by Rae Davies
“There’s a stash of pot in there.”
“What?”
“Pot. I put it in the brownies for the kiosk and a few other key customers. Things have been getting a bit weird though. So the other day, I hid my back stock in the mansion.”
I stood for a minute, my mind traveling at the speed of a greyhound hyped up on about a gallon of the Caffeine Cartel’s darkest of dark roasts.
“You’re a drug dealer.”
She sighed, and although I couldn’t see her expression in the dark, I felt an eye roll too. “No. It’s just pot. Perfectly legal some places.”
Not in Montana.
“And you were selling it to the Cuties?” My brain screaming “drug deal gone wrong,” I edged toward my passenger door.
If I could get inside... then I remembered. Kiska. There was no way I was going to get him inside quickly and no way Cindy wasn’t going to notice me heaving his furry butt into the back seat.
“You know, maybe I should leave Kiska here. He hasn’t been feeling well.”
“Well, you can’t blame me for that.”
“Blame you? Why would I...?” Then it hit me. Hard. “The cupcakes. There was marijuana in the cupcakes! You poisoned my dog!”
Cindy pushed forward. “Shhh. Someone will hear you, and I didn’t poison your dog. You did. You’re the one who left the cupcakes where he could get them.”
My outrage was overwhelming enough it took a minute for her words to soak in. Then they did. She was right. I had left the cupcakes where he could get them. But... “I didn’t know they had pot in them!”
“Yeah, well... that was a mistake. I didn’t mean to sell you those.” She sounded repentant.
I wasn’t sure if I bought it or not. However, I had lost all desire to take Kiska and leave. Right now my desire was more to wrap his leash around her throat and… Realizing the direction my thoughts were going and how similar they were to what had apparently happened to Missy, I swallowed hard and worked to calm myself.
“I could have sold those cupcakes at a good price. Do you think I’d basically give them away on purpose?”
Her response did nothing to soften my heart toward her. I growled.
She growled back, but more in frustration, I think, than anger. At least I couldn’t think of any reason she had to be angry toward me. I, on the other hand...
“Anyway, we don’t have time for this now. We have to get inside.”
“Why?” I was realizing that unless she was armed, there was really no way for her to stop me from loading Kiska back up and leaving. The worst she could do is make a scene, and it seemed like that was something she would be reluctant to do, what with her shushing and such.
“I told you. I got a call.”
“From whom?”
She huffed. “Kristi.”
This gave me pause. “And she told you the mansion had been broken into?”
Cindy shuffled her feet in the loose gravel. “Not exactly.”
I waited.
She heaved out an annoyed breath. “Fine. I might have objected when the kiosk quit buying my brownies, and I might have pointed out that I knew a few things the police might find interesting.”
“You were blackmailing her?”
“That’s an ugly word.”
I rolled my eyes; unfortunately, in the dark, it was lost to Cindy.
“Anyway, she said she was done dealing with me and to expect a call from the police soon.”
“So?”
“I guessed that she’d figured out where I’d left my back stock. She must have been who broke into the mansion the last time, hoping they’d find it.”
“I think we’re who broke into the mansion the last time.”
“Really?”
Yes, really... “So, your... back stock was here then?”
“Yes, but luckily, they didn’t find it. I thought since they had been through once, I was good. Then tonight...”
“But why would she warn you?”
“Exactly! It’s a trap. She’s going to wait until I’m inside and then call the police so they find me with it.”
“And you want me...”
“To go in and get it, of course.”
“So they can find me with it?”
“You’re dating a detective, you’ve found a dozen dead bodies and never had a charge stick. Being caught with a little pot? No big deal.”
Pshaw... what was I worrying about?
“It has not been a dozen, and I didn’t kill any of them.”
“Yeah, whatever. The point is, you have nothing to worry about.”
“I’d have less to worry about if I just went home.” Although I had to admit, my need to know was kicking in. “You said the door is unlocked? Do you think Kristi is inside?”
“Has to be. Who else could it be?”
I questioned myself then. Had I locked the door? But I knew I had.
“Have you tried calling her?”
“Why would I do that?”
“If she answers—” I stopped in frustration. Cindy wasn’t in the mood to listen to my ideas. Besides, I didn’t really want to call Kristi either. I did, though, want to call someone. I pulled my phone from my pocket and pushed the side button to bring it to life.
Cindy jerked the device from my hand and flung it into the darkness.
“What the—”
My cry was cut off by Cindy’s hand over my mouth. “Shhh. Someone will hear you.”
This crazy woman had just thrown away my phone. I was pretty sure I wanted someone to hear me. Before I could say this, however, she’d taken advantage of my shock by grabbing Kiska’s leash and jogging toward the mansion.
“C’mon. Let’s go.”
My dog, who under normal circumstances would no more heel to a leash than a rabid raccoon would, was eagerly trotting along at her side.
The power of the scent of cupcakes or his instinctual talent for knowing the thing I least wanted him to do and acting on it?
Either way, there was no way I was leaving without him. And without my phone, there was no way I was calling for help either. I would just have to follow and figure out a plan as I went.
o0o
When I got to the mansion, Kiska and Cindy were already standing next to the front door, which was, as Cindy had said, open. Not completely, but ajar.
“We can’t go in there,” I insisted. “Not if you think it’s a trap. We need to call the police.”
“I told you, I can’t.” Cindy raised her hands in frustration, dropping Kiska’s leash as she did. I lunged for it. My dog, apparently taking my sudden movement his direction as some sign that there was something forbidden, and thus fabulous, out of his reach, bolted through the mansion’s front door and disappeared into the darkness.
I eyed Cindy, seriously considering the costs of throttling her while she was within reach and there were no witnesses, but then common dog–owner sense kicked in.
If this was a trap, I did not want Kiska caught in it. I pushed the baker out of my way and followed my dog.
My hand automatically reached for the wall, where I expected to find a light switch. Instead, my fingers were knocked aside by Cindy’s as she barreled through the door after me.
I could feel her glare.
Fine. We were both angry, but I had right on my side, and I was taking it and my dog and leaving this place as quickly as I could.
I stood still, listening for the telltale sound of tags jingling.
“The pot’s in the butler’s pantry. There’s a fake back in one of the cabinets.”
News of such a storage space would normally have intrigued me enough to forget whatever other issues I might have been dealing with, but Cindy had pushed me too far and my dog was still missing.
“I have to find Kiska,” I mumbled back.
“The pantry is off the kitchen,” she replied.
I wasn’t sure if she knew food would be the number one attractant for my dog or if she was simply giving me directions
to where she wanted me to go, but either way, kitchen it was.
Cindy led the way.
Kiska was not in the kitchen. He wasn’t in the pantry either.
I left Cindy there, tugging at the back of a cabinet and felt my way around the dark house. My hand knocked into a lamp and, defying Cindy’s orders, I pulled the chain to light things up.
The lamp clicked, but no light went on.
Something in my gut tightened. Could just be the bulb, I told myself, and stumbled back toward the kitchen where I knew there would have to be an overhead light.
I found the switch and flipped it upward.
Nothing.
“Cindy?”
“What?” She sounded stressed.
There was a pop of a board being jerked out of tight quarters and then a curse.
“It’s gone!”
“Cindy?”
“Did you hear me? She took it! When I get my hands on her—”
Something hit me in the back of the knees. I spun and fell forward, but caught myself on a kitchen cabinet. Something knocked against me again, softer and more of a steady press than an actual hit. I reached down and felt fur. Thank—
Another hit. This to my knees. What the...
Kiska inhaled. The loud deep inhale he did when he’d found something interesting. Fearing he’d found Cindy’s lost marijuana stash, I located his collar and jerked him back.
Now to get out of here.
The thought had barely formed in my head when I was hit again. A definite forceful blow to my shins. Wishing once again for my phone so I could see what lay before me, I took a deep breath and leaned forward. My hands touched cloth and then skin. Warm skin.
I jerked, but then relaxed. I’d found another body, but this one, thankfully, was alive.
“Lucy! Did you hear me? She took it!” Cindy yelled.
The body, whoever it was, wiggled, moving so my fingers brushed against what I soon recognized as the smooth material of Duct Tape. I fumbled and felt until I found an edge and then I yanked.
The body squeaked, then... “Lucy! Is that you!? You have to get me out of here!”
I jerked back, not sure what to do next. It seemed I’d found Kristi.
“My feet. My hands. Do you have a knife?”
Kristi rolled back and forth alternately presenting her hands and feet to me, presumably to be freed from more Duct Tape.
From the pantry, Cindy yelled again, “Is that her? Hold her! Don’t let her leave!”
As Kristi flopped across the ground like a dying carp, I really didn’t think that was going to be an issue.
A light blared in my face, blinding me. “What? Good job! How’d you get her tied up so fast?”
“I didn’t.”
“Untie me!”
We were all yelling and squabbling, so intent on our situation that we were oblivious to anything else.
Behind me a new voice spoke, “Well, I didn’t expect this.”
Cindy spun, directing the beam of her flashlight in the direction of the voice, in the direction of Rachel, dressed in her Cutie T and carrying a handgun.
“Oh, Lucy. I am sorry to see you here. I liked you. I really did.”
CHAPTER TWENTY–THREE
Rachel didn’t waste time on niceties, like letting me know her role in trussing Kristi up and luring Cindy to the mansion. She didn’t bother filling me in on how right or wrong the other WILers, Betty and I had been on everything else either.
This Rachel, this gun–toting Cutie was much more down to business and brusque than any I had met before.
“Well, we’ll have to make the best of it I guess,” she said with only a shade of regret. “Would have been so much cleaner with just the two of them here.” She stared at me with obvious disappointment. “I thought one of those WILers would be the problem, but I guess there’s a reason you keep finding bodies. You really might want to rethink your nosiness. Not that that will be much of an issue after tonight.”
I grimaced.
“Hmm,” she continued. “Who kills who? Kristi kills Cindy, don’t you think? And then, driven mad by all that Christian guilt, shoots herself in the head? Then what... no. Kristi kills you and Cindy, then kills herself.”
She seemed to mull this over a second. “I’ll have to think about why you’re here. Would you rather be a hero or a co–conspirator? Trying to talk Cindy out of her life of crime or jumping in on it yourself?”
Since my goal was to be around to tell my own tales, I didn’t voice an opinion. Instead, I felt around for something I could use to create a diversion. My fingers brushed Kiska’s fur. Briefly I considered stepping on his foot or completing some other outrage that would be sure to send him shrieking in objection, but I worried that this would only get him shot first, and that I could not risk.
My next thought was how I could get him out of the mansion safe and sound.
The nearest exit was in the butler’s pantry, which was right next door, but for practical use right now, a million miles away.
“Well, we might as well get on with it.” Rachel pulled a bag off her shoulder and waved it at Cindy. “I think this is what you were looking for.”
Without warning, Rachel let the bag fly. Cindy, apparently even more flummoxed by the situation than I was, did nothing. As in nothing. As in let the bag smack her full force in the face.
She dropped her flashlight, the bag dropped to the floor, and Kiska lunged toward her and whatever forbidden treat he thought might be inside the bag, pretty much all at the same time.
Chaos ensued.
Driven by instinct, honed by years of owning an eat–anything dog, I charged after him, tripping over Kristi in the process. She screamed. Cindy cursed and Rachel fired the gun. At what or who, I had no idea.
I wasn’t bleeding or in pain, or maybe I was just so hyped up on adrenaline that I didn’t realize that I’d been hit. Either way, I kept going, crawling across Kristi and then using the kitchen cabinet to pull myself back to my feet.
Ahead of me, there was the sound of someone running and knocking things aside. Cindy, probably, leaving us all behind as she made her way back to the butler’s pantry and freedom.
I could only hope my dog followed.
Rachel cursed.
Let her. I had a bag to retrieve. I slogged forward, blindly knocking things off the kitchen cabinets and kicking things in my path. My foot hit the bag.
Relief.
Behind me, something clicked. My world froze. The gun.
I dropped to the ground as silently as I could and prayed Rachel would think I was still standing.
She yelled, “Stop it. You’re messing everything up.”
“Well, fancy that!” A new voice proclaimed.
Something boinged, like a cartoon coyote running smack dab into a giant gong.
o0o
As it turns out, the coyote/gong metaphor wasn’t all that off. When the lights came on, they showed Betty wearing a feather–trimmed nightie and holding the top of the Moroccan brass tray table that had held perfume bottles on my first visit.
Rachel was on the floor, and Phoebe was standing over her with the gun.
Laura, outfitted in night vision goggles, was on the phone, calling 911, I hoped.
I was done keeping things from Peter. No matter what the cost.
For now.
The police arrived within seconds. As it turned out, Phoebe had shown some sense that the rest of us hadn’t and had called them as soon as she heard the shot. Before Betty and Laura had rushed inside to the rescue.
Now we were all, minus Cindy, who had gotten outside before the police arrived, standing around the front yard, which was lit up as bright as noon, thanks to headlights and spotlights and every other kind of light that the Helena P.D. had on hand.
Peter arrived, looking fresh, as if he’d expected a wake–up call at 4 a.m. to once again ride herd for his girlfriend.
And maybe he had.
He walked toward me, blanket in hand,
wrapped it around me with a reassuring slight squeeze and kept moving to where Klein was busy looking bored as ever while questioning an elated–looking Betty.
Cindy reappeared, walking around the outside of the lights and obviously trying to appear as if she hadn’t been an integral part of everything that had just transpired. When she spotted me, she strode as quickly as she could to my side.
“What happened to the bag?” she mumbled.
My hand resting on Kiska’s ruff, I didn’t answer.
“I dropped my flashlight too. It has my prints on it, but I can probably explain that. With it being in the mansion, I could have used it at any point in the past.”
I wasn’t sure if she was trying to reassure me or herself. Either way, it didn’t matter.
I was done with the Deeres for a while.
She babbled on some more, but I was in my happy place where modern–day Deeres didn’t exist.
Finally, she made it so I couldn’t ignore her. “Are you listening? Did they bring the bag out yet? Do you know what happened to it?”
George walked by and, apparently hearing her less–than–controlled tone, stopped. “Is there a problem?” he asked.
Cindy paled and took a step back.
I stepped forward. “Cindy forgot something in the house that she wants retrieved. It’s a bag—”
Cindy gasped and turned, ready to bolt.
George glanced at me. I raised my brows. “It’s important to her.”
With a nod, George took my clue and moved with a grace I wouldn’t have expected from someone of his build, cutting off Cindy’s exit. “Well, then, let’s just go see if we can find it.”
Cindy’s mouth snapped shut and her eyes gleamed. I was pretty sure if she could reach me, the police would easily have something much more serious to charge her with than whatever petty drug charge went along with baking and selling pot brownies.
Eventually, the police got around to me. I told my story, my whole story, even the part about being with Cindy when she broke into the mansion the first time. Peter stood by, listening and looking enigmatic as ever.
When I was done, and Klein had moved on, Peter grabbed the front of the blanket and pulled the edges closer together, over my chest. Then he leaned down and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “When are your parents getting here?” he asked.