Rules of Lying (Jane Dough Series) (29 page)

Why hadn’t Hank met me here instead of down there?
Bryan
would have met me here and then held my elbow while he walked me down there. If Hank was planning to compete for my affections, he’d have to dust off the gentleman in himself because he had stiff competition.

Except, I reminded myself, he didn’t have any competition. Bryan hadn’t even shown up.

Well, I didn’t care about Bryan any more than Bryan cared about me. Not when I had Hank waiting by the lake. Motivated by the saying that a bird in the hand was worth two in the bush, I struck out again, determined to see Hank. Of course, Hank wasn’t really in my hand; he was in the bush. Maybe it was a bush different from Bryan’s—unless Bryan wasn’t even in the bush anymore—but it was still a bush, and one that was located at the end of a long, isolated trail.

My steps weren’t quite so confident now. I ventured about twenty feet more and then that little voice in my head said, “Go back.” Was that really my little voice talking or was that just fear—fear of pythons or the dark or something equally dumb? And why did I even think fear was dumb? Wasn’t the little voice supposed to tell me when to be afraid?

But I couldn’t be in much trouble since I wasn’t getting goose bumps. Then I remembered I hadn’t gotten goose bumps before Carlson was murdered and that could have been terrible trouble for me, so maybe I shouldn’t count on them as a sign.

I tried to recapture the excitement I’d felt just moments ago at the thought of a moonlit walk with Hank, but the attempt fell through when I noticed there wasn’t a moon. No stars either. The sky was a murky gray filled with low-lying clouds; nothing was popping through that mess.

I went another twenty feet and threw a glance back at my house. It was getting dark fast. Even my white privacy fence was being gobbled up by dusk. Sounds were muffled by the dense humidity. If I didn’t know there was a big party going on back there, I’d never guess it.

Now the whole thing was feeling more than a little weird. Why would Hank want me to meet him in a creepy place like this? I did a quick sweep of the woods. The trees seemed to grow to monstrous proportions; my body seemed to shrink in comparison. Shadows loomed in front of tall black trees that guarded a deep, dark forest. Deep, dark forests could hide deep, dark secrets, and God knew I hated secrets.

Something scurried along the ground at the edge of the woods, and I realized my little voice was right and I should be listening to it. I’d apologize to Hank later, but I was getting the hell out of there.

I whirled around to haul ass back home, and I would have too, except Sheila stood in my way. Sheila, and a big ole gun that was pointed right at
me.

K
eep moving down the path,” she said. “There’s no going back now.”

I managed to make my voice work, which was pretty amazing considering that any minute I was going to drop dead from fright. “What are you doing, Sheila? What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Something I should have done six months ago. Who could know you’d be this much trouble? A historical romance writer, of all things.”

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. Who’d have thought my bleached-blond, cigarette-smoking, high-heeled, sandal-clacking neighbor would be a gun-toting lunatic?

She jabbed her gun toward the lake. “Go on, turn around and make tracks, or I swear to God I’ll shoot you right here. I got a silencer on this gun, so don’t think I’m worried about it.”

Yikes.
I did as she said while trying to think at the same time. My brain tended to freeze up from fear, but I had to overcome that flaw if I wanted to survive. This was no Detective Evans determined to trick me into a confession. This was a crazy woman who planned to shoot me and shove me into a lake.

Oh my God.
The lake! It would be freaking
full
of alligators. What in the world had made a moonlit stroll around an alligator-infested lake seem appealing? And at dusk too! That magical time of day when alligators charge from the water to attack and devour prey. Hank would
never
have asked me to meet him by the lake at dusk. Hank wasn’t an idiot like me. If Sheila was taking me to the lake, I could only hope she shot me before we got there. There couldn’t be anything worse than being eaten alive.

My brain started the chant,
In ten minutes this will all be over. In ten minutes
—No! In this case
over
meant OVER. Finito. The End. And I wasn’t ready for that. I’d only just found the two men of my dreams.

“Come on, get a move on,” Sheila barked. “You think I got all night?”

Well, gosh, I didn’t know, but considering that I was the one walking the plank, I didn’t think it was very nice of her to hurry me up. I mean, I had things to consider, didn’t I, while my life flashed before my eyes? All those regrets I was supposed to feel as I circled the drain of death? Yeah, and I wasn’t getting robbed of my just due.

I thought about Erin, who showed real artistic talent and now wouldn’t get to explore that because the rest of my family thought talent only happened to other people. “No one in our family ever had any talent,” Mom had always said. Like it had never happened before and therefore wasn’t genetically possible, no matter how many generations passed. But then, maybe she’d only said that to discourage
me.

I thought about my family, who would probably gather to speak in hushed tones about the poor choices that kept me from getting anywhere in my life.

I could hear Mom say, “I told you she’d never amount to anything, and just look … eaten up by an alligator. That’s what she gets. What isn’t changed is chosen!”

Katherine would nod and say she tried to help me, but I just wouldn’t listen. And then Marci would say, “David saw an alligator once, and when I asked him about it, he called me stupid!”

I stumbled over my feet, probably because I was dragging them. For crying out loud, these weren’t the things I wanted to think about as I was dying. These were the same depressing things I thought about while I was living. Wasn’t I supposed to think of what I should—and shouldn’t—have done? Why did these ridiculous thoughts about my family have to run through my mind?

It was all their fault. If they had just accepted me the way I was, loved me the way I was instead of trying to change me into someone else, I could die happy.

And I swear, that’s when it happened. I heard this loud booming voice in my head, sort of like my little voice only way more intense; I was pretty sure it was God. The voice said, “Why can’t
you
accept
them
the way
they
are? Love
them
the way
they
are?”

My jaw dropped open, and I stopped short. Oh my God. Why hadn’t I seen it before? By not tolerating their viewpoints of me, I was intolerant too. And
tolerance
wasn’t even the right word. What I’d needed to learn was
acceptance.
Even if they didn’t accept me the way I was, I could accept that they didn’t accept me, and if I did that, if I truly accepted them the way they were, I’d never be angry with them again.

I hung my head back and looked up at the blackening sky.
Thanks a lot, God, for teaching me this when it’s too late to help.

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing?” Sheila said from behind me. “You need to keep moving, or you’re dead meat.”

I was having the biggest epiphany of my life, and my bimbo neighbor was calling me dead meat? There was only so much I could take.

I swung around to face her. “Maybe I’ll end up as dead meat, but I’m not taking another step until you explain what this is about. I deserve to know the truth.”

“You want the truth?” She gestured at the trees. “This property we’re standing on is worth twenty-five million dollars, if we can get your land too. Without your land, we can’t get the area rezoned, which means the whole project goes down the tubes.”

“But Carlson … Why?”

“Because he became a liability. Just like you. I knew after you came to see me about investigating where he lived that you’d be sneaking around the Hill, trying to prove your case. You’d already overheard him talking to Richard, admitting what they’d done. It was just a matter of time before you went to the authorities, crying fraud. I didn’t kill two lousy husbands for nothing. I got the property around the lake from husband number one and the empty lot on your side of the street from husband number two. All I need is your property, and I’ll be a very rich woman.”

“But some land development company owns the land around the lake.”

“I’m
the land development company, you idiot, and I’ve got a deal on the table with some thug who’s building condos. I was cutting Carlson in for a percentage because he was handling the construction loan for my buyer and he offered to get you out for only a little extra money. Hubby number three is gonna take care of you just like he did Carlson. And then I’m gonna take care of hubby number three. That’s why I offered to walk you to the lake. After he takes care of you, I can shoot him, shove him in the lake with you, and toss in the gun. The cops will think you offed each other. Now turn around and
move
!”

She was rushing me, and I was trying to think. Her husband? Her hus … Fireplug! The guy who’d stabbed Carlson was the same height and build as Sheila’s husband, whom I’d only seen from afar. I shuffled around as slowly as I could, thinking fast. She didn’t say how he was going to take care of me. Maybe he would just hurt me and throw me in the lake. What if I wasn’t dead and the alligators came after me? I’d rather she just shot me right now; in fact, I was going to force her into it, even if that meant making a run for it so she’d have to shoot me in the back. Only I wouldn’t run toward the lake. I’d run toward home. Just in case she was a bad shot.

I whipped back around to face Sheila, and that was when I saw it. A shadow moving about twenty yards behind her. I wasn’t sure, but I thought it was a person because it was growing in size, moving closer. I said a quick prayer that it was someone coming to help.

“What now?” Sheila growled.

“Nothing.” I spun back around and shambled toward the lake. I hoped to God whoever that was behind us could tell something was wrong. I hoped they didn’t think we were just out for a stroll.

“Um, what about the python … Did you put that in my yard?” I yelled over my shoulder, wanting to keep Sheila’s attention on me so she wouldn’t hear the person behind her.

“Carlson paid some county clerk to help Richard do that. The poor guy has since met with an untimely death.”

I took a deep breath, afraid if I didn’t, I’d pass out from fright. She really
was
a lunatic, killing people right and left. “So Richard was in on the whole thing?”

“He was only paid to answer the ad we ran, so he could make trouble for you. But he got greedy. Too bad for Richard.”

Oh God.

“And you
…
you’re as tenacious as a pit bull, and I got tired of waiting. Your family will sell. They’ll sell in a heartbeat.”

“Uh, except my will doesn’t leave my property to my family, so they can’t sell if I’m dead.”

“What?” Sheila screamed. “What the hell did you just say?”

She charged up behind me and shoved me between my shoulder blades. I stumbled ten feet or so, coming within a couple of yards of Fireplug. His grin was nasty. And whatever he was fiddling with in his hands didn’t look like a gun.
Dear God, please don’t let it be a knife.
Could alligators smell blood the same way sharks could?

“I asked you a question! What do you mean your family can’t sell if you’re dead?”

“My property goes into trust for my niece Erin. No one can sell it but Erin and not until she’s twenty-one.” Marci wasn’t disciplined enough to put away money for Erin’s education, so I’d planned to leave my property to Erin, just in case. Unfortunately, I wasn’t very disciplined either so I hadn’t actually done it yet. But it was okay to lie at time like this, or at least it was now, since I was adding a rule to the rules of lying. It was okay to lie when your life was in the hands of a murdering criminal, no matter what the lie was about.

Fireplug laughed. “She’s lying, honey. She doesn’t have a will. Carlson checked.”

Dang.

He moved up close until he was just a foot or so to the side of me.

I couldn’t swallow. I couldn’t breathe. This was it. I was almost dead meat.

He flexed his wrists, and my little voice told me to
move
! I threw up my hands at the same instant he raised his arms and lunged at me. The next thing I knew, I was in a fight for my life, my hands caught between a wire and my neck. I gripped the wire and tried to push it away, but Fireplug was too strong. He was going to choke me to death as soon as he sliced through my hands with that wire, which would happen any second.

Then the wire suddenly slacked off and dropped away and so did Fireplug. A gun fired at almost the same instant, and I squeezed my eyes shut while I waited to drop dead. When I didn’t, I popped them back open.

Fireplug was lying on the ground, deathly silent. Hank stood behind the spot where Fireplug had been standing, holding a big rock in his hand. He looked from Fireplug to the rock, and dropped the rock. I didn’t know if Fireplug was dead, but I wasn’t stupid enough to check him to find out.

“Somebody get her gun,” said Bryan from behind me. Bryan? I whipped around. He had Sheila’s arms pinned behind her back. Her gun was lying on the ground.

Hank took a couple of long steps, leaned over, and snatched up the gun.

“Do you want to go get help or stay here with Bryan and hold the gun on these two?” Hank asked.

I reached out with bloody hands and took the gun. My arms were shaking so badly I feared I might drop it, but I figured it would be better to fail where I at least had someone nearby to help than to take off by myself and faint halfway home.

I didn’t have to worry though. Hank had only jogged a hundred feet when a bunch of bobbing lights heralding a small army with flashlights appeared on the trail. In fact, the entire pond-digging party must have come to my rescue; the crowd of people stretched up the trail as far as I could see.

My eyes went from the looming crowd to Bryan, who still had Sheila in a death grip. She looked mad as hell but wasn’t struggling. She must have known there was no point.

Bryan offered a tense smile. “I told Jonathan there was no way you could ‘be careful, keep a low profile, and stay out of trouble,’ all at the same time.”

I opened my mouth to declare that Jonathan Renquist should be disbarred for revealing a privileged conversation, but at that moment I happened to glance over at the lake. There, spread out across the water, were scores of paired red alligator eyes glaring back at me.

Two seconds later, just as Hank reached us, everything went black.