“He, uh…” Oh, snap! Had I been withholding evidence? Did she not know about Doug’s identity change? My selfish need to best her in front of my beaus had possibly jeopardized her investigation.
I swallowed hard.
“Doug Danvers used to be Dan Droogers,” Zoey said.
“And you’re sure of this?” Sheriff Palke asked Zoey.
“Completely.”
Sheriff Palke accepted the validity of the information with a head nod. “We’d ascertained that the name Doug Danvers was an alias, but we hadn’t traced it back to his actual identity yet. We had the possibilities narrowed down but were waiting on the coroner’s evaluation of dental records to make a definite confirmation. What methodology did you use?” But then she took a breath as if with a new thought. “Actually, mind walking and talking?” She glanced with a warm smile at the hounds. “These guys are due for some water and treats.”
A dull, mind-numbing buzzing noise took up residence inside my head. Recognition of what was about to happen came slow, but when it came, it had my eyes bugging out of my head.
Sheriff Palke had Pied Pipered the attention of both of my boyfriends away from me. Now, she was setting her sights on Zoey!
“Sure,” Zoey said in answer to Sheriff Palke’s request to walk and talk.
I squeaked. Mercifully, no one noticed.
No, no, no, no, noooo! She can’t have Zoey too!
My head swam, and air didn’t seem to want to do anything for my lungs. My head dizzily spun as I watched the two walk away, the lumbering hounds trailing behind them. I wanted to go too. I wanted to interfere, interrupt, and friend-block like a vicious high-school mean girl, but I kind of thought I might faint.
Actually, that wasn’t a bad idea. If I fainted, Zoey, Brad, and Joel’s attention would be back on me.
Me, me, me!
I heard the words ring in my head. Somebody needed a time out, somebody old enough to drive and to have children of her own.
I groaned in defeat and then pouted.
A warm pair of soft lips kissed one temple, then a different pair kissed the other.
My woe-is-me despondence evaporated.
“You guys stayed,” I said, looking dreamily back and forth up into Joel and Brad’s eyes.
“Of course we did, Berry,” Brad said, smiling. “You’re such an idiot fool.” His words were tempered by the worry in his eyes. “Did you know you hiked a mile in the wrong direction out there—twice?”
My body wanted to re-embrace the memory in the form of soul-sucking fatigue, but I made a deal that it could have its way with me as soon as we got back home. Now was not the time to give in to the exhaustion that threatened to turn my bones into jelly.
That said, I wasn’t sure how long I could continue at this pace. I was so tired. I desperately needed a vacation from my vacation.
I watched from a distance as Sheriff Palke laughed, and then Zoey laughed. I had to get me and mine out of here while I still had people I called mine.
I refocused on Brad’s question about my midnight meanderings. I didn’t want him fixating on the danger I’d been in.
“Zoey and I found some more things out,” I said, choosing to change the subject with the carrot that I had information I could give. It worked.
“Oh?” Brad and Joel said in unison.
My smile was almost giddy, feeling their full attention on me. I was important again, but I tamped the emotion down so as not to flip into fawning fan-girl mode. I was the cool girl. I solved murders.
Joel’s expression adopted a soured, ewww vibe, then he flicked something off my cheek with the tip of his finger. “Dog booger, I think.”
I deflated. Cool girl. That was me.
We sat on the wide steps leading up to the porch—Brad on one side, Joel on the other. “Doug used to be Dan,” I started. “Dan—” I used air quotes “—was engaged to Rita.”
“The Rita that’s staying here?” Joel asked.
“The same one who got conked on the head?” Brad asked.
“Yeah.”
“How’d things end between them?” Brad asked.
“Not well,” I said. “Dougie Dan stood her up at the altar, as in she was in her dress at the church with all her friends and family there. He was a no-show.”
Joel whistled low, and Brad flexed his hands, showing that they both thought poorly of Dougie Dan’s move.
“It gets worse,” I said.
“How?” Brad asked. “He elope with her best friend?”
“No, but he did steal all the money that had been earmarked to pay for the wedding and honeymoon. Over fifty thousand dollars.”
Joel’s eyes bugged. “What’s wrong with a justice of the peace? Weddings are ridiculous.”
Exactly the words every girlfriend wants to hear.
“Weddings are important,” Brad countered. “It’s a couple making a formal declaration to everyone in their life that they are now a unit, partners, that they’ll choose each other before anyone else and always have each other’s back.”
“Pfft,” Joel said. “You don’t need a wedding to do that. Life is in the living of it. It’s what you do, not what you promise or say you’ll do. It’s about making the choice to be good to each other every single day. It’s not about grandstanding on one particular day.”
My ears burned with their polar opposite opinions on the matter. It was much more than I’d ever heard from either one of them on the subject. Sadly, neither one of them was actually talking to me. I was apparently not a factor in this hypothetical debate.
I cleared my throat. Both men’s eyes refocused on me. I twinkled my fingers at them.
“Hi,” I said. Brad grinned sheepishly, and Joel looked amused. “It gets worse,” I said. “As a going away present to his future bride and father-in-law, he salted the ground of their orchard, killing almost all the trees and destroying their livelihood. In fact, they’ve had to burn through their savings and mortgage the property in an effort to make the land grow-worthy and replant their maple orchard.”
“Sounds like we have our killer—or killers,” Brad said. “Rita and her dad had motive for days.”
“That’s what I thought too,” I said, “but that doesn’t explain who hit Rita on the head and… temporarily killed her.” My mind went off on a tangent. “Is it still murder if somebody dies temporarily?”
“No,” Brad said. “Requires brain death.”
“Oh…”
“Of course,” Brad said, “with as bad as Rita looked when they hauled her off in the ambulance, that could still be a possibility for her.”
“Oh!” I said again, this time much more upbeat. “Rita woke up.”
They both looked at me with wide eyes.
“Way to bury the story lead,” Joel complained.
“Does Sheriff Palke know she’s awake?” Brad asked. “I have to tell her. Why didn’t you tell us sooner?”
He was up and walking without giving me a chance to answer.
Joel got to his feet too. “I’d better go. They might want to document the interview with video.”
“But you’re a photographer, not a… a… videographer.”
He shrugged, gave me a rushed kiss on the cheek, and then jogged across the yard to catch up with Brad.
“Son of a biscuit!” I exclaimed, standing up and huffing my way into the house.
I’d get to Rita before all of them, but first I needed some clothes—minus the dog slobber.
And I was all out of clean clothes.
Chapter 29
Zoey and I strolled down the hospital corridor. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead, and the scent of antiseptic dominated the air. We walked in sync with each other, because we walked with a purpose.
We were on a mission to learn everything there was to learn from Rita before Sheriff Palke got the chance to get to her.
Okay, Zoey was on a mission to talk to Rita. That other bit was all me. Me and my ego. I wanted Sheriff Palke eating my investigative dust. She was
edging me out of my two boyfriends and my gal-pal bestie. I wanted to edge her out of being the first to figure out who killed Dougie Dan. It didn’t make sense. I knew that, but I didn’t care. All I knew is that we had to get to Rita first.
But then, the unthinkable happened.
Sheriff Palke rounded the corner ahead of us. She was flanked by two of her deputies, and they all walked in unison. A total power trio. They were heading the opposite way, toward us and away from where the nurse had directed us to find Rita.
Sheriff Palke had beat us to her. She’d questioned her first.
I locked away all the feelings that knowledge flamed to life within me—stuff like envy, resentment, and jealousy. I shoved them deep inside a vault and slammed the door shut with three different kinds of latches. I’d let them out to deal with them later, once I had the right tools collected—a bottle of wine, black forest ice cream, and at least three romcoms and one superhero movie.
Brad and Joel weren’t even with her. She probably had them handcuffed in the trunk of her car just to keep them away from me and all for herself.
Sheriff Palke’s eyes stayed dead center as she approached, not even acknowledging my existence, but then as she neared, her gaze slid over and gave me a total up and down.
I hadn’t had any clean clothes left, so I’d dipped into Joel’s bag. I was wearing Joel’s pants and one of his flannel button-up shirts. Joel was tall, which meant I’d had to roll up a foot worth of fabric around my ankles. My hips managed to stave off the effects of gravity, though his pants felt as though they were about to fall off with every step.
As for his flannel shirt, I could have used the thing as a bed cover. I hadn’t realized how big the man was until I’d put his shirt on. The T-shirt of his I’d worn as a nightgown didn’t count. I’d wanted it to be big. This was somehow different. Still, I’d made do by tying the shirt’s front ends in a knot at my navel to keep the shirt from swallowing me whole.
With only a couple of paces left before passing each other, Joel’s pants slipped. I had to hook a thumb into their waistband to keep them from falling down.
Sheriff Palke smirked as she slipped from view at the corner of my eye. I swear that’s what it was. It wasn’t a grin. It was an evil, Cruella de Vil smirk, one that was glorious in its malicious glee.
Zoey and I said nothing until after we’d rounded the corner from which we’d first seen Sheriff Palke and her posse appear. I could feel her eyes on me.
“What?” I said in answer to her loud silence.
“She’s not that bad,” Zoey said.
I gaped at her. “Traitor!” I knew she was talking about Sheriff Palke.
“Just sayin’.”
We made two more turns before reaching the corridor where the nurse had said we’d find Rita’s room.
Our steps slowed at the sight of Michael sitting in a chair across from a closed door. His chair was one of a line of chairs, and I sat in the one closest to him without asking if it’d be okay.
Zoey started to sit, but her phone rang, and she wandered away to take the call.
I studied Michael. If I’d thought he had looked bad before he left the B&B, he seemed shattered now.
I turned my attention to the closed door. It felt ominous. Something about it said that I did not want to know the things it hid behind it.
“How’s Rita?” I asked in a quiet, gentle voice.
Michael’s voice wavered as he answered. “Slipped back into a coma before I got here.”
A rock settled in my gut. If Rita had fallen back into a coma before Michael had even gotten here, that meant that she would have already been in a coma when Sheriff Palke arrived. Sheriff Palke wouldn’t have been able to interview her.
The rock in my belly doubled in size, and I found myself desperately wishing that Sheriff Palke had been able to talk to the girl for hours—anything to have Rita awake and well.
“Michael, I’m so sorry.”
He shook his head. “The doctors say this sometimes happens. It’s okay. She’ll be okay.”
I perked. “The doctors said she’d be okay?”
Michael’s head shake no was hesitant and nearly imperceptible.
“I’m sorry,” I said again.
Zoey was still on her phone. That meant we weren’t going anywhere, so I stayed where I was, offering Michael my companionable silence. It was all I had to give.
Something caught Michael’s attention, and he looked past me. Then, he stiffened and shifted uncomfortably in his chair. But he didn’t get up; he didn’t leave.
I followed his gaze, and what I saw made my breath catch.
“Lucas,” I whispered.
The man slowed when he spotted me, but he didn’t stop. Instead, he made his way to where Michael and I sat and claimed the chair next to mine.
“You left me,” I hissed at him. “I could’ve died.” It seemed like a callous thing to point out when sitting next to a man who was waiting to find out if his daughter would survive. But the words were out. There was no putting them back.
“You look fine to me,” Lucas said. His gaze locked onto the door of what I assumed was Rita’s room and didn’t move.
Michael said nothing but threw obsessive, nervous little glances in Lucas’s direction.
What the heck? My mind raced. I was missing something.
I was here.
Michael was here.
Lucas was here.
A comatose Rita was here.
I reached for those pieces of the puzzle I already knew. I lined them up and did my best to splice them together. I was having no luck, but then a eureka moment had me sucking in a breath.
“You…” I said to Lucas. “You’re a liar.”
Chapter 30
The only reaction I got from Lucas was the slow turn of his head in my direction and a lifted eyebrow. His gaze was piercing, and I was privately thankful Zoey was near. I didn’t know if she had any special moves that could save me in a fight-for-your-life moment, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn she had a taser or a hypodermic of knock-out drug stashed away somewhere on her person.
“You got something to say?” Lucas asked, his voice low, menacing.
“You’re not a handyman. You’re a PI, a private investigator.”
Lucas leaned forward, rested his elbows on the knees of his long legs, and looked past me to glare at Michael.
Bingo.
Michael stood, or rather, he jumped to his feet. He turned this way and that, as if trying to figure out which way to go to escape, but then fixed his eyes forward. With a sigh, he hung his head and his shoulders sagged. “The beeping of the machines drives me insane, but I’m going to go sit with her.” He turned and narrowed his eyes at Lucas. “You can go to hell.”
His feet were moving as soon as the words were out. He disappeared into Rita’s room, hurriedly shutting the door behind him. I was surprised when I didn’t hear the scrape of a chair being dragged in front of the door to barricade it.
“He didn’t tell me,” I clarified to Lucas. If Lucas were the type of man to exact retribution on those who he deemed had wronged him, I didn’t want him going after Michael.
Lucas sat back in his chair and crossed an ankle over his knee. “That guy’s worthless.”
“And Rita?” I asked. “What is she?”
The glint in his eyes told me to tread with care, but I was stubborn that way. I liked to stomp on frozen ponds to see if I could get the ice to crack. I needed him to crack.
“Did Michael or Rita hire you to kill Dougie Dan?”
He blinked at my nickname for the now dearly departed but didn’t let it throw him. “No,” he answered. “What happened to thinking I was a PI instead of an assassin for hire?”
I ignored his question by asking another one of my own, one less specific than the first. “Did you kill Dougie Dan?”
“No,” he said again.
“Why not?”
“Because no one hired me to. I don’t kill
for sport. That’s disrespectful to life.”
“Then who did kill him?”
He leaned back in his chair and stared at the door in front of us. It took a moment, but he eventually let the words he’d been holding back pour out. “I never meant to fall in love with her.”
“With Rita?”
He nodded. “She’s crazy. Unpredictable. She’ll seem fine one second, swear she’s fine, then set something on fire just to watch it burn.”
“She set the tent on fire?” I asked, surprised.
“No…”
I waited for him to say who had set it on fire, but those words didn’t come. “Who did?” I pressed.
He looked at me. “Are you really that stupid?”
He might as well as slapped me in the face.
“No,” I shot back, “and I doubt Sheriff Palke is either. You don’t have an identity.” Zoey and the geek squad hadn’t been able to find him in the system—any system. “I’m sure you wouldn’t want her full attention on you.”
“I set the fire,” he said, caving to my threat with an easy coolness that made me think my threat was meaningless to him. “I found her in the woods.” He glanced at his hands, then amended. “I followed Rita into the woods. Wasn’t sure where she was heading. Lost her. When I did find her—near that place I took you—she was unconscious and had been hit in the head. I carried her back to the house.”
“And then you set the fire so that we’d run out and find her,” I finished for him.
“Mmhmm,” he nodded.
“Why not save her yourself? I mean, why just leave her for others to find her? She died, do you know that?”
His face tightened, stricken with guilt. “I didn’t know she was that bad off. She was in and out of consciousness while I carried her back.” He shook his head. “I’ve got a history. There are warrants. I didn’t want to get arrested. I didn’t want to be taken from her.”
“Did she say anything while you carried her back? Did she say who hit her?”
“Naw, nothing I could make sense of.”
I took in everything he was telling me and rolled it around inside my head. “So you didn’t kill Doug, and you weren’t hired to kill him?”
A Berry Horrible Holiday Page 17