by Marla Monroe
Amos laughed. “I’ll tell her you said that if you aren’t careful.”
Andy shivered and waved him off. “I’m going back to work. See if you can get some done yourself. I hear we’ve got a long weekend ahead of us.”
Amos chuckled and settled down to review the latest spreadsheet of expenses from one of their clients. The more he studied the numbers, the more something kept nagging him. At first he thought there was something wrong with the spreadsheet or the entries that had been made, but after nearly an hour of tracing every line, Amos realized it didn’t have anything at all to do with the client’s latest entries. He was still subconsciously bugged about Carol’s motives and the fact she was related to Gideon. What were the odds?
* * * *
Dee looked over her schedule for the next day and frowned. There weren’t any appointments scheduled on her calendar. She checked the date to be sure she hadn’t tapped the wrong key but it was correct.
“Hazel! Is something wrong with the calendar program?” she called out.
Hazel walked into her office and frowned. “What do you mean? I haven’t noticed anything. It was working fine when I was on it at lunch.”
“I don’t have any clients scheduled for tomorrow,” she said waving her hand at the monitor.
“But I thought you told me to keep tomorrow free. You said something about surprising the guys or something.”
“What?”
Dee tried to think back over the last few days but couldn’t remember saying anything to the woman about Friday. Had she said something to her about taking a long weekend and just eloping and Hazel misunderstood her?
Maybe she’d said something and didn’t remember. She’d been so bogged down with clients the last few weeks and then spending more time trying to figure out what Carol’s angle had been when she’d set her up to find her with the guys. It was possible she had said something along those lines. It had been difficult to keep what she was doing from Amos and Andy, but she didn’t want them to think she was doubting them. She just didn’t want the other woman trying something again.
“I don’t know. Maybe I said something.” Dee rubbed her temples with her fingers. Her head felt like a barrel of monkeys were turning cartwheels in it.
“Look. It’s almost five now. Go ahead and take something for that headache. I’ll close the office. Go on,” Hazel walked over and pulled her chair back, waving her out of it. “Let those two men take care of you tonight.”
“More than likely, I’ll be napping on the couch with cats. I’m really tired, Hazel. Take tomorrow off, as well. There’s no reason for you to be here if I’m not. Just set up the answering machine.” Dee grabbed her purse and tidied up her desk before making sure the computer shut down. “I’ll see you on Monday.”
“Have a good weekend, boss.” Hazel waved as Dee stepped outside the office and drew in a deep breath.
She thought about heading over to the guy’s office but decided her head just hurt too much to do that. She needed something for the pain and a nap. Maybe the couch and the cats as a blanket would work just fine.
As soon as she walked into the house, Dee knew something wasn’t quite right. For one thing, the dog didn’t race to greet her and she didn’t see the cats asleep on the guy’s lounge chairs. Still, it didn’t occur to her that whatever was off might be dangerous. She figured a door had been left open and the animals had flown the coop or had managed to get into a bedroom somewhere.
Dee dropped her purse on the end table and kicked off her shoes. She padded in her stocking feet to the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water then searched until she found a bottle of aspirin. When she’d swallowed the pills and drained the glass, Dee returned to the living room and sank on the couch in relief. She fell into a hazy sleep that wasn’t quite deep enough to dim her awareness of the room around her.
Several minutes passed as she lay there letting her mind wander from one thought to the next in no real order when she became aware of someone else in the room. It wasn’t the dog or the cats. It was a person. She was positive. Instead of waking up, Dee fought to keep that hazy state to see who it was and what they were doing.
Through her eyelashes, Dee could see the figure move closer from the direction of the stairs. It had to move almost directly in front of her before she realized it was Carol and the woman had a knife in one hand.
Everything froze as horror filled her veins like slushy ice water. She was going to kill her. The woman who she’d thought for years had been her best friend was going to stab her to death if she didn’t do something fast. Just like the icy blood in her veins, her body felt sluggish as she reacted and tried to jump out of the way.
“Carol!” she screamed as she attempted to crawl over the back of the couch.
A searing pain sliced through the back of her left shoulder just before she fell to the floor on the other side. Dee scrambled to her feet and raced for the front door. For once she wished the guys didn’t live so far off the road. At the last minute, Dee made a sharp left and headed for the stairs. Carol screamed behind her.
“Stop! You’re supposed to die!” the other woman yelled.
Dee didn’t know how badly she might be bleeding and figured if she tried to get to the road and flag someone down, she might not make it. Either she’d falter from blood loss or the other woman would run her down. Carol had longer legs and wasn’t injured as far as she knew. Her best bet was to lock herself in one of the bedrooms. Maybe the guys would come home soon. Which only worried her more that they’d walk in to a deranged woman wielding a knife. Maybe she could climb out a window and sneak her way to the road to flag them down.
As if from a long distance away, Dee could hear Carol screaming at her while she imagined she could feel the other woman’s breath on the back of her neck. She focused hard to put one foot in front of the other, and as soon as she topped the stairs, Dee threw herself into the first bedroom and locked the door. Then she raced to the bathroom and closed that door as well.
“The bathroom door doesn’t lock on this side! What do I do?” Dee mumbled to herself as she looked around at the weaving furniture surrounding her.
She grabbed the dresser and shoved with all her might. It moved inch by slow inch until she had the bathroom door mostly blocked. Everything seemed to blur in front of her and darkness edged from the outside of her sight. She couldn’t pass out. What was wrong with her?
One thought after another flew through her mind like winged birds while she felt her body was moving in slow motion. Everything around her waved in and out. Why did she feel so funny? And how had Carol known she would come home first in order to be waiting on her?
The first thought that formed was that Hazel was in on it and had cleared her schedule so she would go home early. But how would the other woman have known she’d have a headache? She quickly dismissed that possibility. Hazel wouldn’t do something like that, would she? Dee hadn’t believed Carol would either.
Carol started beating on the door leading from the hall. Her screaming started to make sense in a warped sort of way. The woman was crazy. That was a given, but it slowly sank in that she blamed Dee for losing her money. How had she made Carol lose her money? She didn’t even know Carol had any money.
Dee dropped to her knees then crawled toward the closet door. It took several tries to turn the knob and pull it open enough she could scoot inside. Dee had no idea what the woman was talking about, but it really didn’t matter in the scheme of thing. Carol wanted to kill her for something so no amount of trying to reason with her could make any difference.
Once she had the closet door closed, Dee shoved her way to the deepest corner and prayed that someone would come before Carol managed to get into the room. Then she prayed that the deranged woman wouldn’t hurt one of the guys when they arrived.
White-hot pain where Carol had managed to slice her back kept her focused just enough that she didn’t pass out, but something was still affecting her equilibrium, as well a
s her strength. Dee didn’t think she’d lost enough blood to make her this weak.
I don’t understand what’s wrong with me. I feel like I’ve been drugged. I haven’t had anything except that aspirin and water. How would Carol know to drug the aspirin bottle? Why would she expect me to head straight for something for a headache?
The more she tried to think, the worse the confusion and dizziness became until she forgot what she was thinking and why she was in a dark room on her hands and knees. When she started shaking, Dee finally lay down and closed her eyes.
Chapter Sixteen
“Wake up, baby. Can you hear us?”
Dee recognized Amos’s voice but not the tone. He sounded worried. Why was he worried? Had something happened to Andy? She struggled to get her eyes to open but they remained stubbornly closed.
“She’s moving some. Her eyelids are fluttering.”
That was Andy’s voice. So he was fine. Why were they so worried? She needed to wake up and ask. Dee tried to lick her lips, but her tongue felt like an emery board and her mouth was like a dry canyon.
“W–what’s wrong?” she managed to get out at last. She still couldn’t get her eyes to cooperate.
“Dee, baby. How do you feel?” Amos asked.
“Dry. Why am I so thirsty?” she asked. Her voice sounded just as dry and cracked as her lips felt.
“Here you go. Just sip it first to be sure you don’t get sick. You were drugged, honey.” Andy’s voice sounded choked up.
Wait, had he said drugged? She’d been drugged? Why? Who had drugged her?
“What are you talking about?” she asked after Andy took the straw away from her.
“I said small slow sips, Dee. You’ll make yourself sick.” Andy’s voice was sharp, and then he cursed and she felt warm lips on her forehead. “I’m sorry, honey. I was so worried.”
“S’okay. What happened? I can’t remember anything. Where am I?”
Dee struggled to open her eyes again and this time she managed to get one of them open to a small slit. The light burned, bringing tears to her eyes.
“You won’t remember anything, baby girl. She gave you Rohypnol, so you wouldn’t remember anything in case you got away, and you did, but she didn’t,” Amos told her.
“Who?” she asked.
“Carol. She tried to kill you, but you managed to get away from her. We got home and found blood all over the living room. Then we could hear Carol screaming at you. We didn’t think we were going to get to you in time, but we did,” Andy said.
Dee’s eyes finally opened all the way and the sight that met her was almost frightening. Both men had blood on them with their shirts in tatters. Amos had scratches on one shoulder and arm, and Andy had a rather large bandage around his left arm.
“Are you okay? Amos, Andy? What happened?” she cried out as she realized what must have happened. It didn’t matter that she couldn’t remember. She knew enough to know that Carol had tried to kill her and them from the looks of it.
“We stopped her from opening the closet door where you’d hid. She fought us and since she had a knife, it wasn’t easy to get it away from her. Once we had her down, Amos grabbed you and ran downstairs calling for help. I used the top sheet off the bed to tie Carol up then locked her in the hall closet until the sheriff’s office arrived. Are you in any pain?” Andy asked.
“No. I don’t think so. Did I get hurt?” Dee tried to think back, but it was like a moving fog of sand. She couldn’t see through it.
“She managed to cut you on the back of your left shoulder. It’s not bad, but they had to put in eight stitches,” Amos said then kissed her on the nose. “We were so scared, baby. I thought I was going to die right there when I felt all that blood. I thought she’d killed you.”
Dee tried to reach up to comfort him, but her hand wouldn’t cooperate. When she looked down, she realized she had a sling on her arm.
“What happened to my arm?” she asked.
“Nothing, honey. They put the sling on your arm to keep you from trying to move that shoulder too much until it starts to heal,” Andy explained.
“Oh.” Something clicked with her. “I keep thinking this was about money and I made her lose it. Does that make sense?”
“Baby, it’s a long story. Why don’t you rest and we’ll go over it when you’ve had time to recover some.” Amos ran his hand over her head.
“The animals! What did she do to them? Wouldn’t Dozer have tried to stop her?” Dee couldn’t bear it if she’d done something to their pets.
“They’re fine, baby. She’d lured them into the laundry room and shut them up in there.” Amos sighed. “Try and rest. We almost lost you.”
“I need to know why. I have to know what I did to make her so mad she’d try and kill me.” Dee couldn’t rest without knowing.
She watched as the two men exchanged looks then gave each other small nods. Dee could see she was going to have to watch them or they’d constantly gang up on her.
“Do you remember Gideon Snow?” Amos asked her.
She dug through her memory and thought about the older man she’d referred to them for tax reasons. He’d wanted to set up some sort of trust to help with taxes and that wasn’t something she felt comfortable doing when there were two experienced accountants living there in town as well. They’d just started dating when that happened.
“Yes. I remember him. I remember because I thought how appropriate that he had a head full of snow-white hair,” she said with a small smile. “I wasn’t making fun of him. It was just a way to remember him.”
“We know. We thought the same thing the first time he came to talk to us,” Amos said.
“What does he have to do with Carol and the money I made her lose?” Dee asked.
“Carol is a very distant cousin of Gideon but only by birth. Her mother wasn’t actually married to a Snow. No one knew about her at all until she showed up in town nearly eight years ago and befriended Gideon while she worked at the bank,” Andy told her. “She had planned to find out who would end up being the recipients of the supposed millions the Snows were worth and bleed them for money by threatening to contest the will and tie it up in court for years.”
“Only she found out that there were no other relatives to milk, only Gideon. That’s when she decided to become his best friend and take care of him when he got old. Once he changed the will to make her the heir, she was going to slowly poison him with something she could put in his coffee every morning. He drank it with sugar and she was going to use a chemical called sodium azide, which was used in airbags at one time. When they realized it was too toxic in the quantities they needed for the airbag, they stopped using it in favor of a less toxic chemical. Even though they don’t use that anymore, Carol managed to get her hands on some out of a junkyard,” Amos said.
“I can’t believe she was that evil and I thought she was my best friend all those years. I never even thought of her as anything but sweet and kind to me. Am I that bad of a judge of character?” Dee asked.
“No, baby. You couldn’t have known. She’s sick. There’s no way you would have known that. She had years of growing up with her deranged, bitter mother shoving what they didn’t have down her throat. You ended up in the way or you would never have known that side of her,” Amos told her.
“How did I get in the way?” she finally asked.
“You sent Gideon to us to set up a trust so that no one could get to his money now or after he died. It all goes to a list of charities he supports. She wanted that money and in her eyes, you screwed her out of it by sending him to us. Carol encouraged you to date us then set us all up to fall in a twisted plan to cause you the most pain. She honestly thought you’d commit suicide when you caught us with her, but she didn’t recognize a strong woman when she saw one.” Andy kissed the knuckles of her right hand.
“She actually admitted to trying to drug us that night. We might have ingested some of the drug she added to our beer, but we didn’t get
enough of it to affect us like it did you. All it did was soften our defenses. It nearly incapacitated you, baby,” Amos told her.
“It really doesn’t make sense, guys. She wasn’t going to gain anything no matter what she did. Why did she try again?” Dee needed to understand since most of her night was wiped from her memory.
“It wasn’t about getting anything anymore, honey,” Andy told her. “It was all about revenge. She wanted to hurt you for what she thought you did to her.”
“But I’m not the one who actually set up the trust. You two did. Why wasn’t she going after you instead of me?”
“I’m not sure, Dee. Why does anyone crazy do anything that they do? They have warped and twisted thoughts that don’t make sense to anyone but them,” Amos mused, shaking his head.
“How did she get the drug into me? I know I didn’t willingly take it from her,” Dee said.
“She snuck into the office at lunch when you were working but Hazel had stepped out to grab you both a sandwich from the diner. She knew you well enough to be sure that you would drink a cup of coffee around three. You always put a drop of milk in it so she drugged the milk,” Andy said.
“Hazel rarely drinks coffee and wouldn’t touch real milk for anything. Everyone knows she’s a health food nut and only drinks almond milk. Carol did her homework and made sure it would give you a pounding headache so that you would take the other drug when you got home. None of it would be traceable after so many hours, and she had planned to make it look like you committed suicide.” Amos shook his head.
“She got too antsy and jumped the gun, not letting the drug work in your system long enough before she attacked. You were able to get away,” Andy said.
“Normally we work late on Thursdays since we usually leave early on Fridays. Everyone knows that. She was banking on it, but she didn’t know that we had plans. We showed up too early,” Amos told her. “The second you left, Hazel called us to let us know the plan had worked but that you had left early because of a headache. We rushed to close up and get home to make sure you were okay.”