Lisette let out a pained cry and stumbled toward her mother’s body. Miguel caught her with his arm around her waist. “No, Lis. Don’t.”
With the two of them distracted, Suzanne seized the opportunity to make a run for it. She headed straight for me. I spread my legs and bent my knees, bracing myself. I’d do whatever it took. She was not getting by me.
She faked left, trying to juke me. My body instinctively followed, but then I corrected, lunging right. She barreled into me. I channeled every linebacker move I’d ever seen during my UT college-football-watching years, wrapped my arms around her, and tackled her. We fell to the ground in a huddled mass, with me on top.
At that moment, heavy footsteps pounded down the stair well just beyond the door. A voice bellowed, “Suzanne, what the hell were you doing in my office?”
The door banged open, hitting the wall, and Benjamin Alcott appeared above me, something cradled in his arms. He tried to stop himself from careening into us but he’d been going too fast, hadn’t anticipated an obstacle, and tripped over us. Whatever he’d been holding flew from his arms and crashed to the floor, shattering.
He scrambled up, but his shoes lost their grip against the shards of ceramic and gray powder spilled across the floor. He stumbled, careening against the counter, his arm splaying across it, knocking a jar over. It crashed to the ground, spilling its contents. Gold nuggets scattered across the floor, mixing with the shards of ceramic.
Something skittered on the ground until it lay right in front of me. My stomach turned over as I recognized what had been in the jar. Gold fillings. Not only had they been selling off parts of dead bodies, they’d been collecting whatever treasures they held, right down to the teeth fillings.
Miguel had managed to keep Lisette away from Marisol’s body. He’d shut the door and now he leapfrogged over her, landing squarely on Benjamin Alcott, pinning him back to the floor. “Not so fast, partner,” he said, channeling Clint Eastwood. He pinned the mortician’s arms behind his back and hauled him upright. “We have some questions for you.”
I heaved myself up and off Suzanne. It wasn’t graceful, but I managed to stand up, dragging her alongside me. “And for you,” I said. I fished my phone from my pocket to dial 911, but a text flashed across the screen. Emmaline had sent a message fifteen minutes ago. I’m on my way.
* * *
The next two hours were a blur of activity. Miguel and I had managed to restrain a defeated Suzanne and a volatile Benjamin for the remaining ten minutes it took for Emmaline and her law enforcement team to arrive on the scene. Emmaline, gun drawn, one hand braced on top of the other, along with another officer, came through the delivery bay door. They split up, checking the back room and ensuring that no one else was lurking nearby. Seconds later, they had handcuffed Suzanne and Benjamin.
As she read them their rights, another pair came down the stairwell and through the door. “All clear upstairs,” one of them announced.
She held up a tri-folded paper. “I would have been here sooner, but I had to wait on Judge Abernathy for the search warrant. Took a while due to exigent circumstances.”
“Layman’s terms,” I said, still working to calm my jackhammering heart.
“We had to show good cause for a nighttime intrusion and probable cause for felonious activity,” she explained. “Turns out David didn’t leave things to chance. He found a legal pad of notes and a few letters Marisol had kept. She outlined her suspicions and what she’d discovered about what was going on here at Vista Ridge.”
I knew it! I only wished Marisol had gone to the authorities with her suspicions from the beginning. “Where did you find it?”
“David put it in an envelope and dropped it off at the station sometime this morning. Being as small as we are, you’d think it would have gotten to the right person quickly, but . . .” She let the sentence fade away, the implication clearly being that Santa Sofia’s size didn’t mean incompetence or apathy didn’t exist. It was something she’d have to work on. I knew it would weigh on her because making the discovery earlier might have saved David’s life.
She turned to Benjamin and Suzanne. “So, which one of you is the brains behind the business?”
Suzanne stayed silent, all the color drained from her face. She knew the jig was up, but her brother was indignant, his face red with fury, drool dripping from the corner of his mouth. “We have all the licenses we need,” he said, spittle flying from his mouth alongside his words.
“I looked up your licenses, actually. You don’t have current funeral establishment or tissue bank licenses on file with the State of California.”
“What?” Suzanne screeched, swinging her head to face her brother.
Emmaline gave her a sad, resigned look. “It’s true. Your brother ran the business side of things, I take it?”
Suzanne gave a slow nod. “He’s got the degree in mortuary science. I went to medical school, but didn’t finish—”
“See, that’s another interesting bit of information,” Emmaline said, interrupting her.
“Shut up!” Benjamin pulled against the restraints of his handcuffs, but the officer next to him gave a hard yank, jerking Benjamin back into submission.
“What’s interesting?” Suzanne asked. Her lower lip quivered. “We did everything we needed to do to open this place.”
“If by everything you mean forgery, then yes, I agree,” Em said, her voice sweet and encouraging, when in reality, the words themselves were problematic.
“No, no, there’s no forgery. Tell them, Ben,” Suzanne pleaded with her brother.
“Shut. Your. Mouth,” he said through gritted teeth. The quiet and reserved mortician was gone. In his place was an angry, cornered animal.
Emmaline moved closer to Suzanne. “See, what he doesn’t want you to know is that you both have a little trouble with the follow-through. He never graduated, either.”
Suzanne’s jaw dropped. “No degree in mortuary science?”
Emmaline shook her head.
“No funeral establishment license?” she asked.
Again, Emmaline shook her head. “Nope.”
“N-No tissue bank license?”
“That’s the trifecta,” Emmaline said, holding up the warrant as if Suzanne had just won a prize. “But here’s the pièce de résistance. This stuff you do down here? The body parts?”
Suzanne nodded, gulping, her eyes wide.
She dropped her voice to a confidential whisper. “It’s not actually legal.”
“But we sell to labs. For research. I don’t understand.”
“Saying you’ve cremated someone, then turning around and harvesting their body parts without family consent? Not legal no matter who you’re selling to.”
From her reaction when we barged in, I suspected that she knew that deep down. She just chose to ignore it and trust her brother.
She looked at Benjamin, her eyes wide with fear. “Ben, what’s going on?”
“Dammit, Suzanne, shut the hell up.” He looked at Emmaline. “We want a lawyer.”
Emmaline was calm. “Sure thing,” she said. “You’re going to need it. We’re charging you with two first degree murders. You better hope your lawyer’s a good one.”
“Murders?” Suzanne shrieked. “What are you talking about?”
Emmaline cocked her head, trying to get a read on Suzanne. “Marisol Ruiz. Murdered because she figured out what she had were not, in fact, her father’s ashes, but powdered cement. All that time she spent in the memorial garden, even though she had what she thought were her father’s remains? She figured out what was going on behind closed doors in here. And David, her husband, because he figured out what had happened to his wife.”
Suzanne shook her head violently. “Uh-uh, no, no, no. I did not murder anyone.” She turned to her brother again, horror on her face. “Did you . . . Ben, oh my God, did you kill them?”
Benjamin lunged, taking everyone by surprise. “I’m going to kill you if you don’t sh
ut your mouth,” he snapped. He closed the distance between himself and his sister before the deputy who’d been charged with detaining him managed to grab his handcuffed hands and yank him backward.
Suzanne spun her body around to face Emmaline. “I want my own lawyer,” she said.
“I’ll make a note of that,” Emmaline said. She took Suzanne by the arm and led her outside, handing her off to a female deputy. “Take her in, and keep her separate from her brother.”
“Sure thing, Sheriff,” the deputy said.
Em went back to the deputy whom she’d charged with watching Benjamin. “You have him under control now?”
“Completely, Sheriff,” he said, jerking Benjamin’s handcuffs to illustrate the point.
“Good. Take him in, book him, and put him in a cell. No interaction with his sister. Got it?”
“Got it,” he said, and he dragged Benjamin Alcott out of the surgical room.
“Black market body parts?” Emmaline asked me as the rest of her team donned gloves and started to execute the search warrant.
All I could do was grimace. Blood and bones. Marisol’s nightmares made sense. I looked at Miguel, reading his expression. He still didn’t know what had happened to his father. Was he in the casket they’d buried, or had he been a victim of Suzanne’s tools and Benjamin’s black market business? Was that why he hadn’t been buried in his suit? We wouldn’t know immediately, but Emmaline would find out the truth for the Baptistas, and for so many other families.
It was over.
Chapter 25
The invitation to Billy’s house came as a welcome distraction from all that had gone on over the past week. “We could all use some friends-and-family time,” he’d said to me, and I couldn’t have agreed more.
Miguel picked me up. I scooped up Agatha, we climbed into his truck, and fifteen short minutes later, we were at my brother’s house. Cars lined the street on both sides. Miguel found a place to park a block away. I put Agatha in her harness and we walked back. “This is more than a few friends and family,” I said.
“Is that . . . ? It is, that’s the bread shop van,” he said, pointing to a white vehicle beyond Billy’s house.
“What is going . . . Ohhh. Oh wow. I know what’s happening.” I hadn’t spoken to Emmaline since she’d arrested Benjamin Alcott and officially charged him and Suzanne with the murders of David and Marisol, but enough time had passed for things to settle down for her again.
The door opened and she stood there beaming. She notched her chin up, acknowledging Miguel, but grinned at me.
“You did it!” I squealed.
“Did what?” Miguel asked, looking from me to her and back.
Emmaline ignored the question, instead just waggling her head. “Mmm, not exactly.”
I tilted my head, puzzled. “Okay, you got me. I’m confused.”
“What’s going on?” Miguel asked again.
Emmaline looked over her shoulder before stepping out onto the front porch and pulling the door shut. And then, with dramatic flair, she held up her left hand, fingers splayed. The white-gold ring with the marquis diamond that Billy had shown me sparkled on her ring finger.
I cupped my hand over my mouth, feeling my smile spreading beneath it. “Oh my God, he proposed?”
A smile spread on Miguel’s face. “Billy popped the question?”
Emmaline had left her sheriff persona behind and was, at the moment, a giddy bride-to-be. She nodded, the tight curls of her black hair bouncing with the movement, a tinge of pink coloring her dark burnished skin. “And,” she said, pausing dramatically, “he made me a table. A table! The first piece of furniture for our house together.”
“Did you give him your ring?” I asked.
“Wait,” Miguel interrupted. “You got him a ring?”
Her eyes widened and her grin grew. She nodded. “And he loves it.”
* * *
Billy’s house was bursting at the seams with his friends, her friends, and their friends. Even my friends had come. Mrs. Branford held her cane in one hand and had woven her other arm around a jaunty-looking older man who I immediately recognized as one of her old teaching friends, one Mason Caldwell. She said something to him, he threw his head back and howled, and together, they sauntered off toward the backyard.
I scanned the room and spotted Olaya. Neither Billy or Emmaline had gotten to know her well yet, but they knew she had become a huge part of my life. Her back was to me and her head was down. She didn’t know anyone, I realized, with the exception of Mrs. Branford. And Mrs. Branford was otherwise occupied. I started to head over to Olaya, Miguel’s hand in mine, but stopped when she turned. Her face was bright and happy. She laughed, moving slightly, and I saw that she was talking to someone tall. Lean. With dark hair. I recognized that cotton plaid shirt and those khaki pants. I recognized that smile.
Olaya was talking with my father.
It was the first time I’d seen my father relaxed and just having a good time in, well, I didn’t even know how long. He was celebrating his son’s engagement. He looked happy.
I wondered if Olaya had brought him bread infused with lavender or some other herb. If she had, she needed to keep it coming. My heart felt as if it swelled inside my chest. My family—those I was born to, and those I’d chosen—including Miguel, who was right by my side.
Behind us, the tinkling of a utensil lightly tapped against a wineglass drew our attention. Miguel and I turned to see Billy and Emmaline, arm in arm. He cleared his throat and raised his wineglass. “Thanks for coming, everyone. My fi-ancée—”
“It’s about time!” someone—one of Billy’s friends—hollered.
Billy was unfazed. “Good things are worth waiting for. To the bride-to-be,” he said, lowering his head to kiss her.
The room erupted in a collective cheer. “To the bride and groom,” Miguel said, raising his glass.
I smiled, wrapping my arm around Miguel, but his body suddenly tensed, his arm around my shoulder tightening. “What’s wrong?” I asked, but then I saw. Coming in the door just behind Billy and Emmaline was a familiar blond-haired man. My ex-husband, Luke Holden. He spotted me, threw up his hand, and headed straight for me.
“Luke,” I said, barely holding back the disbelieving anger that instantly flooded me. “What are you doing here?”
“I need you, Ivy.” He didn’t smile, and his voice was dead serious.
Miguel unwound his arm from my shoulder and stepped forward, blocking me slightly. He’d gone into protective mode, affronted by the appearance of my former husband. “You’re not invited here, man,” he said, his jaw pulsing.
“Maybe not,” Luke said, folding his arms over his chest, “but I need to talk to Ivy. She needs to know—”
“Know what?” Miguel demanded.
I put a calming hand on Miguel’s shoulder. “What’s going on, Luke?” I asked. Bees with honey, I wanted to tell Miguel. Bees with honey.
“It’s Heather.” He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple slipping up and down in his throat. “I told her how I feel about you and—”
Miguel took a menacing step toward him. The entire room had gone silent, every pair of eyes focused on us. “What the hell?”
“I get it,” Luke said, throwing up his hands. “You’re together. I’m not here to break you up. Well, I mean, I would if I could, but I get it.” He looked at me. “I blew it. I know that now, but Heather—”
Miguel used his body to force Luke back toward the door. “You need to leave.”
Luke nodded, but there was something unsettling in his eyes. “Yeah, sure. No problem.” He craned his head, looking back at me. “But she’s here, Ivy. And I need you to know. She said she’s going to kill you.”
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Flour in the Attic Page 22