Vanilla Beaned

by Jenn McKinlay

  She tried to remember where the control panel for the stereo was. If she remembered right, there was one in every room, which didn’t narrow down the locations where Lisa could be as much as she’d like.

  Mel lowered her body toward the floor. Crouching below eye level seemed like a good idea, especially if she could use the furniture to hide behind. She crept out of her dark corner and dashed into the living room, where she hid behind an armchair. She waited but there was no shout or any movement in reaction to her mad dash.

  Lisa had to be in one of the bedrooms. Mel darted behind the sofa and then behind a chair. The control panel was within reach and she poked it with her index finger until the music stopped and the lights went out.

  There was a crash from one of the bedrooms in back and Mel swiftly dashed down the hallway in the dark. If she could figure out which room, she could slam the door and trap Lisa until help arrived.

  The lights snapped on when she was halfway down the hall, and she ducked into the bedroom on her right. It was empty. She darted behind the open door for cover.

  “I know you’re here, Holly,” a voice called out. “Come out, I just want to talk to you.”

  Mel felt her heart hammer in her chest, and she was amazed Lisa couldn’t hear it, too.

  “I will find you,” Lisa said. It sounded more like a threat than a promise.

  And now Mel was sure it was Lisa. She was just as soft-spoken as she’d been when Mel first met her, but now there was a lilt of crazy in it.

  Mel figured that Holly had made it down to security by now. She needed only a few minutes until Manny arrived, hopefully with backup, to take the crazy woman out. She just had to stall for five more minutes. Surely she could outmaneuver this woman for five minutes.

  There was no place to go from the bedroom, except through the French doors out to the balcony. She hoped the others had left their doors unlocked so that she could enter and exit at will as she tried to lead Lisa around in circles.

  She could hear footsteps in the hallway. She had only seconds. She hurried across the bedroom and opened the door. She slid through it, leaving it agape so that Lisa would be lured outside.

  Mel stayed in the shadows. She could see the lights of the city and hear the steady grind of the traffic below on the Strip. Just yards below her were thousands of people. So close and yet so far, Mel had never felt quite so alone.

  She hugged the wall to her back and moved across the terrace to the next set of doors. The curtains were closed so she reached for the knob and tried to turn it as quietly as possible. It was locked. Damn it.

  She moved to the next set. The lights from the room she had left snapped on. Mel reached for the door handle and turned it. Lisa might arrive outside at any minute. It was unlocked. She pulled it open and went to step inside.

  The hit when it came was completely unexpected. Mel felt something catch her around the knees and drag her to the ground. She hit the stone hard, knocking the wind out of her. Damn it, Lisa must have used the control panel to turn the lights on in the other room.

  “You’re not Holly!” the stocky Elvis who had been at the door screamed at her. “Where is Holly?”

  Mel didn’t have enough air in her lungs to answer. She was wheezing and choking, trying to reinflate her lungs. Elvis’s wig was askew, revealing a dark ponytail. Mel’s crazy theory had been right. The one stalking Holly had been Lisa.

  Out of patience, Lisa grabbed the collar of Mel’s shirt and shook her as if she could force the information out of her.

  “Lisa, stop,” Mel ordered. “Stop!”

  Lisa gasped. Her grip on Mel weakened and Mel took the opportunity to shove her off. It was a weak effort but Lisa was so rattled she didn’t put up much resistance and Mel scuttled across the patio, putting a lounge chair between them. Lisa lumbered toward her, clearly not respecting Mel’s boundaries.

  “I know you’re faking your pregnancy.” Mel reached out and poked Lisa’s belly with her pointer finger. It was squishy and firm just like her sister-in-law’s belly when she’d been pregnant. Mel had a moment of doubt. Was Lisa really pregnant?

  “I’m not faking,” Lisa yelled. “I’m not!”

  “It was you who looked at the bakery that morning before I went there with Holly, wasn’t it?” Mel badgered. “Did Scott show you around, and when you discovered he was a smoker, you figured you’d turn on the gas and with any luck we’d all be blown to smithereens. Was that the plan, Lisa?”

  “No, no one was supposed to get hurt,” Lisa said. She sagged a bit at the knees.

  “And what about the car busting through the window?” Mel asked. “Did you hire someone to do that? Were you hoping Holly would get killed in the accident and then you’d have Sydney all to yourself? Except you almost got Sydney killed that day, didn’t you? And how about the shots at the house? Was that you? Did you decide it would just be easier to kill Holly?”

  “It’s not my fault!” Lisa yelled. She was crying now and she wiped her nose on one sparkly sleeve. “If she had just left everything the way it was I wouldn’t have had to hire my brother to drive that car through the bakery window or to shoot out her windows and scare her. I thought I could scare her into staying in the show and only having Sydney on Mondays, but she kept pushing me.”

  Theory confirmed. Now where the hell was everyone? Surely, Holly had gotten downstairs by now. What could be taking them so long? Mel didn’t like the cray-cray look in Lisa’s eyes. Her instincts were screaming at her to get out of there so she tried to back away from Lisa before she had a total meltdown.

  “Listen, it doesn’t have to be this way,” Mel said. “We can get you some help and everything will be fine.”

  “Don’t patronize me!” Lisa let out a furious roar and jumped over the lounger onto Mel’s side, knocking her to the ground. Mel tried to shake her off but Lisa was strong and had the whole psychotically mad thing going.

  “Tell me where Holly is,” Lisa demanded.

  “She’s long gone,” Mel wheezed. “She’s sending help. If I were you, I’d run for it.”

  “Liar!”

  Mel had the urge to argue, but she figured Lisa would probably crack her skull like a walnut if she thought Mel was wising off.

  Instead, Mel closed her eyes and put all of her energy into trying to shake Lisa off. She bucked and writhed and arched her back but Lisa clung like a barnacle.

  “Get off me,” Mel demanded. She had hoped to sound strong and mean but instead it came out winded and wimpy.

  Lisa leaned close and growled in Mel’s ear, “Tell me where Holly is.”

  “Why? So you can kill her?”

  Lisa punched Mel in the kidney, making her buckle as the pain ricocheted through her body.

  “I wouldn’t have to if she’d just kept things the way they were,” Lisa said. “Sydney is my daughter. Mine. I’m the one who has raised her since she was a baby, not Holly.”

  “But what about your baby?” Mel said, knowing it was like poking a bear with a stick. “Don’t you want more time with your own child?”

  A sound came out of Lisa that made the hair on the back of Mel’s neck stand on end. It was an anguished cry, one of misery and heartbreak and rage. Mel shivered.

  “There is no baby,” Lisa said. She was weeping. “I lost it at ten weeks, but I couldn’t tell Billy. He was so happy. I just wanted to give him what Holly had given him. He always says he’s over her but how could he be? I mean she’s Holly Hartzmark and I’m . . . not.”

  “I’m sorry,” Mel said. “So very sorry.”

  She didn’t know what else to say. She was pinned under a woman who was clearly crazed with grief, and she didn’t know what to say or do to get Lisa to let her go.

  “Like that does me a damn bit of good,” Lisa snapped.

  She grabbed Mel by the hair on the top of her head and yanked Mel to her kn
ees. The pain made tears fill Mel’s eyes and she couldn’t see. She tried to grab Lisa’s wrist and dig her fingernails into the other woman’s skin, but Lisa was relentless. She dragged Mel toward the pool and without warning dunked Mel’s head under the water.

  Mel didn’t have time to suck in a breath or close her mouth. Her head was submerged, and she immediately began flailing and fighting. She tried to punch the arms that held her under but she was losing strength and couldn’t connect.

  Her lungs began to burn and her eyes felt as if they would pop out of her head. With sudden clarity, she knew she was about to drown. Her life didn’t pass before her eyes. There was only one thing that filled her mind. Joe.

  His image came to her in a fuzzy, dreamlike visage. He told her he loved her and he leaned in close to kiss her. When his lips met hers, Mel thought that if this was death, it wasn’t such a bad way to go.

  Twenty-six

  It was then that she threw up a gallon of water all over him. The water came out of her lungs as if it was being suctioned out of her nose and mouth. Mel felt as if every part of her head and lungs had been flushed out. She choked and sputtered and began to suck in air in great gulping gasps.

  “Cupcake, you just scared me to death,” Joe said. Then he hugged her. Hard.

  Mel whipped her head around, looking for Lisa. She spotted her unconscious on the ground beside them.

  “You’re here?” Mel asked Joe. “You’re real?”

  “Very much so,” Joe said. His tight grip on her made it hard for Mel to breathe but she didn’t care. In fact, when she began to sob all over him and his grip got even tighter, she welcomed it.

  “That was specfreakingtacular!” Oz shouted. “Joe took that crazy woman out in a diving tackle at the same time he grabbed you . . . wow, just wow!”

  “Totally, wow,” Marty added. His Elvis wig was hanging off the back of his bald head and his eyes were a little bugged as if he couldn’t quite believe what had just happened.

  “Mel! Mel!” Angie raced out onto the patio. She slipped in the water but Tate caught her before she fell. They both dropped to their knees beside Mel.

  “Are you all right?” Angie demanded. She went to elbow Joe out of the way to hug her friend but he wasn’t having any of it and Angie was forced to hug them both.

  “I’m fine,” Mel said. Her voice was raspy. She glanced at the faces around her so full of concern and love. She felt her throat close up. Had she really come as close as she feared to never seeing these people, whom she loved so very much, ever again?

  A sob wracked her body and Joe scooped her up into his arms and she buried her face in his neck.

  “Let’s get you dried off,” he said. His voice sounded rough as well, and Mel wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him close.

  Before he stepped into the house, he turned back and nodded at Lisa’s unconscious body. “Call Manny. Have him get her out of here.”

  “So, it’s all true what Holly told us when she came screaming through the casino?” Angie asked.

  Mel nodded. Angie glanced at Lisa like she was going to do her some harm, but Tate put his arm around her and held her back. Mel gave them a weak smile before Joe carried her into her room.

  “We need to get you to the hospital,” he said as he set her on the bed. “Let’s get you in something dry and catch a cab.”

  “I don’t need to go to the hospital,” Mel said. When he looked like he was going to argue, she grabbed him by his tie and pulled him close. “What are you doing here? Did you win the case?”

  His hand was shaking as he brushed her sodden bangs off her forehead. “No idea.”

  Mel frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “After we talked on the phone, I couldn’t stop thinking about what you said,” he replied. “You were right. I have always put my career ahead of us. It wasn’t fair to you. When it came time for closing arguments, I passed it off to my colleague and caught the first flight to Vegas.”

  Mel studied his face as if she couldn’t comprehend what he had just said. “But you worked on this case for months, we were almost killed . . . how could you just walk?”

  “You are more important to me than any case,” Joe said. “As soon as I got that through my thick head, then the only place I wanted to be was by your side. And it’s a good thing I got here when I did. You . . . I . . . oh, hell, cupcake, I could have lost you forever.”

  His voice cracked and Mel cupped his face between her hands and kissed him. She felt as if she couldn’t get close enough to him, and she kissed him with all the pent-up longing she had suffered over the past few months.

  When they broke apart, they were both breathing hard. Joe pressed his forehead to hers and said, “I love you, Melanie Cooper.”

  “I love you, too, Joe DeLaura. I always have.” Tears streamed down Mel’s cheeks and Joe gently brushed them away with his fingertips.

  “Then marry me,” he said. “Right here. Right now. Before another day passes. Be my wife.”

  Mel looked into his dark brown eyes. No one had ever looked at her the way Joe was looking at her now, as if she was his very reason for drawing breath.

  “Yes,” she said. Then she laughed. “Yes!”

  They kissed again and it was quite some time before they left Mel’s room.

  “I really think I look fine,” Mel said. “I almost died last night, so while I might be a little pasty, I’m still alive so that’s something.”

  “This is your wedding,” Angie said. “You need to raise the bar a little bit higher than ‘alive’ looking.”

  She took Mel’s hand in hers as if she expected her to balk and dragged her into the salon at the Blue Hawaiian. Holly was already there talking to two women behind the counter. They were both somewhere in their forties but had enough Botox, hair extensions, and whatnot to appear ageless or at least in their thirties.

  “Oh, my,” one of the women said and she put her hand to her throat as if Mel had just been fished out of a toilet.

  The other one tossed her long blond hair and looked Mel up and down as if she were a car. Mel wondered if she was going to kick her tires.

  “Daisy, Larissa, this is Mel. You have one hour to work your magic,” Holly said. “And just so you know, she is marrying her true love so this is important.”

  “True love?” Larissa perked up.

  “I’ve loved him since I was twelve years old,” Mel said with a closed-lip smile.

  “Oh my god!” Daisy cried. “True love. This is epic. Let’s do this!”

  Mel wasn’t given a chance to say anything else as she was hustled into a back room, where she was primped, plucked, and polished within an inch of her life.

  “No, don’t touch,” Daisy said when Mel went to rub her right eye. “The glue on your eyelashes hasn’t set yet.”

  “Eyelashes?” Mel asked. That was all she got out as Daisy set to work on her other eye.

  “You’re going to look amazing,” Larissa said, watching Daisy’s work from behind her. “Trust us.”

  Mel would have felt better about the whole thing if her eyelids didn’t feel like they were being glued open. She was lying in a reclining chair with Daisy looming over her using a huge magnifying glass and tweezers to place the false eyelashes on Mel’s eyelids.

  “There,” Daisy said finally. “Now don’t move.”

  “I’m going to see if Angie found you a dress yet,” Holly said from where she was sitting reading a book with Sydney. “You wait here.”

  “There was another option?” Mel asked.

  She sighed and closed her eyes. This was her wedding day. She was going to marry Joe DeLaura. It was crazy, rash, and wild, and somehow it felt perfectly right.

  She had called her mother earlier, dreading her mother’s reaction to missing Mel’s wedding. Her mother had shocked her all the way to her core.
/>   “You are marrying dear Joe?” her mother had sputtered as if she couldn’t believe it. She always called him “dear Joe,” a habit that used to be annoying but now felt quite endearing.

  “Yes, Mom, he’s here in Vegas, and we’re just going to go for it,” Mel said. “But if it will hurt you not to be here, we’ll wait. We’ll do it when we get home in a traditional ceremony that you and I can spend months planning together.”

  “Are you out of your mind?” Joyce had cried. “Go! Go marry that boy now! He’s the love of your life, Mel. You only get so many chances to find true love. Don’t blow it.”

  Mel had been stunned. “You’re not mad?”

  “Of course not,” Joyce said. “We’ll plan a huge party for you when you come home.”

  “Wow,” Mel said.

  “I love you, baby,” Joyce said. “Now go!”

  Mel had hung up bemused and bewildered and ready to marry her man. She supposed that being so close to death had kicked her in the caboose. The thought that she wouldn’t get to spend her life with Joe—well, it had really clarified what exactly was important to her.

  She thought about Lisa and how losing her baby had tipped her over the edge of crazy and she wondered if that’s what heartbreak did to some people. It sent them to a dark place that they could never leave. She was scared to think about it. If she lost Joe before she got to pledge her life to his, would she go crazy like Lisa?

  The police had grilled Lisa and discovered that her belly was a fake silicone job that she bought online. Apparently, losing her baby had sent her into a tailspin, and she had convinced herself that if she couldn’t provide a baby for Billy like Holly had then it was only a matter of time before he left her to return to Holly.

  Initially, she had only been trying to stop Holly from opening a bakery so that she wouldn’t take Sydney and Billy away from her, but when Scott Jensen had been killed, Lisa had decided she had nothing to lose and that killing Holly by pretending to be a deranged stalker would solve all of her problems, namely, that she would get to raise Sydney as her own and keep her husband.