Red Velvet Cupcake Murder (26 page)

“Okay,” Hannah said, already going through the possibilities. “Tell Barbara thank you. And please call me if she thinks of anything else.”

“I’m only here for another ten minutes or so. Then another nurse comes on.”

“Okay. Ask Barbara to call me if she thinks of anything else. Write down my cell phone number for her before you leave.”

“All right, but I’m not sure. . . .”

Jenny’s voice trailed off and Hannah knew she didn’t want to express any doubts about Barbara’s ability to call while Barbara was listening to their conversation. “I understand,” Hannah said, “but it’s worth a shot. She called me before and she might be able to call me again.”

“I’ll give Barbara your cell phone number before I leave,” Jenny promised. “Have a good night, Hannah.”

“I will if Andrea ever comes back here,” Hannah said, watching as rain began to pepper the penthouse windows.

“Where are you?”

“At the penthouse in the hotel.”

“The penthouse? What are you doing up there?”

“Andrea and I needed to check something out, but she got called away.”

“You must be investigating.”

“You’re right, but it didn’t work out the way I hoped. Have a nice night, Jenny. I’ll talk to you soon. And don’t forget to give Barbara my number.”

As Hannah hung up, another flash of lightning streaked across the sky. Almost immediately, rain began to hit the windows, harder and harder until it formed sheets of water. The lights flickered again, and Hannah fervently wished that Andrea would hurry so that she could go home to her familiar condo and Moishe. And just as she wished it, the lights flickered one more time and went out.

“Oh, great!” Hannah groaned, hoping against hope that the emergency generator would kick in. She waited a full minute, but nothing happened. It was apparent that the new generator in the bowels of the basement wasn’t yet operational.

Hannah stuffed her cell phone into the pocket of her summer-weight jacket and sat down on one of the expensive leather couches that Doctor Bev and Roger had ordered. The power was out and there was nothing to do but watch the summer storm rage outside the windows.

Think about something else
, her mind told her and Hannah did. She thought about Barbara’s father, underground in a cave or cavern, surrounded by rabbits. Andrea had mentioned something about rabbits when she was describing the basement. Accompanied by the booming of thunder, the startling flashes of lightning, and the drumming of rain against the windows, Hannah thought back to what her sister had said.
Every time you come around a corner, you expect to see a mole, or a rabbit, or a groundhog
.

Hannah let her mind roam freely.
Hallways like narrow tunnels. Interconnected. Moles. Groundhogs. Rabbits.
Barbara had said that her father was surrounded by rabbits in a . . .

“Warren!” Hannah shouted, startling herself. “It was a rabbit warren! Her father’s name is Warren!”

How many men named Warren did she know? Hannah thought about that for a moment. There was Warren Strand-berg, the minister of the Bible Church in Lake Eden, but he’d only been here for ten years or so. She wasn’t sure where he’d lived before he came to Lake Eden, but unless he was from one of the neighboring towns, it was unlikely that he could be Barbara’s father.

There was Warren Frank, the son of the man who owned the bait shop at Eden Lake. He was in his mid-thirties and couldn’t possibly be Barbara’s father.

Warren Drevlow was a possibility. He was the right age. But Hannah wasn’t sure how long he’d been in . . .

Her cell phone rang, interrupting her train of thought. She retrieved it and answered, “Hello?”

“Hannah! It’s Barbara!”

“Hi, Barbara.” Hannah was pleasantly surprised. Barbara had managed to punch in the correct numbers for her cell phone. “Is Jenny still there?”

“No, she left. I’m all alone and my brother tried to kill me again!”

“What?!”

“You’ve got to believe me, Hannah. This time I’ve got proof. He put something in my bag.”

“Your bag,” Hannah repeated and then she gasped. “Do you mean your IV drip bag?”

“That’s right, but don’t worry. I pretended I was sleeping and I had my arms under the sheet. The minute he touched the bag I pinched off the tube.”

“That was quick thinking!”

“Thank you. I knew what he was going to do because he said,
Say goodbye, Sis. Now I’ll be rid of you for good
. And then he put something in the bag. And then, when he left, I pulled out the needle.”

Hannah swallowed hard. What she’d just heard was truly frightening. “Ring for the nurse, Barbara. And if there’s an emergency button, hit it! Don’t let anyone hook you back up to that IV drip.”

“Don’t worry. I won’t. And I won’t let them throw out the bag, either. I want Doc to test it to see what my monster brother put in there.”

“That’s smart, Barbara.” Hannah was impressed with Barbara’s presence of mind. “Did you see your brother’s face? Can you describe it for me?”

“I can’t describe him, Hannah. I only had my eyes open a tiny bit. And I can’t remember his name, but I remembered my silly picture for him.”

“What is it?” Hannah asked, feeling her heart begin to race in excitement.

“He’s standing at home plate with a bat. He’s in the World Series and he’s wearing a blue and white uniform. I know it’s a silly rhyme, but I can’t remember the names of the teams.”

Hannah thought fast. It had to be a pro team that wore blue and white uniforms. “The Toronto Blue Jays.”

There was a pause while Barbara considered it. “No, not them.”

“How about the Kansas City Royals?”

“No. I don’t think that’s it, either.”

“I wish I could think of more teams, but . . . wait! How about the Dodgers?”

“That’s it. He’s
Roger
the
Dodger
. Do you believe me, Hannah?”

All the pieces of information in her head rose up into a whirlwind and snapped into place. Barbara was Warren Dalworth’s daughter. And Roger was her half-brother. And unless she was way off base, Warren had called in a lawyer to change his will to include Barbara. He’d done the decent thing by telling Roger about it and Roger had decided to kill his half-sister so that he could have Dalworth Enterprises and its millions all to himself.

“Do you believe me?” Barbara asked again.

“Yes, I believe you,” Hannah told her. “I know you’re right, Barbara.”

“Then you have to believe this. I think Roger was standing outside my room when Jenny called you and told you about the rabbits. And he knows where you are because he must have heard Jenny ask you if you were in the penthouse investigating. You have to get out of there, Hannah! I think he’s going to come looking for you next!”

“Barbara. Listen to me!” Hannah went into near-panic mode. “Ring for the nurse, hit the emergency button, and then call Mike at the sheriff’s station. Tell him I’m up in the penthouse and Roger is coming here to kill me like he killed Doctor Bev. I’ll give you the number of the sheriff’s station. It’s . . .”

“Stop,” Barbara interrupted. “I worked there almost all of my life, Hannah. I know the number. I’ll call Mike’s cell, too. Just get out of the penthouse. And if you can’t get out fast enough, find a good place to hide until Mike gets there.”

H
annah grabbed her purse and slung it over her shoulder. Then she punched in Andrea’s number on her cell phone. “Andrea?” she said when her sister answered. “Don’t come back to the penthouse. Roger killed Doctor Bev and he just tried to kill Barbara again. Call Mike and tell him to hurry. Roger could be here any minute.”

“Roger’s there, Hannah. I’m just driving past the garage and his car’s parked in the penthouse section.”

“Is he still in his car?”

“No. Get out of there, Hannah! Hurry! I’ll call Mike!”

There was a click and Andrea was gone. As she slipped her cell phone back into her pocket, Hannah had the feeling of being abandoned, of losing her sole connection to normal life. Somehow she managed to shake off the feeling. It could stop her from thinking clearly and she needed to keep her wits about her.

Leave now
, every instinct told her
. You can get down to the second floor before he can get up here. Leave your purse here so he thinks you’re hiding here. Make him take the time to look for you up here. That’ll give you time to go the rest of the way down to street level. And once you’re there, you can run for your life
.

Acting almost instantaneously, Hannah tossed her purse on a chair and made a beeline for the stairwell door. She was halfway down to the landing when she realized that she didn’t have the key to open the door to the second floor. There was nowhere to go but back up.

She turned, grabbed the rail and hurried up. She was on the second step from the top when she heard the door at the bottom of the stairwell bang open.

Heavy footfalls began to ascend the stairs, but Hannah didn’t stick around to see if it was Roger. She took the final two steps at a leap and went through the door to the penthouse, slamming the deadbolt home behind her. It wouldn’t stop him for long, but it could buy her time enough to find a good hiding place.

A second later, she’d retrieved her purse from the chair and was hurrying to a second staircase, this one leading to the penthouse garden. With energy born of fear, she climbed those stairs faster than she’d ever climbed stairs before, and she emerged under the see-through dome at a run.

Where should she hide? Hannah hesitated for a split second before her mind provided the answer. She’d hide where he’d never expect her to hide,
outside
the dome in the rain.

The moment she thought of it, Hannah raced across the expanse of the rooftop garden and picked up the remote that controlled the window-washing safety cage. She aimed the remote at the area Andrea had shown her and pressed the button. Slowly, much too slowly to suit Hannah, the cage came out of its sheltered dock and began to move toward the hinged window.

For someone who didn’t enjoy heights, thinking about swaying out there in the wind and the rain wasn’t pleasant. As a matter of fact, it was downright terrifying. She reminded herself that getting killed by the man who’d murdered Doctor Bev and had tried to kill Barbara twice was even more terrifying. Given the choice, she would much prefer braving the elements at a dizzying height, even in a thunderstorm.

At last, after seeming to take forever, the cage reached the entrance point. Hannah shut off the remote, opened the hinged window panel and sent up a quick prayer for Mike to hurry as she stepped into the cage. As she closed the hinged panel behind her, a bolt of lightning so bright it almost blinded her zigzagged down from the sky to the earth. It was followed by a clap of thunder so loud it shook the cage.

Hannah blinked several times and shielded her eyes from the pouring rain so that she could see the internal controls. They were clearly marked with arrows that she could see, even in the rain. All she had to do was push the control left to go left, return it to the center to stop, and right to go right. As she set the cage into motion, she noticed that there was a large red button marked
Emergency Stop
. She didn’t really want to consider what type of situation would necessitate an emergency stop, at least not right now. Roger could come through the stairwell door any moment and the cage seemed to take forever to reach its docking point.

The wind whipped her hair against her eyes and Hannah used the sleeve of her jacket to wipe them again. Another bolt of lightning sliced across the sky and again, it was almost immediately followed by a deafening clap of thunder. If the lightning kept flashing and Roger reached the rooftop garden before the cage docked, he’d see her!

Hannah dropped to the floor of the cage and huddled in a corner, trying to shield herself from the elements. Of course that didn’t do much good. The cage was formed of heavy metal mesh and the rain came through from what seemed to be every direction. She shielded the top of her head from the rain with a rag that someone had left on the cage floor. It smelled vaguely of some acidic substance, probably ammonia, and as the lightning flashed again, Hannah noticed a squirt bottle of eco-friendly window washing fluid in a pouch attached to the side of the cage.

Time seemed to slow and almost stop as the cage journeyed slowly toward its enclosure. She huddled there, wet and shivering, hoping that the cage would dock before Roger realized that she must be up here. She was only inches from safety when the door to the stairwell burst open and Roger ran through. She caught one glimpse of his enraged and desperate face as the cage disappeared behind the wall and slid into its dock.

“Hurry, Mike!” Hannah whispered as she reached down to retrieve her purse to search the contents for any type of weapon. Unless several ballpoint pens and an old stick of soothing balm for chapped lips could somehow aid in her defense, she was out of luck. There was something else on the floor and Hannah picked it up. It was the remote. She’d taken it with her. Would Roger notice that it was missing from the pocket on the wall? Should she have returned it to the pocket before she’d climbed into the safety cage? Hannah thought about that for a moment and decided that it was six of one, half-dozen of the other. If she’d returned the remote to the pocket, it wouldn’t be missing, but Roger could use the electronic device to activate the mechanism and bring her place of hiding back to him as smoothly as a metal duck gliding by in a shooting gallery.

Hannah wasn’t sure which was worse, hiding out of sight and not being able to watch what was happening, or being able to see Roger search for her. The tension of waiting in the dark in the small enclosure was so high it was physically painful. Her breath caught in her throat and she thought she’d never be able to breathe again. And then, right when she was beginning to panic, her body forced her to take the next shuddering, gasping breath to start the cycle all over again. Every muscle in her body cramped, leaving her in agony and unable to do more than shake from the cold and her fear. And then she heard it. The access pane, the one she’d shut so carefully after she’d stepped into the cage, crashed open and Roger’s voice boomed over the noise of the thunder, and the wind, and the rain.

“I know where you are, Hannah. Come back!”

Not on a bet!
Hannah’s mind answered, but she said nothing. Instead she waited, her finger poised over the emergency stop button. If Roger had another remote and he tried to bring the cage back to him, she’d hit the button and hope that it would override any other commands.

Nothing, absolutely nothing happened. Long moments passed as Hannah waited in fear and in dread. Roger was completely insane if he thought she might move the cage to the entrance point simply because he’d asked her to do it. Or was this some type of trick? Was he lulling her into a false sense of security so that he could get to her another way?

“Come to me, Hannah!” Roger called out again. “Come to me, or I’ll come to get you. And it’ll be much worse for you if I have to do that!”

Hannah ignored the implication. If she moved the cage to him, he’d kill her. That was a foregone conclusion. He wanted her to think that he could come to the docking station to get her, but he couldn’t. There was no way he could come to get her unless he stepped out onto the track outside of the dome and inched his way around to the docking station. Surely he wouldn’t do that . . . would he? Was he crazy and desperate enough to do that?

Delay
, her mind said and she agreed. She was almost positive that Barbara would call Mike. And she knew that Andrea would. Help could be here any moment and all she had to do was keep Roger talking until they came to arrest him.

It was counterintuitive to get closer to the man who wanted to kill her, but Hannah did it anyway. She was almost certain he didn’t have a gun or he would have leaned out the window to shoot her by now. It was hand-to-hand and Roger was strong. He would win, but she wouldn’t let him get that close. She had no intention of bringing the cage close enough to the opening so that he could grab her. Or stab her. Or bludgeon her. Or whatever. She would stay at more than arm’s length away at all times. And she would keep him talking until help came through the door.

“Okay,” she called out in a voice so steady that it surprised her. “I’m coming. Just tell me why you tried to kill Barbara.”

There was a loud rumble of thunder and then he answered. “The first time? Or the time I actually killed her?” he asked.

And then he gave a laugh that chilled Hannah to the bone. It was clear that Roger had slipped over the edge. He was crazed, insane, homicidal, dangerous, maniacal, psychotic . . . but she didn’t have time to think of all the words that applied to Roger now. She had to keep him talking until Mike arrived.

“I want to know about the first time,” Hannah yelled out between claps of thunder. “How did you get her up here alone?”

“That was easy. She was already here. I just moved a barricade and told her that since she was with me, she was perfectly safe and I’d show her the view.”

Hannah waited until the rumble of thunder had faded away. “The view of her house?”

“Of course.”

“But why did you try to kill her?”

“I’m surprised you haven’t figured it out by now, Hannah. Everyone says you’re smart. It’s because she’s my half-sister and she was going to get part of my inheritance. I couldn’t let that happen.”

“So you attacked her?”

“Yes, with a hammer. Move closer, Hannah,” Roger said, noticing that she’d stopped the forward motion of the cage. “You’re delaying.”

“It’s just because I want the whole story. Did your father actually write a will that gave Barbara half?”

“Of course not. He gave her a fourth. He knew how hard I’d been working for him and he knew I deserved the lion’s share.”

“Of course you did,” Hannah appeased him. “But why kill Barbara when you got so much more than she did?”

“Because she didn’t deserve anything!” Roger howled above the sound of the wind and the rain. “She’d done nothing! I gave my life for Dalworth Enterprises!”

“Really?” Hannah asked, knowing full-well she had nothing to lose. “I thought you made a good living from your father’s corporation.”

“Oh, I did, but not good enough. I’m worth much more. I’m worth more than a hundred percent and Barbara was cutting into my share.”

“I see,” Hannah said, hoping that the door would crash open and Mike would arrive.

“Come closer, Hannah. And then I’ll tell you more. I know you want to know everything.”

“I do want to know,” Hannah said, sliding the control knob to forward. The cage moved slowly a few feet toward Roger and then she stopped it. “Why did you need so much money?”

“Because I had debts! It’s not easy running Dalworth Enterprises. You have to pay off everybody to get the permits you need. My father never understood that, so I had to play some games with the books. Everybody does it. And then there were expenses. You have to look like you have money when you’re playing with the big boys.”

He cooked the books
, Hannah’s mind said,
and I’ll bet most of those mythical payoffs were for him
. But Hannah didn’t say that. Instead, she tried to sound very sympathetic. “I understand,” she said.

“Good.” Roger sounded pleased that she understood. “Come here, Hannah. I don’t think there’s anything more you need to know.”

“Oh, but there is!” Hannah said, moving another foot or two closer. “I have to know why you killed Doctor Bev.”

“She was a leech! And she was a cheat! She was blackmailing me once she found out I tried to kill Barbara. She came up in the elevator and she saw me hit Barbara. And then she saw Barbara jump off the roof.”

Suddenly the fact that Lisa had heard the penthouse elevator squeal shortly before Barbara jumped made sense. Doctor Bev had gone up there. She’d sent Barbara’s button to Hannah as insurance, intending to explain it if Roger failed to give her what she wanted. But Roger had killed her before she could explain and Hannah had been left with a mystery.

“She was smarter than you are,” Roger said. “She figured it all out and she demanded millions from me.”

“And of course you didn’t want to give her those millions.”

“Why would I? I could have anyone I wanted, not a run-down forty-year-old broad who thought she was hot stuff.”

Hannah felt a moment’s pity for Doctor Bev. She’d picked the wrong guy. “But you lost your Maserati when you killed her.”

“It was insured and there’s plenty more where that came from. And now I’m tired of talking. You’ve got time for one more question before I come out there and haul you in.”

“Where did you get the tranquilizers you used to kill Doctor Bev?”

Roger laughed so loud that it boomed in her ears almost louder than the thunder that was rumbling overhead. “I know where to go and I’ve got connections. I can get anything for a price. Are you going to come closer, Hannah? Or do I have to come out there and kill you?”

“You have to come out here,” Hannah said, sounding a lot more confident than she felt. Where was Mike? Where was Bill? Where were Lonnie and Rick? Had she been left to deal with a homicidal maniac all by herself?!