Lexy Baker Cozy Mystery Series Boxed Set Vol 2 (Books 5 - 7) (Lexy Baker Cozy Mysteries Boxed Sets)

by Leighann Dobbs

  Lexy shivered despite the warm temperatures in Nans' condo. These guys were killers.

  “And the skinny one is Sal Toreo. Skinny Sal,” Ida said.

  “Let’s run their names through the gun registry and see what they have for guns.”

  Nans worked the keyboard and a list came up on the screen.

  “Looks like Louie has a lot of guns. Including a Colt .22 caliber.” Nans snapped her fingers. “Yep, this is our guy!”

  “Okay, so we can be reasonably sure they killed Nunzio. But why did they search his condo and Ruth’s?” Ida asked.

  “And where do Barry and Simone fit into all this?” Helen added.

  Nans tapped her lips with her index finger. “That’s a good question. Barry and Simone have opposite goals when it comes to the will. She would want it to be found and he would want to destroy it.”

  “So they probably aren’t working together,” Lexy said.

  “Right, but Simone is working with Louie and Sal.” Nans tapped Sal’s face on the computer for emphasis.

  “Yeah, and I wonder what they are up to.” Lexy narrowed her eyes at the computer.

  “Well, they obviously have something inside that abandoned factory,” Nans said to Lexy. “I think you, me and Ruth need to head on over there tomorrow and take a look while Helen and Ida do more research.”

  “I don’t know. That sounds pretty dangerous.” Lexy’s stomach clenched at the thought of poking around inside the old factory.

  “There’s got to be a clue inside that we can give to the police. We’ll wait until they leave and then just take a peek. We won’t be but a few minutes. It will all be totally safe, I assure you. Can you pick us up at eight?”

  Lexy could see Nans was aiming her most honest, trustworthy look in her direction, but it did nothing to stop the butterflies from flapping around in her stomach. Everyone was looking at her expectantly, though, and she didn’t want to seem wimpier than a bunch of old ladies. Plus she knew Nans and Ruth would just go without her anyway, and she wanted to be there in case they got into trouble.

  Lexy let out a sigh. “Okay, eight o’clock it is, then.”

  17

  Lexy squinted through the binoculars she had trained on the entrance to the applesauce factory. The squinting combined with the glare of the sun was giving her a headache, and she was beginning to wonder if Louie and Sal were ever going to leave. She felt a flurry of relief, chased by a pang of nervousness, when she saw their black SUV finally coming up the entrance driveway.

  “They’re leaving!”

  “Let’s wait until they’ve gone down the road a ways. We don’t want them to see us going into the factory in the rear view mirror,” Nans advised from the passenger seat.

  Lexy started the engine and let it idle, handing the binoculars to Ruth in the back seat who trained them on the road.

  “Okay, hit it!” Ruth said after a few seconds and Lexy pulled out onto the road heading toward the factory, her heartbeat picking up speed the closer she got.

  She drove straight to the place where they’d seen the two thugs and Simone go into the building and parked the car.

  “I guess this must be the door.” Ruth pointed to a rusted metal door set into the concrete block building.

  Lexy tried the knob. It turned. She opened the door and peered inside.

  “It’s kind of dark in here. Do either of you have a flashlight?”

  Lexy turned to see Nans rummaging in her purse. “You’re bringing your purse in? Wouldn’t it be easier to just leave it in the car?”

  “Oh no dear, I bring this everywhere. You never know when you might need something. Like this flashlight,” she said producing a small, round cylinder from the depths of her bag.

  Lexy turned it on and aimed the light into the building. The inside was covered in years of dust and dirt. Several thin windows let streaks of light in at the end of the building which was one large room with several offices sectioned off to the side.

  Lexy stepped in. It was hot inside and smelled like mildew and old dirt.

  “Let’s start in the offices over here.” Nans' voice beside her made her jump.

  “Okay. Be careful of those boards.” Lexy trained the flashlight on the various loose boards and piles of sheet rock that littered the floor as Nans navigated the area with a vigor that belied her age.

  The three of them went into the first office which had a rusty metal desk, some filing cabinets and chairs.

  “This office has been used recently,” Ruth said as she squatted down level with the desk. “There’s no dust on the surfaces.”

  Nans opened the filing cabinet and Ruth started poking in the desk drawers while Lexy held the flashlight up to illuminate the room for them.

  “What are we looking for, anyway?” Lexy asked as a dust mote flew up her nose causing her to sneeze violently.

  “I’m not sure exactly. Anything that has to do with the case. I think we’ll know when we see it. Once we find something, we can get out of here and hand it over to Jack and let the police handle the arrest.”

  Lexy alternated between pointing the flashlight at Ruth and Nans. She was busy directing the beam into a drawer that Ruth was inspecting when she heard the sound of a rusty door hinge from Nans' direction.

  “Bingo!”

  Lexy turned her attention in the direction of Nans' voice. Her grandmother was standing in front of a metal locker, the open doors revealing a cache of guns inside. But instead of the look of accomplishment she expected to see, Nans' face looked surprised, her eyes wide.

  “Uh-oh,” Nan’s said looking at something behind Lexy.

  Lexy’s heart jerked.

  She whirled around to see what was behind her but her vision was obstructed by a large, beefy hand with dark hairy knuckles coming toward her face.

  Before she could react, her nose and mouth were covered by something soft and sweet smelling.

  Struggling to breathe she kicked out at her assailant.

  Then everything went dark.

  18

  Lexy’s hips and shoulders pressed against the hard floor. Her head pounded and she felt nauseous. She squinted one eye open in the dimly lit room. Where was she?

  “She’s coming round.” Lexy heard a voice. Was that Nans?

  Someone helped her sit up and she held her head in her hands willing the spinning to stop. After a few minutes, she felt better and lifted her head.

  “Are you okay, dear?” Nans peered at her nervously.

  “I think so.” Lexy did a mental scan of her body. Other than the headache, she felt fine. The nausea was almost passed and the pounding in her head was dissipating.

  “What happened?”

  Nans grimaced. “The thugs discovered us in the office. They chloroformed you and dragged us all into this storage room. We’re locked in.”

  Lexy looked around the room. It appeared to be some sort of store room with metal shelves along the back and sides. There were no windows, but a sliver of light came in from under the door allowing her to see the basic outlines of things in the room.

  Lexy’s heart lurched when her gaze fell on Nans and Ruth. The two women were seated in plastic chairs to her right. In the dim light she could just make out that Nans had a tear in the bottom of her shirt and Ruth’s face was smudged with dirt.

  “Are you both okay? Did they hurt you?”

  “Oh, we’re fine. They didn’t hurt us. My shirt caught on the metal desk and Ruth was already dirty from poking through the office,” Nans said, then turned to Ruth. “You know, you have dirt smudged all over your face.”

  Ruth looked startled. “I do?” She immediately started digging in her purse coming up with a napkin she used to wipe her face.

  “You have your purses? What about your cell phones? We could call for help.” Lexy felt the cloud over her heart lift with hope.

  “No such luck,” Ruth said. “They took our cell phones and yours too.”

  “Otherwise, we would have signaled for h
elp already,” Nans said. Then her face brightened.

  “Wait a minute.” She picked up her big old lady purse from the floor and dug around inside. “They took our cell phones, but they didn’t take the iPad!”

  “What’s Jack’s email?”

  “Email? He doesn’t use email … can’t you call him on that thing?”

  “Not unless he has another apple device with FaceTime.” Nans frowned. “Oh, I know.”

  Lexy watched Nans dig in her purse again, this time coming up with a business card, holding it in the air like it was a trophy.

  “What’s that?” Lexy asked.

  “Brax Daniels’s business card,” Nans said, squinting down at the card while she held the iPad at an angle to cast light on it. “Oh good, he has his email listed.”

  While Nans was busy typing an email on the tablet, Lexy ventured over to the door. She grabbed the knob, pushing and pulling. It wouldn’t budge. She threw her shoulder against the door. Still nothing.

  “We already tried all that, dear,” Ruth said, then turned to Nans. “Did you try FaceTiming Ida? If there’s a strong enough signal out here for that we could get her to call Jack and tell him where we are.”

  “I’m trying now,” Nans said, looking anxiously at the device while it made hollow ringing sounds.

  Lexy walked over behind Nans and looked over her shoulder, her stomach roiling and shoulders tense, willing Ida to answer. The ringing stopped and Lexy felt the tension leave her shoulders when Ida’s face filled the screen.

  “Mona? Where are you? It’s so dark I can hardly see anything.”

  “We’ve been captured by the thugs!” Nans said in a loud whisper.

  “What? Where … you …” Ida’s voice was fading out.

  “Ida? Are you there? I can’t hear you.”

  Ida’s face flashed on the screen, then off and Lexy felt her stomach drop when the screen flashed a note about a bad connection.

  “Damn!”

  “It’s okay dear, I’m sure Brax will get that email soon and—”

  Nans' words were interrupted as the door to the room burst open. Lexy’s heart froze in her chest when she saw Louie The Finger and Skinny Sal rush in through the open door, guns drawn and pointed in her direction.

  “What’s all da racket in here?” Louie yelled his eyes growing wide when he saw the iPad in Nans' hands.

  Lexy’s heart thudded as Louie advanced on Nans who sat wide-eyed in the chair.

  “Gimme dat,” Louie said, pointing at the tablet.

  “Yeah, hand it over. We don’t wanna have to rough youze ladies up,” Sal added.

  Nans handed the iPad to Louie who wrinkled his brow at it. “Dis is one of dem dere computers, ain’t it?”

  Nans nodded and then shrugged. “There’s no reception here so it’s not much good.”

  Louie narrowed his eyes at Nans. “I hope you didn’t call da cops on dis thing.”

  “Oh no, you can’t use it as a phone, unfortunately.” Nans gave Louie her most innocent look.

  “We ain’t takin’ no chances.” He handed the device to Sal. “Put dis in da’ office.”

  Lexy eyed the open door as Sal left with the iPad. Could she overpower Louie and make a break for it?

  “Now don’t go gettin’ no ideas.” Louie waved his gun toward Lexy as if he knew what she was thinking.

  Lexy stepped in front of Nans. “What do you want?”

  “Youze know what we want,” Louie said. “Da list.”

  “List?” Nans furrowed her brow. “What list?”

  “Da one Nunzio had,” Sal said from the doorway as he rummaged in one of Lexy’s white bakery bags, coming up with an oversized fudge brownie. Bright light spilled in from the open doorway making it easy for Lexy to see the details of the storage room and read the expressions on the thugs’ faces.

  “We don’t know anything about any list. Is that what you guys have been looking for?” Ruth asked.

  Louie’s heavy black brows knit together. “Don’t act dumb wid me. We wouldn’t wanna hurt youze nice ladies now. Would we Sal?”

  “No siree.” Sal swallowed a big chunk of brownie, then gestured toward Lexy with what was left of it. “Hey, ain’t that da brownie lady?”

  Louie stepped closer. “Yeah, da one from da bakery.”

  “I hope we don’t have to kill her. I really like dese brownies.”

  Louie gave Sal a threatening look. “Will you stop with the brownies and pay attention, here?”

  Louie turned his attention back to Lexy and Nans.

  “Now you listen up. We wanna know where dat list is hidden, or dis one is gonna get it.” He jabbed a finger threateningly in Nans' direction and Lexy’s heart shrank.

  “But we don’t know about any list,” Ruth said. “We thought you were looking for the will.”

  “Will? What will?”

  “Nunzio’s will. It’s missing.” Ruth shrugged.

  A look of confusion crossed Louie’s face and he glanced back at Sal. “Da boss didn’t say nothin’ ‘bout a will, did she?”

  She?

  Sal swallowed the last of his brownie and shook his head. “Nope.”

  Louie turned back toward Ruth pointing his finger at her. “Don’t you be tryin’ to throw us off track. We know youze ladies know somethin’.”

  “Really, we don’t,” Lexy said.

  “You shut it!” Louie yelled turning his pointer finger toward her and Lexy shrunk back. With all this finger pointing, Lexy wasn’t surprised the guy’s nickname was “Louie The Finger”.

  “What was on this list, anyway?” Nans asked. “Maybe if we knew, we’d be able to tell you if we saw it.”

  Louie narrowed his eyes at her. “You don’t know?”

  Nans shook her head.

  Louie looked back uncertainly at Sal.

  “Tell ‘em,” Sal said.

  “Nunzio had a list of retired crime bosses and dae crimes dey never got busted for. We need to get it.”

  Lexy inhaled sharply. So that was what they were looking for. No wonder they were going to such great lengths. A chill ran up her spine when she realized that was the type of list someone would kill for.

  “What about da key?” Sal tilted the open brownie bag toward Louie who shook his head.

  “Yeah, we saw you wid a key when weze was watchin’ youze in da bakery before. I bet it opens da box dat has da list,” Louie said to Ruth.

  Too bad no one knows where that box is.

  “Oh.” Ruth self-consciously pulled out her locket.

  “Is it in dere? Hand it over,” Louie said gruffly.

  “Well I don’t know what it goes to.” Ruth looked uncertain.

  Lexy felt a jolt of electricity pierce her heart as Louie took two steps in Ruth’s direction, reached out for the locket and yanked it off the chain.

  “Ouch.” Ruth rubbed her neck.

  “Sorry. Youze need to do what we say, otherwise I might hafta hurt ‘ya.” Louie shrugged then turned the locket over in his palm. He brought it closer to his face, squinted at it and tried to pry it open with his thick thumb.

  “Let me.” Sal held out his hand and Louie dropped the locket in. Sal pried it open with his two thumbs and the key popped out.

  “Here it is,” he said holding the key in the air.

  Lexy held her breath. What would they do with them now that they had the key?

  “What’s it go to?” Louie asked.

  “That’s the million dollar question,” Nans said. “We have no idea.”

  “We better wait for da boss to come and see what she thinks,” Louie said.

  “What about dem?” Sal thrust his chin out toward Nans, Lexy and Ruth while he pocketed the key.

  “We’ll see what da boss wants us to do wit dem,” Louie said, pointing his gun toward them, causing Lexy’s stomach to tumble. “No funny stuff while we’re gone.”

  The two of them backed out of the room closing and locking the door, leaving Lexy, Nans and Ruth in darkness.
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br />   “What do we do now?” Lexy whispered as her eyes tried to adjust to the sudden dim light.

  “Hopefully Brax will get our email and send in the troops,” Ruth answered.

  “We’re not just going to stay here like sitting ducks,” Nans said, “I have a plan.”

  “You do?” Lexy asked.

  “Of course I do,” Nans answered. “Ruth, can you fake a heart attack?”

  “What? Why I suppose so. Why would I do that?”

  “To create a diversion.”

  Lexy narrowed her eyes at Nans, her heartbeat picking up speed. Just what was her grandmother up to?

  “Ruth, do you have a can opener in your purse?” Nans asked while rummaging in her own purse.

  “A can opener? Why I just might.” Ruth bent down and picked up her purse. Setting it in her lap, she opened it and started feeling around inside.

  “What do you want a can opener for?” Lexy asked.

  “I noticed that there are dozens of cans of applesauce on the back shelves there.” Nans waved her hand in the direction of the back of the room.

  Lexy’s eyes were adjusting to the low light and her gaze followed the direction Nans had indicated. She noticed row upon row of large applesauce cans sitting on the shelf, covered in inches of dust and mottled with rust.

  “Those are decades old. They’re probably no good anymore!” Lexy’s stomach clenched thinking about the nasty contents of the cans. “Surely you can’t be that hungry?”

  “We’re not going to eat them, dear,” Nans said, then turned to Ruth. “Ruth, did you find a can opener?”

  “Yes! Here it is.” Ruth held something up.

  “Great.” Nans leaned in toward them and whispered. “Okay, now, here’s what I want you to do.”

  19

  Ruth lay on the floor about five feet inside the room, clutching her chest and moaning loudly.

  Nans and Lexy banged on the door.

  “Help us! She’s having a heart attack!”

  They heard Louie and Sal running toward the room and jumped back just before they threw open the door.