by Nicole Helm
All the while babbling Ding-dong the witch is dead.
After the pet store owner had finally gotten them out, it’d taken Millie and her two employees hours to right everything and get rid of the stench.
The old clock in the front corner of the town hall finally clanged six times, and it got Alma Parkman scurrying up from her front-row seat to the podium. Yes, she scurried. Alma might be past the eighty mark, but she was spry, happy and didn’t care squat if people gossiped about her. That was probably why Alma had recently announced that she was retiring as the town’s librarian and pursuing a career as a stand-up comic.
“How-dee,” Alma greeted. She wore a pink top and capris and had her silver-colored hair pulled up in a way that resembled a mini palm tree on top of her head. “Welcome, Parkmans. And Katniss.” She winked at Frankie.
No wink for Millie though when Alma’s attention landed on her. The pity practically gushed right out of Alma, causing Millie to dole out her customary response. A polite smile followed by the poker face. Millie had gotten good at plastering it on.
“All righty, then.” Alma put on her thick reading glasses before picking up the gavel. “I’m calling to order this meeting of the Last Ride Society.” She banged the gavel three times. “We’ll start with a reading of the rules.” Alma looked down at the paper she’d brought to the podium with her and gave an exaggerated frown. “Hey, who scribbled that the first rule of Last Ride Society is there are no rules?”
Frankie and Alma giggled like loons, but many just looked confused. Probably because they didn’t get the Fight Club reference. Others because they didn’t approve of having a lick of fun.
“I confess, I’m the scribbler,” Alma continued, still snickering. “Just trying out some of my new routine. But here I go for real.” Her expression grew serious. “Our illustrious town founder, Hezzie Parkman, created the Last Ride Society shortly before her death in 1950, and each and every one of you honor Hezzie by being here this evening. Honor, tradition, family. Those are the cornerstones that make Last Ride our home.”
Even though it was a short speech that Alma gave every quarter, Millie saw a few people dab tears from their eyes.
Alma held up one finger to indicate the first rule. “A drawing will take place quarterly on the first day of February, May, August and November in the Last Ride town hall. The winner of the previous quarter will draw the name of his or her successor.”
Nearly everyone glanced at Ruby Chaney, last quarter’s winner. She definitely fell into the category of gobbling up this particular duty. She gave everyone a wave, obviously enjoying the last couple of minutes of her “celebrity” status.
“Second rule,” Alma said, lifting another finger. “The winner must research the person whose tombstone he or she draws. A handout will be given to the winner to better spell out what needs to be done, but research should be conducted at least once weekly as to compile a thorough report on the deceased. The report will be added to the Last Ride Society Library.”
Since the library occupied the large back room of Once Upon a Time, Millie often caught glimpses of the reports that had started more than half a century ago. Some had been bound professionally and were several inches thick. Others were handwritten and obviously hastily done. Ruby’s recent addition was over five hundred pages on a spinster who’d died back in the late 1800s.
“Final rule,” Alma went on. “On the completion of the research by the winner, five thousand dollars from the Hezzie Parkman trust will be donated to the winner’s chosen town charity.”
“I’m hoping it’s me this year,” Frankie muttered. “The baseball field needs fixing up.”
Millie was hoping it was Frankie, too. Not only because the woman wanted it but because Frankie was right about the baseball field needing a face-lift. Millie made a mental note to set up a donation drive for just that.
“And now to the drawing.” Alma used the gavel to drum out her obvious excitement. “Ruby, come on up to the Bowl o’ Names and get to drawing.”
Ruby waved again and smiled at the applause. What she didn’t do was hurry. Not one little bit. Still obviously trying to hang on to her moment, Ruby crept to the table and hovered her hand over the bowl. Probably to boost excitement. Many probably hoped she’d just hurry so they could spoil their dinners with those snickerdoodles.
Ruby finally reached into the bowl, swirling around the slivers of paper, paused, swirled some more. Only when people started to groan and grumble did she finally pluck one.
Ruby beamed and looked directly at her. “Millie Parkman,” the woman announced.
Oh, man. What kind of crap-ery was this? Suddenly all eyes were on her. Exactly where Millie didn’t want them to be.
“Congrats, Millie,” Alma muttered.
There were no congrats whatsoever in Alma’s tone or expression. No doubt because she, and everyone else in the room, were considering that Millie digging into that Bowl o’ Tombstones would maybe bring back the memories and grief over losing Royce. But Millie didn’t have to dig into a bowl to recall that memory. Everything brought it back.
Everything.
Millie forced herself to stand, and she got moving toward the front. She silently cursed the macaws because she could have used both the caffeine and sugar fix to get her through this. Unlike Ruby, she didn’t dawdle, didn’t make a production of it. Millie simply went to the Bowl o’ Tombstones and snagged the first one her fingers touched. She unfolded the paper.
Her heart went to her knees.
And she blurted out the really bad word.
“The name is Ella McCann,” Millie managed to say when she got her mouth unfrozen.
The room went tombstone-silent, but Millie figured there was already some mental gossip going on.
Frankie jumped to her feet. “I volunteer as tribute,” she repeated.
Millie considered taking her up on the offer. Considered shirking the duty that had been drummed into her since childhood. Parkman duty. Parkman pride. But it was more than that. It was spine. It would probably come as a surprise to many, but she did indeed have one. And Millie was about to prove that.
To them.
To herself.
Even if Ella McCann deserved each and every f-bomb that Millie would ever mutter, she’d do this. She’d research the “other” woman. She’d dig into the life of the woman who’d died in the arms of Millie’s husband.
Copyright © 2021 by Delores Fossen
Keep reading for an excerpt from Unsuspecting Target by Juno Rushdan.
Unsuspecting Target
by Juno Rushdan
Chapter One
Laughing at her escort’s flirtatious comment, Wendy Haas glanced across the crowded reception hall of the gala and froze as she spotted trouble incarnate.
The bubble of amusement in her chest burst and she struggled to breathe. Staring back at her was Jagger Carr. The one man who could derail her life, for a second time.
His dirty blond hair was shorter, the cut cleaner. Half his face was cloaked in shadows, but he looked older, more rugged and chiseled by hard times. He was broader and taller than Wendy remembered, his muscled body filling out his tux to perfection.
No doubt about it, that was Jagger.
How? He was supposed to be locked up—a fifteen-year sentence for murder.
A murder that never would’ve happened if they hadn’t been together. A prison term that was her fault.
He hated her as much as she hated him, but how could he have the gall to be in the same room as her, make eye contact and not bother to say a single word? Even one of contempt.
“Hey, babe, are you okay?” asked Tripp Langston, her on-and-off lover. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
If only. A phantom couldn’t do any harm.
But Jagger free and in the flesh could wreak all kinds of havoc.
> Wendy made a pleasant humming sound, masking the lead weight in her gut. “I’m fine,” she said as if she didn’t have a care in the world and turned back to Tripp.
The photographer dressed in a simple black suit with a dark shirt circled closer. He’d been prowling about them shortly after she and Tripp had arrived. She believed he was one from Page Six. Since she hadn’t been up to dealing with a sensational tabloid tonight, she hadn’t gotten close enough to see his badge clearly.
“He’s just going to keep stalking us until we give the paparazzo what he wants,” Tripp said.
It was the least of her concerns, though inevitably true. The bloodhound wasn’t going to stop.
Wendy owned an up-and-coming PR firm that worked miracles in the image consulting department. She was the go-to person if you needed to reinvent yourself, as she had done after Jagger sent her world in a tailspin.
At twenty-eight, her career was on a trajectory into the stratosphere, and her name opened doors that made socialites envious.
As for Tripp, he was on the current cover of New York Magazine, named number one on a list of the top thirty under thirty in the city. All thanks to her company rebranding him from a barracuda in a toilet bowl to the Orca of Wall Street.
A photograph of them together would have the readers of the gossip site and tabloid talking. Still, the last thing she needed to worry about was ducking a shutterbug. Not when Jagger Carr was lurking somewhere in the room.
“Let’s just get it over with.” Wendy tucked her handbag under her arm and swept a hand over her hair, checking her chignon was in place.
Then she looped her arm through Tripp’s, pasted on a saccharine smile, raised her champagne flute and posed for the camera.
The photographer adjusted his telephoto lens, snapped the picture and blew a kiss of thanks.
“He didn’t bother to use a flash,” she said, irritated at how the photo would turn out in the low lighting. What a waste.
“Let me get another for Instagram, babe.” Tripp held his camera phone up, shifting it to get the best angle for both his six-foot frame and her standing at five feet six inches in heels. Wendy turned her face, giving her profile for the shot, and drained her glass of champagne as Tripp captured the moment with a bright flash. “That’s a good one. I’ll send it to you, so you can post it, too. This time write something that makes me sound fun and hip. Okay.”
Handsome, wicked smart and wealthy, Tripp was a catch by many standards. He was also the walking definition of an egomaniac, always trying to tell her how to do her job. That was precisely why they were currently in off mode. They’d decided to go together to the Youth Literacy Gala—one of the most anticipated nights on New York City’s cultural calendar, second only to the Met Ball—but there were no amorous strings attached.
Disentangling herself from Tripp, Wendy glanced over her shoulder.
Watching her back was second nature and came with the job. Once you identified a threat it was best to deal with the problem head-on, before it became a headline that had tongues wagging.
Wendy scanned the crowd, but it was as if Jagger had never been there. Poof. He’d vanished into thin air.
For a long moment, she doubted he’d been real. Only a figment of her imagination, perhaps her eyes playing tricks in the dreamy rose-tinted lighting that reflected off the marble surfaces. But the way her pulse had kicked and her nerves had danced when she’d locked eyes with him had been bona fide and irrefutable.
No other person had ever given her an inkling of butterflies, whereas being with Jagger had been like riding the ultimate roller coaster, the wind rushing over her, arms raised recklessly in the air, her heart doing somersaults, her body tingling. Not a single thought in her head of what was at stake. Of her mother’s desperate pleas. Of her brother’s warnings.
Until it had ended.
Her throat closed at the memory of all the tears she had shed over him ten years ago.
Wendy grabbed a glass of champagne from a passing tray, swapping it for her empty flute, and sucked the fizzy alcohol down. The chilled bubbly eased the terrible tightness in her throat, if not the sudden ache in her chest.
“What’s up?” Tripp asked, typing away on his phone and staring at his screen. “You’ve barely had anything to drink all night, and in the past two minutes you’ve inhaled two glasses.”
“Who are you? A ruthless cutthroat or my father?” Her dad had died when she was sixteen, a year before she met Jagger. She had still been grieving. Her brother, Dutch, had tried to step up, fill their dad’s shoes, but she hadn’t needed a replacement.
“You can call me daddy later if you want.” Tripp chuckled at his own crass joke, and Wendy rolled her eyes as she dug her tense fingers into her satin clutch. “Let’s skip dinner and cut out of this snooze fest. What do you say, babe? Your place or mine? I believe it’s time to pay the piper since you signed Rothersbury.”
Thanks to an introduction from Tripp, Wendy had seized an opportunity to pitch Chase Rothersbury, a bad-boy billionaire in jeopardy of losing his trust fund if he didn’t clean up his image fast. After she’d given a knockout presentation last week, she had landed her biggest client and a lucrative contract that had everyone at the gala buzzing about her.
“You’re on the cover of New York because of me,” she said, sugar dripping from her voice. “I scratch your back and you scratch mine, remember. Babe.” How could he have possibly forgotten?
“Yeah, of course. The cover was fab.” Tripp didn’t even look at her as he spoke, keying away with his thumbs on Facebook or Twitter. A chirp sounded. Texting someone. “But in terms of equity, come on, there’s no comparison. You owe me, right?”
All too familiar with this sport, Wendy suppressed a sigh. For Tripp, everything was a transaction, a deal he had to win. He’d tell his own mother that she owed him.
“I’m not a pink sheet stock. This feels more like arbitrage than equity.” She wasn’t sure if she’d gotten the terminology right and doubted herself as his eyes took on a narrowed glint.
Then she caught his shrug, a gesture of acquiescence that she attributed to his preoccupation with his phone, and she decided it didn’t matter.
Off the proverbial hook, she was back on the hunt. For Jagger.
The last she’d heard he’d gotten involved with Los Chacales cartel in prison.
Which would do wonders for her reputation if old photos of her and Jagger, intimate snapshots that would make her mother screech in horror, found their way into the voracious hands of the press. At least her mom was traveling outside the country with her new husband for the next few weeks, but this was going to be resolved tonight.
What were the odds of Jagger being there? A million to one?
When did he get out of jail?
A better question, the one churning in her mind and making her stomach roil: What in the hell was he doing at a black-tie event for Manhattan’s literati and culturati?
Unless he was there deliberately playing a sick game, taunting her with his presence. Had he come to blackmail her, extort her for hush money to keep quiet about their scandalous past?
Wendy’s ears were hot, burning, as if they were on fire. As though someone was talking about her, and not in a good way. An old wives’ tale, she knew, but still...
Pivoting on her heels, she turned slowly around Astor Hall. She glossed over the elaborate floral arrangements, the designer gowns, inconsequential hobnobbing and every atmospheric inch of the famed institution. Then she tuned out the jazz music and chatter in the air.
There!
Moving stealthy as a thief up the stone steps to the closed second floor was Jagger.
Jaw squared. All that muscular power striding up the stairs, looking like he’d stepped out of the pages of GQ instead of a cell block. God, he looked so damned good.
Hotter than a hostile ex had a rig
ht to be.
She flicked a glance at security near the entrance off Fifth Avenue. The guards were focused on an incensed late arrival who refused a pat down after setting off the metal detector.
Wendy shoved her champagne glass at Tripp. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
Disregarding his questions, she made her way to the broad staircase on the left.
The musical bell chimed, marking the end of the cocktail hour. The drone of voices in the room grew louder in anticipation of the early dinner. In ten minutes, the next chime would sound, and the well-dressed crowd would head for the grand hall to find their seats at the lavishly decorated banquet tables.
Perfect timing.
Appetizers should keep Tripp occupied long enough for her to have the conversation with Jagger that was a decade overdue. Tell him how much she loathed him. Then she’d send him scurrying back to whatever hole he had crawled out of, before he had a chance to do any serious damage.
No matter what it took.
She’d worked too hard putting the pieces of her heart back together, transforming herself into someone new—better—sacrificing everything to build her company and create a life worth living...without him.
No one, least of all Jagger, was going to bring the whole house of cards crashing down.
She darted under the velvet rope cordoning off the stairs while four guards were distracted with Mr. Upper East Side, who was now causing a scene. She lifted her rented black Cavalli gown to keep from tripping on the hem and tiptoed up the stairs, not wanting the clack of her heels to draw the unwanted gaze of the guards.
At the top of the landing, she caught the subtle sound of a door closing.
Up ahead was a sign for the lavatory. She hurried down the corridor, entered the restroom vestibule and hesitated in front of the men’s door.
All the other guests were downstairs, and she’d already seen and touched everything Jagger had to offer. Clenching her jaw, she shoved inside and found an empty two-stall bathroom. No one at the urinals or sinks.