Blind Dates Can Be Murder (42 page)

He rushed toward them, a newspaper in his hands.

“Did you hear about this?” he cried, thrusting the paper toward Mickey.

Mickey took it from him, but it seemed to take a moment to register what he was reading. Lettie read over his shoulder, and the headline declared “Police Say Household Hint Stalker Was Murdered.”

“The cops are saying Frankie didn’t die a natural death from asthma,” Ziggy explained. “They claim somebody induced the asthma and tampered with his medication so he would die.”

Lettie looked at Mickey just as his eyes rolled back in his head. Almost in slow motion, he fell in a heap to the floor.

Jo drove across town as quickly as she could. She couldn’t wait to tell Danny what she’d figured out, that she
did
love him, she just had some issues she needed to work out. After running out of his house in tears, Jo knew that he would be so glad to see her come back with a big smile on her face. She only hoped that his parents were still at church. It would be much easier to have an important conversation if she and Danny were alone—not to mention that she wanted to kiss him again!

On the way to his parents’ house, she swung by her place first to drop off Chewie. She parked the car, got out, and led him to the backyard.

“There you go, boy,” she said, watching him run through the gate and then locking it behind him. “Sorry, but with my luck, you’d eat their new remote control.”

She turned around to get back in the car, only to find herself face-to-face with a man. His features distorted, she realized that he had a stocking cap over his face. Before she could react, he had put his arm around her neck and a knife at her throat.

“Where is it?” he demanded, his breath sour against her face.

Chewie was going crazy on the other side of the fence, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get over.

“Where’s what?” Jo whispered, her heart racing.

“You
know
what,” the man said. “I want it, and I want it now.”

Lettie stood frozen to the spot as people began to gather around Mickey. Someone called for an ambulance, someone else checked his pulse, and all she could think about was that now she wouldn’t be getting her money. She hated to be heartless, but that was the bottom line.

She wouldn’t be able to make her escape.

“I’m not getting a pulse,” the man who knelt beside Mickey said.

More people spilled into the lobby, and Lettie stepped back, away, out of the building. She ran to her car, her heart in her throat.

What was she going to do?

If Chuck caught up with her, he would kill her. Despite all of his sweet words on the phone, she understood now the tone behind them. He was angry at her, angry for deserting him, angrier still for having a life and making something of herself while he was in prison. She knew she’d have to pay for that.

Chances are, she would pay with her life.

Still clutching her around the neck, the man forced Jo around the front door and into her own home. Once inside, as he forced her into the kitchen, Jo could see that he’d already been in there and that her home and possessions had been ransacked.

Not again
.

In the darkness of the kitchen, with Chewie barking furiously outside, the man loosened his hold ever so slightly on her neck. Jo inhaled deeply, praying to God for protection.

“We don’t have to drag this out,” the man said. “I want what you took from Frankie. Where is it?”

Jo swallowed, thinking over all they had learned, all they had managed to figure out. She knew the only way out of this was to bluff.

“You want the money,” she said.

“Yes, the money. Just get it for me and I’ll be on my way.”

“I don’t have it,” she said. “It’s not here.”

“Where is it, then?”

Her mind racing, she decided to carry the bluff a step further, based on conjecture. She only hoped they had guessed correctly.

“I had to get the dye stains out,” she said. “It’s being treated with chemicals. In a vat.”

“Let’s go get it.”

“It’s not ready yet. It won’t be done until tomorrow.”

“Take me there now. Show me.”

“We can’t get in,” she said. “The building’s locked.”

“Locks never stopped me.”

“There’s security. Lots of security. We’ll be caught. You’ll be arrested.”

That seemed to give him pause. He hesitated, breathing heavily against her neck. Finally, he released her, though he still held out the knife toward her as he stepped away.

She looked at the knife. It was one of her own, taken from the butcher block on the counter. Though it was one of the smaller ones, only six inches long including the handle, she knew without a doubt that in the right hands it could kill her. She used only the best knives for cooking, and this set had been ordered specially from Switzerland—and sharpened less than a month ago.

“I can get the money tomorrow,” she said, looking at the man’s face. It was mashed together under the stocking, but even so she could tell that it wasn’t either of the men whose mug shots she had viewed. It wasn’t the bald and mammoth fellow they called Tank, nor the older, red-faced man named Mickey. This guy seemed to be of average height, though muscular, with dark hair, menacing eyes, and a worn leather jacket.

How many people are after this money?

“I promise,” she said, “if you tell me where to go, I’ll bring it to you.”

He laughed.

“You promise?” he said sarcastically. “Oooh, goody. Can we pinky swear?”

“Look—”

“No, you look,” he said, stepping forward. His eyes still on her, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small leather book.

“That’s my address book,” she said. He must have found it in the kitchen drawer.

“Right now, someone in this book, someone you love, is living on top of twenty pounds of Semtex and doesn’t even know it.”

“Semtex?”

“Plastic explosives.”

“What?
”

“You be here, with the money, tomorrow at noon. I’ll call and tell you where to bring it.”

“But—”

“No cops. No friends. Not a word to anyone. You bring me the cash, and I’ll give you your book back and tell you who’s in danger and how you can disconnect the explosives and save them. Are we clear?”

Jo swallowed hard and then nodded.

“Is this your phone number?” he asked, reading it out from the first page of the book.

“That’s my cell phone,” she whispered. “The one underneath is the phone here at the house.”

“Good. Kneel down.”

What was he going to do to her? Shivering, she stepped back, but then he was at her throat again with the knife.

“Kneel down,” he repeated.

She did as he said, remaining still as he pulled her hands in front of her and tied them with a thick gray string. Jo recognized it as her own string, taken from the clothes line that hung in her laundry area over the washer and dryer. Her knife, her address book, her string. She didn’t even want to know if that was her pantyhose stretched over his face!

Once he had finished tying her, he took a few steps back and set the knife on the floor.

“You should be able to get yourself loose,” he said calmly. “Just not right away.”

Then he turned and walked out of her front door, closing it softly behind him.

24

L
ettie wanted to drive around while she put her thoughts together, but she couldn’t afford to waste the gas. Finally, she found a big drug store, pulled in under a light, and parked. She would be safe here for a while. She could think.

What was she going to do?

She needed to get out of the country, to get to Honduras. She had her passport but no real money—only two twenties and a few ones in her purse. The rest of her money had been taken by Chuck. And now Mickey was either dead or at least unconscious, so he couldn’t help her at all. Forget Ziggy or Tank. They wouldn’t give her the time of day, much less a thousand dollars, or even a couple hundred.

No longer could she afford to zigzag through Canada. At this point, Lettie was ready to buy a plane ticket straight to Tegucigalpa. Even at the last minute like this, if she went out of Philly she thought she could get one for four or five hundred dollars.

But where was she going to get four or five hundred dollars?

She couldn’t earn it, at least not quickly. Her only course of action was to steal it. But from where? She had no weapons, no gun, and she wasn’t exactly threatening. If she walked into this pharmacy right now and said, “Hand over all your money,” they’d burst into laughter, the bag boy would tackle her, and then they’d call the police.

Dates&Mates was closed for the night, so she couldn’t steal it from there—not that it was a very cash-based business anyway. She thought about taking it from somewhere she’d worked before. Maybe she could drive to the Jersey Shore and catch Mr. Wallace with his coffee breath and his bad combover as he came out at the end of the night with the bank deposit under his arm. Depending on how busy a day he’d had, there could be plenty of cash in there.

She was considering all of her options when her cell phone rang. She didn’t recognize the number but, after hesitating, she answered it anyway.

It was Marie.

“Hey, Lettie, I hope I’m not calling too late. I just got in from a house showing, and thought I’d check in with you to see if you could go to the movies with us tomorrow night or not. I forgot to tell you, even though it’s half-price popcorn night, lately we’ve been smuggling in Girl Scout cookies instead. I’ve got every kind to choose from that you might want, though personally if I eat one more Thin Mint I’m going to explode.”

Marie paused to take a breath as Lettie’s mind raced. At the restaurant yesterday, Marie said her troop had already made hundreds from the cookie sale. But could Lettie do it? Could she make her way into Marie’s home and her good graces—and when she wasn’t looking, dig around and find the cash? It was wrong, so wrong, but it was worth a try.

What other choice did she have?

“A movie sounds great,” Lettie said. “But what about tonight? Are you busy?”

“Busy tonight? Um, it’s already nine o’clock.”

“It’s just that, well, it’s just that I’ve got a box of hair dye in my hands but I’m not sure if I know how to use it. I was thinking of going red.”