by Kim Alexis
“Knock-knock.”
Crystal looked up. A head poked around the corner and she realized it was Mrs. Peterson, of all people. Her landlady. At this hour? It had to be after midnight!
“May I come in, dear?”
Crystal nodded, though a part of her wanted to push the sweet older woman away, to say, Steer clear! Danger ahead! Avoid the misguided fool with the target on her back! But words still wouldn’t come, so she watched, helpless, as the woman shuffled into the room and over to the bed, then leaned forward to kiss her on the cheek. She smelled of lavender sachets and bayberry soap, and for a long moment Crystal allowed herself to disappear into that scent, to take comfort in the feeling of her gentle embrace. But then Mrs. Peterson pulled up a chair and sat, and Crystal felt herself slipping back down in the void, back down into the pain.
“I told a little white lie.” The woman clasped her hands and tucked them in her lap. “They wouldn’t let me in to see you, so I said I was your grandmother. I hope you don’t mind. I just couldn’t bear to think of you in here by yourself, and I knew the rules were different for family members.”
She gazed at Crystal, waiting for a reply. Crystal tried, but the best she could give in return was a nod.
“Oh that’s right, they told me you were having trouble with your voice. Well, not to worry. I won’t stay long. I just needed to see for myself that you were okay—and to let you know that if there’s anything you need, I’m your girl. Don’t hesitate to give me a call, okay?”
Crystal nodded, her eyes filling with tears.
“Oh, my, and now I’ve made you cry.” Mrs. Peterson teared up herself. With a sympathetic cluck of the tongue, she scooted forward in her chair and opened her arms.
Crystal couldn’t help it, she flung herself forward and buried her face against the woman’s soft shoulder, allowing the tears to flow in earnest. Her body was wracked with sobs as sorrow washed over her. In her. Through her.
Scared to let go, she clung to the older woman like a drowning man to a life preserver, holding on tight long after she ran out of tears.
JULIETTE WANTED NOTHING MORE than to see Marcus. Only then would she know for sure that he really was okay. The moment the nurse handed over her discharge papers from the ER, Juliette touched base with Didi, then took off for Room 311, where rumor had it that Marcus was “waiting and eager” to see her.
It was all she could do not to run down the quiet, shiny hallways as she made her way there. She didn’t even stop to look in a mirror or clean herself up. She just kept going until she was at his door.
Taking a deep breath, she gave a light knock and pushed it open. But as soon as she stepped inside and heard what Marcus was saying, she realized this was the exact wrong moment to interrupt. Deep in conversation, he was finally telling his mother the truth about the past and the real reason for this trip.
Juliette tiptoed back out without either one even realizing she was there. Then she stood in the hallway for a long moment, telling herself she would just have to be patient. This was important, and it couldn’t be easy for either of them.
Crystal. Until Marcus was free, Juliette would pay a visit to Crystal. She’d gotten the room number from Didi, so she headed there now, this time taking the elevator in deference to what the ER doc said was a sorely bruised tailbone.
Sore was right.
She stepped out onto the second floor just as a cute little old woman stepped in. Sporting a flowered print dress and brown orthopedic shoes, she looked straight out of central casting, like somebody’s tiny, sweet grandma.
Juliette made her way to 216, knocked, and stepped inside. There she found Crystal lying in the bed by the window, eyes closed, skin pale against the white sheets. The poor thing.
She’d been through so much.
There was an empty chair beside the bed, so Juliette gingerly lowered her aching frame into it, reached out, and touched Crystal’s arm. The girl’s eyes opened, and from their red and swollen rims, Juliette could tell that she’d been crying.
“Hey,” Juliette whispered. “How are you doing?”
Crystal shrugged.
So, still not talking.
Juliette waved her papers. “I’m all checked out, thank goodness. Nothing serious, except for the next few weeks I’m not supposed to jog or do any heavy exercise, and I’ve been told to avoid loud noises. Also, they said my tailbone may get worse before it gets better—and that it could take a long time to heal.”
Crystal gestured toward Juliette’s forearm, which was covered with a bandage.
“Three stitches, no biggie. Doctor said it might not even leave a scar.”
Juliette took a deep breath, leaned forward, let it out slowly. Then she met the young woman’s gaze. “Crystal, I have to ask you something. Something important.”
The girl nodded, eyes wide.
“Just before the explosion, just before Greg let you go . . .” She sat up straight again, adjusted for the pain at her lower back, tried to decide how to phrase what she wanted to know. “He whispered something to you.”
Crystal’s red eyes filled with tears even as she nodded.
“What was it? What did he say?”
The girl closed her eyes, rivers of tears coursing down her cheeks. As she reached for a tissue and tried to pull herself together, Juliette found pen and paper in the bedside table drawer and handed them over. Crystal grimaced, as if she would rather not.
Still, she held the pad, pen poised over it, looked like she was about to write. Then she lowered both to her lap, met Juliette’s eyes, and spoke in a soft whisper.
“He said, ‘I know how it has to end now.’”
Juliette sat back, taking that in.
I know how it has to end now?
Of course. This man who killed and kidnapped and lied and injured and tormented all of these people had found a way to turn his own death into something noble, a sacrifice for the sake of this fragile young woman in front of her. Shame on him.
Shame on him.
“What do you think he meant by that?” Juliette tried to keep her voice neutral, glad at least that the girl was able to talk after all.
Crystal dabbed at her tears, looked away and continued in a soft, almost ashamed voice. “That he decided to kill himself rather than have to kill me.”
Juliette nodded, letting that sit there for a while, not sure how to respond. Surely Crystal understood there was nothing here to admire.
“Do you respect him for that?” she asked finally.
Crystal’s head jerked up and spoke louder this time, her voice filled with emotion. “No! I hate him for that! How dare he put that on me, like he was giving his life for mine. Yeah, so he died for me, so does that make his death my fault? I don’t think so. I don’t deserve that. No way! His death was his fault. All of us, all of our pain, his fault. Period.”
Though Crystal was upset, Juliette couldn’t help but feel relieved. Despite all of the trauma, this girl still had a solid head on her shoulders.
The two women talked for a while, Crystal sharing about her brief relationship with Greg, what she’d learned of his past, why she’d been so misguided about who he really was. Juliette listened, commented and commiserated. Mostly she just let Crystal work things through.
At some point in the next few days, once the girl had had a chance to recover somewhat, Juliette would make a point of speaking with her again. She wanted to tell her about another man, a very special man.
One who also died for her—but for all the right reasons.
BEVERLY STONE WAS NOTHING if not forgiving. As expected, she was more hurt than mad, not to mention embarrassed. Marcus apologized profusely, and he assured her that he really had been enjoying her as a travel partner—so much so, in fact, that he’d like them to plan another vacation together, one with no extra guests and no ulterior motives. She seemed skeptical, but the mention of a long weekend at Callaway Gardens brought the sparkle back to her eyes.
After that, he insisted she call it a
night. Soon she was headed back to Palm Grotto the way she’d come, via police escort. No doubt she’d be back first thing in the morning, but for tonight, at least, he felt better knowing she would soon be sound asleep in bed rather than roaming the halls of the hospital on his behalf.
Much to Marcus’s relief, the one person he’d been waiting for all evening finally showed up just as he was about to get out of that bed and go find her himself. First came a soft knock, then her face appeared around the corner.
Juliette.
She stood for a long moment and they just looked at each other. Then the next thing Marcus knew, she was in his arms and they were holding on tight, so tight, despite their injuries. Then she was crying, which made him cry, and then they both had to laugh. What a mess they were!
What a bond they had forged.
Their time together was so short that parting for the remainder of the night would’ve been nearly impossible had a nurse not found Juliette there and insisted she go.
“The patient needs his rest!” she scolded, and so finally, with one long and lingering kiss, they said their good-byes.
The next morning Juliette and Marcus’s mom came back to the hospital together, and he was pleased to see that at least his own deceitful behavior hadn’t driven a wedge between the two women. Instead, they seemed like fast friends, laughing and talking and getting to know each other on this new and different level.
His mom made her exit when two FBI agents showed up to talk, but Juliette insisted on staying, and to Marcus’s surprise, they let her. Mostly they wanted to discuss the details of yesterday’s events, and together they went through the final version of the probable scenario.
The best anyone could figure, Greg’s original plan had been to kill Raven first, at the spa, and then use the various booby traps at his old family home—the covered well, the buildings rigged with homemade LE explosives—to kill Xena, Andre, Reggie, and Ty. He’d been successful at murdering Raven undetected, at least initially, but then he’d been thrown several significant curve balls.
First, Marcus, Juliette, and Didi began unraveling the case and getting a little too close to the truth. Second, Xena and Andre were arrested for blackmail. And third, Ty disappeared out of the blue and decided to turn himself in to the FBI. Greg must’ve known at that point that the rest of his plan was on the verge of crumbling—but then Crystal introduced him to Marcus, which meant he just happened to be present when Ty’s call came through. Suddenly he was back in the game.
When Greg left Marcus’s hotel room after that call, the FBI surmised he went straight to the rendezvous point at Laskey Park himself, a good half hour ahead of Marcus and Agent Wilson. Once he apprehended Ty—and Ty’s cell phone—it had been easy to get Marcus and Agent Wilson to come to the new location. There the two men had walked into his trap and set off the explosion.
Greg probably even hid nearby and watched it happen. And though he would’ve had to take off right away after that lest he get caught by the emergency responders, he had taken the time first to find Marcus’s cell phone in the rubble. His ruse of texting Marcus from Ty’s phone had worked so well, in fact, that he used the same trick a second time, by texting Juliette from Marcus’s phone. Soon he had lured the women into his final trap on the other side of the property—where he’d been shocked to come face to face with Crystal, the biggest curveball of all.
How events would’ve played out had she not been there was anybody’s guess.
The agents went on to provide more thorough information about Raven’s murder as well. They said that on Wednesday afternoon Greg made a great show of trying to deal with a malfunctioning camera at Palm Grotto—first by fooling with the wires at the security building, then checking out that camera in person. What he’d actually done, however, was pull some wires to disable the screen then gone out and busted the lens himself, probably with a well-placed throw of a rock. Turning in a maintenance report had been a clever way to deflect suspicion without risk, because he knew the repair would take several days.
“So my camera theory was right,” Marcus said, trying not to sound too smug.
The agent nodded as he went on to tell them the rest. He said FBI satellite images confirmed that around 3:00 a.m. Thursday morning, a black Chevy short-bed truck had been parked at a new housing development not far from Palm Grotto Resort. Clearly Greg hiked up to the jogging trail and entered the resort property via the western perimeter, then he used his knowledge of the security camera placement to make his way to Arrowscale unseen. Once there he slipped inside, put atropine into one of the jars of chai soy mud, removed the extra jars just to be safe, and slipped back out the way he’d come in.
Marcus still couldn’t get over how Greg had managed to fool them all, and he said as much now.
“I can’t believe he actually intended to kill so many people,” Juliette added. “We heard him spout out the full list to Crystal, and it was shocking.”
Marcus turned to Juliette, eyes narrowing. “Didn’t you tell me that as part of that list, he mentioned ‘the counterfeiters’?”
She nodded. “I guess he blamed them because a counterfeit product started the whole thing. Val unknowingly used it on Raven, Raven got burned, and everything fell apart from there.”
Marcus grunted. “Even so, what was the guy thinking? How does one take revenge against counterfeiters anyway? If the FBI can’t stop these people, what made Greg Overstreet think he could?”
One of the agents held up a hand. “We believe his intention was to go after a specific middle man, the one who procured the fake JT Lady products for Palm Grotto resort.”
“You mean Ty?” Juliette asked.
He shook his head. “No, one of Ty’s suppliers. It seems that Greg got to the guy by posing as a disgruntled spa employee with access to inventory. But when the supplier took him up on it and requested product, Greg found himself unable to deliver.”
He paused in his explanation to pull out a piece of paper from his valise, which he handed over to Juliette. “This is a copy of something we found among Greg’s personal papers. It should make sense to you—at least somewhat.”
Juliette took it from him and held it toward Marcus so they could study the page together. “That looks like a JT Lady account number,” she said, pointing to a combination of numerals and letters separated by dashes.
The agent nodded but did not elaborate.
Marcus continued to study the page, which looked to him like nothing more than some quickly-jotted-down notes. An address, a phone number. Some math calculations. Dollar signs. The only strange thing was what had been written in along the bottom, in prominent lettering: Justice is Sweet and Musical—T.
“Reportedly the kid was big on quotes,” the agent explained. “We checked it out, that’s from Thoreau.”
Marcus glanced at Juliette, who was tracing a line from the oversized J of the word “Justice” to three initials in the middle of the page, JSM. With a gasp, she looked up at the agent.
“Justice is Sweet and Musical—JSM Enterprises!” she cried. “Henry David Thoreau. Walden Pond.” Turning to Marcus, she explained, “Greg opened an account at JT Lady, under the name David Walden at JSM Enterprises. Unbelievable!”
The agent nodded, and he seemed impressed that she’d figured it out. “Placed a single order and had it sent to a shipping store in Phoenix, Arizona, about a four-hour drive from here.”
She handed the paper back to him. “So in other words, he tried to use my company to get to this guy, to get his revenge.”
Both agents nodded somberly.
“Apparently it worked. Now that we have this information, it seems Raven was not the first person killed in this matter by Greg Overstreet. Last September that supplier was found dead, by a single shot to the head, an unsolved homicide. We’re still waiting on ballistics, but we believe the report will confirm a match with the gun recovered from the scene last night. Greg took out the supplier, then he bided his time and took out Raven. I dar
esay, without the hard work of you people, his killing spree might’ve continued all the way through to the end of his list.”
They were all quiet for a long moment as Juliette and Marcus processed that thought.
“And Ty?” Juliette asked finally. “He really had no part in Raven’s murder?”
“He thought he did—at first. Thought she died from exposure to counterfeit mud. He knew the counterfeits he put in there had been responsible for her burns the time before, so when he heard she was dead, he says he feared it was the same sort of thing, only fatal this time.”
Marcus could only imagine his relief when he learned her death had been intentional! “So did you guys end up cutting Ty a deal after all?”
The agents said yes, and that thus far it was looking like a pretty good trade on both sides. Thanks to Ty, they now had lots of helpful info and several good new leads, though of course the counterfeiting issue—and its impact on JT Lady—was far from over.
“I just hope it doesn’t get worse before it gets better,” one of them said, his expression grave as his eyes went from Marcus to Juliette and back again.
JULIETTE WAITED UNTIL DIDI was safely out of surgery and resting comfortably, and then she finally agreed to return to the resort with Marcus. Whatever he had up his sleeve, he was practically giddy about it.
Once there she thought he should get to his room and rest, but he insisted on walking out by the lake. Soon she realized why. There by the water, in the shade of a tamarisk tree, was a brand new bench.
Suddenly shy, Marcus actually blushed as he turned to her. “I wanted to give you some closure. I hope you don’t mind, but I thought a memorial of some kind . . .”
He gestured toward the new bench and the engraved brass plate that had been affixed to the back. It said:
In Memory of Rayleen Eugenia Humphries,
Known to the world as Raven.
She was a free spirit and a true original.
She also had a pretty mean right hook.
As Juliette read the plaque, her eyes filled with tears, though when she reached the last line, she burst out laughing.