The Missing Dough(82)

“No, I don’t regret that, but I do wish that I’d found the money he stole first.” Then she looked down at the dirty suitcase. “I see you’ve done that for me, though. Why don’t you be a good girl and toss it over here to me,” she demanded.

“I’m not strong enough,” I said, though I probably could have managed it. I wanted her to come closer so I’d have a chance of using it as a weapon. “Whatever is in there is weighing it down.”

She didn’t fall for the trap, though.

“Kenny, make yourself useful. Drop your shovel, get the suitcase, and bring it to me. You might not have done what I asked you to while we were married, but you have a little more incentive to make me happy right now, wouldn’t you say?”

Kenny dropped his shovel as he said, “Samantha, you’ll never get away with this.”

“As a matter of fact, I believe that I will. Now, do as I say!”

Kenny walked over to the suitcase, picked it up, and then started toward his ex-wife with it.

When he was six feet away, she ordered, “That’s far enough. Drop it right there.”

Instead of doing as he was told, though, Kenny held the suitcase up as a shield in front of his body and ran straight at her. What was the fool trying to do?

Samantha didn’t even hesitate. She shot him from two feet away, and he crumpled at her feet.

I knew then that if there was any doubt before, it was gone now.

We were all about to die.

While Samantha looked down at her ex-husband with a sick grin on her face, it was time for action. I might be about to die, but I wasn’t going down without a fight.

I threw my shovel at her with everything I had.

Maddy didn’t throw her pick, though.

She, too, ran straight at Samantha, the pick held high over her head.

“No!” I shouted just as Samantha looked up.

Maddy’s pick left her hands in that instant, turning end over end as it flew toward Samantha’s chest.

My shovel hit a glancing blow off her arm, but unfortunately, it wasn’t the one holding the gun.

Maddy’s aim with the pick was truer than mine, though. It sank into Samantha’s shoulder, and the gun flew up into the air as the murderer fell to the ground.

As I rushed toward the weapon to keep Samantha from recovering it, we heard a voice from the house call out, “What’s going on out there? I’m going to call the police.”

“Do that,” I said as I reached down and picked up the gun.

“Eleanor, is that you? What’s going on?” Rebecca asked.

“There’s too much to even tell you right now,” I said as I pulled out my own phone and dialed 911.

I had a lot to say, and I wanted to have to say it only once.





Chapter 19

“Tell it to me one more time, from the beginning,” Chief Hurley ordered as Maddy and I sat in his office an hour after the confrontation had taken place.

“Our story’s not going to change,” I said. “Have they counted the money yet? Is the entire hundred and fifty grand that went missing there?”

“It’s with the forensic accountant right now,” he said. “She’ll let me know when she gets a final count. I don’t envy her the mess the courts will have on their hands, figuring out who gets what after the trial is over.” The police chief glanced over at Maddy and added, “If any of it is even coming to you, I wouldn’t count on seeing it within the next ten years.”

“I’m not holding my breath,” she said. “Just knowing that Sharon thought so much of me is enough of an inheritance for me.” Maddy added with a grin, “Besides, getting Bob off the hook is really all the payment I need. Did you ever catch up with Bernie Maine?”

“We found him, all right,” Chief Hurley admitted. “We had to let him go, though, given Samantha’s confession.” He looked down at his notes and then shut off the video camera and tape recorder he had running before he spoke again. “When did you two figure it out?” he asked softly.

“Don’t give us too much credit. We didn’t get it until about two minutes before Samantha showed up,” I explained. “We were still digging the hole when we realized that she was the only one of our suspects who planned to run. She must have known how it would look, though, because she orchestrated a pretty elaborate cover for it from the first moment we saw her after the murder. She didn’t let it rest with that, though.”

The chief nodded. “If we didn’t go after Kenny, she was ready to frame Bernie Maine. Planting Grant’s bloodstained wallet at Maine’s place was pretty brilliant.”

“I guess it was, but I had to think about the evil in that woman’s heart. She seemed so nonchalant when she threatened to kill us. It was as though it didn’t matter to her one way or the other what happened to any of us,” I said.