Here Comes the Fudge

by Nancy CoCo

  “Hmmm, that makes sense,” she said. “Do you want me to text Frances?”

  “Yes, please,” I said. “Tell her that we are safe and that the killer is still on the loose, so please don’t let anyone leave the McMurphy.”

  Liz’s thumbs clicked as she quickly texted. “People aren’t going to like it,” she said. “Especially now that tomorrow’s wedding is off.”

  I winced at the thought. But there was no way Shane would be healed enough to go through with the wedding. “It’s not off, it’s just postponed,” I said. “We’ll deal with that later.”

  She showed me what she wrote and I nodded. “You can hit send.”

  The phone made the whoosh sound that it was delivered. Then dinged, letting me know that I got a text.

  “Your parents want to know when you’ll be back.”

  “Oh gosh,” I said. “Tell them . . . what should we tell them? I mean, we still have to talk to Rex.”

  Liz typed, I’m safe but it’s going to be a long night. Please stay safe at the McMurphy, go to bed and get some sleep. I will see you in the morning. “How’s that?” she asked and showed me the text.

  “Perfect,” I said. “Hopefully, Frances will keep them from trying to see me. The last thing I want is for Mike to hurt my parents. He seems truly unhinged.”

  “Yeah. I had no idea he was the stalker,” Liz said. “What a story I’m going to have when I get out of here.”

  “You have to stay the night,” the nurse said. “We need to ensure your concussion doesn’t get worse.”

  “So Saturday’s edition,” Liz said and then looked me over. I had scrapes and bruises from climbing the wooden shelves. I had stitches and a splinted hand. “Good thing they aren’t getting married tomorrow. Can you imagine the wedding pictures?”

  I laughed, but it hurt. “Ow, don’t make me laugh. I’m sure my hair is standing up all over the place.”

  “Hey, at least you don’t have my hair,” she said and patted her head. While Liz had soft ringlet curls, I had frizzy ends that tended to stick out like I put my finger into a light socket.

  The nurse left and Rex arrived. He spoke softly to our bodyguard for a moment and then came into the room. “Well, aren’t you two a sight for sore eyes,” he said.

  I reached up with my left hand and tried to flatten my frizzy hair to no avail. “Hi, Rex,” I said. “Any word on Mike?”

  “No,” he said. “We’re searching the island and have the coast guard watching the docks, but without being able to go into every building on the island, the search has been slow.”

  “You can’t go into every building?” I asked.

  “Not without warrants,” He said.

  “Have you deployed the search and rescue dogs?” Liz asked. “The ones you were bringing in for Jenn and Shane?”

  “My guys are on it,” he said and pulled out his notebook. “Now, ladies, why don’t you tell me what you were doing at Mike Hangleford’s house in the first place?” His scowl was probably appropriate but didn’t last long.

  We repeated the story of learning about the stalker who wore painter’s clothes and how we trusted Mike, so we went to ask him who he thought it was.

  “And that’s how we ended up in the coal room,” I said.

  “How did you break your fingers?” he asked.

  “The chute isn’t made to be opened from the inside,” I said.

  “By the way, that was a smart move, leaving your phone in the chute. We were able to track your phone’s GPS,” he said.

  “Did you get my text?” I asked. “And we told Frances where we were going before we left the hotel. I would have called, but I would have had to shout into the chute and that wasn’t the best thing to do. As it was, Mike heard me trying to open the chute and nearly caught us.”

  “I didn’t get the text,” Rex said. “But Frances did and called me. Luckily, we had a SWAT team deploying to look for Jenn and Shane. I used them to get to you.”

  “How come Mike wasn’t there?” Liz asked.

  “He must have heard us coming,” Rex said. “I saw a police radio on the counter in his kitchen. Don’t worry, we’ll get him.”

  “Liz has to stay the night,” I said. “She has a concussion, but I can go home, right?”

  “That’s what I heard,” Rex said.

  “I want to see my parents and talk to the family members staying at the McMurphy. We need to have a plan for them to go home and be safe,” I said. “We can’t keep them locked up in the hotel all weekend.”

  “I’ll walk you home when your IV is done and the doctor says it’s okay,” Rex said. “We can work out a meeting in the morning. By then we’ll have a plan to get them safely off the island.”

  “Darn. I don’t want to stay here all night by myself,” Liz said.

  “I’ll have a police officer stationed outside your door. Don’t worry, Mike can’t get to you.” Rex straightened up. “I’ve got some work to do, but I’ll be back in an hour to walk you home.”

  We watched him go.

  “He is so stuck on you,” Liz said.

  “Sometimes I think it’s true,” I said, “and sometimes I’m not so sure. Melonie is still living on the island. I heard she was working for the mayor. Which means she works in the same building as Rex. And you know she told me she set her cap for him and no one was going to get in her way.”

  “Melonie was always a drama queen,” Liz said.

  I looked at Liz. “I have real feelings for Rex, but I also have so many doubts.”

  “What kind of doubts?”

  “I don’t know. I have to ask myself if I want to be someone’s third wife. I mean, his track record isn’t so good. Then, we both know I’m not going to stop investigating if my friends are in trouble. That would be a conflict of interest for him. I mean, that could really mess up his cases in court.”

  “Pish,” she said. “You two are perfect together.”

  “Yes, but if we ever get married and then end up divorced, it’s going to really be a mess because I’m not leaving the McMurphy and he’s not leaving the island police.”

  “Girl, why are you thinking divorce? Are you even dating?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “He wants to be exclusive, but I’m not ready for that yet. We only had the one date before Melonie showed up.”

  “Well, of course you’re not ready if you’ve already got yourself married and divorced in your head. You know you can’t predict the future, right?”

  “I know that,” I said and messed with the blanket that had been thrown over me before they put the IV in.

  “And the past is the past. You can’t change it. So I think you’re nuts if you don’t live in the present. Seriously, take a deep breath and relax. That’s a whole lot of handsome, hunky, protective man.”

  “You know I’ve never been scared of anything as much as I’m scared of what could happen if I give my heart to Rex,” I admitted and felt the heat of a blush rush up my cheeks.

  “Ah, there’s the actual truth,” Liz said. “Listen, you don’t have to go there yet. Just take it slow and enjoy the moments you actually have.”

  “Sounds like good advice to me,” the nurse said as she came in to check my IV.

  “Okay, fine,” I said. “I can do one day at a time.”

  “There’s my smart girl,” Liz said.

  The nurse pulled out my IV and took my vitals one more time. “The doctor will be in in a few to check on you and sign you out.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Try to stay safe this time. I see you in here far too often.” The nurse shook her head at me.

  “I’m not doing it on purpose,” I grumbled.

  “To be fair,” Liz said. “we walked into this one blind.”

  “I wonder how Shane is,” I said. “Can you text Jenn to see if she’s heard anything?”

  “Sure,” Liz said and used my phone to text Jenn. “She says he’s still in surgery. He lost a lot of blood.”

  “I know,�
�� I said. “It makes me so mad we didn’t find him sooner.”

  The doctor came in and checked my vitals, waved a light in front of my eyes, and handed me a prescription for pain meds. “I wish there was more we could do for your fingers, but a splint is the best thing at this time. Keep them as immobile as you can. Now go home and get some rest.”

  “Thanks, Doc,” I said and slid off the hospital bed, slipped on my shoes, and gathered my purse while he checked on Liz. “Does she have to stay the night?”

  “It’s safest,” he said. “Don’t worry, we’ll take good care of her.”

  Rex appeared at the door. “Are you good to go?”

  “The doctor says yes,” I said.

  “Here are her discharge papers.” The doctor gave them to Rex. Rex nodded as he motioned for me to leave.

  “Hold on,” I said and went over and gave Liz a hug. “I owe you a drink when this is over.”

  “And a story,” she said as she handed me my phone. I slipped it into my purse.

  “And a story,” I repeated. Then I walked out, letting Rex guide me to the nurses’ station, where I paid my deductible and we left.

  We walked in silence for a few blocks. The clinic wasn’t too far from the McMurphy. I had no sense of time. The stars filled the sky and the sounds of the lake waves breaking filled my ears.

  “Are you going to say ‘I told you so’ about leaving the McMurphy?” I asked.

  “No,” he said.

  “Because if I hadn’t gone to Mike’s, we likely wouldn’t have found Shane in time, or Jenn,” I said.

  “That’s most likely true. Mike was not on my suspect list. Even Peter didn’t say anything about Mike stalking Becky.”

  “But Peter did admit to lying about taking Shane home,” I said. “So he could have roofied Shane.”

  “He swears he didn’t. And after we rescued you from Mike’s place I went in to see him and asked him if Mike was in the pub when he and Shane had that drink,” Rex said. “Peter said he was. That he stopped by to say hi and then went home. The encounter was short, so he didn’t think anything of it. But Peter swears he didn’t see Mike put any drugs in Shane’s drink.”

  “But he must have,” I said. “Now he’s still on the island.” I glanced around and moved closer to Rex. “Thanks for walking me home.”

  “I would do anything to keep you safe,” Rex said and put his arm around my waist and drew me closer. “You know that, right?”

  “I thought you didn’t like PDA while you were in uniform,” I teased.

  He kissed me hard. Then continued to walk. “You scare the daylights out of me. What is it with you and getting kidnapped anyway?”

  “Well, it seems as I get closer to the truth, the bad guys get more desperate.”

  “One of these days you aren’t going to come back from something like this,” he warned.

  “You couldn’t have stopped it even if you were there with me,” I said. “You would have been roofied just like Liz was.”

  “Why weren’t you?”

  “I don’t like tea that tastes funny,” I said.

  “What do you mean, funny?” he asked.

  “It tasted a bit bitter,” I said. “Liz puts sugar in her tea, so she didn’t notice. As soon as I noticed, I didn’t let it go between my lips. When Liz went down I pretended to go down too—that way he assumed I drank the same amount.”

  “Be careful with that,” Rex said. “You probably didn’t have the same amount of liquid in your cups. He could have noticed that.”

  “I poured it out to match Liz’s before I grabbed my phone and he came up the stairs to get me.”

  “Smart move,” he said.

  We arrived at the back door to the McMurphy. I noticed the back light was on and the cameras picked us up. I waved to the camera with my splinted hand and then used the key with my left one. We went inside and locked the door behind us.

  The lobby was empty. A quick glance at the clock on the wall told me it was nearly one a.m. Frances met us in the hall. “Oh good, you’re home.” She gave me a hug.

  “Why are you still here?” I asked. “Is Douglas, too?”

  “I told them to stay the night,” Rex said. “That way I have full control of everyone connected to the McMurphy.”

  “Wait.” I turned to him. “I just remembered, Mike took my key. He has a key to the McMurphy.”

  “It’s okay,” Rex said. “We found your key in Mike’s house. That’s the one you’re holding.”

  “Oh.” I put my hand to my chest. “Good. Did you find Liz’s phone?”

  “No,” Rex said. “It’s another reason to keep you all together here.”

  “We’re in room two-thirteen,” Frances said. “It was empty because the shower was leaking and Douglas didn’t get to it in time for a guest.”

  “Are you okay with staying?” I asked and tried to stifle a yawn.

  “Yes, of course,” Frances said. “I’ve locked the downstairs and the doors. The cameras are all on. We’ve been watching the screen, but there hasn’t been any activity besides the hourly patrol who comes by the front and the back.”

  “Good,” Rex said. “That means he’s not trying anything right now. Hopefully, Mike is hunkered down in a shed somewhere, trying to wait us out.”

  “Well, I’m glad you’re home,” Frances said and gave me a kiss on the cheek. “Why don’t you go up and check on your folks?”

  “I want you to go to bed, too,” I said. “Rex wants us to meet with everyone about nine a.m. I’m glad I thought to cater breakfast goodies for everyone in the morning. How did dinner go?”

  “It was a smashing success. Terra does a good job.” Frances urged me up the stairs. “Don’t you worry, she’ll do a bang-up job on breakfast, too.”

  “Thanks, Frances,” I said. Rex accompanied me up the stairs. We left Frances at the second floor and went up to the fourth. This floor didn’t have any cameras in the hall; I had to have some privacy. There were cameras at my back door and in the stairwells. That was good enough.

  I unlocked my door to find my parents half asleep on the couch in their pajamas. Mal came running up to me and wagged her stump tail, happy to see me home. I picked her up and gave her pets. She sniffed my broken fingers.

  “What’s the latest news on Shane?” Dad asked Rex.

  “The surgery went well, but he lost a lot of blood, so they will put him in the ICU when he comes out of recovery.”

  I hadn’t thought to ask about Shane and felt a little guilty. “Can I make everyone some tea? I have chamomile for those of us going to bed and Earl Grey for Rex.”

  “Sounds good,” Mom said. She came to the kitchen and gave me a hug. “How are you, baby?” she asked and touched the bandages on my forehead and tsked at my broken right-hand fingers. “Oh, let me make the tea,” she said and took the teapot from me.

  I scooted out of the kitchen and onto one of the barstools. Rex and Dad came over to watch Mom make tea.

  “How did that happen?” Dad asked and pointed at my fingers.

  “I was trying to open the coal chute from the inside and it snapped back on my fingers.”

  “Ouch,” Dad said. “Did they give you good pain pills?”

  “Just a few,” I said.

  Rex stood behind me with his hand on the small of my back. His thumb brushed circles there.

  “Did Jenn’s folks and Shane’s folks get to Cheboygan okay?” I asked my dad.

  “They did,” Dad said. “They said to thank you for the hotel room, but both sets of parents are spending the night in Cheboygan.”

  “No wedding tomorrow,” I said with a sigh, “unless they get married in the hospital. Either way, we have to come up with a plan to keep the guests safe. I’m sure they don’t want to waste their entire weekend locked up in the McMurphy.”

  “Well, surely they don’t want to go until they see that Jenn and Shane are well,” Mom said as she poured hot water into four mugs and put tea bags in them.

  “So
me may want to go home,” I said. “It’s natural when a suspected killer is on the loose.”

  “When the ferry boats run in the morning will this killer be able to get off the island?”

  “No,” Rex said. “We have alerted the ferry operators to keep an eye out for him and we have the coast guard circling the island.”

  “Why did he do this terrible thing?” Mom asked.

  “We can’t talk about the investigation while it’s ongoing,” Rex said and took his Earl Grey and sipped it.

  I just let my tea steep. After today, I really didn’t want any tea, I just wanted something to do.

  “Oh, Allie, you didn’t get anything to eat tonight, did you?” Mom said as she hovered. “We have leftovers in the fridge. It won’t take but a minute or two to reheat them.”

  “I’m not hungry,” I said. “I’m surprised you had any leftovers with a full house of guests unable to go out to eat.”

  “Well, with all the snacks you bought, there was plenty of food,” Mom said.

  “By the way, the rooftop deck is a big hit,” Dad said. “Most people took their dinner up there to eat. Douglas put out the heating lamps and people grouped around and enjoyed the view and company.”

  “Wonderful,” I said. “I had a gas line installed. Next year I plan on putting two firepits up there. Dad, I need you to think about the space and how we can have weddings and receptions without firepits getting in the way.”

  “Do you have the footprint of the gas lines?” he asked.

  “Let’s not talk about that tonight,” Mom said with a frown. “Come on, dear, let’s go to bed and leave these two kids alone.”

  “Right,” my dad said and gave me a kiss and a hug. “Good night, dear.” He shook Rex’s hand. “Thanks for bringing Allie safely back to us.”

  Mom gave me a kiss and a hug and waved at Rex as she took Dad’s hand and walked him to the bedroom.

  We waited for them to close the door before we spoke.

  “I have something stronger than tea, if you’re off duty,” I said.

  He sent me a straight-line smile. “I’m not off duty until we get this guy.”

  “Well, then, just wine for me.” I took a bottle out of the fridge, uncorked it, and poured a glass a quarter full. Any more and I wouldn’t sleep.