11 Hanging by a Hair (31 page)

Marla forced a smile. “Hi, Angela. Getting your outdoor work done early?”

“Yes, it’s supposed to get up to eighty-five later. I was hoping you’d come by.”

“Oh, why is that?” The less she saw of the woman, the better. What was wrong with Spooks? He strained on the leash, snarling at Angela while Lucky sniffed the grass.

“I use a wig when I want my hair to look longer. I’d like to wear it to church on Easter, but it needs to be freshened up. Can you come inside for a minute and take a look?”

The blonde took off her hat and ruffled her unkempt layers of hair. It was already a decent length. Why not just add extensions?

“Bring the wig into my salon, and we’ll discuss the options. I’m in a hurry—”

“Maybe you don’t work with wigs? I can take it elsewhere, you know, but I thought you could see it on me while you’re here. Then you can take it along with you to fix. Come on, I won’t keep you long. And bring the dogs.”

“Well, I don’t know.” Marla glanced up and down the street. No one else was around.

As they spoke, Angela had sidled closer. Before Marla could move away, the woman snatched the dog leashes from her hand.

“Follow me. I won’t take up much of your time,” Angela said in a firm tone, striding toward the front door.

Spooks yipped, resisting the tow. Lucky, on the other hand, must have liked what she smelled because she pranced along eagerly. The aroma of freshly baked goods emanated from the house.

Marla hurried after them. “The dogs aren’t used to your place and might soil the carpet. Give me back their leashes, Angela.”

“Don’t worry, I have tile floors. Besides, it’s cooler inside.” Angela pushed open the front door and tossed her hat on an accent table in the foyer.

The nerve of the woman! If Angela wanted her services so badly, she could come into the salon like everyone else. Marla didn’t do house calls, although she had contemplated it at one time.

“Close the door so the mosquitoes don’t get inside,” Angela said after Marla trailed her into the hallway. “The wig is in the kitchen. Can I give your pets a treat? They’re good little fellows.” Angela led the dogs forward, evading Marla’s thrust for them.

Marla swung the door shut and rushed after her. She didn’t want Angela giving the animals anything to eat.

Inside the kitchen, Angela opened an inner door and shoved the animals inside the adjacent area.

“Go on, your treat is in the laundry room. Enjoy!” She slammed the door closed.

Spooks barked madly, thudding against the door from the other side. Lucky was silent, so Marla surmised she was consuming whatever treat Angela had provided.

Wait a minute. That implied she’d planned this maneuver ahead of time.

Marla’s gaze zeroed in on the range where a tray of cupcakes sat cooling on a rack. Connections zipped together in her mind like Lego pieces.

“You!” she said, rounding on Angela.

But it was too late. Her eyes glinting with malice, Angela pointed a gun at Marla.

“I see you’ve figured it out. Take those car keys hanging on the hook over by the garage door. We’re going for a drive.”

Marla drove as Angela directed. With a gun pointed at her head, she didn’t have much choice. Not yet, anyway.

“Your husband wanted me to come into the station for more questioning. I need to give him something else to think about,” Angela said in a cold tone. “He’ll be worried when he learns you never came into work. Your dogs will be a casualty, too. I wouldn’t want them leading the cops to my house.”

“Why are you doing this?” Marla’s fingers gripped the wheel. She hoped Angela hadn’t poisoned the dogs, but that was a real possibility. Her heart beat a frantic rhythm in her chest. How could she get away?

Her mind calculated the options even as she focused on the road. Angela had kept enough distance from her at the house so Marla hadn’t been able to make a move. If she’d attempted to snatch a knife from the counter, Angela would have shot her. It might have made a mess, but the zealous light in Angela’s eyes told Marla she wouldn’t hesitate.

“Someone might have seen me go inside with you,” Marla said. “How do you know a neighbor wasn’t watching?”

“The people across the street had gone to work. I didn’t see anyone else.”

Angela kept her attention focused solely on Marla, who wished she knew more about weaponry. That gun looked small enough to tuck inside a purse, and yet she had no doubt it would be deadly when fired at close range.

“Your daughter takes the school bus during the week,” Angela continued with a sneer. “Your husband drives to work. You take the dogs for a walk. It’s the same routine every day.” She clucked her tongue. “As the wife of a police detective, you should know better.”

Marla’s knuckles went white on the steering wheel. Stalled at a red light, she pressed her foot on the brake pedal. Angela lowered the gun and pointed it at her belly until traffic moved ahead. When Angela indicated she should head west, Marla got an inkling of her plan.

Her gut clenched, and ice water sluiced through her veins. Angela intended to take a side road off Alligator Alley, shoot her dead and dump her body in the Everglades.

Familiar exits whizzed by as she sped down the highway. Dalton had warned her and Brianna never to get in a stranger’s car. If they did, their lives could be over. The only way out would be to crash the vehicle and pray the air bags cushioned the blow.

She began looking for light poles, emergency call boxes, or mile markers where she could veer to the right. She’d have to hit the car on Angela’s side hard enough to disable her. If she went too slow and they were both just stunned, Angela could still shoot. And yet, what would be her own chances of survival if she hit a pole at sixty miles per hour?

Her face popped out in a cold sweat, and her hands grew slippery on the wheel.

“I should have figured it out a long time ago,” she said, her voice raspy. “You’re the one who sent me the cupcakes at my salon, aren’t you? I should have remembered you were in charge of the baked goods at our rummage sale.”

“I’d hoped you would eat them at work and fall asleep on the drive home. It would have served as a warning to you.”

“Another stylist sampled them and had to be taken to the hospital. You must have dosed them pretty high. Is that how you disabled Alan Krabber before tying the noose around his neck and pushing him off his second-story balcony?”

Angela chuckled, an evil sound. “Alan had learned about my bingo addiction. He accused me of cheating him out of his share of our money. I said we should talk about it and brought over some of my cupcakes. He had a sweet tooth and loved them.”

“When was this?” Marla risked a glance in her direction.

“That Sunday after the annual HOA meeting. He’d told me about the fence going in the next day, and I thought it was a sign of approval from above. I knew your husband wouldn’t be happy that Alan hadn’t done a survey.”

“So you set your plan in motion?”

“That’s right. I told Alan he could eat the blue frosted cupcakes on Sunday. They had a secret treat inside. He loved surprises, and I’d put chocolate kisses in the middle. But he couldn’t eat the cupcakes with red frosting until after dinner on Monday.” She winked. “They had cherry pie filling, his favorite.”

A chill raced up Marla’s spine. The woman talked about Alan as though she were fond of him. “Why did it matter when he ate them?”

“I’d laced the red ones with sedatives. Once he got drowsy, I’d only have a short window in which to do my work. I called him around seven on Monday, and he told me he’d just finished dinner. He’d loved the cupcakes and had eaten three of the red ones. Everyone loves my baking,” she boasted.

“And then?” Marla prompted, her gaze darting to the side of the road. Across the canal stretched a river of sawgrass. That wouldn’t help her. Where did Angela plan to cut off the highway? There were boat ramps but not many side roads.

Her stomach clenched at the notion of plowing into a pole. Angela’s Lexus was a newer model, so she had faith in the airbags. But dare she take the risk? What alternative was there?

Tears pricked her eyes. She didn’t want things to end this way, and certainly not from her own stupidity. Had she listened to her instincts, she would never have set foot inside Angela’s house.

“How did you get in Alan’s house if he was unconscious?” she asked to soothe her nerves while her mind sought alternatives.

Angela seemed in a talkative mood. Or else she knew Marla wouldn’t repeat anything she said. The woman’s gaze held steady, and so did the weapon in her hand.

“I let myself in the front door with a spare key he’d given me. I’d waited until the neighborhood quieted and it was dark outside. Alan had gone to bed, which made things easier. I took the desk chair, heaved him onto it, and wheeled it to the balcony. It wasn’t hard to loop a computer cable into a noose and knot the other end of the line to a post.”

“So you put the cable around his neck and shoved him over the railing?”

“Yep. The man was so heavy, I was afraid the post would break, but it held. He didn’t wake up once.”

“How could you know your method would work? What if his neck was too thick?”

“I’d printed out instructions from the Internet. I stayed until his face turned blue and his chest stopped moving.”

Angela had planned everything out in detail, just like she had lured Marla into her house. Marla’s breathing, coming in short pants, seemed to squeeze from her chest.

“How did you get his signature on a suicide note?”

“You’re slowing down, Marla. Either speed up or shut up.”

Marla pressed her lips together and accelerated. From the corner of her eye, she spied Angela’s disdainful smile.

“I had Alan sign a bunch of papers for our business. I’d slipped a few blank pages in there in case I needed them someday. He was so blinded by the money coming in that he didn’t see past his nose.”

“And what business was that?”

Angela laughed, a harsh sound in the air-conditioned interior. “I can’t believe you haven’t guessed by now. After all, you delivered that item of mail to me. That was a dead giveaway.”

“The envelope addressed to Alfred Godwin? Who is he?”

“Alfred Godwin runs the StayTrue Ministries. You’re looking at him.”

“What? That’s
you
?” Different pieces of the puzzle fell into place.

“All of the signs indicate the end is near. Deliverance is almost upon us. Sinners are so afraid of being left behind that our sales of survival gear have gone through the roof.”

“Oh. My. Gosh.” Alan hadn’t been collecting hurricane supplies. His deliveries and pickups had to do with their ministry business. He and Angela must have been partners who sold those goods to gullible followers. “What was Alan’s role? He managed the retail sales?”

Angela snorted. “Alan did all the computer stuff, while I wrote the scripts. We even had podcasts online and a radio talk show. There’s still time to save your soul, Marla. Give yourself to the Lord, and your death will take you to a higher plane.”

I don’t think so.
She sensed from Angela’s alert posture that they were nearing their exit. She’d have to make her move soon. Her gaze scanned the unending stretch of road ahead. Where was a pole when she needed one? She resisted the urge to test her seatbelt. Angela might guess what she had in mind.

“Alan thought you were using the profits from your business to play bingo?”

“He threatened to expose me as a fraud despite what it would do to the ministry,” Angela said, her voice dripping with venom.

“I couldn’t let him destroy the church we’d built. It would devastate our followers.”

Not to mention ending your lucrative empire.
“Why did you kill Cherry Hunter?”

“Alan stupidly wrapped the bones he’d given Cherry to authenticate in one of our mockup ads. I’d scribbled some notes on the sides. Cherry figured out our connection and suspected that I might have been involved in his death. The woman was dumb enough to ask me about it.”

“So you attacked her one night and bashed her on the head? With what? The same tool you hit me with outside Alan’s garage?”

“My hoe. Handy implement, eh? I couldn’t let Cherry give me away to the cops. Then you went snooping next door. I was inside Alan’s house, making sure I hadn’t left any evidence that would lead back to me.”

“Why didn’t you finish me off?”

“The gas fumes were supposed to do that. I didn’t think you’d wake up in time to save yourself.”

Marla cringed at her matter-of-fact tone. “Was that you digging in Alan’s backyard to search for more bones? Did you throw Spooks in that pit?”

“No. I could care less about those bones. It wasn’t me.”

“And Philip Byrd . . . did you intend to kill him?”

“Hell, no. After he changed the locks on Alan’s door, I needed to get inside again. I didn’t want to smash a window in case he’d installed an alarm system. I had to retrieve our stock. We had orders to fill, and I didn’t want to disappoint our customers. I’d planned to get them the day you interrupted me, but I had to leave fast after putting you inside the garage.”

“So that’s why you took his hurricane supplies. We’d thought he was just afraid of natural disasters.”

“Your husband found some clue that led him to me, didn’t he? That’s why he wants me to come in, but I’m not planning to oblige. I’ll keep driving once I take care of you. Whatever I need is packed in the trunk.”

Angela had planned this finale all along, and Marla had played her tune. Would she live to make amends for her actions? She could bear Dalton’s anger if only she survived.

Her heart thumped so wildly she thought she’d faint. Bile rose in her throat. Did she have it in her to take the risk that might save her life?

Angela’s voice hardened. “After the rest stop, there’s a turn off to a fishing camp. I want you to take it. I’ll make it a quick kill, I promise. Then you can join Satan with the other nonbelievers.”

“You’d better pray to your god first.” Marla wrenched the steering wheel to her right.

At sixty miles per hour, the car careened toward the side of the road. A series of light poles stood by the exit just ahead. Marla headed for the nearest one. A final thought of regret and sorrow for her loved ones flashed into her mind.