Chapter Twenty-Eight

Lisa screeched and started running. She must have spotted Ryan.

Hicks glanced at Lisa and back toward our group. His hostages were escaping, his leverage vanishing. He shifted direction so his path collided with Lisa’s.

He swung her around. She yelled and kicked, but Hicks pushed her to her knees and fisted a hand in her hair.

He reached under his jacket and pulled out a gun.

Time seemed to slow as everyone froze. Even from thirty feet away, Hicks’s glare promised violence.

“Nobody move! Lisa is going to drive me out of here. Ryan, you come too.”

Ryan stepped forward as if jerked on a string, but Lisa wailed, “No, don’t!”

Mackenzie hauled him back. “You won’t help anything by giving him a second hostage.”

We backed away as Hicks dragged Lisa to her feet and toward his sedan. He shoved her into the driver’s seat. He waved his gun at us and we all ducked behind various vehicles. Despite what TV and movies show, the average car would not reliably stop most bullets. But maybe it would interfere with his aim, and at least it made us feel safer.

Unfortunately, if we were out of Hicks’s sight, he was out of our sight. I risked a peek over the hood of the car as Hicks got in the back seat behind Lisa.

The sedan backed out and jerked away. Hicks yelled at Lisa, but she probably couldn’t hear him over her own sobs. They wove through the parking lot.

“We have to do something.” Ryan strained against Mackenzie’s grip. “We need to follow them.”

Mackenzie looked to me for direction.

I didn’t know what to do. We’d rescued one hostage but lost another. Hicks knew we were after him. Had we made things worse?

The electric-blue Camaro swung up in front of us. “Need a lift?” Simon asked.

Mackenzie, Ryan, and I piled in.

Ryan pointed. “Follow them!”

I didn’t have a better idea, so I didn’t argue.

Ahead of us, Joe’s van lurched forward in the middle of the dirt road, blocking the track’s exit. The sedan swung away from the van in a wide arc, barely missing several cars, and bumped down a slope onto the track. Lisa’s shrieks and Hicks’s bellows carried to us a hundred feet away.

The van followed the sedan. We followed the van, even though Simon winced as the bottom of his car scraped dirt before the back wheels hit the slope.

Lisa led the way around the oval racetrack, fortunately only going about thirty-five miles per hour. A bright yellow VW Bug zipped around the track ahead of us. The driver veered off at the main entrance, leaving the track to us.

As we passed the starting line, a couple of officials ran out and waved their arms wildly. We kept circling.

“What are they doing?” Mackenzie asked.

“Lisa is probably in too much of a panic to think straight.” I could relate.

Ryan leaned forward as if he could make the Camaro go fast enough to rescue his mother.

“This is ridiculous,” Simon muttered.

The engine roared as he shot forward, passing the van and the sedan so closely I thought we would scrape their sides. We rounded the narrow end of the track, where it curved more sharply, and the speed of the turn pushed our bodies to the right. I slid against the door and fumbled for a grip on the seat.

“Hold on!” Simon hit the brakes and swung the car across the track a hundred feet in front of the sedan.

Now, Lisa had a choice of stopping, hitting us, running into the fence in front of the viewing stands, or swinging into the dirt center of the track.

The sedan kept coming at us.

Not the choice I would make.

“Everybody out,” I yelled.

They scrambled out and ran for the side of the track. I followed as quickly as I could. Simon shot an anguished look back at his pretty car and mumbled something that might have been a prayer.

Surely, Lisa would hit the brakes.

Ten feet from the Camaro, the sedan jerked to a stop with a squeal. Hicks yelled at Lisa and she screamed back. He jumped out of the back seat and reached for the driver’s door, but she slammed the lock and covered her face with her hands.

Hicks swung around, waving his gun. His gaze landed on me. He lowered his head and barreled at me like a charging bull.

Twenty feet. I couldn’t run. I’d never win a fight. Was I about to become his new hostage?

Ten feet. I braced all my weight on my good leg and leaned forward.

Five feet. I swung my cane up toward him.

The cane caught him right in the stomach. He hit it with such force that it ripped out of my grip.

I pivoted as he flew toward me. He stumbled past, barely brushing my flailing arms, and crashed to the ground. His gun slid across the pavement.

I was going down. I couldn’t recover from that with only one good leg.

Arms caught my elbows, hoisting me back to my feet. The world spun for a moment and then settled as I glanced over my shoulder into Ryan’s pale face.

We turned to Hicks. He groaned and pushed himself up on his arms. Mackenzie dove for the gun.

Ryan and I exchanged a look and worked as one. We took two steps to Hicks, Ryan’s hand still supporting my elbow. I collapsed onto Hicks’s back, straddling his hips. I grabbed an arm and twisted it up behind his back. Ryan piled onto Hicks’s legs behind me. Hicks twisted and jerked, but he couldn’t dislodge the two of us.

A swarm of people surrounded us. It took me a minute to sort out all the faces and voices. Mackenzie stood grinning a few feet away. Dad and Jen drew close, along with a man I didn’t recognize. Burly and potbellied, with a thick, drooping mustache, he wore a black shirt with the word SECURITY across the front.

He spoke into a radio and then knelt beside me. “I can take it from here, ma’am.”

I eased off Hicks to sit beside him as the security guard slid into my place. When we were sure Hicks couldn’t escape the two-hundred-pound weight, Ryan got up and helped me rise. Simon handed me my cane and then moved to his car, patting the hood with a sigh of relief.

Lisa grabbed Ryan and held him tight, sobbing. He glanced at me over the top of her head and shrugged, but he patted her back and let her hang on. After a moment, he closed his eyes and his shoulders relaxed.

Another guard ran up and Mackenzie offered him the gun, butt first. He stepped away from our group and checked whether the gun was loaded. Police sirens wailed in the distance.

I leaned back against the sedan’s hood as Hicks bellowed threats. At that moment, I didn’t mind my uncomfortable seat and aching leg one bit.

My phone rang and Padilla’s name lit up.

The second I answered, she asked, “You got a line on Hicks?”

I laughed. “You could say that.”

What do you do when you’ve solved not one but two mysteries in your first week back at home? Have a party, of course.

By Saturday, my bruises were fading and two more PT visits had me walking less like Dr. Frankenstein’s hunchbacked lab assistant. Berta had warned me to keep my expectations optimistic but realistic. I might never walk without a limp. I might have lingering pain forever, especially after intensive activity. But she believed I could improve to the point where the pain didn’t interfere with most activities and I no longer needed the cane. For the time being, getting to that point was a satisfying goal.

I invited many of the people involved in our crazy week to the party. Dad and Jen set up tables in the backyard. Joe baked three different kinds of cupcakes. Marty brought an industrial-sized blender and made margaritas, virgin for the kids and decidedly not for those who wanted alcohol. Jen’s husband ran the grill while their kids got to know Ryan and Zinnia. Joe and Marty challenged Simon and Mackenzie to a game of beanbag bocce ball, which seemed to involve as much laughing and kissing as throwing balls.

Dad brought a round of drinks to the table where I sat between Jen and Mayor Todd Paradise. Todd and I had postponed our date for the party. It was easier to get to know each other in the group setting anyway. Everyone told him the story of what had happened, so I didn’t have to feel like I was bragging. We could connect on a more personal level later.

After delivering the margaritas, Dad rested his hand on my shoulder. We’d had a lot of long talks, and I felt closer to him than ever before. He headed back to join Mom on lounge chairs in the shade. From here, Mom looked the same as always. Maybe in a lot of important ways, she was the same. Lisa Delacruz had been talking to her for some time, and even with Mom’s shaky memory, she had that way of listening and letting people know they’d been heard.

Jen lifted her margarita glass in a toast. “To my sister, the accidental detective!”

Sitting across from us, Henry Wilson and Heather joined the toast.

“I can’t believe everything you’ve been through,” Todd said.

Heather shook her head. “I can’t believe I still have a job.”

“Any update on Mendelson?” I asked.

“Not really. They’re still working out the plea bargain. Good thing you gave the news a more dramatic case to talk about, one that can’t be blamed quite so much on Sunshine Haven. We’ve had a few people put up a fuss after hearing about the murders, but with the killer in jail and a waiting list at most care facilities, no one has actually removed a patient.”

“Excellent,” I said. “I talked to Detective Padilla earlier today. She might swing by when she gets off duty. She says the DA is refusing any plea bargain from Hicks. They have him for murder and kidnapping, plus some other random charges like child endangerment for transporting Ryan in the trunk of the car. Hicks will be inside for a long time.”

“Good riddance.” Jen grinned at me. “You had quite a first week back. What are you going to do for an encore?”

I laughed. “I don’t know. It’s taken me the rest of this week to catch up on my sleep.”

They chuckled and continued the conversation while I drifted into my own thoughts. I’d been assuming that if I wasn’t a journalist, I wasn’t anything. By sharing important news stories, I did something good for the world. I had value. But maybe my value didn’t lie only in the stories I told.

Of course, I still believed in the power of the news, and I hoped to do some good by writing stories about the challenges of caring for the sick and elderly. Still, I had to admit, I really enjoyed the specific and immediate reward of solving an individual crime and seeing the criminal brought to justice. Sometimes journalism felt like pointing out a problem but not doing anything about it.

I wore the hamsa charm on a chain around my neck. It felt like the combination of hand and eye were a good metaphor for the way we’d had to both see a problem and take action to solve it. On the same chain, the jade phoenix pendant lay warm against my skin. I was being reborn after my brush with death. But maybe I didn’t have to be reborn as the same person I’d been before. I’d advised Jen to figure out who she wanted to be now. Maybe I wasn’t too old to learn new tricks either?

Todd leaned closer. “I’m glad you’re back.” His low voice sent an echoing rumble through my body.

“Me too.”

“You may be exactly what I need right now.”

I surreptitiously inhaled his scent, which reminded me of spiced rum and wood smoke. “Oh?”

He glanced around before whispering, “I have a little problem, and I need someone to look into it. Someone I can trust to be discreet.”

“I see.” Maybe he was joking or making an excuse to see me, but the tingle in my journalism senses—or maybe they were detective senses now—argued otherwise. Another case to investigate, and a chance to see Todd more? Count me in.

I nodded once. “Discreet investigations are my specialty, apparently.”

“This could take some time.” His gaze caressed me. “Think you might stay here a while?”

I tried to look thoughtful and serious, but my smile wanted to break through. “You know what? I think I might.”

The End.

About the Author:

Kris Bock writes novels of mystery, suspense, and romance. She has lived in ten states and one foreign country but is now firmly planted in the Southwest, where many of her books are set. Her romantic suspense novels include stories of treasure hunting, archaeology, and intrigue. Readers have called these novels “Smart romance with an Indiana Jones feel.” Learn more at www.krisbock.com.