Blazing Summer (Darling Investigations Book 2)

by Denise Grover Swank

  “Where do you think you’re goin’?” she asked.

  “I’m gonna wait for Luke outside.” I took several more steps, pretty proud of myself for not wobbling more.

  “Don’t you dare drive!” she called after me, loud enough to catch people’s attention. Including Rick Springfield’s. His gaze landed on me, and something dark flashed in his eyes.

  Oh, shit.

  I hurried outside and tried to remember where I’d parked my truck since the lot was fuller now. It was close to the street, and if he ran out after me, he’d catch me in a heartbeat. Instead, I ran around to the other side of the building, nearly falling on my face when I rounded the corner. Maybe if he didn’t see me, he’d go back inside.

  “Summer Butler!” I heard him shout. “Where the fuck are you? We have some things to discuss!”

  My heart hammered in my chest. How far away was Luke? Could I hide until he got here?

  “Summer,” I heard someone whisper behind me.

  Startled, I shrieked and then immediately clamped a hand over my mouth to keep from giving myself away any more than I already had. I was relieved to see Bruce Jepper.

  “Are you okay?” he asked with wide eyes.

  “No. Rick Springfield is after me.”

  “Rick Springfield? What did you do to piss him off?”

  “I know about his involvement in April Jean’s murder. I suspect he got April Jean to drive Dixie’s car from our farm.”

  He stared at me for several long seconds as though he was thinking about something. “Did he tell you what he did?”

  “No,” I whispered. “I’ve been collecting facts, but I’m too drunk to confront him with it. I’m waiting for Luke to come get me. I just need to hide from Rick until he gets here.”

  “I’ll help you hide. We can go get in my car, and I’ll call Teddy so he doesn’t worry about you.”

  “Thanks, Bruce.”

  He took my arm and led me along the side of the building and then around the back. I saw an older Cadillac in the corner by the dumpster.

  “Summer Butler!” Rick shouted, sounding closer.

  “Leave her alone,” Nash said. “You’re makin’ a scene.”

  “That bitch knows too much. She’s gonna ruin everything.”

  “Leave her alone.”

  Bruce was practically running toward the car, dragging me with him. He opened the back door. “Here. Get inside, and I’ll get rid of him.”

  I fell into the car, none too gracefully, and he shoved my feet inside before shutting the door.

  “Jepper!” Rick said. “You’re late. You got it?”

  “Shut up,” Bruce said, then there was silence.

  I popped up in the back seat enough to look out the tinted back window. Bruce was standing in front of Rick, but I didn’t see Nash anywhere.

  Why was Bruce talking to Rick? Was he actually trying to get rid of him?

  Rick grabbed the front of Bruce’s shirt and hauled him closer. Bruce’s face screwed up, but he pushed the bigger man’s hand away. As soon as he was freed up, he removed an envelope from his back pocket and handed it to Rick.

  Why was Bruce giving Rick money?

  Rick opened the envelope, peered inside, and stuffed it into his back pocket. He put his hand on Bruce’s shirt to smooth out the wrinkles, then clapped his hand on Bruce’s cheek. Whistling a tune I didn’t recognize, Rick headed toward the front of the building.

  Bruce watched him walk away, his chest heaving. Then he glanced down at the ground and stared at it for several long seconds.

  I wasn’t sure what was going on, but I was pretty sure I didn’t want to find out . . . at least not in this state. Now seemed like a good time to leave. I grabbed the door handle, but the door didn’t open. Frantically searching for the door locks, I realized they’d been removed. Who in their right mind removed door locks from the back of a car?

  Oh, shit.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  I dove between the two front seats, aiming for the driver’s door, just in time to see Bruce standing outside the window, watching me with a look of pity.

  I tried to hit the “Lock” button to keep him out, but he opened the door before I could push it.

  “Let me out of this car, Bruce Jepper!”

  “I can’t!” he said, sounding pissed. “You know too much.”

  “I don’t know what he has on you, but we can go to the police together,” I said. “We can bring him down.”

  He shook his head as he leaned over and pushed me hard into the back seat. Without a backward glance, he got inside the car and locked it.

  “Why are you doing this?”

  He remained silent.

  “Oh, my God,” I said as the truth hit me hard. “You killed April Jean.”

  “Shut up, Summer,” he said, starting the engine.

  “Luke is gonna find out you did this! If you turn yourself in, maybe you can get a plea bargain if you help them bring down Rick.”

  He shook his head as he gripped the steering wheel and reached for the key in the ignition. “No. I can’t. I’ll never get out of prison. Her murder was too cold-blooded.”

  He started to back up, and I knew if he got out of this parking lot, I was as good as dead.

  “Stop! Wait! I can help you out of this.”

  The car came to a halt, but it was still in reverse, which meant I had some fancy talking to do. We could see the highway from here, but the back windows were tinted, which meant no one would be able to see in.

  “Let’s just look at the facts, okay? Maybe there’s a way out, because I know you don’t want to kill me.” He was friends with Teddy. I needed to play that up. “Think about Teddy. Dixie’s in jail and will probably be sentenced to life. If you kill me, Teddy will lose his shit. Don’t you owe it to your friend to at least entertain another possibility?”

  He shoved the gearshift into park. “You have a couple of minutes. This needs to be done before Luke gets here.” He sounded exhausted.

  Where to start? My brain was fuzzy. I decided to pitch my ideas and see if any stuck. “Rick drugged Dixie.”

  “Duh.”

  Not duh to me, but I was drunk, so I’d give it to him. I thought about April Jean and Rick commiserating in the house at Luke’s party. Dixie said they’d acted like they were scheming. “April Jean was in on it.”

  “Yeah.”

  My mind was rolling now. “April Jean stuck around at the party until Rick came back, then she helped him get Dixie into his truck . . . But why? Did Rick rape her?”

  “Hell if I know. I do know Dixie wouldn’t give him the time of day, and it pissed him off. So . . .”

  “So . . . ,” I said, “if he had her in a position to do whatever he liked, he’d take advantage of that.”

  “Rick sees what he wants, and he takes it.” I was horrified that he sounded envious.

  I gasped as another thought hit me. “Did you rape her?”

  “No.”

  I wasn’t sure I believed him. But I had to figure out their plan. Why would they drug Dixie and dump her by the lake?

  Then I realized I was an idiot.

  Garrett had told Teddy and me in the group message that April Jean’s precious drawings hadn’t burned down with the trailer. “It was April Jean’s plan. She got Rick to drug Dixie and then set fire to her trailer. They made sure she was close enough to the fire to smell like smoke before dumping her at the lake. April Jean was setting her up. She’d get the insurance money, and Dixie would end up in jail.” And out of the way for her to go after Trent.

  Bruce’s jaw tightened.

  “You didn’t help?”

  “I wasn’t part of their plan.” But the way he said it was cagey.

  He’d been hitting on April Jean at the party, and she’d shot him down. If he’d seen her leave with Rick . . . “You saw them put Dixie into Rick’s truck.”

  He didn’t deny it.

  “Did you follow them?”

  “They didn�
�t come straight to her trailer. So I was there waitin’ on them when they showed up a half hour later.”

  “You were waiting to confront April Jean at her trailer?”

  “At the party she told me she’d give me a shot, so I thought if I was there, she might let me in,” he said, his anger rising. “Especially after she found out . . .”

  “Found out what?”

  He looked at me in the rearview mirror. “You know I can’t let you go, right?” he asked. “In fact, you won’t leave this parking lot. You know too much. I feel like it’s only fair to tell you that.”

  My stomach roiled, and my heart jumped into my throat. Keep him talking. Buy time. If he shot me, hopefully my pendant was recording, and my death wouldn’t be in vain. At least I’d save Dixie. I snuck a glance toward the highway, trying not to be obvious about it. If I shifted to the right, I could make it look like I was trying to see him, but I’d get a view of the highway. I could see when Luke pulled in.

  “I know.” I prayed Luke would get here before it came to that. But I still needed to come up with a plan to let him know I was back here. “April Jean found out something about you . . . the fires at your place and hers were the same,” I said, thinking out loud. “Garrett said the last one was different.”

  “We were all drinkin’, and I’d had too much. I knew she liked bad boys, so I thought if I told her . . .”

  “That you started your own fire for the insurance money?”

  “I wanted her to think I was dark enough for her.” He paused before adding, “I’ve lost a lot of money since Trent came back to town. I figured if I could just get out from under it . . .”

  “But she used it against you?”

  “Rick made me start her fire.”

  “In her trailer?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So what happened after you started the fire?”

  “Rick said I was part of it, so he made me help him take Dixie to the lake. To make sure I was good and involved.”

  “And you’d keep their secret.”

  “Yeah.”

  “If they were setting Dixie up for starting the fire, why text me? Why not make an anonymous call to 911? The sheriff would find out about April Jean’s fire, figure out she’d been arguing with Dixie, and then there’d be Dixie herself, drugged up and smelling like smoke. Nice and airtight. Why take the long way around?”

  “That was my doin’. Teddy’s my friend, and I felt bad hurtin’ him like that, so I told them I’d take care of the call. Instead, I used Dixie’s fingerprint to unlock her phone, and I texted you. I figured if anyone could keep her safe, you could.”

  Only I hadn’t. “I bet April Jean was pissed the next day, huh? She expected Dixie to be in custody, and she figured you must have screwed her over.”

  “She was madder than a wet hornet and threatened to turn me in for settin’ both fires, but I knew part of her plan had been to hurt Dixie, so I told her that we could still set Dixie up.”

  “So you both went out to our farm, and April Jean took Dixie’s car. You planned to stash Dixie’s car somewhere, shoot her up with heroin, and stow the arson kit in her trunk. Where’d you get the heroin? Rick?”

  He didn’t answer, but there wasn’t any need. It was obvious enough.

  I realized we were getting dangerously close to the end of his story. “You waited until you had the right opportunity, then kidnapped her. But why did you kill April Jean?”

  “I didn’t plan to . . . not in the beginnin’. But she kept humiliatin’ me. She told me she’d never sleep with someone like me. That she was usin’ me at the party as cover until Rick turned up to get Dixie, and I’d been too stupid to figure it out.” He shrugged. “I snapped.”

  “How’d you get her in the thrift store?”

  “That part wasn’t hard. She was already dead. In fact, I shot her right where you’re sitting.” He reached into the glove compartment and got out a gun. I didn’t know a lot about guns, but I was pretty sure the long, skinny thing attached to the barrel was a silencer.

  My adrenaline spiked, and I felt like I was going to vomit. He sounded so cold. Absolutely remorseless. And now he was about to shoot me in the very seat where I was sitting.

  Don’t give in to panic, Summer. Figure a way out of this.

  I considered the timeline. April Jean was seen in Dixie’s car around three, and Dixie disappeared after three thirty. “But you kidnapped Dixie first.”

  “April Jean insisted on watching the whole thing so she could make sure it was done right. She sat in the back and played back-seat driver. Kept laughing at me for struggling to get Dixie in the car, and when I got inside, she told me that she bet I was like Trent and couldn’t get it up. She said she’d never know for sure, so she’d just believe it. And in that moment, I knew what I had to do. Women are supposed to respect men, and she wasn’t respecting me. So I got the gun, turned around, and shot her.” He turned around to face me, his face completely blank. “That’s how I’ll shoot you. It won’t hurt.”

  The way he was so casually talking about murdering me set my nerves on edge. “But it would have been loud. Didn’t it hurt your eardrums?”

  He pulled out a pair of padded headphones. “I wear these at the gun ranges. I figured the silencer would muffle most of the sound, but I decided to play it safe. So I put them on before I got the gun out. She made fun of me for that too. She wasn’t laughing about five seconds later.”

  My breath was coming in rapid pants. Freaking out wouldn’t help me, although at least I was feeling a lot more alert than before. I supposed imminent death would sober anyone up.

  Keep him talking.

  “So Rick found out that April Jean had been murdered.” I thought about the envelope of money. “He figured out you did it and blackmailed you. But you had dirt on him too.” I thought about my stalemate with Elijah Sterling. “If one of you caved, the other one fell too.”

  “But mine was a whole lot worse than his.”

  “Trust me, save your money. Rick’s not gonna risk goin’ to prison.” No, I suspected Rick would kill Bruce first and feed him to his alligator.

  I saw Luke’s truck pull into the parking lot, and I fought hard to not show a reaction. “So you’re just gonna keep payin’ Rick money? He’s the kind of guy who will bleed you dry.”

  He tapped his thumb on the steering wheel. “Yeah, I’ve considered that too. The thing about guys like Rick is that they’re a lot like the April Jeans of the world—they don’t think someone like me is capable of doing anything really bad.”

  Luke was already standing next to my truck, giving the empty interior a worried look.

  How was I going to get his attention?

  The real question was, How was I going to distract Bruce? Did I dare try to use my pepper spray in this enclosed car? But my biggest concern was to keep Bruce talking, because if he saw Luke, he’d shoot me immediately.

  I slid to the side of the seat a bit to hide my purse, then leaned forward. “I never underestimated you,” I said, riding a fine line of flirting and playing coy. I slipped my hand into my purse and started to rummage around, trying to keep my shoulder behind the headrest. “When I heard about your house fire, I took one look at you and thought to myself, ‘Now that man looks like he could commit an arson.’”

  A frown tugged at his lips. “You’re just sayin’ that to make me feel better.”

  My hand closed around the can of pepper spray. I transferred it to my left hand, the side with more access but a lower likelihood of success. “Nope. I may be with Luke, but when Teddy and I left your house, I asked him if you were single. And if you liked to play with fire.”

  Skepticism hardened his face. “And what did he say?”

  “He said you were single, and he didn’t know about the fires, but he warned me to stay away from you. He told me I couldn’t date his friend.”

  He sat upright and turned to face me more, holding the gun out to his side and pointing it at the passenger wind
ow. “Teddy said that?” He sounded pissed.

  The timing was never going to get better than this, especially since Luke was headed for the bar’s entrance. This was far from foolproof, but if it didn’t work, I was getting shot anyway. Might as well go down fighting. Still, I’d never been more scared in my life. I had to play this role to the end.

  “Yeah,” I said in a husky voice, “but I’ve never been much of a rule follower, you know?” I leaned forward, parting my lips as though I was about to kiss him. I sure hoped the look in my eyes said sultry and not so terrified I’m about to pee my pants.

  Bruce seemed surprised, but he twisted to get a better look at me.

  Before he got too close, I lifted the can and sprayed, leaping past him to lay on the horn with my right hand.

  He coughed and cursed. Although it hadn’t been part of my initial plan, I’d managed to trap his gunslinging arm.

  Bruce was still squirming and cussing me out. I could see Luke sprinting toward us as I kept the horn going, but Bruce was wriggling around with the gun, trying to angle it up toward me.

  Pulling my left arm back, I smashed my elbow into his nose as hard as I could. He screamed in pain, and I reached for the “Unlock” button—the click of the doors unlocking the sweetest sound I’d ever heard.

  I threw myself in the back seat and grabbed the door handle, getting the door open just before he clicked the locks again.

  “Luke!” I screamed as I scrambled out. “He has a gun! Be careful.”

  The driver’s door opened, and Bruce fell out, pointing his gun in front of him and pulling the trigger.

  The gunshot echoed through the parking lot.

  I was terrified for Luke. He was on the side of the building with absolutely no cover, but he ducked and lifted his own gun, aiming at Bruce.

  I was on my hands and knees, trying to get to my feet as Bruce dove on top of me, tackling me to the ground. He pressed the gun to my temple and shouted, “I’ll kill her, Luke. Back off.”

  “He’s gonna kill me anyway,” I said, trying not to cry. “He told me he won’t let me go alive.”