Play That Funky Music White Koi (A Lemon Layne Mystery Book 2) Page 15

  I love her, but I’ve only got two hands and she fills them both up with her antics.

  As I slowed, looking into the big picture windows of each store, my eyes widened.

  No. No way!

  Dear Universe, what up, old friend? On today of all days, when I’m on the verge of maybe finding a killer, is it really necessary to find my mother in the possible killer’s art gallery? Come on! Cut me some slack, would you?

  I pulled over to the side of the road, my hands shaking.

  But I openly talked myself down. I was not going to put myself in a position where anyone could be hurt this time around. I needed to keep a cool head. “Get a grip, Layne. No one knows what you know as of right now. Only you and Shelia know, and she’s at Gabby’s. Play this smart. Text your mother and tell her to get her keister outside now. Right now. But don’t alarm her so as to set off Rupert’s Spidey senses. And while you’re at it, call Justice again. Leave him another 9-1-1 message just in case. Better safe than sorry.”

  I sent off a text to my mother and just as quickly dialed Justice, but got his voice mail again. “Justice! You need to call me ASAP! I’m at Rupert George’s art gallery and I have some information—”

  My phone disconnected, making me almost want to lob it on the pavement and stomp on it hard. Cell phones often did that here in Fig. We have some iffy connections sometimes. Naturally, today was one of them.

  I checked my phone as I watched my mother mill about Rupert’s store, his arm around her, and then they wandered to the back of the store and disappeared.

  Now my fear ratcheted up a million notches. But I had to remain calm. Rupert didn’t know what I knew. He had no reason to hurt my mother.

  But look at me, hopping out of my car and heading inside anyway, because—my mother!

  Inhaling, I forced myself to walk—not run—into Rupert’s gallery, the bell dinging as I did. Digging into my purse, I found the deadliest thing I had in it—a nail clipper. Okay, not exactly nunchakus, but surely damage could be achieved with a good poke if need be.

  I wrapped my fingers around it and kept them there. The store was silent but for some classical music playing over the sound system, making my gulp sound like it echoed.

  Rupert poked his glossy head out of a back room and smiled his handsome smile. “Lemon! What brings you in?”

  Murder. Murdermurdermurder! I wanted to scream. Instead, I licked my lips and said, “I happened to see my mom and thought I’d pop in and see what she was up to. Had no idea she was into the arts.”

  He cocked his head as though I’d lost mine. “Your mother? I haven’t seen her. It’s just me here.”

  Moving closer to the hallway lined with as yet unhung artwork, where Rupert was positioned, I fought a rise of terror and smiled with my best impression of a teasing grin. “No, I’m positive I saw her just now. Mom? Stop playing like you’re in here looking for some art when the most expensive painting we have is the one you did in that Bob Ross class with the happy clouds.”

  Silence. Nothing but silence.

  Rupert closed a door behind him and approached me, his strides long, his smile genuine. “See? Nobody here but us starving artists. But I’m glad you dropped in. Maybe we could have a coffee later today? I thought it would be a nice send-off for me. I think I’ve managed to sell the gallery.” As he spoke the words, he put his hand under my elbow and began to usher me toward the door.

  But I stopped short. “Wow, that was quick, huh? Where are you headed?”

  He gave me his sad eyes, the ones he’d given me when we’d talked about Josiah, and shrugged his broad shoulders. “Oh, I dunno. Maybe I’ll just hop around until I find somewhere that suits me. Why don’t we talk about it when we have that coffee?”

  Uh, no. No way was he getting me out of here without my mother, and why was he hiding her anyway? What did she know that I didn’t?

  He began to encourage me forward again, but I turned to look up at him, keeping my face as passive as possible. “Do you have a bathroom I can use? I had way too much coffee this morning and now my eyeballs are floating.”

  He grinned, letting go of my arm. “Of course. Let me show you the way.”

  I followed him, the plan being to pop open that door and get my mother the frack out of here. I took my time walking across the slick black and white tile of the gallery so I could pull my phone out of my purse, only to find that Justice hadn’t called me back.

  I typed a quick 911 at the art gallery to him, because I didn’t care if I was improperly utilizing a service meant only for emergencies—this could be an emergency! Better he shows up and is disappointed than shows up and finds us dead.

  When I looked up from my phone, it was just in time for me to trip over the art Rupert had set on the floor. My big size nines plowed into the row of pictures like a bulldozer, tangling up until I knocked them all down.

  “Lemon!” Rupert yelled in distress, bending down to help me up. “Are you all right, dear?”

  But as Rupert reached for me, I froze and, dang it all, I froze before I thought about it. But the reason I did it was because, right there before me, splayed out for all the world to see, was a painting of Matthew Miles. A beautiful, colorful painting—one that looked almost identical to his picture on Thea’s Facebook page. There was no mistaking it, and Rupert knew I’d talked to Rebecca about Matthew.

  And if that wasn’t enough proof Rupert was a killer, what was?

  Aw, hell.

  In that moment, just as I was trying not to show any emotion but Rupert obviously saw my horror, my mother burst out of his office.

  “Lemonade, what the heck are you doing here? Can’t a mother buy her daughter a gift for her birthday uninterrupted? Sheesh, girl!”

  I looked up, my eyes astonished to see Mom was, in fact, unharmed. And now that meant I had to put on my acting pants and pony up.

  I rose on shaky legs, and even let Rupert steady me with a firm grip. I gave them my best hangdog face. “Aw, Mom. You don’t have to do that! You silly! Save your pension for other things. Like rock climbing or that sand art class you wanted to take. Don’t spend your money on me.”

  My mother adjusted her fanny pack and swatted my hand away—super peeved with me. “Don’t you tell me how to spend my money, Lemon! I wanted to surprise you for your birthday. I saw you all cozying up to Rupert here, so I thought it’d be a nice change of pace from a car part for Lou-Lou or ten haircuts at the Supercuts—something refined. Now look what you went and did,” she said in disgust.

  I gave her a quick squeeze, hoping she’d understand what the extra pinch to her side was about, and patted her on the back. “Well, thank you, Mom. That’s pretty darn thoughtful. But we have an emergency at the store, so this’ll have to wait—”

  But Rupert had other ideas as he took a step behind us. “Oh, Lemon. Why did it have to come to this?” he asked, sorrow lacing his tone as he gave both my mother and I a hard shove down the hallway.

  “Heeey!” Mom screeched. “What the heck do you think you’re doin’, fancy pants? Don’t go pushin’ little old ladies around—”

  “Move!” he roared, making both Mom and I beat feet.

  “Rupert,” I said, my shaking voice totally giving me away, but I pretended I didn’t know what was going on anyway—because it was worth a shot. Keeping my hand on my mom’s shoulder, I pushed her forward. “What’s going on? Is it Fran? Are you still upset about her?”

  “Oh, cut it out, Lemon. You know I don’t give a damn about Fran and her stupid friends! I hate all of them—all of them!” he shouted in my ear.

  “Why, Rupert? What’s going on?” I pressed, hoping to keep him talking so I could figure out how to stab him in the eye with my nail clippers.

  But he must’ve seen me fidgeting with my purse, because he yanked it over my head with such force, I almost fell into my mother. Worse? I dropped the nail clippers.

  “Give that to me! God, why couldn’t you just leave things alone?” he asked, kicking the
nail clippers out of reach.

  Well, hold on a second. I’d mostly left things alone. Mostly. “I…I don’t know what you mean? What do you mean?” It took all I could muster to keep my voice from rising in hysteria.

  How was I going to get us out of this?

  “You know exactly what I mean, Lemon! You saw Matthew’s painting. You know! I don’t want to do this, but I will.” He pushed us toward a door that I was almost certain led to a basement—and I sure didn’t want him to get us into the basement.

  I think we all know what happens in every B horror movie when you get to the bottom of those basement stairs.

  “Lemon? What’s going on?” my mother asked, her voice rising, too.

  When we reached the end of the hallway, Rupert yelled, “Stop right there and don’t move, or I’ll slit your throats!” He pulled a pocketknife from his trousers and flipped it open, letting it gleam in the dim hallway.

  I pushed Mom behind me, squeezing her trembling hand. Rupert was big, but I was short, and if I could catch him off guard enough, I could steamroll him, just like I’d learned on YouTube.

  I hope. I pray.

  I continued to play dumb as I hoped to stall for time. “Why are you doing this, Rupert? What does this have to do with Matthew? I don’t understand.”

  His beautiful eyes filled with tears and his shoulders shook as he waved the knife under my nose and my mother clung to my waist. “They killed Matthew, you know. They all killed him! Josiah told me the night before he died. He confessed they all had a hand in it. They killed him by not taking him to the hospital when he could have been saved!” he sobbed. “But they waited and waited, thinking those stupid herbs and that ridiculous reiki was going to heal him! They waited too long that night and his heart just gave out on him! They took the man I loved away from me, the man I kept my affair with a secret for over twenty years…but Josiah? He was the last straw! His blood is on their hands!”

  “The last straw?” I squeaked. Sure, I figured this all had to do with the hocus-pocus stuff, but Josiah? They killed him, too?

  “He listened to them,” Rupert spat, saliva frothing from his mouth. “He let them try to cure his cancer with herbs and nonsense and because he was so foolish, he waited too long to be treated with conventional methods. He had cancer, for God’s sake, and they all played doctor and he died. He. Died!”

  Rupert’s howl of anguish was almost too painful for even me, but if I let him wind up, I hoped he’d lose focus.

  And I knew now why he’d killed Abby, but I was going to ask anyway. “But why did you kill Abby?”

  He crisscrossed the knife in the air like a baton, his eyes wild, my mother’s fingers digging painfully into my side. “Because she deserved to die, and I told her so that night. I told her when we did that godforsaken ritual it was all her fault. All her fault! They listen to her as though she’s some kind of guru—like she’s a doctor! So I cut the head off the beast, isn’t that what they say to do when you want to kill the monster? She had the nerve to yell at me and tell me it was Josiah’s choice not to seek treatment, and then she ran from me, but I had a plan, Lemon. I had a plan!”

  I sucked in a shaky breath. “So you Tasered her and knocked her out then smothered her with Thea’s pillow, didn’t you? Because she took someone else away from you? Because it hurts to have someone take the person you love the most, doesn’t it?”

  He writhed on the spot, his body twisting as though he were experiencing physical pain. “Yes! Because I hate blood. And I hated killing them, but they deserved to die! They really deserved to die. They had to be stopped before someone else fell for their nonsense!”

  “But Fran, too? Explain to me why you’d kill Fran?”

  “God, she’s so nosy! She came here directly after she got off the plane and surprised me. I was just on my way to bury the damn thing at the beach…or somewhere, but she caught me with it. She found the Taser and she knew. She just knew,” he cried softly, before he caught himself and stood upright again. “She had to go, Lemon, and now, you do, too. I’m sorry I hit you. I didn’t want to. I liked you, Lemon. You understood…”

  He was beginning to wind down now, but I needed him to stay wired. He’d be less focused if he were jazzed. So I poked, and prayed that stupid message to Justice would go through.

  “You hit me? You? Do you have any idea how much that hurt? How scared I was? And what was with the cape?” I accused, feigning outrage when inside I was terrified.

  “I didn’t want to hurt you, Lemon!” he whined in a long whir of words. “I thought if I went with the vampire theme, you’d never guess it was me. But I had to get that barrette back because my fingerprints were on it. I didn’t know if I’d touched it or not. It fell out of stupid Abby’s hair when I Tasered her and she fell, and I didn’t remember it until after I came home after I… I couldn’t just leave it! I knew I had to get it back to make sure no one found it!”

  My shoulders slumped at the irony of this. Forensics had likely found hair, but I’d bet the barrette was too small to get anything more than maybe some partial prints. And I told him so, because if I was going to cash my chips in, I wanted to him to know it was unnecessary to whack me like that.

  “But the barrette was pretty small, Rupert. It’d be hard to lift a print off something like that even if you did touch it…”

  “I’m sorry!” he wailed. “I didn’t want to, but I had to protect myself and cover all my bases, Lemon! Surely you see that?”

  And as Rupert closed his eyes, his confession clearly having taken its toll, his misery streaked across his face, I decided it was now or never.

  Pressing my heel against the door behind us to give me leverage, I pushed off, head down, and rammed into Rupert with a scream so loud, I’d wager it woke someone in Montana.

  I rammed into him so hard, my hair got caught in his belt buckle, and as he doubled over and rolled, taking me with him, I screeched at the pain of a chunk of my hair ripping from my scalp. But I still managed to yell to my mother, “Run, Mom, ruuun!”

  I barely caught a glimpse of her tiny feet making their getaway before Rupert was on top of me, his chest heaving and his breathing harsh—and lo, he still had the knife.

  “Rupert, nooo!” I screamed, bucking him with the strength of my heels on the floor and my hips crashing upward.

  But he was so much stronger than I am, and as I saw the gleam of the pocketknife come at me, I grabbed for his wrist with both hands, knowing I probably couldn’t hold him off for long.

  “Why couldn’t you just stay out of this, Lemon? Why?” he sobbed, his tears splashing on my face.

  I gritted my teeth, sweat pouring down my face as I struggled with everything I had to keep that knife from landing in my head. My heart thrashed and shifted in my chest, my eyes threatened to roll to the back of my head from fear and the energy it took to keep that knife from my face, but I held him off—until there was a warrior cry from somewhere behind me in the hall, and then a crack of skull meeting something heavy.

  A spray of glass or ceramic, I’m not sure which, covered both Rupert and I, landing in my eyes and mouth. “Get off my Lemon, ya dang animal!”

  Rupert fell on top of me, lifeless, his blood dripping to my T-shirt in crimson splotches…and then Cappie’s face was there, his eyes full of terror.

  He grabbed hold of Rupert and pushed him off as I watched the muscle and tendons beneath his brown, weathered skin ripple and flex with the act. Grunting, he pushed Rupert away from me, leaving him slumped in a pile of limbs.

  “Gimme your hand, Lemon!” he yelled down at me, hauling me up and righting me. “Hurry! Let’s get on outta here!”

  I latched onto his hand as he pulled me and began to run, his bare feet clapping on the tile floor, my legs like butter. Gosh, that run felt like a hundred miles long, when in actuality it couldn’t have been more than a few feet until we almost reached the door.

  And then I heard, “You have to diiiie!”

  Seconds before
I heard Justice yell, “Get down, Lemon! Cappie, get down!”

  Cappie, my crazy conspiracy theorist, survivalist extraordinaire, literally hurled me out the gallery door and to the ground. He dropped down on top of me, covering me with his body until I heard a shot fired—and then it was as if the entire world had gone silent.

  Trying to catch my breath, afraid to look past Cappie’s thin shoulder, I did something so lame, I wanted to kick myself afterward. I began to cry.

  I mean, seriously sob, like someone had stolen my car tools. Maybe it was the adrenalin; maybe it was the fear of that knife viciously pointed at my head. Maybe it was the terror of my mother being hurt, but I cried for all I was worth.

  And Cappie scooped me up in his lean arms and rocked me. “It’s okay, Lemon-Lime. I gotcha. It’s okay now.”

  * * * *

  I’m not sure how long we sat there as Cappie comforted me, but I remember my mother hovering over us, tears flowing down her rouged cheeks, her hands shaking. I remember feeling horrible that she’d ended up caught in the middle of that mess. I remember thinking, who knew Cappie had that kind of loyalty in him, and thank every single person responsible for the universe that he did.

  But what I really remember is Justice helping us both up, then pulling me into his arms and hugging me so hard, I didn’t think I’d ever breathe right again. I remember Coco peeling him off me and leading me to the ambulance, where she claimed I needed to have my hand looked at by one of the paramedics.

  She sat me on the edge of the open ambulance and squeezed me tight, yet her voice was strangely calm when she said, “Lemon Layne, you’ll be the death of me. Thank God you’re okay. Tell me you’re okay. Say it so I can hear it.”

  “I’m okay,” I said, my response muffled against her shoulder.

  She set me from her and smiled, her sparkling blue eyes wet from tears. “What happened? What the frack happened?”

  Then my mother was there. Now, normally, she’s not a worrier. She wasn’t one to hover or cling to me unless she was really frightened, but she yanked me into her arms so hard, my bones rattled. “Next time gimme a sign, would ya? How was I supposed to know he was a murderer?”