Henry returned my gaze, his big blue eyes slightly crossed.
I shook my head. “What am I saying? You’re stoned. You won’t remember a thing about this tomorrow.” I rose from the table. “I’m going to make some hot chocolate and read a book while we wait for Trent.”
Pointless talking to a stoned cat.
I made my hot chocolate and took it into the living room. Henry joined me on the sofa. I laid my cell phone on the nearest lamp table and cradled the steaming beverage in both hands, absorbing the heat and breathing deeply of the chocolate fumes.
The first sip of the liquid ambrosia warmed me from the inside out and soothed my worries. I retrieved my book from the coffee table and settled in for a short wait. The hospital wasn’t far, and once the doctor took a look at Kathleen’s ankle and pronounced her a malingerer, Trent would head home to me.
My phone rang.
I lifted it and looked at the screen. I didn’t recognize the number. Surely no salesman would call at almost ten o’clock at night.
I answered.
“Lindsay, it’s Maggie Gabler. I apologize for calling so late.”
“No problem. I’m up.”
“Is Adam with you?”
“He will be shortly.”
“You asked us about a key Jeff left for you.”
I sat upright so rapidly my cocoa sloshed and almost spilled. “Yes?”
Henry lifted his head and regarded me through narrowed eyes.
“This is probably silly…”
“Go on.”
“Jeff’s toy chest in his room. It has a padlock on it. A new padlock.”
I relaxed back into the sofa. “His toy chest?”
Henry closed his eyes and lowered his head.
“It’s a big wooden chest his dad made for him when he was a boy. When he was older, he stored books and games and whatever was important to him in it. It’s never before had a lock on it. He must have put it on during one of his recent visits.”
His toy chest. I wasn’t sure if I should be elated or deflated.
“Is it a big padlock?”
“No, just the regular size.”
“Maybe you could snip it and see what’s inside.”
“Yes, we could. Warren and I talked about that, but it would be invading Jeff’s privacy. If there’s something in there he doesn’t want us to see, we don’t intend to look. We thought maybe you and Adam could come over tomorrow and bring the key. If it opens the padlock, that means he wanted you to see what’s inside.”
“Sure. We can do that.” I had no idea how long the meeting with Trent, Gary, and Kathleen would last. Surely not more than an hour or two. “How about around 4:30 or 5:00? I’ll talk to Trent and get back to you with a more definite time.”
“That sounds great.”
We hung up and I sat staring at the phone but not really seeing it.
His toy chest.
Was the key unimportant after all?
Or had he stored something important in his toy chest?
If so, was it something important to solving his murder or was it some boyhood treasure he wanted Trent to have?
My cell phone tinkled like a wind chime. Text message.
I looked at the screen.
Text message from Trent.
Please come to the hospital. I need you.
I smiled. He needed me.
What’s wrong? I texted back.
Long story. I’ll tell you when I see you. I’m in the emergency waiting room.
I was glad I hadn’t changed into my sexy purple flannel pajamas yet.
I took one more sip of my hot chocolate, retrieved my jacket from the closet, and headed out the door.
I felt a little guilty about leaving Henry alone in the house in his inebriated state, but even if someone broke in, they’d just tear the house apart looking for that key. They’d have no reason to harm a stoned cat.
My purse played the theme song from Game of Thrones. I hesitated but only for an instant. It was my generic ring tone…not Trent, not Fred, not Paula. Maybe the Gablers calling again. I’d call them back when I got to the hospital. Trent needed me.
As I dashed across the yard through the chilly darkness to my beloved elderly car, I had a fleeting disloyal wish that it was newer, that I could start it remotely and warm it up. I park it in the driveway since a strong wind could blow over my garage…and Kansas City has a lot of strong winds. The doors no longer seal as tightly as they once did, and I knew it would already be cold.
I opened the door, slid in, and patted the dashboard. “I don’t really wish you were newer.”
The engine cranked immediately. So it has a few dents, the radio doesn’t work, the doors don’t seal, and a few other inconsequential things are wrong. The important parts still function great.
I put the car into reverse.
The scent of a pine tree deodorizer drifted through the car.
Couldn’t be. I never used those things.
I backed down the driveway into the street.
Pine tree deodorizer and alcohol.
I shifted to first gear but halted with one foot on the clutch and the other on the brake.
What I was thinking was not possible. Granted, the door locks were one of the things that didn’t work, but my back seat was so small, only an agile midget could hide there.
In the rearview mirror a black figure rose from the back seat, and it was no agile midget.
A cold steel blade pressed against my neck.
The scent of phony trees and alcohol surrounded me.
“Gary?” Why would Gary want that key? “What are you doing here? Your car’s at the hotel.”
“Who has only one car?”
Me.
“Drive.”
“No!”
The blade bit into my neck.
I gulped and decided to drive. “Where?”
He hesitated. He couldn’t possibly have sobered up in the hour since I’d seen him stumbling drunk at the restaurant. Maybe I could talk my way out of this.
“You haven’t thought this out very well, have you?” My voice sounded a little choked. A knife at the throat will do that to you. “Maybe we should go inside and talk about it. Have a drink. I have some lovely wine.” Maybe it didn’t taste very good, but it was a lovely shade of pink.
The knife pressed more tightly. “Shut up and drive.”
I shut up and drove.
“Turn right at the end of the street.”
I turned right at the end of the street.
We came to a stop sign. “How about I give you my purse with the key Ransom gave me and the twenty dollars cash in my wallet? You get out here, and everything’s fine.”
“You called me Gary.”
“I have no idea who you are. Gary is what I call everybody who hides in my backseat with a knife. Doesn’t mean anything. Sort of like they call unidentified dead bodies John Doe.” I decided to stop talking. Probably not a good idea to bring up dead bodies.
“Left on Lakeshore Drive.”
Damn. The lake. Several acres of trees and hills, places a body could be hidden for years.
“Trent’s waiting for me at the hospital. If I don’t get there soon, he’ll track me down. I have a GPS chip implanted in my arm because he’s a cop and that’s what they do to their girlfriends.”
“Trent’s at the hospital with Kathleen. He’s not waiting for you.”
“Yes, he is. He texted me.”
“No, he didn’t. I did. I took his cell phone when we were wrestling on the sidewalk. You didn’t really believe I was drunk, did you?”
My heart sank to the pit of my stomach. Fred was home with his cell phone nearby in case I should call, Henry was sleeping off his bender, and Trent was at the hospital with his ex-wife. I was alone in the car with a sober man and a knife, a big knife. Gary was no longer a kid playing with a pocket knife. He and his knife had grown up.
We passed the last house before entering the woods surrounding t
he lake.
I was going to die.
Chapter Sixteen
But not without a fight.
If a dead body could get lost in all the trees, a live body should stand an even better chance.
I hit the gas as we approached a sharp curve and spun around the corner on two wheels. Maybe one and a half.
The knife fell away from my throat and Gary cursed.
I slid around another curve before he could recover, braced myself, and slammed on the brakes. He cursed even louder. That man has a really foul mouth.
I leapt out of the car and slammed the door behind me to make it harder for him to follow me. It would take him a few minutes to find the recessed handle, get the door open from the back seat, and struggle out. By then I should be hidden in the deep shadows of the woods.
I ran toward those woods as fast as my adrenalin powered legs would carry me. I felt a tiny bit of relief as I left the pavement and darted between trees, but the sound of leaves crunching beneath my feet was surely loud enough to lead Gary right to me. He had been a Boy Scout. I could only hope his tracking skills were as bad as his fire-making skills and not as good as his skills with a knife.
I plunged forward, stepped in a hole, gasped, cursed, and hit the ground. Running in the woods at night wasn’t like running along the park trail in the afternoon. The woods were dark and deep, filled with unknown traps and horrors. What would I encounter next? Another hole? Bengal tiger trap? Big Foot? Wolfman? Dracula?
Gary and his knife were scarier.
I scrambled to my feet, put weight on the ankle, and cursed again. It hurt, but I didn’t have Kathleen’s option of hanging onto someone else’s boyfriend’s arm and going to the emergency room.
I forced myself to keep moving, to ignore the pain.
Had I gone deep enough that I could risk heading in the direction of the road?
A shot exploded through the air, the sound ricocheting through the trees.
My legs and my heart pounded faster. Did he learn to shoot in Boy Scouts too?
I thought I heard feet crunching the leaves behind me though it was hard to hear anything over my loud breathing and the hammering of my heart.
I had no idea where I was, if I was heading in the direction of the road or the lake or back to Gary.
Maybe it was time to stop and hide.
I darted behind a big oak tree that still had most of its leaves. Not that the leaves would help unless I could climb the tree. I couldn’t.
I couldn’t stand there and wait helplessly either. I needed a weapon to defend myself. If only I’d thought to bring along my iron skillet.
I groped through the dead leaves on the ground, hoping to find a gun some murderer had tossed there recently and hoping not to wake a hibernating snake.
I found a broken branch a couple of feet long. It would have to do.
I hefted it like a baseball bat and waited.
Footsteps.
Leaves crunching.
I peeked around the tree.
The silhouette of a male figure coming toward me.
“Lindsay?”
Even as I swung, I recognized the voice and the white hair.
Oops.
Fred raised his arm, diverting the blow from his head.
“I’m sorry!” I whispered. “Is your arm okay? Did I break your arm?”
“I’m fine, and I’m glad to see you’re okay.” He spoke in normal tones.
I put a hand over his mouth. “Shhh! Gary’s coming after me.”
He removed my hand. “No, he’s not.”
“Yes, he is!” I whispered. “He has a knife and a gun! He hid in my car. He was going to kill me because he smelled like an artificial tree and booze!”
Fred tilted his head. “What?”
“I mean, I recognized him so he has to kill me. He shot at me. Bullet barely missed me.” I lifted a hand half an inch from the side of my head. “I think it took a couple of hairs.”
“There was no gunshot. He had a knife but no gun.”
“But I heard it!”
“Trent slammed your car door after he yanked Gary out. Maybe you heard that and your fear magnified it to sound like a gunshot.”
“I wasn’t afraid.”
Fred showed he was really my friend when he didn’t challenge that outrageous lie. “Let’s get back to your car. Trent’s worried about you.”
He extended an arm toward me, the same arm he’d used to block my swing. I was relieved but not surprised to see it wasn’t dangling in half. I’d always sucked at baseball.
“I’m glad your arm’s okay.”
“It’s fine. Are you limping?”
“I stepped into a death pit lined with barbed wire and filled with snakes, fell to the hard-packed earth, and twisted my ankle.”
“You’ve had a rough night. Would you like me to carry you?”
I wasn’t sure if he was being sarcastic or serious, but no way was I going to let him pick me up and figure out how much I weighed. “Thank you for the offer, but I’m fine.”
“Please allow me to hold onto your arm in case we encounter another death pit and I stumble.”
“That’s a good idea.”
Yes, we both knew he was again allowing me to save face, but I didn’t want to hurt his feelings by rejecting his offer.
He took my arm and we started back through the woods.
“How did Trent get here? How did you get here?” I scanned my arms, searching for scars. It was too dark to see anything. “Did you implant a GPS in my arm when I wasn’t looking?”
“I’ve been following you since you left your house.”
He didn’t deny that he’d implanted a GPS in my arm.
“You have? How did you know I was going to leave? I wasn’t planning to.”
I wasn’t facing Fred. I couldn’t see him rolling his eyes, but I knew he was. I could hear it.
“You often act impetuously,” he said. “With everything going on, I thought it best to monitor your actions. Trent lost his cell phone. I’m going to guess that had something to do with why you left.”
“Gary used it to send me a text asking me to come to the hospital. I thought it was from Trent. What’s he doing here? I understand you were spying on me, but how did you get hold of him? Gary has his phone.”
“Watch that hole.” Fred tugged me a couple of feet to the side. Night vision as well as x-ray vision. “When Trent noticed his cell phone was missing, he used Kathleen’s phone to call you. You didn’t answer, so he called me. I told him you’d left home and I was following you. He intersected us just as you turned down this road. When we got here, Gary was still in your back seat, searching your purse for that key. Your plan worked.”`
“Yay, me.”
We emerged from the woods onto the lake road. Trent’s sedan was parked behind my car with Trent and Gary standing beside it.
I charged over to the two men.
“What’s wrong with your ankle?” Trent asked.
I suppose my charge mode was a little lopsided. Charge, limp, curse, charge, limp, curse.
I grabbed the front of Gary’s black shirt and expelled a few of the new curse words I’d learned from him. I’m pretty brave with a cop and Fred to back me up.
Gary flinched backward but made no other response.
Trent took my hand and tugged it away from Gary’s shirt. “Lindsay, don’t assault my prisoner.”
“Prisoner?” I liked the sound of that. Gary’s arms were behind his back. “Is he handcuffed?”
“Yes.”
He was helpless, the way I’d been in the car. I could assault him like he’d done to me.
Except that Trent was standing beside him, watching me.
“This creep…” I jabbed a finger toward him. “This creep lured me out of my house by sending me a text message from you saying you needed me to come to the hospital. He hid in my car and he held a knife to my throat and he threatened to kill me.”
Trent nodded. “I’ll
need you to come down and press charges. All I have on him so far is assaulting an officer and resisting arrest.”
“He’s guilty of murder. If you find that knife he held at my throat—”
“It’s in an evidence bag in my car.”
“I’ll bet you find blood on it from the drug guy he murdered in my back yard after Henry ran him out of my house. Make him take off his shirt.”
“What?”
“I want to see if he has scratches. Henry took a few chunks out of the man who broke into my house.” Gary flinched at that accusation. I leaned closer, invading his space, my nose only inches from his. “Take off your shirt.”
He stared over my shoulder.
“Lindsay,” Trent said, “we’ll get a warrant and do all that at the station. If you’re ready to press charges against him for breaking into your car and threatening your life, we need to leave and take care of that.”
I wasn’t ready for this to be official. I still had questions. Things did not make sense. Gary had threatened me with a knife. The drug guy had been killed in my back yard with a knife. Ransom had been killed with a knife.
But Corey had killed Ransom.
Who had broken into my house? Corey or Gary? Were they working together? Was Kathleen the promised prize for both of them?
I folded my arms and glared at Gary. “We’re going to find out tomorrow what that key guards. The Gablers found the lock it fits.”
I was exaggerating a little. The Gablers found a lock it might fit. Close enough.
Gary stared straight ahead and didn’t confess. In fact, he didn’t even look scared at my threat to expose the contents that key guarded, the key he’d been so hot to get his hands on.
Trent took Gary’s arm. “We need to go to the station now. He’s invoked his right to an attorney, but I can hold him tonight if you want to go home and relax then come in tomorrow to press charges.”
“I’m ready to do it now. Where’s Kathleen? Has she already been arrested?” I couldn’t wait to see her behind bars, wearing orange.
“Kathleen? No, she hasn’t been arrested. The doctor said there was nothing wrong with her ankle so I sent her back to her hotel in a taxi and came to check on you.”
I spun to face him. “She faked an injury to get you away from me so Gary could kidnap me and force me to give him that key. Corey said he killed for her. She’s the master mind behind all these murders, and you sent her back to her hotel room in a taxi? You’re not going to arrest the woman who almost got me killed?”
Deadly Chocolate Addiction (Death by Chocolate Book 6) Page 15