Peanut Brittle Murder: A Frosted Love Cozy Mystery - Book 25 (A Frosted Love Cozy Mysteries)

by Summer Prescott

  “Mrs. Beckett?” she called in a soft, innocent voice. There was no response, so she pushed the door to the bedroom open with a soft creak and called again. Checking the bathroom, the closet, and the sun porch, she finally had to admit that they had miscalculated. Missy Beckett clearly wasn’t home.

  Not knowing whether she was more frustrated that these circumstances would necessitate her spending more time with Grant, or relieved that she didn’t yet have to decide whether to liberate Missy or condemn her, Ginny headed for the stairs, let herself out of the owner’s quarters and the main Inn, heading for the stand of palmetto where she’d left Grant.

  At least the leader had figured out how to make himself well-hidden. She couldn’t see him at all as she approached the palmettos and was surprised and impressed. She halfway expected him to come storming out at her though, when he noticed that she didn’t have Melissa Beckett with her. Ginny moved closer to the palmettos to report back, and still saw no sign of Meecham, so she went around to the back, where he should be standing, only to find that the “leader” was nowhere in sight.

  Sighing audibly, she dreaded the long walk back to the compound that awaited her, and was about to turn toward the road for that endless hike, when a voice that seemed somehow familiar spoke roughly in her ear, a razor-sharp knife at her throat.

  “Decision time, Marine…live or die?”

  Ginny blinked, trying to figure out her best move, and the voice spoke again.

  “If making that decision is too much trouble, I can certainly make it for you,” he threatened.

  “Live,” she said, jaws clenched.

  “Good choice,” he chuckled darkly and her world went black.

  Chapter 13

  Clara Sweeney sat in the chair across from Detective Chas Beckett, twisting a hand-embroidered handkerchief in her hands.

  “First my husband gets shot, then my daughter disappears…what’s going on, Detective? I just don’t understand,” the gentle woman cried pitifully.

  “I don’t know yet, Mrs. Sweeney, but I intend to find out. Is there anyone who might have been angry with your husband or your daughter?”

  “Not that I can think…” Clara began, only to be interrupted by an officer rapping on Beckett’s door, then opening it.

  “Detective, pardon the interruption, but I need a moment,” the officer said with an urgent tone.

  Trying not to let his frustration show, Chas stood. “Won’t you excuse me for a moment, Mrs. Sweeney?”

  “What is it Connors?” he asked tersely after shutting his office door behind him.

  “Sorry to interrupt, but we’ve got another body.”

  “What do we know?” the detective demanded.

  “White male, early thirties. Whoever did it knew what they were doing. It was a single shot to the temple from quite distance.”

  “We get an ID on the guy?”

  The officer was about to respond when Chas’s door slowly opened, and a very shaky Clara Sweeney stepped out. She’d clearly been listening to their conversation, despite them having spoken in low tones.

  “I think I know who the victim is…and the killer for that matter,” she said, astonishing them before falling into a dead faint.

  Chapter 14

  Missy woke up feeling like she’d spent an entire night drinking. Her mouth and throat were dry, and her eyes felt funny. Trying to open them, she realized that she was blindfolded, and when she moved to take the blindfold off, she discovered that her hands were bound behind her back. Wiggling her feet, she was dismayed to find that they too, were bound tightly together.

  “Hello?” she called out fearfully.

  “You’re safe, Mrs. Beckett. No one is going to hurt you, I promise,” a male voice startled her.

  Missy’s heart pounded in her chest as she desperately wondered what she should do. She didn’t want to risk agitating her captor by asking questions, but she couldn’t stand just blindly accepting her fate without knowing what was going on.

  “Who are you?” she croaked, her throat seeming to stick together.

  “Here, take a sip of water, it won’t hurt you, I promise,” he held a bottle of cool water to her lips and she took a couple of swallows, then turned her head.

  “Who are you?” she repeated, more clearly this time.

  “Who I am doesn’t matter, other than the fact that I’m your Guardian right now.”

  “My Guardian? Who or what are you guarding me from? And if you’re supposed to be helping me, why am I blindfolded and bound?” Missy challenged her unseen captor.

  “Your husband should be figuring all that out pretty soon, and as to why you’re bound…well, I have a special kind of work that I do, and anonymity is a part of it. You can’t see me, because if you did, I wouldn’t be able to do what I do.”

  Missy’s head swam with the indefinite reply. “And, what is it that you do, exactly?”

  “Whatever needs to be done. Which at the moment means keeping you safe and sound until your husband puts the bad guys behind bars.”

  “I don’t understand,” Missy moaned pitifully.

  “That’s probably best for now. I’ll go ahead and undo your feet if that’ll make you feel a bit better.”

  “Please,” she nodded. “Why am I so sleepy?” she asked, as her captor rubbed her ankles briskly to take some of the sting away after removing the duct tape that had bound them.

  “I had to give you a sedative in order to take you where you needed to be.”

  “And where is that?”

  “Someplace safe, ma’am.”

  “You’re not going to give me a straight answer, are you?”

  “I’ve told you nothing but the truth, Mrs. Beckett.”

  “Is someone going to die tonight?” Missy held her breath.

  “If someone does, it definitely won’t be you,” her captor promised.

  Chapter 15

  Spencer Bengal had to use pressure points to get the big guy under control when he surprised him behind the palmettos. He could’ve incapacitated him entirely, but dragging a dude that size away would’ve caused more noise than he was comfortable with, so he had to be content to use other means of manipulation to get the man to do what he needed him to do. After quickly trussing him up like a Christmas turkey and getting him into the back seat of the company car, he applied just enough pressure to knock him out so that he’d be quiet for the ride.

  Having secured Grant, the Marine went back to wait for Ginny Pascal to come out. He knew why she was there, and it made his blood boil. He only hoped that she wasn’t so far gone that he’d have to do something about her as well as Meecham. He stood just to the side of the stand of palmettos where Grant had been waiting, blending into the shadows so that she wouldn’t be alerted to his presence. When it was clear that she was ready to leave the property, he came up behind her, unwilling to subdue her until she’d had a chance to redeem herself. He still didn’t trust her, but at least at this point, there was hope.

  Knowing that Ginny would be a much bigger security risk than the big guy, Spencer sedated her for the ride, settling her into the back seat with the ringleader. For safety’s sake, he decided to give Meecham a dose too, so that he could drive without any fear of sabotage. Taking back roads for a couple of hours, he drove to a place that he’d come to know well, and unloaded his noxious cargo.

  Missy had been sitting quietly, on what felt like a couch, for what seemed like hours, when she heard the sound of some sort of animal outside whatever structure she happened to be in. The man who called himself the “Guardian” chuckled and said, “It’s about time, brother.” She heard the sound of a door opening, and something large and heavy thumped onto the floor to her right, followed by something else that wasn’t as large.

  “Took you a while,” the Guardian drawled.

  “Big dude needs to go on a diet. You got this?” someone replied. Someone familiar. Was she hearing things? Was it the sound of hope?

  “Yeah, I got this,”
the Guardian chuckled darkly.

  “Spence?” she asked, tentatively, beginning to shake. Suddenly she was swept up from the couch and carried out into the night in a pair of strong, safe arms. The door closed behind them, and she asked again.

  “Spencer, is that you?”

  “Yes, ma’am. You’re going to be okay. You’re safe now, just hold on.” With that, he broke into a jog, reaching the car that was parked a couple of miles away, in no time.

  Setting his boss gently on the ground and making sure that she could stand, he took off her blindfold and tossed it aside, then went to work on the duct tape that bound her hands.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked, handing her a bottle of water.

  Unable to speak, Missy just shook her head and began to cry. The Marine took her in his arms and held her until the worst of the tears passed, then checked on her again.

  “Better?” he asked. She nodded and took a shaky sip of water. The cool refreshment felt so good on her parched throat that she then downed half the bottle without stopping.

  “Well, that’s a good sign,” Spencer chuckled, leading her to the passenger side of the car and opening the door for her.

  She stood beside the car, gazing up at him, still fuzzy from the sedative, and somewhat in shock over the course of the night’s events.

  “Spencer…what’s going on? What’s happening? Why did that man bring me here, and how do you know him?”

  The Marine looked at her for a moment, considering his words carefully.

  “What man are you talking about, Mrs. B?” he asked, utterly sincere.

  “The man. The Guardian. The one who blindfolded me and kept me on a couch,” Missy’s eyes went wide.

  “Don’t do this, Spencer, don’t pretend that that didn’t happen. You and I both know that it did and I want to know why,” she insisted.

  “Look, ma’am, there are things in this world that you don’t want to know. Things that are dangerous for you to know, or dangerous for other people if you know them. Trust me when I tell you, you weren’t bound and blindfolded, and there was no man who took you away, okay?”

  “But…” she started to protest, confused.

  “The only man guarding you so far tonight, is me. And a little later on, it’ll be Chas, and that’s all you need to know, because that’s the only thing that matters,” he assured her.

  At the mention of her beloved husband’s name, Missy’s resolve melted into tears, and she wanted nothing more than to crawl into her bed, but suddenly, a memory struck fear into her heart.

  “Toffee!” she exclaimed, panicking.

  “She’s a great dog,” Spencer smiled. “And she’s waiting patiently for you back at the house.”

  “But she was missing, and…”

  “No she wasn’t.”

  “But I heard her barking, and…”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  “You’re not going to tell me what happened are you?” Missy blinked at the Marine that she trusted with her life.

  “Nothing to tell, ma’am,” he smiled, closing the car door after she swung her feet inside.

  Chapter 16

  When Clara Sweeney regained consciousness, Detective Chas Beckett tried not to show his impatience as she recovered from her faint, sipping tea.

  “Detective, I think I know who the murdered man is, and I think I know who…killed him,” her voice cracked at the end, as tears filled her eyes.

  “Who is the victim?” Chas asked.

  “Simon Gettis. He was an acquaintance of my daughter’s,” she sniffled, trying very hard to hold herself together.

  “And how does your daughter know Mr. Gettis?” the detective probed, giving the officer in the room a nod to indicate that he should go check out the name.

  “They were a part of a strange group that liked to go out and pretend that they were taking over the world or something,” the grieving mother shook her head. “They had a place where they all gathered, but I don’t know where it is. From what I overheard, they have an arsenal there, and survival supplies of some sort.”

  “Do you know the names of any other group members?”

  “I know that that nasty Grant Meecham thought of himself as their leader, and I think Carter Westphal was a part of it too. Beyond that, I’m not sure.”

  Chas scribbled down the names in his notebook, then texted them to the officer who was investigating Simon Gettis.

  “So, who do you believe killed Simon Gettis?”

  Clara Sweeney sighed heavily and tears flowed freely down her cheeks. “I think Megan did it. My daughter is an expert marksman.”

  “Mrs. Sweeney, why would you believe that your daughter killed Mr. Gettis?”

  “Because he was always trying to tear her away from us. I heard him tell her more than once to ignore what we said, ignore our advice. The day before my Brett was murdered, I heard a conversation between my husband and Megan. He pleaded with her to come out and enjoy our family day with us, but she refused because of some meeting, and the only meetings that she ever goes to are the ones with Grant and Simon and the rest. I think my daughter believed that Simon killed her father, so she chose her moment and took her revenge. She may have been influenced by some warped ideas, Detective, but I believe that her sense of justice may still be intact.”

  “Vigilante justice isn’t something that our society supports, Mrs. Sweeney,” Chas replied grimly.

  Clara nodded sadly. “I know, Detective.”

  “Do you have any idea where your daughter might be?”

  The grieving widow and mother shook her head slowly. “I have no idea.”

  “Does she live with you?”

  “Yes. She’s never home, but she sleeps and keeps her things at the house.”

  “I’d like to take a look in her room if you don’t mind.”

  “I suppose it’s the right thing to do under the circumstances,” she blotted her eyes.

  The detective’s cell phone buzzed in his pocket, indicating that a text had come in. When he took out his phone and saw a message from Spencer, he excused himself from the room.

  “Sergeant Johnson, get me a line to the FBI,” he instructed the desk sergeant. After a brief conversation with an agent, he returned to his office.

  “Mrs. Sweeney, I’m going to have a couple of officers take you home. Once they get there, they’ll conduct a search of your daughter’s room and the rest of the house.”

  “Okay, I’ll just stay out of their way,” Clara murmured, overwhelmed by the events of the past few days.

  “I appreciate your cooperation.”

  Chas handed the widow off to two uniformed officers and dashed out of the station, headed for his car.

  Chapter 17

  Detective Chas Beckett always made certain to keep a couple of sets of spare clothing in his car that would be appropriate for certain field work. He went directly to his trunk and grabbed a pair of cargo pants, a close-fitting, black, athletic shirt and some boots that would enable him to move quickly through the Florida wilderness without fear of injury. Taking them back into the station and throwing the Savile Row suit that he’d taken off over the chair in his office, he quickly dressed and hit the road.

  The tires of the detective’s nondescript beige police sedan crackled over the dirt road that was tucked away in the middle of nowhere. He followed the road until it ended abruptly, then took out his phone, flicking on his GPS app to find the coordinates that Spencer had sent. Rather than using a headlamp or flashlight, Chas chose to allow his eyes to adjust well enough in the moonlight so that he could see.

  With his earplug in, guiding him toward his target, he took off at a light jog, watching the ground carefully for obstacles. When he saw the dark form of a structure silhouetted against the horizon, he slowed his pace, caught his breath, and approached carefully. The cabin that loomed in front of him appeared to be lit by a single, battery-powered lantern that had been placed in front of one of the front windows. He crept up onto t
he porch, listening, and heard nothing.

  Moving to the door, the detective unholstered his weapon, tried the knob and found that it turned easily. He opened the door cautiously, 9mm raised, and slid in, his back against the wall. Once he’d established that the cabin consisted of only one room, aside from a basement which turned out to be empty, he holstered his weapon and turned his attention to the blindfolded and bound couple in front of him, both of whom had duct tape over their mouths.

  “Well, what have we here?” he mused.

  In addition to the bound and silenced villains, there were several weapons set out neatly on a table, with a scrap of paper that said “evidence” on it. Alongside the weapons was a note that gave another set of coordinates, along with what looked like a combination, and the words “under the shed floor” written in hastily slashed block letters.

  Glad that he still had phone reception despite the remote location, Chas sent a text to the FBI agent with whom he’d been in touch, then turned his attention to the captives.

  “Ladies first,” he commented, kneeling down in front of the female who looked as though she had dressed for combat.

  The detective untied her blindfold first, surprised at the venomous look he received from the woman. He removed the duct tape from her mouth in the least painful way possible, fast and firm. The former Marine didn’t utter a peep, continuing to stare at him with hatred and mistrust.

  “Megan Sweeney, I presume?” he asked, not expecting nor receiving an answer. “Or should I say, name, rank and social?”

  She glared at him and looked away. Since it was obvious that Megan wasn’t going to talk, he left her hands and feet bound and turned to her partner in crime.