by Jessa Archer
I locked up after them and pulled my phone out of my pocket. Trembling, I called Ridge. His phone rang once, twice—
The hair on the back of my neck stood up. I heard a movement behind me. Phone still to my ear, I swung around just as someone cold-cocked me from behind. I felt blinding pain. And then the world went black.
When I came to, I was in the back seat of a moving vehicle. A new luxury sedan with sleek leather seats and temperature control, and a high-end surround-sound music system. Soft jazz was playing, but this was no pleasure cruise. I knew exactly whose car I was in. I felt like was going to be sick, partly from riding in a car and being unable to see the road. Partly due to the blow to my head. I swallowed hard against the rising nausea and lifted my head.
Dana looked at me in her rearview mirror. "Oh. You're awake." Her face fell.
"Sorry to disappoint." My hands were bound with Dana's silk scarf. She must have improvised. And who knew she could tie such killer knots? She'd never been a good Girl Scout.
"I was hoping to dispose of you while you were still unconscious. Easier for both of us." She pouted. "The truth is—I've always liked you, Jamie. I'm sorry this has to end this way. We could have been friends."
"Just to be clear—by dispose, I assume you mean kill?"
She sighed. "I'm afraid so. There's too much at stake. And you know too much now."
My head throbbed. I tried to think. How did I get out of this? Where were my pepper spray and Kubotan when I needed them? I had to keep her talking. Find out what I could.
"What do you mean by too much? How much do you think I know?" I said. "I figured out it was you just this evening at the event. You were the last person I suspected. I know you killed Earleen. I just don't know why. Supposedly you two were close and you don't need the money."
"Don't I?" She turned left abruptly.
It was dark out now. I'd been unconscious during the critical first part of the journey when I might have gotten a clue where she was headed by the direction she took out of town. It was hard to tell where she was going now. Probably somewhere along the river where she could kill me and dump my body in the rapidly flowing current. My phone was gone. I could only hope Ridge would get suspicious that I'd called and somehow come after me.
"You don't need money that I know of," I said. "When the startup your husband works for goes public, you'll be filthy rich. That's the gossip, anyway."
"Yes." She spat the word out. "True. If the idiot doesn't get himself fired and arrested for embezzlement first."
"Oh," I said.
She set her jaw and nodded. "I had no idea. He keeps our finances tight to his chest. Everything's wonderful, dear. Spend what you like." She slapped the steering wheel.
"I see," I said. "You need the money from the sale of Earleen's little house and the business to pay back what he's embezzled before anyone audits the books and traces the pilfering to him."
"You're a quick study." Her eyes narrowed as she looked at me in the mirror again.
"I assume there was no other way. But poor Earleen—"
"Poor Earleen was a pathetic case of incompetent jealousy. Grandpa never should have left the store to her. She was going to lose it. She had no business sense and even less common sense. She was throwing good money after bad and going out of business faster and faster. It was ridiculous.
"Grandpa should have realized the business was going out of the family one way or another. I could have sold Culp's for a healthy profit right after Grandpa died and had money of my own to deal with this situation without involving Earleen."
Wow. Involving Earleen. That was a delicate way of dancing around taking responsibility for killing her.
"You've been watching me," I said. "Playing up to me to see what I knew and what I was figuring out."
She nodded. "You were so cute playing detective. I didn't count on you being so good at it. I was hoping you'd let it be. Let Earleen's murder become an unsolved cold case. I got rid of the weapon, your gun. It will never be found. There were no witnesses. I was throwing suspicion on anyone I could think of—Phyllis and Artie, Rosemary and Jack, Angel, you."
Like cousin, like cousin.
"It was the perfect crime. I only wanted to throw suspicion off myself. I never wanted anyone charged or convicted wrongly of my crime."
"I would have let it go," I said. "I wanted to. But I kept being dragged back into it. I was going to lose my business—"
"That horrible Phyllis. Trying to get you thrown out of the bridal fair. I really was trying to stop her from ruining you. That wasn't the plan."
"Thanks." I leaned my head back and breathed deeply, still fighting waves of nausea.
"How did you know it was me? What tipped you off tonight? I was so careful." Dana made a right turn onto a dark, narrow road.
"The perfume," I said. "Mabel and her perfume, Madame Rose."
"Care to explain? I need the entertainment."
"First tell me how you got back in to Flourish," I said. "I locked the back door."
"You did. But I unlocked it when I went back to use the restroom. I sneaked back in and hid after I left, waiting for the rest of the ladies to leave."
"Brilliant."
"Thank you," she said. "Your turn. The perfume?"
I took another deep breath. "All right. I'd smelled that perfume before. Mabel's perfume and appearance and her conversation with Sue reminded me where and when.
"On the morning before Earleen's murder, after I found that quote taped to my door, I bumped into an old lady in front of the bakery. She smelled like roses. Like that perfume, but with overtones of other scents. When Sue said the smell of perfume was influenced by other scented products people wore, I realized what those other scents were—the scent of your shampoo and deodorant. I smelled them when I greeted you this evening, mingling with the perfume you usually wear. I realized the old lady was you, and that's when you stole my gun. Which I suspected was the weapon in the murder."
Dana glanced at me again, looking impressed. "Not much to go on, really."
"There's more," I said. "Sue told me you bought a cheap bottle of perfume as a gift for Earleen. She told you it wasn't Earleen's scent or to her tastes. You told her it was your grandma's signature scent and it would remind Earleen of her.
"That's not true, of course. Earleen hated Madame Rose, and I doubt your grandma wore it. Earleen was a perfume lover. She knew how to store perfume. And yet, for some reason, she put this perfume in the worst environment for it—in her bathroom in the direct sunlight from the bathroom window.
"But it wasn't Earleen who actually put it there—it was you. As elegant as you pretend to be, you don't know how to care for perfume. And you didn't pay attention to how your cousin did."
"How did you know that?"
"Let's just say a little bird told me."
Ridge, where are you?
"You're smart," I said to distract her from figuring out I'd been in Earleen's house. "And you were excellent in drama in high school. You can act and you know how to dress up. You always had the best Halloween costumes. You decided to use your skills to play a part of a practically invisible person—an old-lady tourist. You wanted authenticity. You wanted the whole package. You needed an old-lady smell for your old-lady disguise. It was you I bumped into that morning. You dressed as an old lady. That's why you wouldn't meet my eye.
"Your plan was simple, but brilliant. You needed a weapon that couldn't be traced to you. You needed to throw suspicion on me. You knew, like everyone else, that I kept my gun at the store. You were one of the few people, though, who knew where my secret hiding place was. Earleen told you. So you set up the distraction. Your boys found a poster of one of my limited-edition quotes in Earleen's garage—"
"Yeah," she said, smiling. She was enjoying hearing me tell her story. "That was Artie's. Earleen was keeping it for him until his stupid, pedestrian cruise, when he planned to give it to Phyllis. He'd given another copy to Phyllis five or so years ago for
Valentine's Day. It was their quote, apparently. Like their song? Silly." Dana shook her head. "Unfortunately, her original copy had been damaged. He would have bought another copy from you, but Earleen convinced him not to. She hated you that much. She found this copy for a steal on eBay. Artie was going to surprise Phyllis with it on their trip. Earleen was furious when the boys used it for target practice. I offered to replace it, of course. And took it off her hands."
"And blotted out the number so it couldn't be traced," I said.
"I'm nothing if not thorough," she said. "Tell me more. I'm fascinated."
"It's pretty simple. You dressed like the old lady and taped the quote to my door just before I showed up. You knew Angel was out that morning, so there would be no eyes on you from Perk Me Up. You knew I'd need coffee and have to go to the bakery for it. You knew Earleen would be there, as usual. You figured I'd see the quote and, not having had enough coffee, and being upset, I would rush to the bakery without locking up. Where I'd confront Earleen and blame her. And I did exactly that. Which gave you time to sneak in and steal my gun and leave without being seen. You're a good study of human nature and people's habits."
"I am brilliant," she said, sounding pleased with herself. "Except for the perfume. I guess that was over the top. Authentic but, unfortunately, traceable. My Achilles heel."
"The next morning, you followed Earleen on her jog and shot her as she jogged past my house. Then you put another holey quote in her hand to make it look like she was going to post another one on my door. You didn't want anyone challenging my assumption that Earleen was harassing me."
"You have it almost right," Dana said. "I hadn't meant to kill Earleen that morning, and certainly not on your lawn. But she forced my hand. She found a box of your notecards in my room, including one I'd punched holes in myself to make it look like it had been used for target practice, too. In case I needed to 'threaten' you again."
The notecards! I remembered them from my search of Earleen's house and the photos I'd taken. That was how they fit in.
"Earleen figured out that I'd pinned that quote to your door. She wasn't an intellectually curious woman. She didn't care why I did. Though if she thought about it, she should have. She was simply indignant at being unjustly accused of something she didn't do. She's always been like that." Dana rolled her eyes and looked to me for confirmation.
"Yeah," I said. "That sounds like Earleen, all right."
Dana smiled. "Earleen grabbed one of the cards and jogged off to your house to clear her good name and tell you I was behind the prank. That's all she thought it was, stupid woman.
"I couldn't have that. That would ruin my whole carefully crafted plan. So I had to kill her sooner, and more crudely, than I'd originally planned." She pulled over and stopped the car. "I think that about covers it. We're here!" She glanced at me again. "Don't look so scared. I promise. This will be painless."
She grabbed her purse and a water bottle she had in her cup holder. She pulled some pills from her purse and poured them into her palm. "Happy pills I have left over from my oral surgery last fall. They use them instead of general anesthesia. Take a few of these and you won't have a care in the world. They won't knock you out, but you'll feel no fear and no pain."
No pain? There was going to be pain? Of course there was going to be pain.
She left her headlights on, pointing toward the river. The forest was black around us. If I could somehow get free and disappear into the dark outside the path of the headlights…
Dana grabbed something from the passenger seat and got out of the car. My heart pounded in my ears as she came around, leaned the something gently against the car, and got into the back seat next to me. She uncapped the bottle and held the pills in the palm of her hand out to me.
I shook my head. "Without a prescription? That doesn't even look like the right dose. Don't you need to weigh me or something first?"
"Come on, Jamie. Don't be a hero. There's no one here to save you and no way to escape." She nudged the pills toward my lips. "Make this easy on yourself. Go out calm and relaxed."
And, she may as well have added, docile. Pills that made me relaxed, but didn't knock me out? It sounded to me like she wanted me to march calmly to the river, where she would hit me over the head again and push me in to drown.
She was surprisingly calm. Her voice was also amazingly soothing and sympathetic. Especially for someone who was trying to kill me.
If I swallowed those pills, my escape plan was toast unless I acted quickly once I got out of the car.
"You wouldn't happen to have some anti-nausea meds, too?" I asked, trying not to panic. "Something simple and over-the-counter? Dramamine, maybe? It helps with dizziness, too." And I needed all the help I could get.
She patted my shoulder. "No, sorry, sweetie. Just take these and none of that will matter."
I thought about fighting her right there. But I also weighed my odds of success in this position and came up wanting.
Maybe if I were less nauseated. Less dizzy. Less boxed in and bound. But right now, I was at a definite disadvantage and still stalling for time, hoping Ridge had picked up that call and heard something that alerted him to the danger I was in.
I opened my mouth and let her shove the pills in.
She held the water bottle to my lips. I gulped the water down awkwardly, dribbling as I drank. I sputtered, but somehow the pills went down.
"The pills act quickly." It was almost like she was talking to herself. "We'll just give them a little time to work their magic."
She was trying to hide it, but she was nervous and impatient to get this over and get out of here. Maybe there was a way to exploit that.
"More water?" she asked.
I shook my head, desperately plotting a way to save myself.
"Any last requests while we wait?" she asked.
"I get a last meal?"
She laughed. "You were always funny, Jamie. Always quick with a comeback. No food. I meant music. A last song? I have all the streaming services. Something you want to know?"
"Yeah," I said. "I think I grasp the plan here—you march me to the river, hit me over the head with whatever you leaned against the car, then toss me in the river. It's supposed to look like I bashed my head on a rock and drowned. How are you going to explain why I went to the river in the first place?"
"Why will I have to explain?" she said, looking genuinely confused. "No one but you suspects me in Earleen's murder. Why would they suspect me of yours? What people guess about why you went to the river is no concern of mine."
"Good point." I blinked. A pleasant, mellow feeling was beginning to creep over me. My fear began to subside. If I wanted to live, I had to seize this twilight time when I was becoming fearless and still had enough of my senses to act.
The smart thing for her to do was keep me in the car until the drugs kicked in enough to make me pliable. If I could fool her into thinking the drugs had kicked in faster than they had…
I made my eyes unfocused and let my head loll. "I like your car. It's comfortable. Anyone ever tell you that you have good taste in cars?"
"All the time," she said sweetly, relaxing. "You remember? I had a great car in high school."
I nodded, bobbing my head like I was drugged and dreamy. "Everyone envied you." A wave of nausea welled up. I swallowed it down.
She studied me. "You still look a little green." She sounded like she suddenly regretted not having any Dramamine on her. "Let's get you out and get some fresh air. I can't have you throwing up in here."
She wrestled me out her pretty luxury sedan. I'd always admired it. I was wobbly on my feet. Probably the wine didn't help and shouldn't have been mixed with Dana's happy pills.
The cool air hit me with a shock. Dana had to hold me up. She'd stood me up too fast. My head spun. I saw spots before my eyes. It was too much. I threw up all over Dana's expensive designer shoes.
Chapter Twenty
Dana swore and jumped back. She grab
bed the something she'd leaned against the car. It took me only a second to identify its distinctive shape in the dark—a tire iron. Why did cars come equipped with murder weapons? Why? In the unlikely event I got out of this alive, I was going to lobby the car manufacturers for less-lethal tire irons.
Now that I'd thrown up most of my antianxiety happy drugs, I had a fighting chance. Or at least a better one.
It was black around us. Dana pulled me into the beam of her headlights and shuffled me toward the sound of the river. Dana's grip on me was tight, too tight for me to escape. I was still nauseated and dizzy and becoming mellower by the moment. Apparently I hadn't thrown up enough of those meds. If I'd been in a more anxious state, I might have fought her. But I was chill and becoming chiller by the moment. She'd have to let go of me for a moment to hit me with that iron. That was when I'd have to run.
At the brink of the riverbank, Dana stopped short. "This is where your journey ends."
Oh, boy. I don't like this. I swallowed hard, fighting to keep my survival instinct alive as my anxiety and sense of reality slipped away.
She shoved me forward and raised her tire iron. I stumbled away, feeling like I was in a slasher movie. One of the dumb kids who just had to go out at night.
A rumble approaching overhead momentarily distracted us both. The distinctive thunder of a helicopter approaching sliced the peace of the night forest. Its searchlight scanned the road and forest as it raced toward us overhead. The cavalry was coming. If only I had a flare.
Dana froze as a pair of headlights swung into view down the dark road, then another, temporarily blinding me and silhouetting her.
Ridge, I hope that's you.
Dana looked around, her panic evident. She hadn't counted on this development. I could read her thought process—where could she run? Where could she hide? Did she kill me first? Would that slow her down too much?
I had to stop her. And stay out of the way of that tire iron. I did the only thing I could think of—I kicked her in the stomach as hard as I could. Off balance and still dizzy, I toppled, full force, onto my butt on the moist dirt and grass at the top the riverbank.
