Gum Drop Dead: Cupcake Truck Mysteries

by Emily James

  “If you go through with this, you’ll have to elope. Otherwise, the police can force you to testify against each other.”

  Rebecca flinched.

  “We can do that,” Leon said. “It’s what we wanted anyway.”

  “I don’t want to get married,” Rebecca said softly. “How can I remarry after what I did to Donald?”

  Leon’s head swiveled toward her. “You didn’t mean for that to happen. It shouldn’t prevent us from being happy.”

  We passed a tree, and I ducked behind it and ran.

  Leon cursed.

  I pumped my legs harder, dodging left and right behind trees to make myself a harder target to hit.

  Footsteps sounded behind me but no gun shot. He must be worried that shooting at me could draw too much attention. People might mistake a single gunshot for something else, but if he fired multiple shots, someone was sure to call the police. Once that happened, Leon might still be able to kill me, but he wouldn’t be able to dispose of my body. He clearly didn’t want to take that risk.

  My lungs burned. I hadn’t been going running as regularly as I used to. And something that felt a lot like panic clawed at my throat, trying to choke me. I couldn’t let it. If I lost control, I’d die here.

  I slid behind a tree big enough to cover me from side to side. Leon gained on me, and I didn’t know where I was anymore. I might be headed toward the house or to the lake and right into his plan for all I knew.

  If he got a clear shot at me, he’d take it to prevent me from escaping. I had to take a chance and try to knock the gun from his hand.

  I picked up a large branch. The bark bit into my palms, and my shoulders ached from holding it, but it was the only one heavy enough to possibly work.

  I held my breath, so I could hear Leon’s approach over my own ragged gasps.

  He paused just before my tree, as if he wasn’t sure which direction I’d gone in.

  Far back, the snap of twigs and muffled cries of annoyance marked Rebecca closing on our position as well.

  Leon took another step forward. His nose and the gun became visible.

  I swung the branch. It connected with his wrist, and the gun flew through the air.

  The string of curse words he let out would have made a Marine blush.

  He tackled me. I lost my hold on the branch and hit the ground. What little air I’d been able to suck in rushed from my lungs. It felt like someone had caved in my chest.

  Before I could react, Leon straddled my hips and pinned my hands to the ground, his grip so tight I could feel the movement of my bones.

  Blackness filled the edges of my vision. He was too close. Too close.

  It’ll be over soon, Fear said. Stay still and he won’t hurt you as much.

  No, that was the wrong advice this time. This time, if I didn’t do something, I’d be dead for sure. I fought against his grip, but he was too strong. His grip on my arms, his weight on my waist didn’t even move. I couldn’t get enough air, and I wasn’t sure if it was because he was pressing on my ribs as well or because my brain was shutting down.

  “Hurry up, Rebecca.” Leon’s words were gruff and hard at the edges. “You need to get the gun.”

  This was what Dan and I had practiced for. I’d spent the last few weeks learning what to do if this happened. I just had to stay calm enough with this man touching me to do what I knew to do. Hold focus for a few minutes, and I might be able to break free. Be brave enough to move close rather than pulling away. I could do this. Dan believed I could, or he wouldn’t have spent so much time training me.

  I sucked in as much air as I possibly could, and my chest released a little bit. The weight on it wasn’t Leon. It was Fear. I knew how to handle him, too, if I could stay focused.

  I shifted my head slightly, following Leon’s gaze. The gun lay in a pile of leaves not five feet away. Rebecca was a red spot in the woods, but she was coming. I had to get to the gun before either she or Leon did.

  Leon’s weight was angled forward, pinning my wrists to the ground. I’d get only once chance to catch him off guard and unbalance him. Dan’s countermove involved me using my hips to shove him forward. The natural reaction would be for him to let go of my wrists to break his fall rather than landing on his face. I’d then have a split-second to take control from there.

  It might work. It might not. But it was my only chance.

  I shifted my feet into a position where I had leverage and did exactly what Dan had showed me.

  Leon toppled forward and released my wrists.

  I swung my arms back, imagining a snow angel and then latched onto his waist as if I were a baby monkey. I looped one of my arms around one of his and threw us into a roll. He went down, and I was on top. I scrambled out of his reach and dove for the gun.

  My fingers closed around the gun at the same time as his closed around my ankle.

  I twisted enough so that I could point the gun at his face. “Let go.”

  He did. He shifted back and sat on the moist ground, and I scooted back away from him, until my back pressed against another tree. Rebecca stood at the edge of my vision.

  “Sit next to him cross-legged, and then call the number I give you and ask for Detective Dan Holmes. I’ll tell you what to say after that.”

  The adrenaline was draining from my body. Everything trembled. I tightened my grip around the gun and prayed that I wouldn’t black out before Dan could reach me. I just had to stay focused.

  22

  People were shouting. I heard them, but I couldn’t remove my gaze from Leon and Rebecca. If I let my focus drop, they’d hurt me. I had to hold on until Dan got here. He’d bring help.

  “Stand down,” a familiar voice yelled. “Step away.”

  Dan’s voice. It didn’t sound like it was directed at me. I wanted to turn and look at him, make sure it was him, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t let my attention shift at all or I’d be dead. More than once Leon had tried to move and get closer.

  “She took us hostage,” Leon said to someone standing behind me. “We need help.”

  Rebecca nodded. Her mascara had run down her face, but I couldn’t remember her crying.

  “Quiet,” I said. “No talking.”

  They both clamped their mouths shut. A couple of times they’d tried to whisper to each other. I’d had to stop them then too because they could have been planning to rush me and take the gun back. I didn’t want to die out here in the woods.

  “She’s a trauma survivor.” The familiar voice again. “She’s in shock. She’s the one who was attacked, and anything she’s done was self-defense.”

  Lots of voices. It sounded like they were arguing.

  Someone sat beside me. They smelled familiar, like coffee and soap.

  “I need you to give me the gun,” he said.

  “I can’t. They’ll kill me.”

  “They won’t.” The voice sounded so much like Dan. “As soon as you give me the gun, we can move in and arrest them.”

  If it was Dan, I could trust him, but I couldn’t take my gaze off of Leon and Rebecca to check. If it was Dan, he’d take care of it.

  A hand slid over one of mine. The touch was so familiar. My hands ached, my knuckles white. I didn’t want to have to watch them anymore. I was so tired.

  “Dan?”

  “It’s me. Give me the gun, okay?”

  I nodded and let it fall into his hands. He must have handed it away because the next thing I knew, his arms wrapped around me.

  Then I was up in the air, secure against his chest, and we were moving.

  “Sir,” the man’s voice was young and sounded far away. “Shouldn’t we take her in to give a statement at least. She was holding two people at gunpoint.”

  “Would you expect to immediately question a victim who was bleeding out?”

  “Of course not, sir.”

  “We need to show as much compassion for victims’ mental health as we do for their physical health. I’ll take her statement tom
orrow when she’s feeling up to it. Right now, I’m getting her checked out by the paramedics and taking her to get some rest.”

  I must have faded out because the next thing I remembered was a woman in a uniform leaning over me and examining the purplish-blue marks around my wrists. I thought I saw a camera flash.

  And then the blackness finally took me.

  Opening my eyes next felt a bit like peeling wallpaper off a wall. I stretched my legs and arms slowly. They all worked, but I wasn’t going to be running marathons or practicing self-defense moves any time soon. Not unless I was a masochist who enjoyed pain.

  The day before came back to me in bits. My heart rate picked up.

  I turned my head. I was back in my own bedroom. Dan sat beside my bed instead of Janie like the last time I’d gotten myself almost killed and needed rest. This time felt worse somehow. Like they’d managed to attack my brain as well as my body.

  He hadn’t noticed I was awake. His head was bent over a massive book, reading.

  Watching him when he didn’t know it felt strange. I’d never had the opportunity to do it before. He looked older than when he was in motion, but no less handsome. His cheeks had a dusting of stubble on them that I loved, as if he hadn’t wanted to take the time to shave in the past day or two.

  My heartbeat slowed back to normal as if it knew we were safe with Dan in the room. More than anything, that felt unnatural. I’d spent so long looking over my own shoulder and watching my own back. To have someone I finally felt I could trust to sometimes take my burden off of me…it must be what an animal who’d been caged felt when they got to run again for the first time.

  “What are you reading?” I asked. My voice sounded like I needed a throat lozenge.

  Dan didn’t jump or start the way I would have. Instead, he set the book aside almost languidly. “The story of Joseph. I read it regularly to remind myself that when bad things happen to good people God is still in control, and he has a plan, even if we don’t understand it at the time.”

  My memory of the story of Joseph in the Bible wasn’t as fresh as it probably should be. “Read it to me?”

  Dan picked up the Bible like it was the most natural thing in the world for me to ask.

  Joseph, it turned out, had been sold into slavery by the brothers he should have been able to trust, was falsely accused of a crime he didn’t commit and sent to prison, and was forgotten by the friends he helped. Through it all, he stayed faithful to God, and in the end he was able to do things that helped a lot of people. What you intended for evil, he told his brothers at the end of the story, God intended for good.

  Everything Joseph went through, he went through so that he would end up in a place where he could help people.

  Maybe that was why I’d gone through the things I’d gone through too. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have been in Lakeshore when Janie needed rescuing. I wouldn’t have been able to help solve the murder investigations I’d found myself embroiled in.

  I could see why that story gave Dan comfort. “You should share that with Claire. She once asked me if I knew how you managed to do and see what you do and see every day.”

  He set the book side again. “I’ll do that. How are you feeling?”

  I looked down at one of my wrists and rotated it slowly. More stiff than actually painful. “About how you’d expect. How long have I been asleep?”

  “Almost a day.”

  The last time I’d slept that long had probably been when I was a kid with the flu. “Rebecca Wells and Leon Schwab?”

  “Looking at a lot of prison time for murder, attempted murder, and accessory after the fact.”

  That had happened fast. “How did you…?”

  I didn’t even know how to phrase the question for everything I wanted to know about what had happened after I passed out.

  Dan scooted his chair closer but didn’t try to touch me. The memory of how he’d carried me in his arms flooded my mind, and heat burned my cheeks. I smoothed down my hair to help hide my face. Mess probably didn’t begin to describe how I looked right now.

  “It wasn’t making sense to me,” Dan said, “as to why Rebecca and Leon would have pulled a gun on you.”

  It hadn’t made sense to me either at first. “I think Rebecca might have accidentally caused Donald’s death somehow.”

  Dan smiled that smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes and sent a shiver through my heart. “You should have been a detective.”

  I shrugged against the pillow and propped myself up better. “Baking is safer.”

  “Is it?”

  “It should be.”

  Dan chuckled. “We got a subpoena for the lawyer’s files. The judge deemed it admissible under special circumstances because Kirkland isn’t a criminal attorney and his files weren’t related to attorney-client privilege of a crime. They were generic paperwork that any lawyer would file.”

  I didn’t fully understand what privilege did and didn’t cover. I made a mental note to ask Nicole next time I talked to her. My brain stumbled on the thought. I didn’t make a routine of contacting Nicole, in order to protect her from Jarrod.

  I peeked at Dan. Not calling Nicole was one of many things I wanted to do but didn’t in order to protect myself and others from Jarrod.

  “It turned out Rebecca had been asking about powers of attorney and under what circumstances an adult could be deemed incompetent and their care be assigned to someone else.”

  The final pieces slipped into place in my brain. “She gave Donald lime juice to make him hallucinate, so she could have him ruled incompetent. That’s why she said it was an accident. She hadn’t meant to kill him. Keeping him alive and still married to her would have given her control over his money in a way that divorce or death wouldn’t have.

  Dan nodded. “Once I had that information, I played Leon off of her and suggested she was blaming it all on him. He turned on her to save himself. He told us everything she’d confessed to him after the fact, when he was trying to convince her not to break off their relationship.”

  That explained everything. Almost. “Why did he have a gun?”

  The first thing that jumped to my mind was that he’d planned a murder-suicide for that day if she hadn’t changed her mind.

  “It was a gift. He planned to give it to her for self-defense because he thought people were still following her around for information on Donald. He thought she’d feel safer if she had some way to protect herself if someone took it to the next level and broke into her house.”

  Poor man. In a twisted way, he’d truly cared about Rebecca, so much so that he’d been willing to cover up her crimes and even kill for her.

  I studied Dan’s face again. His dark hair and slightly crooked nose. His bright blue eyes with the laugh lines at the corners.

  He was a handsome man, but his heart was even better.

  He raised an eyebrow. “What?”

  Answering that question felt even riskier than telling him my real name had or telling him about Jarrod had.

  But it also felt like he’d earned that honesty and level of trust.

  “Thank you. For looking after me.” The words caught in my throat, but I forced them out. “For not giving up on me. For believing in me.”

  He smiled again. “Always. That’s what friends do, like I told you.”

  Friends.

  It echoed so many conversations we’d had, but the one that stood out most anymore was the one in Elijah’s office when I told him friendship was all I could have with anyone.

  The way my heart felt like it was bruising in my chest was my own fault. I hadn’t kept a close enough watch on my own emotions.

  I could live with the repercussions. I had to if I wanted to keep Dan’s friendship. And I did. I’d be willing to hurt every time I looked at him so long as I didn’t lose him completely. I’d take every day I could get with him and Janie until he found someone who could give him what he wanted. What he deserved. Then I’d have to accept being rele
gated to the periphery of their lives, hearing about them through Claire.

  Dan got to his feet and pressed a finger to the cover of the Bible. “I’ll leave this here in case you want to read the stories of Job and Ester next. They’re ones I turn to as well.”

  I slid the Bible onto the bed next to me. “Thank you.”

  He nodded. “I’ll bring Janie by later if that’s okay. I had Claire keep her at my place in case you needed a little time once you woke up to…process things. I’ll still need to take your statement today too.”

  “I can write it out for you. I think it’d be easier that way.”

  He looked at me as if he wanted to come back and press another kiss to my forehead. He stepped back instead. “I’ll bring you a pen and paper.”

  He turned toward the door, then turned back to face me. His hand went to his pocket.

  I let him stand in silence. I didn’t know what to say or why he’d turned back.

  He pulled a business card from his pocket and handed it to me. The edges were worn, as if he’d been carrying it around and handling it for days.

  I glanced down at it. The card was for a divorce lawyer.

  “I asked around. He’s supposed to be good at cases with unusual circumstances.” Dan’s voice was low and more hesitant than I’d ever heard from him before. “Life is short, and so much in it is hard. I want us to have a chance at something I think could be good. I’m willing to take the risk if you are.”

  Letter from the Author

  I can’t believe we’re already halfway through the story I planned out for Isabel. I hope you’ve enjoyed walking alongside her for this new story.

  With this book, I wanted Isabel to move another step away from merely surviving. I wanted her to start thinking about what she’d want her life to look like if she were free to chose. Hope is such a valuable, powerful thing. This is the book where Isabel starts to find it.

  In the next book, you’ll find out what Isabel decides about her relationships and her business. And, of course, there will also be a murder! The next book is called A Sampling of Murder.