Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: An Addison Holmes Mystery (Addison Holmes Mysteries Book 5)

by Liliana Hart

  “It didn’t bother you that you’d be taking one life to save another?” I asked.

  “Of course it did,” she said. “At first. But the email had some attachments. We all had small children at that point and there were pictures of our kids at the park and at school.” Big tears ran down her cheeks. “We really didn’t have any choice. Our children weren’t worth the risk. And then it just became a job like any other. We had a system down, and we did what we had to do. And we made a lot of money on top of it. Now our kids are grown and none of them will ever have to want for anything.”

  She looked like she was trying to convince herself more than she was trying to convince me.

  “And I guess Ashley didn’t mind doing the surgery on her own husband,” I said. “Handy how that worked out.”

  Kimmie genuinely smiled at that. “That was just plain good luck. It was less than a year ago that Anthony up and decided that they needed to get a life insurance policy since they were getting older. They’d never had one before because there’d never been a need with the amount of income he makes. Ashley would’ve been set for life if anything had happened to Anthony.

  “But he wanted to get a policy. She figured he’d finally found a woman that she was worth leaving for, but with him having such high political aspirations he wouldn’t have wanted a divorce, so she’d need to die for the new Mrs. Dunnegan to be put in place.

  “I had a colleague go out to the house instead of me to do the medicals, but when I showed Ashley the result of his blood type you would’ve thought she’d won the lottery. She thought it would be a much better punishment to leave him alive than to kill him, so she took his kidney.”

  The toilet flushed and we all looked up startled. I’d completely forgotten that Rosemarie had gone to the bathroom. The water ran and then she came out, a wet paper towel pressed to her forehead.

  “Sorry about that,” she said. “I think I’m ready now. I just had to psych myself up for this. I’m not a natural torturer like Scarlet.”

  And the Rosemarie screwed her eyes shut and balled her hand into a fist, popping Kimmie right in the jaw and knocking her out cold.

  Rosemarie shook her hand and yelled in pain as the bones crunched, but then she looked at me. “How was that?”

  “Nice shot. It’s a good thing we got all the information out of her before you knocked her out.”

  * * *

  “I am utterly speechless,” Kate said, staring down at restrained Kimmie.

  I’d called Kate to ask for advice while Kimmie had still been unconscious. She hadn’t been happy when she’d woken, her jaw swollen and bruised.

  “I sure wish she was,” Rosemarie said, pointing to Kimberly. “She’s done nothing but whine since she woke up.” Rosemarie’s upper lip was dotted with sweat and her hair was soaking wet under her BITCH cap.

  It was getting a little crowded in the van, but the four of us hauling a woman strapped to a chair would probably draw more attention that we wanted.

  “Look, just get me out of this van,” Kimmie begged. “I’ll sign a statement. I’ll flip on everyone involved. But get me away from these crazy bitches. I’m begging you.”

  Kate stared at her a few seconds and then looked at us. “I guess that’s a deal we can work with. It won’t bring down Ugly Mo, but it’ll shut down the other operations and everyone involved will go to jail.”

  My phone rang and I saw Savage’s name pop up on the caller ID. “Do I want to know what’s going on down there?” he asked.

  “It’s probably best you don’t,” I said. “But Kimberly Easton has confessed and agreed to testify against the others.”

  “That’s very efficient of you,” he said, and then there was a short amount of silence before he said, “You know you can always come to me for help, no matter what answer you give Nick, right?”

  I breathed out a sigh of relief. I’d actually become pretty attached to Savage over the last months. We worked well together.

  “Yeah, I know.”

  He hung up and we helped Kate transport Kimberly to her car, and then we followed her back to Savannah at a law-abiding pace.

  Chapter Twenty

  Thursday

  I was eating dinner with my mom and Vince and filling them in on the past few days of my life when Nick’s call came in.

  “It’s Nick,” I told them.

  “Take it,” my mom said. “You’ve put him through hell this week.”

  “Hey,” I told him, nervous all of a sudden. Maybe I shouldn’t have taken the call in front of an audience.

  “Did you hear about Ugly Mo?” Nick asked.

  “No, what happened?”

  “We just responded to a call. Someone catapulted a firebomb right through his bedroom window. Apparently he always takes a nap this time of day and he was fast asleep on the bed. He and the bed went up like a tinderbox.”

  I froze and felt the blood drain from my face. A catapult. Aunt Scarlet.

  “Yeah, I’d never seen anything quite like it,” Nick said. “It looked homemade. Used rosary beads to anchor it. Anyway, I’m going to be tied up working this for the foreseeable future. I’ll give you a call tomorrow when I’m free.”

  “Sounds good,” I said, still in shock. “Be safe.” And then we disconnected.

  I called the Ballastone and asked for Aunt Scarlet’s room. I was told by the front desk that she’d already checked out and one of the cars had taken her to the airport.

  I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. But I was pretty sure I was the only one who knew that she was a killer.

  Epilogue

  Friday (My Birthday)

  A month ago today Nick had gotten down on one knee and proposed marriage. It had been a beautiful moment, but interrupted. I wondered if things would’ve happened differently if we hadn’t had that interruption. Would we be planning a wedding? Or would we have already been well on our way to mending our respective broken hearts.

  I hadn’t slept at all the night before, knowing that the day had finally come. And now that it had, I felt a resolve and finality in my decision that I hadn’t felt in the days leading up to it.

  I’d put the ring he’d given me locked in my desk drawer for safe keeping. I took it out now and flipped open the little black box that had DeLuce’s written in silver script across the top. Almost a year before we’d sat in a jewelry shop, pretending to get engaged for a case, and the ring laying in my hand was the one that had made me wish for one fleeting second that it was real. But we hadn’t been anywhere close to ready for marriage at that point. Several months later he gave me the ring for real.

  The band was thick silver, and in the center sat a cluster of freshwater pearls the size of caviar surrounded by a circle of black diamonds. It was unique in every way, and it was perfect.

  I flipped the lid closed and put the box in my handbag. Then I dressed in jeans and an oversized oxford shirt in blue, slipped on my Toms, and headed to the van, the weight of the ring in my purse tremendous.

  It was a short drive to the Savannah-Chatham Police Department, and I found a spot in visitor parking. With my heart in my throat, I headed inside and waved to Angie Driskoll, who was manning the front desk.

  I signed in and she waved me back. I’d been a common fixture at the police department for most of my life—visiting my dad on occasion and now Nick. It hadn’t change in thirty-one years. It still smelled of burnt coffee and industrial strength cleaner, and the walls were still an ugly green that made everyone’s skin tone look horrible.

  The desks were clumped together in different divisions, and I walked down the long haul until I got to the door that said detectives. Then I took a deep breath and hoped to God I knew what the hell I was doing.

  The detectives division was mostly deserted except for a Johnson and Lipinski, who were huddled together over something. I already knew it’d been a long night for Nick. He’d sent a text the day before letting me know he’d caught a bad one and he wasn’t sure when he’d be free
. I had enough friends at PD that it hadn’t been hard to find out when he’d come back from the crime scene about an hour before.

  He still wore yesterday’s clothes and had way past a five o’clock shadow. His eyes were shadowed and hooded—cop eyes—and they gave nothing away as he talked rapidly with the phone pressed to his ear and then made a few notes. That same gaze hit me as I walked toward his desk, and I realized it must suck to see him coming during an interrogation.

  I waited patiently for him to get off the phone, and I studied him as he finished up, noting the grief and exhaustion on his face.

  He hung up and we stared at each other a few seconds, the gravity of the moment taking me a little by surprise.

  “Addison,” he said, standing so we were on equal ground. “I thought we’d meet up later. I’ve still got a couple of hours of paperwork to do before I can go home.”

  It was the first time since I’d met Nick that I could remember seeing nervousness in his face. He was scared to death of what would happen in the next moments, and dragging it out would only be a cruelty.

  “I know you do,” I said. “I heard about the case. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s the job,” he said, shrugging.

  I cleared my throat and hoped I had the right words. “I came here for a reason. Cop life is in my blood,” I said. “And we met because of who you are. Our paths never would’ve crossed otherwise. So I thought it appropriate that I come to you here.”

  I opened my handbag and pulled out the little black box. Nick didn’t glance down at it. He just kept staring at me. I flipped it open and said, “It’s a beautiful ring.”

  “Addison,” he said.

  The I handed the box out to him and he finally looked down at it. My hand was trembling. And then he gingerly took it from me, as if it were a bomb.

  “You thought it appropriate that you do this here?” he asked, his voice strangely hoarse.

  “Of course,” I said. “You proposed to me once on bended knee, and I told me you wouldn’t have to ask me again. That I’d just give you an answer. But I have to confess I enjoyed the moment, before we got interrupted, I mean. So if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like you to ask me again.”

  I bit my lip and waited for him to say something. But he didn’t. There was just silence. Johnson and Lipinski were staring at us raptly now, their attention no longer on the case they were working.

  “You don’t have to get down on your knee again,” I clarified, rushing to fill the silence. “Unless you’ve maybe changed your mind about the whole thing, and if that’s the case, I’m going to feel pretty stupid.”

  “Let me get this straight,” he said, looking back at me. “You’re not returning the ring to me to keep?”

  “Ohmigosh, no,” I said, moving around to the other side of his desk. “I was giving it back to you so you could give it to me for real this time. And so I could accept it.”

  I didn’t do well in situations like this. The way events played out in my mind were never quite the same as how they played out in real life. In my head, this had been a simple matter. In reality, I’d complicated things and scared the shit out of Nick in the meantime.

  “Okay, I’m calling a do-over,” I said abruptly. “But first I’m going to hug you, even though other cops are watching. I won’t let it happen again.” And then I threw my arms around him and held him close. I’d missed touching him. Not having that physical connection over the last month had been like torture. I didn’t want to go through that again. And I didn’t want to put Nick through that again.

  But I couldn’t regret the time. I knew for sure that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with the man in my arms.

  “I can not believe you thought that was a good idea to hand the ring to me that way,” he said, squeezing me tight. “You’ve got no sense. But I love you to distraction.”

  “I like how you temper the insult with words of love.”

  “It’s better than strangling you.”

  “Can I have my ring now? I’ve been staring at that thing in the box for a month.”

  “Since you’ve botched things so badly, it’s my turn,” he said, taking the ring out of the box. “Addison Holmes, I’m going to keep this short and sweet. I love you. And you love me. And we’re going to get married.”

  I nodded at his no-nonsense approach. I was ready to officially be engaged and start planning a wedding. I was ready to start my life with this man.

  “Yes,” I said, grinning from ear to ear. “We’re going to get married.”

  Nick took my hand in his and placed the ring on my finger. It looked like it belonged there, and I felt tears well in my eyes as emotion overcame me.

  And then he dropped the bomb. “When I said we’re getting married, I meant we’re getting married a week from today. I’m not waiting for you any longer. You’ve got seven days to meet me in front of the preacher, or we can leave now and just elope. Your choice.”

  My smile vanished and my mouth fell open. The only thing I could think to say was, “My mother is going to kill you.”

  He leaned close until our lips almost touched and whispered, “I just don’t give a damn.”

  About the Author

  Liliana Hart is a New York Times, USA Today, and Publisher's Weekly Bestselling Author of more than 40 titles. After starting her first novel her freshman year of college, she immediately became addicted to writing and knew she'd found what she was meant to do with her life. She has no idea why she majored in music. Since self-publishing in June of 2011, Liliana has sold more than 4 million ebooks. She's appeared at #1 on lists all over the world and all three of her series have appeared on the New York Times list. Liliana is a sought after speaker and she's given keynote speeches and self-publishing workshops to standing-room-only crowds from California to New York to London.

  Liliana can almost always be found at her computer writing or on the road giving workshops for SilverHart International, a company she founded with her husband, Scott Silverii, where they provide law enforcement, military, and fire resources for writers so they can write it right. When Liliana and her husband aren’t spending time with their children, they’re living the life of nomads, traveling wherever interests them most.

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  Also by Liliana Hart

  Addison Holmes Mysteries

  Whiskey Rebellion

  Whiskey Sour

  Whiskey For Breakfast

  Addison Holmes Box Set

  (includes 3 books above)

  Whiskey, You’re The Devil

  Whiskey on the Rocks

  (Red Sole Clues Collection)

  Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

  The MacKenzie Series

  Dane

  A Christmas Wish: Dane

  Thomas

  To Catch A Cupid: Thomas

  Riley

  Cooper

  A MacKenzie Christmas

  MacKenzie Box Set

  (includes the 5 books listed above)

  Cade

  Shadows and Silk

  Secrets and Satin

  Sins and Scarlet Lace

  The MacKenzie Security Series

  (includes the 3 books listed above)

  Sizzle

  Crave

  Trouble Maker


  1001 Dark Nights: Captured in Surrender

  1001 Dark Nights: The Promise of Surrender

  Scorch

  (July 26, 2016)

  JJ Graves Mysteries

  Dirty Little Secrets

  A Dirty Shame

  Dirty Rotten Scoundrel

  Down and Dirty

  Dirty Deeds

  The Collective Series

  Kill Shot

  The Rena Drake Series

  Breath of Fire

  Standalone Novels/Novellas

  All About Eve

  Paradise Disguised

  Catch Me If You Can

  Who’s Riding Red?

  Goldilocks and the Three Behrs

  Strangers in the Night

  Naughty or Nice