Authors: Maggie Toussaint
I had plenty of rage and fury of my own. This person had trespassed inside my house, disabled my dogs, and tried to whack my brains out. Not happening.
The fireplace poker struck the wingback chair inches from my head. Gun in hand, I crawled farther down the furniture row, until I was behind the sofa. My nerves revved in hyper-drive. This was bad. So bad. Was I going to die? Fear slammed through me, opening the floodgates on a morass of emotions.
My gut quivered so much I couldn’t move. I clung to the safety thought Wayne had given me.
Scared was good.
Scared would keep me alive.
Should I send out an extrasensory summons to Larissa and Dad?
No.
They would come over here to help, even if I only asked them to call the sheriff. Bad choice. I wouldn’t endanger my family.
This was my problem.
I’d jolly well fix it, or I had no business doing police work.
With my senses on high alert, I registered a distinctive floral scent. Wait. A memory surfaced. I knew that fragrance. Carolina Byrd wore that perfume. She was here inside my home. She’d incapacitated my dogs. She’d swung that fireplace poker hard enough to brain me. My fingers tightened on the grip of the gun.
Those sweet dogs didn’t deserve her malice.
I didn’t, either.
Fury mixed in with my fear, a volatile high-octane blend of ugly bravado. It flared from a tiny spark into snapping flames. Cold blue fire seared my entire body, emboldening my tongue.
“I know it’s you, Carolina.” My voice sounded strong. As if I routinely faced killers. As if I wasn’t faced with the horrible possibility of firing this gun.
My assailant shrieked and swung the poker in the direction of my voice. She missed. I thanked God for the sturdy old-fashioned frame of this sofa. I hadn’t rearranged this room because this dinosaur was too heavy to move.
“Where is it?” Carolina roared.
I had no idea what she wanted, but I wasn’t playing her game. “The cops know all about you, Carolina. About how you lured Lisa to her death.”
The poker wacked the sofa while I spoke. A cloud of dust enveloped me, and I sneezed. I needed a better plan than cowering behind my sofa. I remembered what Wayne had said was in Lisa’s safe deposit box. That ammunition would hurt her worse than a bullet.
“You little hussy,” Carolina muttered. “You’ve been nothing but trouble since day one. Sneering at my landscaping ideas, screwing up my plans. Not anymore. The cops will find your lifeless body here in the morning. Right next to your dead dogs.”
My breath hitched in my throat. She’d given the dogs a lethal dose? Hate sharpened my focus, fueling me with a singular purpose. Carolina’s dark aura seethed with roiling emotion. Understandable.
She was a killer.
She planned to kill me.
I had a different plan.
Energy surged through my body, a lightning bolt of raw power that activated every sense I had. I stood and pointed my gun at Carolina. “Get out of my house.”
The poker clanked to the floor, and she leveled her handgun at me. “Not a chance. I already know I’m capable of killing, but you, Ms. Back to Nature, you won’t shoot me.”
Wary, I edged from behind the sofa, my gun steady, my aim heart true. “Why did you kill Lisa?”
Carolina retreated toward the illuminated hall. “That witch. I didn’t mind her screwing my husband. She could have the prick, long as I had his name. But that changed after she bore his perfect son. He threatened me with divorce. I had no choice but to poison him and then bide my time till I could kill his trashy girlfriend. She danced around a pole for money, and he preferred her over me? Give me a break. Once I rid the earth of his bastard spawn, my son will be Judson’s sole heir.”
“You killed to protect your son’s inheritance?” Disbelief tinged my voice.
“I killed her for crossing me. Same as I’m going to kill you. You’re in my way. Tell me where the kid is, and I’ll only put one bullet through your heart. Screw with me, and I’ll empty this gun into your belly.”
“You don’t scare me. I’m not one of your salaried minions who fawn over you. The cops know Buster was blackmailing you for the murder. They traced the electronic payments. Even if you shoot me, you’ll spend the rest of your days in prison.”
“The cops.” Carolina snorted, pig-loud. “The stupid cops got nothing on me, or I’d be in jail already.”
“Don’t bet on it. They’ve got Lisa’s safe deposit box. Inside was her son’s birth certificate with Judson Byrd named as the boy’s father.”
Carolina’s gun shook. “Liar!”
“Know what else they found? Company shares. Judson signed over his share of the company to Lisa’s son. Without his shares, you no longer control the majority of stockholders. You’re so busted.”
“No! The company is mine. The company is nothing without me.”
“Got bad news for you, Carolina. You’re fired.”
“You can’t take my company. I made it the powerhouse it is today.”
Carolina stood on the rug with the worn-out backing. I was close enough now. Satisfaction roared in my veins. I twisted down, snatched up the corner of the runner, and yanked the rug out from under her. Not an easy feat, even after all the bicep-building yard work I’d been doing. I threw myself back in the shadowed living room.
Carolina went down, surprise etched on her shadowed face. A thud told me I’d guessed the distance correctly. She’d cracked her head against the marble side table. Her gun roared.
I scrambled to my feet and kicked her gun away from her. She glared at me from the floor. “Don’t move,” I ordered, flipping on the light. Blood oozed from the side of her blond head. That had to hurt like a bear.
Too bad.
I dialed the emergency number and identified myself. “Intruder in my home.”
“Help is on the way,” Rhonda, the nighttime dispatcher, said.
“We got an anonymous tip five minutes ago.”
I blinked. “You did?”
“Yeah. Elwood and Rogers are en route. The sheriff, too.” Rhonda paused. “You get her?”
“I got her.”
“Atta girl.”
I sipped hot tea in my kitchen. Mama bustled around, chopping kale for the soup pot. The heady aroma of Daddy’s homemade bread in the toaster made my mouth water. Larissa spooned down a bowl of oatmeal. Charlotte sat huddled over another cup of tea, writing down my account.
“What about the dogs?” Charlotte asked.
How was it possible my hands were so steady? “The dogs were only drugged not dead, thank goodness. Daddy drove them out to the vet, and they’re under observation out there.”
“What happened next?” Charlotte asked after I got to the help-is-on-the-way part of the story.
“Next seemed anticlimactic. The EMTs checked Carolina’s head and hauled her out of here. Thank God she didn’t die.” I shuddered. “I wouldn’t want her spirit lingering here to torment me the rest of my days.”
Interest gleamed beneath Charlotte’s narrow glasses. “Could she do that?”
“I was speaking off the cuff. That remark isn’t for the paper, and if you write it down, I’ll hurt you.”
“You’re pretty full of yourself.”
“Cut me some slack. I’m still wired from confronting a homicidal maniac.”
“She killed to protect her kid’s inheritance?”
“That’s what she claimed, but I don’t believe her. Being second fiddle didn’t suit her. As long as everything was on her terms, it was fine. Once her husband strayed from her scripted plans, his days were numbered.”
“How will they prove any of this?”
“The Macon cops are exhuming Judson’s body. If she poisoned him, they’ll find it. Plus they have the documents from the safe deposit box. And Buster’s blackmail video. And let’s not forget she tried to kill me.”
“You should have alerted us.” Larissa covered my hand with hers. “Pap and I could’ve come over and taken her out.”
I squeezed her hand in gentle reassurance. “That’s exactly why I didn’t let you know. I wanted you out of harm’s way.”
“What about that anonymous call?” my friend asked.
I shrugged, hoping to appear nonchalant. “They traced the call to a disposable cell phone. Someone knew what Carolina was up to. Someone ratted her out.”
“But not quickly enough,” she said. “Help didn’t arrive until she’d hit you and fired her gun at you. You’re amazing.”
“Determined to live is more like it.” I sipped my tea, dreading the next question, certain it would come. Sure enough, Charlotte didn’t disappoint.
“Who made that call?” she asked. “Your closest neighbor is the post office, which isn’t even in the line of sight of your house. I’m assuming Carolina’s car wasn’t parked here, or you would have summoned help when you returned home. Did someone see her?”
Yeah, someone did. My watcher. He had protected me once again. “That’s the only reasonable explanation I know of.”
“What about unreasonable explanations? Did one of the spirit people phone from beyond?”
Anger rose, and beneath it, a tempering spirit. I choked out a laugh, hoping to deflect her from pursuing this line of inquiry. “More likely it was Big Brother watching the world through some spy satellite technology.”
“Hmm.” She scribbled a bit more on her notepad.
I leaned forward. “You’re not going to print that, are you? I don’t want to jeopardize my consulting job with the sheriff by antagonizing the government. The sheriff’s deputies already think I’m a certified flake.”
“If that’s what they think, they’re stupid as a cat chasing her tail. You are brilliant. If they can’t see that, they don’t deserve you.”
“Maybe not, but I want them to pay me for helping them.”
“Not to worry. You’ve got the full weight of the
Marion Observer
behind you. If they stiff you, I’ll spearhead the smear campaign to elect a new sheriff next fall.”
That was a daunting thought, Charlotte entering the political arena. Sleep tugged at me. I scrubbed my face with my hands. “You got enough to blow Bernard out of the water?”
“I do. And I surely thank you. Bernard will be covering the bridge club before you know it, while I will be exclusively covering the police beat.”
Stifling a yawn, I stood. “I’ve got to get some sleep.”
“Not to worry, I am so outta here.” My friend gathered her materials and hurried away, light on her feet for a two-hundred-pound woman clad in robin’s-egg blue.
Daddy escorted me out of the kitchen. Though I could have made it up the stairs under my own steam, his solid presence comforted me. I averted my gaze from the bullet hole in my hall wall as we passed by. That could have been my head. I’d been lucky. So very lucky. I shivered.
“You all right? We were worried.” His brown eyes studied me as we continued to my bedroom. “We could have helped.”
The concern in his eyes loosened the tears in mine. I blinked rapidly to keep them from spilling out. “I kept this to myself. Y’all didn’t sign up to help the police. I did.”
“We want to help.”
“And you do. You help me with Larissa, and you’re gonna go to the vet to see how the dogs are doing.”
“We do those things gladly. You don’t even have to ask.” He paused. “You could have been my first and last call as coroner.”
“You’re not taking the job?”
“I’m keeping the job, but if you’d died, my heart would have died with you. Please take care of yourself. You’ve got responsibilities. Not just to Larissa, but to the entire community. You’re the dreamwalker. That matters. To all of us.”
“Paying my bills matters, too.”
His expression clouded. “Move in with us. Then you won’t have bills.”
“Daddy, I can’t do that. I love you and Mama dearly, but I have to do this my way.”
“Understood, but I can’t help worrying about you. Our door is always open.”
“Thanks.” I stifled a big yawn and sat down on my bed. “I need to crash.”
“No worries. Lacey’s gonna cleanse the house with sage while you rest. Larissa and I will take care of the dogs.”
Something nagged my memory. “Daddy, y’all should take home some of the food I’ve been getting. It’s too much for two people.”
He kissed my forehead and tucked me in. “Don’t worry about that now. Get some rest and we’ll talk later.”
“Later.” I closed my eyes, praying for a restful sleep.
I should have known better.
Lisa charged into my head, hugging me, and squealing like a young girl. In her garb of jeans and a T-shirt, she looked like a young, carefree girl. “You did it. My son is safe. You stopped Carolina.”
I sat up reproachfully, exhausted from my crime-stopping efforts. “You could have told me that I was on her hit list.”
“It wasn’t just you. She planned to kill Buster, too. But you stopped her. I’m so happy. I could dance on the moon.”
“Is that possible?”
“Sadly, no. I’m an earthbound spirit now. And I’m not going anywhere. I’m personally overseeing Little Warrior’s life.”
My hand came up. “Wait just a minute. You can’t pester me every time he blows off his homework. I’ve got a life and a kid to raise.”
“Not to worry. I’m going to become your spirit guide. I’ll help you, and you’ll help me. Deal?”
“How can you help me?”
“I can find spirits for you, check things out for you in distant earth locations. All you have to do is agree to the deal.”
“No deal. A spirit named Joe appeared to be helping me, but my agreement with him allowed a dark spirit to enter a nice young woman.”
Lisa’s essence shifted, darkening then lighting back up. “You need proof? How about I tell you about the person in your woods?”
“The watcher? You know about my watcher?”
“I certainly do. I’ve got my eye on him.”
“So it’s a man?”
“Right. And he watches.”
“I figured that out for myself. Tell me something I don’t know.”
“He moves like one of our people, walking soundlessly through the forest.”
“Is it my husband, Roland?”
“His name is my bargaining chip. But he is highly trained in fighting arts.”
“Knew that, too. He subdued a large man in a matter of seconds. All you got for me is that he’s a male with fighting skills?”