Flipped Out (37 page)

“Stupid cat,” Adam growled, scowling at Mischa still cradled in my arms. Mischa hissed, the hairs on the back of his neck standing straight up. “I should shoot the damn thing right now.” Adam raised the gun and aimed it at Mischa’s head.

“It wasn’t his fault,” I said, covering the cat, who took the opportunity to bite my finger. “Ouch. Dammit! He was just protecting his house. You’re the one who came in here and started messing with him. How come he didn’t scratch your hands, too?”

“Gloves,” Adam said, lowering the gun again. Just enough to point it at my stomach instead of at the cat. Which was something of a relief. Not just because I didn’t want Mischa to get shot, but because if he shot Mischa, the bullet would probably go straight through the tiny cat and into my chest. If he shot me in the stomach, we both stood a better chance of surviving.

“So you took him outside and put him in the shed, and then you waited for me to go looking for him?”

Adam nodded, a pleased smile on his glossily toohandsome face.

“And when I got there, you pushed me in and bolted the door and set fire to the shed. And then I guess you ran away, since you thought the fire truck might show up.”

“I figured it would,” Adam agreed, “but I thought it’d be too late to save you.”

If it hadn’t been for the spade, and for Derek, it would have been.

“So you thought I was dead?”

“Until this morning,” Adam said, and his bottom lip jutted out in a sulky pout. “When Deke said you’d survived. But he said you couldn’t talk, so I thought there was still time to fix things, if I got to you before you could tell anyone what you knew about me. And now I guess it’s time.”

He lifted the gun, and time slowed down while everything around me became very sharp and clear. I threw the cat at him, watching everything unfold in slow motion. Mischa sailed through the air with a drawn-out scream, legs stiff and claws extended. He landed square in Adam’s face, exactly where I’d aimed him. Adam yanked the gun up and pulled the trigger, his own scream muffled by seven pounds of fur, and I swear I could feel the bullet part my hair as I dropped to the floor. A second later, Brandon Thomas had dropped, too, straight out of the sky. Or more accurately, over the railing from the second floor. It took him a few seconds to orient himself once he’d touched down, but then he threw himself at Adam and knocked him down. Adam fell with a crash, the back of his head making a very satisfying crack against the hardwood floor. The gun went flying, and so did Mischa, in another arc through the air. He landed on all fours, the way cats do, before he straightened himself, shook, and turned to survey the scene. I scooped him up and cradled him, my hands shaking.

“My hero.”

That was the scene that met Wayne’s eyes a few minutes later when he walked through the front door with Derek right behind him.

The latter quirked a brow, surveying the carnage. “This brings back memories, huh?”

Just a few weeks after I’d moved into Aunt Inga’s house, just over a year ago now, someone else had tried to kill me. It had been on the top of the stairs rather than the bottom, but I’d been wearing this same terrycloth robe. A cat had been involved then, too: Inky had tripped the bad guy and sent him tumbling down the flight of stairs to end up in a heap on the hall floor, just a few feet from where Adam was laid out now.

“This time it wasn’t me,” I said. “Brandon landed on him and sent him flying. He’s still out.”

Derek looked in that direction. “Breathing, right?”

I nodded. “Brandon checked. Twice. We want him to survive to stand trial.”

“Definitely.” Derek turned back to me, obviously more concerned with my well-being than with Adam’s. His eyes were searching. “You all right, Tink?”

“I’m fine,” I said hoarsely.

“You don’t look fine.”

“I will be, once I’ve had time to rest. And once the TV crew leaves tomorrow.”

“I can’t wait,” Derek said, wrapping me in his arms. “Remind me never to do this again.”

I put my head on his shoulder. “No worries. This isn’t something I ever want to do again, either.”

“Let’s get you upstairs and to bed.” He picked me up.

“But the house—”

“Between Cora and Beatrice and Kate and I, we’ll get it done. You rest. I’ll come get you this afternoon so you can be part of the final filming. Until then, I want you to sleep.”

He skirted Adam’s recumbent body and started up the stairs.

“I will,” I said, since rest sounded pretty good right then.

 

Epilogue

“Good riddance,” Derek said, sotto voce, the next morning, as we stood outside the Waterfield Inn and waved good-bye to the television crew and the white van.

I’d spent the previous day in bed, until Derek came and picked me up late in the afternoon so I could be there for when Wilson shot the “after” footage of the cottage.

Yes, Wilson was still on the crew. As Nina had explained when I evinced surprise, he was the best, and she wasn’t about to lose him over something so silly as a string of poison-pen letters. They’d worked together for years with no problems, and she was fully prepared to forgive and forget. She was prepared to forgive Fae, too, although Fae was being dispatched back to Kansas City tout de suite. Which seemed fine with Fae, since the only reason she’d signed on to the crew in the first place was to torment Nina. She’d never planned to work for
Flipped Out!
past the summer in any case.

It was her grandmother—Aurora’s mother, Wilson’s mother-in-law—who had mailed the letters, after writing them on her old-fashioned typewriter. Once the crew got to Waterfield, and Fae realized that our Tony was the same Tony who had been in Kansas City when her mother died, she’d decided to include him in the mailings. She had called her grandmother, and Grandma had put a letter in the mail to Tony within the hour; that was how it had gotten to us so fast. Of course, by the time it arrived, Tony was dead, and Fae swore up and down she’d had no intention of actually harming anyone. She knew Nina and Tony hadn’t done anything criminal, that Aurora herself was ultimately to blame for what happened; she just wanted them to feel bad about their part in it.

My cheeks were still pink and my throat sore on Saturday morning, but I felt a lot better from resting so much. The shed was a total loss, though. The insurance company had come and gone. They had agreed to pay me for it, however, and Derek had promised to build me a new one. Bigger and better. With a real potting bench and maybe even a sink, if we could figure out how to bring water to the shed. That’d be useful the next time someone locked me in there and tried to burn me alive, too, as Derek said.

Adam would be staying in Maine for the time being, and most likely for the foreseeable future. He’d be standing trial for killing Tony and for attempted murder of Josh and Shannon—or Fae—not to mention attempted murder of me, along with arson. It’d be a while until he got to go anywhere else, but once he did, Kentucky wanted him, so they could try him for attempted murder of Stuart, as well.

Once Fae figured out that Adam had damned near killed Stuart just to get his job, I thought she might blow a gasket. She was so mad she was practically spitting nails, and Adam should consider himself lucky he was in police custody at that point, since I think Fae might have tried to kill him herself.

We managed to get enough of the work on the house done by evening—with the help of Bea and Cora, Kate and Josh, and even Ted and Fae and Nina—that the shoot wrapped on time, and Wilson said he had enough footage for the editing person to piece together a decent show. It would air in a few months, and someone would let us know to look for it. And then we all went to our various homes—temporary and permanent—and got a better night’s sleep than the night before. In the morning, Derek and I dragged ourselves over to Kate’s B&B in time to wave the crew on their way, precipitating Derek’s remark.

I snuggled into his side. “It wasn’t that bad.”

He stared down at me, incredulous. “Not that bad? Tony died, Shannon and Josh almost died, and you almost burned to a crisp. Plus, Melissa spent two nights in jail. How can you call that not so bad?”

I shrugged. “I thought you meant the renovation and the TV taping. And it could have been worse, you know. We all survived. Well, except Tony. But even Melissa seemed a lot more concerned with saving her skin than with mourning him. And the fact that she had to spend two nights in jail was actually a sort of bonus. Plus, I did prove that she didn’t do it. Maybe she’ll be nicer to me after this.”

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Kate said. She was standing there with us, waving good-bye, as well, and probably feeling the same way Derek was. “So what are you two up to today?” She looked from one to the other of us.

Derek shrugged. “There’s still a lot of work to do on the house. But I think Avery could use another day off. We both could. And it’s not like we’re in a hurry anymore. How about we take the ferry out to Rowanberry, Tink, and spend the day out there? Pack a picnic, lay on the beach? It’s still our house; Melissa hasn’t sold it yet. And it’s plenty warm enough to go in the water. What do you say?”

“That sounds great. You wanna come, Kate?”

But Kate shook her head. “I’ve got a lot of work to do, too, and mine can’t wait until next week. I’ve got new guests coming in tonight. But you two go and have a good time. You deserve it. I’ll see you later.”

“That you will,” Derek said, and turned to me. “Ready, Tink?”

“Ready.”

I took his hand, and we wandered down the road toward the harbor, side by side.

Home-Renovation and Design Tips

Whether you’re thinking of selling your house or you just want to a do a few updates while you’re living there, put some thought into your home’s curb appeal: what someone sees when they walk or drive up to your place. There are easy, inexpensive DIY fixes that can pump up the volume of an otherwise ho-hum exterior for little or no money.

Here are eight easy and inexpensive ideas to get you started.

It costs little to nothing (except for time clocked) to trim overgrown hedges, edge walkways, pull up weeds, and cut out dead growth. Transplanting is free, too: Move those gorgeous dahlias from the back- to the front yard, where they’re sure to be noticed. Mulch is another winner: Spread a layer of grass clippings (free, collected from a lawn mower), straw, or tree bark–based mulch at the bases of trees and flower beds. Doing so not only protects plantings and improves soil quality, but beautifies your yard. Use an online calculator to figure out how much you’ll need.

You can pressure wash any type of siding (save for wood shingles) quickly and easily with a rented power washer. Or you can use some good old-fashioned elbow grease, your garden hose (on a medium spray setting), a long-handled scrub brush, and a bucketful of water mixed with a few squirts of dish soap. For wood porches and decks, oxygen bleach is the way to go. It’s nontoxic to you and to pets and vegetation. Mix a few scoops into a bucketful of water, dip the brush, and scrub away.