A Geek Girl's Guide to Arsenic (23 page)

“I’m coming.” His voice came in sharp jolts. “I’m leaving the detail with your family. I’m running to you. How the hell did I miss you leaving the house?”

“I took a shortcut. I skipped the roads and used the grass and footpaths.” I’d missed him. If I would’ve stuck to the roads, I would’ve seen him. “The grass was faster!”

“Dammit, Mia! Get in the car and lock the doors until I get there. If you can get behind the wheel, come pick me up!”

I flailed as the multiple mental demands temporarily confused my limbs.
Get inside.
Lock the door.
The killer is here.
I double-checked the driver’s door. Locked. Panic shot through me. “I can’t shut the other door. The passenger’s half on the sidewalk.”

“Push him out.”

I turned in the small space, climbing partially into the driver’s lap and braced my feet against the passenger’s. “He won’t budge. I’ve got to get out and pull him.”

“Do not get out.”

“What else can I do? Hide in the backseat?” I climbed across the passenger’s lap and onto the sidewalk, cell phone clenched between my ear and shoulder. I grabbed his hands and tugged, more carefully now, with a visual reminder he was nearly standing on his head. One shoulder held most of his weight. The slight rise and fall of his chest reassured me. “Come on, buddy. I need your seat.” I turned him onto his back and dug my heels into the concrete to drag him from the car.

Footfalls echoed in the distance at a pace I couldn’t imagine keeping. Jake was almost here.

“Mia!” His powerful voice echoed through the night, a barely audible life raft.

“I’m here. I’m at the car.” My voice wasn’t as big as his, but surely he heard me through the phone. I disconnected and wrenched my stiff neck upright. I shoved my phone into my pocket and gave another heave. The passenger slid free, and his bottom hit the curb. “Hallelujah.” One more tug, to extract his legs from inside, and I’d lock myself in. I’d call an ambulance for good measure. Jake might have, but it couldn’t hurt. Maybe he’d be here by then.

“Need some help with that?” a whiny voice erupted behind my ear. Sugar-sweet breath fluttered the hair at my neck, and cool round metal something pressed my spine. My tummy collapsed. I knew that voice, and he wasn’t a mobster.

I released the poisoned man and turned slowly toward my assailant, Adam, clenching angry fists at my sides. “You’re a real Renaissance man.”

“True.” He pointed the gun over the car’s roof at Jake chewing up the distance, running at full speed in our direction. He turned the gun on me. Pressed the cold metal barrel to my temple and tugged my back against his chest. “If you make a sound, I’ll shoot your boyfriend. Nod if you understand.”

I bit the thick of my lip until I tasted blood. I forced one sharp dip of my chin in acceptance. The gun might be another paintball gun. Another ruse. It might also be real. Who was I to wager Jake’s life after all he’d done to protect mine?

“Good girl.” Adam dug hot fingers into my hair and pulled me into the shadows.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

I awoke surrounded by red lampshades and props from the cabaret. My head ached as if it had been split like a melon. I rolled onto my side and pushed into a seated position to get my bearings. Soft minstrel music floated through the brothel. I steadied my head and wobbled onto my feet.
How did I get here?

“Hello, gorgeous.” Adam strolled into the room, and the memory of him pointing a gun at Jake struck me back a step. “I wanted to wake you, but I know how you women like your beauty sleep. Not that you need it. You’re perfect.” He leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb, gun in hand. “How are you feeling?” He moved into my personal space and trailed a finger along my cheekbone. “All better?”

“No. My head hurts. I’m angry. How did I get here? Why were you at Horseshoe Falls?”

“Your sister invited me. I was her special guest. I’d originally hoped to win Bree’s heart, but she’s married and inflexible on the subject of fidelity, I suspect. I’m sorry if that hurts you to hear.”

He pushed me onto a padded bench and sat beside me. “It must be difficult living in her shadow. I can’t stand to think of it. In fact, when she pointed you out last fall, I was shocked. How could there be two of her when she’s so fantastic? But here you are. You’re thinner. More complicated, but I enjoy a challenge. When she said you were single, I realized fate had another plan for me. I didn’t need to eliminate Tom. I was drawn in by Bree as an hors d’oeuvre. A little temptation to whet my palate, but she wasn’t the one meant for me.” He smiled gently. “You’re the true main course. If that isn’t proof enough of our destiny, I don’t know what is. It’s like the gods looked down and said, ‘Hey, we want you to be happy, so we made another one. Here she is.’”

“I don’t date.” I did, however, let my stupid self be abducted by an oversized Chucky doll.

His smile faded. “You’re stubborn. Resistant. It’ll pass.”

“My friend just died.” I blinked through the haze. At least he didn’t have the gun pointed at me. As long as he was talking, there was hope. Strangely, I felt ten times angrier than he looked. He seemed eerily at ease. Delusional? That was bad. I tried recollecting something from school about stalkers, but my mind squirmed away, distracted by the fierce throbbing of my head, which was growing audible. I touched my neck and scalp with tender fingers. “Did you hit me?”

“You wouldn’t get in the trunk.”

I rolled my eyes and winced. He needed a distraction. “Can I have something for the pain? Some water? A bandage?”

Shock blanked his face. “Oh. Yes, of course. I’m sorry. That was rude of me.” He bustled around the little room, collecting items in the pockets of his smoking jacket, and slid back onto his seat. “Here. Everything you asked for. I can get anything you need.”

How about the police?

I accepted the bottled water but refused the pills. Ingesting anything from him was out of the question. He’d already gotten the upper hand on me once. Water loosened the thickness in my throat.
Keep him talking
. All the websites I’d read last summer on abductions flooded back. I’d obsessed for weeks over what I could’ve done better. Different.
Keep him talking.
“How’d you learn to use belladonna so efficiently? You managed to kill John and the apothecary, but only made Bree and Tom sick. That must take skill. A command of the plant.” Hopefully, he didn’t say he practiced.

“Trial and error. I used to be bullied.” He scraped a hand through wild curly hair and rubbed his freckled nose. “Kids can be mean.”

“Did you kill John because he bullied you?” I squeezed my eyes shut and peeled them open again. Nope. Still blurry. I needed an admission of guilt. Something to make sure I was his last prey.

Anger mauled his childlike face. “I’m not a child anymore, Mia. I killed John because he stopped paying.”

His anger sprang memories of my previous abduction into mind, etching away my confidence. I needed to watch my mouth. A killer is a killer no matter how different their motivations. I wasn’t sure yet if Adam’s fixation on me would be my demise or saving grace. With a little luck and fast talk, I had a chance. Unfortunately, my luck wasn’t great and my fast talk was mostly babble. Worse: Adam leaned toward the paranoid side of nuts. He’d see all my moves coming. I had to outsmart him with my brain scrambled.

“Take the pills.” He lifted them to my mouth.

“No, thank you.” I pressed my lips tight and forced a small smile.

“You don’t trust me.” His hard eyes narrowed. “Didn’t I tell you we were fated? Take the pills. They’ll help your head.”

I contemplated my options. Pretend to pass out? That wouldn’t help. Make a run for it? He’d catch me. I squinted against another bout of searing pain. “I think you gave me a concussion.” Sweat slicked my hands and I ran them over my jeans, discreetly dragging my thumb across one pocket. My cell phone had saved my life the last time. The hard form of my phone was missing.

Adam growled like a furious kitten. With a gun. “I know what you’re doing. Do you think I’m an idiot? Of course I took your cell phone.” His voice hitched. “Do I look like an amateur to you? Like a joke? Like a clown who’d steal you away only to leave you with a lifeline?”

“No. I wasn’t. I didn’t.”

“Don’t lie!” He hopped onto little feet and paced, rubbing the back of his neck. “We’re getting off on the wrong foot. Maybe we should kiss.”

“What?”

“Or I could hold you. I want you to feel safe. I don’t think you see the chemistry we have here or the full picture of what I have to offer you. You’re too distracted with worry. There’s nothing to worry about. I brought you here to fill you in on the escape plan. We’re partners now. I’m no chauvinist. I’m a feminist. Like you.”

“Escape?” That was the best thing I’d heard all night. “Tell me about the escape.”

“If we’re going to be together, we need a plan. I want you involved in the process. That’s what couples do, right? Make plans.”

“What?” I’d said it before, but either my concussion was worse than I thought or he was farther down the rabbit hole than I realized.

He rubbed the gun against the side of his head. “Why do you think I needed the money? You can’t be the breadwinner. That’s my job. Bree told me you own half your company, which makes you rich. I’m a CPA, and not a great one. The economy’s rough.”

“She told you I own the company?”

“Half the company. She told me everything about you. As much as I was drawn to her, she only wanted to talk about you. Turns out, you and I have a lot in common. We love the Faire. We love food and history and soon, you’ll see we love each other.”

I did a long blink. My questions were finally being answered, but at a faster rate than my aching brain could process. “You’ve been stalking us since last year?”

“Yes.” He beamed. “I watch. I don’t stalk. Bree and I are friends, but I keep track of you both. It’s harmless and very responsible, if you think about it. You should know who you’re dating before things go too far. I’ve spent the last few months getting my finances in order so I could officially ask you out. I’m a bit of a risk taker, and I didn’t think you’d approve. Women who run companies don’t take financial risks. It’s a bad habit. What can I say? I don’t have many, but everyone has something to improve upon, I suppose. You wouldn’t have liked my account balance, so I placed some bets to double my money.” He whistled long and loud, smiling ear to ear. “You should’ve seen the cash I threw down. The whales at the tables were shocked.”

“You’re a gambler?” I sorted through a multitude of blooming questions, mentally separating his crazy from the useful information. “John was broke. Was he a gambler, too? Did you say he stopped paying you? Did you kill him over a bet?”

Adam leaned forward at the waist and patted my throbbing head. He took my hand in his and resumed his seat at my side. “No, honey. He wasn’t a gambler. He’s broke because Duff can’t play cards or hold liquor.”

“The florist?” What did he have to do with this?

“You see, while I beat the coins out of him at Texas Hold’em, I noticed a familiar face in the paper.”

“Duff had a New Jersey paper.”

“That’s right. There was a little picture of John in the bottom corner, only his name was different, and it said he was a known mob associate. His story didn’t make it above the fold, but that was better for me. Duff didn’t notice him. He’s not real bright and he was easy enough to frame, but you wouldn’t take the bait.”

“The poison plants, flower threats...papyrus! That was all you, trying to frame Duff?”

“All me. I took his paper home with my winnings and did a little research. Seemed like a guy who painted for the mob should have had a lot of money. Plenty to spare, if you know what I mean, so I sent him some notes.”

“Requesting blackmail money to fund my kidnapping.”

“He had money. We needed money. He earned it by breaking the law. It only seemed fair he split it with us or we’d turn him in.”

“Stop saying
we
.” Emotion clogged my throat. “John didn’t have any money. He was in federal protection, you moron. The government seized his assets. He didn’t have anything. Not even his own place. He was watched all the time by marshals and mobsters.” The reality of how awful John’s life had become slapped me in the face. No wonder he was such a flirt. What else did he have outside the Faire?

Adam stilled. “I didn’t know that.”

“You blackmailed him.” Anger boiled in my veins. “Who did you say you’d turn him over to? The mob? To the local news?” A moment of clarity pulled the final clues together. “When he’d depleted his accounts and refused to pay any more, you sent threats with flowers.”

“I wanted to encourage him to part with his money. I thought he was stalling. That he had more and was being stingy.”

“That’s not a reason to blackmail someone.” My voice crept up a decibel, and I grabbed my head. “Why’d you kill him? If you thought he had more money, why not press harder? He can’t pay if he’s dead. Why not move on and find someone else to pinch? Anything besides murder.” This was why his partner had money and John didn’t. The business was thriving, but all John’s money had gone to Adam’s escape fund, i.e. abduction plan. A plan where I was unbelievably at the center.

Adam lifted his brows and a look of remorse settled over him. “He wised up. Figured out who I was. Confronted me. He threatened to turn me in unless I gave the money back, so I promised I would. He said he’d keep my secret if I kept his and we’d be square.”

“You lied.”

“Well, yeah. It wasn’t like I could trust him. He worked for Bennie the Bean once.”

I inched away from him under the guise of consideration. I rubbed my chest and put on my best thinking face. I gauged the distance to the door and took physical inventory. If I got a head start, I could beat him outside, but I couldn’t run long with my head throbbing and my vision blurring. It was dark, but he knew the grounds as well as I did. If I could break free and hide long enough to formulate another plan, I had a chance.

“Are you angry?” he asked. “Can you forgive me? I did it for us.”

“You killed him. Not just him, the apothecary, too.”

“She wouldn’t let it go. She kept nosing and digging.” He turned a pointed stare on me. His moppy hair fell against his forehead, and he slicked it behind his giant Opie ears. “I tried to warn her.”

“With more flowers. I saw them. You poisoned Tom and Bree. You threatened Gwen.”

“I would never hurt them. It was just a game. A little belladonna can be beneficial when administered properly.”

I doubted that.

He sauntered my way, erasing the small advantage of proximity to freedom I had on him. He rubbed my shoulder, dusting hair away from my neck. “They had food poisoning. No big deal. I would never hurt a baby. That was a joke.”

“It wasn’t funny. It scared me, but that was what you wanted, wasn’t it? You wanted to scare me. That’s why you shot me with paintballs, not bullets.”

He smirked and wiggled the shiny black handgun. “Paintballs. I would never shoot you with bullets. I love you.”

We exchanged a long look. He’d slipped, and he knew it. Paintballs. The gun in his hand might hurt like hell when fired, and give a serious concussion when used as a hammer, but it couldn’t kill me.

I slung an arm over his neck and yanked him onto the floor. The gun clattered across polished wooden planks. I bolted into the night.

Darkness enveloped me immediately, and I squinted, begging my eyes to adjust. I ran left out of the brothel. Most people instinctively go right. Hopefully, he thought like most people, at least in this aspect. The world shimmied, and I ducked behind a wide oak to vomit. I wiped my mouth on one sleeve and reoriented myself. Long shadows crept over the grass, thrown from a full moon above the treetops. Sounds were multiplied in my head by fear and pain. Squirrels in trees. Distant traffic. A rattling trash bin. I pressed the heels of my hands to my temples and suppressed a cry. I needed a hospital. I doubted medical care was on Adam’s list of approved stops for our escape.

I scanned the area for signs of a five-foot loon. The world was still.

I needed to reach the security office. There’d be phones there, but that was behind me. Beyond the brothel. I’d have to double back. Why didn’t I think of that first?

A broad beam of light bounced over the grass near my feet. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.” Adam’s singsong voice soured my stomach.

More games.

I’d run, and it was exactly what he wanted.

“Mi-a.” He dragged my name into two long syllables. “Isn’t this fun? Think of all the fun we’ll have together in Mexico. I have enough to get us across the border and into a nice little house, a
poco hacienda
, in a town where we’ll be treated like king and queen.”

I scurried on my backside around the tree, keeping my feet away from the beam of light. A little house in Spanish was a
casita
. He was such an idiot. I hated him. So much.

“You’ve always wanted to be queen, right? That’s why you play Guinevere here and at the Ren Faire. I’ve seen you in action. You’re glorious. Magnanimous.” A kiss smacked the air. “Perfection.” His voice carried from the other side of the tree.