The snow was coming down heavier than when I left the store, and the sign over the Gossip Central’s entrance was crusted in white. I hadn’t bothered with a hat, scarf, or gloves, and when I sprang out of my car, the icy flakes drove into my exposed skin like a thousand tiny bee stings.
Shivering, I sprinted up the steps. The door was wide open and a snowdrift had formed over the threshold. Something was seriously wrong. As I rushed inside, I felt a prickle at the back of my neck, which turned into an all-out shudder when I heard the sound of the dead bolt sliding into place behind me.
I wheeled around just in time to see Anya Hamilton level a gun at my heart.
* * *
Jake felt a twinge of unease when his cell rang. Who would be calling him from County General Hospital?
“Jake, this is Poppy. Where are you?”
“I’m at the ranch.”
“Thank God.”
“Why?” Jake’s heart stuttered. “Has something happened to Devereaux?”
“I hope not.” Poppy faltered. “But you need to go to my bar immediately because I think she’s in big trouble.”
“I’m on my way.” Jake jammed the phone between his ear and shoulder and shrugged on his jacket. “Now tell me what’s happened.”
“Gossip Central doesn’t open until four p.m. on weekdays, but everyone knows I’m usually there doing paperwork, cleaning, or stocking the bar several hours before then,” Poppy explained.
“I see.” Jake knew that witnesses had to tell their stories in their own way, and trying to hurry them just made the process take longer.
“About an hour ago, there was a knock on the door and when I opened it, Anya Hamilton was on the step. She said she had stopped by to pay her bar tab, so I let her in.” Poppy snorted. “That should have been my first clue that something was up—Anya never pays until I’m almost ready to sic the bill collector on her.”
“Right.” Jake jammed his key in the truck’s ignition and sped down the lane.
“As soon as she was inside, she asked to use the restroom. Then while she was gone, I got a call from the hospital saying my father had had a heart attack.” Poppy paused to take a breath, then continued. “Anya was still in the bathroom, so I shouted for her to lock up, threw a key on the bar, and left.”
Jake turned the pickup onto the main road and mashed the accelerator to the floor.
“When I got to the hospital, no one knew anything about my father, so I started to phone my mother and realized the call about my dad had come in on Gossip Central’s landline. I never even thought to grab my cell before I left.”
“Uh-huh.” Jake swerved around a slow-moving Buick.
“The hospital let me use their telephone to call my dad, and he’s fine. But when I phoned my mom, she knew right away I was calling from the hospital, which made me realize that on the call I received at Gossip Central, there was no name on the ID, just ‘Missouri caller.’”
“That is odd.” Jake glanced at his watch. He was still a good five minutes from Gossip Central, and Poppy had to have been gone from the bar at least a half hour before she called him.
“Somebody wanted me out of the bar.” Poppy’s voice was a mixture of fury and fear. “And I’m pretty sure it was Anya. I think she shut off the ID thingy on her cell and called me from the bathroom.”
Jake felt his insides clench. “So what makes you think Devereaux is in danger?” As the words left his mouth, he recalled Devereaux’s conviction that either Anya or Gwen had tipped off Aponte as to his wife’s whereabouts.
“What if Anya killed Joelle?” Poppy asked.
“Someone has already been arrested for that murder.”
“But it’s possible the police have the wrong person in custody,” Poppy pointed out. “And if Anya is the killer, and her next target is Dev, what better place to lure her to than her best friend’s empty bar? Dev wouldn’t hesitate to go to Gossip Central, and there are no nosy neighbors that might notice something unusual happening.”
“Why would Anya want to kill Devereaux?” Jake asked.
“Because, the other night in the bar Anya was raging that no one was getting between her and Noah now that he was up for grabs again. And when Gwen suggested the good doctor still had a thing for Dev, Anya went berserk. She poured a whole container of margaritas over her friend’s head and threw the empty pitcher against the wall.”
“Son of a b—!”
“Exactly.” Poppy paused, then added, “There’s a key to the back door in a fake rock next to the steps.”
“Where’s Poppy?” I demanded. Had Anya gone crazy and killed her? “And what’s with the gun?”
I noticed that Anya was wearing a leopard-print T-shirt with the words YOU SAY PETTY & VINDICTIVE LIKE IT’S A BAD THING written across her impressive chest. That message scared me almost as much as the pistol she was waving in my face.
“Shut up!” Anya stepped closer, grabbed my arm, and turned me around. Pressing the gun into my back, she forced me to walk past the bar and across the dance floor into one of the conversation areas. This one was a favorite of the Country Club Cougars, since it was decorated in pink and blinged out with fake jewels.
“What’s going on?” I stopped at the entrance, not wanting to be trapped in such a small space, but Anya pushed me toward the opposite wall. She shoved me down on a rose velvet chaise longue and stood facing me as I asked, “Is Poppy okay?”
“Your friend is fine. I just arranged for her to be gone for a while so we could have a nice chat in private. She was kind enough to leave her cell phone so I could use it to text you.” Anya’s hazel eyes were filled with a childish resentment. “And I told you to shut up. Why can’t any of you people do as you’re told?”
“Any of us?” If Anya was going to kill me, I didn’t plan on going gently, or silently, into that good night.
“Joelle. Etienne. Noah.” Anya waved the revolver around wildly. “Everyone.”
“I don’t understand.” Actually, I was afraid I did understand, but I wanted Anya to say it. If I was going to die, I wanted her to be caught, and I was counting on Poppy’s concealed voice-activated listening devices to pick up her confession.
“I planned for Noah to marry me, but then Joelle flounces into town and steals him right out from under my nose.” Anya’s red face clashed with the pink decor. “And now that I’ve cleared that obstacle away, you think you’re going to snatch him up?”
“No.” Now that she reminded me, I had heard that Noah had taken Anya out a couple of times, but I was pretty sure they were never officially a couple or someone would have mentioned it to me. “I’m not interested in Noah. I’m going out with Jake Del Vecchio. Remember, you were teasing me about him at the coffee tasting?”
“You might be screwing Tall, Dark, and Hot—I saw you at the hotel Saturday night—but you’ve got your eye on Noah for the altar.”
“Were you the one who called the tip in to the police about me being at the Parkside?” Everything was coming together. “You’ve been following me, haven’t you?”
“Of course.” Anya raised a brow. “Ever since you and Noah had that lovely long talk at the Manor the other day, and I heard he’d been saying such nice things about you.”
“Our conversation was about Joelle’s murder. Nothing else.”
“You can’t fool me.” Anya shook her head stubbornly. “I saw you go to his house Tuesday night.”
“That was about Joelle, too.” I could see I wasn’t convincing Anya, so I switched gears and tried flattery. “How in the world did you pull off Joelle’s murder? You must be a genius.”
“It wasn’t easy.” Anya cradled the pistol to her breasts like a puppy, and said thoughtfully, “It all started when Joelle and Noah got engaged. Up until then, I thought he’d get over her like he had all of his other little flings.”
“But he didn’t.” I knew that Noah had dated quite a bit, although usually not the same woman more than once or twice. “How did you figure out that J
oelle wasn’t who she said she was?”
“I was looking for something to discredit her, and I was suspicious that she was so secretive about her past, so I broke into her condo.”
“Without her knowing?” I peeked at my watch. It had been nearly fifteen minutes since I had arrived. Maybe if I could keep Anya talking, Poppy would come back or a delivery guy would show up.
“Sure. It was simple to get in. Joelle had the kind of lock that if you turned the inside knob, it opens, which meant that if you stuck a credit card between the door and the jamb, and jiggled it, the lock button pops up.” Anya smiled meanly. “The only thing a cheap, wooden hollow-core front door and a button popup lock are good for is to keep the Jehovah’s Witnesses out.”
“Wow.” I made sure my tone was admiring. “I had no idea.”
“Yeah, well, I dated a locksmith once,” Anya explained. “It took me less than an hour to find Joelle’s stash. She had rolled all her old identification papers and stuffed them into a hollow shower rod.”
“So once you found out, you contacted her husband?”
“Yep. I e-mailed him from Joelle’s own computer, then erased any evidence of the message so no one could tell it had been sent.” Anya’s tone was smug. “I thought he’d contact her and all hell would break loose.”
“But it didn’t?”
“No.” Anya frowned. “So when nothing happened, I suggested a romantic Valentine’s Day weekend for her and Noah at the Parkside and helped her set everything up. Then I contacted Etienne and arranged for him to come to Kansas City the same day.”
“Why?” It was clear that Anya wanted to tell someone about her master plan and I was willing to listen. Maybe she’d talk herself into an arrest.
“I had dated the head of security at the Parkside, so I knew how to disable their cameras.” Anya shrugged. “I figured either Noah would find out Joelle was already married or, since I heard Louisiana men had hot tempers, Etienne would kill her. Either way, she’d be out of the running for the title of Mrs. Underwood.”
“Why didn’t you just let Nadine in on Joelle’s past?”
“I thought about it.” Anya pursed her mouth, then shook her head. “But I was afraid that psycho old pageant queen would twist things. That she’d somehow use the fact that I was the one to tell her about Joelle to poison Noah’s mind against me.”
“I see.” I could certainly understand Anya’s point about Nadine. “So, what happened?”
“I met Etienne at five fifty-five, let him into Joelle’s suite using Noah’s key card. I had swapped mine for his when I followed Joelle to his clinic earlier that day. She left the card for him on the check-in desk, and as soon as the receptionist stepped away from the counter, I made the switch. Then I hightailed it down to the lobby to meet Geoffrey.”
Ah. So Anya was the mayor’s secret girlfriend. What he’d said about her not forgiving him if he told me her name made sense now. Cyndi had said Anya didn’t forgive or forget.
Anya continued. “Geoffrey registered. Then on our way to our room I told him I forgot to bring the condoms. I left him and went to check to see if Noah had discovered Etienne.”
“I bet you also arranged for the call from the patient who never showed up, which delayed Noah at his clinic. You intended for him to find Etienne and Joelle together, but you didn’t count on traffic, or that Noah would wait as long as he did for the emergency patient.”
“That was a miscalculation on my part,” Anya admitted in an annoyed tone. “Etienne was gone by the time I got back to Joelle’s suite, and all he’d done was handcuff Joelle to the bed and stuff a champagne bottle in her mouth.”
“So when Noah finally arrived, she could have claimed she’d been assaulted.”
“Exactly.” Anya nodded approvingly. “So I had to improvise.”
“You drove Joelle’s high-heel shoe into her heart?” Looking at the petite woman in front of me, I found it hard to believe she was strong enough to do that.
“I play tennis.” Anya flexed her right arm. “I have a wicked backhand. The tricky part was wiping off my fingerprints without getting any blood on the washcloth.”
“Amazing.” I was running out of questions. “Well, I certainly understand your motives. In fact, I sympathize with them. Back years and years ago, when I thought I was in love with Noah, I probably would have done the same thing. But now that I’ve met Jake, I’ve realized that any feelings I once might have had for Noah are long gone. Joelle was a tramp who had to be eliminated. I totally understand and promise to never tell anyone what you did.” I tried to get up, but Anya pushed me back down.
“Sorry.” Anya’s beautiful face showed not one iota of regret. “You need to kill yourself because you couldn’t live with the guilt after you murdered Joelle.”
“No. Really. That’s not necessary.” As I looked frantically around for something to defend myself with, I saw a movement behind Anya, but couldn’t make out what it was in the dark bar.
Anya dug into the pocket of her designer jeans and threw a small leather memo pad with an attached pen at me. “If you write a suicide note for me before I shoot you, I promise not to kill your grandmother.”
Kill Gran! Okay. Now I was mad. I was taking this bitch down.
As I pretended to write, I watched Anya for my opportunity. When a board squeaked behind her and she turned her head to look over her shoulder, I launched all my not-inconsiderable weight at the tiny woman.
We both toppled to the floor, and as I lay on top of Anya, fighting to keep her pinned to the ground, I tore at her gun hand, panicking when I couldn’t free her clenched fingers from the pistol.
A nanosecond later Jake ran in, pressed his revolver to Anya’s head, and said, “Drop it.”
Anya stared at Jake for what seemed like an hour before she released her weapon.
I crawled off of the downed woman, and Jake flipped her over onto her stomach and cuffed her hands behind her back.
After he Mirandized her, I asked, “How did you know I was here?”
“Poppy figured it out and called me.”
“Did you hear Anya’s confession?”
“No.” Jake shook his head. “I came in when she was planning your suicide.”
I explained about Poppy’s hidden recording devices and he grinned.
While Jake made arrangements to bring Anya to the Kansas City PD, I telephoned Poppy to assure her that I was fine. It took me nearly as long to tell her what had happened as it did for Jake to explain everything to the KC cops.
Once we were both finished with our calls, Jake heaved Anya up from the floor, marched her outside, and deposited her in the passenger seat of his truck. He handcuffed her to the grab handle near the door. Then he helped me into the backseat and climbed behind the wheel.
Despite Anya’s constant chatter—she kept trying to explain her motives for killing Joelle—I spent most of the trip in a near comatose state. Fighting for my life had exhausted me. When we crossed into the city limits, Jake caught my eye in the rearview mirror and said, “After we turn Anya over to the Kansas City cops and you give them your statement, we need to talk.”
EPILOGUE
The past couple of days had been surreal. Everyone from the Kansas City police to Etienne Aponte had wanted to talk to me. Some, like the cops, I couldn’t avoid. Although to be fair, finding out that Detective Woods and his immediate supervisor were under investigation for their actions on the case was worth the trip into the city and the six hours I spent telling my story again and again.
I managed to steer clear of everyone else by putting Xylia and Hannah in charge of the dime store, holing up at home, and refusing to answer either the door or the phone. I really had no choice. Between my own precarious emotional state and Gran needing my full attention, I didn’t have anything left for the rest of the world.
Gran had not reacted well to my near-death experience—okay, neither had I—and she needed repeated assurances that I was fine. But by Sunday morning she s
eemed back to her old self, insisting I go to work the next day and start seeing people again. She was also adamant that we visit my father as originally planned.
Although she tried to convince me to go inside with her, I resisted her pleas. My original jail phobia had increased a hundred percent, and I still blamed my father for ruining our family name. It would be a cold day in hell before I voluntarily set foot on the prison grounds.
But Gran never gave up, and the drive home was filled with her blow-by-blow account of her conversation with my father, including his claim that he had a lead on how to prove his innocence. Finally, about a mile from home, she fell silent. When we drove up to the house, I knew why. Parked side by side were Poppy’s Hummer and Booth’s Mercedes.
Avoiding my gaze, Gran said, “Did I mention that I invited your friends over for supper?”
“No. No, you didn’t.” I narrowed my eyes. “What’s the occasion?”
“Your rejoining the land of the living.” Gran patted my hand. “I know you needed time to regroup; so did I, but you three have been friends for nearly twenty-four years. You can’t shut them out just because there are things you don’t want to face.”
She was right. It hadn’t been very nice of me to ignore their calls and refuse to see them, but I hadn’t been up to rehashing Thursday’s events. After a brief hesitation during which I tested my emotional state, I realized I was feeling better, and now was as good a time as any to discuss what had happened.
As Gran and I got out of the car, I couldn’t decide if I was relieved or upset that she hadn’t included Jake in her little party. Maybe he was still out of town. Friday morning, he had left me a voice mail saying he was on his way to St. Louis. The prosecutor was putting him back on the stand to testify about some additional evidence that had come up.
I hadn’t heard from him since then, although to be fair, I’d silenced the ringer on the house phone, turned off my cell, and hadn’t checked either for messages.
Little Shop of Homicide: A Devereaux’s Dime Store Mystery Page 23