by Emily James
The way he looked at me said he’d noticed that I hadn’t offered to shake hands.
A tremor started in my fingers and worked its way up my arms. Should I offer to shake now or would that seem more suspicious?
“The location isn’t big,” Scott said, “but let me give you the tour.”
“No need.” Edwardo slithered his gaze from me to Scott. “I’m ready to close the deal now.”
There was the slightest hesitation as Scott turned away from the door he’d been about to head through and back around to face Edwardo. He glanced in my direction. He’d figured it out too.
“I’d feel better if I showed you the whole property first,” Scott said. “That way there’s no chance that you’ll end up saddled with something you didn’t bargain for.”
I had to give it to him. His tone revealed nothing. His dad or his degree trained him well to stay professional. The only clue was that tiny stutter to his step and the eye shift in my direction. Hopefully, Scott didn’t do anything more than that. Edwardo gave me the sense that he’d pick up on it.
“If you insist,” Edwardo said.
He moved past me, and his scent hit me like a shove. Even if I hadn’t been sure about his voice, I’d remember that musky note.
As soon as they went into the kitchen, I’d duck into my office and call 9-1-1. I couldn’t go outside without the bell attached to the door giving it away and making Edwardo suspicious.
“But perhaps Isabel will join us on the tour,” Edwardo said, “since she knows the most about the building.”
He gestured with his arm for me to proceed him into the kitchen. I forced my legs to carry me.
Had I told him my name? I was sure neither Scott nor I had mentioned it. Scott had referred to me as the current tenant, and I didn’t his hand so I hadn’t introduced myself.
If there was any doubt left in my mind, it was gone now.
The way Edwardo watched me let me know he’d done it on purpose.
We were playing a game now. Who would call the other’s bluff first.
It wouldn’t be me. He didn’t know that I’d been through worse than simple intimidation. If I played this game long enough, he might be forced to leave. He could have killed me before, which meant he didn’t want to leave a trail of any more bodies if he could help it. He was smart enough to know that the more people he killed, the more likely he was to be caught.
I walked as casually as possible into the kitchen and gave the slowest, most in-depth tour that I could—just like I would if I actually wanted Edwardo to buy the building.
Finally, I ran out of things to say.
Edwardo pulled a sheaf of papers out of his breast pocket. “I went to the liberty of having my lawyer draw up a purchase agreement. You’ll see that I’m actually offering more than what your lawyer stated the asking price would be.”
He pointed the paper toward the front of the shop, like an air traffic controller directing a plane. Scott and I both followed the non-verbal instruction.
We went to the table Edwardo indicated.
He spread out the purchase agreement.
We’d been right that he’d killed Bob Jenner because he’d refused to sell this shop. But why? It wasn’t like this was a good place to cook meth or whatever the current drug of choice was. Maybe he wanted to use the shop as a front for laundering money? That made only marginally more sense. He wouldn’t have needed this particular shop. There had to be cheaper, easier to acquire shops all along this street.
Whatever the case, he certainly had no intention of allowing Claire and I to go on with business as usual once he owned the shop. He’d either evict us or try to force us into joining his scheme.
Scott was reading over the purchase agreement, running his finger along each row of words slowly, as if he had a reading disability. He was probably trying to buy time to figure out what to do.
Scott lifted his head and flattened his hand on top of the paperwork. “Your offer is more than fair, but we’re not done showing the property, and we expect multiple offers on it.”
He slid the papers back across the table toward Edwardo.
Edwardo smiled. His lips went out more than up, and the smile never reached his eyes. “I guarantee you that my offer will be better than what you’ll receive anywhere else.”
Scott climbed to his feet. He fumbled the chair slightly. It tipped backward, and he caught it. “You’ll have your chance to put in an offer. Now, as much as I hate to cut this short, we have another prospective buyer arriving soon.”
Scott met Edwardo’s gaze as if there was nothing wrong.
Edwardo nodded, walked to the door, and turned the deadbolt.
24
Scott jerked beside me like he had strings attached to him and someone gave them a tug. “What are you doing?”
Edwardo faced us both. He eased aside his suit jacket. A gun hung at his waist. “Stopping this charade. Are you going to sell me this building and walk out of here alive or do I need to negotiate in a different way?”
His hand brushed against the butt of his gun.
“Is that the same deal you offered my dad?” All the professional veneer had cracked off of Scott’s voice. His words wobbled.
Edwardo only smiled. Not an admission of guilt that could be used against him if we happened to get out of this alive. But certainly not a denial either.
My body wanted me to become small. To hide. Scott’s body had clearly pumped adrenaline through his system, making him blurt out what he was feeling without thinking it through.
Not that anything we did would matter now. Edwardo wasn’t going to allow us to leave alive, regardless of whether Scott signed the purchase agreement or not. If he let us go, he had to know that we’d head straight to the police department. A contract signed under duress wasn’t binding.
The only way he got this building was if Scott signed the paperwork and then Edwardo killed him.
And me since I was a witness.
I had zero bargaining chips. He held all the cards here. He had a gun. He could kill us and escape, just as he’d done when he killed Bob Jenner. Maybe he didn’t know about the security cameras? Those could identify him.
“This building is monitored. If you kill us, the police will know it was you.”
His top lip pulled back slightly. “Security cameras are only as good as the servers the recordings are housed on. Those servers should have been upgraded long ago. Old wiring can catch fire easily, and then the whole building will be lost. Very unfortunate.”
Of course, if he had enough money to buy this whole building for well above market value, he had enough money to pay someone to burn down a building. Perhaps he even kept someone on retainer for that sort of job. Edwardo had no qualms about killing people. He certainly wouldn’t balk at arson, even if that resulted in the death of an employee who ended up trapped in the building as it burned.
The thought made me shudder.
Edwardo had clearly come here with a plan for what to do if Scott wouldn’t sell him the building immediately. He didn’t seem like someone who left loose ends. Scott’s life might have met an “accidental” end even if he had signed those papers.
He’d even kept his back to the windows once locking the door, using his body to shield his gun from the big front windows. No one walking by outside would see anything unusual about three people in a bakery. I’d have to make a wild gesture that Edwardo wouldn’t be able to miss in order to signal anyone who happened by that something was wrong.
We had to get out of here. I just had no idea how yet. Maybe if I could get a knife from the kitchen. It seemed like I’d fall into the cliché of “never bring a knife to a gun fight” if I did that, but it was better than nothing. If he didn’t notice it, maybe I could place it at his neck while he was distracted by the papers.
He wasn’t likely to leave me alone in the kitchen, not with a door in there and the chance that I’d call the police. But if I could use my back as a blocker, I might be
able to manage it.
The knowledge that this was so different from how I would have handled this situation a year ago flashed across my mind. Either attempts on my life by strangers had become so common that my brain approached it with the same detachment that it had when it’d kept me alive while living with Jarrod or Dan’s self-defense training had a bigger impact than I realized.
I edged back a step. “Why don’t I get us something to eat?”
Scott raised his eyebrows at me, his eyes wide, as if my brain had completely malfunctioned.
Edwardo smiled in a way that lifted only half his mouth. “I’m no amateur. Even if I went with you, I know that sharp objects are kept in kitchens.” He pulled his gun and used it to direct Scott back to the table where we’d been sitting before. He stopped me before I could join him. “Now baby Jenner, are you going to sign those papers or do I need to show you what a bullet will do to your friend’s knee caps? We can easily step into her office for the show so that we don’t have any peepers outside spoiling the fun.”
Scott’s gaze bounced from the gun to me to the papers. His skin looked like he’d rolled around in chalk dust.
His hand reached for the pen.
“Don’t.” The word came out instinctively.
Scott froze, and his upper body shifted to face me. His expression clearly said you want me to let him shoot you?
“He’s not going to let us go, especially if he shoots me. We’ve seen his face.” I glared at Edwardo. Meekness and subterfuge hadn’t worked. Maybe gutsiness would. After all, it wasn’t like he could kill me twice. He wasn’t the first real-life villain I’d faced. I’d slept next to one for years. “No mask this time.”
For the first time, Edwardo’s smile reached his eyes. It sent a frigid jolt through my core. “I wasn’t certain you recognized me.” He sighed and swept the papers off the table. “I don’t really need to waste my money on this building anyway since you’ve both decided to be stubborn. I’ll give you one more chance to cooperate. Ms. Addington, call your new friend Flynn and tell him to meet you down here. Without giving anything away.”
Flynn? If he wanted me to call Flynn, then Flynn must have been right. The events at the bakery were connected to his drug dealer. Edwardo must either be that dealer or have been hired by him. We were in bigger trouble than I’d even thought. Based on Dan’s assessment of Flynn’s dealer, he’d have no problem murdering us. And Flynn.
But why bring Flynn down here? And why did he want to buy this property? That didn’t fit with anything Flynn had told me about the situation or any of the theories we came up with for why his dealer might be targeting the bakery.
“And why should she do what you tell her if you’re going to kill us anyway?” Scott asked.
Edwardo’s eyes narrowed a fraction as if he couldn’t wait to be rid of us. “Because death doesn’t have to be quick. A person can live for hours with broken bones and missing teeth. You can bleed out slowly, one small cut at a time, or I can do this compassionately with a head shot. It’s your choice.”
Scott swiveled to the side and vomited. Bile burned the back of my throat, but I couldn’t tell if it was from the sound and smell of Scott losing his dinner or if it was because we were going to die here tonight unless I could figure something out.
At least if I called Flynn, I might be able to tip him off somehow without Edwardo realizing what I was doing.
Dear God, I prayed silently. Give me wisdom.
“I’ll call him,” I said. “May I reach into my purse and take out my phone?”
“Slowly.”
I set my purse on the table so that he could see everything I was doing. We didn’t need him shooting us accidentally because he thought I was reaching for a weapon. Not that I didn’t have pepper spray in my purse. I did. But he could pull the trigger on his gun faster than I could dig it out and aim, even if I was close enough to have the spray hit him.
I gingerly pulled my phone from my purse, scrolled through my contacts, and dialed the Wendts’ number. I didn’t have anything else for contacting Flynn.
Mr. Wendt answered the phone rather than Flynn. “Isabel!” He drew the first part of my name out as if it started with three E’s. “When are you coming by with more cupcakes?”
I had to keep my voice steady so as not to make Edwardo angry. I had to avoid him insisting I put the phone on speaker.
“I was hoping you’d come to the store next. I’d like you to see what I’ve done with it.”
Edwardo made a speed-it-up motion with his hands and mouthed the words “No inviting anyone else.”
A rush of heat and then cold flooded my body like I had the flu. I hadn’t considered that Mr. Wendt might come with Flynn tonight. If Flynn didn’t figure out that something was wrong, I’d be responsible for getting Mr. Wendt killed too.
“But that’ll have to be another day.” I shot the words out so quickly that it was a miracle I didn’t garble them. “I need to talk to Flynn.”
“To Flynn?” Mr. Wendt’s voice shifted slightly, in that way parents had when they suspected their children of a crush.
I wanted to cover my eyes. Let’s add mortification to fear for my life. “Flynn asked me about a job, and I wanted to get him started.”
“Oh.” The excitement in Mr. Wendt’s voice shot so high Edwardo could probably hear it. “Yes. Let me get him.”
He must have moved the phone away from his face, but his voice calling Flynn’s name still carried out of the phone. I almost moved the phone away from my ear.
I couldn’t risk that Flynn was a loud phone talker like his dad. If he got suspicious about anything I said, he’d give me away. I gently touched the button on the side of my phone to turn the volume down.
Flynn’s voice greeted me next. “I didn’t think you’d actually give me a call about a job.”
I had planned to after we solved Bob Jenner’s murder. We were so busy that we wouldn’t be able to keep the pace we were setting much longer, even with Scott. My throat tightened. If Scott and I died here tonight, Claire would never recover. She almost hadn’t made it through the murder of a perfect stranger a few months ago.
Hiring Flynn ever was out of the question now. His involvement with Edwardo made him unsafe.
Maybe that wasn’t fair, though. Edwardo wouldn’t have me luring Flynn down here if he and Flynn were associates.
“Yeah, I need a hand. Tonight. The stove isn’t working again.”
“You’ve tried the valve?”
I had to do something to make this conversation seem less normal to Flynn. Even if I could, him considering it odd enough to call the police was a long shot. Unfortunately, it seemed like our only shot.
“Yeah, you did such a great job of fixing it before. I guess I should have watched more closely. But I’d really appreciate it if you could pop down tonight.”
“I can come, sure. I thought you were closed Mondays. What are you even doing there?”
His tone had gone hesitant. We both knew Flynn hadn’t come to fix the stove before. The question was whether that would be enough to tip him off that I was in danger or if he’d simply think I was drunk dialing him.
“We are closed on Mondays, but you know how it is when you’re running your own business.” I had to give him another clue that something was wrong. One might not be enough. “I know it’s late, so I’ll throw in a box of blueberry muffins. You and your dad seemed to enjoy those last time I visited.”
He might think I’d just gotten them confused with someone else I’d visited. I needed something else.
“Did you leave any for your mom?” I asked.
Edwardo eyes tightened around the edges. “End it.” He mouthed the words so softly I knew Flynn wouldn’t have been able to hear it. I barely could. “Now.”
I acknowledged him with a small nod. “Anyway, I’ll be waiting. Knock on the door because it’s locked, and remember to bring your tools.”
Edwardo snatched the phone from my hand and hit the e
nd button himself.
My ending had been a bit sloppy. There was no way that Flynn was going to understand “the door is locked” was code for “I’m being held hostage” and “bring your tools” meant “bring help.”
But maybe he’d at least know something was wrong. Maybe, just maybe, it would be enough.
Edwardo motioned for me to join Scott. “Now we wait.”
Scott had his head down on his arms, a small pile of paper napkins he’d used to clean his face crumpled up next to him. The stench of his lost stomach contents made my stomach clench again.
Scott didn’t even look up when I sat in the chair beside him. His reaction was probably the normal one. My mind was clear now. It wouldn’t stay that way. Not if past experience was any indicator. Hopefully Dan wouldn’t have to peel a weapon from my in-shock hands the way he had the last time. Though, if he did, that would at least mean I’d managed to get the gun away from Edwardo.
Tackling Edwardo and fighting him for the gun seemed unnecessarily risky. He was bigger, and he’d be expecting me to do something. He could shoot me and then Scott.
No, what I needed to do now was stall and pray Flynn caught my plea for help.
Stall because Edwardo might not think he needed to keep us alive now that I’d called Flynn. Scott’s body language clearly said he’d given up hope.
I needed to plant a different idea in Edwardo’s head. “So now we’re leverage against Flynn for whatever reason you had me lure him down here?”
Edwardo pulled another chair around so that he could see both the front windows and us, while keeping his gun on a side where it wouldn’t be spotted by anyone outside.
“Something like that,” he said.
Scott moaned softly beside me. An instinct to comfort him rose up inside me. I rubbed his back in soft circles the way I would Janie’s back. In many ways, Scott was still just a kid.
That was probably why I’d been able to hold myself together so long. My life wasn’t the only one at stake.
“Could you at least do us the courtesy of telling us why you were trying to buy this place? Why you tried to scare us away? Why you just had me trick Flynn Wendt into coming down here?”