The Prey Bites Back: A Jesse Watson Mystery Book #8 (14 page)

“She’s a spitfire
all right,” Billy added. “She sure surprised me. Maybe we should let her
interrogate Mr. Preston.” He looked in
Preston
’s
direction. “I bet she could do things to him that he’s never had done before.”
He sneered at the man. “It’s the quiet ones who’re the most dangerous.” Billy
laughed. “Yep, we need to turn her loose on him.”

“Phew!” I said,
looking at
Preston
. “What’s that smell? You need a bath, and
that breath almost makes me gag.”

The door
clinked again and Shark walked back in. “I left your mother and Helene with
Gator. He’ll keep them busy with all those monitors. They can see everything
that’s going on, and maybe at the same time he can talk them down. They’re both
wound up and I didn’t think they needed to be around the kids.” He looked at
Jonathan. “What did you give her, man? That pill has made her crazy. Did you
give one to Helene, too?”

“Oh, my God!” I
said. “I forgot about the trank. What did you give her?”

“Tramadol,”
Jonathan replied. “It’s a pain killer. Tranks make you feel hung over the next
day, but a pain killer usually doesn’t, so I gave her the pain killer. I didn’t
know it would affect her like that.”

“Maybe you
should leave the dispensing of medication to someone else,” I joked, and then
commented. “Mom obviously shouldn’t take drugs.”

“I think she
did pretty good,” Shark said, looking over at
Preston
’s
foot. “I like your mother.”

“She can’t see
what’s happening here, can she?” I asked. “I mean, if you guys plan to…”

“No, she can’t,”
Jonathan replied. “So don’t worry. Even if they want to see, they won’t be able
to. Besides,” he pointed to
Preston
, “we got everything from him we could.
He’s sticking to his story. He says he didn’t kill anyone, and get this, he
said Dakota poisoned him.”

“What?” I
questioned, looking back at
Preston
. “He doesn’t look dead to me. Guess the
poison didn’t work.”

But actually,
Preston
didn’t look too good. Underneath the bloody face, his skin
had grown ashen, he drooled, and his head bobbed. Blood pooled around the foot
that Mom had shot. He looked like he was just about done in. His moaning and
groaning had slowed down and was now barely a whisper.  

“Why would she
poison him?” Billy asked. “They were lovers.”

“They were,”
Shark said, “but that flame started to flicker quickly after Dakota asked him
to kill Jesse and Minnie. He claims he was floored by her request, but he loved
her, so he agreed to do it. He had a bad feeling, but he went along because he
needed time to think. After that, it didn’t take him a minute to wonder if
there was any truth to Mae Bridges’ accusation. He now had his doubts about the
woman he loved. Then, when he set out to kill Jesse and Minnie, he couldn’t do
it. He doesn’t seem to have a problem with assaulting people, but when it comes
to murder, he draws the line. He doesn’t have the stomach for it. And he swears
he didn’t kill anybody’s husband for Dakota.”

I gasped. “Are
you saying he was supposed to kill my mother?”

“That’s right.”

“And Eddie?
What about him?”

“A little icing
on the cake,” Jonathan interjected. “Eddie was in the wrong place at the wrong
time. He got what your mother would’ve gotten if she’d been home.” He looked at
Preston
. “What kind of man beats up on a little
old lady? How sick is that?”

“What about
me?”

Jonathan grinned,
ignored my question and said, “I have to give him credit for one thing—he had a
lot of nerve to think he could kill someone in jail and get away with
it—stupid, but nervy. I don’t think he’d make a good killer. His technique
sucks.”

“When he failed
to kill his second target,” Shark said, “Dakota was furious and called him
incompetent and useless. That’s when she told him she had poisoned him with
antifreeze. She said she had made up a special bottle, and then she set the
bottle down in front of him. She said she knew she had chosen the wrong man when
he started asking questions about stuff that was none of his business, and when
he botched killing Jesse and Minnie, that was it. He had failed her, and now
his time was up. She laughed at him as he walked out of the shop. He panicked
and came here to warn us. He now thinks she killed those men. He sure didn’t do
it. When I asked him why he took a shot at us in the hospital parking lot, he
denied it. He was too sick by then. He could barely make it here. It had to be
her. Dakota Stone is the killer.”

We all turned back
to look at Gavin Preston.

“Antifreeze?” I
questioned. “Are you serious? How… I mean, wouldn’t he be able to tell?”

“Antifreeze has
a sweet smell and taste,” Billy said. “Put some in a soda or a glass of wine
and nobody would be the wiser.”

“Is he dead?” I
asked, nervously, noticing that Preston was sitting completely still with his
head hung down off to the side, the crotch of his pants was wet all the way
down his legs, and there was a poopy smell coming from his direction.  

Everyone knows
that when a person dies, the bladder and bowels are the first to let go.

After a moment
of silence, Jonathan spoke, “He’s dead.”

“He was almost
dead from the poison when he was captured,” Shark added. “A man who is about
ready to die usually tells the truth. He had nothing to hide anymore. He
probably knew more, but didn’t get around to telling us.”

“What a mess,”
I said, turning away from him. “What are we going to do with his body?” I turned
and stared back at him. His face was smeared with blood, gook seeped from his
body, and the odor coming from him was worse than anything I’d ever smelled. He
was a testament to the fact that death wasn’t pretty—especially the kind of
death he had experienced. He had been poisoned and then beat up. Those were his
last moments of life. The thought of it made me sick. I was sure I was going to
puke, but I didn’t. I managed to put that awful image of him out of my mind and
move on.

“That’s a good
question,” Billy said, pondering for a minute, and then he came back with, “He
has no family, so I say we bury him somewhere. It would be the right thing to
do.”

A thought occurred
to me, and a plan began formulating in my head. “Why don’t we take him to
The
Body Shop
and leave him with Dakota? Let her explain his death. We can sneak
in after dark, disable the alarm, dump the body, and then get out.” I looked at
Jonathan. “Are you the security alarm buster expert, too? You do everything
else.”

“Shark’s our
man,” Jonathan said looking over at Shark. “But he’s doped up. Shot him full of
antibiotics and pain killers, and he needs to take a break.”

“No way, man,”
Shark said. “I’m good to go. It was only a flesh wound. Nothing keeps me down
for long.”

“Actually, we
don’t need to do that,” Jonathan said. “We have our computer geeks, Mason and
Gator. They should be able to handle the alarm system from here. What was I
thinking?”

“Do you think
they can pull it off?” I asked. “I don’t want to get caught again. Jail isn’t
my thing. I’m not going back.” I looked back over at Gavin and thought about
Mom. “Lord. What are we going to tell my mother? She’ll never forgive herself
for shooting him in the foot now that he’s dead. She’ll hate herself for what
she did.”

“Don’t worry,
`ge ya,” Billy replied. “We’ll tell her the truth. Dakota poisoned him and he
died. We didn’t kill him.”

“We’d better do
something fast. He’s starting to get ripe. Hey, what about the bullet in his
foot? I don’t want it traced back to Mom when they find him.”

“I’ll take care
of that,” Shark said, looking around. “We need to wrap him in plastic before we
dump him. Don’t want any
DNA
left in the car.”

“Speaking of
car,” I said. “What about his? What are we going to do with his car?”

“You let us
worry about that,” Jonathan replied, motioning to Shark, who then turned and walked
out of the room.

“Wait a
minute,” I came back with. “His car should be parked at
The Body Shop
.
You can’t leave it in a parking lot somewhere, or abandoned on the road. When
they find his body, the first thing they’ll look for is his car.”

“His car won’t
matter. It’s registered to the business. Anyone could be driving it. Trust me,
they’ll never find it. When we dispose of something, nobody ever finds it,
whether it’s a car or a body. It just so happens that we want
Preston
’s body found, otherwise…” Jonathan’s voice trailed off.

“I know this
probably won’t happen, but what if we get caught dumping his body?”

“We’re not
going to get caught.”

“But just say
we do. When the police question us, what are we going to tell them? That he
walked to your house? How can we get the cops to believe our story, if we don’t
have the car?”

Billy looked at
Jonathan. “She does have a point,”

“Our mission is
to succeed, but…” Jonathan thought for a second, and then smiled. “Good girl,
Jesse. I’m glad you brought up the subject of the car. We’ll park it in Beth’s
garage. She won’t mind, since she doesn’t live there anyway.”

“She’ll never
have to know.”

“And if we need
to produce the car as evidence, we’ll be able to, and if not, we’ll dispose of
it later. Smart thinking, Jesse.”

“Now that the
problem with the car has been settled,” Billy said, looking at me. “Let’s go
tell your mother about
Preston
.”

Billy and I walked
out of the room and went across the hall to the security center. Mom and Helene
sat glued to the computers. They both rose when we walked in.

“Did you get
the truth out of him?” Mom asked. “Or did he tell you more of his lies? He’s a dirty,
rotten…”

“He’s dead,
Mom.”

“What?” Mom had
a bewildered look on her face. “How… what…” She glared at us. “Y’all didn’t
beat him to death, did you? Oh, my God! What have we done?”

“Of course we
didn’t,” Billy said. “He was almost dead when he got here. Dakota poisoned him
just like he said. Jonathan and Shark worked him over until they realized he
was telling the truth about being poisoned. That’s when they stopped and tried
to get as much out of him as they could.”

Helene made a
good point when she asked, “If he was about ready to die and didn’t have much
time left, then why didn’t he just call you? It surely would’ve saved time… since
he didn’t have much left.”

“That’s a good
question,” Billy said, “one I can’t answer, but it’s irrelevant now. What we
have to do is get rid of the body and lay the blame at Dakota Stone’s feet.”

Mom didn’t look
so good. She was pale and seemed disoriented.

“Mom, are you
all right?”

“I just need to
sit down. I feel so bad about shooting the poor guy in the foot when he was so
close to death.”

“Don’t feel too
bad for the guy,” I said. “Look at my face and remember what he did to me. Look
at Eddie. Gavin Preston beat the crap out of him, too.”

Billy put his
arm around Mom and led her back over to the computer chair. “Sit down, Minnie,”
he said.

Gator got up
from the computer screen and walked over to a water cooler to fetch a glass of
water. He handed it to her when she sat down. “Here, drink this, Minnie,” he
said. “It’ll refresh you. I find that a drink makes me feel so much better
after I’ve shot someone.” He chuckled, and after a gulp, so did Mom.

“You’re such a
comedian,” she said to him, and then looked back at us. “He’s so funny. He’s
been cracking us up with all his stories. Did you know that he used to be a
sumo wrestler?”

I glanced at
Gator, who was snickering, and then back to Mom. “You don’t believe that, do
you, Mom? Look at him. He weighs less than I do. Sumo wrestlers are huge. Is he
huge?”

“Well…”

Gator laughed
out loud.

“I guess not,”
Mom murmured. “He sure fooled me.”

“He didn’t fool
me,” Helene boasted. “I knew he was making up all that stuff. No one escapes
death that many times. He’s a jokester.”

“Some of my
stories were true,” Gator said, defending himself.

“Which ones?”

Billy
interrupted their chitchat. “We have things to do, so I want everyone to stay
here until we’re finished.”

“But Gavin Preston
is dead,” Mom said. “We’re safe now. He’s not going to hurt us anymore, so it’s
time to get back on the case and bring down Dakota.”

“Yeah… well… he’s
never been the real problem,” Billy explained. “Oh, he was ruthless when it
came to cracking skulls, but he wasn’t a killer. No, that title belongs to
Dakota Stone, and it’s time she got her due.”

“She killed
those men, didn’t she?” Helene asked.