Marshmallow Creme Killer: Book 7 in The INNcredibly Sweet Series Read online

  “How?” he managed to ask, his teeth clenched.

  “He put the gun to your temple, I shot him, his finger twitched reflexively on his way down, and his shot grazed your scalp. You lost some hair, got some stitches, and you’ll only be slightly uglier for the experience,” Steve commented dryly.

  “What about the Estate?”

  “My guys are there now, working with your guys…you’re welcome.”

  “Why would you send your guys in?”

  “Because my friend, I now have what is referred to as a bargaining chip…you. I’ve been trailing Spencer for months because Command has a mission for him, and I figured that he’d react a bit more favorably if I saw to it that his beloved Chalmers was taken care of.”

  “What’s the mission?”

  “That’s classified. Sorry, I could tell you, but I’d have to shoot you, and that would be bad form after just having saved your life,” Steve’s smile was an ugly, malignant thing.

  “He can’t go,” Janssen growled.

  “He doesn’t have a choice. He’s being called to action, and he’s not going to be given the option to refuse. You’re here, which eventually means that he’ll find you, then I’ll have you both.”

  “Just take me, man. Leave him alone. He’s got family…he actually was able to make it in the outside world, don’t screw that up for him,” the scarred Marine said quietly. “Whatever it is, I’ll do it. Leave him alone.”

  “Well, that’s all very sweet and noble of you, honeybunches, but it doesn’t work that way and you know it,” Steve sneered.

  Just then the door burst open and Spencer charged into the room. “What did you do to him?” he demanded, seeing the bandages on Janssen’s head.

  Steve laughed, looking like the cat who ate the canary. “Well, well, well, here’s our hero now,” he drawled.

  Janssen closed his eyes and sighed, realizing that he’d been the bait that his former boss had used to trap Spencer.

  CHAPTER 24

  “So, she died weeks ago, was buried for a period of time, and then was moved to the dumpster?” Fiona summed up, as Tim carefully examined the body that had been recovered.

  “That’s what her lividity, rigor, and tissue degeneration would certainly suggest, yes,” he murmured, scraping under one of the young woman’s fingernails and tapping the scrapings into a container. The police forensic team had already taken samples, but Tim made certain that he did as well. This fastidious habit of his had been instrumental in solving more than one case.

  “What’s that stuff?” Fiona asked, peering under the nails of the woman’s other hand.

  “The reason we take samples is to determine that,” Tim replied, only slightly annoyed.

  The phone in the lab rang, and Fiona snapped off her blue nitrile gloves, dashing over to answer it.

  “Morgue,” she said, examining her own nails as she waited for the caller to reply. “Really? Mhmm…okay, gotcha,” she said, jotting down some information on a sticky note before hanging up.

  “Who was that, and what did they want?” Timothy Eckels asked, irritated that the caller had taken his assistant away during an examination.

  “That was the lab, fingerprints and dentals match. They’ve got a positive ID, so I’m calling the detective.”

  “Well, hurry up about it. This one is tricky enough as it is; we don’t need these interruptions,” he groused, as Fiona rolled her eyes.

  **

  “Reubens,” Jim answered his phone when the number from the Morgue popped up.

  He listened to Fiona’s run-down, nodding, and his eyes widened a bit.

  “I see…does your boss have any idea where the body might have been prior to being moved to the dumpster?” More listening. “Okay, I understand. Please keep me posted as results come in. Thanks for the call.”

  The detective hung up the phone in a daze, more puzzled than ever, and dreading the phone call that he would now have to make to Melissa Beckett.

  **

  “Hi Jim. Do you have news for me?” Missy answered her phone, seeing the detective’s number.

  She listened for several minutes, the blood draining from her face.

  “What do we do now?” she murmured, her heart beating fast.

  “Now, we find out who killed her,” was the detective’s pragmatic reply.

  Echo had just finished taking a vegan casserole out of the oven when Missy came downstairs, looking dazed.

  “Missy…what’s wrong?” she asked, rushing to her friend’s side.

  “She’s dead and I don’t understand. It makes no sense…”

  “What? Who’s dead? What are you…?” Echo was stunned, but had the good sense to sit Missy down at one of the barstools in the kitchen and set a glass of wine in front of her. “Okay, take a deep breath, and then a sip of wine, and tell me what you’re talking about,” she directed.

  Missy followed Echo’s suggestions, taking some additional deep breaths and a couple more sips of wine before attempting to tell her friend what was going on.

  “Jim called…they found a body, a woman’s body…” she began, and Echo gasped.

  “Oh no! Carla?” her eyes welled with tears.

  Missy shook her head. “No. Renee Manta, the woman who was pretending to be Carla. Oh gosh, Echo, what if whoever killed Renee killed Carla first? If Renee had something to do with Carla’s disappearance, we may never know what happened now,” she worried, numb.

  “Oh thank goodness,” Echo sighed with relief. “First, you’re jumping to some conclusions that Detective Jim hasn’t yet found evidence to support. We don’t know what happened to Renee – it could’ve been a mugging, a drug deal gone bad, anything. And we don’t know for certain that she had anything to do with Carla’s disappearance.”

  “But, Richard gave Renee’s description to the police sketch artist…” Missy protested.

  “What if he was lying?” Echo challenged.

  “He seems so nice, though, aside from being a pathological flirt. If he had committed not one, but two murders, it would really be stupid of him to stick around in the house of one of his victims. I mean, he knows that the police are involved. That would be crazy.”

  “True, and he’s been nothing but cooperative from day one,” Echo pointed out. “So that leaves us back at square one.”

  “What if the person who cut the power to the lights and disabled the cameras and put the ladder up against the house is the same person who killed Renee Manta, and now they’re after us because we’re looking for Carla?”

  “We need to get Jim Reubens out here to take fingerprints from that ladder,” Echo realized.

  **

  “Paddy, where is the ladder that was lying on the lawn last night?” Missy asked, knocking softly on the doorframe of the garage workshop.

  The poor ginger was sweating bullets, and wiped his forehead with the hem of his t-shirt.

  “I hung it up right over there. I thought maybe you or Maggie had used it or something,” he pointed to where two nearly identical ladders hung from pegs.

  “No. We didn’t,” Missy looked troubled.

  “Do you need it now, Ma’am? I’d be happy to tote it around for you,” Paddy offered.

  “No. No thank you, Paddy. I was just wondering,” she gave him a faint smile and wandered off.

  CHAPTER 25

  Spencer Bengal’s jaw flexed when he saw his former boss sitting smugly in the corner, smirking at him. Janssen lay on a hospital bed, his head bandaged, looking pale and weak, or at least as weak as a war-scarred Marine could look.

  “I thought you were dead,” Spencer said, his voice low.

  “Many have tried and failed my friend,” Janssen replied.

  “You were supposed to be dead too,” Bengal raised an eyebrow at his former boss.

  “No such luck, cowboy,” Steve drawled, crossing his arms over his chest.

  “Can you travel?” the Marine turned back to Janssen.

  “At the moment, I can’t
even move my head without passing out,” he admitted with a frustrated sigh.

  Spencer looked speculatively at Steve.

  “Don’t even think about it, Bengal. If you take me out, I’ve got dozens of men standing by to seize you and bring you to Command,” his former boss threatened.

  “What’s this about?” the Marine demanded.

  “You.”

  “No,” Spencer’s answer was immediate.

  “You act like you have a choice in the matter. You don’t. My men are at the Estate guarding your elderly caretaker because your boys couldn’t hack it. It would only take one phone call for me to pull my men out, and you’d be left hanging, with no security, so all those bad European boys would be able to come a-callin’.”

  “What do you know about that?” the Marine’s eyes narrowed to venomous slits.

  “More than you do, apparently,” Steve chuckled.

  “I’m not going back. I’m NEVER going back. I made that clear when I left,” Spencer said, teeth clenched.

  “Command needs you. I’ve found you, and you’re going back. And I’m finally going to get that nice fat bonus that I’ve been deserving.”

  “I told him I’d go,” Janssen said quietly.

  “You can’t man…you know what the Program is like. There’s a hundred percent chance that they don’t expect you to come back from this. They need something done, and we’re expendable.”

  “On the contrary…for this particular mission, we need the best of the best, that’s why I’ve been hunting you down,” Steve tented his fingers under his chin, then switched his gaze to Janssen. “No offense, but you’re not good enough or pretty enough. We need the Tiger.”

  Spencer hadn’t heard that name in years, and it brought bitter bile to the back of his throat.

  “You’ll have to kill me then, because I’m not going.”

  “Oh don’t be so doggone melodramatic,” Steve shook his head. “Geez, you James Bond types think that you control the world. Well, here’s a newsflash for you, Sally, you don’t control the world. Command and organizations like it, they control the world. Me, you, and Scarface in the bed over there, we’re just pawns for their amusement, who should be thankful every day that we’re lucky enough to be deemed worthy of staying alive.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Spencer and Janssen said in unison.

  “Awww…isn’t that cute? You two have obviously had the same training. Did they forget to take your microchips out?” he taunted.

  “I’m not leaving my current assignment and leaving my charges at risk,” Spencer ignored the jibe.

  “You don’t have a choice,” Steve growled, dropping the good-old-boy routine.

  “Who’s behind the attack at the mansion?” Janssen demanded, angry at himself for having allowed his defenses to slip.

  “Wouldn’t you like to know?” his former boss gloated.

  “I don’t care what happens to me. If you don’t start talking, we’re going to have a problem,” Spencer took an aggressive stance.

  “Oh, settle down, Marine,” Steve directed, clearly not intimidated, though perhaps he should have been. “Because of the detective’s brother, and his loose lips, the global business community is aware that the keys to the kingdom, economically speaking, are held by that frail old man in the mansion. My guess would be that it was their direct competitor, based out of France, but whoever it was played it smart. Brazilians maybe, who knows?”

  “What are you talking about?” Spencer’s eyes narrowed.

  “They got somebody on the inside, somebody close,” Steve shrugged.

  “Who?” Spencer and Janssen said in unison.

  “You boys are going to have to stop speaking in stereo, it’s downright disconcerting,” he raised an eyebrow, drawing out their anticipation.

  Spencer took a step forward, his intentions clear, motivating his former boss to speak.

  “I don’t know. Parker, obviously, but there are more than just him. They got one of my guys, too, you know,” Steve sobered.

  “Kendall?” Janssen asked.

  Steve nodded.

  “You just thought he was one of yours,” the scarred Marine stated flatly. “He was just biding his time until he could get out of his contract with you.”

  “Well, it’s not really an issue now, is it?” Steve’s eyes were like flint.

  “Clearly,” Spencer shook his head. “Look…I…appreciate what you’ve done, but this isn’t even close to over, and I’m not going anywhere for you with this hanging over my head. Let me get this taken care of, and we’ll talk about what happens next.”

  “But you…” Janssen exclaimed, jumping into the conversation. Spencer held up a hand to silence him, and a look passed between the former Marines that spoke volumes.

  “What’s in it for me?” Steve challenged, folding his arms.

  “After this is over, you might…and I said MIGHT…have a chance at getting me to do what you need me to do. Right now, if you try to force the issue, I won’t hold back, and that won’t end well for you,” the Marine said levelly.

  “That a threat?” Steve scoffed.

  “That’s a promise. Risk death or worse, here and now, or walk away and we’ll talk later. There are no other options for you right now,” Spencer replied, his eyes fixed on those of his former boss.

  “You’ve got some nerve, Tiger,” the hard-eyed man worked to stay steady.

  “Do or die, man,” was the simple reply.

  CHAPTER 26

  “Maggie, have you seen Paddy around?” Missy asked the Innkeeper, concerned.

  “No, he hasn’t been around all day. Why?” the silver-haired woman replied, up to her elbows in dish water.

  Missy bit her lip. “Detective Reubens just wanted to ask him some questions about what happened to the security system the other night, and to see if he had seen anything strange.”

  “Seems to me that he’s been pretty scarce around here since that night,” Maggie mused. “I mean, his tasks are always done, he’s a good, hard worker, but I haven’t talked to him in a while,” she wiped her hands on a towel.

  “Did you find out anything about him when he came to take over for Spencer?”

  “Just his name really. He said Spencer would pay him, so I didn’t even have to get his ID or social security number or anything,” the Innkeeper shrugged. “I figured that anyone who was a friend of Spencer’s should be okay. Was that a bad decision?” her powder-blue eyes widened.

  “No, I’m sure it’s fine,” Missy patted her arm. “Do you have a phone number for him at least?”

  “Sure, I’ll text it to you,” Maggie promised. “Is everything okay?”

  “I hope so,” her boss smiled faintly. “Jim is just trying to be thorough. Have you heard from Spencer at all?”

  “Only to say that he’d be gone for a bit longer. He didn’t text any details.”

  “Okay,” Missy nodded, feeling oddly vulnerable.

  Missy was troubled as she walked from the Inn over to Cupcakes in Paradise to open up for the day. She’d made several batches of cupcakes in her kitchen when she was unable to sleep, so opening the shop wouldn’t take nearly as long today. Echo had gone to run some errands before the two women had coffee, so she would have some time alone in her kitchen to mull over the frightening series of events that had occurred since Chas left. She missed her husband badly, but was committed to leaving him alone to handle family business, while she managed the inn and cupcake shop on this end. He checked in with her by phone at least once a day, usually twice, and the sound of his beloved voice made her eyes swim with tears.

  **

  “Okay,” Echo announced, breezing in the front door of the cupcake shop. “I put everything that we’ll need for Vegan Taco Tuesday away in your kitchen, and I…hey…are you okay?” she asked, noting Missy’s uncharacteristically quiet behavior.

  “Yes, I’m fine. I just can’t help but think about that poor, dead girl and the fact that someone broke into the inn. W
hat if someone wants to hurt us?”

  “Well, I’ll be with you the whole time,” she promised. “No one is going to try to get to us while we’re together.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Missy said uncertainly, gratefully accepting her friend’s warm hug.

  “Do you want me to keep my store closed today and stay here with you?”

  “No, honey, I’ll be fine,” she took a deep breath. “I’m sorry I’m being so nervous about all of this. My burglary probably wasn’t related to that girl’s death at all, but I’m still worried about Carla.”

  “Me too,” Echo nodded.

  Their conversation was interrupted suddenly by the appearance of Toffee and Bitsy scratching furiously at the door of the shop and barking like crazy.

  Missy’s eyes went wide with fear. “Echo, did you leave the door open? How did the girls get out?”

  Echo shook her head, equally afraid. “No, I didn’t. I made double sure that I locked everything on my way out,” she began, but stopped and grabbed her friend’s arm frantically as she let the dogs in. “Oh my gosh, LOOK!” she exclaimed, whipping out her phone.

  Missy looked over toward the inn and saw smoke coming from the main kitchen.

  “Maggie!” she screamed, running for the door.

  “Go!” Echo ordered, dialing. “I’m calling the fire department.”

  Missy burst into the side door by the kitchen, pulling the hand towel that had been tucked into the back pocket of her capris out and covering her mouth and nose. She let out a terrified scream, muffled by the towel, when she saw Maggie’s Keds-clad feet on the floor behind the kitchen island in the smoke filled room. She tossed the towel aside, and immediately felt the searing of her lungs as she breathed in the smoke. Dropping to her knees, eyes burning and tears coursing down her cheeks from smoke and fear, Missy crawled over to Maggie’s prone form, horrified to see the innkeeper lying face-down, bleeding profusely from a head wound.

  The smoke seemed to be coming from the stove, but Missy’s only concern was pulling Maggie to safety. Hoping against hope that the beloved innkeeper had not yet succumbed to smoke inhalation or her injuries, she grabbed one shoulder, flipped her over, and began to drag her toward the door by her feet. She crawled, coughing, gagging, and wincing at the stabbing pain in her lungs and throat, and made it all the way to the door before being lifted up by a pair of strong hands.