Definitely Dead (An Empty Nest Mystery) (23 page)

“I sure hope someone is listening because I’m in deep shit here. This is Gracie Elliott. Rudy Klingerhoff is the hit man hired by Leila Raffelino. He kidnapped me and locked me in the garage of a house on the second block of Keer Avenue in Newark. A white and brick house with a red door. I’d really appreciate a rescue. Sooner rather than later would be ideal. I’m strapped in and handcuffed awkwardly to the grab bar. I can’t move, and I’m losing circulation in my hands and arms. My muscles are on fire.

“And one more thing, just in case you didn’t hear us earlier—if you let Leila Raffelino out on bail, I’m a goner because Rudy intends to kill me as soon as he receives payment for the hit.”

I thought about what I must be putting Blake through. He’d come home to find the cops gone from the front of the house. Me missing, my car still in the driveway, my purse on the kitchen counter. He’d immediately figure out the hit man had me.

Why hadn’t I listened to him when he first told me Relatively Speaking was a bad idea? Blake’s words to me after we were arrested in front of Suzette’s townhouse in Bernards Township haunted me.
I want us to live to a ripe old age together, rocking on the front porch, enjoying grandchildren, griping about our aches and pains. I don’t want a future that includes prison, or worse yet, cemetery visits.
Because of me, Blake’s future would now be filled with cemetery visits.

“If…if I don’t make it out alive, please tell my husband and kids I love them.”

I closed my eyes and allowed my tears to flow. I’d done everything I could to help myself. Either the police would come to my rescue, or they wouldn’t. I forced myself not to think about what might happen if no one had been listening in on the other end of my cell phone. Instead, I focused on happier times and clung to the possibility of rescue.

Rudy had not allowed me to grab a jacket before forcing me from my home. Even though autumn had arrived only days ago, the mercury had recently nosedived. A cold, damp wind blew outside, rattling the wooden siding of the old garage and brushing tree limbs against the hole-riddled roof. The chill crept into the Pathfinder and permeated my bones. If Rudy left me here all night, he wouldn’t have to kill me. I’d freeze to death first. So much for trying to think happy thoughts.

I strained to hear outside noises—traffic whizzing down the street, leaves swirling in the wind, squirrels scampering overhead—hoping to hear the sounds of the cavalry charging to my rescue.

What I heard instead were footsteps crunching on leaves right outside the garage. Rudy had received his payment, and I was about to die.

TWENTY

But instead of Rudy coming to kill me, an angry voice, boomed from a loudspeaker. “Rudy Klingerhoff, you’re surrounded. Come out with your hands up!”

Rudy apparently had other ideas. He responded with bullets. The gunshots echoed around me, quickly answered by a return volley. Then all hell broke loose. The Pathfinder reverberated from what sounded like hundreds of exploding firecrackers. The acrid smell of gunpowder filled the car, stinging my eyes and burning my lungs.

Bullets ripped through the garage, some hitting the Pathfinder. I had no idea whether I was caught in the crossfire or Rudy was trying to carry out his hit by exploding the car’s gas tank. Either way, I didn’t like the odds, and I had no way of improving them. I couldn’t even duck.

I sandwiched my head between my arms and yelled at the top of my lungs, “Stop shooting at the garage!” Not that I expected anyone to hear me above the gunfire, but I refused to sit there passively accepting my fate.

A bullet shattered the back windshield and whizzed by, inches from my head, before exploding the front windshield. I screamed so loudly I think I ruptured my vocal chords.

Then as suddenly as the gunfire started, it stopped. I inhaled a grateful, albeit shaky, breath, waiting for release from my prison. But instead of hearing the sound of someone cutting through the chain on the door, an enormous explosion ripped through the air. The Pathfinder bounced side to side, nearly toppling before it righted itself, as the garage shifted off its foundation, splitting some of the support beams. Seconds later I saw flames licking at the roof and dancing down the sides of the wooden walls.

The garage quickly filled with dense black smoke that curled its way into the Pathfinder. Far worse than the smoke from the bullets, this was killer smoke, the kind that sucks the oxygen from the air—the kind where you’re supposed to get down on the ground and crawl to safety to keep from dying of smoke inhalation. I began to cough, then wheeze, gasping for breath.

Within seconds I saw nothing but the shadow of the dashboard in front of me, but soon that, too, disappeared into the blackness. Over the roar of the flames I thought I heard shouting coming from beyond the garage. I tried shouting back, screaming at the top of my lungs, but no sound came out other than rattling wheezes as I fought to pull oxygen into my lungs. I yanked so hard at the handcuffs that they sliced into my wrists. I felt the blood drip down my arms at the same speed as the tears streaming down my cheeks. Violent spasms wracked my body until my lungs finally gave up the fight.

~*~

I came to strapped to a gurney inside a careening ambulance. Sirens blared as I bounced and jostled, an oxygen mask covering my mouth, an IV tube snaking into my arm. Blake leaned over me. I’d never seen him so scared. I tried to raise my head but couldn’t. “Lie still,” he said. “You’re going to be all right.”

I closed my eyes again. They burned too much to keep them open. “She will, won’t she?” I heard him ask someone, but I didn’t hear a reply.

The next time I awoke, I found myself on a bed in a hospital room. Machines beeped and whirred around me. My lips curled around a large plastic tube. Another tube snaked into my left arm. Every part of my body ached, burned, stung, or throbbed. I embraced the pain; it meant I was alive.

“Gracie?” I turned my head to find Blake seated in a chair beside the bed. My eyes filled with tears as he gently laced his fingers between mine. He raised my hand, and I saw a bandage wrapping my wrist. “I thought I lost you,” he said.

I smiled and squeezed his hand before I fell back to sleep. I continued to drift in and out of sleep for what was either hours or days. I had no concept of time. However, each time I awoke, I found Blake sitting beside me. I’d squeeze his hand, then drift off again.

Eventually, I remained awake long enough to learn I’d suffered smoke inhalation. The doctors had intubated and sedated me, which explained why I never stayed awake for very long. Thanks to the tube running down my throat, when I was awake, I couldn’t speak. Panic over the unknown gripped me. Was this permanent?

Sensing my anxiety, Blake reassured me that the tube was temporary. However, grief and fear had etched deep lines into his face, and I didn’t know if he was being truthful or just trying to keep me calm.

Once the doctors began weaning me from the respirator, while also decreasing the sedatives and painkillers, I remained awake for longer periods of time. When the fog lifted from my brain, I pantomimed for a pencil and paper.
You should be enjoying the reprieve from my constant babbling
I wrote.

Instead of giving me
The Look
, as I had expected, Blake’s eyes filled with tears. That’s when I realized the seriousness of the situation.
Trying to cheer you up
I quickly wrote, adding a smiley face.

He forced a smile. “I miss your babbling.”

I had a million questions that demanded answers.
Is Rudy behind bars?

“He’s dead.”

How?

“The police aren’t sure. The house exploded. Rudy had an arsenal stored inside. No one knows if he blew himself up, or one of the S.W.A.T. team bullets triggered an explosion. Either way, you don’t have to worry about him anymore.”

He seemed like such a nice guy.

“That’s what you said about Sidney Mandelbaum, and he turned out to be a con artist.”

I shook my head. I never thought Not-Sid was a nice guy. I put up with the creep because I wanted his Mandelbaum Moolah. I’d just never let on to Blake the extent of Not-Sid’s creepiness. Maybe it was time to come clean.

“Which reminds me,” said Blake. “The police did take DNA samples from Blanche Becker’s sons. The results came back positive. Blanche was right all along. Sidney was Sheldon Becker. The
Star-Ledger
ran a front-page story yesterday. I saved it for you.”

Not-Sid wasn’t all that nice. I just never told you.

Blake scowled. “I figured as much. What else did you hide from me, Gracie?”

I shook my head.
Rudy was different. He seemed so lonely and sad. Vulnerable.

“Sociopathic.”

I nodded. I’d come to the same conclusion during my ordeal.
What about Leila and the other women?

“According to Detective Menendez, Suzette, Maureen, and Mary Louise ratted Leila out, hoping by turning on her they’d receive suspended sentences. Leila tried to cut a deal, but with Rudy dead, she had nothing to offer.”

What about her family connections?

“Apparently, she wasn’t connected enough to interest the prosecutor.”

They’re all in jail? For how long?

“A very long time. Even though all four pleaded guilty, the sentencing judge wasn’t in a very generous mood. Unless they live to see their hundredth birthdays, they’ll each spend the remainder of their retirements in orange jumpsuits. You’re safe, Gracie. You have nothing more to worry about.”

Except for the prospect of living above an auto repair shop in Newark. Unless…
Can we file civil suits against Leila, Suzette, Mary Louise, and Maureen?
Those women should pay huge bucks for what they’d put me through.

“We could, but we wouldn’t get much.”

Not even from Leila and Mary Louise?
That made no sense. Judging from their homes, those two were loaded.

“All four women were living well beyond their means, mortgaged to the hilt with huge credit card debt. That’s why they were each interested in Sidney—or Sheldon—at first. They wanted to marry him for his money.”

Talk about irony!
The con man was being conned?

“Separately by all four. At some point one of them must have mentioned she’d hooked a wealthy guy, and they realized they were all dating the same man. That’s when they hatched a plot to get even.”

A plot that backfired on them and nearly cost me my life.

The apartment above the auto repair shop was back in our future. I could safely assume Blake would force me to fold Relatively Speaking. Not that I had any desire to continue playing wing woman to single seniors. I’d learned my lesson. I was steering clear of all septuagenarians from now on—at least until Blake became one. Relatively Speaking was officially permanently dead.

The demise of my fledging business would make Blake extremely happy. He probably wouldn’t even mind that apartment above the auto repair shop in Newark. I wasn’t as accepting. Now, more than ever, I needed to become a bestselling romance author. Only one obstacle stood in my way—I had to finish the damn book.

A Note from the Author

Thanks so much for taking the time to read
Definitely Dead
, the first book in my new Empty Nest Mystery series. I hope you enjoyed it. If so, please consider writing a review and also telling your friends about the book. I’d truly appreciate it.

If you’d like to learn of new Empty Nest Mystery releases as well as other books by me and my Emma Carlyle alter-ego, you can sign up for my newsletter by clicking here:
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Finally, typos and errors are the bane of every author’s existence. No matter how many times this book was proofed, one or two (hopefully no more!) may have slipped past me and those who helped edit this book. If you find a typo, please let me know. The beauty of e-books is that errors can be corrected very easily. You can email me at
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Happy reading!

Lois Winston

About the Author

Lois Winston is an award-winning author and crafts designer. Her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, featuring magazine crafts editor and reluctant amateur sleuth Anastasia Pollack, was dubbed, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum” by
Kirkus Reviews
. Lois is also published in romance, romantic suspense, humorous women’s fiction and non-fiction under her own name and in romance, romantic suspense, and chick lit under her Emma Carlyle pen name. Visit Lois/Emma at
http://www.loiswinston.com
and the Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers character blog,
www.anastasiapollack.blogspot.com
. You can also connect with Lois on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/Anasleuth