A Deadly Grind (23 page)

“It sounds . . . complicated.”

“Not so much
now
. It was lovely of you to deliver yourself to me. You’re going to give me the letter, and then I’m leaving town,” she said, waving the gun at Jaymie. “I’ll be out of your hair and out of the country in no time.”

“Okay,” Jaymie said, standing and stretching out her taut, nerve-constricted muscles. “Uh, so I’ll go get it, and bring it back here?”

After a hoot of laughter, Lynn said, “Right, and I’ll knit an afghan while I wait. Sit down! What do you think I am, an idiot? Let me think!” She paced and checked the cell phone again, then glanced up at the clock. It appeared that she was expecting a call. “The problem is,” she muttered, “I can’t risk you telling anyone what’s going on, or anyone seeing us together, particularly Brett. And I have a buyer; I don’t want to scare him off!”

A musical phrase, Beethoven’s Fifth, erupted from Lynn’s purse on the table by the sofa, and she dove for it while keeping the gun held up. She dropped the cell phone from her hand, then awkwardly fished another out of her purse as it continued to play the Fifth. She glanced at the call display. “Damn it! Brett again.” She flipped it open. “Brett! Sweetie!” she said, with a cheerful tone. “What’s up?” She listened, her expression darkening. “I know you’re nervous, but calm down.” She listened again. “Brett, I’ve got this under control.” She paused, briefly, but then said, “No, you listen to
me
; I’m taking care of it. I will meet you where we discussed!” She flipped it closed and tossed the cell phone into her bag, then picked up the other.

Jaymie processed the conversation, and realized that Lynn Foster’s cell phone was likely the phone number written on the pad in Brett’s room at the B&B. She was either the “Queen,” or it was because she was staying at the Queensville Inn. Where was Brett Delgado? she wondered. Hiding out from the police somewhere? They must want to talk to him about Ted Abernathy. Did he know that Lynn had killed his coconspirator? It was on the tip of her tongue to ask her captor, but the woman was on the thin edge of reason, and Jaymie didn’t want to tip her over that precarious cliff. Instead, she decided to ask something innocuous. “So, when did this happen, that you have a buyer?”

“Just today. Serendipitous, right? I went on to a collector’s group online and put out the word—cloaked of course—that I have an extremely valuable first signer’s letter that I’m willing to part with, and voila! Instant message, the guy is even local, and he wants to talk. My lovely untraceable cell phone,” she said, waggling it. “Bought over the border. No one else knows about it, not even Nathan.”

Jaymie decided to take a chance, and said, “It must have been real annoying when you stole what you thought was the Button letter from my Hoosier book, only to find out it was just a recipe for Queen Elizabeth cake.”

Lynn’s eyes narrowed. “I was pissed off. I was watching your house, birdie binoculars in hand, hoping to sneak in and search the Hoosier myself. Then I saw you and that gangly misfit millionaire find the letter, glad cries and all! I had already hit that bumbling fool of a girl over the head, so when I saw you put the letter in that book, I thought I’d better let things cool off a little. I snuck back here, made sure Nathan was still out like a light, then crept back to steal the book. I’m not without a sense of humor; I
can
laugh sometimes, even if the Botox makes it hard to crack a proper smile. It was a good joke, my dear, the recipe in place of the letter.”

She stood and pointed the gun directly at Jaymie as she walked across the room, ending by poking it in Jaymie’s ribs. “But the joke is over now. I want that letter, and I want it now, or you will have a hole in your head too big to hang an earring in.”

Twenty-two

J
AYMIE’S STOMACH CLENCHED, and she felt like she was going to throw up, the glands in her throat spurting water from fear. What was she going to do? Her mind raced in circles; how had she gotten into this mess? Forget that; how would she get out of it? She had no options except escape.

“The letter, yes . . . of course you want the letter.” As she stared into Lynn’s icy blue eyes, the cell phone in the woman’s free hand chirped, just a plain ring tone for business.

Lynn answered it, then said, “Yes, indeed. It is a genuine undiscovered Button Gwinnett letter. It’s been in the same family since it was received.” She paused, then said, “Well that depends on how much you’re offering.”

As Jaymie, heart pounding, watched her captor’s face, it changed subtly, a look of wonder and greed passing over her handsome, if haggard, features. Now was a time for decisive action; the distraction of the call and the bargaining between buyer and seller might be put to use.

“In cash and bearer bonds?” Lynn Foster paced away, the hand holding the gun relaxing until her arm was limp at her side.

This was her chance! Jaymie quietly slipped toward the door, just as Lynn turned toward her; the wary woman trained the gun back on Jaymie, put the cell phone to her own chest to muffle her words, and hissed, “You stay put!” Each word was emphasized by a jab of the gun barrel.

Jaymie froze, then obeyed, slinking back to the sofa and sinking down into it.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?” She paused and listened to her caller, glaring at Jaymie with a gleam of rapaciousness in her cold eyes. “No, I was thinking more along the lines of double that.”

The beginning of a desperate plan hatched in Jaymie’s brain at that moment.

“Okay, so not double, but I will need more than your offer.” She paused. “Okay, all right, you won’t be sorry. So, you’re actually on your way to Queensville at this moment?” Lynn said. “I’m at the Queensville Inn . . . yes . . . but I’ll need an hour or so.” She listened, then said, “I’ll be leaving directly after we make the deal, so I need a little time to pack. I told you, the letter is authentic, but I don’t want it known that I have it. You
must
understand. So where do you want to meet to exchange the items?”

While the woman was talking, Jaymie turned her mind to her plan: The other day when she was in the hotel, she had been down this stretch of the Inn, only on the main floor. The Fosters were in number 207, and Mrs. Stubbs was in 107; she was right over top of the elderly woman’s room that very moment! “I have to go to the washroom,” Jaymie said loudly, jumping up and stomping toward it heavily. Stomping wasn’t easy on the carpeted center of the suite’s floor.

“Stay! Sit!” Lynn said, holding the cell phone to her chest as she spoke and waggling the gun she still held. “No, not you!” she said into the phone, turning her shoulder to Jaymie.

Lynn wouldn’t murder her without having the letter, Jaymie was fairly sure. She needed to summon up every ounce of nerve she had to defy the cold-blooded killer of two men. She edged over to the uncarpeted perimeter of the room near the door and picked up a weighty marble statuette, hefting it in her hand and dropping it “accidentally” on the hardwood floor.

“Oops!” she cried. “I’m so clumsy!” She stomped over, picked it up, only to fumble and drop it again, hoping against hope that Mrs. Stubbs would be jarred awake from a peaceful nap and would be out for blood. She prayed the statue didn’t break, but it would be worth the cost of replacing it to save her life. Lyle would surely not have furnished even this most elegant suite in the Inn with costly antiques.

Lynn motioned to Jaymie to stop. Her tone irritated, she said, “Look, how well do you know Queensville? Can’t you just name a place to meet?” As she spoke, she stepped over to Jaymie and pointed the gun directly at her heart.

Jaymie stilled instantly. Even through the polyester maid’s uniform, the barrel felt cold and hard. Life could be over in an instant; that knowledge hit her hard, and tears blurred her vision. She willed them back, blinking. This was no time to cry. She promised herself a good long sob fest later, but right now, she had to think.

“Hold on a moment!” Lynn said. She put the cell phone to her chest to muffle her words, and said, through gritted teeth, “Don’t you move one more time, or I swear, I just don’t give a damn. I’ll put a freaking bullet through your heart!”

Jaymie shivered, closer to death than she had ever been in her life. “Okay, all right,” she whispered, forcing herself to breathe slowly while her heart pounded and the sound of blood rushing in her ears made her light-headed. “I’ll stay still.”

“You and I are going to have to go to your place and get that letter,” Lynn muttered, still holding the phone to her chest. “So help me God, if I lose this buyer because of you, I’ll—”

Pounding on the door interrupted her.

“What’s going on in there? Mrs. Foster, is everything all right?”

It was Lyle, bless his mama’s-boy heart, and he sounded upset. It hadn’t taken long for Mrs. Stubbs to roust her son. Now what? How to respond?

“Mrs. Foster, what’s going on in there?” he repeated.

“Everything is fine, Mr. Stubbs,” Lynn called out, turning toward the door. “I just . . . I dropped something.”

Perhaps her only chance had arrived, and Jaymie was going to take it. “Lyle, it’s Jaymie . . . Lynn Foster is the murderer! She’s got a gun. Get the cops!” As she shouted, Jaymie pushed Lynn out of the way and bolted toward the door.

Everything happened quickly then. The gun went off as Lynn stumbled sideways, Jaymie dived to the floor, screaming, and Lyle shouted something from beyond the door as he banged on it again. The sound of sirens outside the window confused everything. Jaymie crawled toward the door.

“Don’t move!” Lynn shrieked, waving the gun in the air.

But Jaymie was done listening. In one swift sequence of movements, she rolled over, staggered to her feet, picked up the marble statue and heaved it at Lynn, catching her in the knee. The woman buckled and fell to the floor just as Lyle, using his passkey, busted in.

“What the hell is going on here?” he yelled.

“Get out, Lyle; she has a gun!” Jaymie cried, grabbing his meaty shoulder as she stumbled past him, yanking him back out to the hall.

As she exited, followed by Lyle, three cops, Deputy Ng in the lead, stormed up the stairs, guns drawn. Jaymie flattened against the wall to let them pass. “Lynn Foster is the killer,” she said, panting. “She’s in 207, but watch out . . . she’s got a gun! She threatened to kill me.”

Jaymie descended the stairs two at a time and huddled in the stairwell with Lyle and Edith. Curious guests were coming to the door of the coffee shop to stare, and whispered together in clusters. Lyle was full of questions, but Jaymie just shook her head. It was all a muddle in her brain at that moment. Minutes later, Lynn was led limping down the stairs, handcuffed and teary-eyed, black mascara running in trails down her cheeks. An officer carried her gun.

“Bitch! Why couldn’t you just give me the freakin’ letter?” she screeched, all illusion of elegance vanished. A string of spittle hung from her lip, and her coral lip gloss was smeared over her chin. “I wasn’t going to hurt you!” she sobbed. She lunged at Jaymie, but Deputy Ng jerked her back.

“Like you didn’t hurt Trevor Standish and Ted Abernathy?” Jaymie retorted.

Lynn’s lip trembled and she pulled up short, her face pale in the dim hallway light, her eyes underlined by smudged mascara. Deputy Ng tried to tug her away. Lynn staggered sideways a little but stood her ground. “I didn’t do
anything
to them! Ted killed Trevor and then committed suicide!”

“By slashing his own throat and dumping himself in the river?” Jaymie said. “Good try!”

“Come on,” the deputy said, giving the woman a shove. “We’ll sort it all out down at the station.”

Jaymie followed and watched as the cops marched Lynn right through the crowd by the coffee shop. Nathan Foster was sitting, reading a newspaper, at a table near the door. When he saw his wife in handcuffs, he started up. “What is going on here?” He pushed through some folks standing in a group. “I demand that you release my wife!”

They didn’t heed his anguished cries and marched her out the door.

He too would likely be arrested eventually, once she’d told the whole story of what had happened that day, Jaymie thought. He was at least an accessory to his wife’s attack on Jaymie, since he did nothing to help Jaymie escape. But as much as she hoped he would be arrested, she still pitied him; if he truly didn’t know his wife was a murderess, he was in for a horrible shock.

“Mr. Foster, you need to call your lawyers,” Jaymie said.

“What on earth do you mean? Why?” he asked.

She sighed in exasperation and rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on! You were there, in the room, while your wife held a gun on me. She’s a dangerous woman. Maybe you don’t realize it, but she didn’t want that letter—the Button Gwinnett letter—for you. She was going to dump you and run.” He still looked disbelieving. “She killed Trevor Standish and Ted Abernathy while trying to get that letter, so she could sell it and start a new life.”

“You, young lady, are not a nice person,” he said, his voice trembling. “And you are out of your mind. My wife would never do anything like that!” He turned his back on her and tottered toward the door.

Jaymie followed, out to the parking lot. There, held back by an officer, was Daniel. He broke free and ran to Jaymie, grabbing her in an enveloping hug. “I was so scared for you, Jaymie!” he cried. “I was on the phone with that woman, and I could hear you in the background. I knew I had to keep her talking until the police arrived.”

Her voice muffled against his chest, she said, “What are you talking about?”

He released her, but still held on to her shoulders as he gazed down at her, a foolish grin on his plain face, his eyes gleaming behind his eyeglass lenses. “Why do you think Lynn Foster suddenly had a buyer? I was scanning the Internet, trolling the forums where signer collectors gather—I was just trying to get a feel for the culture, you know, like how far these people would go to get a rare piece—and I saw what seemed like a message about the letter. I texted the person, who said they had access to a genuine, undiscovered Button Gwinnett letter. It had to be whoever was trying to steal it from your house. I mean, how many of those are there? And if they were going ahead with trying to sell it, it meant they still thought it was somewhere where they could get at it. There was a chance to lure them out into the open.”

“That was you on the phone with her?” Jaymie asked, turning to watch the police put Lynn in a squad car. She never would have thought Daniel so bold.

He nodded. “Yeah. I ran her messages through the Gender Genie, and it said that the author of the texts was a woman, so I knew it had to be Lynn Foster.”

“Gender Genie?”

“Online tool,” he answered tersely. “Since I
knew
she didn’t have the letter, that meant she was intent on doing whatever it took to get it. She was dangerous to you.”

“No kidding,” Jaymie said with feeling. She shivered, even though the sun was warm on her face. Lynn was staring out the car window at her with a look of such hatred, it was chilling. The car pulled out of the parking lot and sped away, watched by many of the folks who had been in the coffee shop during the excitement. Nathan had gone back in to the Inn, no doubt to call his lawyer, as she had suggested. Once she’d told the police everything, he might be arrested, too.

“I said I would buy the letter, sight unseen and no questions asked. I was a private collector, I said, who didn’t care about provenance. But I was publicity-shy, I told her; if anyone was hurt, or if there was a big fuss, it was a no-go.” Daniel shook his head and rubbed her shoulder. “If I’d known you’d be right there, I may not have taken a chance. I’d never forgive myself if . . . if she hurt you.”

She should have trusted him; if they had worked together, she could have avoided the whole drama. Probably. Maybe. She didn’t know; everything seemed so confused right then. There were so many
if
s in the case. Everything would have turned out differently if she hadn’t decided to investigate the Fosters’ suite: If Lynn Foster hadn’t needed to go back to her room. If Daniel hadn’t made the call to Lynn exactly when he had. It all could have turned out very badly for Jaymie. She was exhausted.

He offered her a ride to the police station, but she preferred to take her own van, even as shaky as she was. At least Daniel seemed to trust her abilities more than Joel ever had, and simply hugged her and told her to be careful. He’d be going too, to relate his own part in the deception. When he’d figured out what was going on, and that Jaymie was in trouble, he’d called the police just as she was making enough commotion to force Lyle to storm the room. It had all turned out, but it had been a close call.

She was not looking forward to explaining to the police why she was wearing a maid’s outfit and how she had ended up in the Fosters’ room, but that was not as difficult as she thought. Dee came to her rescue, joining with Lyle Stubbs to say that she was substituting for Dee, who hadn’t felt well enough to work that afternoon. It wasn’t so far-fetched that it did more than just raise an eyebrow with the cops. Jaymie knew what she was doing, after all, and had worked at the Inn a few years before. Everyone in town knew Jaymie worked odd jobs whenever she could to make a few extra dollars.

The police—Detective Tewksbury again, not Detective Christian—and a police deputy took her statement, which she kept as minimal as possible. If they searched Lynn Foster’s room, they would find both the old receipt from her Hoosier cabinet, she told them, and the mimeographed Queen Elizabeth cake recipe stolen from her bookshelf. She hoped that proved Lynn was a determined thief and would not stop there to get what she wanted.

So the next question surprised her.

“Is that why you were in her room?” the detective asked, leaning forward and peering directly into her eyes. “Did you put those items there? Were you trying to incriminate her?”