Schooled in Deceit: A Lacamas Village Cozy Mystery, Book 1, page 13
He looked at me sadly. “You, too, Misty. It was nice talking with a beautiful, intelligent woman.”
My stomach rebelled again. I felt like I was about to throw up and must have looked it because his expression hardened.
“Now that has to end, too. Let’s go.”
I stood but stayed where I was. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m so glad you asked.” He reached for my arm. I flinched away.
“Now, don’t do that. Let me tell you my plan. It’s very simple. We’re going out on the trail.”
“In the dark?” That was not where I wanted to be in the dark.
“Don’t worry. I’ll be with you,” Elijah spoke in a calming voice like he was talking to a child. Then he chuckled. “We’ll walk down a ways, then I’ll hit you over the head with a rock, push you partway into the water and leave you for dead with Perla’s hat underneath you. They’ll think she killed you and I’ll be rid of two busybodies at once.”
I gasped at the sheer cold-bloodedness of his plan.
“I know. It’s brilliant,” he said.
With that, he suddenly grasped my arm and heaved me over the kayak. I stumbled and fell to the other side, pressing up as quickly as I could to scramble away, but he caught my hood and yanked me back.
I gasped for breath.
Elijah jerked my head back and gritted in my ear. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”
He jerked me up and pulled my hands behind my back, quickly tying them together. He paused at the door to turn out the light, apparently so no one would see us from the houses. He held me inside while he glanced around, listening.
The silence that greeted my ears was disappointing, to say the least. Any other evening, there had been people coming and going from the trail. But now that I needed someone? No such luck.
“Wait,” he said, reaching back through the door. Before I could stop him, he shoved a wad of paper towels into my mouth. I gagged and choked.
“Breathe through your nose,” he murmured. “That’s the best way.”
I began to feel light-headed and started to stagger.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” he said, stopping to pull out the paper towels.
“Are you crazy?” I gasped at him.
He cocked his head to look at me. Right. We had already determined that.
I shakily got to my feet.
He grabbed my head and shoved the paper towels back into my mouth. I was ready for him this time, managing to get my tongue in the way so the paper towels didn’t gag me in the back.
“I’m sorry, Misty. I just can’t trust you.”
With that, he pulled me with him down toward the trail, past the bench on which old Mr. Wiggins had died.
I breathed through my nose to keep myself calm, wondering if anyone above in the neighborhood missed me.
Elijah kept his phone light pointed downward so we could at least see where we were going, but I still managed to stumble and trip along the way. If I survived this, I would be bruised in the morning.
We walked about five minutes when Elijah suddenly stopped and looked around. We were beneath a large tree at a spot where the path ran directly next to the lake.
“So if I hit you over the head here, then let your head fall into the water, you’ll drown in a few minutes,” he said as if he were talking to himself.
I grunted at him.
“What?” he asked, turning to look at me in surprise, as if he had forgotten he had stuffed my mouth full of paper towels.
I grunted again.
He sighed at me, cocking his head, then reached over and pulled out the paper towels from mouth. I snapped at his fingers with my teeth, but my reflexes were slow. Being kidnapped will do that to a person.
My phone buzzed in my pocket.
Elijah’s head spun toward the sound, and he loosened his grip on me. “What’s that?”
I elbowed him in the side. Then I stomped on his foot and started running, screaming as I ran.
My pocket kept buzzing. Then I heard a voice that sounded a long way off.
“Mi-sty!”
“Help me! Help!” I screamed for all I was worth as I scrambled up the trail back toward the voice.
“Misty!”
“Help!”
Elijah came up behind me, throwing himself at me. I leapt forward to get out of his reach. He caught my right foot, bringing me down. I kicked at him with the left foot, apparently connecting a few times because he howled in anger. He took my foot in both of his hands and gave a hefty twist, sending pain coursing through my leg.
“Here I am!” I turned my face upward so whoever was yelling for me could hear me.
Footsteps shook the path. Elijah grabbed both of my feet and started dragging me toward the lake.
I shrieked in fear. He just would not give up. I kicked and struggled with my feet. If he was going to kill me, I was not going to make this easy for him.
He dragged me to the water’s edge, then rolled me over into the cold water, my face down. I tried to keep rolling, but he wouldn’t let me, so I kicked my feet.
Suddenly, Elijah released me. I tried to roll over, but my body felt exhausted and started to sink. Hands were on my arms, turning me over.
“Misty? Misty? Can you hear me?” The voice still sounded far away. I tried to focus on it, but I was too tired to even open my eyes.
Then I hacked up some water and took in a deep breath.
The hands pulled me gently to shore, picking me up and lying me on my side on the trail. “Misty?” The voice was quiet but persuasive.
I coughed and coughed, turning my head toward the trail as water came out. Finally, I opened my eyes.
Detective Crandall knelt beside me, concern filling his face. He smiled when our eyes met.
“You’re back,” he said quietly, rubbing my shoulder. “How do you feel?”
“Like I’ve been hit by a bus,” I groused. I wiggled my hands, which were still tied together.
His eyebrows raised and he hopped behind me, whipping out a small knife and cutting the binds. He rubbed the place where the ropes were.
“Can you sit up?”
I nodded, then placed one hand on the ground in front of me and pushed myself up to a sitting position, pausing at the top to breathe in deeply. My pocket buzzed again. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone.
Rodney. Two missed calls. I laughed shakily. Would I ever tell him that he had saved my life? I shook my head. Probably not.
“Ms. Michaels, is that you? Are you okay?”
Lindell jogged down the trail toward me, looking worried.
I nodded then cleared my throat. “I’m okay, Mr. Stevenson.”
Crandall gestured toward Lindell. “If he hadn’t seen you going into the shed with Elijah Douglas, we wouldn’t be here right now.”
Crandall told me how he had waited on my front stoop to ask me a few more questions. Lindell noticed the detective when he set the trash bins at the curb. Lindell told Crandall he had seen Elijah and me go into the shed. “Something about that didn’t look right, but I wasn’t sure.”
Crandall called for backup and sprinted down to the trail. The shed was empty, so he had followed the trail and called my name.
I smiled weakly at Lindell. “Thank you. You saved my life.”
He smiled and waved it off. “We’re neighbors. Just wish I had done it sooner.”
I turned back to the detective. “It was Elijah all the time. He was going to kill me and try to make it look like Perla had done it.”
The detective frowned over my head at two officers hauling Elijah up the trail in handcuffs. “I don’t think Perla would let that go without a fight.”
I grinned sheepishly. “I can’t believe I thought she was a suspect. He really played me.”
The detective reached out a hand. “C’mon. Let’s get you home.”
After being checked out by paramedics yet again, I was released to my home. I crawled into a hot bubble bath and called Audra.
“Elijah did it. He was the killer,” I started in as soon as she clicked on. I hurried on. “I’m sorry to call so late for you, but I had to let you know.”
Silence greeted my rambling opening.
“Elijah?” Audra said, blowing out a breath. “That makes me sad. How did you find out?”
I told her about being trapped in the shed and how the evening unfolded. By the time I finished, Audra’s voice had reached a feverish pitch.
“Are you all right? I will kill him myself if he has hurt you. That rat—”
“Sis, I’m fine. Really. I’m okay.”
She sniffled. “Are you sure? Because if anything happened to you, I don’t know what I would do.”
“Aw, sis.”
“I can’t wait until we’re back in Lacamas, and you and I can hang out and make up for lost time.”
I smiled into the phone. “I love you, too. Oh, and Audra? Don’t call Perla or anyone else and send them over tonight.”
She hesitated. “I just want to make sure you’re safe.”
I looked around the bathtub with all the bubbles and my cup of hot chocolate beside me. I described the scene to her. “I really don’t want to have to get out of this bath to answer the doorbell.”
“The security system is set?” Her voice held a warning tone.
“It’s set. I’m safe.”
“Okay, then I will talk with you in the morning. Good night, Misty. Love you.”
“Good night, sis. Love you, too.”
With that, we clicked off. I leaned forward to run more hot water into the tub, then laid back and stretched. My body didn’t hurt quite so much now.
I realized I did feel safe.
My phone buzzed again. Rodney. I sighed, then clicked on the call.
“Babe—”
“Rodney,” I interrupted. “You’ve done your good deed for the night. I will talk with you tomorrow. Thank you and good night.”
I clicked off the phone, turned it off and tossed it on the rug outside of the tub. Then I closed my eyes and sank into the comforting warmth of the water.
Chapter 33
“You actually thought I was a killer?” Perla stood in the center aisle of the bookshop, hands on hips. “You did, didn’t you? I couldn’t tell if you really meant it or not.”
I held out both hands in front of me as if I could appease her. “Can we please let this go? I said I’m sorry.”
Perla’s expression changed and she cackled, clapping her hands in delight. “Are you kidding? People have accused me of a lot of things, mostly of being annoying, but no one has ever accused me of being a murderer before! It was awesome.”
I brought my hands toward my face and peeked around them. “You’re really not mad at me?”
Perla laughed heartily. “Of course not. I mean, I was pretty offended at first, but I got over it.”
She wiped her eyes on the edge of her blue apron, then smiled genuinely at me. “I do hope we can become better friends so that the next time you think I might be a killer, we can talk it out. Then maybe you wouldn’t have ended up alone on a deserted trail with the actual killer.”
I grinned. “I’d like to become better friends, too.”
Relief filled my chest. Perla had given me a few days off after the incident with Elijah, and we hadn’t had a chance to talk about it.
The bell over the door jingled and Perla tilted her head toward the coffee bar. “You’ve got customers.”
I shoved my purse under the register and hurried to the coffee bar, pulling on my apron as I went. Yolanda Stevenson met me at the counter. She gestured toward Lisa Wiggins, sitting tentatively in one of the wingback chairs.
I leaned toward her. “How is she doing?” I asked in a quiet voice.
Yolanda shrugged, her eyes on Lisa. “Glad it’s over. Sorry it turned out the way it did.”
She turned back to me, her eyes bright. “I’m sorry you got dragged into our strange little neighborhood drama.”
I took their orders, then carried their coffees to the wingback chairs where they sat.
Lisa smiled weakly and nodded her thanks as I handed her the skinny latte.
“If you don’t mind my saying so,” I started, “you look like you should still be in bed.”
Lisa laughed, then held her head with one hand. “I can’t laugh yet without it hurting.”
“That will come in time, sugar,” Yolanda said. “Time heals all wounds.”
Lisa reached for my hand. I gave it to her as I sat on the ottoman in front of her. Perla leaned on Yolanda’s chair.
“I just wanted to thank you for all you did,” Lisa said, her eyes filling with tears.
“Do not start crying again,” Jonathan ordered as he swooped in to pick up some newspapers left behind. “Or we’ll all be blubbering.”
Lisa released my hand to wipe her eyes. “It just makes me so emotional. To think that Samuel was killed because Elijah Douglas wanted to keep up appearances. I can’t even fathom what was going through that man’s head.”
“Serious brain damage,” Perla commented.
“What will happen to him?” I asked.
The other women looked at each other and shook their heads. “As long as he is not out free, I’m happy,” Lisa said. “The police said he embezzled thousands of dollars from the homeowners’ association.”
My brow wrinkled. “Lisa, then why did he attack you? Did you know he was stealing?”
“Not at first,” Lisa started. “Samuel took it upon himself to go over the HOA books. He told me about the huge discrepancy and that he was going to talk to Elijah about it.” Her shoulders dropped and her voice caught. “It wasn’t until a few days after Samuel died that I thought maybe that had something to do with Samuel’s death. So I called Elijah and asked him if Samuel had talked to him about the missing money. He denied it, and I believed him. He slipped in through the garage and attacked me. I didn’t even hear him.”
“You always were too trusting.” Yolanda tsked beside her. “We all were. We’re never going to see that money again, by the way.”
Perla waved her hand. “That’s a problem for the new homeowners’ association president to handle.”
A thought occurred to me. “What about you, Lisa?” I asked. “You’ve been taking those business classes. You’re probably more qualified than most to take on that job.”
Lisa skewed her lips to the left, then laughed. “I won’t deny it’s something I’ve been thinking about.”
“That’s a great idea,” Yolanda put in as she propped her feet up on the footstool beside her. “I hate HOA meetings, but I would go just to second your nomination.”
Lisa grinned and shrugged, sadness passing quickly over her face. “It would keep me busy while I figure out what I’m going to do.”
“If you need anything, Lisa, I’m right next door,” I said. “At least for the summer.”
“She might stay though,” Perla announced.
“I’m not staying,” I laughed. “I have second-graders to get back to and a husband to figure out.”
“You and me both, sister,” Yolanda said.
I’d heard through the neighborhood grapevine – okay, really it was just Perla – that Lindell had moved out of their house a few days ago. I looked at Yolanda sympathetically.
“Are you all right?”
She toasted me with her caramel latte. “Absolutely. I mean, the house is kind of quiet, but I was able to hide away most of my valuables that I don’t want Lindell to get, so I’m ready. Bring it on!”
Her valuables. I swear they must have been able to see the lightbulb that went off in my head. “That’s what the big pile of dirt was!” I turned triumphantly to Perla. “It wasn’t a dead body. It’s Yolanda’s valuables.”
Perla bit her lips and widened her eyes. I felt my face take on an “oops” expression as I turned toward Yolanda.
She looked like the principal who caught me passing notes during the staff meeting.
“Do you have something to share, Misty?” she asked. I don’t think her eyebrows could go any higher on her head.
I opened my mouth to speak, then closed it and shook my head. I really did not want to cop to spying on Yolanda and Lindell.
“Let me see if I have this right,” Yolanda said, picking up her feet from the foot stool and scooting to the front of her wingback chair. “You and Miss Perla decided to snoop around my backyard to see if my husband had anything to do with Samuel’s death. Along the way, you ran through my pile of dirt, then tracked it all over my back patio.”
Yolanda frowned at me over her reading glasses. “I had one heck of a time sweeping up that evidence before the police arrived.”
“You knew it was us?” I asked, dumbfounded.
She smirked. “I caught a glimpse as you ran out the back gate. My husband was already in the yard, so he couldn’t see. The police were not happy that I was sweeping the porch. Made me look stupid to be sweeping up the possible evidence.” She frowned again. “I didn’t appreciate that part.”
“We are so sorry,” I started.
“Not that sorry,” Perla added.
Yolanda waved away our apologies. “I knew you thought Lindell had something to do with it, so I didn’t mind too much as long as you didn’t break anything.”
“Now enough of this talk.” She turned to Lisa. “When are you going to show us how you make those lovely bracelets that you sell online?”
Lisa’s face brightened. “I want to start giving classes. Maybe I can practice on you ladies?”
Her eyes scanned the three of us. Jonathan cleared his throat.
“You four, I mean,” Lisa said.
We all laughed and started planning when to meet up for craft nights. I sat back on the ottoman, looking at each of these women who had played such a big role in my first weeks in Lacamas Village. My phone buzzed.
Rodney. You took down a killer????
I laughed, my fingers hovering over the phone. Then I texted him back. Tell you about it later.
