"Sure thing, Dad." When he'd disappeared from sight, I stared down at the weird message again. I hovered the mouse over the name, and a blank photo came up. Then I forced myself to laugh. How ridiculous—I was acting so silly. Silly Sally, as Grandma Rosa used to call me.
* * *
As I drove toward the shop, my mind kept growing more and more distracted. Was I making too much out of this coincidence with the blog? Of course it didn't mean anything. I thought back to the other brushes with death I'd had since returning to Colwestern. These had all been circumstances where I had intervened in the crime, either because my business or someone I loved was in jeopardy.
This was the first time someone had ever intentionally come after me without my knowing why. The thought that a random person like Pat had simply seen me somewhere and decided to kill me was both terrifying and surreal. Could there be more to it?
No. I didn't want to think about this anymore. My thoughts returned to Mike, and with a smile on my face, I recalled our time together last night. Even though we'd been exhausted, sleep had not come easily at first. Both of us had still been running on adrenaline and caffeine. I'd lain in his arms all night, and we'd spent hours talking about how much we were looking forward to our life together. We didn't want much. A family of course and to always be there for one another. We'd watched the sun starting to rise outside our bedroom window before I'd finally drifted off to sleep.
Despite the lack of shut-eye, I'd awoken with a renewed sense of being alive, fulfilled, and happy. Now that euphoria had been replaced with doubt, and I wondered if someone was still out there threatening our life together. This feeling needed to go away. Who was this man who had insisted on terrorizing me?
I pulled up in the alley behind the shop. Mike had stopped by earlier and placed some concrete blocks out for me to step on. He said he'd build me a new staircase after the honeymoon. It was only a minor inconvenience and not a big concern of mine. Mike was currently at Ralph's house working on a project, and I felt that job should take precedence. After all, the man had been instrumental in keeping me safe this past week, and we were both grateful to him.
I unlocked the door and entered the back room. I shut the alarm off and immediately went to the freezer and removed cookie dough. I turned the oven on and lined the trays with parchment paper. I also took the opportunity to clear the display case of any leftover cookies. I would drop them off at the homeless shelter when I left today. Then I remembered my father's request for fortune cookies. There were only three left in the case. Probably not enough to satisfy his demands, but I had no desire to make any more, plus there wasn't enough time. As I placed them in a ziplock bag, I noticed one of the cookies had already broken, and the message had unraveled.
When fear hurts you, conquer it, and defeat it.
Easier said than done. I stuffed the message into the pocket of my jeans and placed the ziplock bag in my canvas tote. I knew what the words meant—I had to fight this mess and these overwhelming feelings of terror, and I fully intended to do so. I thought about Grandma Rosa's words earlier today. It wasn't your time. I'd had so many close brushes with death lately that it made me wonder if I might actually be running out of time. Someday there might not be a person around to save me, and I'd be forced to rely on myself. The words of the message rang out loud and clear for me.
While the cookies were baking in the oven, I wandered upstairs to Gianna's apartment. She'd said she had some errands to do before the wedding tomorrow but had left the door unlocked, knowing that the place was closed today and no one would be in to disturb her things. Well, except for me, that is.
I went into Gianna's bedroom and spotted her laptop sitting on her desk. I'd used it before, and we both knew each other's passwords, so I went ahead and logged in. That was the beauty about having such a close relationship with my sister. Nothing was off-limits. We borrowed each other's clothes, shoes, and electronic devices without even asking.
Gianna was more ambitious than me. While I enjoyed my business, I longed for a family more. My sister wanted a career before even entertaining thoughts about a husband and kids, and that was her right. She had spent several years working toward her law degree, and I was proud of her for finally achieving that dream. Our taste in men ran different as well. Although Johnny and I had played doctor together at a young age, there had never been a romantic attraction for either one of us. I hoped he would be a member of our family someday, although Gianna had indicated on more than one occasion that she was in no hurry to get married, if ever.
As my fingers touched the keys, realization set in that I didn't have a clue as to who or what I was searching for. Was it possible someone was still trying to kill me? No. Brian had told me that the rifle was the same one used to kill Alexandra. Sure, random crimes were committed all the time, but why did this instance feel so much more personal?
I brought up Google and sat there lost in thought, hands poised on the keyboard. I found myself typing in the words of the message from this morning. No relationship is without thorns. It sounded like a phrase from a poem, but I had no idea which one.
I glanced at the results on the screen in front of me. There were quotes about thorns, idioms from TheFreeDictionary.com, nothing useful. I scrolled down to the bottom of the page. There was a headline entitled Local Florist Full of Flowery Tales. For the heck of it, I clicked on the link. The article was three years old. I found myself staring at a picture of an attractive man with dark hair and eyes standing inside a floral shop with a bouquet of red roses in his outstretched hand.
Stanley Milton said that the secret to his success with flowers was similar to a dating experience. No relationship is without thorns, he said. If you realize that early on, you'll come out smelling like a rose.
My heart stuttered inside my chest. Milton! Is this guy related to my killer? Then I remembered the apartment building across from DeAngelo's Bakery. The woman who had checked on the apartment the day before the shooting had said her name was Rose Stanley. This couldn't be a coincidence. Was someone else involved besides Pat Milton? Could the woman who viewed the apartment have played a part too?
I read through the rest of the article, but it told me nothing else of consequence. Stanley was originally from Upstate New York. There was no other information that helped me. I googled his name and added "New York" after it since I assumed there must be many Stanley Miltons out there. Several links popped up, but it was the very first one that caught my attention:
Services for Stanley Milton, aged 28, will be held on Friday afternoon. Stanley was the owner of Daisy Delights Florist. He was killed Monday evening in a car crash in Tampa, Florida. The driver of the other vehicle, Ryan Peterson, had an alcohol level of .08 in his bloodstream.
Oh God. The poor guy was dead. So this wasn't the man I was looking for after all. I was about to close out the article when my eyes traveled further down the remainder of the story.
Then I froze, my hand on the mouse.
Stanley is survived by his parents, brother Patrick, and his fiancée, Mitzi Graber, who was in the car with him. She suffered head trauma and a broken leg but is expected to make a full recovery.
Mitzi. My blood turned to ice water as I read the name.
A beeping from downstairs jerked me out of my thoughts, and then I realized with a start that it was the smoke alarm. Crap! I'd forgotten to take the cookies out of the oven.
I ran down the stairs, removed the trays from the smoking oven then grabbed a broom, and started furiously batting at the air in front of the detector on the ceiling. I stopped to turn on a fan, and after a couple of minutes, the beeping stopped but still resonated inside my head.
I should have guessed. Mitzi had been totally off her rocker last January, swearing she wanted to ruin me. She had blamed Colin for not cutting Ryan off the night of the accident. Had Colin not been killed by someone else, there was no doubt in my mind Mitzi would have tried to commit the deed herself. Somehow she had roped Stanley's bro
ther into helping her with the scheme to do away with me.
The most frightening part of this was that Mitzi was still out there somewhere…waiting for me.
There was no way I could stay here and bake cookies. I had to call Brian and give him the news. Maybe Mike and I should leave tonight after all. If Mitzi knew about Pat's death, she'd be even more crazed than usual. I had no doubt that she was coming for me.
I went into the front room to double-check the lock on the door. When I glanced toward the tables, that's when I saw it…an ominous red rose lying on the table and contrasting so well with the white crocheted cloth beneath it.
A small whimper escaped from my mouth. No, the rose hadn't been there earlier. I was certain of that. Was she here—inside the building? The room started to close in around me. I placed a hand over my chest and struggled to breathe normally. Mike had been wrong. The nightmare wasn't over after all. Now was officially time to panic.
I checked the oven to make sure it was off, set the alarm, and started out the back door, looking each way before I jumped into my car. I locked the doors and breathed a long sigh of relief as I started the engine. Then I pressed the contact information on my phone screen for Brian's number.
The call went directly to voicemail as I placed the vehicle in drive and slowly made my way down the alley. "Brian, it's Sally. You won't believe what I found out. There's someone else who has been trying to kill me—"
My head was suddenly jerked back against the seat as something cold and hard pressed into the side of my neck. With a gasp I dropped the phone and frantically attempted to control the swerving vehicle. I managed to bring the car to a screeching stop in the alley, narrowly missing the backside of a building.
"Move over slowly," a voice commanded from behind me.
I winced as recognition set in. My legs were numb, but my assailant didn't wait and pushed me onto the passenger seat then settled behind the driver's wheel. The gun never wavered from the side of my head.
The car started to move forward, and the needle on my speedometer rose rapidly. I managed to turn my head slightly and observe my attacker.
The face beside me was ghostly white and devoid of any emotion. Eyes that were dark and foreboding regarded me with uncontained malice. If death wore a mask, then I was staring into it.
"Hello, Sally," Mitzi greeted me politely with the same mannerisms she might use if waiting on a customer. A brittle-looking smile formed on her thin, cracked lips. "Did you miss me?"
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Terror is an overwhelming emotion that can send you into a state of perpetual shock. For several seconds I couldn't move or speak as I continued to stare at the face of my tormenter.
Mitzi controlled the vehicle with her left hand while her right one clicked the hammer on the gun. "Try anything funny and you're dead. Oh wait, you're going to wind up dead anyway, so it doesn't really matter, right?"
Stay calm. Mitzi was like a dog trying to sniff the fear out of me. Maybe I could try to talk some sense into her. It was doubtful, but what else could I do at this point? Anger suddenly took over. "Why are you doing this?" I demanded.
She laughed. "Because you and that loser ex-husband of yours ruined my life. I can never be complete without Stan. He was my soul mate. Can't you understand that? What would you do if your fiancé died all of a sudden?"
Her voice was taunting, and panic overwhelmed me. I hadn't spoken to Mike since the text I'd sent him earlier today. Had she found him? What if— "You-you haven't done anything to Mike, have you?"
She stared straight ahead, her mouth upturned in a slight smile, enjoying my fear. "You've got yourself one fine-looking man there. He'll make someone a great husband someday. Well, someone besides you, of course."
"Where are you taking me?" I tried hard to swallow the bile that was rapidly rising in the back of my throat.
When we hit a pothole in the road, the gun swerved slightly in her hand while I gulped back a sob of panic. Was there a chance the gun might discharge on its own?
"Maybe we'll take a trip to Niagara Falls," she said. "The water's warm this time of year, right? Oh wait. Correction, maybe the car will take a trip into the falls. Do you know how to swim?"
"You don't want to do this, Mitzi. You'd end up dying as well."
Her mouth set into a firm, hard line. "It doesn't matter. I have no life since Stan died. And I'm more than happy to take those who are responsible for his death along with me."
She sped through the local streets, weaving in and out of traffic while I clutched the door handle for meager support. I prayed a cop would see us speeding and attempt to pull her over. Mitzi took an abrupt turn up the ramp that led to the Thruway. The speed limit was sixty-five, but she was already pushing close to eighty. Sweat started to gather on my forehead.
"Why have you been terrorizing me?" I asked. "I didn't have anything to do with Stan's death."
She gnashed her teeth together. "Don't you dare say his name. You have no right."
"I didn't have anything to do with his death," I repeated in a voice that sounded strangely calm to my own ears.
Mitzi laughed. "We fooled you pretty good, right? Did you know it was me doing this?"
"Not at first," I admitted. "The quote in my father's blog tipped me off today. I googled it and found Stan's name in a related article."
Mitzi tossed her hair back in defiance. "That was stupid of me. But it doesn't matter anymore. I knew you'd come to the bakery at some point today. Little Miss Betty Crocker. We must have cookies!" she squealed in a suddenly high-pitched voice. "When I saw you leave your parents' house, I followed you there. Lucky for me you hadn't locked your car, so the rest was easy. And I slipped the rose on the table while you were upstairs. Pat gave me an awesome set of picks to use."
"Pat was Stan's brother?"
She gave a curt nod. "Correct. He was an expert shooter and a fabulous computer geek. He was in and out of the mental institution for years. He even lived with me and Stan for a while. I don't believe he hurt those kids years ago. He's always seemed pretty normal to me."
That wasn't saying much. Mitzi had lost the ability to identify normal a long time ago.
"You couldn't be happy with just Stan—you had to take Pat as well. Pat adored Stan," she sighed. "I had to bide my time until he was released from the facility. He was only too happy to oblige and help make those responsible for Stan's accident pay. We decided to avenge his death together."
This was a new kind of demented rage I hadn't seen before, and frankly, I thought I had witnessed them all by now. I tried not to watch as she switched lanes without signaling and barely missed clipping another vehicle's bumper. To know that you were about to die was a horrific indescribable feeling, especially when there was nothing you could do about it.
"So you feel that since someone else got to Colin first, you need to make a kill to get even. Is that right?" I asked, somewhat in disbelief. "It won't bring Stan back if you kill me, Mitzi."
She turned her head to glare at me and angrily pressed the gun harder into the side of my head. Her face, which had once been pretty with its delicate features, was gaunt and so pale that she seemed devoid of oxygen.
"Don't say that again," she snapped. "God, why do you have to make everything so difficult? We could have ended all of this last week if that bitch hadn't stepped in front of you at the last minute."
"And Josie?" I asked. "You thought she was me?"
"She was wearing your coat," Mitzi growled. "Of course Pat thought it was you. He was watching you guys at the apartment complex that day. He assured me he'd take care of everything. When you sent that message on your wacko father's blog, I knew it was a trap. But I couldn't reach Pat in time." A tear rolled down her cheek. "He walked right into his death."
"Stan and I were engaged," she went on. "Just like you and Mike. How tragic and sad that you'll die on the eve of your wedding. The bride who never got to see her wedding day."
Those were the same words t
hat I had uttered inside my head when I'd stared down at Alexandra's lifeless body. I bit into my lower lip. No. I wouldn't give Mitzi the satisfaction of seeing me cry. Had she always been so unbalanced? Maybe it could be attributed to her car accident with Stan. There was no way to know for certain, although the article I'd read earlier had mentioned that she'd suffered severe head trauma as a result of the crash. Perhaps that was when it all started.
As she drove I noticed the rose tattoo on her left wrist. It was identical to the one Pat had worn. This one had a letter M next to it as well. "Were roses Stan's favorite flower?"
She blinked again, and a tear rolled down her cheek. "Pat and I got the tattoos as a tribute to my angel months ago. Everyone called him Milty."
The tears began to stream down her face, and she became more agitated. As a result the car picked up speed. Okay it probably wasn't a good idea to bring up Stan's name again.
"Everyone loved him," she sobbed. "He was so special. Then you and that husband of yours killed him."
"What about the drunk driver?" I asked.
"He's dead," she said matter-of-factly. "He was killed in a prison brawl a few months ago. Just my luck someone beat me to him. Of course another person took Colin out as well, so you're the only one who's left now. Somebody has to pay, and it might as well be you."
Mitzi glanced sideways at me and smiled as she swerved in and out of lanes while people laid on their horns and waved the middle finger at us in salute. "I would have done this months ago, but I needed Pat's help. When the mile-long article appeared in the paper with all your wedding details, it was like someone had given me a gift. I mean, I knew where you would be every single day of the week. It doesn't get much better. If that pesky bodyguard hadn't been around, we could have resolved this so much sooner."
"And you went to scope out the apartments the day before? How'd you know I'd be at DeAngelo's? The article didn't hit the paper until Saturday."
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