Mystery series

  Shadow of Doubt

  Evidence of Guilt

  Motion to Dismiss

  Witness for the Defense

  Cold Justice

  Intent to Harm

  The Next Victim

  Kate Austen Suburban Mystery series

  Murder Among Neighbors

  Murder Among Friends

  Murder Among Us

  Murder Among Strangers

  Non-Series Books

  The Only Suspect

  Paradise Falls

  Lying With Strangers

  Payback

  Multi-Author Boxed Sets

  Sleuthing Women: 10 First-in-Series Mysteries

  Sleuthing Women II: 10 Mystery Novellas

  THE MAGNESIUM MURDER

  A Periodic Table Mystery Novella

  By Camille Minichino

  In this novella addition to the Periodic Table Mysteries, freelance embalmer Anastasia Brent is summoned to prepare the body of a young bride-to-be, Terry Corbett. Terry’s mother, a friend of Anastasia’s mortuary employer, suspects her daughter has been murdered, and is desperate for someone to help her prove it. It isn’t the first time Anastasia has been pressed into service as a sleuth, but she’d rather tackle her solitary job with deceased clients than deal with living murder suspects. She puts aside her preferences and overcomes her own personal stress of moving in with her boyfriend, to follow the trail that leads to justice.

  ONE

  The last few days had been tough for freelance embalmer Anastasia Brent, and her sour mood was due only partly to the record high temperatures this first week of July. All her earthly possessions, except for her toothbrush and a few changes of clothing, were in cardboard boxes stacked in Marty Gilbert’s living room, thus making it inconvenient for her to follow her usual morning routines, and also tying up most of Marty’s tap dancing floor.

  “It’s your tap dancing floor now, too,” Marty said. He kissed her good-bye, on his way out the door to teach a beginner’s tap class at his off-site studio. “Take your time getting settled. I’ll be back this afternoon and I can help.” Marty did a quick shuffle-step-heel across the threshold.

  Anastasia smiled, glad that Marty wasn’t picking up on her discomfort.

  Marty had done everything he could to welcome her when she’d finally agreed to move in with him. Her favorite flowers—fragrant lilacs and irises—wooed her from the dining room table; the fridge and old-fashioned pantry were loaded with all her default lunch choices—fruit, yogurt, creamy cheeses, rice crackers, and gourmet pomegranate jelly. He’d made it clear that she had free rein in redecorating as long as she didn’t do something drastic, like lay carpet over the dance floor that dominated the living room.

  She thought back to her first evening with Instructor Marty G
ilbert, when she signed up for his class on a whim.

  “You’re going to take what?” her best GF, Keicia had asked, wide-eyed.

  “You’re always telling me to branch out and get a hobby, to get out of”—Anastasia had drawn quotes in the air—“my dark hole of an embalming room. Which is wrong, of course. Any prep room I work in is bright and well lit.”

  Keicia laughed. “Prep room. You make it sound like a beauty salon, when you really mean embalming room, but I get why you don’t call it that. Too bad I can’t visit and see for myself.”

  “Those pesky OSHA rules,” Anastasia said.

  “Let’s get back to this tap dancing class. When I suggested something fun, I didn’t mean for you to join a bunch of eight-year-olds.”

  “The course description says it’s for adult beginners.”

  “Okay, so you’ll be with eighty-year-olds working out their arthritis.”

  It turned out that Keicia wasn’t far off. Anastasia’s classmates were mostly senior citizens trying to keep moving. The instructor, on the other hand, was eye candy, and he and Anastasia hit it off immediately.

  Now here they were, nearly three years later, sharing closet space. Anastasia’s move had been from one Berkeley neighborhood to another two miles across town, hardly a dramatic change in environment, but it might as well have been to another country as far as her insides were concerned.

  She thought she’d done a good job this morning, covering her mixed feelings about calling this charming old two-bedroom at the edge of the Elmwood district “home.” She’d planted a serious goodbye kiss on Marty’s lips. It wasn’t his fault that she wasn’t the quickest to adapt to new situations. According to her parents, Anastasia had cried for days when the district painted and remodeled her nursery school classroom. Her fiftieth birthday was now in her rearview mirror, but she wasn’t that different from her lunch box days.

  With Marty off to his class, and without a client at the moment, Anastasia was on her own to explore her new space. She’d been working cases steadily for three mortuaries, and was glad for this break.