Never Con a Corgi (29 page)

Leigh stomach heaved. It was true. She wasn't imagining it. She wasn't imagining any of it.

She pulled her phone from her pocket again, her fingers trembling as she struggled to push the quick code that would connect her to the help she needed.

The kids
wouldn't
go to the pond. They wouldn't. Not even Allison. Not even Bess.

Unless they, too, had been standing here, watching the monitor, when suddenly the screen flickered on...

"Koslow? What's up?"

"Maura!" Leigh cried, holding the phone to her head with one hand even as she tore through the house and out the back door. "Send police to the pond! I can see someone on the monitor digging out there—and the kids and Bess are out there, too! There
are
bones buried there—it's real... Please
hurry!"

Maura said something back to her, but Leigh did not know what. At a casual walk, it took about ten minutes to reach the pond. She had no idea how long it would take at a run, or how far ahead of her the Pack might already be.

She shoved her phone in her pocket and set off to find out.

She didn't know whether to be silent or to scream. A thousand scenarios ran through her head, each requiring a different plan of action. If she called out, she might be able to stop the kids before they got there. But if they were already there, in the clutches of God only knew who, it would be safer for them all if she could approach undetected...

Her ears strained for the sounds of children and dogs, feet thrashing through old leaves, carefree laughter, even cranky grade-school bickering... but there was nothing. The only sound was that of her own heavy breathing and the stomping of her feet as they pounded on bare ground, brush, and thorn bushes alike.

She had to get there fast. She just had to.

The pond drew nearer. There was still no sight nor sound of the Pack. Fearfully, Leigh slowed her steps. They must have reached the pond already. She could not explode onto the scene like a maniac, unarmed and completely helpless. She had to think.

She stuck tight to the trail, careful now to step only on bare ground. Her lungs were struggling for air, but she tried her best to keep her breathing quiet. The pounding of her heart, she could do nothing about.

Silence. It was so brutally silent. If the Pack, Bess, and both dogs were at the pond ahead of her, surely they would be making
some
sounds. Unless...

Stop that!

Leigh crept forward as rapidly as she dared. One more twist of the trail ahead, and the pond's banks would be in view.

The police would be here soon. Maura would send the nearest unit, no matter where she herself happened to be. Leigh had only to stall the person somehow—and that she was determined to do. Whomever she was about to encounter had almost certainly murdered before... were they not digging up an unmarked grave mere yards from where another man was shot to death just days ago?

Coincidences that big don't just happen.

The thought struck her like a blow. Brandon Lyle hadn't been just any businessman, had he? He had been the one, very determined man who on the day he died had informed an entire churchful of people that he fully intended, by fair means or foul, to bulldoze the very ground in which those rotting bones lay secretly buried...

Of course.
She should have fit the pieces together before, not been so deceived by her preconceptions. Maura had been halfway there, but the detective hadn't known what her Aunt Bess knew...

Leigh blinked back furiously at tears that squeezed out the corners of her eyes.
Allison
. The girl had less information than any of them, yet she had been able to intuit so much more.

Leigh reached the bend of the trail, and the foliage thinned. She stopped herself awkwardly, her chest heaving for breath, her body thrown off balance. Her eyes roved the banks of the pond.

A figure stood before her. One figure alone, holding a shovel. One slim, petite figure who would almost certainly appear harmless, were it not for the presence of the handgun that lay ready on the ground by her side, within inches of her right hand.

Leigh's eyes widened. Her heart stopped. But it was too late to be quiet. The figure had already seen her.

The woman's eyes looked squarely into Leigh's. Her head gave a nod.

It was Anna Krull.

Chapter 27

"Stay there," the woman said without expression. "Don't come any closer."

Leigh shook her head. There was no risk of that. Her eyes surveyed all that she could see around the pond, and her heart leapt as she realized that they were alone.

"I was looking for the kids," Leigh said, her voice sounding like gravel.

"They're not here," came the response. Anna's affect was flat; her face utterly without expression. She lifted the shovel high and thrust it down in the hole like a spear. The head caught in the mud; the handle stuck straight up.

"Damn tractor," she muttered. "Stupid bones stayed put for fifty years. What moron thought they could drive a tractor on the bank of a pond after a solid day of rain? Look at those ruts! Broke everything to bits, churned it up. Not so you could see any of it, but your pup wasn't fooled." She rested her arm on the shovel's handle and sighed. "I'm sorry you're here. I thought your little search team had quit for the day. I could have waited until after dark, but I figured bringing a light out here would be even more foolish." She glanced back down at the hole. "Oh well. What's done is done."

Satisfied that the children were nowhere near, Leigh weighed her risk in turning tail and running. But before she could act, Anna reached down and swooped up the handgun. Leigh swallowed. She had seen before how spryly the older woman could move, but the scene before her was still surreal. Leigh was standing in the middle of a beautiful woods, in late afternoon on a hot summer's day, with a white-haired woman in her mid seventies who weighed less than a hundred pounds. A part of her refused to be afraid—told her it was all ridiculous. But another part knew better.

To Leigh's surprise, Anna chuckled. "I know what you're thinking, young lady," she said wryly. "You're thinking that a little slip of a thing like me couldn't possibly hurt anybody. And I wouldn't, of course. Not ordinarily. But desperate situations call for desperate measures."

Leigh's already overstressed brain attempted math. Fifty years ago, Anna Krull would only have been in her twenties. "I'm sure it was self defense," Leigh offered weakly. "Or an accident?"

Anna smiled. "How charitable of you, dear. But I'm afraid not. The bastard had it coming, simple as that."

"Your husband?" Leigh croaked.

Anna smirked. "He
wishes
he'd got to Brazil. He did succeed in cleaning out our joint account, and there were other women. But sadly, his plans to travel met a bit of a snag."

Leigh's blood ran cold as Anna stroked the muzzle of the handgun lovingly with her mud splashed, bony fingers.

"I got some of my money back," Anna continued, her voice proud. "Eventually. Had to pay a passel of lawyers to find it and then wait seven years until he was declared legally dead, but it was worth it."

Leigh had a fleeting image of a sun-tanned model on a South American beach. "The postcard?"

Anna chuckled. "Nice touch, don't you think? Coming up with a good story is one thing, but it's the juicy details that keep tongues wagging."

The faintest of human sounds drifted through the trees. It was far away, but to Leigh's ear it sounded like the high-pitched squeal of a young girl.

Lenna.
No, no,
no!
Where were the police?

"You can just leave it," Leigh said, running her mouth as she tried to think. "No one will know whose body it is."

Anna's lips twisted. "Now, that's foolish. It's my property. I have a husband I hated who went missing fifty years ago. It's the teeth that give it away, as I understand. So I thought, if I couldn't dig up the whole thing, maybe I could find his skull." She reached out with her left hand and rotated the shovel in the hole a bit. "But it's a moot point now."

"No, it's not," Leigh insisted. She strained her ears, but heard nothing further. "You could make up some explanation. No one's going to put a woman your age in jail!"

Anna frowned. "You know, people are stupid that way. That's what made this so damned easy in the first place. Oliver knew how well I could shoot; he just didn't think I had the guts. And that idiot"—she tossed her head carelessly toward a spot farther along the bank—"was no more scared of me than he would have been a toddler in a tutu. Ridiculous."

Leigh's stomach took another heave.
Brandon
. This harmless little old lady had killed Brandon, too.

"Came to my house that night, threatening me!" Anna bellowed. "I would have gone on to bed and left him banging all night, if he hadn't started in about eminent domain." Her voice dropped. "I'd heard that term before. I know what happens. Damned government comes in and
takes
your land, and you don't have a say. All to build some fool shopping center or some other fool thing. Well, that wasn't happening to me. I wasn't going to prison for putting Oliver out of my misery and I sure as hell wasn't going into any old folks home after that SOB bulldozed my life away for pennies on the dollar!"

Anna fiddled with the gun and flipped something. Leigh didn't know squat about guns, and didn't want to, but she had heard of a safety and she figured the development wasn't good.

"No one thinks a woman my age is capable of defending herself," Anna continued, watching Leigh steadily. "If a
man
had told that Lyle idiot that he was afraid to let him in the house, but would be happy to meet him up at a church—never mind that it was night and no one was even there—do you think Lyle would have bought such a fool story?"

Leigh assumed the question was rhetorical. Another sound—the shout of a young boy—made her heart leap up into her throat.
No, Ethan.
Don't come any closer!

Anna huffed out a breath. "Hell, no. But when a hysterical little old lady tells him that, he thinks he's getting everything he wants. Even when that little old lady doesn't drive up to the church at all, but calls to him from a dark woods and tells him to follow her flashlight!"

Anna shook her head. "Cocksure, that's what he was. I told him then that I'd rather die than sell—but he didn't believe me. He didn't believe I'd rather kill him than sell, either. Not even when he saw my thirty-eight! I don't believe he thought I knew what to do with it. Well, he found out otherwise. Funny he should fall so near where I carted Oliver. But then, there's a certain justice to that. They were both handsome, charming scum."

Another child's shout echoed through the trees. Leigh's heart couldn't beat any faster. Where were the police? Had she really been here as long as it seemed... or had it only been a minute or two?

"I don't want the kids to see this," Leigh blurted. "They don't know anything; they can't hurt you. You can walk away right now."

"Do you think I could shoot
you
from here?" Anna asked calmly, aiming the handgun with both hands.

An unwelcome image flashed across Leigh's vision. The waxen face of Brandon Lyle, frozen in death. Frozen not with an expression of fear... but of pure, unadulterated shock.

"I do," Leigh answered honestly. "Absolutely."

Anna smiled and lowered the gun. "Why, thank you, my dear. How heartening. Now, I think it's time you turned around and went back."

Leigh stared at her in confusion. The children's shouts and squeals seemed louder. How close were they? How far could a handgun shoot?

Another sound met her ears—this one from the opposite direction. A car door slamming?

Yes!

But Anna heard it too. Her brow creased. "You knew I was out here, didn't you? How did you know?"

Leigh's mind raced. Honesty? "I saw you on my Aunt Bess's camera, up at the house."

Anna's eyes widened. Her voice rose. "Bess put one of those things out here? She didn't tell me that! Where?"

Leigh gestured toward the clump of brush concealing the equipment. Anna stepped back a pace, then swore.

"I always liked your aunt," she said gruffly. "But I do wish she weren't such a damned busybody." She raised the handgun again. More noises, clearly audible now, met their ears from the direction of the church. Anna scowled. "Go on!" she yelled at Leigh angrily. "Turn around and run back where you came from. Quick!"

Leigh's feet seemed mired in the mud. She wanted to believe that Anna didn't intend to kill her, too, that the older woman would be willing to take a chance on Leigh's keeping her secret. But she could not forget how Brandon Lyle had died.

Shot in the back.

The older woman aimed the gun at her once more. "I said,
run!"

Leigh thought quickly. She could no more charge forward, hoping to tackle the older woman before she could shoot, than she could sprout wings and fly. More than likely Leigh would trip on a root, fall flat on her face, and wind up with a bullet between her eyes. Her best shot at protecting the children was to warn them before they got any closer. So if the woman told her to run, then run she would.

But she'd be damned if she'd make an easy target.

Anna's finger moved on the trigger.

Leigh turned and ran.

She sprinted in a zigzag motion, making her path as erratic and unpredictable as possible. The girl-squeal met her ears again, and her efforts redoubled.
This way, that way, this way, forward...

She tensed for the expected shot, the shot that she was determined would miss her. She would escape Anna's range, meet the children and Bess wherever they were, hustle them all safely inside...

She could do it. She knew she could. How far could a thirty-eight fire?

The sound came like an electric jolt, rattling her skull and sending sparks of fire down her arms and legs and through her every, already shot nerve.