4 Arch Enemy of Murder

by Vanessa Gray Bartal

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Sneak Peek Prologue

  Copyright © 2012 Vanessa Gray Bartal

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Prologue

  Jonah Merleputter was going to get what was his. The woman belonged to him, whether she knew it or not. He had put up with her foolishness for a while, but enough was enough. There came a time when a man had to stand up and claim what was his own. For Jonah, that day had come.

  Of course it had taken him most of the day to come to the decision and make the drive to his wife’s hometown. Now it was night, and he was tired, but he still planned to finish his task before the night was over. By tomorrow morning, he would once again be with the woman who had vowed devotion to him for a lifetime. He had thought she meant those words, and she had, at least until she got the fool notion that she wasn’t happy, that he was abusive.

  Abusive. Pah! It was the daytime talk programs that put the notion in her head, that’s what. He was her husband; he had a right to make her mind, to make her behave, to make her cook supper. Jonah had been faithful. He hadn’t run around on her like some men. All he asked in return was a little obedience. Was that too much? And it wasn’t as if she was some delicate flower who couldn’t take it. So he smacked her around every now and then when she had it coming; he had never left a mark. It must not have hurt too bad if it didn’t break the skin or leave a bruise; that was what his old man had told him after he complained about a beating once. Then he had beaten him hard enough to break the skin and leave bruises—a lesson Jonah never forgot.

  The town was coming into view, and Jonah began to get restless. He wanted this over and done. He wanted his wife back home. He wanted a supper he could chew without gagging. She might still have the fool notion that she was independent, but he had sent her fair warning of his arrival. She should be packing by now, if she knew what was good for her. If not, he would have to convince her it was time to go.

  It was while he was thinking of all the possible ways to do some convincing that the windshield exploded in a blinding spray of glass. Jonah fishtailed as the wheel jerked back and forth. He screeched to a halt in the middle of the road, looking around.

  Dang kids, he thought. Always throwing rocks. He started the car again, angrier and more impatient than before. He would have to drive slower now that he was without a windshield. As soon as it was light tomorrow, he would have to have the windshield replaced. His chest itched, and he realized he had not paused to brush the scattered shards from himself. He reached down, absently scratching at the spot on his chest before jerking his hand upright. It was covered in blood.

  Another downward glance revealed a blossoming spot of crimson in the center of his body and a hole the size of a quarter. This time when the wheel jerked, he did nothing to right it. The car drifted off the road, down a ravine and behind a thick copse of trees. I’m going to die out here all alone. Will anyone find my body? The answer was yes, but not for several days.

  Chapter 1

  Lacy was having the dream, the one where she was snuggled up next to a warm body, a strong arm draped over her waist. Her fingers eased over the forearm and up the bicep; whoever it was, he was well-built. She turned her head, tipped her eyes up to his face. Her phone rang, and she leapt for it.

  “Jason?”

  “I thought you guys weren’t talking.”

  She sat up, scrubbing her hand over her eyes. “Travis?”

  “I find it interesting that you had to run through a list of men to get to me, although I guess one person doesn’t count as a list. Hey, could I put in a personal request and ask you guys to make up real quick? ‘Cause our newest detective is storming around the station like a bear with an injured paw, and people are beginning to resent you.”

  Lacy shouldn’t have been heartened by that fact, but she was. “We’re not fighting.”

  “Then why aren’t you talking?”

  “Long story.” She took another swipe at her face and froze, her fingers lingering over her nose and mouth so she was forced to smell her own morning breath. She quickly put down her hand and sat up straighter. “Who was it?”

  “Who was what?”

  “Who was arrested?” Lacy said. Her legs swung over the edge of the bed as she began a frantic search for her pants. The room was a mess, but it wasn’t exactly her fault this time.

  “No one. Anyone ever told you that you wake up pessimistic?” Travis asked. He sounded as if he was eating or drinking something. Lacy glanced at her clock; it was seven in the morning.

  “Are you at work?”

  “No,” he said.

  “Okay, I don’t mean to be rude because you know I love you, Travis, but you’re beginning to freak me out by breaking from your normal pattern. Why are you calling me so early on your rare day off? Did someone die? Who died?”

  “Seriously, Lacy, you might consider medication for your anxiety. Not everything is bad news.”

  “So you’re just calling to talk?” Lacy said, her tone disbelieving.

  “Not necessarily, but it’s not bad news.” He took a breath. “Rumor has it that Riley moved back home.”

  Oh, so it is bad news, Lacy thought. The mention of her sister drained what little energy she had managed to muster. She kicked off the jeans that were perched on her toe, throwing herself against the bed so hard she was in danger of losing the phone. How had he heard about it so quickly? Riley had been home a total of three weeks; that was fast work, even for their town’s legendary rumor mill.

  “Hello?” Travis said. Now he sounded tentative. Lacy sighed. Travis had told her on their first meeting that he had a not-so-secret crush on her little sister. She never expected anything to come of it.

  “Travis, Riley is…” Spoiled, shallow, a user, a taker…dead inside. “Not your type.”

  “Oh. You don’t think I’m good enough for her,” Travis said, now sounding like a mopey puppy.

  “You couldn’t possibly be more wrong,” Lacy said. I think you’re too good for her; I wouldn’t inflict her on my worst enemy, let alone a guy I actually consider a good friend. Of course she couldn’t say any of those things because Travis would never believe her. He had fallen for Riley’s beauty and charm. Lacy would come off sounding like a jealous shrew.

  “I don’t suppose you’d like to prove it,” Travis said.

  “Travis, really, you don’t want to do this. She just got out of a serious relationship.”

  “I do want to, Lacy. It’s not every day that a guy gets a shot at his dream woman; I need to strike while the iron is hot before someone else swoops in.”

  Lacy sighed, resigned. “All right. I’ll put in a good word.” For all the good it would do.

  “Well, I was actually hoping for a little more than that,” Travis said.

  She squeezed her eyes shut; this was going to be bad, whatever it was.

  “You see, I have this sort of, um, paralyzing fear of beautiful women.”

  Lacy’s eyes narrowed, trying not to take offense over the fact that he had ne
ver once been tongue-tied around her. “Go on,” she urged.

  “I was hoping maybe we could do a double date. You could sort of be my moral support.”

  “The Cyrano to your Christian.”

  “Huh?”

  “I’m a nerd. Continue.”

  “That was it. We double date and you keep me from making too big a fool of myself.”

  “Travis, Riley is…” A man-eater, only interested in your checkbook, looking for unattainable perfection…dead inside. “Three years older than you.”

  “See, this is where you come in handy. You know how you’re always saying that you owe me?”

  Lacy groaned.

  “Payback time.”

  “Can’t I just cut you a check? How does a thousand dollars sound?” The fact that she wasn’t kidding should tell him how much she didn’t want to do this. So far she had been able to avoid any major confrontations with Riley—mostly by avoiding her each time she emerged from her room. She hadn’t even argued when Riley insisted she give up her room. Instead she had quietly schlepped all her things to the tiny guest room where everything remained crammed haphazardly together. To Lacy, peace was worth any price. But to pay up on Travis’s favor would be to incur one from Riley. And owing Riley was about the worst thing in the world.

  “Lacy, c’mon, be a pal.”

  “All right, but can I please state for the record that you have no idea what you’re asking. This is the equivalent of releasing the kraken on you.”

  Travis laughed. “Oh, Lacy, you’re so odd. Can you set something up for Sunday? I traded to get the night off.”

  He sounded deliriously happy and excited while Lacy felt sad. This was not going to end well for him. Or her. “Sunday sounds fine,” she lied.

  “Great, super, thank you.” He hung up without saying goodbye, no doubt to go lay out his clothes like a teenager on his first date. She supposed that since he was only nineteen he actually was still a teenager. Or maybe he was twenty by now. He was nineteen when they met, but that had been several months ago. Had she missed his birthday? She should have written it down.

  Since she was up early, and since her grandmother was baking again, she decided to go for a run. In her quest to somehow enjoy exercise, she had bought a pair of shoes that promised to work wonders in her overall fitness. They were expensive; the most expensive shoes Lacy had ever bought. But they promised great things, and they were from Europe. Perhaps it was un-American, but Lacy had the idea that anything imported from Europe was of supreme quality, even if the shoes were ugly and complicated to put on. After getting the bindings wrong twice and having to refer to the directions, she finally had them fastened correctly. She took an experimental step and felt a shooting pain from her arch to her kneecap. She picked up the directions and studied them again, turning them upside down to try and decipher the drawings.

  The box had warned that there might be some adjustments to her stride which, in her case, was a good thing. Currently her stride was that of a penguin on hot coals. But were they supposed to hurt so much? She took another step, and there was no pain. She smiled; the first stab of discomfort had no doubt been a fluke.

  As soon as she opened her door, Riley did the same. They stopped short, staring at each other in the hallway. Riley’s glance swept Lacy up and down in the disdainful way she had that never failed to make Lacy feel inferior.

  “You’re running in that?”

  “What’s wrong with it?” Lacy asked.

  “You look like someone who went through a trash bin to get dressed.”

  “Why would I wear nice clothes just to get them sweaty?” Lacy asked. She wore an old t-shirt with an outdated turtleneck underneath, along with a well-worn pair of jogging pants. The ensemble didn’t exactly match, but she wasn’t planning on having her photo taken; she was going for a run.

  “Whatever,” Riley said. She stepped from her room—formerly Lacy’s room—and Lacy noted she was wearing running gear that cost as much as Lacy’s new shoes.

  “You’re going running?” Lacy said.

  “Nothing gets by you, sis,” Riley said. She quirked an eyebrow in Lacy’s direction. “You want to run together?”

  The answer to that was a resounding no. Riley had always been athletic, and she was one of those odd creatures who actually enjoyed sweating. She was no doubt a faster and smoother runner than Lacy. But there was also a competitive edge to her tone when she asked the question. The tone couldn’t be ignored.

  “Sure,” Lacy said, smiling in a way that didn’t quite reach her eyes. New shoes, don’t fail me now. “But I have to talk to you about something.” She filled her in on Travis’s idea for a double date. She tried to talk up Travis’s good points; maybe Riley would be so interested that she would want to go out with him with no further incentive.

  Riley clasped her hands behind her back, looking thoughtful. “I want something.”

  “What?” Lacy asked.

  “I don’t know yet. I have to think about it.”

  “It has to be within reason,” Lacy said. “And by that I mean something I would consider reasonable.”

  “Like what? A box of Ho-ho’s? It’s going to be bigger than that,” Riley said. “Are you trying to stall on our run?”

  “No,” Lacy said. “Let’s go.”

  There was no warm-up as they left the house. As soon as they stepped off the front porch, Riley started to run and Lacy tried to keep up. For about ten feet they were neck and neck. Lacy wasn’t even breathing hard. Just when she began to think that maybe all her hard workouts the last few months were paying off, the shooting pains started in her feet, inching their way up to her knees and settling deep in her thighs.

  She was dying. There was no other explanation for the icicle stabs of pain radiating from her arches and shooting to the rest of her body. Perhaps that was how the new shoes were supposed to work—one lost weight by expiring. All Lacy knew was that she had to stop, but she couldn’t. A quick glance to her left showed Riley running in perfect stride, not even breaking a sweat. If Lacy gave up now, she would never hear the end of it. So she pressed on. Maybe if she lifted her legs higher, the pain would lessen.

  “Why are you marching like a Nazi in Hitler’s army?” Riley asked, sounding not at all breathless.

  Lacy couldn’t answer. If she opened her mouth, shrieks of agony would emerge to divulge her secret. Instead she kept up the sprint/march, hoping against hope that the pain would lesson if she simply powered through.

  “I’m starting to remember why we’ve never run together before,” Riley said. “People are going to think I’m doing a good deed by taking a mental patient for some much-needed exercise.”

  Lacy had no comeback, both because she still couldn’t speak and because it was probably true. If Riley ran ahead of her, there was a good chance people would think Lacy—with her mismatched clothing and schizophrenic stride—was trying to chase her down. On the other hand, it was always fun to humiliate her little sister. She began waving her arms maniacally in the air and Riley diverged, putting more space between them.

  The fun of being able to mortify Riley temporarily distracted her from the pain, but it returned all too soon. There was no way she was going to be able to make it all the way home. She looked around for salvation and found it in the form of Tosh’s church, sitting a hundred feet ahead like a beacon of hope.

  “Have to see friend,” Lacy panted. “See you home.”

  Riley nodded, looking relieved. At least Lacy could hope her sister wouldn’t challenge her to a run again anytime soon. She ran up the steps to Tosh’s church, her pent-up tears of pain finally finding release as they coursed down her face. With one last glance to make sure Riley was out of sight, she reached the top step and dropped to her knees, crawling through the narthex like someone who had dropped a contact—head down, pace slow, concentration high. In reality she was merely trying to make it to Tosh’s office before she collapsed.

  She inched over the threshold and enc
ountered Pearl, Tosh’s roadblock of a secretary.

  “Pastor Underwood is busy,” Pearl said, not even looking up from whatever held her attention.

  Knowing better than to try and argue with Pearl, Lacy instead pulled out her phone and dialed Tosh’s cell. She could hear it ring in the next room.

  “Hey,” he said, sounding cheerful.

  “Could you step outside your door, please?” Lacy asked.

  “Why, what…” his words cut off, his smile frozen, as he opened the door and saw her lying a dozen feet away. Closing his phone, he dashed forward and knelt beside her. “What happened?”

  “I murdered my arches.”

  “New shoes didn’t work out so well, huh?”

  She shook her head.

  He leaned closer and inspected the shoes. “Lacy, you have them on the wrong feet.”