Grounds for Remorse

by Misty Simon

  I walked the trail that wound around the park and didn’t see anyone. It was too early for children to be out playing on the playground equipment, and as much as some tennis players were early risers, I didn’t see anyone this morning.

  The high school football field sat at the back of the park because there hadn’t been enough room to build it at the school itself. It was only half a mile from the school, so convenient but different from most places where the football field was part of the school property. The trail followed along the perimeter of the football field, and I remembered doing some very interesting things under those bleachers. Feeling myself blush, I got back to my task.

  I almost fell over my own feet when I saw a car with big tires parked in the parking lot. Big, honking tires that didn’t seem to fit the car they were attached to. I dug through my memory for the car that had been parked in front of Michelle’s house when Lily had tried to take the house over, but this wasn’t the same car. Had Lily driven here instead of walking? Was this her car? If not, then was she meeting whoever did own it? Was I close to finally finding out what had happened?

  Before I could get close enough to the car to jot down the license plate number, I heard yelling to my left and hustled through the trees toward the train tracks.

  “I want you gone! I don’t know what you hope to accomplish, but I’ve already done everything I’m going to do.”

  I kept back in the trees, watching as Lily flung her arms around and yelled at whomever was standing just out of sight. I tried to look around the tree, but was afraid it would expose me too much. I didn’t want to give my position away if I could watch them duke it out and get confirmation of Lily’s guilt without ever having to speak with her.

  The other person laughed. I knew I’d heard it before, but I couldn’t quite place it. “You messed it all up. It was supposed to be simple and then you had to complicate it all.”

  There were two of them? A team of killers? But who had actually killed Craig? And that voice. Holy crap. It was definitely Laura. Gina and I had both been right. That did not make me happy.

  “I did not want some child to be able to claim anything,” Lily said. “It’s bad enough that I have to split everything with you—and that there might not be as much as I had originally thought. Who knew he was spending all that money on flowers and gifts for women?”

  “I did when I went out with him that one time.”

  “I still can’t believe you let him wine and dine you. Didn’t that feel disgusting, going on a date with your own father?”

  Father? Oh my God. Laura was his child? And Lily thought she was his wife. How had these two gotten together in the first place?

  “It was the only time I’d ever gotten to talk with him, and I used temporary dye on my hair so he wouldn’t realize who I was after I started working for Gina. That woman is a piece of work.”

  I would keep that part to myself because Gina would not be happy about the comment. She was already going to be pissed that she’d hired a killer and had told me I was full of crap for thinking that.

  “She was the last in a long line of floozies.”

  Yeah, I’d keep that one to myself, too.

  “And yet he never got anyone else pregnant.”

  “Not that we know of,” Lily said with an edge in her voice. “Are you sure you don’t have any other brothers and sisters? Maybe you’ll have to split your half with them.”

  Laura growled. “There aren’t any more of us. I checked the records and from what I understand he’s never slept with anyone except Michelle, my mother, and you. I’ve worked in bars where the women he took out would come when he dropped them for the next, and that was a common complaint. He never came in with them, just dropped and ran.”

  “They should count themselves lucky; he wasn’t that good in bed anyway. And now he couldn’t even be decent enough to leave us anything to split.”

  “And now we don’t even have the possibility of insurance because you never told me you weren’t actually married to the guy,” Laura said.

  “What were you thinking? I was still trying to work out how to make my marriage look valid and you messed that up, too.”

  “I was thinking I wanted things moved along and I didn’t want you to decide to move in and not sell the house. That way there would be no question that you’d double-cross me about the property.”

  I technically didn’t have enough to have Burton come in on them like a sledgehammer since it was all hearsay at this point, but I had enough that the police might be able to get them to turn on each other. If he could get them into interrogation rooms and tell them that the other had turned on them, then maybe that could work. But first I had to get back to Burton. I crept backward two steps when I heard Max shouting my name and the train whistle follow shortly after. “Tallie!” There he went again, and I had nowhere to go. I had been creeping backward but now I turned tail and ran. Unfortunately, I was no longer in my early twenties and, though cleaning was hard work, it didn’t exactly make me a fast runner.

  Laura had me by the hair and Lily clamped her hand over my mouth when I opened it to scream for Max.

  “Oh, I don’t think you’re going to want to do that,” Lily said into my ear. “We took out Craig, we can certainly take you out, too.”

  Holy crap, so they had actually killed him. Both of them. My mind snapped back to that cup of coffee that Laura had delivered to Craig on that first day. Had Lily been the one to send him the coffee already doctored and Laura was the one who had delivered it? How had Craig not recognized Lily? Although it had been years and he had been so enamored with being admired that he might just have seen another pretty face.

  I wanted to ask those questions, but Lily moved her hand so it was over my mouth and my nose while Laura clamped my arms behind me. They walked me out to the tracks, the whistle shrilling from just down the way. Was I about to be killed by a train? Oh my God. My mother would have a heart attack and my dad would have to figure out how to put me back together before putting me in a coffin.

  I bucked and kicked, but they both stayed out of my reach. Where on earth was Max? Not that I could blame him. If he’d been calling from the park, then he wouldn’t be able to see me for the trees. I should have let him come along. He’d probably gone to Mallorie at the inn and found out I was looking for Lily. I had been stupid and that stupid was going to cost me my life.

  I still kicked and tried to make as much noise as I could with shifting my feet through the gravel at the side of the tracks. Anything could alert him and I just needed him here.

  “Stop moving around. This isn’t the freaking dance floor.” Laura shoved me closer to the tracks and I saw how my death would happen. I did not want to die.

  Spots began dancing in front of my eyes from holding my breath.

  “Let go of her nose, Lily, or she’s going to die by your hand, and she’ll have your prints all over her.”

  Lily let go of just my nose, but moved her hand down to more fully cover my mouth. I only had long enough to squeak before she applied massive amounts of pressure with her strong hand. My teeth ground together and my cheeks clenched around them.

  “The train is coming,” Laura continued. “We’ll just throw her in front of it at the last moment and then run.”

  Except that the engineer would see them.

  This apparently also occurred to Lily. “We can’t take the chance that the guy driving the train will see two women throw her onto the tracks. We should tie her down.”

  Like those old cartoons my mother used to have me watch with the damsel in distress? I didn’t like them then, and I certainly didn’t want to replay them now.

  I jerked left and right while they talked and finally managed to break Laura’s hold as I slammed a knee into her leg. After that, I punched Lily in the throat and made a run for it.

  I ran like my life depended on it because it did. If I could just make it to the football field I might be able to escape them permanently and ke
ep them in the spotlight at the same time.

  I had run this place in high school, working the lights and the microphones and the scoreboard, all at different times. I just needed to get to the booth and then lock it behind me, hoping they didn’t hurt Max if they found him before he found them.

  I scrambled under the bleachers. Please let me still fit between the foot tread and the seats. It wasn’t an easy squeeze but few things in life were. Someone grabbed my ankle as I broke free on the other side and I kicked out, not caring who it was.

  And then I was up and running. I pounded up the bleachers like I was Rocky on the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. But my footsteps weren’t the only ones, and I had very little time to get into the booth.

  I was lucky that the door was unlocked, but since it was Tuesday I figured it would be. The groundskeeper was manicuring the turf with his headphones on, but he’d turned the floodlights on to make sure they worked and that there were no lightbulbs that had to be replaced before the big summer festival they held on the last weekend of July every year.

  I shot into the booth like I’d come from a cannon and locked the door behind me.

  Running to the other side, I locked that door, too, just as Lily showed up at the window. I was safe as long as neither of them knew how to pick a lock.

  Laura began working on the door handle, and I flipped on the mic along with the radio station that played the games. “Burton, if you can hear me, get down here. I need help and you’re going to want to bring some handcuffs.”

  That froze both of them in their tracks, but it was too late. The groundskeeper had taken off his headphones and moved to the bottom of the steps. My brother Dylan had hands of steel and the physique to match them. Unless either of the women wanted to take the chance of jumping off the bleachers and hoping they didn’t break anything, they were stuck. Especially when Max also arrived at the bottom of the stairs.

  Sirens wailed and Lily and Laura both turned to me to scream obscenities. They were more than welcome to do that. I was in a comfy chair, on the airwaves, and there was nothing they could do about it.

  * * *

  “Tallie Graver, what on earth am I going to do with you?” Burton had me and Max in his office. “And why can’t you control your woman?”

  “Tallie is not mine to control, sir. I’m just along for the ride if she ever decides to let me in on what she’s doing.”

  Ouch. We were going to have to have a talk about that later. He’d told me that he’d followed my trail to the B and B and then came looking for me at the park. I should have called him. I should have asked him to come along. I should have trusted him.

  I had thought I had it handled. Ultimately, I did save myself, but saying that out loud was not going to make either male in the room happy.

  “I’ll be more careful next time,” I said instead.

  “Hopefully there won’t be a next time. And if there is, then you’re out,” Burton responded.

  “But both of the women are in jail cells right now. Isn’t that worth something?”

  “It is, and the public thanks you, but it wouldn’t have been worth your life. That’s the part you don’t seem to understand. They could have killed you.”

  “But they didn’t.”

  “And I’m grateful for that, at least at the moment, until I have you underfoot again. Let’s just all hope that nothing happens around this town again that makes you go all vigilante. I do appreciate everything you brought me, but I also had to let your mother yell at me for putting you in danger, and that was not pleasant.”

  Ohh. My mother could be sweet and docile, but once you got her rolling it was hard to turn her off.

  “Yeah, sorry about that.”

  “I’d be happier if you’d be sorry about doing this all yourself instead of bringing it to my attention like I asked you to.”

  “I was going to, but then Max started yelling, and they caught me and it all went out of control.”

  “Which seems to be the norm with you.”

  “Well then, you’re welcome for my out-of-control.”

  He sighed. “I don’t want to see you again for quite some time. In fact, if you want to speed, I’m not going to even pull you over. Got it?”

  “Fine.” Fat lot of thanks this was getting me. I solved the whole thing and he was treating me like a pariah. “We’re gone. And you’re welcome.”

  I sashayed out of the office with Max at my side. We waved to Suzy, then exited the police station. I really hoped I would not have to see this place except in passing for a very long time.

  “You know, he does have a point.”

  Max held onto my hand when I tried to pull away.

  “Keep an open mind,” he continued. “I was never so scared as when I saw you up in that booth.”

  “I wasn’t exactly having a grand old time myself.”

  “I get it. But maybe from now on you could be a little more careful.”

  I stepped into his arms on the side of the street in front of anyone who happened to pass by. “I’ll be careful, and I honestly don’t expect to ever be involved in anything like this again.” I pulled him in closer so we touched from chest to knee. “And maybe you could keep me out of trouble better if you lived in the area instead of three hours away.”

  “Let’s get some lunch and talk about it. I still have a couple days left of vacation and I have some ideas.”

  I was totally onboard with that. And maybe if I told my mom we were moving forward with our relationship, she wouldn’t yell at me so much about putting myself in danger. My dad was not going to be nice about me solving the case, but I didn’t expect him to be. And it would blow over once someone else decided to do something stupid, like streak down the street, or a new scandal happened. It was like clockwork, and I was hanging up my magnifying glass.

  At least for now.

  We headed back to my apartment and managed to get upstairs without running into my mom or my dad. I texted Gina when I got upstairs and settled in. She called right away.

  “What were you thinking?” she yelled into the phone. “And your brother is not happy either.”

  “What is up with everyone being ungrateful? I did what you wanted me to do. I cleared your name and got you off the hook, and now you want to yell at me?”

  “No,” she laughed. “I want to treat you to dinner and thank you by paying for whatever you want. Thank you, Tallie.”

  That was more like it. I smirked at Max, who could hear Gina from my phone, and he kissed me. Looked like I was going to have a fabulous night after the harrowing experience of the train tracks and a double whammy of killers.

  A good day’s work in my book.

  Keep an eye out for

  Tallie’s next adventure,

  DECEASED AND DESIST.

  Coming soon from

  Misty Simon

  and

  Kensington Books!

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Misty Simon is the author of Cremains of the Day, the first novel in the Tallie Graver Mystery series. She loves a good story and decided one day that she would try her hand at it. Eventually she got it right. There’s nothing better in the world than making someone laugh, and she hopes everyone at least snickers in the right places when reading her books. She lives with her husband, daughter, and three insane dogs in central Pennsylvania, where she is hard at work on her next novel or three. She loves to hear from readers so drop her a line at misty@mistysimon.com.

  CREMAINS OF THE DAY

  There’s no reverse on the hearse . . .

  For Tallulah Graver, marrying wealthy Waldo Phillips seemed like the best way out of the family business, the Graver Funeral Home. But when her marriage falls apart and Tallie is left with next to nothing, she turns to cleaning houses to make ends meet. As humbling as it is to tidy the mansions of the snobby socialites she used to call friends, at least she doesn’t have to be around dead bodies. Until . . .

  She discovers one of her employers lying
in a closet with a knife sticking out of her chest. This unpleasant shock seems to be part of a web of weird experiences: Tallie’s friend Gina’s shop is broken into, her ex is stun-gunned where it hurts the most, and now she’s receiving flowers from the dead woman. Granted the deliveryman is handsome, but seriously, that’s enough to cast a pall over anyone’s day. Now Tallie needs to dig deep to clean up this mess—before she finds herself in a grave situation.