Death of a Wolfman (A Lily Gayle Lambert Mystery Book 1) (18 page)

The golf club came down on the couch hard enough for the fabric to rip. I flinched, then crab crawled along the back and peered around the side. He kept beating the couch with the club, ripping it to shreds, so I risked slithering to the back wall, where I thought I might be able to get out through a window. As I pressed myself against the wall behind the long curtains, hoping he wouldn’t notice me, my brain was spinning. I had to get out of here.

There was more shouting coming from Alexander. “All.”
Crash.
“My.”
Crash.
“Life.”
Crash.

He was destroying the room.

“That weakling LizBeth. Always feeling sorry for him. Always trying to be his friend. She tried to ruin us all.”

Maniacal laughter. “She tried to help him get away.”

Something heavy fell over, followed by the sound of glass breaking. Peeking into the room, I saw a heavy sideboard had been pushed over, spilling china and glasses onto the floor and cracking the wood. I had to get out of there before his attention focused on me again.

Reaching my arm sideways, I felt along the window to find the lock. It was wider than a usual window. Shifting sideways again, I found a single metal lock in the middle. It was an old window. Maybe original to the house. Heavy wood that would not slide up easily. I’d have to find the right moment to move directly in front of it and heave.

Out in the room, Alexander was still ranting and destroying. “Secrets. Always secrets. I could never have a normal life. LizBeth forced to become a midwife because of family tradition. She was to deliver the next generation of Mitchells. But there weren’t any. We both refused to marry. To continue this farce of a life. But I was going to live a marvelous life once my father died and everything came to me. Why did LizBeth try to ruin it for me? After everything we’d been through together, she wanted the truth to come out instead of just letting it all die with us. She made me have to kill her. And Thomas, too.”

Wow. He’d gone over the edge. Killed his whole family. At least I thought the father was dead. No way I could find out now. I had to get myself out of there. Then I could go for help.

I peeked around the edge of the curtain. Alexander had his back to me as he destroyed a side table. This was my chance. Stepping in front of the window, I heaved with all my might. The window went up less than halfway and stuck.

Alexander had heard the noise and turned to face me. I’d never seen the face of madness before, but I thought this was how it looked. Pushing away panic, I crouched and tried to wiggle through the opening. As I struggled to pull my body out of the house, Ben appeared around the corner and saw me. Rushing over, he grabbed me under my arms, set his feet and pulled.

I'm home free
, I thought. But before my feet cleared the window, a cold hand closed around my ankle.

“Ben. He’s got me.”

Ben pulled harder. I felt like the rope in a game of tug-of-war. No way Ben was going to let go, but it didn’t seem like Alexander would either. I heard a distant boom, then shouting that sounded like Todd. Blessedly, my ankle was free. The sudden lack of resistance made Ben fall backward, pulling me out and on to him. We both hit the ground hard. I’ve never been happier to know I’d be covered in bruises the next day.

Todd poked his head out the window. “I’ve got him trussed up in here. I’m not sure, but I think he passed out or somethin’. At least he won’t cause no more trouble for us.”

Ben and I walked around to the front of the house. Todd met us on the porch. “The old man is dead. Looks like he died peaceful, so I don’t think the son had anything to do with that one.”

“Go home, Lily Gayle. Me and Todd have work to do here.”

I’d never been so glad to do what Ben said.

CHAPTER TWENTY

              I handed tall glasses of iced cold sweet tea to Miss Edna and Dixie, then sank into a comfy porch rocker. No one spoke. We all had our eyes on the town square out past Miss Edna’s lawn, but I felt sure the others, just like me, were thinking over everything that had happened. And wondering what we might could’ve done different. Or if we could have altered events at all.

              The sheriff's car pulled to a stop at the end of the path leading up to the porch and Ben got out. He stood for a minute looking out on the town, maybe wondering what had our attention. Or maybe just holding off a little longer on the conversation he’d promised us. We’d asked for this meeting because Ben wanted me to explain to him how I’d gotten trapped by Alexander Mitchell and we wanted him to explain how he’d happened to show up just in time to save me.

              It would all be in the newspaper tomorrow. At least the whitewashed version would be. In places like Mercy, the real story never made it into the paper. It traveled via the small-town jungle drums, and by now most everyone had some idea of what had happened.

              I went into the kitchen, poured one more glass of tea and got back out to the porch just as Ben came up the steps. Accepting the glass, he tilted it toward me in a salute, then drank deep. Settling into a rocker, he set his tea on the side table and gave us all a long look.

              I filled him in on the details about the email with the old picture and how I’d gone out to talk to Alexander Mitchell about it. Never dreaming he already knew way more than I did about that subject.

              “I reckon y’all know most of it already," Ben said once I’d finished giving my side of the story. “But I promised Lily Gayle I’d come over here and let y’all know what happened to lead me to Mitchell Manor.”

              His eyes traced over my face. He was wearing his enigmatic look, and I couldn’t decide if he was mad at me, relieved that I was all right or just plain resigned to the fact that I’d be helping him with all his investigations…whether I had his permission or not.

              “After Lily Gayle came up missing, I went out to the Taylor boys’ trailer. Because Dixie had told me they’d already threatened her, I thought that was the best place to start. It turned out I was right, but not for the reasons I thought.”

              Pausing, he took another gulp of tea. Pushed his hat back to wipe his forehead and leaned back again.

              “I went out there like a bat out of hell assuming they’d made good on their threat and it was my fault for not taking better care of my cousin.”

              I opened my mouth, but he held his hand up to stop me.

              “When I pulled up in their yard with my sirens and lights going, they tried to run out into the woods. Larry actually got a good start, but I tackled John. He was squealing like a stuck pig and Larry came on back. I got ’em both in the squad car and read them their right faster than I’d ever read anything.”

              Blowing out a breath, he shook his head. “I have to admit I was ready to tear those two a new one and they were gibbering idiots. Neither one would tell me a damn thing except that they didn’t know where you were. I hauled them into town and put them in a separate cells, steady questioning each of them the whole time and finally making it clear that if something had happened to you, I’d see them under the jail instead of in it.”

              I couldn’t believe those boys had been that dumb. When Ben went on a rampage, everyone toed the line.

              "So. John finally broke after that and confessed everything. It turned out they have an online business where they sell homemade bullets. They got the idea from you selling dresses, Lily Gayle. They make a lot of them for reenactment groups, and some silver for people who just want them. They sold some of their silver bullets to Alexander Mitchell through their online store. They didn't think Mitchell had any idea he'd bought the bullets from someone local. When Samantha told them a wolf man had shown up in the morgue with a silver bullet in him, they thought they’d go to prison so they kept quiet. When you broke in and stole some of the silver shavings those boys were scared to death. Waiting every day for me to come out there and arrest them.”

              “Well, that’s just ridiculous! If they’d come forward with the information right away, this could have been resolved a whole lot sooner.” I swallowed against a sudden lump in my throat. “LizBeth might still be alive.”

              Dixie and Miss Edna stirred in their seats. I had just about forgotten they were with us.

              “As soon as they told me about Mitchell, I drove out there as fast as I could. Luckily, you were breaking yourself out of the place.”

              “Huh. Luck had nothing to do with it. I’m a smart gal.” I smiled. “I get it from my cousin.”