by Jeff Shelby
Assisted Murder
By Jeff Shelby
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Assisted Murder
All rights reserved.
Copyright ©2016
This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited without the expressed written consent of the author.
Books by Jeff Shelby
The Joe Tyler Novels
THREAD OF HOPE
THREAD OF SUSPICION
THREAD OF BETRAYAL
THREAD OF INNOCENCE
THREAD OF FEAR
THREAD OF REVENGE
The Noah Braddock Novels
KILLER SWELL
WICKED BREAK
LIQUID SMOKE
DRIFT AWAY
LOCKED IN
The Moose River Mysteries
THE MURDER PIT
LAST RESORT
ALIBI HIGH
FOUL PLAY
YOU'VE GOT BLACKMAIL
ASSISTED MURDER
The Deuce Winters Novels (Under the pseudonym Jeffrey Allen)
STAY AT HOME DEAD
POPPED OFF
FATHERS KNOWS DEATH
Short Story Collections
OUT OF TIME
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ONE
“How long until we land?” Grace asked, staring at me over the top of her airline seat.
“Oh my God,” Will said from across the aisle. He adjusted the ball cap on his head and sighed loudly. “We haven't even taken off, you dummy.”
She stuck her tongue out at him and looked at me. “Sophie said three hours. Is that right?”
“It's right,” Sophie muttered, hidden from my view in the seat next to Grace. Her blonde hair was pulled into a ponytail, her glasses perched on her nose. She had a book in her lap, and her smart phone and a pair of headphones were neatly laid out on the tray table in front of her. She was prepared for the long haul.
“That's about right,” I confirmed. “It's about a three-hour flight to Orlando.” I eyed Will. “And if names like ‘dummy’ continue to be used, it will feel like a six-hour flight without personal electronics.”
Will frowned as he glanced at the array of devices packed in his backpack – laptop, massive over-ear headphones, gaming mouse, iPad and phone – and wisely decided not to respond.
“If we ever take off,” Jake grumbled next to me, leaning into the aisle and delivering a death stare toward the pilots hidden behind the cockpit door.
I elbowed my husband in the ribs. “This was your idea.”
That wasn't entirely true. I'd been on board with the idea, too. His grandmother was celebrating her 100th birthday and the small Florida town she lived in was throwing her a big celebration. When he told me about it, I suggested we try and go. I'd never met the woman and we needed a family vacation away from Minnesota and Moose River. The kids immediately seized on great-grandma's proximity to Disney World and pushed hard for the trip. Jake just sort of shrugged and said okay.
So maybe it had actually been my idea.
“Three hours?” Emily said from her seat on the other side of Will. “My phone won't last that long.”
Will rolled his eyes. “Your boyfriend will be fine not getting your dumb Snapchat pictures for a couple of hours.” He glanced at me. “I called the pictures dumb, not her.”
“Toeing the line,” I warned.
“But there's WiFi, right?” Emily asked. She looked around the cabin, probably hoping to magically find a login password. “We have WiFi on the plane, right?”
Will chuckled. “It's like fifteen bucks for the whole flight and you can't stream. I looked it up last night.”
A terrified look crept into her eyes. “It's not free? How are we supposed to use the Internet then?”
“We don't,” Will said. He was digging out his own phone and earbuds. “I mean, not unless you pay for it.”
“I don't have a credit card,” she said. Her eyes turned to me. “Mom, will you pay for it?”
I shook my head. “Three hours won't kill you. Read or something.”
“I don’t want to read. I’m on vacation from school. I want to relax,” she said. “On my phone.”
“Only other way to get on their WiFi is to hack into it,” Will said. He lifted an eyebrow and grinned.
“No hacking,” I warned him.
He smiled at me and shoved his earbuds into his ears.
Emily’s fingers flew over the screen on her phone, no doubt letting Andy know she'd be unavailable while we were in the air. She might have also been telling him that I was unnecessarily ruining her life by dragging her to Florida for spring break and how she couldn't wait to move out and leave her family behind.
Teenagers.
“So three hours?” Grace said, still clinging to the seat in front of me, looking down at the top of my head. She was dressed in a light blue Cinderella shirt and matching leggings, and her hair was in a loose French braid, courtesy of her older sister. She’d apparently caught Emily at a good moment.
“Yes,” I told her. “About three hours.”
“And then we'll go right to Disney World?” she asked hopefully.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Not today. We have to get into our rental house and get settled.”
“So tomorrow, then?”
The kid was vibrating with anticipation.
“We'll see,” I said.
She frowned and sighed a deep sigh before disappearing back into her seat. Maybe I was ruining her life, too.
“I think we're finally going,” Jake said, leaning back into our row. “They're shutting the doors.”
“It's only been ten minutes,” I said, patting his arm. “We're fine.”
He frowned. After a recent flight on a work trip to Denver, when the plane had needed to make an emergency landing in Omaha due to being hit by lightning, he’d developed a slight fear of flying. Okay, a huge fear. As soon as we took our seats, he'd identified our closest exits and checked to see exactly where the emergency lighting was. He'd tapped on the panel above our heads, I assumed because he just wanted to know where the oxygen masks would drop from when we needed them in-flight.
Sophie popped up in the seat in front of him. She leaned over as far as she could and looked at us. “There are lots of old people in Florida, right?”
“Lots of people retire there, yeah,” I told her.
“But doesn't Grandma Billie live in a senior city or something?”
“It's an active living community for people over sixty,” I explained. I sounded like I was reciting the sales pitch from a brochure. Which I sort of was. “So it's not a city. But, yes, it's primarily for senior citizens.”
“Old people are cool,” she said, grinning.
It was an odd thing to say, but I wasn’t going to argue. After all, I was going to need at least one of the kids to like old people in a few decades, and my options weren’t currently looking good with the other three.
“They are,” I told her, smiling back.
Sophie glanced down at her seat partner, then back at her father and me. “Um, Grace wants me to ask exactly when we're going to Disney again?”
I kneed the seat in front of me. “I already told you,” I said, directing the comment to the ten-year-old who was havin
g her stepsister do her dirty work for her.
Sophie shrugged and sat back down in her seat.
The flight attendant came over the loudspeaker and announced that we were ready to leave the gate.
Jake's hands gripped the armrests.
Will pulled one of his earbuds out of his ears and leaned into the aisle toward us. “Hey, Mom. This is pretty funny. One of the games I downloaded for my phone?” He grinned and showed me the screen. “I have to shoot down planes. I have guns and lasers and rockets and you just try to blast them out of the sky. You can even pick the airlines you want to take down. They’re all fake names of companies, but still. How cool is that?”
The color drained from Jake's face and he swallowed hard a couple of times, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat.
“Funny, right?” Will said, chuckling.
“Hilarious,” I said, laying my hand over Jake's arm, trying to offer some reassurance.
Will nodded and stuck the earbud back in.
“We'll be fine,” I whispered in Jake's ear. “Skies are clear all the way to Florida. No storms anywhere.”
He swallowed and nodded, clearly not believing a word I said.
The engines groaned and the plane lurched back, away from the jetway. The monitors dropped from the overhead panels and the safety video started playing. Jake’s eyes were glued to the closest screen, no doubt memorizing all of the instructions.
I was nervous about the trip, too. Not because of the flight, but because of Jake's family. I'd never met most of them. This would be the first time and I suddenly felt like we were back in high school. He'd warned me that his grandmother was a tough nut to crack and that his aunt was a little kooky. He told me that it had been years since he’d seen them, and that he wasn’t particularly close to any of them anymore. I didn’t care. I wanted to make a good impression on them. I knew it was silly, but it mattered to me.
So I was nervous.
“There's a barf bag in the seat pocket, right?” Jake asked. His complexion hovered between white and green. “And which hole does the oxygen mask drop through again?”
I squeezed his arm. “It'll be fine. Relax.”
As the plane taxied toward the runway and Florida and Jake’s family, I tried to take my own advice.
TWO
Gloria Gardner was standing next to the baggage carousel with a giant cardboard sign that read, “WELCOME TO FLORIDA, LITTLE JAKEY!”
“Little Jakey?” I whispered.
“Shut up,” Jake muttered.
The three-hour flight went off without a hitch and we arrived in Orlando right on time, making up the slight delay during our flying time. Sophie was snapping pictures out of the plane windows and even Will and Emily looked up from their phones long enough to take stock of the lush green landscape coming into view as we made our descent. It looked like Minnesota during summer, a canvas of greens and blue as we flew across the forests and lakes that bordered the airport property. Grace immediately started asking where Disney World was, craning her neck to try and find it as we descended.
Jake's aunt, Gloria, was somewhere in her early sixties, with a wonderful tan and hair that had gone silver early and was cut in a fashionable bob. She wore a flowered print sundress, thick-heeled silver sandals, and a massive smile.
She’d volunteered to pick us up at the airport, which was why she was holding the sign I was now hoping to take home and frame in the living room.
Gloria dropped the sign as soon as she saw Jake and rushed toward us. “Little Jakey! It's been so long!” She smothered him in an over-sized bear hug.
The kids all looked at one another, barely able to contain their laughter. My money was on Will to call him ‘Jakey’ first.
She squeezed her nephew again, then released him and looked at me. “And you must be Daisy! It is so lovely to finally meet you!” She then attempted to cut off my circulation.
“A pleasure to meet you, too,” I managed before all of the air was squeezed out of me. For a senior citizen, she was strong.
She let go and my lungs opened, begging for air.
“And these are all of the kids,” she said, grinning at them. “I already know all of your names! Don't tell me!” She closed her eyes, then opened them and announced proudly, “Ellie, Walt, Suzie and Gina!”
The kids glanced at each other and then looked at her as if she'd lost her marbles. Jake had said she was a little nutty, but he hadn’t mentioned she might be suffering from acute memory loss.
“Kidding!” she said, pointing a manicured finger at them. “Emily, Will, Sophie and Grace.”
They collectively relaxed and smiled at her, but no one said anything. I was sure they were wary of being sucked into one of her bone-crushing embraces.
She looked Jake up and down, as if she was inspecting a new car or an artifact on display at a museum. “You haven't changed a bit,” she proclaimed.
He gave her a disbelieving look. “You haven't seen me in almost thirty years, Gloria.”
“I know! You just look so young!” She turned to me and a new smile lit up her face. “And you are just…adorable!”
I’d been called a lot of things, but adorable wasn’t one of them. I didn’t know if she was telling me I looked like one of the kids or an enormous panda bear because I was wearing a black and white shirt and black shorts and sandals. “Um, thank you,” I said, unsure how to respond. Did I tell her she was adorable, too?
She tucked the sign to her side and put her hands on her hips. “Well, we've got lots to do. Let's grab your stuff and we'll get on out of here!”
I grabbed the sign from her as she led us toward the baggage claim area. I’d wanted everyone to limit their luggage to a carry-on backpack so we wouldn’t have to deal with checked bags, but everyone had protested. Even Jake.
We stood at the carousel for a few minutes, waiting for the bags to drop down on to the moving beltway. Gloria talked non-stop, telling Jake how excited his grandmother was to see him, how thrilled she was that he'd brought the whole family, and how much we were all going to like the house we were staying in.
“That's the old person's house, right?” Will whispered. His earbuds were still in place and he had his phone in his hand, presumably still shooting unsuspecting planes from the sky.
“It's not an old person's house.”
“You know what I mean,” he said, his thumbs flying furiously over his phone. “It's in the old person city or whatever it is where we're staying.”
I frowned at him. Gloria had been kind enough to arrange for us to stay in a rental home in the community where both she and Jake's grandmother lived. And it was ridiculously cheap, which was half the reason we'd all been able to travel. Taking a family of six on vacation was expensive, but when she'd told us the house wouldn't cost us much, we decided to take the plunge.
“You saw the pictures,” I reminded Will. “It will be great.”
“Pictures can be manipulated before they're put online,” he said. “You know that. And it might smell like old people.”
“Oh? And what do old people smell like?”
He wrinkled his nose. “Like powder. And perfume. And death.”
I whacked him in the arm. “Behave.”
“Why isn’t my phone working?” Emily asked.
Will peered over her shoulder. “Did you try turning it on?”
Emily glared at him. “Yes, it’s on. I'm not getting any service.” She stabbed at the screen a couple more times and groaned. “I told Andy I'd text him as soon as we landed. And now I can’t. He’s probably wondering where I am.”
“Uh, Florida?” Will said, and she groaned again.
“Settle down,” I warned, only half paying attention. Grace had wandered toward a gift shop filled with a gazillion Disney souvenirs and I knew she was about to be sucked into the vortex of mouse ears and princess products.
“You know what I mean,” Emily said. “He might be worried.”
Will rolled his eyes. “Yeah he pr
obably thinks we crashed. Bet he’s glued to CNN right now.”
Emily’s face turned red. “Shut up,” she snapped.
“Both of you chill out,” I said. I leaned closer to both of them. “Or I’ll sic Aunt Gloria on you. And have her hug you.”
Will shrank away from me and Emily visibly shuddered, and I fought a smile. I was going to milk this for all it was worth. I called for Grace and she reluctantly rejoined us, her gaze still locked on the shelves of merchandise that beckoned to her.
Our luggage eventually appeared and Sophie and Grace helped Jake pull the suitcases off the carousel. With everything in tow, we followed Gloria out of the terminal and into the brilliant sunshine. And humidity. Because even though it was late March, the air was thick with moisture.
“I was able to park close,” Gloria told us proudly. “We're in the first row over there.”
I looked in the direction she was pointing and saw a sea of minivans and SUVs. I'd read in a tour guide that Orlando had more minivans and SUVs than any other city in the U.S., due to its proximity to Disney. Most of the rental companies had deals with the car makers, who sold them fleets of minivans at discounted prices so the tourists could make their way around the amusement parks in large groups.
“It's the white one,” Gloria said, still pointing.
I saw gold minivans and gray SUVs, but the only white vehicle was something that looked like a looked like a corporate mini-bus or airport shuttle.
“The bus?” Sophie asked, squinting at it through her glasses, and I suddenly worried that she’d forgotten to pack her prescription sunglasses.
“We get to go in that?” Grace said, her eyes getting huge. “Cool!”
Gloria nodded and produced a clicker from her oversized purse. She squeezed it and the lights on the bus flickered and the horn chirped. The side doors swung open.
“This is the bus we use around the community,” she explained. “I'm a volunteer driver and I knew there'd be plenty of room for all of you.” She made it sound like we were a party of twenty instead of a family of six.