Greenhouse Cozy Mystery Boxed Set: Books 1-6

by Wendy Tyson

  She steadied herself against the house and looked into the kitchen. Finally she spied him. Luke was wearing a black sweater and black pants. Like the intruder on Denver’s property. Only he wasn’t alone. He was sitting in a chair across from Sarah. She was smiling and speaking, her eyes and hands animated. Megan watched as Aunt Sarah lifted a glass of wine to her lips. Her small Christmas tree sparkled from its throne in the room behind her, brightly wrapped gifts circling its base. This looked like a scene from a holiday movie—not the horror show she was expecting.

  Megan flipped around so her back was against the house. She forced herself to breathe. They seemed to be having a perfectly pleasant conversation. But then, Luke was as much an actor as his father. He’d seduce Sarah into thinking he was harmless. And then he’d pounce. Megan needed to get in there. She needed to warn Sarah.

  Megan turned back toward the window. Her hand shot to her mouth to stifle a scream.

  Aunt Sarah’s eyes were wide, her mouth twisted in terror. The idyllic scene from a moment ago had given way to the macabre. Luke was behind Sarah now, a rope in one hand, a sharp knife in the other. He watched with apparent pleasure as Aunt Sarah writhed in the chair, suffering, Megan believed, at the hands of whatever poison Luke had put into her glass. She seemed unable to defend herself while Luke placed the knife against her throat. Her mouth formed the “o” of an empty scream, her eyes struggled to stay open.

  The knife pushed Megan into action. She ran to the back door and pounded, then stepped back into the shadows. She held the heavy metal flashlight with two hands, back behind her head. Luke opened the door. When no one was there, he ventured out onto the porch, his eyes searching the shadows. Before she could lose her nerve, Megan brought the flashlight down on the side of Luke’s head with all of the energy she had left. The blow didn’t knock him out, but it did knock him down.

  Megan ran for the back door, hoping to get inside and lock it before Luke was back up. She was just about over the threshold when she felt his hand on her ankle. He tugged her down on top of him. His breath smelled of wine and cigars, his eyes looked demonic in the haze of the sleet and rain.

  “Bitch,” he muttered.

  Megan’s arm twisted and stretched, searching for the flashlight she knew was there somewhere. While her heart was racing, her mind was on Sarah. Was she still alive? Would she survive long enough to get help? Anger washed over Megan, a great wave of rage and bitterness. She finally felt a connection to her past, to her mother, to her grandfather—and this bastard, with his antisocial outlook on life and his disregard for anyone else, threatened to take it all away.

  Luke used one hand to grab Megan’s neck. The other was pinned under his body. Megan continued to search for the flashlight, her fingers crawling along the icy walkway.

  Luke’s fingers squeezed.

  Megan’s fingers grasped something hard. Only it wasn’t a flashlight in her grasp. It was the knife Luke had been holding.

  Megan raised the knife up over her head. Luke was squeezing harder now. Megan wrapped her free hand around his wrist and tried to pull his fingers off her throat but it was no use—he was too strong and the sleet had made him slippery. She could barely breathe, much less tell him to stop.

  He grimaced with the effort of choking her. Nasty names spilled forth from his mouth, and his eyes searched hers as though waiting for the light to go out, anticipating the moment when she would succumb to his control.

  One sociopath begot another, Megan thought.

  Her vision was starting to dim. She was losing her grip on the knife.

  Do it, she thought. Do it, Bibi said to her. Help me, Sarah whispered.

  Megan plunged the knife down, aiming across Luke’s torso and for his shoulder. She cringed as the knife point sliced into bone and muscle. As he released the grip on Megan’s neck, it was she who screamed out in pain and anger. Blood gushed from Luke’s chest. He looked at it, clearly enraged. His stare fell on Megan, locking onto her gaze. She scrambled backwards, off his body. Feeling for the door, Megan stood unsteadily. She backed up into the kitchen. The last thing she saw before she slammed and locked the door was the growing pool of blood under Luke’s body.

  Sarah sat draped over the table, unconscious. Megan felt for a pulse—it was there, but faint, just like her aunt’s respiration. Megan dialed 911 and reported the crime in between crying gasps. “Police should be on the way,” she said. “But we need an ambulance too.” Thinking of Luke, she added, “Make that two.”

  Megan heard the faint wail of sirens, felt the chill in the room. She focused on tasks so she didn’t need to think about whether Aunt Sarah would live or die, her own brush with death, or the fact that she may have killed another human being.

  Megan grabbed an afghan she recognized as Bibi’s off the couch in another room. Back in the kitchen, she wrapped it around her aunt and held her body close. “Stay with me,” she whispered. “Please stay with me.”

  Thirty-Nine

  Megan sat in the safety of the patrol car for what felt like days. She watched as a cacophony of strobe lights swirled in blues and reds against the backdrop of Sarah’s fairytale house. Pulling the blanket Bobby had given her tight around her shoulders, she stared at the ambulance that held her aunt. It pulled slowly out of the driveway, its wheels slipping on the sleet-covered surface. A few moments later, the sirens began to wail, a harbinger of evil in this holy season.

  A second ambulance would follow in a few moments, Megan knew. This one would hold Luke, whose chest wound—a wound she had inflicted—ran deep. Not as deep as Luke’s psychological wounds, perhaps. But deep enough to be fatal if the EMTs didn’t act quickly. Megan could see them now, hunched over Luke’s motionless body. Staunching blood flow. Administering medicines. All action and purpose. One of Luke’s gloves lay on the white snow in a pool of crimson. The color, so bright against its pale backdrop, would have looked festive had she not known what it was. Megan closed her eyes. A morbid thought, indeed.

  But it was the Honda that pulled her attention in the final moments before she let her head hit the back of the seat. Before she acknowledged her own wounds, and the wounds of a town that would take years to recover.

  Another body. Pulled from the trunk.

  Sherry Lynn Booker. First a friend, then a mistress, then a victim.

  Had she caught on to Luke’s game, and he’d killed her?

  Or had she been a willing accomplice whose life ended in another act of revenge?

  Megan closed her eyes again, trying to push away the images that plagued her. Sarah, as the EMTs placed her on the gurney. Luke, his eyes blazing with misdirected hatred. A knife bloodied, buried in another human’s body. The feel of the knife in her hand.

  Soon Bobby would come to ask questions. For now, Megan closed her eyes against the barrage of pain and grief. Her body would heal. Of that she was certain.

  She wasn’t so sure about her spirit.

  Forty

  This year’s Christmas tree was the biggest and brightest they’d ever had. Denver received the honor of placing the angel atop the tree, and he needed a stool to reach. That finished, he stepped down and Bibi dimmed the lights. They all gathered around the tree—Bibi, Megan, Denver, Clay, Porter, Clover, Alvaro, his wife, Emily, Lily, and Bobby—and took in the sight. Handmade ornaments, strings of popcorn, candy canes, twinkling white lights, and that angel on the top, made so many years ago by a young Bonnie for her new husband. Megan felt tears sting her eyes. She wished Sarah could be here too. Maybe next year.

  Alvaro was nursing a glass of vodka. He raised it in the air. “There is a saying in my birth country: Arrieros somos y en el camino andamos. We are all mule drivers in the fields.” He took a drink. “Rich or poor, educated or uneducated, bad things happen. So I say let’s sing, old woman.”

  “It’s the first sensible thing you’ve said all night.” Bibi looked at Alvaro with
poorly veiled affection. “‘Silent Night.’ I’ll start.”

  Round after round they sang, one carol after another. Megan looked around the room, awash in gratitude. Her friends were here, her family. Even Lily, held closely by Clay as Emily stood near, was cooing along. The holiday may have brought them together, but the tree rooted them, its lights serving as beacons of hope and reminders that despite all that had happened, there was goodness in the world.

  * * *

  Bibi had made a turkey, garlic potatoes, green beans, glazed carrots, and salad. She insisted on eating in the dining room, and she placed the food on the long antique table alongside her good china dishes and crystal stemware.

  “It’s a special day,” Bibi said. Megan knew she was celebrating more than the eve of Christmas.

  Bobby cornered Megan as she was filling the wine glasses. “Thank you,” he said. “I’m sorry for not listening. Without you…well, I hate to think how things would have turned out.”

  Megan had been hoping for a chance to talk to the Chief alone. She had pieced most of it together but wanted confirmation. And an update. “How is Becca?”

  “Back with Merry. They’re both recovering. Merry has a therapist coming to her house, and Becca is seeing a psychologist.” He looked at Megan pointedly. “A real psychologist.”

  “So Luke was holding them hostage.”

  “In a manner of speaking. At first it was just threats, but toward the end, he was using drugs to keep them docile, and he was threatening to hurt the other one if either refused to cooperate. That’s how he got Becca to Emily’s house. He told her he’d kill Merry if she didn’t do what he told her.” King shook his head in disgust. “Learned behavior. Based on what I’ve gathered, Paul really was a horrible person, and he passed that on to his son.”

  How awful, Megan thought. To live like that and have no one realize it. “So Merry was never under Dr. Schmidt’s care?”

  “No. As a matter of fact, when Roger called the doctor, she had no idea what he was talking about. Both of them called me. I was already on my way to Merry’s when I was alerted to your call. You were the nail that sealed the coffin.”

  Bibi placed a platter of rolls and butter on the table. Megan watched her grandmother work, thinking about a time when she would no longer be in her life. The pain she would feel, the heartbreak. How scary it must have been for Merry and Becca—living with the fear of losing one another.

  “And Sherry Lynn?” Megan already knew the answer, which had been whispered from patron to patron at the café. The things she couldn’t see from that patrol car. A body curled in fetal position in the trunk of Sherry Lynn’s Accord. Bloodied fingernails the only testament to her struggle. A victim—not an accomplice.

  “Part of his revenge story. Because she was set to inherit his father’s money.” King rubbed at his temples with thick fingers. “And there’s the sick part. There was no money. Paul’s new investment business? A sham. Just like everything else in his life. It took us a while to unravel things, but eventually we learned that he had built his own little pyramid scheme, borrowing from one investor to pay another.” He shook his head. “Sherry Lynn died for nothing.”

  Perhaps that explained Sherry Lynn’s altered behavior. And the reason Paul had hit Sarah up for money. Not blackmail—desperation. “The briefcase was Luke’s. He had been in New Jersey when Bibi and I went to Sherry Lynn’s house the second time.”

  King nodded. “Luke went down under the pretense of friendship, but then he kidnapped her, brought her to Winsome, killed her.”

  “And he knew we were there. He knew I was asking questions. That’s why he followed me to Denver’s.”

  “You would have been one of his victims, Megan.” King shook his head. “A very sick man. He will never see daylight as a free man again.”

  “Dinner in five,” Bibi called.

  Megan watched King as his gaze followed Bibi make her way into the kitchen. There was a heaviness to her presence, a seriousness that underscored what they were all feeling.

  “I understand why he went after Paul. He was angry that Paul had refused him investment money, giving it to Becca instead.”

  “And we think the will set him off initially. According to Luke, Paul told him he was writing Sherry Lynn into the will. Luke claims he didn’t know there was no money. When Paul said no to the investment funds, that was the last straw. Luke killed Paul, and then set out to get revenge against everyone else who had done him wrong—real or imagined.” King held up a hand and counted on his fingers. “Paul, Becca, Sherry Lynn, Merry, Eloise—”

  “Because she ended his contract?”

  King nodded. “Eloise had a lot to say about Paul Fox and his so-called therapy sessions. Her patients didn’t fare well in his care. And she blamed herself for not seeing through his façade. As for Sarah, well you know what happened there.”

  Ah, yes. Sarah. Megan sat down and picked up a glass of wine. She took a long sip, her eyes on the police chief. “I’m heading to the hospital in the morning. She seems to be holding on.”

  “Considering she was the crux of all of this, the catalyst, she’s quite lucky she’s still alive. In Luke’s twisted mind, everything bad in his life started with Sarah. Had Sarah not told Eloise, they wouldn’t have left Winsome and so on. So it was fitting to use her novels to mark his vengeful acts—and then to end this tirade with her death.”

  Megan thought about this. “It feels disproportional, Bobby. Reading all of her fiction? Pretty obsessive.”

  Bobby grabbed a glass off the table too. He held it to his lips and shook his head. “It was Paul who was obsessed with Sarah,” he said after taking a drink. “They had a relationship while he was her therapist, and he never let it go. The more her fame grew, the angrier Paul became that she got away. It makes sense that Luke would have honed in on her.”

  Bibi was back in the dining room. She placed the turkey on the table and the savory scent wafted across the room, making Megan’s stomach gurgle. Bibi wiped her hands on her “Winsome Rocks” apron and joined them in the back of the dining room.

  “You said Becca is getting psychological help,” Megan said. “She’ll need it.”

  King nodded. “She’s spending the holiday with Merry and the Beckers.” He glanced at the long table, set out for a feast. “She’ll be getting some help for some deep-rooted psychological issues. And continuing with her business.”

  Megan smiled. She’d had no time to buy gifts this year, so everyone was getting a box of Becca’s special perfume or cologne. There’d be a lot of love in Winsome this spring.

  “So her behavior—breaking into our home, the fire—was that drug induced or was that mental illness, Bobby?” Bibi asked.

  “A mixture, I guess.”

  Megan turned to her grandmother. “Merry said Becca has post-traumatic stress disorder and suffers from some other issues. But much of what she was dealing with was quite real—and caused by her brother’s threats. That day she broke in? He was stalking her outside. She was trying to tell us what was going on in the midst of what was likely a psychotic breakdown.”

  Bibi’s mouth turned down in sadness. “We could have done more to help her. We might have believed her about her mother’s death.” Bibi searched King’s eyes. “Do you think Paul killed Blanche?”

  King shrugged. “We may never know for sure. What we do know is that Luke found out about the first wife. He used that information to fuel his frame-up of Becca.”

  “Because it fit with Sarah’s book—When Love Kills.” Megan took another swallow of wine, enjoying the sting as it washed down her throat. The sting, the ability to taste, meant she was alive. “The attack outside the café, that was different. I know it couldn’t have been Becca because she was locked up. William Dorset?”

  King stood. “Yes. Becca paid him to follow you and leave the book. He attacked you because you caugh
t him by surprise. He couldn’t take a chance that you’d see him.”

  Bibi’s eyes widened in surprise. “Why would she do that? It doesn’t sound like Becca at all.”

  “She wanted us to figure out what was happening,” Megan said. “She knew the books were part of Luke’s plan. By then she knew something was going on but couldn’t tell anyone because Luke would have hurt Merry in retaliation.” Megan glanced at Bobby, who nodded his agreement. “She wanted to give us a concrete clue about what Luke was up to. First the newspaper clippings, then the book. It was risky, but it worked.”

  King nodded. “She wanted you to figure it out. That was the first time we picked her up, and she couldn’t get to you herself. Plus, Luke was threatening her. If she’d said something herself, Merry would have been in danger.”

  Denver entered the dining room. Spotting King, Bibi, and Megan, he joined them by the table. He leaned in and gave Megan a kiss, holding her gaze for a few seconds longer than necessary.

  “Bonnie, that turkey is calling us. Shall I fetch the others?”

  Bibi nodded. “Thank you, Denver.”

  “Ta, Bonnie. Thank you. For this,” he waved at the table, “for this,” he walked over to Megan, “and for having us all here together.” He put his arms around Megan’s shoulders protectively. “And I’m happy to say that Eloise is doing better. The doctors think any impairment is temporary.”

  Megan hugged him. Bibi grinned.

  “All the more reason to celebrate,” King said.

  Bibi busied herself straightening the red cloth napkins and adjusting silverware that was already pin straight. Denver gave her a kiss and left the room, followed by King. When Megan moved to help Bibi with the remaining table settings that also didn’t need adjustment, Bibi laid her hand on Megan’s arm.