“Barbara!” Stan shook the arm he’d been patting as he spoke her name sharply. “This isn’t about your personal problems. This is about Samurai, and what’s best for the company.”
Stan looked over at me and tried to turn on the charm. Did I mention he didn’t have any?
“Georgie Girl. We need your help. Samurai is having some little problems. Just a hiccup or two, really. But we need to keep everything on an even keel for a few weeks. That’s all.”
His wheedling tone brought back memories of another early-morning meeting. One where he’d invoked the same argument: what was best for Samurai.
The morning he claimed what was best was my resignation.
The lizard brain was screaming now. Something was definitely wrong. I forced myself to remain calm and asked levelly, “What can I do for you, Stan?”
He smiled, relief evident as his posture relaxed. “It’s about those buyout rumors. I know they’re wrong, you know they’re wrong. But the people back at Samurai, they don’t know it, and it would upset a lot of people if that came out right now. Besides”—I could almost see the wheels turning in his head as he continued—“there could be a buyout. Just a little bit late.
“Help us through this, Georgie Girl, and I can see to it that a settlement comes your way when we’re back on track.”
I looked from Stan to Barbara, trying to figure out the connection. “Okay,” I said. “But what does she have to do with all this? Why is she even here?”
“I needed a witness,” he lied. “I didn’t want anyone from Samurai involved, and Barbara was the only other person who knew you. I didn’t think you’d want to talk about this in front of a stranger, would you?”
“So,” I said slowly, “I tell Richard the rumors were true, everybody goes back to normal, you get the money you need from Chad, and we all live happily ever after?”
“See?” Stan beamed at Barbara. “I told you she was a smart girl.”
She shook her head. “It won’t work, Stan. She wanted Blake back, and look what happened. Pretty soon she’ll want Richard back. I can’t let that happen, Stan. I have too much invested in him.”
“Oh, c’mon,” Stan joshed. “You have to be able to cut your losses. I’ve done it a lot. Just pay what you have to and walk away.” He looked over at me. “That’s what we’ll do here, won’t we, Georgie? We’ll all walk away.”
He chuckled to himself, though I didn’t see anything remotely amusing about the situation. I was trapped on the top of a hill, miles from anyone, with a couple of crazy people who thought they could bribe me to cover up—what, exactly?
“What I don’t understand, Stan, is where those rumors came from, anyway. How did everyone get the idea I took an offer and walked away?”
His smug grin answered my question before his words. Now that he thought I’d accepted his plan, he wanted to let me know how clever he’d been. “Must have been Blake,” he said slyly. “After I told him you were leaving. And why.”
My stomach hollowed and I fought back the impulse to gag. “And that was when, Stan? The night before I talked to you?”
He nodded. “I was real sorry about it, too. But I tried to tell you two that an office romance wasn’t a good idea. You didn’t leave me much choice.
“You got to him, Georgie. He told me he was going to back your demands to the board. Couldn’t have the two of you doing that, so I did what I had to do.”
Barbara watched me, her face intense. I breathed deeply. I had to look calm, feel calm. Stan had fooled himself into believing I was on board with the plan, but she wasn’t as easily fooled.
Stan turned down the corners of his mouth, a mockery of real human emotion. “It hurt me, Georgie. It really did. I knew it wasn’t going to last anyway, but I’d have rather let you two find that out on your own.” He shook his head sadly.
“I know it hurt you both, but you got over it. I hear you have a new man in your life. So there was no real harm, was there?”
I shrugged my shoulders, and waved away his comment as though it didn’t matter. I didn’t want to argue with either Stan or Barbara while I was here alone. If I could stall a few minutes longer, someone was sure to arrive.
A fat raindrop hit my outstretched hand, mocking my confidence in the cavalry coming to my rescue. Instead of coming out to the site, Sean and Barry were probably calling everyone and reassigning them.
Nobody was coming to save me.
Barbara clutched her leather bag against her side, shielding it from the rain. She looked like she wanted to climb back into the shelter of the Lincoln, but she wouldn’t let me out of her sight.
“But why a buyout, Stan?” I stalled. “You guys had the authority to fire me. Why not just do it?”
“You had friends in the company. We couldn’t risk you talking to them, telling them what really happened. Once they were convinced you’d walked away, we would be safe.
“And if you were right—which you were,” the admission made him grimace, “we were covered. Nobody could blame the board if you quit and walked away with a chunk of money. We were even able to spin the buyout as part of the cash flow problem.
“Everybody wins.”
Except me.
The rain came down harder. Barbara clutched her bag to her chest like a shield.
“Blake was going to ruin everything,” Barbara interjected. “He was going to ask you to come back, to take your old job back. Take back your company. Your job. Blake. Richard. You were going to take everything.”
She reached in her bag, and there was a terrifying moment of déjà vu. Seconds later I was staring at the barrel of a gun.
Stan backed away from her toward the door of the Lincoln. “We agreed, Barbara. We can trust Georgie. We can make a deal. You heard her.” His eyes pleaded with me to back him up. “She’s on board with our plans.”
She spoke to Stan from the corner of her mouth. “You can tell yourself whatever you want, Stanley, but you know better. She was going to ruin everything, just like Blake was. You know it was only a matter of how long before we had to get rid of her.
“I came prepared this time.”
This time? Which meant what? That she’d been here before? And if she wasn’t prepared the last time?
She’d used whatever was at hand. Something hard and heavy.
She was a big woman. Tall and well muscled. She could easily hit a man hard enough to knock him down.
Break his ribs.
Inflict serious injuries.
Kill him.
chapter 30
Everybody moved at once.
Stan dove for the car door and shoved himself behind the wheel of the big Lincoln.
Barbara dropped her bag in the mud and took a step toward me, the gun raised.
The lizard brain seized control, and I ran. It didn’t matter where; I just had to get away.
Behind me I heard the roar of the Lincoln’s massive engine and the spinning of wheels as the big car fought for traction in the gravel.
Bits of rock whizzed past me, shot from under the tires. Seconds later a final spray of gravel signaled the tires grabbing the surface. The engine sound roared down the hill behind me. I didn’t bother looking.
Stan was running away.
But Barbara was still here, and I knew she would be right behind me. With a gun.
As if to confirm my racing thoughts, a shot sounded from a few yards away. Water splashed to my left as the bullet went wide of its intended target.
Me.
Sue was right. Sometimes the best plan is just to run as fast as you can.
But there was no place to go.
The woods offered some cover, but I would have to run through the entire breadth of the clearing.
The construction site was bare except for a few tiny trees in the courtyard that was to come.
There was no place to hide.
I kept moving, dodging left and right. The rain was falling harder. It turned potholes into puddles, hiding their tr
ue depth.
My boot slipped on a loose stone, turning my foot. The stiff collar of the boot protected my ankle from injury, but my foot slid out from under me, sending me toppling.
The edge of the moat appeared before me and then I was falling, sliding down the steep side to the muddy bottom.
Just like Blake.
No, I wasn’t like Blake. I wasn’t hurt, or dying.
And I didn’t intend to be.
I heard Barbara panting at the edge of the moat above me as I cowered behind one of the piers for the temporary footbridge.
I was safe for the moment but she would spot me any second. I couldn’t hide behind the pillar forever.
Barbara had used whatever was at hand to kill Blake. I had to do the same. Use whatever was available to keep her from killing me.
A bullet pinged off the pier on my right.
This was getting to be a habit—getting shot at. I didn’t like it.
Standing still made me an easier target.
The sides of the moat were too steep to climb quickly, and they were slick from the pouring rain.
I ran again, splashing through the accumulating rainwater in the bottom of the moat.
My mind raced as fast as my feet. I had to find some way to fight back. Otherwise I would run until I was exhausted and then Barbara would find me and finish me.
She would have me and my car, and all the time she needed.
I would disappear again. Only this time I would never be found. This time I would disappear for good.
This time my mom would lose her house.
Anger burned hot in my chest. I would not let this woman hurt me or the people I loved.
Use whatever was at hand.
Barbara ran along the rim of the moat, her strides easily keeping pace with my frantic race along the bottom.
I followed the curve of the channel toward the back of the site. We had worked back there earlier in the autumn.
Installing sprinklers.
Sprinkler controls that would be impossible to see in the dark and the rain.
Whatever was at hand.
I put on a fresh burst of speed, forcing Barbara to increase her pace to keep up with me.
She fired another shot, missing me but breaking loose a miniature landslide just ahead of me.
I leaped over the small mound, racing toward the camouflaged sprinkler control.
I forced my legs faster. My breath came in gasps, sucking in raindrops with the oxygen my body craved.
We had to be close.
From above, a scream and a curse were followed by the solid whump of a tall, well-muscled body hitting the mud. A wave of muddy water splashed over the edge of the moat.
Followed by the solid thunk of something metal.
The gun.
She had dropped the gun.
I heard movement above me and looked up just in time to see Barbara slide over the edge of the moat. I stepped back quickly and she landed at my feet.
I didn’t know if she had been injured by her fall and her slide into the moat, and I didn’t care.
I didn’t have a lot of sympathy for people who shot at me.
And somewhere in the muck was a gun. One I didn’t want her to find again.
Barbara stirred, trying to lever herself to her feet. I jumped in the middle of her back, knocking her off-balance. She fell back on her face, frantically struggling to keep her mouth and nose out of the water.
I tried not to imagine Blake struggling the same way and failing. His injuries had killed him, but not before he fell in the water.
Where Barbara had left him to die.
I sat across her back, my weight keeping her down.
She managed to turn her head and noisily sucked a deep breath of air.
Now what? I needed something to tie her up.
“Georgie? Where are you?”
Sean’s voice had never sounded better.
“Down here,” I called. “I could use some help.”
Sean’s face swam out of the rain at the edge of the moat. He shone a flashlight on the two of us. “What the hell are you doing down there?”
“Catching the woman who killed Blake Weston.” There was a definite note of triumph in my voice. I’d earned it.
“I need something to tie her up,” I continued. “And I need the sheriff.”
chapter 31
I stood next to the Beetle, wrapped in a blanket from the sheriff’s patrol car. My coveralls were drenched and rain and mud had soaked through to my long johns and underwear.
There was not a dry spot on my entire body.
With the wet came the cold, and I shivered with my body’s effort to warm itself.
Deputy Carruthers took another blanket from his car and draped it on top of the first one. I nodded my thanks, though it didn’t make me any warmer.
“We’ll be heading back to the office in just a minute,” he said by way of apology. “The crew’s out there now, looking for the gun. And the sheriff thinks there might be a way for the lab to connect Mrs. Parks to the lead pipe that was the murder weapon.”
He glanced over his shoulder to where Barbara Parks stood, hands bound behind her back by the plastic zip tie Sean had found in his tool box. Rain poured over her uncovered head, flattening her waves of red hair into stringy wisps.
She wasn’t turning any heads now.
I wanted to correct him. Tell him that the pipe was galvanized steel, not lead. Nobody had used lead pipe in decades. I was a plumber. I knew these things.
But my teeth were chattering so fast I couldn’t form more than a word or two.
Carruthers gave me a sympathetic look. “Let’s get you in the car, okay?” He helped me into the front seat of the sheriff’s idling cruiser, and turned the heater on high. “Just a couple more minutes.”
I watched through the streaming rain on the windshield as another deputy helped Carruthers put Barbara Parks in the backseat of the second car.
Heat poured from the vents. My teeth slowed their clicking. I hunched over in the bulky cocoon of blankets and tried to untie my boots.
My fingers were clumsy from the chill, but eventually I got the knots loose and pushed the boots off my feet, followed by the two pair of soaked wool socks.
I shoved my feet against the floor vent, anxious for every bit of heat I could get. The socks began to fill the car with the scent of wet wool, but I didn’t care if it meant I could get warm again.
Sheriff Mitchell opened the door and sat behind the wheel. The heat washed over him, instantly bringing sweat to his brow. Without a word, he pulled off his leather jacket, Smokey-the-Bear hat, and fleece-lined gloves.
He looked at me and held out the gloves. They were too big, but they were still warm from him wearing them. I slid my clumsy hands into their depths, grateful for any source of heat.
“Carruthers swears he knows how to handle that stick shift,” he said as he slipped the cruiser in reverse. “He’ll take it home for you, and bring the keys back to the station.”
I opened my mouth, but I was still shivering and talking took concentration. He didn’t pause long enough for me to get a word out.
“Sue said she has a key to your house. She’ll bring you some dry clothes to the station so you can get cleaned up, but I need you to give me a statement.
“And this time I want you to stay and sign the blasted thing.”
A weak chuckle escaped from my cocoon. The sheriff shot me a quick glance before turning his eyes back to the road.
He shook his head, a gesture of disgust or resignation, I wasn’t sure which. “You keep getting involved with murder investigations, Georgie. It’s not healthy.”
He called me Georgie. That was a good sign that I was out from under suspicion at least.
“Y-you’re telling m-m-me?” I chattered. “I t-truly do n-not like getting shot at!” My mouth was working a little better, and I went on. “Now that’s a bad habit I definitely want to break.”
His mouth twi
tched, and I was sure this time it was amusement. “You should make that your number one New Year’s resolution,” he said. “And I suggest you start early this year.”
Sue met us at the station with an armload of warm clothes, clean undies, and a giant towel. The sheriff shooed the deputies out of their locker room, allowing me to use the tiny shower in privacy.
I spent the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon answering questions and filling the sheriff in on what I’d learned from Stan Fischer and both of the Parkses.
Some of which was even true.
The sheriff had been on the phone with the San Francisco Police since Sean’s first call. Richard Parks was picked up at the Samurai Security office. He was being held in the hospital ward of the San Francisco jail until they sorted out his involvement. The official diagnosis was severe shock.
Personally, I’d have called it a broken heart.
Sheriff Mitchell issued an all-points bulletin for Stan Fischer and the rented Lincoln. They expected to have him in custody soon.
The sheriff ushered me into the same bare room where we’d met before. But this time he had a deputy bring in a small sofa from his office. “Lay down if you want to,” he said. “Things are kind of busy right now, so it might take a bit before the statement is ready to sign.”
I wasn’t happy with his instructions and it must have shown on my face.
“I’ll stop back in a few minutes and bring you up-to-date.”
I sat. The sofa was well worn. The springs sagged a little, like the way a pair of worn-in shoes mold to your feet.
Maybe waiting wasn’t so bad.
I was resting my eyes when the door opened and the sheriff returned, rolling his leather desk chair in front of him. He rolled the chair up next to the little sofa, and dropped a stack of typed pages on the desk.
“You can take your time reading those over, just in case we missed anything. Then you can sign them and get out of here.
“Sue said she’d come get you as soon as I called. She’s on her way over now.”
Thank heaven for Sue. Not everyone is lucky enough to have a friend who would close their business and drop everything to bail them out.
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