Peanut Butter Pies & Dangerous Lies

by Willow Monroe

  “Oh, he and Ben Herlong had dinner at the diner together this evening,” I said, thinking aloud. “Ben is probably already gone.”

  “Don’t worry. We can find him if we need him for anything,” Tucker said. “I told you, Kellen is on the case.”

  “I’ll bet Axel gets bored when Kellen is at the computer Googling everyone,” I said.

  Tucker chuckled. “Well, they’re running patrol tonight so he’ll get to be bored in the vehicle instead of the office.”

  I laughed as well and let my eyes slide closed.

  “You know, it’s good to hear your voice right before I go to sleep,” Tucker said, his voice going soft, almost breathy.

  “Yours, too,” I admitted.

  “We should do this more often,” he whispered.

  “You mean talk late at night?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Yes,” I said, feeling my face go red but it was dark. No one was there to see it. I didn’t care.

  I wanted to say more, tell him how I felt. But how did I feel really? Was I falling in love with him? Had I been in love with him all these years and just didn’t know it? And what if he told me he loved me, too? Where would we go from there?

  Worse yet, what if he laughed it off, teased me, made a joke of it?

  And why was I so unsure of myself when it came to him. I’d never been unsure of anything in my whole life.

  My thoughts were in a turmoil and my common sense kicked in, silencing me. We were both quiet for a while and I thought maybe he had gone to sleep. He even made a little snoring sound. Smiling, I was about to hang up when I heard him say my name.

  “Starla?”

  “I’m here,” I said.

  “Good night,” he whispered.

  “Good night, Tucker.”

  We ended the call and I sank deeper into the pillows, phone beside me, blankets pulled up to my chin.

  My phone rang again, the screen flashing in the dark against my pillow. I smiled and reached for it. Maybe he was going to ask if he could come over. Maybe I’d say yes. Maybe—

  “Hello,” I said, using the sultriest, sexiest voice I could muster. I channeled Mae West and was about to say something like, Why don’t you come up and see me sometime, when I was interrupted.

  “Miss Cupp?”

  It was Davis Withrow.

  I cleared my throat. “Um, sorry, yes this is Starla Cupp.”

  “I hate to bother you so late but—well, it’s Caroline. She really needs someone right now. I’m worried about her,” he finished.

  Now, I was wide awake, already reaching for my jeans. No indecision here. “She’s still at the hotel, right?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I can be there in just a few minutes,” I said, vivid images of the young girl with the broken heart sobbing at the center island filled my head.

  “Thank you,” Withrow said.

  Jamming my phone into my back pocket, I reached for my keys and headed out into the night.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The evening had cooled down even more than when I’d been outside with Barbara Ellen. In fact, a little breeze had picked up, a promise of fall. But I barely had time to think about that. As I hurried through the darkness toward the beautifully lit hotel at the opposite end of the Wharf, all I could think about was getting to Jimmy’s grieving widow. All I could do was listen, give her a shoulder to cry on. But sometimes that’s all that was needed.

  I prayed this was the case.

  The lobby was quiet with only one clerk at the desk. I recognized him right away as Bobby Melton, a kid who had worked at the diner his last year of high school.

  “Miss Cupp,” he said, running a hand through his unruly auburn curls.

  “Bobby? What are you doing here?” I asked, even though it was pretty obvious.

  “With all of the people in town, Miss Stinson thought she needed a night clerk. Since I live next door to her and need a summer job, I got elected,” he explained.

  Our voices sounded too loud in the space and I suddenly felt a sense of urgency, something pulling me upstairs. “Caroline Bones needs a little help,” I explained as I worked my way toward the elevator. “I’m just going to run up and see what I can do for her.”

  “She’s in the Ulysses S Grant suite,” Bobby said, after consulting his computer.

  “I know.”

  “Should I let someone know, you know nine-one-one or—?” he asked.

  “Nah. But if I need help, I’ll give you a shout,” I said as the elevator doors swished closed.

  The third floor was quiet, and it felt empty. I knew the suite on the opposite end of the hall was filled with reporters, some of them probably still submitting stories of Sugar Hill and the death of Jimmy Bones. For some reason I tiptoed hurriedly down the richly carpeted hall toward Caroline’s suite.

  I knocked softly at the door, hoping no one but Caroline would hear me.

  The door opened almost immediately by Davis himself. “She’s in here,” he said, pointing toward the living area.

  The place was dark, with only a light on over the kitchen sink and that seemed far, far away. However, I spotted Caroline immediately. The young woman looked like a ghost seated on the large sofa. Her blonde hair hung limply around her shoulders and she wore what looked like a gauzy dress or nightgown of some kind. Instead of relaxing on the large sectional, she sat stiff and straight, looking straight ahead.

  “Caroline,” I said softly.

  Was that a quick shake of her head?

  “Honey, let’s turn on some lights and get you something to drink. Then we can -.”

  “No need for that,” Davis said from behind me.

  The harsh tone of his voice caused me to turn in his direction. I was pretty well fed up with his interference and I was pretty sure Caroline was as well. “You called me up here to be with her. Now if you’ll just leave us alone -.”

  Davis shook his head. “Sit.”

  “What?”

  “Sit down, Miss Cupp. You’ll do as I say if you know what’s good for you.” Reaching out, he turned on a lamp on a nearby table. Caroline flinched at the sudden movement and warm light spread over the area making her look even more pale than before.

  Moving slowly, I sat down next to Caroline. “What’s going on?” I asked, looking from his grim, hard glare to Caroline. Now I could see that her gaze was full of terror but she never took her eyes off of him.

  “It seems Miss Caroline here is about to take her own life,” he said. “She’s going to inject herself with poison. You know, some sort of weird homage to her husband.”

  “What?” I was growing more confused by the moment.

  “And since you tried to stop her, you accidentally got in the way and—” He ended the sentence with a shrug.

  “I don’t understand,” I asked. Heart pounding, I scooted closer to Caroline. Now I was the one keeping my eyes on Withrow.

  “He killed my Jimmy,” she whispered.

  “Is that true?” I asked, although all my instincts told me that it was.

  “He was worth more to me dead than alive,” Withrow said, reaching into his jacket pocket. The Accu-Click injector was barely visible in his big hand but I knew it was there. I also had the feeling it was the same one he’d had in the diner just a few hours earlier. “And, to be honest, he was becoming quite a pain.”

  “He was my husband,” Caroline said, her voice slightly higher. “And you killed him.”

  “I really wish you’d quit saying that,” Withrow said, perching on the arm of a chair facing us. “It makes me sound like a monster.”

  “You are a monster,” she said, lifting her chin in defiance. “Jimmy told me the mean things you said about me and Herb. How you tried to talk him out of marrying me. How you tried to get him to fire Herb.”

  Withrow chuckled. “He was a tough old bird and stubborn when he wanted to be.”

  “Why didn’t you want him to marry Caroline?” I asked.

&n
bsp; “I had Jimmy right where I wanted him. He trusted me with everything.”

  “Including his money.”

  “Money. Rights to his music. Property. Everything. Caroline here gave Jimmy some of his old confidence back,” Withrow said. “Luckily, I was able to get all of the rights to his music and properties signed over to DEW Productions before they married.” Withrow laughed. “Then he tried to buy it back. As if he had something to buy it back with. He had nothing.”

  “Why were you so against Herb?” I asked.

  “Same reason. And Herb wouldn’t listen to me when I tried to get him to leave,” Withrow explained. “In fact, he wanted to call in a doctor to make sure Jimmy’s allergies were really as severe as I told him they were. Like a doctor would know better than me.”

  “How does Madelyn Caldwell play into this?” I asked, confused.

  Withrow made an exasperated sound. “I told her to keep her mouth shut.”

  “Someone saw her take off the disguise she wore the day she went on Jimmy’s bus. That’s what lead me to her,” I said. “But she told me she’d spoken with Caroline about the trick.”

  I glanced at Caroline whose expression hadn’t changed since I’d arrived.

  “What trick?” Caroline asked, her voice as strong as before.

  “It was a great plan. That’s how I managed to kill Jimmy without even touching him,” Withrow said.

  “I’m confused.”

  “I paid someone, a voice actor, to call Madelyn and pretend she was Caroline. She wanted to play a little trick on her husband. Scare him a little bit,” Withrow explained and then laughed. “He was quite the lady’s man in his day.”

  “She brought a clean PayDay candy bar wrapper on the bus that same day and left it,” I said.

  “Worked like a charm,” he said with a nod. “When he didn’t die in the car accident or when I poisoned him at the wedding, I knew there was only way to get rid of him.”

  “Using his allergy against him,” I guessed and then another question came to mind. “It was you who took the bite out of the pie on his dressing table.”

  Withrow shook his head. “Nope. I talked Ben Herlong into doing that. You know, wanted him to test it before we gave any to his old buddy.”

  “So if they tested it, they wouldn’t find any of your DNA on it at all,” I guessed. “Is that why you and he were together at the diner earlier?”

  “He’s pretty desperate for money right now. Getting too old for this gig. I threw him a little bone. And Herb, too. Sort of parting gifts so to speak.” Withrow grinned. “See, I’m not as much of a monster as you think I am.”

  Caroline gasped.

  He continued to grin and kept talking. “Just as Jimmy stepped onstage, I pretended to find the candy bar wrapper. I showed it to him, acted real frantic. Told him he’d been exposed to peanuts. He was so paranoid that was all it took.”

  “So, you tricked him into thinking he’d been exposed to peanuts?” I gasped not believing what I was hearing.

  Withrow grinned and nodded. “He was so easy.”

  Caroline let out a little sobbing breath.

  “He knew he had to use extra medication because all of his Accu-Clicks were so out of date.”

  “Which is why he emptied the whole thing into his thigh,” I guessed.

  “And the one he carried was brand new, completely full. I made sure of that,” Withrow said, pointing the Accu-Click he held in his hand at me. “You’re a little bit too smart for your own good, Miss Cupp. Too bad.”

  “And you wanted Jimmy dead because -?”

  “He was making too much noise. Asking too many questions. And it was all because of his pretty little wife here,” Withrow said.

  “Why didn’t you just kill me instead,” Caroline almost sobbed. “I wish you had.”

  “I wish I had, too,” Withrow said.

  Caroline suddenly stood up, startling both of us. I stood up as well. If she was willing to take on Withrow, she wasn’t doing it alone. Behind me, I felt cool air waft into the room and realized the doors leading out to the balcony were open. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of the sheer curtains on either side of the doors billowing like ghostly arms reaching out to us.

  It looked like Caroline had lost her momentum but, suddenly, I had a plan. It might hurt but that was better than being dead.

  “Come on, Caroline,” I said, guiding her backwards toward the open doors. “Let’s at least get one last look at the stars before—”

  She didn’t resist.

  If Withrow decided to chase us, my plan was to throw her over the low railing and then jump. If he caught us—Well, I had no plan for that. Neither of us seemed to want to take our eyes off of Withrow who stood there watching us with a quizzical look on his face.

  “So, maybe the widow took her own life. Jumped off the balcony. You tried to stop her and fell to your death as well,” he said, following us at a leisurely pace.

  “It’s only three floors,” I reminded him. On this side of the building it was much less than that but he didn’t know it.

  “But I plan on getting down there, finding the ‘bodies’ before anyone else. You know, making sure no one survives the fall,” he said, waving the injector in our direction. “So, go ahead and jump. Or stay here and die. It’s up to you.”

  Outside, was just as quiet as inside and I gazed up at those beautiful stars again. Would this be the last time I’d see them? Not if I could help it.

  “Jump,” I whispered when we reached the low railing around the edge of the balcony.

  Caroline looked at me as if I was crazy then glanced down into the darkness below.

  I nodded trying to convey what I knew. There were thick bushes right below us that would break our fall. Right? At least, I hoped I was guessing correctly.

  “If you need some help—” Withrow said, stepping toward us, an evil grin spreading across his face. “This is going to work out just fine.”

  I moved between him and Caroline.

  “Jump,” I said to her. No need to whisper any longer. “Jump.”

  Behind me, I heard Caroline make a little sound, heard clothes rustling and movement and then she was gone.

  “Run,” I screamed. “Run.”

  “Stupid girl. She’s probably got broken legs or ankles or something. She’s not going to run anywhere,” Withrow said, rushing at me.

  I turned and literally fell over the railing landing smack in the middle of the thick bushes below.

  “Run, Caroline,” I called out and began fighting my way out of the sharp branches. They grabbed and tore at my clothing, as if desperately trying to hold me in place. “Run.”

  Had she knocked herself out somehow? I couldn’t find her in the dark and she didn’t answer.

  Above me, Withrow must have been able to see her. “Stop right there,” he commanded. He put one leg over the railing and then the other while I continued to fight my way out of the bushes.

  “Help!” It was Caroline. She was screaming somewhere off to my left.

  She’d made it and had not gotten tangled in all of the branches.

  “Get out of here,” I screamed in her general direction.

  Ice cold hands tugged on my arms, trying to pull me out of the bush. I heard fabric ripping, felt something warm running down one arm. Something sharp stabbed my face, dangerously close to my eye. Above me, Withrow was letting go of the railing, poised to jump. Just as he let go of the railing and began to fall, I was able to finally pull free from. I landed with one ankle turned painfully sideways but I knew we had to get out of there before Withrow gained his footing.

  Caroline grabbed my hand and we ran through the dark toward the back entrance to the main floor. Behind me, I could hear Withrow struggling to free himself from the branches. Then I heard him shout for us to stop. I glanced over my shoulder and saw that he was on his feet, headed in our direction.

  Panic spurred me on, helped me ignore the agony radiating up my leg. If he caught
up with us, we were doomed.

  It never occurred to me that the door might be locked.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  It was.

  “No!” Caroline screamed.

  Before I could even react, she was leading the way, running like the wind down to the corner and around to where the vehicles were parked at the front entrance. I was right on her heels, Withrow coming right behind us.

  We ran headlong into Kellen and Axel who appeared, as if by magic on the walkway in front of us. I swear, one second the walk was empty, the next second they were there.

  “Help!” Caroline screamed.

  I was too out of breath, in too much pain, to do anything but point behind me.

  Axel growled low in his throat. I heard Kellen say something, a command I didn’t understand, then, just moments later, I heard Withrow howling in pain.

  “He has...” I gasped for air. All I could think was that he might use the poison that was meant for us on Axel. “He has an injector with poison in it.”

  Kellen nodded and disappeared into the darkness where Axel had gone.

  Caroline and I staggered into the lobby which seemed very, very warm and much too bright after being outside. I squinted and put one hand over my eyes. Bobby looked up at us in surprise. Right after that, the elevator doors opened and dozens of reporters swarmed the room. Shouting questions and taking pictures as fast as they could, they backed the two of us onto an ornate Queen Anne sofa. They were almost as scary as Withrow.

  Almost.

  When they could get nothing out of us, they headed outside, where sirens shrilled and red and blue lights flashed wildly against the buildings. I don’t think I’d ever seen or heard anything so beautiful in my life.

  And then I saw Tucker and burst into tears.

  He knelt in front of me, wiping tears from my cheeks. I tried to push his hands away and shook my head.

  “I’m okay,” I protested. “Really, I’m okay.”

  “What am I gonna do with you?” he asked. “Are you just determined to get yourself killed?” His voice was stern but he was smiling so I wasn’t in too much trouble.