Killer Kisses

by Sharon Buchbinder

  “Did the guy in your dream say anything?”

  “Vieja sent me. That’s it.”

  “Let’s assume your cousin is correct. What motive would Flora have for having you kidnapped? Was she on drugs, in debt, trying to ransom a child or grandchild in exchange for you?”

  She shook her head. “I’ve known the woman most of my life. She practically raised me. I think she might have had a child or a grandchild? Not sure if it was a girl or a boy. There was a period after I graduated from high school when I went to live with Izzy and I didn’t see her.”

  “How did she come to work for you?”

  “She showed up at my wedding and asked for work. Said she’d fallen on hard times and I was delighted to see her.”

  He put the car in gear and pulled into the traffic. “Not as delighted as she was to see you, apparently.”

  She rubbed her hands over her eyes and sighed. “I’ve been so paranoid. I thought I knew the smirking man at the restaurant. He reminded me of—mierda! He was one of my bodyguards! What the hell is he doing here?”

  Web shook his head. “It feels like a vendetta.”

  Lola’s stomach, which had been nice and full, now knotted. “Eye for eye, tooth for tooth. But why me? What did my family ever do to Flora to justify a blood vendetta?”

  ~*~

  “Just do what I said, and you’ll be fine.” Web squeezed her hands and kissed Lola’s forehead.

  “What about you?”

  He opened the gun safe and slid his sidearm into his holster. “I’ve got a job to do.”

  “Okay.” Her voice was tremulous.

  He knew she was trying to be brave for him. “Lock the doors. I’ll see you soon.”

  ~*~

  A blanket of darkness settled over the house; only a small night light shone in the room, a minor concession. The house sighed as it settled. No. Wait. That wasn’t a normal house sound. Those were footsteps coming down the hall toward the bedroom. A door opened and closed on squeaky hinges. Steps came closer to the bedside. The blanket flew off—

  “Drop your piece or I’ll blow your head off.”

  Mouth gaping, the thug dropped his gun. “Who the hell are you?”

  Web swung his legs over the side of the bed. “I’m Officer Friendly and you are under arrest.”

  Bright lights glared into the windows and a thunder of footsteps shook Web’s little house.

  “Get on the floor. Hands behind you. Spread your legs.” With a nod for the dropped weapon, Web sneered, “This ain’t your first time at the rodeo, is it pal?”

  The back-up squad crowded into the tiny bedroom.

  Web kicked the creep’s legs farther apart and pinioned his wrists with handcuffs.

  “You know,” he said in a conversational tone as he patted the man down, “some people have interesting hobbies…” He pulled roll of duct tape from one pocket. “Like fixing broken pipes with duct tape.” A pair of metal handcuffs appeared from the other hip pocket. “And some folks, they like to play cops and robbers.”

  He tossed the manacles to a buddy in blue and ran his hand down to the left ankle, and removed a Bowie knife from a sheath. “Other people? Well, they like to go deer hunting.” Web yanked up the cuff on the guy's right pant leg, and removed an ankle holster with a snub-nosed thirty-eight. “But, ya know, my friend, I think you have a different kind of hobby. Seems to me, you like to go people hunting.” Web nodded at his team. “Get this scumbag out of here.”

  Two men in blue yanked the thug up to his feet while they read him his Miranda rights.

  Web and his friends marched his captive out to the waiting patrol car, to Lola.

  She threw her arms around him and exploded in sob. “Oh, thank God, you’re okay.”

  He hugged her back. “I told you every cop on the SPD was my friend, even Richard Heade, much to my surprise. He pulled cops off the reunion to back me up.” Maybe it was time to bury the hatchet.

  Lola’s pretty face creased. “You got one kidnapper. What if there are more?”

  “That’s what we’re going to find out. I want you to come to the station and watch the interview. Think you can handle that?”

  She flexed a bicep. “I’ve taken my iron pills. I can handle anything.”

  He smiled. “Look who’s making the jokes now.”

  ~*~

  The thug, whose name according to his Texas driver’s license was Juan Santiago, sat in the interrogation room and stared at the glass.

  To be fair, Web thought, with his hands manacled to the chair which was bolted to the floor, he probably didn’t have much else to look at.

  Web straddled a chair and stared at the man, and nodded to indicate the video recording should begin. “Let me get this right, Juan. Your plan was to grab Ms. Getz, duct tape her mouth, hands and legs, then put her in the trunk of your car and drive from Summerville to Mexico—in the summer,” he paused for effect. “Does that about sum it up?”

  The stocky man stared at him and smirked.

  “Did you finish high school?”

  Santiago curled his lip in a sneer. “I ain’t never gone to school, and I don’t need it for my job, Senor Puerco. I got all the training I need.”

  Web ignored the Senor Puerco comment. In his role as a police officer, he’d been called a lot worse than ‘Mr. Pig’. “Sooo,” Web drew the sound out as long as he could for effect. “You never considered the fact that she’d probably die, before you got her to Mexico?”

  The boy who didn’t go to school appeared to have a sudden brain attack.

  Web let the thought swirl around in Juan’s mind for awhile, then continued. “And, I suppose your employer wanted Ms. Getz alive and well? What if we sent a story out to go to all the newspapers, including Mexico, saying she cooked in the trunk of your car?”

  The little man began to sweat.

  Good. Now he was making progress. “Okay, well, as long as you keep silent, that’s the plan. A reporter from The Summerville Gazette is on the other side of that mirror, just waiting for the sign. He’s been dying for a good story.” Web raised his hand and waved at the one-way mirror.

  “No. Stop. Don't do that!” Juan began to sob. “Don’t. Please don’t. He’ll chop me into fifteen pieces while I’m alive and feed me to his dogs.”

  Web dropped his hand. “What do you propose we do?”

  “Arrest me. Jail me. Keep me away from him.”

  “I don’t know.” Web made a sad face and shook his head. “We’re supposed to extradite you to Mexico.”

  The thug gave him a beseeching look.

  “So, I’m sorry, hombre. We seem to be coming out short on this deal. What’s in it for us?”

  “I’ll tell you who bought the contract, and why.”

  Web waved to his boss who stood beside Lola on the other side of the glass. It was time to bring in the big guns. Deal making was not Web’s job.

  ~*~

  Lola nearly exploded when she heard the man’s tale. It was preposterous, outrageous and absurd. She ran out of adjectives. “Flora’s daughter was on my parent’s plane when it exploded? Why?”

  Web took her elbow and sat her down on a chair by an old metal desk, and handed her a cup of coffee. “The Remember Them? Story about your parents? It was true.”

  She glared at Web, not believing her ears. “You said that newspaper was garbage, full of lies.”

  He shook his head. “While you were in the ladies room and weasel-faced Juan was whining at the DA, I did some checking of my own.” He turned the monitor around, so she could see the face on the screen.

  “Papa?” In the mugshot, her father wore a dirty, ripped tee shirt and looked much younger than she recalled. He held a card with a long number on it, and his name, Rosario Getz. “How could that be? He went to church? Gave to the orphanage---”

  “That was the last mugshot ever taken of your father. He worked smarter and got others to take the fall for him, when things got tough. Your father was chief of an organized crime
syndicate, well ahead of his time.”

  “No, that can’t be.” Her hand shook so badly, coffee spilled on her lap.

  Web took the cup away from her and handed her a napkin.

  “He trafficked in drugs, guns and women. He was going to sell Flora’s daughter to a brothel in New York City—one that specialized in young girls.”

  Cold sweat dripped down her back; she thought she might be sick. Her father, a trafficker? How had she not known? Had she denied the truth? Repressed it all these years? No. He’d never, ever discussed business at home. He always said he was going to work. She assumed he had an office job, a good one. They lived nicely, had help, a walled compound. But so did their other friends.

  The room began to spin.

  She put her forehead on her knees. The daydreaming girl with her mind in the clouds, sketching, painting, dressing in expensive clothes and looking forward to her senior prom, never once realized where all their money came from.

  Just like her life with Rico.

  A sudden realization hit her and took her breath away. Flora had been plotting her revenge for twenty-five years? Then, when she saw Lola’s wedding announced in the newspaper, opportunity knocked. What was the going rate of murder for hire? Chilled, she sat up and wrapped her arms around her chest. “Flora scrimped and saved every single peso she earned—to buy a contract on me, the daughter of the man who stole her child. Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth.”

  Web put his warm hand on her cold one. “She was sick. Grief twisted her, made her lust for revenge for the loss of her one and only child. If it had been me, I don’t know what I would have done.”

  Lola never had children. She had wanted them, but after two miscarriages, Rico told her enough was enough. He didn’t want to see her suffer any more. She begged him to reconsider, but after time, she stopped arguing with him. Her heart twisted with fresh grief at the memory of the loss of her babies.

  She choked back a sob. “I’m glad Flora torched my house and studio. I hope she felt some measure of recompense for the loss of her child. At least, up until the moment, when she caught on fire and died in the flames herself.”

  Tears running down her cheeks, she stood, rigid with determination and anger at the men in her life and the narco terrorists running her country. Her former life—her former country.

  “You’d better get used to me being here in Summerville, because I’m never going back to Mexico.”

  Web stood and tipped her chin up and looked into her eyes. “Welcome home.”

  She sealed the deal with a kiss.

  EPILOGUE

  ~*~

  Lola walked among the older women, stopping on occasion to encourage a student to stroke the canvas with a bold color, urging another to soften her touch, then came to Mrs. Bond. Well, the other Mrs. Bond.

  “How’s it going, Mom?”

  “Oh, dear, I’m worried the colors will clash with my curtains. Is that bad?”

  “To heck with the window treatments. Do you like it?”

  Her mother-in-law cocked her gray head and nodded. “Yes, I do. I like it very much.”

  “That’s all that matters.”

  Web stood in the doorway of Summerville Cove’s new art room. “Nice to see my girls getting along so well.”

  “Webster, what brings you here today?” His mother called out to him.

  “I came to pick up my bride. It’s time for our prenatal exam.” He placed his palm on Lola’s huge belly. “The baby kicked me. I’m not sure he or she likes the doctor’s cold hands.”

  Lola smiled. “At my age, we have to make sure the baby is okay.”

  “Pshaw. I had Webster when I was forty-five. He turned out just fine.”

  Lola gave her husband a sly look. “I’m not so sure about that. He likes damsels in distress.”

  “You are the only damsel I’m interested in.” He took her hand and gently led her toward the door.

  “Webster. Lola. What are you going to name the baby?”

  They stopped and turned. Mom’s new medications seemed to be helping her with her memory, some of the time. But not with baby names, apparently.

  Web squeezed Lola’s hand. “Flora, if it’s a girl.”

  His mother smiled. “Well, what if it’s a boy?”

  Lola squeezed back. “We’ll name him after Webster’s father.” She broke into a huge grin and looked up at Web. “James—James Bond.”

  Delectable and Delicious: An Inn Decent Proposal

  ~*~

  CHAPTER ONE

  ~*~

  Jim Rawlings pulled his rental car into a parking space on the shady street in front of the Summerville Inn and gazed at the huge real estate sign posted on the rusted iron fence.

  Public Auction

  10 AM

  October 31st

  How appropriate, he decided, that the old girl would go up on the block today of all days—Halloween. She’d hosted some pretty terrific costume parties back in the day. Two decades ago, the Summerville Inn bustled with life and vigor, a vacation destination for the rich, famous, and wannabe famous. Now she looked like a decrepit old crone, suitable only for haunting or the latest in slasher flicks. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and worked the odds for getting her up and running.

  With a degree from Cornell’s School of Hotel Administration, he knew the hospitality business inside and out. Renovations wouldn’t be cheap and repairs would take time. But, and it was a gigantic but, where would he find an executive chef? Not just any toque-topped slice-and-dice genius would do for this inn. No, he wanted, and the old gal deserved, a world-class chef de cuisine on a par with those found in the Big Apple or Vegas. No matter how beautiful the setting, the service and fine dining always drove the bottom line.

  He watched people stroll the tree-lined streets and tried to remember the last time he’d been back in Summerville. Had it really been twenty-four—no, almost twenty-five years? Lucky for him the teachers had all liked him; otherwise, he’d still be the oldest senior in SHS. He rubbed the medallion in his pocket, a gift from an old friend, and winced as memories floated back, reminding him of his many screw-ups.

  It wasn’t as if he was stupid. Hell, he’d had nearly perfect scores on his SAT exams. But homework and classes took a backseat to more pressing matters of poker and ponies. Men with heavy accents had phoned his parents’ house day and night, issuing thinly veiled threats about Jim and the money he owed their associates.

  Over and over, his mom and dad begged him to stop, alternating between threats, tears and self-recriminations. When he learned his parents had put a second mortgage on their house to keep him safe, guilt and remorse overwhelmed him. He left town for good the night of his graduation from SHS, telling his teary-eyed mom and red-faced dad that he’d be back once he’d made a name for himself. That day finally arrived, but his folks were gone, taken in a head-on collision with a drunk driver three weeks after he left town.

  He climbed out of the car, opened the shrieking gate and bent to pluck an empty cigarette pack from the overgrown weeds covering what once had been a beautiful plant-lined walkway. At forty-two, he wanted to travel back in time and smack sense into his eighteen-year-old self. What was I thinking?

  A compulsive gambler, Jim had hopped from casino to casino, eking out a living as a waiter to support his mounting habit—until he hit his own personal bottom. And the rocks didn’t get much harder than that. To this day, he could still smell the stink of an Atlantic City low tide as it washed over his nearly lifeless body while thugs in steel-toed boots tuned him up for not paying back his bookie in a timely manner.

  Had it not been for the sudden appearance of an amorous couple under the boardwalk, he wouldn’t be alive today. Later, he found out that the man who saved his life was in town for the Atlantic City Professional Body Building contest—and pissed as hell that he only came in third. Jim rubbed the scar on his eyebrow and mentally thanked the man who came in first that day.

  He turned and eyed
the object of his affection. The Summerville Inn, once a beautiful centerpiece of the little town, had fallen on hard times. The three-story brick building with a Federalist-style façade with its enormous front porches and overgrown ivy still enjoyed a charisma that hadn’t faded, despite its age and disrepair. He climbed the front steps, avoiding broken rocking chairs, crumbling concrete, and detritus of days gone by.

  Leaning on what appeared to be a solid railing Jim closed his eyes and recalled serving drinks and hor d’oeurves to well-dressed, well-heeled guests. He’d been shameless, telling them he was saving money for college. Little did the heavy tippers know they were supporting his expensive habits, not his higher education. He turned and patted the old gal’s wall. Large chunks of peeling paint on the trim revealed pockmarks and pits beneath, damage from ice cold winters and blazing hot summers. He sighed. She needed a lot of work.

  There were no twelve-step programs for run down hotels—but Jim had enough Gamblers Anonymous experience to share with everyone, including this dame. He’d done his homework, gotten an in-depth inspection report. Down, but not out, it was time to get her back on her feet. If he could do it for himself, he knew he could do it for her.

  He crunched through weeds and kicked empty beer cans to the side on his way back to his car. The bank was still open. He’d bring a cashier’s check for the largest amount of money he’d ever been able to save in his life—half a million dollars. He touched the medallion once more for good luck. By noon tomorrow, the Inn would be his. No one in their right mind would out-bid him. The odds of that happening were a million to one—of that he was one hundred percent certain.

  ~*~

  Genie King sat at her chipped Formica kitchen counter and ran her index finger down the spreadsheet for the fourth time in the last thirty minutes. The reserve price for the auction was two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Knowing Beth Heade, Genie was certain that her obnoxious husband, Dick Heade, would be there as a plant in the audience to bid up the price. If she bought the Inn for three hundred thousand that would leave her another two hundred thousand to fix it up. But, if she had to go as high as four hundred, that meant she’d have to obtain a home equity line on top of the mortgage she’d already taken out.