“But Carlson … Why?”
“Because he became a liability. Just like you. I knew after you came to see me about investigating where he lived that you’d be sneaking around the Hill, trying to prove your case. You’d already overheard him talking to Richard, admitting what they’d done. It was just a matter of time before you went to the authorities, crying fraud. I didn’t kill two lousy husbands for nothing. I got the property around the lake from husband number one and the empty lot on your side of the street from husband number two. All I need is your property, and I’ll be a very rich woman.”
“But some land development company owns the land around the lake.”
“I’m the land development company, you idiot, and I’ve got a deal on the table with some thug who’s building condos. I was cutting Carlson in for a percentage because he was handling the construction loan for my buyer and he offered to get you out for only a little extra money. Hubby number three is gonna take care of you just like he did Carlson. And then I’m gonna take care of hubby number three. That’s why I offered to walk you to the lake. After he takes care of you, I can shoot him, shove him in the lake with you, and toss in the gun. The cops will think you offed each other. Now turn around and move!”
She was rushing me, and I was trying to think. Her husband? Her hus … Fireplug! The guy who’d stabbed Carlson was the same height and build as Sheila’s husband, whom I’d only seen from afar. I shuffled around as slowly as I could, thinking fast. She didn’t say how he was going to take care of me. Maybe he would just hurt me and throw me in the lake. What if I wasn’t dead and the alligators came after me? I’d rather she just shot me right now; in fact, I was going to force her into it, even if that meant making a run for it so she’d have to shoot me in the back. Only I wouldn’t run toward the lake. I’d run toward home. Just in case she was a bad shot.
I whipped back around to face Sheila, and that was when I saw it. A shadow moving about twenty yards behind her. I wasn’t sure, but I thought it was a person because it was growing in size, moving closer. I said a quick prayer that it was someone coming to help.
“What now?” Sheila growled.
“Nothing.” I spun back around and shambled toward the lake. I hoped to God whoever that was behind us could tell something was wrong. I hoped they didn’t think we were just out for a stroll.
“Um, what about the python … Did you put that in my yard?” I yelled over my shoulder, wanting to keep Sheila’s attention on me so she wouldn’t hear the person behind her.
“Carlson paid some county clerk to help Richard do that. The poor guy has since met with an untimely death.”
I took a deep breath, afraid if I didn’t, I’d pass out from fright. She really was a lunatic, killing people right and left. “So Richard was in on the whole thing?”
“He was only paid to answer the ad we ran, so he could make trouble for you. But he got greedy. Too bad for Richard.”
Oh God.
“And you … you’re as tenacious as a pit bull, and I got tired of waiting. Your family will sell. They’ll sell in a heartbeat.”
“Uh, except my will doesn’t leave my property to my family, so they can’t sell if I’m dead.”
“What?” Sheila screamed. “What the hell did you just say?”
She charged up behind me and shoved me between my shoulder blades. I stumbled ten feet or so, coming within a couple of yards of Fireplug. His grin was nasty. And whatever he was fiddling with in his hands didn’t look like a gun. Dear God, please don’t let it be a knife. Could alligators smell blood the same way sharks could?
“I asked you a question! What do you mean your family can’t sell if you’re dead?”
“My property goes into trust for my niece Erin. No one can sell it but Erin and not until she’s twenty-one.” Marci wasn’t disciplined enough to put away money for Erin’s education, so I’d planned to leave my property to Erin, just in case. Unfortunately, I wasn’t very disciplined either so I hadn’t actually done it yet. But it was okay to lie at time like this, or at least it was now, since I was adding a rule to the rules of lying. It was okay to lie when your life was in the hands of a murdering criminal, no matter what the lie was about.
Fireplug laughed. “She’s lying, honey. She doesn’t have a will. Carlson checked.”
Dang.
He moved up close until he was just a foot or so to the side of me.
I couldn’t swallow. I couldn’t breathe. This was it. I was almost dead meat.
He flexed his wrists, and my little voice told me to move! I threw up my hands at the same instant he raised his arms and lunged at me. The next thing I knew, I was in a fight for my life, my hands caught between a wire and my neck. I gripped the wire and tried to push it away, but Fireplug was too strong. He was going to choke me to death as soon as he sliced through my hands with that wire, which would happen any second.
Then the wire suddenly slacked off and dropped away and so did Fireplug. A gun fired at almost the same instant, and I squeezed my eyes shut while I waited to drop dead. When I didn’t, I popped them back open.
Fireplug was lying on the ground, deathly silent. Hank stood behind the spot where Fireplug had been standing, holding a big rock in his hand. He looked from Fireplug to the rock, and dropped the rock. I didn’t know if Fireplug was dead, but I wasn’t stupid enough to check him to find out.
“Somebody get her gun,” said Bryan from behind me. Bryan? I whipped around. He had Sheila’s arms pinned behind her back. Her gun was lying on the ground.
Hank took a couple of long steps, leaned over, and snatched up the gun.
“Do you want to go get help or stay here with Bryan and hold the gun on these two?” Hank asked.
I reached out with bloody hands and took the gun. My arms were shaking so badly I feared I might drop it, but I figured it would be better to fail where I at least had someone nearby to help than to take off by myself and faint halfway home.
I didn’t have to worry though. Hank had only jogged a hundred feet when a bunch of bobbing lights heralding a small army with flashlights appeared on the trail. In fact, the entire pond-digging party must have come to my rescue; the crowd of people stretched up the trail as far as I could see.
My eyes went from the looming crowd to Bryan, who still had Sheila in a death grip. She looked mad as hell but wasn’t struggling. She must have known there was no point.
Bryan offered a tense smile. “I told Jonathan there was no way you could ‘be careful, keep a low profile, and stay out of trouble,’ all at the same time.”
I opened my mouth to declare that Jonathan Renquist should be disbarred for revealing a privileged conversation, but at that moment I happened to glance over at the lake. There, spread out across the water, were scores of paired red alligator eyes glaring back at me.
Two seconds later, just as Hank reached us, everything went black.
Chapter 34
I couldn’t believe it was all over. I had saved my house and I hadn’t needed a man to do it. Not if you didn’t count Hank and Richard’s labor, Hank nudging me into action by telling me off, Bryan’s aiding and abetting, and all those men with the equipment and brawn to dig out the pond. I hadn’t sunk to marriage, anyway, and that’s what counted.
It only took me two days to get over my near death. I’d never actually fainted before, and I wouldn’t recommend it, unless, like me, you have a hunk, or two, to catch you as you fall.
As it turned out, Angie had been instrumental in saving my life. She’d had a premonition and told Hank, who had searched Sue out when he couldn’t find me. Angie was my new best friend. One of them anyway. Sue hadn’t moved away, even though she and Mark were going strong. And Mark had already come back once for a weekend visit, so it was almost as though he’d never left.
In fact, when it came to friends, I had more than my share. Lots more. Probably that’s what happens when a whole town comes together to help someone out. Sort of like a barn raising in the olden days.
H
ank spent a week fixing up the pond, and I spent that week watching Hank. Few sights are as entertaining as Hank sans shirt with all those muscles rippling while he digs holes in the earth. The idea of making our own boulders had seemed pretty lame at first, until Hank explained about the difference in cost, how we could make them the size, shape, and color we wanted, and how we were helping to conserve natural rock.
When I’d felt a twinge of guilt over the fact that I was just standing around watching him work, I’d put forth an effort to dig a hole. I gave up when I couldn’t get the dang shovel to go into the ground, even after jumping up and down on it.
“It’s not my fault,” I told Hank as I abandoned the tool. “I can’t get any leverage because the handle is way too long for someone my height. I guess they don’t make shovels for women.”
Hank snagged the shovel and smiled. “You’re only half right, Janie. They don’t make women for shovels.”
I felt better about my lack of participation after that, and I had to hand it to him, he sure knew how to do things right. Now I had a beautiful pond with natural-looking rock, a waterfall, and various types of water plants, not to mention the tadpoles and minnows and other small fish. And as far as I knew, I didn’t have an alligator.
When I really thought about it, which I seemed to do a lot, I had to admit that my life had turned around in just four months. I had the house I’d always wanted, inside and out, I was learning how to deal with my family with honesty—if I didn’t count Mom—and I had two equally awesome men in my life. Of course, I hadn’t done the deed with either of them yet, but that would certainly change. Which one would it be? I honestly didn’t know. I was hoping for both; I was such a slut.
What more could a girl ask for? Nothing, except maybe for her writing career to get back on track. Which reminded me …
I put a call through to Rose as I moseyed to my mailbox. I had a new idea for a romance and couldn’t wait to fill her in. As usual, it took a few seconds for my idea to make it through her smoke-clogged brain.
“Two heroes?” she asked. “As in a ménage à trois?”
“No. Yuck. Not two heroes at the same time. I mean in the same story but not together at the same time.”
“Let’s start over. You have a great idea for a new romance with an adventurous heroine and two heroes. Now, exactly how is that going to work? Does she pick one to live with happily ever after? What happens to hero number two? And why does she even need him if she’s gonna pick hero number one?”
“Why does she have to pick?” I asked. “Why can’t she keep both? One could take her out to dinners and shows and fly her to Atlanta—er, I mean, take her to London balls—and the other would be more of an estate type, digging holes for the boulders—”
“Boulders? What boulders? Why is he digging holes for boulders? Jane, are you on drugs?”
“No! Of course I’m not on drugs. I just think women have probably always wanted to have two different men, especially if each of them is so … special.” I was saying special but I was thinking sexy. “Why can’t a woman have two men?”
“Are we still talking the Regency era?”
“Of course! You know how I love the Regency era.”
“Then she has to pick one to marry. You know, because of the babies they’re gonna have while they’re living happily ever after.”
“She doesn’t want babies yet. She doesn’t even want a husband yet. She just got her house looking the way she wants it—”
“Her house? Women didn’t own property in England, men did. And if she doesn’t want a husband, she has no business being in a historical romance.”
Rose let out a long, exasperated sigh, probably accompanied by a mess of smoke. “Look, Jane. I gotta get on a conference call, but I’m gonna call you back on this later tonight. In the meantime, try to come up with a Regency plot between one hero and one heroine, because I gotta tell you, I don’t think I’m gonna go for two heroes.”
I shrugged, hung up, and slipped my phone into my pocket so I could grab my mail. I’d been getting a bit of it since the last article, Romance Writer Gets Her Man Men! The article had carried the full story of how I’d taken down the land development gang after they’d tried to run me out of my home, and it had been so flattering that I’d actually read it. Twice.
It also outed Hank as J.T., who’d been annoyed at first but after deciding he could capitalize on it to bring business to his newly formed naturescaping company, quickly got over it. Turned out he’d left tennis looking for something meaningful to do with his life, and he found it while helping me out. He would take on landscaping projects for wealthy people, maybe even naturescape golf courses and resorts, but he’d also do inner city parks and other projects pro bono, his way of sharing his blessings.
The article sported flattering photos of me standing with Bryan at a fund-raiser, both of us dressed to the hilt, of me standing with Hank by the pond, both of us almost naked, and of me standing over Fireplug with a pistol. I still didn’t know how Bryan and Hank met—each had smiled cagily at my question and then changed the subject—but I wasn’t worried. I’d worm it out of one of them eventually.
I ripped open an envelope and unfolded the letter inside. I scanned the first page quickly and then started over again, reading more slowly, since I was pretty sure I must have lost my mental faculties. But no, the letter really did say what I thought it said. Some crazy woman wanted to hire me to find her a husband—one who did housework. Yeah, right. Dream on, lady.
I was about to crumple up the letter when I saw the amount she was offering to pay: $5,000 when they said, “I do.” The little voice in my head said, Hang on, there. Don’t do anything hasty. Maybe you should think about this.
But I couldn’t … could I? I mean, $5,000. That was robbery, especially since I didn’t believe in marriage. Well, that wasn’t true. I believed in marriage, I just wasn’t ready for it myself. But there was no reason I couldn’t help someone else find true love and all that crap, right? After all, I was trying to be a better person. I’d given up lying, maybe I should take up robbery … er, helping.
Helping is good, said my little voice. And I’d promised to listen to that little voice. Sometimes that little voice came up with some pretty good ideas. I was thinking this could be one of those times.
THE END
************
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About the Author
Stephie Smith was born in Parkersburg, West Virginia, the fifth of six girls. Early years were spent making mischief and, in general, driving her parents crazy while the family migrated between Ohio, West Virginia, and Florida. Her family moved so often—18 times before Stephie finished sixth grade—that some people suspected they were running from the law.
Stephie left home at 14, finished high school at 16, and enlisted in the Air Force at 18, graduating with honors from the USAF Schools of Electronics and Instrumentation. After attending several colleges and universities around the county (switching majors from Chemistry to Art to English to Psychology but never figuring out what she wanted to be when she grew up), she followed her sisters to east central Florida and settled there. She remains there today writing historical romance, humorous women’s fiction, and computer how-to books. You can contact her through her website StephieSmith.com. She loves to hear from readers.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Acknowledgments
Dedication
Description
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapte
r 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
About the Author
Table of Contents
Rules of Lying (Jane Dough Series) Page 30