Murder Takes a Dare: The First Marisa Adair Mystery Adventure (Marisa Adair Mysteries Book 1)

by Jada Ryker

  * * * * *

  Clay ran through the deserted lobby as fast as he could. As he turned the corner to the dimly lit corridor, he could hear Marisa’s shoes slapping the floor and her hitching breath mere inches behind him.

  He bent over Althea’s door, and pulled a small pouch out of his pocket. Quick as a flash, he picked the lock and flung open the door.

  Angelique Crimpton was bent over Althea. Straining against her restraints, Althea’s body was desperately wiggling under the blanket. The light glinted on the syringe in the nurse’s hand.

  Her eyes startled, the nurse looked up just as Clay grabbed her arm. “Mr. Napier! Please let go! I know how you feel about Mrs. Flaxton and I am so sorry I have to do this!” The nurse tried to twist away from Clay’s hands. “Mrs. Flaxton’s test results show she is going to die soon. You tried to stop me earlier and you failed. That’s because I am the Angel of Death, swooping in to rescue her from pain and suffering—”

  Marisa grabbed the nurse from behind. “I knew you were more than just a creepy nurse and you are definitely no angel!”

  Clay let go of the nurse’s wrists. As she tottered backward into Marisa, he doubled up his fist and slammed it directly into her face. She slipped to the floor without a word. Clay pivoted to Althea, pulled the sobbing woman into his arms, and held her tightly against in his chest.

  A light flashed.

  “Wow, what a great picture!” Maupin rejoiced from his wheelchair. “That’s even better than famous peoples’ illicit trysts!” His eyes were shining with satisfaction and excitement.

  “Shut up!” The animalistic snarl came from the door.

  * * * * *

  “Mrs. Hill?” Marisa was incredulous. The nursing home administrator was holding a gun. The short, wavy blonde hair was sticking up all over her head like an angry porcupine’s quills. Stray leaves and bits of branches were caught in her hair and speckled her sleek, designer suit. Her suit was torn and filthy, and her hose was in tatters. A long scratch, oozing blood, marred one side of her face. At her shoulder was a tall old woman, her red wig slightly askew and her canary yellow dress unbuttoned to reveal blue jeans and a baggy t-shirt.

  Marisa did a double take. The old lady looked familiar.

  Alex warningly put his hand on Marisa’s back, as if he thought her surprised jolt was the precursor of rash action.

  By the window, Parvis was focused on the hospital administrator and her companion.

  Clay and Althea appeared frozen in their embrace.

  Esther touched Clay’s arm.

  Gently, slowly, he disentangled himself from Althea.

  Tara shifted slightly at the head of the bed, away from the door.

  Maupin casually moved his camera on his lap. A soft whirring filled the room.

  Her eyes rolling to watch them all at once, Mrs. Hill wildly waved her gun.

  “Mrs. Hill, let me take that gun for you.” The polite and deferential tones fell into the pool of tense stasis.

  “Who? Is that my missing payroll coordinator?” Her voice rose to a piercing shrill. “Yet another burr under my saddle. Not only did I have to run all over creation taking care of greedy blackmailers, but I also had to take care of everything in the business office. I hired you because I didn’t have time to deal with insurance companies, whining family members, or dissatisfied employees. When I needed you most, you just disappeared. Don’t you know how that’s going to look on your employment record?” Mrs. Hill sniffed, and then swiped a hand across her running nose.

  Where the hell was Lieutenant Camden? Any other time, he’d be hanging around like a hair in a biscuit, Marisa thought. She didn’t have any choice but to keep the woman talking and distracted. “Jonah spent a lot of time here visiting his grandmother. What did he see?” Marisa asked softly.

  The gun swung to Marisa. “He saw my partner”—Mrs. Hill twitched her head toward her companion “—dressed as one of the residents, in her clothes, her wig, and her multi-colored beads. Jonah heard about the ghost sightings, and he was like a bloodhound on the scent. He kept nosing around until he realized a patient was found dead after each one of the ghost sightings. The little snot barged into my office. He’d put all of the pieces together and he wanted money to keep his flapping lips closed. I had to kill him! And when I realized he’d talked to his grandmother, I had to kill her, too.”

  Marisa didn’t dare break eye contact with Mrs. Hill to see what the others were doing. She had left her purse in the car. She didn’t have her cell phone. Her only weapons were her brains and her tongue. “But why did you kill Zoe? Where did she come into it?”

  “Jonah told Zoe. They were partners. Then, early one morning, I saw something moving around the old cemetery, and I went out there. Zoe had finished with her latest lover, or client, or victim, or whatever the hell she called him. She had the audacity to smile at me, and tell me I had to pay her double what I’d already given her and Jonah to keep quiet about what was going on here at the nursing home. I knew then I had to kill them both, or they’d bleed me dry. I tried to get Jonah before he left the grounds, but he was too fast for me. I had to follow him to the hospital. Thank goodness I had the masks and gowns in the trunk, in case Brad needed an impromptu disguise. I do try to be prepared. Dressed like a surgical nurse, I was able to walk right in the front door and past the receptionist.”

  “And then Kerry Webber tried to blackmail you, too.” Perhaps if she could keep Mrs. Hill focused on her, Alex and Clay could overpower her. She risked a darted glare toward Parvis. He’d tricked her. He’d written about her group. He’d lied to her. She wasn’t going to wait for him to rescue them.

  “Do I have a sign on my back that says ‘blackmail me’? That stupid ambulance driver saw me come out. I should have left the mask on until I was out of sight, but I pulled it off and he saw my face. From making runs to the nursing home, he recognized me. Then the idiot tried to blackmail me. I knew I had to kill him, too, and his friend.”

  As Clay tried to edge closer, Mrs. Hill swung the gun toward Althea. “Anyone moves, I’ll shoot Mrs. Flaxton.”

  “You decided to get me out of the way, too. But your little bottle of flammable fluid and burning rag didn’t work!” Marisa exchanged frantic glances with Alex, and then Clay. Their faces were stiff with tension.

  Mrs. Hill pouted. “I saw that in a movie, and I thought for sure it would work.” She shrugged. “When I saw on the news this evening they’d arrested the trauma hospital’s administrator for Jonah’s death, I thought I was home free.”

  Esther took Althea’s arm, and tried to ease the other woman behind her.

  Althea resisted.

  Esther hissed, “Get behind me!”

  Althea shook off Esther’s grasping fingers. “No!” she hissed back.

  Marisa didn’t dare turn around. She gritted her teeth and resisted the urge to knock their heads together.

  The scratched face hardened. “Then those two elderly busybodies had to mess things up for me tonight! I had a perfect system. I had an easy pipeline of old, rich, sick people coming in. Then the lawyer would come, preferably late at night when the residents were sleeping, and make out a will. A last will and testament, with my facility as the beneficiary. The lawyers never even suspected. They expected an old lady, they got an old lady. They never really thought of them as people at all. My partner completely fooled them.”

  The old woman next to Mrs. Hill laughed.

  The sound skittered across the back of Marisa’s neck and left the hair standing up.

  Marisa took a tentative step forward. Alex tried to push her behind him. Marisa slapped at his hands. “Alex, look at the old lady! Tall! Thin! That irritating laugh! The nagging feeling of familiarity! It’s Brad Jacobs!”

  “The auditor from hell!” Alex started to move forward. He abruptly stopped when the gun whirled in his direction.

  “That’s no way to speak to my brother.” Mrs. Hill’s free hand reached for Jacobs’ arm and clasped it.


  Althea’s jaw dropped. “Brother? I thought she was your mother!”

  “Oopsie. No matter, you’re all going to die anyway.”

  Marisa briefly closed her eyes, and then opened them. “I had the clues to the puzzle all along. Jacobs went to great lengths to emphasize this was his first visit to Kentucky. But he messed up when he mentioned the overpass in Louisville. He said trucks kept getting stuck under it. He could only know that if he’d been here before. And Jonah said he’d seen him at the club over the past several months. I didn’t make the connections.”

  “You caught on too late, Marisa.” Jacobs crowed, cracking the wrinkles in his carefully applied make-up. “We had you fooled right up until this minute.”

  “You and Mrs. Hill must have practically fallen over each other the day she killed Jonah. You were darting in and out of the lobby, and Mrs. Hill was skulking in the hall outside my office.”

  Jacobs shrugged, tilting his red wig further askew. “My sister normally thinks things through to the most painful degree. However, that day she did react to Jonah’s threats very impulsively.” He turned his head to grin at his sister.

  Marisa was surprised he didn’t add, “The cute little dickens.”

  The distant wail of sirens caused Mrs. Hill to execute a happy little dance step. “Oh, goody, my diversion is working!” Screams came from the hallway.

  Marisa took an involuntary step forward.

  “Stop!” Mrs. Hill aimed the gun at Marisa’s heart. Her hand was steady.

  Althea put her hand to her mouth. “Mrs. Hill, what have you done?” She sounded like a schoolteacher who’d discovered a frog in her desk.

  “When I saw the police lieutenant in my nursing home, I knew I had to keep him busy. I set a small fire in one of the patient rooms.”

  “Dear God! This place is filled with helpless, bedridden patients! They’ll be burned alive, like horses in a barn locked in their stalls! They don’t have a chance of getting out alive without help!” Althea’s chest swelled with outrage. She started forward.

  Marisa frantically waved her friend back. “Mrs. Hill!” She had to distract their captor before she decided to shut Althea up…for good. “You and your brother have been extremely clever.”

  Tugging at a twig caught in her short hair, Mrs. Hill glanced at the man next to her. “I couldn’t have done it without Brad.”

  “Mrs. Hill, you have a thriving nursing home. Your brother is obviously a great actor.”

  The nursing home administrator frowned. “It’s too bad his best work takes place out of the footlights of the theater stage. He learned his acting skills the hard way. Our parents died when we were young. We were taken in by an orphanage. If we wanted to be adopted, we had to learn to play our roles of sweet, gentle children to perfection. It was excellent early training for the roles we played later.

  “And his work as an auditor was the perfect cover! He has to travel around the country, completing his financial reviews. All he had to do was book his flights through here. He’d just stay here long enough to impersonate an elderly person and draw up a will with an attorney.”

  Marisa’s heart was pounding so hard she could feel her body shaking with it. The cavalry wasn’t coming. It was busy saving helpless old men and women, and putting out fires. Marisa knew she had to keep the killer’s attention focused on her to give one of the others an opportunity to overpower the bitch. “In due course, the elderly man or woman would die, and you and your brother inherited all that lovely money.”

  Mrs. Hill’s laugh was a high-pitched sound of amusement. “Oh, you don’t know everything, do you?” She pointed at the white lump on the floor. “My own personal Angel of Death, aka Nurse Crimpton.”

  “Angel of Death?” Marisa’s eyes widened. “I think I see. Nurse Crimpton is already unbalanced. I heard her say old, lonely, sick people should be put out of their misery. You used fake lab and other test results to ensure she euthanized the right patients.”

  Alex inched closer to Mrs. Hill.

  Marisa’s voice rose in her desperation to keep Mrs. Hill’s attention on her. “And to keep anyone from suspecting she was killing patients, Nurse Crimpton had to come here on her nights off, when the other nurse was working. To keep anyone from recognizing her, she dressed up as a ghost. Then, if any of the residents mentioned seeing her, the staff would think the patients were simply hallucinating.”

  Clay slid nearer the murderer.

  Mrs. Hill’s head started to turn in his direction.

  Frantic, Marisa screamed, “You killed so many people just for money!”

  Mrs. Hill and the gun focused on Marisa. “Fate took our parents and our childhood away from us. We had to fight for every single thing. We swore we’d do whatever it took to never have to worry about money again.”

  Images from her own childhood flooded Marisa’s mind. “Mrs. Hill. I grew up poor, too. I hated the hunger, the cold, the deprivation. I’ve managed to avoid it without killing anyone.”

  Mrs. Hill’s eyes narrowed in anger. “As much fun as it would be to listen to your sanctimonious rant, it’s time for us to leave. We have all that money safely banked under an assumed name. With this place surrounded by police, we need a little help getting out of here. Mrs. Flaxton will make an excellent hostage.”

  “No! Take me!” Marisa stepped nearer to Mrs. Hill. Just a little closer, she thought. Then I’ve got to grab for the gun. I’ll have to try and push it up in the air so Mrs. Hill can’t shoot anyone. Marisa inched a bit closer.

  Mrs. Hill laughed. “I intend to do just that. You’ll drive, with Brad next to you to keep an eye on you, while I keep Mrs. Flaxton close by me in the back seat. And I know you’ll cooperate. If you don’t, I’ll kill her.”

  Marisa stared into the hard, expressionless eyes. In that moment, Marisa knew with bone-melting certainty Mrs. Hill was going to kill her and Althea.

  “If you don’t want me to shoot Mrs. Flaxton right now, then come here immediately.”

  At the doorway, Marisa saw a blur of movement. A large black object slammed into the back of Mrs. Hill’s head. In the same instant, Alex lunged forward to slam his fist in Jacobs’ smirking face with a satisfying crunch. As Mrs. Hill fell, the weapon skittered across the tile floor.

  Fred stepped into the room. The big black bag of the support group’s books and tapes dangled from his hands.

  “The Library came in handy. She’s out cold.”

  Clay swung around and held out his arms. “My love!”

  Althea was rooted to the spot. She turned to Esther, as strong, beautiful, and untamed as an Amazon warrior.

  Esther whispered, “Go to him!” She gave Althea a rough shove, which sent her tumbling into Clay’s arms.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  As Clay nonchalantly strolled through the lobby, support group members, exotic dancers, the police, and dazed residents milled around, excitedly talking. Alex was on the phone. As Clay passed, he heard the younger man making arrangements to get the residents transferred out to other facilities. Esther worked at his elbow, her fingers flying over the computer keys. Through the open door of Mrs. Hill’s office, Lieutenant Camden, Parvis, and Tara were rummaging through the files. Clay shook his head, guessing they were checking for records of the elderly who had been victims of the scheme.

  Clay continued down the hall and into the room of the man who called himself Horace Jones. He stood over his old friend’s bed.

  The smell of rotten meat was heavier and sweeter. The heat in the room was intense.

  Clay realized with a start the other man’s eyes were open.

  “Do you remember Suzanne?”

  As if it was yesterday and not thirty years ago, Clay remembered his hands stroking through Suzanne’s long, fiery red strands of hair. His hands ran through the red silk, from her head, all the way to her lower back, taking an instant or an eternity to make the journey, over and over. Her eyes were hard, sparkling green emeralds in her beautiful face. The clean, gracefu
l lines of her shoulder and her back glowed in the late afternoon sunlight as she arched her body up to him, and he buried himself in her, the fire in her hair burning him.

  “She was beautiful, charming—” the old man’s coughing fit was the only sound in the room.

  Clay’s thoughts moved reluctantly to the jarring explosions and the murderous fire that had leapt up in the sky from the burning skyscraper. The fire had been as red as the blazing hair which had crowned Suzanne’s beautiful head. The explosion had blasted the windows, and flames had erupted from the yawning holes. Clay had sprinted through the parking lot, dimly lit with the red glare and thick with the choking smoke. He ran to the inferno. An inferno started by the gorgeous, treacherous Suzanne. “—and a psychopathic killer,” Clay finished.

  Horace’s coughing subsided. “Yes.” He twisted in the bed and felt for Clay’s hand. “You have to help me. I don’t want to live like this.” He closed his eyes, and a single tear ran down the swollen cheek.

  “After Suzanne’s act of treachery, I didn’t want to live. You helped me heal that great, gaping wound in my soul. You know I’d do anything for you.” Clay took out the syringe Nurse Crimpton had dropped.

  “I’ve done some bad things. Do you think I will go to hell?” His hand closed on Clay’s free one.

  “Faith means believing in something without having proof right there in front of you. I believe in God and heaven, and I believe you’ll get into heaven.” Clay readied the syringe.

  With a deep groan, the old man dragged his arm out from under the white blanket. He managed a smile, and held out his puffy arm to Clay. “And I believe someday I’ll see you there, my friend.”

  Clay gently pinched up his friend’s swollen skin, slid in the tip of the needle, and depressed the plunger.

  The blanket barely rose with the labored inhales and fell with the shuddering exhales. Finally, the movement of the blanket stopped.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Althea hurried down the hall to her room to pack. She and Clay were going to stay at Marisa’s home in separate rooms for the time being.