Patricia pulled out her phone. “Oops. I’ve got a book club meeting in a while. We’d better get this over with.”
Fantastic. She was scheduling my death between cleaning out Carla’s office and her book club meeting, as if getting rid of me was just another task on her to-do list.
She motioned with the gun toward the door. “Let’s go.”
My muscles tightened in protest. I didn’t want to obey her, but if I wanted to have any chance of escape, I needed to get out of this room. Patricia went first, stepping out backward, keeping the gun trained on me.
I followed her through the doorway, and my eyes fell on the back door. The last time I tried to escape through there, the door had been locked. Was it still?
Patricia must have figured out what I was thinking. “Don’t get any ideas. It’s locked.”
Disappointment and terror waged a war in my gut. I felt like every step closer to the mud room was one step closer to death. My palms were sweating, I was having trouble steadying my breathing, and still Patricia’s resolve never seemed to waver. What was I going to do?
Patricia jerked her head toward the mud room, keeping a safe distance from me as we stood in the hall. “After you.”
I swallowed hard and entered the darkened mud room. I sensed Patricia coming up behind me, and I tensed, but she was only turning on the lights. When I saw the long pits of mud, so much like graves, a sob threatened to burst out. I tamped it down. Now was not the time to cry. Now was the time to save myself.
“You’re awfully quiet,” Patricia said. She sounded almost gleeful.
I turned to face her. “Doesn’t seem like there’s anything left to say. You’ve made up your mind.”
“Yes, I have. Now I need you to get in the mud so I can finish this.”
My mouth dropped open. “That’s your plan? I climb in and stick my head under the mud until I suffocate?” Saying the words sent a fresh spasm through my chest, but I kept my face neutral. I didn’t want to give Patricia the satisfaction of seeing how terrified I was.
“I could shoot you first, but I don’t think either one of us wants that.”
Frankly, I didn’t like either option, but I doubted Patricia cared.
She gave me a little shove, and I stumbled back toward the edge. “Now go,” she said.
This was it, my last chance to escape. I turned and acted like I was contemplating my fate while I studied the room. This side was bare, save for a robe hanging on a nearby hook. A chair sat in the corner on the other side of the two baths, but I couldn’t reach it. Everything else must have been packed up. I was on my own.
I made a show of inching to the edge of the first mud bath. I bent down toward the muck and slowly lowered a hand in, as if to test the temperature. The dense, ice-cold mud clung to my skin, and I shivered. Patricia followed behind me, close enough to shoot me if I tried anything, but still well out of arm’s reach.
I tilted my head up toward her. “I wanted to ask one last question. Do you think Carla was better in the sack than you are?”
Patricia reeled back. I scooped up a handful of mud and threw it in her face. It splattered in her eyes. Her free hand flew up to scrape at the mud, and she waved the gun wildly with the other.
What sounded like a sonic boom exploded in the tiled room. My entire body shuddered at the sound. A pungent smell burned my nostrils.
My God, Patricia had actually fired the gun! Ringing filled my ears as I tried to orient myself.
She fired another shot, and I threw myself to the floor. I scooped up more mud and haphazardly lobbed it at her. She wiped at her face and squinted through the goop that clung to her lashes. I couldn’t stay on the floor all day. The second her vision cleared, I’d be the proverbial sitting duck. I shoved myself up and ran for the chair in the corner.
Patricia fired again. Tile chips flew off the wall near my head, her aim way too close for my liking. I glanced over my shoulder as I grabbed the back of the chair and prepared to throw it at her. She was running toward me, her face and chest covered in mud. As she raised the gun to fire again, I swung the chair up, hoping to block the shot. Patricia hit a patch of mud and started to slide.
Seeing my opening, I hit her with the chair. She let out a grunt and fell to the floor. I dropped the chair on top of her and darted for the door. I ran out of the room and pounded down the carpeted stretch of hall, aiming for the bright rectangle of light that marked the front door. As I ran, I expected to hear another boom, feel an agonizing pain in my back as a bullet struck, but no shot came.
I flew through the lobby and burst through the spa door, where I collided directly with Jason. He grabbed my arms.
“Hey, slow down! Were those gunshots I heard?”
Jesus. Patricia might be right behind me. Now she’d get me and Jason both. I wrenched out of his hold and tried to pull him by his shirt down the sidewalk. “Patricia has a gun! We have to get out of here!”
A woman walking toward us froze and clutched her purse tightly. “Who has a gun? Where?” The man with her stepped in front of her, as if to protect her.
Before I could warn them, Patricia burst out of the spa, the gun still in her hand. “I’m going to kill you!” she yelled when she saw me.
I snatched the purse from the woman and chucked it at Patricia’s head. She put up her free hand to stop it. Beside me, Jason heaved himself forward, straight into Patricia. They both went down. Hard.
The gun flew from Patricia’s grasp and skittered across the pavement. I chased after it as it slid under the bench. Dropping to my knees, I reached under the redwood slats and frantically felt along the ground until my fingers closed around the smooth metal. Gun at the ready, I whirled around to help Jason.
But Jason didn’t need my help. Patricia lay flat on her back, with Jason sprawled on top of her. Each of his hands gripped one of her wrists, keeping them on the ground.
“Dana?” he called. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. And I’ve got the gun.”
I kept it pointed down as he got his legs under him and crouched over Patricia, still holding her wrists. When she didn’t seem to struggle, he let go of her. She immediately started to flail her arms, striking Jason in the face. I stiffened and brought the gun up, but Jason grabbed her arms and held them back down.
“Did she hurt you?” I asked.
“I’m okay.”
“Let me call the police.” I took one hand off the gun and started to reach in my pocket when I remembered my phone was in the car. I looked over at the couple, who stood to one side, both staring at Patricia on the ground. “Either of you have a phone?”
The woman snapped out of her trance and bent down to retrieve her purse where it lay on the sidewalk. She pulled out her phone and dialed.
When Patricia heard the woman talking to the 911 operator, she started to cry. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It’s not fair.”
Jason continued to hold Patricia, but she didn’t bother to fight him. Still, I moved a little closer just in case.
In less than a minute the first strains of sirens reached my ears, and I breathed a sigh of relief. My nightmare was over.
Chapter 33
Two days later Ashlee and I were back at the bowling alley, this time with Jason. As I sat down at a table in the snack area with my cardboard tray of nachos, I marveled yet again at how I’d almost been drowned in a mud bath.
I grabbed a cheese-covered chip and took a bite. “Mmm, this is so good,” I said, my words muffled by the food.
Ashlee scrunched up her nose. “Do you know how much fat is in that? And it’s not even real cheese. Don’t you ever wonder what it’s made of?”
I shook my head. “Nope. I file it under mystery foods I can’t live without, like hot dogs.”
She shoved the nachos closer to me and sipped her diet soda, as if her drink was any more natural than my nacho cheese. She leaned toward Jason. “What’s the latest, newsman?”
Jason lifted his beer
bottle and took a swig. “The DA has already filed murder charges against Patricia.”
I poked through the nachos, in search of a chip that wasn’t too soggy, but ended up only with gooey cheese sauce all over my fingers. “Even after Patricia tried to kill me, I’m still not convinced she meant to murder Carla. At least not at first.”
“Really?” Ashlee said. “As type A as she is, I figured she had the whole thing planned out on PowerPoint slides.”
“It’s that need for control that makes me believe her when she said she went to the Pampered Life strictly to talk to Carla,” I explained. “She probably thought she could order Carla to stop seeing Stan. Then she’d spend the rest of her marriage constantly reminding him of his unfaithfulness. I bet when she saw Stan leaving the spa, she lost her mind and had no idea what she was doing.”
Ashlee was texting on her phone, giving me only part of her attention. “I’m confused. I thought Gretchen overheard Stan and Patricia in the spa that night, but if Stan was leaving when Patricia got there, then it couldn’t have been those two.”
I tried to wipe the liquid cheese off my fingers, but the flimsy napkin tore and stuck to my skin. I scraped the paper remnants off. “She must have heard Carla and Stan. He probably drove straight over to warn Carla that Patricia knew about the affair. Gretchen overheard the guy say that everyone would know, so Stan must have been worried that Patricia would tell all her friends. That shows you how little he truly knows Patricia. She would never admit to being cheated on. Rather than run off to his girlfriend, he should have stayed home and tried to fix things with his wife.”
Jason turned the beer bottle around and around in his hands. “You have to wonder how things might have turned out if he had.”
“Guys can be so dumb sometimes,” Ashlee said. She checked her phone again and scowled. “Fifteen minutes late? If Ryan thinks I’m sitting around the bowling alley all night, looking this good, he’d better think again, real fast. Five more minutes and I’m out of here.” She glared at us as if we were somehow responsible for her date being late.
I gave up trying to clean my fingers and took another chip. “Do the police have enough to lock up Patricia?” I asked Jason. “Even with the way she confessed to me, they might need more.”
“And they’ve got it,” Jason said. “Like Stan, she had no alibi for the night of the murder. She can’t prove she was home by herself, which is what she told the police. Let’s not forget she also tried to kill you, so that alone will get her a long prison sentence.”
“I know, but I’d like to see her convicted for Carla’s murder, too. It wouldn’t be fair if she got away with it.”
Jason smoothed down the label on his bottle. “I wouldn’t worry about that. The police found the statue. It had traces of Carla’s blood on it. Rather than throw it in a Dumpster, Patricia stuck it in the back of her closet, in case the police started suspecting her. She planned to frame Stan with it.”
“That reminds me,” I said. “Was this mystery witness who saw Stan at the spa for real, or was that somehow Patricia’s doing?”
“The witness was telling the truth about seeing Stan that night, but the police initially focused on asking questions about Gretchen being there, and the witness forgot about Stan until later. When they came forward with this new information, Patricia saw it as another opportunity to deflect any attention from her. Since she’d also seen Stan at Carla’s spa, she knew Stan’s assistant had lied to the police about the two working nonstop together that night, and she manipulated the poor kid into coming clean.”
My throat felt dry, and I took a sip of lemonade. “She probably decided that sending her husband to jail was only fair after he’d cheated.” I unearthed a single crunchy chip from the pile of sodden ones and pulled it out. “Did you ever find out why Miguel lied about his alibi?”
Jason had been swallowing some beer and almost choked at the question. He brought the bottle back down. “Get this. He’s a member of a swingers’ club. Goes down there about once a week to meet people. He was worried his job would be in jeopardy if his employer found out, so he lied about attending the work meeting.”
Ashlee giggled. “Oh my God, wait until I tell Brittany. She is gonna bust a gut.” Her thumbs flew over her phone’s keyboard.
“I knew he was a charmer, but a swinger?” I said. “I wonder if Carla was into that scene, too.”
Movement over by the counter caught my eye. Ricky had just come on shift. He noticed me looking and waved hello. I waved back.
“Erin came to see me at work today,” I told them.
“What for?” Jason asked.
“She claimed she wanted to apologize for threatening me, but I think she wanted to gloat a little about Patricia being the killer. She also told me that she’s moving in with Ricky and his mom, after all, at least until she finishes her last semester at nursing school.”
“What about Ricky?”
“Since Erin’s almost done with her degree, he’s talking about returning to school himself once he saves some money with his job here. Erin confirmed that Ricky’s the one who refused Carla’s loan. Carla was convinced he did so because he was too lazy to study and go to class. That’s why she disapproved of him and kept arguing with Erin to dump him. Carla felt he was going nowhere in life.”
“Looks like she was wrong,” Jason said. “I hope things work out for them.”
“Me too. They’ve had some tough breaks.”
“Sounds like Gretchen has too,” Jason said. “She must be relieved that she can put this mess behind her now.”
“It’s nice to see her excited about her job again,” I said. “In fact, Esther was so pleased with how well her composting class turned out that she’s already thinking up a whole list of additional topics to offer, and she asked Gretchen if she’d like to teach classes at the spa. They both seemed happy with the idea.”
Ashlee stood and pulled her lavender T-shirt down over the top of her black tights. “Speaking of happiness, Ryan’s on his own. I’m off to find me a new man. Wish me luck.”
I eyed her long legs and trim figure. “Trust me. You don’t need it.”
She flipped her hair back. “So true.” She grabbed her small purse off the seat and inspected the contents. “Oh, good. I’ve got my key. I’m guessing I’ll get home pretty late, so I’ll be sure not to wake you.”
Wow. My sister was being a courteous roommate. Yesterday she’d even bought milk. Our new living arrangement might work out okay, after all.
She flounced out of the snack bar, and I smiled after her. “See you at home, sis,” I called. I turned to Jason. “Looks like it’s just you and me.”
“I couldn’t ask for anything better.” Jason took my hand and squeezed it.
I squeezed back. “We do make a pretty good team, don’t we?”
“The best.” He leaned across the table until his lips were inches from mine. “And I plan to keep it that way,” he whispered.
I gazed into his warm green eyes. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Recipes and Tips from the O’Connell Farm and Spa
I know one of these days Esther and I will see you out here at the farm. For now, here are some helpful recipes and tips to enjoy.
Whipping Up a Tangy Mustard Sauce
Zennia’s tangy mustard sauce was so delicious that I begged her to give me the recipe. I tried it at my apartment, and it’s a snap to make.
To make the mustard sauce, start by heating one teaspoon of olive oil in a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Add two minced garlic cloves to the saucepan and cook them for thirty seconds, stirring constantly. Whisk in a quarter cup each of white wine and chicken broth, two tablespoons of pure maple syrup, and two tablespoons of Dijon mustard. Bring the mixture to a boil and cook it until it reduces by half. This should take about five minutes. Remove the saucepan from the heat, stir in a teaspoon of minced rosemary, and serve. This sauce is a tasty topping for either fish, such as tilapia, or chicken. The recipe makes
two servings, but if you like sauce as much as I do, you may want to double the recipe.
Cooking a Tater Tot Casserole
I thought I’d share my Tater Tot casserole recipe, but please don’t tell Zennia that I passed it along. She won’t be happy that I’m helping people make a casserole topped with gooey cheese and delicious Tater Tots.
To make the casserole, start by preheating the oven to 375°F. Next, chop up half a medium-size yellow onion. Brown the onions with one pound of ground beef in a medium skillet over medium heat, stirring frequently, until the beef is no longer pink. Stir in a ten-ounce can of cream of mushroom soup and one cup of thawed corn kernels. Season the meat mixture with salt and pepper to taste before pouring it into a 9 x 13-inch baking dish. Cover the meat mixture with a single layer of frozen Tater Tots from a sixteen-ounce package. Sprinkle two cups of grated sharp cheddar cheese over the Tater Tots. Bake, uncovered, for forty minutes, or until the cheese has melted and the mixture is bubbly. If you prefer, you can swap out the corn for an equal amount of green beans or peas.
Making Your Own Air Freshener Gels
While Esther prefers the smell of fresh flowers and the great outdoors, sometimes the weather isn’t pleasant enough to open the windows. That’s when she relies on homemade air freshener gels.
To make your own, you’ll need two cups of water, two tablespoons of salt, about fifteen drops of an essential oil that you love the smell of, four small packets of unflavored gelatin, and three or four small glass jars to store your finished gels in. Mix the water, salt, and essential oil in a small saucepan. Bring the ingredients to a boil over medium heat and add the gelatin packets. Stir until the gelatin powder has dissolved. Remove the mixture from the heat, pour an equal amount into each of the jars, and let it cool completely to set. For an extra-cute look, you can toss in little leaves or peels that match the scent, such as lemon peels for a lemon-scented gel or mint leaves for a peppermint gel.
A Healthy Homicide Page 23