by Jessica Beck
“How about you, Midnight? Are you here?” I asked.
There was a sound from the front parlor, and I hurried out there in anticipation.
Nobody was there, not a live cat or a ghost one either.
It may have been Midnight, but most likely, it was just my imagination. I sat on the sofa and turned on the television, flipping through the channels at an alarming rate before I ended up turning it off again. After I put the remote control down, I picked up a book I’d been reading, but after repeating the same sentence three times, I set that aside, too. I was restless, and there wasn’t anything I could really do about it.
As I sat there in silence, I started wondering how I could trap Jim Hicks into confessing his crimes. The man would be a tough nut to crack, but there had to be a way to do it. Should I use my threat against Kelly Madigan to force him into telling the truth, or I’d have her arrested? Even if it might work, I couldn’t bring myself to try it. I didn’t approve of Kelly’s behavior by any stretch of the imagination, but her circumstances were somewhat extenuating. I was glad I wasn’t a judge, because I had no idea how to balance that particular scale of justice. When it came to the person who had taken away my best friend and my boss, I wasn’t about to be so forgiving, though. I wanted justice for Midnight and Cora, not revenge. There had to be a way of bringing Jim Hicks down without involving Kelly Madigan. The only real resource I had besides Trudy was the journal Cora had kept. Could I have missed something she’d written there? Why hadn’t I brought it home with me tonight? I sat there another ten minutes stewing about it, and then I decided that I wasn’t going to get any rest tonight unless I had that book, so I grabbed a jacket and headed back out. At least I hadn’t had to explain my behavior to Marybeth. She was gone for the night, and I was on my own. As I drove to the shop, I thought about the last time I’d come there late at night on foot. I’d been with Midnight, following him down the darkened streets, and I wished I had him beside me. Unfortunately, that wasn’t in my power.
I unlocked the door, slipped inside without relocking it, and entered the combination to disarm the alarm system Emily had installed for me.
It started beeping that all was safe, and as I reached for the door, it was jerked out of my hands.
Jim Hicks stood there scowling at me, and worse yet, he had a gun pointed straight at my heart.
It appeared that I’d suddenly run out of time.
Chapter 15
“Have you lost your mind?” I asked him. “You can’t come here and point a gun at me. Someone’s going to see you.”
“Funny, they didn’t notice me the last time I did it,” he said. “Step aside.”
I did as he ordered, and after he locked the door behind us, he cut straight to the chase. “Let me have it.”
“Have what?” I asked.
“Don’t play stupid with me. I saw Cora’s journal when I was here before. I was about to break in when you showed up. I’m going to need that journal now.”
“It’s over there,” I said, pointing to the counter. “Let me get it for you.” The paperweight I’d just bought from Nancy was right there, and if I could use it to disarm Hicks, I’d pay Nancy the ten she’d first asked for it.
“Not so fast,” he said. “I’ll get it myself.”
“What’s wrong, Jimmy boy? Don’t you trust me?”
“Don’t call me that,” he snapped as he moved toward the display case. I wish I’d hidden it better, but it didn’t take him long to find the journal. “Surely that’s not the reason you killed Cora and my cat,” I said angrily.
“Watch yourself, Christy. If you make a move, you’re dead.”
I decided to do as he said, at least for the moment. He kept the journal on the counter and then started flipping through it. “Is this it? There has to be more.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.
“I don’t believe you. She told me that she had proof, and she told me that if I didn’t go to the police and confess, she’d turn over everything she had to them.”
“When exactly did Cora confront you?” I asked.
“When do you think it was, genius?” Hicks snapped out, and I knew that Cora’s threat had been the trigger that had set him off.
“Did it ever cross your simple little mind that she was just bluffing?” I asked, stunned by the revelation. “You most likely killed her for nothing. Why did you have to kill my cat, too?”
“He tried to protect her, if you can believe it. Oh, he died a hero’s death, but he died just the same. That’s why I’m wearing this bandage. If people saw it, they might suspect what had happened to me.”
I was so proud of Midnight! He had died trying to save someone else, and that was my definition of hero no matter who did it. Could I do anything less? I wasn’t about to stand there and be killed without putting up as much of a fight as my cat had. “I’ve never been more proud of him! I’m just sorry that he didn’t get your eyes.”
“He tried hard enough. I’m going to tell you what I wrote to Cora, Christy. This is your last chance.”
“To sell you my shop? I won’t do it.”
“I know you won’t. That’s one of the reasons you’re going to have to die, too. Cora wouldn’t sell it to me, and when I wouldn’t stop pushing her, she threatened to expose me. It’s clear you won’t sell the place to me, so I’ll have to try my luck with Sandy and Mandy.”
“What’s so special about this place, anyway?” I asked.
“I’ve got a guy on the hook who wants to buy the block. You and Celeste are the last holdouts, and after I get my hands on this property, she’ll cave, trust me on that. And if she doesn’t, I’ll just have to put a little heat on her, too. It’s a pity you won’t be around to see it, though. Now, do you know where she might hide something she didn’t want anyone to find?”
My mind raced frantically for somewhere, and then I saw a movement in the doorway to the backroom. Midnight was there, and I could swear that he was summoning me with his neck. What did the rascal have in mind? I didn’t have a clue, but I was willing to go along with him. “It might be in the backroom.”
“Stay right here,” he said. “If you move, I’ll kill you.”
“You’ll never find it without me. Think about how many times you’ve tried to find it already,” I said.
“Fine, but don’t try anything. If you do, after I take care of you, I’ll make sure that your roommate and your last cat pay the price. You don’t want that, do you?”
I knew he was capable of what he was threatening, and it took my entire resolve not to plead with him to leave them alone. I was going to have to do this on my own though, with a little help from Midnight.
As I walked in the back, I searched for anything I could use as a weapon. I knew without much of a doubt that Cora’s threat of more evidence was most likely empty. It was a real shame that she’d tried to bluff the wrong person.
Where could I lead him, though? Then I remembered the stack of boxes that were leaning precariously against the doorway. If I triggered them as I walked through, they might be heavy enough to dislodge the gun in Jim Hicks’s hand.
As we approached the door, I could feel my heart pounding in my throat, and it seemed as though it was going to explode right in my chest. “Hit that light switch for me, would you?” I asked him.
As he reached for the switch, I kicked out at the boxes behind me.
It was beautiful the way they collapsed on my unsuspecting captor.
But the gun never left his hand, even though he hit the floor.
All I could do was run! I moved past him and started for the front door. I would have escaped out the back, but Emily had installed a double-keyed dead bolt lock instead of the single key I’d been used to. Opening it required a key from the inside as well as the outside, and I didn’t have the time. I raced for the front, but I
knew that I wasn’t going to make it in time, and there was no doubt in my mind that Jim Hicks wouldn’t hesitate shooting me in the back. I could feel his gun pointed straight at my spine, though I couldn’t see him. My hand found the heavy paperweight as I reached the case, and as I picked it up, I turned toward him.
Throwing it with everything I had, it glanced off the side of his head, though I’d tried my best to break his nose with it. It did manage to stagger him.
I was running out of time, though.
I looked for something else heavy to throw, but all I could find was a barstool, and I knew that wouldn’t stop him. Instead of aiming it at him, I hurled it through my front window.
The explosion was something to see as the stool landed on the sidewalk in a hail of glass hitting the concrete.
“Help!” I shouted with all my power, and then I leapt through the window and landed outside on my side. I had a pretty nasty cut on one elbow, and I hurt my shoulder with the impact. Pulling myself up, I looked for someone, anyone, to help me.
Imagine my delight when Sheriff Kent himself pulled his patrol car up in front of the shop and exited his car with his service revolver drawn.
“Jim Hicks is in there, and he’s armed,” I said frantically. For some reason, I added, “Don’t let him shoot you!”
“Hold on,” the sheriff said as he stepped up to the window. “Hicks,” he shouted through the opening. “You’ve got three seconds to throw your weapon out, or I’m coming in.”
I held my breath as I counted to myself, and I swore I got to five before the handgun clattered on the concrete a foot away from me. It appeared that he had no problem shooting me, but when it came to the possibility that someone might shoot back, he’d shown his true colors and chickened out.
After Hicks was safely handcuffed and in the back of the patrol car, Sheriff Kent came over to where I was sitting. I’d managed to nearly make it to a nearby bench, but then my legs finally gave out, and I barely made it there in time.
“Are you okay?” he asked as he sat down beside me.
I was holding a handkerchief against the cut on my arm. “I think I sprained my shoulder.”
“Throwing a chair through a window will do that to you,” he said, his voice softer than I’d ever heard it.
“Actually, throwing was fine. It was the hard concrete landing that did it.”
“You stay right here. I called an ambulance for you, and they’ll be here any second.”
“How did you know that I was in trouble?” I asked him. “Your timing couldn’t be better.”
“Actually, you owe that to your roommate. My niece called me right after the two of you spoke, and she was worried about you. She insisted that I check up on you.”
“Did you arrest David Whitman?” I asked.
“Oh, yes. It appears that you had the misfortune of running into two of our worst citizens at the same time. It’s amazing you came out of it relatively unscathed.”
“In the scheme of things, I guess you could say that. I’m alive, at any rate.” And so were Shadow and Marybeth. I might not have been able to save Cora and Midnight, but at least I’d managed to save them. That was what had made me so brave in the end. I didn’t care so much about protecting my own life as I had my friends. I had to wonder about something, though. Now that the man who’d taken Midnight and Cora from me was going to get what he deserved, had I lost my ghost cat forever? As I looked back at the shop, I could swear that I saw Midnight’s ghostly face appear in the opening that had up until recently been a window.
“Mrwerer,” he said, and then vanished.
I smiled, but it died abruptly when I saw a puzzled look in Sheriff Kent’s face.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I must be hearing things,” he said.
“Why do you say that?”
“I could swear I just heard a cat. Did you hear anything?”
It would have been the perfect time to tell him about Midnight’s reappearance into my life, but that was something I wasn’t in any mood to share with anyone else, at least not yet.
“It must have been the wind,” I said, though the evening air was dead calm.
He accepted that, though. “Yeah, that must have been it.”
I could swear I felt Midnight brush against me as I said it, but when I looked, he was nowhere to be seen.
After that, the trip to the hospital in the ambulance was almost uneventful.
My shoulder was just bruised, and the cut on my arm took all of four stitches. All in all, the sheriff was right. I’d had luck on my side tonight, but I’d also had something else a lot more powerful than that.
I’d had my Midnight, and even from the Great Beyond, he’d been there for me.
Our bond had reached beyond the abyss, and even though I knew that I would always miss the touch of his nose on my chin, and the full weight of him on my lap, in a way, he would be with me.
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Other Books by Jessica Beck
The Donut Mysteries
Glazed Murder
Fatally Frosted
Sinister Sprinkles
Evil Éclairs
Tragic Toppings
Killer Crullers
Drop Dead Chocolate
Powdered Peril
Illegally Iced
Deadly Donuts
Assault and Batter
Sweet Suspects
Deep Fried Homicide
Custard Crime
Lemon Larceny
Bad Bites
Old Fashioned Crooks
Dangerous Dough
Troubled Treats
The Classic Diner Mysteries
A Chili Death
A Deadly Beef
A Killer Cake
A Baked Ham
A Bad Egg
A Real Pickle
A Burned Biscuit
The Ghost Cat Cozy Mysteries
Ghost Cat: Midnight Paws
Ghost Cat 2: Bid for Midnight