by Beth Byers
“You’re going to pay,” Reginald snarled.
“Blowing up the yacht was my part of the job. You had your own. It’s not my fault that you were too stupid to take care of things.”
“Do you think you’ll get off scot free? While I suffer? I don’t think so.”
“What do you intend?”
“I intend to create a fake will, get rid of Ro, and you’ll be one of the signers.”
“That will out us as the killers.”
“You as the killer.”
“Me?” Mr. Stone’s voice was cold, hard fury.
“You’ll take the risk with me or you’ll take your punishment. I won’t be a pauper because you were a fool.”
Ro dared to peek again and saw Mr. Stone open his mouth to protest but Reginald cut him off. “You’ll do it or I’ll tell the police what you did. No matter your accusations, you’ll have no evidence I was involved in the plot to begin with. You will be the only person they have to hang for the murders of everyone onboard Leonard’s yacht. Then I’ll simply find another way to get what is mine. If I have to marry Ro, take the money, and murder her, I will.”
Ro gasped in spite of herself, earning a hand over her mouth from Hettie. It was too late. The noise had given them away.
“Is someone listening?” Mr. Stone asked.
“Fool!” Reginald snarled. “Why didn’t you shut the door? We’re going to be drowning in bodies.”
They started out of the office while Hettie and Ro scrambled down the hall, crawling as fast as possible, darting into none other than Mr. Stone’s personal chambers.
Chapter 19
“What do we do? What do we do? What do we do?” Ro whispered.
They heard footsteps outside the room and hurried into the dressing room. The walls were lined with an excess of clothing. Suits, hats, shoes, ties. Even a container full of walking canes with carved metal heads. It was as though Mr. Stone had never gotten rid of an article of clothing or an accessory in the whole of his life.
The door to the room opened and Hettie put her hand back over Ro’s mouth.
“That’s my room,” Mr. Stone said. “None of my servants would dare to hide in there.”
“Like none of them would eavesdrop?” Reginald’s cold snarl demanded.
Hettie closed her eyes and pressed herself to the wall behind the dressing room door, Ro at her side. Hettie’s hand was wrapped around Ro’s head, hand still over her mouth.
The closet door creaked open and Hettie bit down on her own lip to prevent a squeak.
“Nothing but shoes and clothes,” Reginald snapped. “By Jove man, clean out your closet. Let’s find the criminal.”
Hettie kept her hand over Ro’s mouth until they heard the next door open.
“Could it be her?” they heard Reginald ask.
“She has broken ribs and is weak. She’s not stupid enough to talk regardless.”
“A pillow would solve everything.”
Hettie’s eyes widened, and she just stopped herself from crying out. Even more horrible was the fact that they were talking as though Marilyn couldn’t hear them.
“You don’t get to kill her, Ripley.” Mr. Stone made it clear that Marilyn’s death was still a possibility. But what he said was, “She hasn’t said anything and has known what happened since the accident. If you think I will let you rid me of her, you’re wrong.”
“Things would be simpler without her,” Reginald said evenly as though Marilyn Stone were a rabid dog or an interloping rat.
“I said no,” Mr. Stone said flatly. “There’s no one here. Fake your will, Marilyn and I can be witnesses.”
The footsteps moved away and Hettie slid to the floor of the closet with her eyes closed. “I will smother you myself if you give us away again.”
“They were arguing with the door open,” Ro hissed. “Who would have guessed they would hear me? What are we going to do?”
Hettie shook her head then tiptoed to the bedroom door. She closed her eyes and pressed her ear against the door. Nothing. Slowly, Hettie looked around and she considered. The bedroom looked out on the street and there was her auto parked across the quiet lane with Peterson behind the seat. He was so close, and there was so much room between him and her.
“We need to get him,” Ro said.
“I’m clumsy. You?”
Ro shook her head.
Hettie rushed to the door of the bedroom, locked it, and then pulled the blankets from the bed. In moments she was tying sheets together. “You get him and constables. I’ll keep Marilyn alive.”
They tied sheets quickly, opened the window and let Ro out.
“Good luck,” Hettie whispered to Ro. “Sooner or later the maid will realize who can terminate her position and confess to Mr. Stone.”
“Hurry then,” Ro whispered.
“Hurry,” Hettie agreed.
The moment Ro reached the ground and shot Hettie a thumbs up, Hettie hurried to Mrs. Stone’s room through the connecting door. She noted the lack of a lock before crossing to Marilyn.
“Will you help us?”
Marilyn’s terrified eyes met Hettie’s and the woman nodded once. Hettie held out a hand. “The maid is going to talk. We have to hide.”
“I couldn’t figure out how he knew where I was,” Mrs. Stone whimpered as Hettie helped her to stand. “Reginald knew. He must have been the one who told my husband.”
“That seems likely.”
“I’m sorry,” Marilyn said as Hettie opened the hall door.
“Which of these lock?”
Marilyn pointed and Hettie hurried them both towards it.
“I’m sorry,” Marilyn said again. “I’m so sorry. Harvey made me laugh. It made my life easier. My husband is so cold. He’s so mean. Cutting. Harvey made things bright.”
Hettie wasn’t going to tell Marilyn that it was all right. It wasn’t. There were so many other ways to find snatches of happiness. Why take Hettie’s?
The moments passed too quickly and the expected roar made Hettie jump. She’d locked the door, put a chair under the handle, and opened the window to scream for help when she needed, but not before so as not to give them away. She was at the window when the door rattled followed by the sound of a low, almost inhuman growl.
Marilyn covered her ears and cowered in the corner while Hettie quickly searched the room. There! There across the room was a fireplace poker. She took it up as the door rattled again. A thump told her that someone was throwing themselves against the door.
“Marilyn!” Mr. Stone growled.
Bloody hell, Hettie thought, no wonder Marilyn Stone had been so afraid to get help.
“Open the door, Marilyn.” The raspy command made Hettie’s bones chill.
“Scotland Yard is on their way,” Hettie called out.
“You didn’t call them,” the cold voice said. “The only telephone is in my office.”
“No,” Hettie agreed. “I sent my friend out the window on bedsheets.”
“Lies!” The thump cracked the door and Hettie gasped. Marilyn cried out while Hettie placed herself behind the door, fireplace poker at the ready.
“Look in your bedroom if you don’t believe me,” Hettie called brightly as if she weren’t terrified. She might die in the next minutes, but she’d go down cheery and mocking.
There was a pause and an echoing curse.
“They’ll be too late for you.”
Hettie hadn’t thought she could be more afraid until she heard that cold promise. The thump against the door made the crack widen and she bit down so hard on her bottom lip she could taste the blood.
“I’ll wring your neck.”
The door burst open as sirens sounded outside.
“Too late,” he swore, lumbering through the kindling that had been an ancient solid door.
Marilyn screamed in terror, hands over her mouth. Hettie spared her only a glance and then she swung down hard and fast on the monster’s head. He spun and Hettie got him again. Wit
h one swift grab, he took poker from her. A chilling smile crept over the man’s craggy face and Hettie knew that it would be the last sight she’d ever see.
He shoved her hard and her head slammed against the wall. Marilyn screamed again, and it echoed in Hettie’s ears. With blurred vision, Hettie waited for her neck to be wrenched. Only instead, as though time had slowed, Jacobus Stone crumpled to the ground in front of her. Hettie blinked and blinked again.
Ro’s grinning face swam in Hettie’s gaze as Ro declared, waving a silver-topped cane, “This makes us even for the gasp.”
On that, Hettie slid to the ground herself. She blinked blearily as constables and uniformed types came into the room. When the blokes with the ambulance showed up, she realized that she was, perhaps, more injured than expected.
Ro tugged Hettie along and she only just realized that they’d been talking to her. She slowly answered, “I’m sorry, what?”
Hettie spied a fellow with a notepad and excited questions, and Hettie paused as it seemed the right thing to do, only to be tugged along by Ro.
“What happened to Marilyn?” Hettie asked.
The answer was slow in coming, or perhaps it was slow in filtering through her head. She found that she slipped into sleep only to have someone shake her awake, and time passed in a sort of dazed madness with the only constant being Ro’s face.
“Have I told you I adore you?” Hettie asked all of the sudden.
Ro laughed. “Darling, only about one hundred times.”
“Really?”
Ro glanced at Hettie more carefully and then gasped, “Well, I think you’re back.”
“Back?”
“You’ve had a concussion and you’ve been a bit confused, dear one. It seemed that I wasn’t quite as soon as I should have been.”
Hettie looked down at herself stretched on a hospital bed, hospital nightgown and all. “I think it’s coming back in bits and pieces. Did I hit him?”
“Very effectively. He’s in the other wing with a guard. I, of course, can also take some credit for that. I was very effective with the cane I took from his closet.”
“Marilyn?” Hettie gasped. “Is she all right?”
“All right?” Ro repeated and then shook her head. “No, not really.”
Hettie gasped and Ro reached out and squeezed her hand.
“She’ll live. She took rather a fierce beating by her husband, who murdered her lover, and—it seems lying to Scotland Yard is frowned upon. She will, however, survive.”
Hettie relaxed against her pillows. “And me?”
“You’ll be fine,” a voice said from the doorway. The doctor from the morgue, Dr. Hale, stepped into the room, stethoscope around his neck. His kind eyes crinkled at her. “You’ve taken a fierce blow, but you’ve got mettle.”
“Have I?”
“You saved the wife, found the killer, cleared both your names, and lived to see another day,” Dr. Hale told her. He examined her eyes, made her follow the movement of his pen, and listened to her heart and lungs before he said, “As I thought. You’ll be fine.”
He left a few minutes later, promising she’d be able to go home soon.
Hettie smiled after him before remembering herself. “What about the detectives?” she asked Ro.
Ro frowned, but there was a twinkle in her eye. “I was scolded rather furiously.”
“Were you?”
“Sticking my nose where it didn’t belong, putting myself and you in danger, the idiotic shenanigans of climbing out a window using bedsheets, and most of all—the sheer audacity of solving their crime.”
Hettie grinned before sitting. She felt only slightly woozy. “I’m ready to leave.”
“As am I.”
“I suppose as long as I pay the bill, they can’t be that upset if I step out early?”
“I don’t see why not,” Ro agreed with the same mischievous glint in her gaze. “I rather have a taste for shenanigans after climbing out that window. Don’t think I didn’t note that you knew how to tie the knots.”
Hettie’s smirk was telling indeed. With a cheery, relieved outlook, she stepped out of bed, glanced out at the grey summer storm and then over at Ro. “What a beautiful day.”
The wind took that moment to gust fiercely around the hospital.
“Indeed,” Ro said.
“A bright new start,” Hettie suggested.
“A new life,” Ro agreed.
“Freedom,” Hettie said. “I feel the dawning light of a burden that has been lifted.”
“As do I,” Ro said with a matching cheery grin and the surreal understanding that, for the first time in a long time, they had the hope of a better day tomorrow.
Chapter 20
The combined funeral turned out to be the perfect solution. Perhaps Leonard’s and Harvey’s truest friends had died with them. Or perhaps they had never had true friends. Either way, the funeral was sparsely attended. Those in attendance consisted of Hettie, Ro, the relatives who were in England at the time of the death, and the solicitor, Mr. Cooper.
Ro and Hettie both teared up as they each expected. It was a combination of relief and grief for what they’d lost and what was now finally the end of a nightmare. They had determined upon a sermon with a vicar who was wise enough to focus on the peace that God’s love brings without needing to reflect upon the choices of those who’d never once thought of God or the afterlife, let alone the more immediate painful consequences of their choices.
Soon it was only Hettie and Ro. Hettie crumped her handkerchief and turned to Ro. “I think we’re done here.”
“Are we?” Ro asked. She’d stopped looking at the graves some time ago and had become absorbed in the flight of a bumblebee.
“We are,” Hettie said. “Shall we put this bit behind us? Perhaps we can now plan our next adventure.”
Ro swallowed, nodded, and set aside her own handkerchief. “Let’s go and pick out an auto.”
“Yes,” Hettie agreed with an immediate excitement that seemed to declare any suggestion would have been met with equal fervor. “We can drive all over the countryside.”
“Watch out, world,” Ro called out. “Hettie and Ro are young, free, and ready to play.”
They heard a throat clear behind them and noted an austere man scowling in their direction. Hettie grabbed Ro’s hand and they ran out of the graveyard, laughing the entire way.
THE END
Hullo friends! We are so grateful you dove in and tried out Hettie and Ro. Their friendship is very similar to the friendship of Bettie and I. We met more than 6 years ago and have been close friends ever since. We hope you’ve enjoyed how we’ve indulged our friendship in this book. If you wouldn’t mind, we would be so grateful for a review.
The sequel to this book is available for preorder now.
September 1922
When the spirit of adventures calls, Hettie and Ro decided to dive in together.
They’ve learned to drive autos, so it’s time to conquer motorcycles. What could go wrong? Inspired by a friend who goes where the wind takes her, Hettie and Ro follow. They discover adventure—and a dead body.
When the body disappears before they can get help, Hettie and Ro decide to find both the body and the killer. Join the fun-loving, reckless pair as they try to strike the balance between fun, friendship, and safety.
Order your copy here.
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Also By Beth Byers
The Violet Carlyle Cozy Historical Mysteries
Murder & the Heir
Murder at Kennington House
Murder at the Folly
A Merry Little Murder
New Year’s Madness: A Short Story Anthology
Valentine’s Madness: A Short Story Anthology
Murder Among the Roses
Murder in the Shallows
Gin & Murder
Obsidian Murder
Murder at the Ladies Club
Weddings
Vows & Murder
A Jazzy Little Murder
Murder by Chocolate
A Friendly Little Murder
Murder by the Sea
Murder On All Hallows
Murder in the Shadows
A Jolly Little Murder
The Hettie and Ro Adventures
co-written with Bettie Jane
Philanderers Gone
Adventurer Gone
Holiday Gone
Aeronaut Gone
The Poison Ink Mysteries
Death By the Book
Death Witnessed
Death by Blackmail
Death Misconstrued
Deathly Ever After
The 2nd Chance Diner Mysteries
Spaghetti, Meatballs, & Murder
Cookies & Catastrophe
Poison & Pie
Double Mocha Murder
Cinnamon Rolls & Cyanide
Tea & Temptation
Donuts & Danger
Scones & Scandal
Lemonade & Loathing
Wedding Cake & Woe
Honeymoons & Honeydew
The Pumpkin Problem
Also by Bettie Jane
Piccadilly Ladies Club Mysteries
Hyde Park Heist
Suffragette Sabotage
Fleet Street Felony
Marble Arch Murder
Covent Garden Caper
Tower Bridge Trespass
Double-Decker Murder
Blackmail at Brunel
Murder at the Masquerade
Hijinks at Highgate Cemetery
Death at the Dog and Duck
Thyme for Tea Historical Mysteries
Thyme for Murder
