Trying to think about something else, I asked Doc, “How’s Neil doing?”
Doc folded with a harrumph. He finished off his beer and popped the top on another. “Checked on him just before I came over here. Don’t worry, Rebecca, the boy’s doing just fine.” The last was said with a dazed kind of smile. Chugging beers had done a number on Doc’s head.
I folded my hand as Lionel took another pot. “Is he still being held for observation?” I asked Doc with a quizzical smile.
“Nope.” Doc gave a drunken shrug. “Neil planned on heading out of town as soon as he could. He said that no woman’s worth risking his life over.” Doc winked and swayed in his chair. “Guess he was talking about you, although I don’t agree with him. I’m pretty sure Lionel doesn’t either, since the whole town is talking about the two of you. Eleanor’s running a pool about when you’ll be getting engaged.” He leaned close. “I took the first two weeks of September.”
“Really?” I looked at Lionel, who was staring intently at his cards. Clearly, Doc’s comment hadn’t bothered him, but it bothered me.
Not that I wasn’t fond of Lionel. I was. He was sexy, sweet, and smart. I’d have to be dead not to feel something for him, but we weren’t serious. Lionel knew that. Right?
Doc sucked down the rest of his beer. “I told Neil he should stick around. I thought he’d want to catch the person who walloped him, but he said no. Can you believe that?”
I shrugged. No Neil meant one less problem to deal with. “Maybe this is for the best,” I said. “Now all the sheriff’s resources will be focused on finding Mack’s murderer.” I raised an eyebrow in Tom’s direction. “His real murderer.”
Tom’s head swung in my direction. His eyes narrowed. “Aunt Agnes is sitting behind bars. Did you forget?”
“No,” I shot back, “but the sheriff decided to release your aunt. I guess senility wasn’t a good enough motive for murder.”
I leaned my elbows on the table and stared straight into Tom’s eyes. “The sheriff is not real happy about you turning on your aunt and then moving into her house. You might want to watch your step.” Acting bitchy lifted my spirits. Suspecting Annette was a murderess had made me edgy.
Tom didn’t appreciate my cathartic release. He shot out of his seat, sending his chair crashing to the ground behind him. “What the hell does that mean?” he yelled.
My heart jumped as Tom’s face turned a deep shade of magenta. I watched with a combination of fascination and fear as his hands balled into tight fists. “Tell me what you meant by that.” The threat in his voice was unmistakable. I shrank back in my chair, hoping Tom wouldn’t leap across the table. The self-defense class I took a year ago didn’t give pointers on how to outmaneuver a pissed-off drunk.
Tom kicked his chair out of the way and started to stalk around the table. Lionel stood up and blocked his path. “I think we’ve all had enough for one night. Why doesn’t everyone pack it in and head home?”
Tom looked like he wanted to complain, but Zach cut him off. “I need to get to work early tomorrow anyway. Come on, Tom. I’ll drop you at home.” A still red-faced Tom followed Zach out the door. As they disappeared around the corner, Doc began singing a rousing rendition of “He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.” Doc was wasted.
Lionel waited for the men’s footsteps to disappear before saying, “You shouldn’t push Tom. He’s got a mean streak. You don’t want to mess with him.”
I’d already figured that one out for myself. “Why are you friends with him?” I asked.
“Mack introduced him to all of us. He was the one who asked Tom to join the game. Guess it’s time to uninvite him—which will thrill Zach. He hates the guy.”
“Really?”
“He was Mack’s best friend until Tom showed up. The first couple of poker games we had a few tense moments, then things settled down.” He gave me one of his toe-curling smiles. “Until you came along.”
Lionel’s fingers massaged the back of my neck. I leaned into his touch as my neck muscles relaxed. The rest of my body started tingling. I contemplated what those fingers could do if we were alone. If nothing else, he’d make me forget about the icky feelings I’d had since visiting Annette.
I smiled at him, and his mouth crushed against mine. My lower abdominal muscles clenched as his tongue slipped between my teeth and did a little dance. When his fingers skimmed under my waistband, I felt tiny explosions in the pit of my stomach. Then they headed southward.
A loud voice bellowed, “Happy birthday!” in my ear. We broke apart and looked over to see Doc tilting dangerously to one side. Meanwhile he was happily singing birthday tidings to himself.
“Is it Doc’s birthday?” I asked Lionel.
He shook his head and sat down. “His wife throws him a birthday party every year. It’s in October.”
For some reason this struck me as funny. I started to laugh. Maybe I could order a Louise-style scarecrow for Doc’s birthday. That thought made me laugh even harder.
Doc must have taken my amusement as applause. He started the song again, this time dedicating it to Lionel. When he got to the end he flung out his arms and bowed, which promptly sent his body careening forward right into Lionel’s fully aroused lap.
Lionel looked down at Doc, and a smile twitched at his lips. “I’d better drive Doc home. He’s in no shape to do it himself. I’d let him sleep it off here, but his wife will come looking for him if he isn’t home by twelve.” Lionel helped Doc struggle to his feet and glanced over his shoulder at me. “Wait here. We have unfinished business.”
I nodded, and Lionel disappeared through the door, half carrying an intoxicated Doc. I took a seat on the couch because Lionel was right, we did have unfinished business. Only my brain couldn’t concentrate on it right now. My mind kept returning to Annette. Thinking that Annette might have had something to do with Mack’s death was driving me nuts. As much as I wanted to stay and wait for Lionel, I needed to go see Annette and demand some answers. Lionel would understand.
I hurried down the hall into the main barn area. A sheep bleated from a stall. Hay crunched under my feet as I crossed to the front door.
The sound of a car pulling up the driveway made me quicken my step. Lionel had gotten Doc home faster than I’d expected. I needed to get out of the barn before he could corner me in a stall and make me forget my investigation.
I was four steps from the entrance when I heard the sound of footsteps coming toward the barn. A figure filled the doorway, and I smiled. The person smiled back and leveled a gun right at my face.
Twenty-one
Tom Owens’s face glared at me from behind the gun barrel.
The minute I saw the gun my mind shut down. “What are you doing with a gun?” I asked stupidly.
Tom’s smile widened. “I brought it for you. Don’t you like it?”
No. Not especially. In fact I was pretty certain I hated it, but I couldn’t be sure. My body had gone numb.
Tom took a step into the barn and extended the gun toward my nose. His eyes narrowed into two angry slits. “You’ve caused me a lot of trouble. Everything would have been fine if you hadn’t come to town.”
I blinked. Except for evicting him today, I hadn’t done anything to him. Could he be holding a grudge about that first poker game?
“I’m sorry?” I said, hoping it was what he wanted to hear.
It wasn’t. Tom’s nostrils flared as he tightened his grip on the gun. “You’d better be,” he shouted. “If it weren’t for you, Mack’s death would have remained unsolved, and the sheriff would never have connected those pills with me.” His mouth twisted into a sneer. “You should have left Mack’s death alone. Then none of this would be happening.”
Holy shit! “You killed Mack,” I said, gaping at Tom.
“Don’t pretend you’re surprised,” he screamed. The gun waved hypnotically in front of my eyes. “I knew what you were up to tonight. I knew the minute you told everyone the sheriff was releasing Aunt Agnes. Y
ou were taunting me, Rebecca, playing cat and mouse. Well, we’re done playing. You missed your chance to expose me, and I won’t give you another one.”
Tom steadied the gun, and with his left hand he gave me a tiny, farewell wave. I searched my brain for something to say, anything that would stop Tom’s itchy trigger finger. The best I could come up with was “You can’t kill me yet.”
Yet? Why did I say yet? Tom must have wondered the same thing, because he lowered the gun a few inches and asked, “Why not?”
“You have to tell me why you did it,” I said, grasping at straws. “I know you’re having financial problems. What I don’t know is why you had to kill Mack. I thought he was your best friend.”
“He was,” Tom bellowed, the gun swinging wildly to the left before it settled back on me. “Don’t you understand? Mack wasn’t supposed to die. The pills were only supposed to make him dizzy. How was I supposed to know that he’d fall into a toilet and drown? Who does that?”
In the dim light I thought I saw tears glistening in Tom’s eyes. A guy that cried over killing his friend might be talked out of killing an innocent woman. In the movies a talking villain got distracted. Sometimes he even forgot about shooting his victim. Real life was different, but Tom didn’t strike me as a multitasker. I just needed to keep him talking long enough to come up with a better plan or until Lionel showed up.
I asked, “Why did you do it, Tom? Why give Mack drugs if you didn’t intend to kill him?”
Tom gave me a “boy, are you dense” look and lowered the gun an inch. “Don’t you understand? I wanted to make it look like my aunt drugged Mack. The whole town knew she didn’t like him. The cat took those pills. It was perfect. I was going to have her committed so I could get her bank account and the house. I couldn’t wait for the old lady to kick the bucket. Mack understood. He knew I needed the money now.”
A lightbulb in my brain clicked on as the phone number in Mack’s CD case made sense. Mack wasn’t looking for an investment company. He was checking in on his friend Tom. “You made some bad investments?” I guessed.
The gun lowered another inch. Tom nodded and started to pace. “The guy said these investments would pay off big. The first one did, so I sank more money in. I wanted to earn enough money to stop teaching.” Tom’s hand began to shake. I prayed the gun wouldn’t go off in a moment of hysteria. That would be depressing.
“You don’t like teaching?” I asked, my eyes following the gun in Tom’s zigzagging hand.
“I hate it.” Tom raked his free hand through his hair. He took a deep breath and let out a loud burst of air. “Have you ever taught high school kids? Well, it sucks. The kids don’t give you any respect. The football part is good, but it isn’t enough to make me want to do it for the rest of my life. My broker said I’d make enough money to ditch my job. I don’t know what went wrong. All of a sudden he called and told me I owed him money. A lot of money.”
Tom must never have heard the expression “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” Since he had a gun, I wasn’t about to educate him. “Why didn’t you just ask your aunt for a loan?” I remembered the nine thousand dollars under Mack’s mattress and added, “Or Mack. One of them could have helped you.”
“My aunt hates me, and Mack tried to get me some fast cash. He took a lot of jobs and offered me the deposits, but he couldn’t get his hands on the kind of money I needed. There was only one option.”
“To drug Mack and hope your aunt got committed. Only Mack died.”
Tom nodded. He used the back of his gun hand to wipe his runny nose. “Mack promised to help me make my aunt look unstable. I got him the job next door to Aunt Agnes. He purposely picked on her cats and reported her responses to the cops. Only Mack got uncomfortable with the whole thing and tried to pull out of our deal. He said he’d find another way to get the cash.” Tom squeezed his eyes tight, and I took a tentative step toward the door. Hay crunched under my heel. Tom’s eyes snapped open, and the gun swung back toward me. “Where do you think you’re going?”
My body went completely still. “Nowhere,” I answered, although Tahiti sounded like a good idea. Anywhere I didn’t feel this cold, numbing fear sounded good. Trying to keep the terror out of my voice, I prompted, “So Mack didn’t know you slipped him Precious’s drugs?”
“No. He would never have taken the pills. He only took the ones Doc gave him because he had to,” Tom grumbled. “The pills were supposed to make Mack sick. He wasn’t supposed to drown. The cops would’ve suspected my aunt. Once she was out of the way, I was going to pay off my debts and start fresh. I never wanted to kill Mack. If he hadn’t backed out of helping me, I wouldn’t have had to drug him, and none of this would have happened. He would have been playing poker tonight. Instead…” Tom raised the gun. My stomach lurched and I sucked air as the thing pointed right between my eyes. “I had to sit across from you.”
My heart pounded. There were no more questions to ask. Tom’s face was stone cold. Conversation was over. My mouth went dry as fear raced through my body. My stomach clenched and unclenched. This was it. Lionel wasn’t coming back in time to save me. He was going to find me dead, never knowing how much I really liked him.
And poor Pop. He’d have a heart attack after hearing I’d been shot here in Indian Falls. Chicago wouldn’t have surprised him. Come to think of it, getting shot there wouldn’t have surprised me either. I guess that said something about my choice of residence. If I survived this I’d have to rethink that. I’d probably rethink the Lionel thing, too. Right now, the thought of avoiding a relationship with a wonderful guy seemed really stupid.
Tom’s finger twitched on the trigger. Hay shuffled somewhere nearby, causing Tom to glance to the side. His eyes grew wide as his gun swung widely to the right. My eyes followed the movement in time to see Elwood and his poker visor barreling out of his barn stall. Right at Tom.
I felt like someone switched everything to slow motion. Elwood charged toward Tom. Tom’s mouth dropped in surprise. The whole thing would have been funny if I hadn’t been paralyzed by terror. Elwood galloped closer, and Tom’s finger squeezed the trigger.
“No!” The horrified scream flew from my mouth as Elwood stumbled, let out a hair-raising whine, and slumped down to the ground. Tom had killed Elwood.
Seeing Elwood shot made something snap inside me. I launched myself at Tom. My tackle caught him off guard, and we both tumbled hard to the ground. The gun flew out of Tom’s hand. We both turned our heads and watched it slide across the barn’s hay-covered cement floor and come to rest about ten feet away from us.
I scrambled over Tom’s body toward his gun. His strong fingers dug into my ankle, and I felt him pulling me backward. I reached out my hand and urged my body forward. My fingers brushed the handle. A wave of triumph swept through my entire body as my hand closed around cool metal. Then Tom’s foot made contact with my knee. A crunching sound echoed in the barn as a blinding pain traveled up my leg. I bit my lip. Tears stung behind my eyes. Steeling myself, I flipped over and aimed. Tom blinked. Now I was the one with the gun, and it was pointed right at him.
Tom scrambled to his feet. “There’s no way you’re going to shoot me,” he said, looming above. I tightened my grip on the gun. The pain in my knee was bad. I wasn’t going to win any races on my leg.
I glanced over at Elwood. He was lying on the ground, not moving. Tears blurred my vision. Elwood had saved my life. He couldn’t die. I wanted both of us to live.
“Come on, Rebecca.” Tom’ eep voice taunted, and I looked away from the lifeless camel. Tom took another step closer. “We both know you don’t have the killer instinct. You saved my aunt’s crazy cats, so there’s no way you’ll kill me in cold blood. We both know it. It’s time to put down the gun before you do something you’ll regret.” Tom held out his hand and waited for me to hand him the gun.
Right, I thought. Even I wasn’t that stupid. Sure, I wasn’t bright enough to figure out who killed Mack without being
held at gunpoint, but I wasn’t dumb enough to drop the gun. Problem was, Tom was probably right about my ability to pull the trigger.
Tom took another step toward me. I leaned backward to get a better angle, all the while praying I didn’t have to shoot him. I didn’t want to kill anyone, not even a cat-stealing, camel-shooting creep like Tom.
“Come on, Rebecca.” He took another step, and my pulse hit the accelerator. The gun began to shake in my hands. Seeing that made Tom smile. “See. You’re more afraid of that gun than of me. Why don’t you put the gun away and end all this right now?”
He was almost on top of me. I willed my finger to press the trigger, but I couldn’t. Tom leaned down. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed Elwood’s eyes open, and my heart exploded with joy. Elwood was alive. He wasn’t dead. My eyes narrowed at Tom. Elwood had saved me; now it was my job to defend us both. A flood of adrenaline coursed through my body as I leaned back on my elbows and took aim.
Direct hit.
My foot connected with its intended target. Tom’s eyes rolled back into his head. His hand cupped his privates, and he crumpled to the ground mewing in pain. I kicked him again, feeling a jolt of satisfaction as I watched him roll face-first into the hay.
Pocketing the gun, I pushed myself to my feet, and my knee burst into white-hot agony. I saw stars and grabbed a barn stall for support.
“What the hell is going on in here?”
I spun toward the angry voice, and relief flooded through me. Lionel was standing in the barn doorway, his eyes shifting from a moaning Tom to a crippled Elwood. He then looked at me. I actually smiled as my knee started to give way. “Tom killed Mack, and he tried to kill me. Could you please tie him up?” I asked. “I’d do it myself, but I think I’m going to faint.”