You Don't Know Jack Page 22

  I licked my dry lips, dug harder for the pepper spray. Carter and I had a lot in common. "Lars put the kibosh on your dreams and ambitions. He tried something similar with me, but then, he didn't have any leverage over me. He couldn't fire me or threaten my income."

  "Your kiboshed ambitions didn't go woefully awry, darlin'," Lars said. "And result in the unleashin' of pure evil."

  True, but I could hardly say that. I could hardly think. Help was not arriving. I needed to save myself. But could not escape the cold blade now at my neck or the cold railing at my back. My heartbeat jittered. "You published despite Lars."

  It was more than I'd done, but then I didn't have Carter's connections in my chosen field.

  "Under a pseudonym." Disdain dripped from every word.

  "A lot of writers use pseudonyms." My voice was quivery.

  "Yes, but I have name recognition that would have given my book advantages — like a better contract, like an advertising push from my publisher."

  "I see." Translation: without publisher backing and the freedom to reveal his true identity, his sales sucked. Fear was zapping my limbs of strength.

  Carter wiped the blade under my chin. I felt a sting like a paper cut. His eyes seemed to glow with madness. "I concentrated on writing book two of the contract, but before I could submit it to my editor, Lars spotted the manuscript on my desk and demanded to know if I was taking on new clients, something forbidden in our agency contract. I lied, of course. Said he'd been sent the manuscript by someone hoping he would critique it. Lars couldn't resist."

  I had a bad feeling. "What happened?"

  "He trashed the manuscript," Carter laughed ruefully. "No surprise there. But I hadn't expected he would turn around and steal my plot to meet his own looming deadline."

  "I was desperate." Lars tried to defend the undefendable.

  My fingers found another lipstick shaped tube. God, please let it be the pepper spray. The knife dug deeper. I winced.

  "Lars' book released to rave reviews, made us both a little richer, and left me without a second book to fill my contractual obligation. It's not always about the money."

  That I understood. If writers did it for the money there would be very few books written; the income earned for most writers is that poor. Lars had him over a barrel. Carter couldn't reveal he was Ruth Lester or Lars would fire him. Nor could he live with Lars taking bows over the plagiarized story. An untenable situation.

  "The solution isn't murder," Lars said.

  The tube in my hand was another lipstick. I was seconds away from dying. "So-so, you, um, Ruth sued Lars."

  "Have you any idea how it felt to sue that bastard and lose? How it felt to be forced to celebrate his victory with him afterwards?"

  "I-I'm sorry," I muttered, trying to ease my chin free of the knife.

  "Lars was gleeful, full of himself. The more champagne he downed, the more boastful he was... until I wanted to throttle him right there in the bar, in front of witnesses." He pulled the knife away, waving it through the air as he talked, spilling his guts in a cathartic spiel. "But I hadn't the balls. I'd been naive on many levels at the start of our relationship, swept up in his sudden fame and our shared success. I allowed myself to enter into an arrangement that weighed too heavily on his side. My fifteen percent cost me more than eighty-five percent of my freedom and dignity."

  I scooted to the right a few inches. He didn't seem to notice, a couple feet more and I could run for it.

  "Lars' joy over winning the lawsuit was short-lived." Carter had stopped waving the knife, but still barred all ways past him. "His writer's block raged on. He claimed that his creative juices were stagnated by me and that what he needed was a complete shakeup of his management."

  "Whiner." Lars seethed.

  But I realized this was the catalyst, the thing that started Carter plotting an evil vengeance against Lars.

  "I decided to show that bastard what a good writer I really am."

  "Hah!" Lars said.

  "But why invent a serial killer?" I asked. "Why not just kill Lars and be done with it?"

  "That would have been boring, something Lars might have dreamed up."

  Lars said nothing this time, but I could feel him fuming, his anger roiling like building thunderheads within me. I moved another foot to the right.

  "I started writing in high school," Carter's face came close to mine again. Through my fear I smelled tobacco on his breath. "I've completed several manuscripts since then. I particularly liked the one about a woman who kills two strangers to make her husband's murder appear as random as the other two. She leaves behind a playing card, Queen of Hearts to provide a serial killer signature. I used that book, borrowing my signature from Jade Edger, and the plan was set."

  The knife came up, switching back and forth near my neck like the hand of a metronome. Fear grabbed my courage to run and held me riveted to the spot.

  "Keep him talkin', darlin'," Lars shouted.

  About what? I was running out of things to say. No. Wait. I wasn't. I'd read the resulting manuscript and knew something had altered the ending of his original plan. "You were leading the police away from Lars by using the Black Boutonniere Killer's signature, then planting evidence elsewhere that would eventually lead them back to Lars. But he wasn't your intended third victim, Bruce was."

  Carter laughed. "I wanted to strip him of something he loved as he had done to me with my writing. I wanted him to spend three life sentences rotting in a prison cell, thinking about it."

  I gripped the envelope tighter to my overtaxed heart. "The upside being that reprint sales of Lars' backlist books would skyrocket and those nice royalty checks would keep coming in, allowing you to maintain your current lifestyle and start writing novels penned under your own name."

  "Clever girl." The knife flashed near my face again. I winced, reeled back, again stopped by the railing. "Too bad you won't live long enough to tell anyone else."

  "H-how did Lars end up dead and not Bruce?"

  "I thought for sure you'd figured that part out on your own. No? Well, you don't really need to know. It has nothing to do with our business here and now."

  We were very near docking in Seattle, I realized, spying the lights of the harbor in my peripheral vision. My group would come looking soon. Other passengers would too. But not soon enough. Oh, God. Oh, God.

  "Negotiate with him," Lars sounded like he wanted to shake me. "Tell him you'll keep your mouth shut if he represents you."

  Get serious. Don't you know blackmailing a killer is one of the quickest ways to die? My knees wobbled. "L-Lars sent you his proposal to forward to his editor, right? That's when you discovered his current book revolved around the nightclub murders that you had committed and were using to plot your own book as well as exact your revenge. That changed everything didn't it?"

  "Not quite that. I didn't pass the manuscript on to Lars' editor," he said. "When Lars spoke to his editor and found out I was sitting on the book, he fired me. That's what changed everything. Once his editor received his book, mine would be invalidated. Lars had to die before he could steal another plot from me."

  "I was murdered for a book plot!?" Lars gasped, outrage in every word. The fear in my legs and arms dissipated, replaced with a blast of hot rage and purpose that I knew was not my own, but came from some other-worldly source.

  I darted to the left, got around Carter. But he was quick. He roared, lunged. The knife flashed downward.

  I felt the blade land in the middle of my chest, a hard thump, driven in with the dual strengths of insanity and adrenalin. Oddly, I felt no pain. I felt nothing. I was a bystander participating physically, but not mentally, as the fury of Lars took over my body.

  I rammed into Carter Hawks with the power of a cannon ball, with a power from beyond the grave. I sent him flying back six feet. His head struck a railing. He dropped to the deck. Didn't move.

  Then, I was collapsing where I stood, my energy draining away. A heaviness weighed
on my chest. The world started to fade. From somewhere nearby I heard voices shout my name. I couldn't respond. Something else had my attention.

  "Well, what do you know? My elevator's here. Goodbye, darlin'," Lars said. "I knew I could count on you."

  In the next instant, the Jedi force reappeared, flashed and roared and something, a blinding light, seemed to lift from within me, and then vanish right before my eyes.

  This time I knew Lars would not be coming back.

  And that I might soon be joining him on the other side.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Sometimes life is like a book, best told in a series of flashbacks that leap from one blink of time to another until the reader catches up to the meat of the story.

  Flash: Me telling Stone, "As soon as that ferry docks, I'm going straight to the hospital."

  Result: I did.

  In an ambulance.

  Flash: "We found you!" Ida shouted, her voice pinging off the walls of my hospital room. I'd been out of it most of the night and awakened to a room full of friends and family crowding around the bed.

  Sophie's snowy head bobbed. "You had a manila envelope stuck to your chest with a big old knife, dear."

  "It was the murder weapon." Madam Zee's braceleted arms jangled into the woo-woo position.

  Flash within a flash: Me picturing my arm wrapped tight around the thick envelope Ruth Lester tossed at me, shock holding my arm in place.

  "That envelope saved your life," Duke said.

  "Kinda ironic considering what was inside!" Ida added.

  At my puzzled expression, Madame Zee said, "Your own pages."

  I struggled to understand. Carter had wanted Ruth Lester's manuscript, but Peppermint Patty stole it. Had Carter mistaken another manuscript for his? My manuscript? "The manila envelope contained the manuscript I left with Teri Steele?"

  "Bingo!" Ida thumped her cane. "Ruth Lester's name was on the envelope, but your pages were inside!"

  I tried to sit up, but an IV pinned my arm and pain centered beneath a lump of bandages on my left breast stopped the effort. "Did she edit it?"

  You might think my first concern would be something other than that. Like was Carter Hawks alive and in custody? Like was Peppermint Patty also in custody? Like how was Apollo? Like was I going to live? But no. It was the line edit.

  Duke frowned, managing to look even more desirable than usual. "Er, I'm not sure about an edit, Jack B."

  "We heard it was covered with blood and gore!" Ida grinned, dentures flashing.

  Madam Zee nodded, earrings jingling. "And rather ripped apart because of the knife and the EMTs and the emergency room staff."

  Sophie patted my hand. "The police have taken what's left of it for evidence, dear."

  "W-what's left of it?" I choked, tears brimming my eyes. It wasn't my only copy of the manuscript, but it was the only line edited copy.

  "I'm sorry, Jack B," Duke said

  The three elderly women nodded and murmured, "Sorry."

  Result: The cut on my chin was minimal, but I had twenty stitches in my chest that hurt like hell and might leave a small scar. The bigger scars couldn't be seen and hurt even more. Lars was gone. Teri was gone.

  Also gone was my hope of ever getting a helpful line edit, but I would figure out something. I wouldn't quit. If nothing else, maybe all I'd been through, all I'd lost and all I'd gained would give my writing strength and depth.

  Flash: Five days later, we were readying for a party to celebrate Apollo's homecoming. The Clip and Flip was decked to the nines in pink, turquoise, and white crepe paper and balloons. 50's rock and roll music spilled from the four corners of the salon. My mother, Aunt Mamie, Aunt Abby, and I were setting up a buffet.

  We hadn't allowed Apollo to help. He'd lost weight he could ill afford during his coma, and he was still weak. A pillow beneath his butt, he perched on the pedicure chair, fidgeting. God, it was great to see him fidget. I'd even let him fuss with my outfit, my make-up, and my hair. We both agreed. Despite my wounds, I looked hot.

  Though he'd grown scarily thinner, his color was good and we were managing to stuff a lot of calories into him. With enough enforced down time, some of the fat would stick and he would eventually regain his normal reed thin shape.

  My mother covered the buffet table with a bubble gum pink cloth that matched her shirtwaist. I sprinkled sparkly confetti over the tablecloth. It was the extend of exertion I was being allowed — given I was also walking wounded.

  We were discussing the Black Boutonniere case, trying to fit the last pieces of the puzzle together by sharing various bits of information. As usual, Apollo seemed to know more than anyone.

  "My sources," he said, between bites of a caramel filled chocolate, "tell me Patricia Pepper is singing to the cops like a viral YouTube video."

  "Sharkey and I heard she'd started a suspect list of her own," Aunt Mamie said, dumping ice and fruit juices into a punch bowl.

  Sharkey and I? We're they a couple now?

  "She was scarily obsessed with Lars," I said, slapping confetti from my hands. "And equally determined to prove Carter or I had killed him. She admitted to shooting out the office windows of Carter's literary agency. Claims she wasn't trying to kill anyone, just scare us into confessing."

  My mother shivered. "I want you to promise you'll give up detecting, Jack B, and go back to beauty school."

  "Sure, Mom." Beauty school. I shuddered. That was not happening.

  Apollo licked chocolate from his fingers. "Well, one good thing came out of Peppermint Patty's stalking. She followed Carter to Teri Steele's house, saw him bully his way inside, demanding Ruth Lester's manuscript. She sneaked into the house after them. She was in the office when she heard Teri scream in the bathroom. She put Ruth Lester's manuscript into your envelope, Jack B, and your manuscript into Ruth's envelope, and then took the one with Ruth's manuscript and hid in the garage until Carter left with your manuscript."

  I'd gotten the same story from Stone via text messages. I had neither seen nor spoken to him since the night at the Bainbridge police station. Texting didn't count. I didn't know if he'd show up tonight, though he was invited.

  I told myself he was busy wrapping up details of the case to ensure Carter Hawks spent the rest of his life behind bars and didn't slip through some legal loop hole. But was that it? Or was Stone avoiding me on purpose given that we both knew nothing had changed to break through our emotional stand off?

  I sucked in a sigh, not wanting to put any kind of damper on today's celebration. I placed plastic cups around the punch bowl. "I guess Patty was about to sneak out of Teri's when I showed up with my band of merry seniors."

  "Patty Pepper should have phoned the police." Aunt Abby tsked. She'd been cooking for days and the buffet table groaned under the weight of honey baked ham, barbequed chicken wings, every imaginable salad, cheese and cold cuts, veggie trays and fresh rolls. The array of mouth-watering aromas saturated the air.

  She snatched a carrot stick and began munching. I'd seen her sneak a chocolate covered cherry a minute earlier. I wasn't telling. She said, "I'm just saying if she'd phoned 9-1-1, Teri Steele might still be alive."

  Maybe so. It was something we would never know.

  Apollo's gaze met mine and something as warm as gratitude and as strong as monkey glue passed between us. He wouldn't have survived the attack Carter made on him if I hadn't found him when I did. Even then, it almost wasn't soon enough.

  Aunt Mamie looked up from stirring the punch. Was that a new tattoo on her wrist? A shark tattoo? "I don't understand why Carter attacked Apollo. Why didn't he just let him be convicted of Lars' murder? It wasn't like the police were looking elsewhere."

  "Because he wanted Bruce convicted," I said. "If Bruce went to prison for killing Lars, he would lose all rights to any of Lars' ongoing royalty checks. That would leave Carter in control of the estate. He almost got away with it, too. Before Apollo slipped into a coma, he said one word. Bruce."

 
; "I was trying to tell you," Apollo said.

  "I know that now." I grinned and silently thanked God for returning my BFF to me. Today was about counting blessings, not losses.

  My mother handed me a pack of plastic silverware. "Why did Carter kill Teri Steele?"

  "She knew Ruth Lester was Carter's pseudonym, and he couldn't risk her telling anyone."

  Mom opened a package of paper plates. "Her poor family."

  We all murmured in agreement.

  Though they were in mourning, Dinah was so relieved Frankie wasn't cheating on her, she'd decided to use her pull in the community to find him an agent for the novel Carter Hawks had been planning to represent. She'd made no such offer to me. But maybe that was just as well.

  Aunt Mamie emptied a bottle of champagne into the punch bowl, filled a cup, and tasted. Nodding her satisfaction, she poured cups for each of us and raised hers in a toast. "Here's to that fruitcake Pepper woman going straight from jail to a mental health care institution."

  "Oh, no," Aunt Abby cried. "I forgot the fruitcake."

  We all laughed and assured her it would not be missed.

  "Here's to all charges against me being dropped." Apollo lifted his punch cup and we drank to his freedom.

  "And here's to me and Apollo finding our way back to being best friends," I said to myself.

  "Are we too early?" The Golden Oldies burst in, a sparkly, jangly, grinning trio.

  "I'm ready to party!" Ida declared.

  A few minutes later Sharkey and several of his biker buddies sauntered in, heading straight to the buffet. The salon quickly filled to capacity, everyone eating and drinking, and soon the walls were booming with music and conversation, laughter and cheers.

  Though Stone was a no-show, sometime in the course of the night, Duke Maddox arrived. He grinned at me from across the room and I felt a heat curl through me that was usually reserved only for Stone. Perhaps it was time I accepted that Stone and I were really, truly over and that I needed to move on.