Call waiting beeped.
“Hang on a second, Fred. I’ve got a call on the other line. This could be a customer or the Department of Health trying to close us down or somebody equally unimportant.” It was probably Rick, but if it was, I’d have a good excuse to get off the phone. I clicked over. “Death by Chocolate. Can I help you?”
“Lindsay, this is Adam.”
“Adam?”
“Adam Trent.”
“Oh, Trent! Hi! What’s going on?”
“Is Paula there?” The tension in his voice gave me a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.
“No,” I said carefully, “she’s not. Why?”
“When will she be back?”
“I’m not sure.” I wasn’t really lying. After all, who could be sure about something like that? She could have had a flat tire or made a wrong turn or been kidnapped by aliens.
“Where is she?”
“I’m not sure about that, either.” Another not-quite lie. She could be anywhere between here and the nursery, or between here and Jupiter if those aliens got her.
I could hear Trent relaying that information to someone in the background, then another male voice answering though I couldn’t make out the words.
“Did she leave to take Zach to the nursery?” Trent asked.
Damn! That was a hard question to evade. I considered several possibilities but they all involved outright lies, and I hadn’t done real well in the past lying to this man. “Yes,” I finally answered. “Why do you want to know?”
“David Bennett, an officer with the Dallas Police Department, is here with proof that Paula Walters is Paula Bennett, his wife, and he has a judgment giving him custody of Zach. We pulled an outstanding warrant off the computer for Paula Bennett’s arrest for attempted murder.”
That sick feeling in my stomach reached up into my chest while fingers of panic squeezed my throat. “No!” I protested. “You don’t understand!”
“I’ve got to go. We’re on our way to serve that warrant.”
“Wait! Check him for scratches!”
“What?”
“King Henry scratches!”
“Of course he scratches. He’s a cat. I’ve got to go.”
“No!” I was shouting into a dead phone line.
I clicked back over to Fred. “I just told Trent where Paula is, and they’re going to arrest her and Bennett’s going to get Zach and it’s all my fault for being honest!”
“This wasn’t the best time to decide to turn over a new leaf,” Fred admonished. “All right, we’ve got to get to her before they do and hide her for a couple of days until we get all this straightened out. You find her and bring her home. I’ll make reservations at a motel in Overland Park. That’s half an hour away and across the state line in Kansas, so that should slow their search minimally. I’ll make the reservations for a husband and wife. The authorities will be looking for a woman and child, not a married couple. I’ll take her over there and check in as the husband while she stays in the car and hides Zach and you stay home and lie to the police, and I strongly suggest you lie this time.”
“Got it! I’m on my way to intercept Paula!”
“Feel free to drive as fast as you like. If you get a speeding ticket, I’ll take care of it.”
I’ll take care of it? Fred certainly possessed a lot of interesting skills.
I slammed the phone down, put a closed sign on the front door and ran to my car, cursing myself all the way for not lying to Trent about Paula’s whereabouts.
I slid into my car, revved the engine and peeled out of the parking lot. If the traffic cops wanted to give me a ticket today, they’d have to catch me.
Have I mentioned how much I love my little Toyota Celica? Small car, low center of gravity, five-on-the-floor…I made it to the day care center in seven minutes flat. I’d halfway expected to find Paula still there. She doesn’t drive nearly as fast as I do, and she usually spends a few minutes with Zach before she leaves him. However, her car was nowhere in sight.
I charged up onto the porch of the converted house, then stopped and drew in a deep breath. If she’d left Zach here, I had to appear rational enough that the people in charge would let me take him. Paula had listed me as the other person who could pick him up, and I had done so a couple of times, but I couldn’t risk that they’d think I was hysterical and shouldn’t be trusted with a child. I was hysterical, but I was still a better choice than David Bennett.
I walked into the entry way, and the woman with glasses and a rigid hair style looked up from her desk. “May I help you?”
What the heck was her name? “Hi, Dorothy! Remember me? Lindsay Powell, Paula Walters’ friend?”
“Hello, Ms. Powell. Yes, I remember you. You’re the lady who always calls me Dorothy. I’m Karen Winslow.”
I cringed. If there was a way to screw up, I’d find it. “Sorry. I washed my brain and can’t do a thing with it. Look, I just got an important phone call at the shop, and I need to get hold of Paula really fast, like immediately. Has she been here? Is Zach here?”
“Ms. Walters was here a few minutes ago. She brought Zach in, but then suddenly remembered he had a doctor’s appointment.”
“A doctor’s appointment? Are you sure?”
“I’m quite sure.”
Paula hadn’t mentioned any appointment, though it was possible she’d forgotten with everything going on.
It was also possible she’d panicked and was on her way out of town already.
I dashed back to my car and headed homeward. I hadn’t passed Paula on my trip from the shop so she wasn’t on her way back there. The choices left were the mythical doctor’s office, the open road, and home. I could only hope she wouldn’t leave town without stopping first to pack a few things. She had no idea of the new urgency of the situation, so surely she would take the extra few minutes. I floored the gas pedal.
Contrary to popular opinion, speeding is not something that can be done recklessly and on the spur of the moment. It is an art requiring constant practice and intense concentration. I’m proud to say, I’ve never allowed that skill to become rusty. Like a ballet dancer on four wheels, I deftly avoided dogs, children, traffic cops, cross traffic and elderly drivers going fifteen m.p.h., then turned onto my street just as Paula’s car stopped in front of her house. She didn’t bother pulling into the driveway but was getting out of the car when I came to a screeching halt right behind her. Obviously she wasn’t planning to stay long.
She looked up at the sound of my arrival but continued around to the passenger side to get Zach out of the back seat.
“Paula, David’s alive!”
That stopped her.
I ran over to help her with the car seat. From the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of Fred’s garage door going up and the rear of his white Mercedes emerging.
“We’ve got to hurry! The cops are on their way to arrest you and give David custody of Zach! You’ve got to go to a motel with Fred!”
“A motel with Fred? What are you talking about? I’ve got to get out of here!”
“That’s what I mean! You’re going to have to trust me on this because I don’t have time to explain.”
We got Zach unhooked, and she snatched him up. I grabbed the diaper bag, and we headed across the yards toward Fred’s house. However, we’d barely reached my sidewalk when two police cars, lights flashing and sirens screaming, turned the corner onto our street.
We both froze. I loosed a string of words not appropriate for Zach’s ears.
“Sit!” he repeated happily. “Da! Uk!”
From the corner of my eye, I saw Fred’s Mercedes reentering the garage. We were trapped. I knew it, Fred knew it and Paula knew it.
Nevertheless, she turned as if to run back to her car, but I stopped her. The cops were already pulling in behind and in front of our vehicles. We were definitely trapped.
“Go inside my house and out the back door.” I have no idea where I thought she’d go f
rom there. I was acting from a point of total panic, and she was, too, because she followed my directions. We ran onto the porch and I let her in then locked the door behind her and turned to face the cops. Henry, who’d been sleeping on the porch, stretched lazily and sat down beside me.
Trent, Creighton and another man got out of the first vehicle and started up the walk. I knew immediately that the third man was David Bennett. He was tall with dark, razor-cut hair and regular facial features that could have come straight from the pages of a men’s fashion magazine…possessing about as much depth as the paper of that magazine. His biceps bulged from the short sleeves of his knit shirt, and his huge hands were clenched into fists at his sides.
I shuddered at the thought of him hitting Paula with those hands powered by those arms…and of what he would do to Zach if he got him.
As the men approached, Bennett watched me intently from cold black eyes that reminded me of a rattle snake I once encountered on a hiking trip in Big Bend National Park down in Texas. I found myself almost mesmerized by that gaze, unable to look away. I wasn’t even sure I retained enough control to continue to breathe.
I saw movement from the corner of my eye and noticed that two officers had exited the second car, and Trent was motioning them to go around to my back yard. Damn!
“We saw Paula go into your house, Lindsay,” Trent said, stepping onto the porch. His words broke the spell of Bennett’s gaze. I swallowed hard and gratefully turned my attention to him. “Are you going to let us in?” he asked. “We’re in hot pursuit and don’t really have to ask your permission, but I’d prefer to do it the easy way.”
Creighton and Bennett moved up beside Trent, and I heard a low growl from the vicinity of my feet. The growl grew into Henry’s jungle cat yowl, and if I’d had any sliver of a doubt that this was the man who’d come into my house and poisoned my pudding cake, that sliver was swallowed up in Henry’s yowl.
David Bennett had tried to kill me. David Bennett wanted to take Zach and put Paula in prison. David Bennett looked like one smooth, charming, deadly rattle snake….and I had to get his blood.
Whose stupid idea was that?
“Hi, Trent,” I greeted, trying to force a smile. “Hello, Officer Creighton. I don’t believe I’ve met your friend.”
Trent’s lips compressed and he glared at me, but responded anyway. “This is David Bennett. Now that we’re all good friends, can we go inside?”
“Of course! Would you like some chocolate cookies?” I fumbled with the lock and discovered it’s hard to turn a key when your fingers are shaking. “Paula had to run to the ladies’ room, but she’ll be right back.” I was babbling. Panic tends to do that to my mouth.
I got the door open, and the trio moved closer.
Henry unleashed a truly terrible yowl and launched himself into the air, landing against Bennett’s chest. Bennett was big, but Henry was eighteen pounds of fury moving faster than I drive. He took Bennett backward onto the porch and went for his throat and face.
Blood!
I snatched a clean diaper out of Zach’s bag while Trent and Creighton rushed into the melee, trying to get Henry off Bennett. They were hampered by flashing half-inch claws and needle sharp teeth. Bennett tried to protect his face with one hand while he tugged a gun from his waistband with the other. The bastard was going to shoot my cat!
I had no choice. I flung myself onto Bennett’s chest, holding his arm in place with my thigh and sitting on his diaphragm while I grabbed Henry, praying the cat would remember who had custody of the can opener and not slash me to ribbons with those claws.
His blue eyes were wild and he continued to make those jungle noises, but he allowed me to remove him from Bennett’s face without so much as a scratch on me. Bennett had quite a few, however. Plenty of blood.
Bennett tried to get up, but that’s hard to do with a five feet, eight inch woman sitting on your chest.
“You poor thing!” I said, handing Henry to Trent. Trent looked at me dubiously, but Henry was now docile except for a low growling deep in his throat, and when Trent took him, he cuddled against his chest. Like I said, he’s just a big pussy cat.
Bennett was not so docile. “God damn it!” he shouted, still trying to push me off him. “Are you nuts? Your cat’s fine! I’m the one who’s injured!”
“I was talking about you, you poor thing!” I said solicitously. Okay, pseudo-solicitously. “Oh my, you’re bleeding!” I dabbed at the blood with the diaper, using a twisting motion and trying to open the scratch as much as possible for maximum blood. “I’m so sorry! I don’t know what got into my cat. He’s usually so gentle and sweet.” I not only wiped blood off his face, but also some makeup which had been hiding other scratches, scratches I’d guess to be a couple of days old. As I’d suspected, this was not Bennett’s first encounter with my guard cat.
With his free arm, Bennett grabbed my throat. “Get off me!”
I felt relatively certain he wasn’t going to strangle me in front of two police officers, so I pried at his fingers with one hand while wiping blood from his arm, the arm with which he’d tried to protect his face. I still had his gun hand trapped, though he’d slid the weapon back into his pants, out of sight.
Creighton grabbed my shoulders and lifted me up just as two more officers came around the house, one of them carrying Zach, who was crying and reaching for his mother, and the other was leading Paula in handcuffs. She walked with her head down and her shoulders drooping.
Bennett staggered to his feet. “That’s her,” he said. “That’s my wife, Paula Bennett, the woman who shot me.”
Paula looked up at the sound of his voice. Fear washed over her features. “David, don’t do this! You know I didn’t mean to hurt you. It was an accident. If you’ll just let me have Zach, I promise I won’t leave again. I’ll come back to you. Whatever you want. Just don’t take my son.”
“Everything’s going to be all right, Paula,” he said smoothly. “I would never let the mother of my son go to prison. I’m going to see to it that you get psychiatric help, and I promise to bring our son to visit you every week.”
That explained a lot. He was going to get her committed to a mental institution where nobody would believe her stories of abuse. Keep her imprisoned there and let Zach think his mother was crazy. Yeah, Bennett was no dummy. He had all this worked out really well.
The only thing he hadn’t counted on was Paula having friends, Fred and me. Not that we’d been very helpful up to this point, but now we had a plan and some of David’s blood. His reign of terror was just about over.
The officer steered Paula toward the squad car. Zach began to cry more loudly, calling, “Mama…Mama…Mama!” and reaching desperately for his mother.
“Don’t worry!” I called to Paula, trying to reassure her. “My daddy’ll get you the meanest criminal lawyer in the country! You’re not going to any mental hospital! You’ll be back home in no time!” I cut my eyes toward Bennett. “And the guilty party will be in jail,” I said quietly.
The officer holding Zach approached the porch. Zach saw me and changed his plea. “Anlinny!” He reached his small arms toward me, and my heart broke into a thousand pieces. It was all I could do to restrain myself from dashing across the porch, snatching him away from the officer and running as fast as I could. I knew the whole idea was impossible, but emotion is like that.
“Aunt Linny can’t take you right now, Hot Shot,” I said. “You have to go with somebody else but only for a couple of days. Then you’ll be back with Mommy and Aunt Linny.”
Paula’s deadly husband glared at me and reached for the bloody diaper I was holding. Definitely no dummy.
“Don’t worry about this,” I said sweetly, holding it behind my back and hoping my voice didn’t sound as shaky as it felt coming out. “I’ll do whatever’s necessary with it.”
His gaze was so much like that snake, so menacing and cold, I expected him to rattle when he walked. “I’ll dispose of it,” he said, his
words measured, his voice as intense and menacing as his eyes.
I gulped and reminded myself I had to make certain he came after me. I had to taunt him. “Oh, no,” I protested. “I’ll dispose of this as if it were nothing but plastic wrap with holes in it. I’ll dispose of it like it was poisoned chocolate. Yes, indeed, I’ll take very good care of this sample.”
From the corner of my eye I could see Trent staring at me in wide-eyed amazement. “Here’s your son, Bennett,” he snapped. “Take him and let’s go. We’ve got a ton of paperwork to fill out.”
The officer holding Zach came up on the porch and surrendered the screaming boy. Tears streamed down Zach’s face as he held his arms toward me. I moved closer, tears starting in my own eyes, and took his little hands in mine.
“I love you, Hot Shot,” I said. “You go with this man today, and I’ll see you soon. I promise.” And no matter what it took, I was going to make good on that promise.
I shot Bennett another glare that started out in my head as defiant, but probably came out scared. He had no trouble keeping his glare deadly.
Suddenly I had a chilling thought…or maybe I could read this creep’s chilling mind. No way was he going to break into my house a second time. Nah, he’d probably just burn the whole place down or blow it up. That would get rid of me and the evidence and would offer the further benefit of not exposing him to Henry’s claws. Sometimes I’m amazed by the total stupidity of some of my ideas.
I leaned closer, going in for the final bluff. “If you’re interested in cutting a deal, be here at eight tonight,” I said softly, using Zach’s cries as a cover so no one else could hear. Bennett wasn’t likely to try to kill me if the cops heard about our assignation. “The kid for the evidence. If you’re not here, the blood goes to a private lab at nine, and you’re dead meat.”
“I don’t need to cut any deals with you,” he said, his voice as quiet as mine but somehow managing to sound like a menacing bellow.
I shrugged. “Suit yourself.” I gave Zach a final hug. “I promise, you’ll soon be home with mommy.” I cut my gaze back to Bennett. “One. Way. Or. The. Other.”
Sally Berneathy - Death by Chocolate 01 - Death by Chocolate Page 20