Blind Dates Can Be Murder (54 page)

Peter moved uncomfortably, grunting in pain as he did so.

“I didn’t care about the money,” Peter said. “I just took it so that everyone would start turning against each other—and so that you would eventually come looking for it.”

“You wanted to kill me too,” Chuck said. “You used the money as a lure.”

“You’re here, aren’t you?” Peter replied.

Chuck nodded and finally chuckled.

“But look who wins,” he said.

Then he hoisted the cooler onto his shoulders and carried it upstairs.

“What’s he doing now?” Jo whispered as she worked at Lettie’s tape with her teeth and they all listened to the sounds of Chuck going in and out of the front door.

“My guess is that he’s robbing me blind,” Peter said.

Lettie remained silent, her noble intentions fading in the face of her fear. Suddenly, only one prayer ran through her mind:
When Chuck is ready to go, please let him leave me here. I can’t go with him. I can’t
.

Of course, she wasn’t so fortunate. Finally, he came back downstairs, cradling a strange-looking pipe in his hands. He set it on the floor across the room and then used a knife to cut Lettie’s hands and feet loose.

“This is what’s called a pipe bomb,” Chuck said, pulling out his gun and pointing it at the small of Lettie’s back even as he helped her up. “I set the timer for ten minutes. That gives us time to get out of here and gives you both ten minutes for your life to flash before your eyes.”

“What about the other bomb?” Lettie asked, remembering the other detonator, the one he’d used to force the police to let them go.

“Fake,” he laughed, taking the detonator out of his pocket, giving it a click, and tossing it to the ground. “I ran out of time this morning. This was the only bomb I had left. There are no others. Pretty clever, huh?”

Chuck pointed Lettie up the stairs and told her to go.

“Wait,” Jo cried. “I had nothing to do with this. Why are you leaving me here to die?”

Chuck looked at her and smiled.

“Yeah, I’m real sorry about that,” he told her. “I guess you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Jo sprang into action the moment they were gone. Though she was tightly taped up, her hope was that she could somehow get free before the bomb went off.

“It’s futile,” Peter said calmly as he watched her struggle with the duct tape. “You’ll never get loose in time.”

“Then I’ll die trying,” she said fiercely, using her mouth to open the cabinet under the countertop. It was empty. Desperate, she knocked her shoulder against the nearby trash can so that its contents would spill out across the floor. From the crumpled papers and empty cups she spied a perfect triangle of broken glass.

“Look at that,” she said, trying to grasp it. “A piece of a pickle jar.”

Once she managed to grip it with her fingers she quickly sliced at the tape that held her wrists.

“Why are you so calm?” she demanded as she worked.

“I got what I wanted,” he said, sitting there, completely still. “Frank’s dead. Mickey’s almost dead. Chuck will soon be dead.”

“What do you mean?” Jo asked, thinking of poor Lettie.

“The money,” Peter replied. “The stained money. It’s been dipped in pure nicotine. The minute he touches it—and he will eventually touch it—he’ll die.”

“Is that how you tried to kill Mickey?” Jo asked, feeling the glass slice through another layer.

“Didn’t work as well,” Peter said. “I treated his cigars with the nicotine, but he seemed to get a slow poisoning rather than an instant death. Best I can figure, the liquid must have soaked into the tobacco inside and left the paper around it less toxic.”

Another layer of duct tape was cut—though Jo’s hands were cut as well. She could feel the warm stickiness of blood covering her fingers. She kept at it anyway.

“Where did you get liquid nicotine?” she asked breathlessly.

He seemed bemused by her question.

“A household hints expert like you? I’d think you could figure it out.”

He glanced toward the window and she followed his gaze. Outside, she observed the profusion of greenery.

“Your rose bushes,” she said as the final piece of tape cut through. “You spray nicotine on your rose bushes. No wonder you don’t have aphids.”

Chuck was talking nonstop as they sped down the mountain. Lettie hadn’t spoken a word but merely sat in the passenger seat and watched the beautiful terrain outside, listening to his prattle about going somewhere nice and starting over and living the rest of their lives in peace.

A life with Chuck would never be a life of peace.

Lettie knew she didn’t have that many courses of action available to her at that moment. In the distance, she could see a police helicopter in the sky, and she knew she had to do something to get their attention. If they could be drawn to the area, they might realize what was going on and save Jo and Peter before it was too late.

“So what do you think, Lettie?” Chuck asked, holding the steering wheel with one hand while he reached out and caressed her hair with the other. “You wanna try Colorado? Wyoming, maybe? Or should we just leave the country and start somewhere new altogether?”

Closing her eyes, Lettie pictured Melissa down in Honduras, waiting for her, saving their money, living a simple, quiet life. She had wanted so desperately to join her.

“I’m sorry, Melissa,” she whispered out loud to her sister.

Then she opened her eyes, reached for the steering wheel with both hands, and spun it sharply to the right. First came the jolt and scrape of the low guardrail, then the scratch of bushes along the cliff. Finally, they were simply airborne, soaring through the sky. As Chuck screamed, Lettie looked up to the heavens and prayed to Jesus.

“I’m flying, Father,” she whispered. “Please come fly me home.”

Jo didn’t know how much time had passed. She had to guess there were maybe two minutes left before the bomb would go off. It took another minute to cut the tape around her ankles, and then she was completely free. She reached for Peter, trying to pull him to his feet, but he was too stiff and heavy. There was no way she could drag him all the way up the stairs and out of there.

“Tell me where to look,” she yelled, putting the piece of glass in his hand. “We need a knife, or scissors.”

“Just go. Save yourself. You don’t deserve to be a part of this.”

“I’m not leaving you here!” Jo cried. “Knife or scissors. Quick!”

“Upstairs,” he muttered. “On the top floor. In my office.”

Jo ran as fast as she could. It crossed her mind that he’d sent her farther away than he needed to. There were certainly knives in the kitchen. Still, she did as he instructed, racing down the hall of the top floor and into the bedrooms until she found the one that held a desk and then located the scissors in the top left-hand drawer. She was just starting to run back down with them when the explosion went off.

The noise was deafening and then she was falling, as if the floor had disappeared beneath her, leaving nothing but thick, black smoke.

30

J
o opened her eyes to see white. White ceiling. White walls. White sheets. She turned slightly, pain shooting through her head, and spotted Danny, slumped in a chair nearby with his eyes closed.

“Where am I?” Jo asked, her voice raspy and tired.

With a gasp, Danny’s eyes opened and he sat up.

“Jo?” he said softly, taking her hand. “Can you hear me?”

“What happened?”

He tried to explain, telling her that she was in the hospital with some injuries. She had survived a bomb at Peter Trumble’s house three days ago. She had been in and out of consciousness ever since.

As she tried to wrap her head around that knowledge, vague flashes of memory came to mind.

“There was no other bomb,” she said now, closing her eyes. “At a populated place. Chuck was just bluffing.”

“That’s the first thing you said when the paramedics got to you.”

“Did Chuck touch the money?” she asked. “Is he dead?”

“He’s dead,” Danny replied, “but not from any money. He and Lettie had an accident. The car and everything in it was burned to a crisp.”

Jo closed her eyes.

“Lettie’s dead too?”

“Actually, Lettie was thrown clear from the wreckage before the car went up in flames. She’s in critical condition, but she is still alive.”

“What about the people in Dates&Mates?”