by Jen Talty
Patty didn’t blame anyone but Keith Holland for her current predicament. “We need to focus on how to get out of here.”
“We need to find a way to untie ourselves.”
“That’s pretty hard without a knife,” Patty said. She was duct-taped to a chair in an abandoned warehouse with the great-grandmother of her child, and she was sure they were both about to die at the hands of her baby’s grandfather. Talk about a mindfuck. This predicament actually called for a few cuss words.
“Elizabeth,” Holland said as he stepped from the shadows. “We have some business to discuss.”
“You won’t get away with this. The cops are on to you.”
“I’m not worried about a few cops,” he said, “including my stupid son. So disappointing to see he’s so much like his mother.”
“You’re a bastard,” Nana said.
“True,” Holland said, “but your husband was just as bad. How long has it been since he passed? Two years?”
“Don’t you ever speak of my husband.”
Patty couldn’t stand to listen. She chose instead to focus on trying to free her hands, but it seemed useless. She glanced at Nana, then to Holland. “What do you want with us?”
Holland laughed. “What I’ve always wanted. The Baxter fortune.”
Patty was about to say not as long she were alive, but realized he had no intention of keeping them alive, and whatever he had planned, it wouldn’t be pinned on him.
“We gave you plenty.” Nana struggled to break free, but failed miserably.
Holland nodded. “You gave me a good start, but your husband continued to fund me, so when he died, and those payments stopped—”
“You’re lying!” Nana lurched, knocking her chair over, smacking the side of her head on the cement floor with a loud thud. She cried out in pain.
“Someone lift this old woman up,” Holland barked, and one of his cronies scooped her up, setting her upright. The side of her check was already bruised and swollen. A bit of blood dripped from her mouth.
“Now, how is it that a smart woman like you didn’t know your husband paid me every year to keep me quiet and out of my son’s life?”
“He’s not your son.” Nana’s voice trembled. Patty could tell she was a bit dazed and confused from the knock on the head.
Patty looked around, trying to count the men in the room. She saw four, including Holland. Doors on both ends of the building, and skylights above. There were options, if she could get herself untied, but she would get her and her baby killed trying to escape. And to think, last summer, she had said she wanted more excitement in her life.
“Biology doesn’t lie,” Holland said, waving his gun around as he circled them like a shark. “I always thought it would be nice to get to know Reese. What a horrible name. Whose idea was that?” He paused, waving his gun in Nana’s face. “I often dreamed of bringing him into my business. Teaching him, so one day he could take it over.”
“I seriously doubt that.”
Holland backhanded Nana.
“Leave her alone!”
Holland waved his gun in her direction. “I’d shut up, if I were you. Now, where was I? Oh, yes. My son. See, I did have those thoughts, but God, I did not want anything to do with that bat-shit crazy daughter of yours. About the only thing she was good at was giving blowjobs, and even those got boring.”
“You’re a disgusting pig,” Nana said.
Holland stood over Nana, his gun to her temple. “Eleanor came to me after Reese was born. I refused to see her, but I did sneak a peek at my boy, and I knew he was mine. I thought for a moment I might want him. I actually went to your husband, but Alistair refused to turn the boy over to me. Ultimately, I’m a greedy man, so when he offered me more money to stay out of the kid’s life, I milked that until the bastard up and died. I thought that he would have made a provision for those payments to continue, but he did not. So, I thought I’d come find my son and see what he was doing.”
“You knew all along that he was here?” Patty asked.
“I’ve always known where my son was.” He tugged at Nana’s hair. “See, he wasn’t supposed to shoot Terry. I could have gotten Terry off easily that day. I just wanted to see my son in action. Boy, did I see him. Good shot. Takes after his father that way. I also knew he was too brainwashed by you and Alistair. So, I had to get rid of him.”
“You’ve a very cruel man,” Patty said. “Please, let Elizabeth be. For now, your gripe is with me and Reese.”
“I don’t think so.” Holland shrugged. “Now, Elizabeth. You start making those payments again, and we can call it even.”
“The cops are going to be here soon,” Nana said.
“Yeah, I sort of showed my ass, didn’t I?” Holland let Nana’s hair go, then inched closer to Patty. “But I’m not worried, because Elizabeth is going to give me all her money, and then I’ll just disappear.”
“Over my dead body.”
“No,” Holland said. “Over Patty’s, and her baby’s, dead body.”
Reese pulled into the abandoned parking lot of the old Kendrick Paper Company. Almost nothing remained to indicate this property had been a business.
“Why?” he asked as he walked with Jessica toward the deserted building.
“Why, what?”
“The abortion?”
“There was never supposed to be a baby. Holland paid me to marry you. Not have your kid. I didn’t want it, so I got rid of it. I never anticipated your nana would find out.”
“Did you get pregnant on purpose?”
She laughed. “No, but it served a purpose. I got you to marry me. Holland thought I should keep the baby, but no way was I going to do that. So when you took off, Holland let me go. That sucked, until about a year ago, when he saw you settling down with some woman, so he decided to pay me to see what you were up to. I’ve been staked out in this God forsaken place for months.”
“Please, no. I’ll do whatever you want,” he heard Nana say, her voice weak and trembling. He assessed the situation, wondering how far behind the cavalry was, and how long would it take them to figure out a plan.
The warehouse was empty, other than some junk and a few empty beer cans left behind by teenagers looking for a place to party on weekends.
“You’re a cold and sad woman.” Reese followed Jessica through the doors, then around the corner, where he saw Nana and Patty, tied to chairs. They saw him as soon as he entered the room.
“I don’t care what you think,” Jessica said. “Package delivered,” she said to Holland.
“Oh, a little family reunion,” Holland said. “Patty, have you met Reese’s wife?”
“Can I have my money, please?” Jessica asked.
“I can see why you don’t want to be with this one,” Holland said to Reese. “Whiny little bitch...and the answer is no. Not yet. So go stand over there.”
Reese tried not to focus on how banged-up Nana was, and instead attempted to figure out a plan to get them out of this intact. “What do you want, Holland?”
“Money,” he said. “It’s always about money.”
A man with a briefcase and a laptop appeared. Someone else set up a folding table then placed it in front of Nana. “This here,” Holland said, taking a stack of papers from the man, “is your new will. Well, not new, since it’s backdated two years. Sign it.” He shoved a pen in her face. She took it then signed.
Reese wanted to tell her to do everything extra slow, but it looked like she’d already figured that out. Reese glanced at Patty, who locked gazes with him immediately. The love pouring out of her was overwhelming. His knees nearly buckled, but he broke the gaze and went back to the impossible situation.
“Good girl,” Holland said. “Now, access your bank accounts, and transfer all your cash assets into this account.” He opened the laptop then gave Nana a piece of paper. “This is for Jessica’s trouble.” Once again, she did as instructed. The only noises were her fingers tapping the keyboard and few swallow
ed sobs.
“It’s been a real pleasure,” Holland said. “Time to make this look like a crazy, unfortunate accident.”
“Impossible,” Reese said. “Conrad rolled over on you. He confessed everything about how you’ve been blacking mailing him, getting him to break the law for you.”
“He’ll redact it once you’re out of the picture,” Holland said. “He won’t have a choice.”
“You’ll kill your own son,” Nana said. “Your grandson. Just for money?”
Holland shrugged. “Should have thought about that when you blackmailed me something I didn’t do. Eleanor was begging for it.”
Reese closed his eyes and clenched his hands. “I think I’ll be the one killing you,” he said.
Holland laughed. “Doubtful.”
Reese saw the signal from the roof. “You’ll at least be behind bars and I’ll get my divorce from your lackey,” he said. He didn’t get a chance to finish his redirect before the first kill shot came through the skylight, hitting Holland square in the chest. Reese pulled his gun, something Jessica hadn’t thought to look for, then nailed two of the other men, who were heading for the doors. He turned to Jessica as she bolted toward the exit. “I’d stop, if I were you.”
“Nope,” she yelled. “You’ll have to shoot me in the back.”
Before Reese could pull the trigger, the doors swung open. Jessica fired a shot and then more gunfire echoed, and Jessica dropped to the floor. Reese raced back to Nana and Patty, trying to untie them both at the same time, and failing.
“Let me help,” Stacey said, taking over untying Nana.
He nodded and turned to Patty. “Are you hurt?”
She shook her head.
“Nana? How you doing?”
“Been worse,” she said.
Reese would never be able to truly piece together the next moments in coherent thought. Holland was dead. His father was dead, and despite his mother’s insanity and addiction, and his grandparents’ lies, they had all tried to protected him from a very bad man.
That counted for something.
Then there was Jessica. As she lay there, dying in Jared’s arms, she refused to cop to anything. Her last words were ‘Fuck off.’ The only resolution she left Reese was that he was now a free man. Free to start a life with the woman of his dreams.
Nana apologized profusely for keeping her knowledge of his father from him, and he understood her motives. He probably would have done the same thing, in the same situation. In the end, as they loaded Nana into the ambulance, she told him the fortune was his.
“I’ll stay with her,” Stacey said as she climbed into the ambulance.
“Thanks.” The question was, how much of it did he want? Money seemed to do weird things to people. All he wanted was to provide a good stable home for his family.
He understood now why his grandparents made it so hard for him. Made him pay his own way. They had seen, firsthand, what true greed did to a person.
Themselves included.
It wasn’t pretty.
“I’m riding with her,” he said to the other ambulance tech as they loaded Patty in to the vehicle.
“I’m fine,” Patty protested.
“Okay, still riding along.” He climbed into the ambulance. “Two heartbeats?” he asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Huh, I won’t be needing...” he shook his head. He never wished Jessica dead. There was no love lost, but she was still human.
“Needing what?” Patty asked.
“A divorce,” he whispered.
“That’s kind of cold,” Patty said.
“That’s weird, coming from someone who was tied up partly because of that woman.”
“True.” Patty gripped his hand tighter. “Still, seems rather crass of us to be thinking what I know we are both thinking.”
He nodded. There was a time and a place for everything. “I love you,” he said.
“I know.”
“One thing at a time.” He sat down next to the woman he couldn’t live without, holding her hand, as the sirens blared and the ambulance inched out of the parking lot. They had their whole lives ahead of them.
Epilogue
Reese leaned against a post on the front porch of the residency. The sun had started to set, but did nothing for the humidity that came with the month of June. Reese hardly noticed as he sipped his beer and loosened his tie, then unbuttoned the top buttons. The last two months had been a blur, and he had yet to process it all. His biological father was dead. His first wife. Dead. Death seemed to loom over his head like a rash that wouldn’t go away.
At the same time, those deaths had a different purpose. Holland wasn’t a nice guy, and he now understood what his mother had meant. Why she’d lied about Allen. In her final days, her mind had been destroyed by the cancer. She often spoke of strange things. But her last words had come from a moment of caring and wanting to stop the lies.
“It was a nice ceremony,” Frank said, leaning on another post, sipping his beer and looking out at the lake. “Still can’t believe you did it.”
“I can’t believe you agreed to be my best man.”
“Lacy would have strung me out to dry if I had refused.” Frank pulled up one of the big rocking chairs. “Especially since she and your Nana spent the last month putting this wedding together.”
Reese pulled up a chair as well. He fiddled with his wedding ring. “I’ve never felt like this before.”
“Like what?” Frank asked.
“Like I fit in somewhere. I went from one military tour to the next. One job to the next, never feeling like I was part of what I was doing. Until I got here. It started before Patty, but she has been the key. Like my entire life was leading up to being right here, right now.”
Reese heard Patty giggle. “I married a sentimental sap.”
“Yeah, you did.” Reese wiped his eyes, then patted his legs. His smiling bride sat on his lap, wrapping her arm around his shoulder, while he managed to rest his hand on her slightly bulging belly. Patty said she felt the baby move all the time. So far Reese had felt it only a few times, so every opportunity he got, his hand rested on her stomach, waiting to connect with his unborn child.
Lacy, in turn, settled herself on Frank’s lap.
“Well, now, that sure is cute,” Stacey said as she stepped onto the porch. “I’m happy for you, but it’s so gonna suck without you at the station.”
Reese had to admit he would miss being a cop, but he didn’t regret his decision to retire and run the Inn full-time with his wife and Nana. Truly a family business. A legacy he could be proud of. “Yeah, have fun working with no-sense-of-humor Frank.”
“I’m funny.”
Even Lacy laughed at that. “You’re uptight and serious.”
“Thanks for defending me,” Frank said.
“I’ve got to hit the road,” Stacey said. “On duty, and all, and Jared keeps giving me the evil eye.”
“Glad you were able to come,” Patty said. “I appreciate everything you’ve done for us.”
“Not much could have kept me from seeing that old man get married.”
Andy rushed past Stacey, chasing a couple of Jared’s toddlers, and Jake, Frank’s younger brother, ran behind him. “Sorry. No one ever told me babysitting would be so exhausting.” Andy caught one of the toddlers, and Jake caught the other. “I need a nap.” Andy hiked back up the stairs and into the residency.
Jared and his wife joined everyone on the porch.
“You ready for all of that?” Jared asked. “Because it’s like that every day.”
“You only know the half of it,” Ryan said. “And want to see me make Jared’s face get all contorted and weird-looking?”
“Ryan, don’t even joke about stuff like that.” Jared’s face only half-contorted.
“Not joking. The rabbit died.”
“Must be something in the water,” Lacy said, “because our rabbit died, too.”
“What?” Frank’s fa
ce lit up like Christmas. “You said you were going to wait to take the test.”
Lacy shrugged. “I waited until you left the room.”
“It’s going to be a lot of fun around here in a few months,” Patty said. “Reese?”
“Is he crying?” Stacey asked.
“Just got something in my eye.” Reese used his sleeve to wipe the few tears away, but it was no use. At least they were happy tears.
“He’s been like this for days,” Patty said. “When I asked to see a softer side of Reese, I sure got what I asked for. Congratulations to all the pregos. May you always see your feet.”
“Yeah, good luck with that,” Ryan said.
“Stacey,” Jared barked. “You best get back on the road.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And,” Jared said, “you did real good with wrapping up this case. I know that was tough on you, right after it all went down, but you did what you were trained to do.” He handed her a twenty. “I did change your diapers.”
“Now that you say it, it’s kind of gross and creepy.”
Everyone laughed, but Reese was barely listening. He tilted his bride’s face. “I want this. All of this. The chaos of kids. The crazy of normal family. People in and out. Sitting on the front porch, watching the sunset, and loving you. I love you, and I’m never letting go.”
“Better hold on tight, because being married to me is going to be one hell of a ride.”
The End
Murder in Paradise Bay
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
COPYRIGHT © 2016, Jen Talty
Jupiter Press
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author.
