IN FOR A PENNY (The Granny Series) (24 page)

Wouldn’t have surprised Maggie to hear the automated voice start spitting out cuss words at Abby Ruth.
“Maybe Sera didn’t mean Okra and Man.”

“Well, seeing as neither of those streets
seem to exist in Hilton Head, I’m betting you’re right.”

Abby Ruth’s phone rang for what seemed like the millionth time since they’d left Teague conked out on Lil’s floor. “It’s him again, isn’t it?” Maggie asked.

“Yup.”

“He’s going to kill us when he finds us, isn’t he?”

“Yup.”

“Then we can’t let him find us.”

“You’re growing on me every day, Mags.” Abby Ruth grinned even while she stabbed at the navigation system. “Who names a street for a fried vegetable?”

Maggie’s stomach growled at the thought of a big old plate of fried okra.
Wait a minute.
She snapped her fingers. “Not Okra and Man! She meant Oak and Main.”

“Makes a helluva a lot more sense.”

This time the GPS cooperated and directed them to a complex of high-rise
condos near the water. Maggie checked the address. “It’s not 821, though. Not on Main or Oak.”

“I’ve got a bad feeling that we need to find her soon.” Abby Ruth drummed her fingers on the steering wheel.
“A man with that much Ivory Soap and toilet bowl cleaner? You just don’t know what his kind will do.”

Sera hadn’t been in Maggie’s life for long, but they were already lifelong friends. They had to find her. Maggie rolled down her window and craned her neck out. “I don’t think 821 is the street address. It’s the apartment number.”

“Damn, you would’ve made a great journalist.” Abby Ruth wedged the dually between a BMW and a Cadillac SUV. Maggie was careful not to open her door too wide, and hot dog, she was able to squeeze out with only a little wiggling.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

After hopping in the shower himself, Nash quickly dressed in a pressed pair of shorts and crisp polo shirt. Sometimes it really paid to have his
little problem
. That crazy Serendipity chick was still in the master bathroom with the water running and singing what sounded like “Stand Back” by Stevie Nicks.

And people think I’m strange?

He rolled a large Tumi suitcase into his spotless living room. White leather couch, immaculate carpet and wide windows. The life-size nude statues standing on pedestals had been commissioned and he’d handpicked every art piece for a specific reason. He would miss this condo. These things. It was the only place he’d ever felt like himself.

The Theodore Warner self he was so proud of.

Too bad Theodore Warner was about to disappear.

Nash hurried into the kitchen and pulled a cereal box from the cabinet. He ripped open the wax liner and pulled out a manila envelope. Even though he’d known the envelope was safe in there all this time, relief still streamed through him. He scooped up a box of stuffing and a packaged hamburger meal, shuddered at the thought of ever eating what used to be inside them. Once he had the envelopes out, he returned to the living room and tucked them into the suitcase.

Step one of the plan complete. Nash breathed, a deliberate inhalation and exhalation to clear his mind for step two. Every step in order and no skipped steps. The woman in his bathroom had already inserted a step that he didn’t know where to place. His breath hitched.
No. She will not throw me off stride.

He tugged on the edge of the abstract painting on the wall. From the safe behind it, he removed a stack of envelopes, a small box and a leather-bound journal. The envelopes went in one pile on the coffee table where he’d already placed the ledger. The small box sat lined up with the journal.

He tipped out the bills from the top envelope and counted.
One hundred. Two hundred.
He was up to seven hundred when from behind him someone said, “All done.”

The money flew from Nash’s grip and rained down like green ash. He whirled around to find Serendipity standing there in his plush robe.

She was an escape artist.

“How did you get out of the bathroom?”

She ducked her head a little. “Sorry about your chair.”

“You broke it? That was a
Kesstermann acrylic!”

“Maybe next time you should go for natural materials.”

Forget it.
A chair didn’t matter at this point. Nash knelt to gather the cash he’d dropped. He glanced up to catch the woman trailing her fingers over a statue’s man parts. “No touching!”

She snatched her hand back. “Sorry.”

The bills crumpled in Nash’s tight grip and his heartbeat tripped. “Sit on the couch and don’t move,” he ordered.

Unbelievably, she sat.

Nash smoothed the cash, tucked it back in the envelope and marked off a tally in the journal. He’d spend that money first so he didn’t have to live with wrinkled bills in his wallet.

No time to count what was in the rest of the envelopes. He flipped to the back page of his
journal, carefully tabbed with a red fla
g
. CONTINGENCY PLA
N
was printed in perfect block print across the top of the page. The steps were specific and clear.

Step one:
Secure money.

He slid ten envelopes into a larger one.
One thousand in each small envelope. Ten thousand in each set. In the end, he had one small envelope left over. Damn that Twilight Breaks asking for a nine-thousand-dollar deposit. Money down the drain since there was no way he could move his dad now.

What could he do with the extra thousand dollars?

He arranged all the envelopes but that one in the suitcase.

Step two didn’t say anything about leftover money.

And it didn’t say anything about dealing with a trunk hitchhiker.

It said
:
Retrieve second suitcase from hall closet
.

“How did that woman get in my trunk?” he muttered as he walked down the hall to retrieve the matching bag he’d packed months ago. “Damn it all. She’s not on my list. Can’t she just disappear?”

When he cleared the corner rolling the suitcase behind him, she was standing again, staring at him with a poleaxed expression.

He’d said that disappear thing aloud, hadn’t he?

I hate it when that happens.

She tugged the robe tight around her body but the bottom gaped a little. Her legs were long and tan and her left ankle sported a tattoo.
Kind of sexy.
Stop it, Nash. No time for this. Stick to the contingency plan.
But she isn’t on the contingency plan!

The chaos that had just invaded his perfect place was eating at him like maggots on a hunk of raw beef. He stared down at the still open bag filled with envelopes.

“Are they all filled with money?” she asked.

“Letters.”

“Must be special letters if you’re packing them up. Are you going on vacation?”

Maybe she could come with me. No. No. She’s a loose end.

He had what he needed to take care of that too. On another journal page, he’d outlined a
n
In case of loose ends.
Too bad he’d have to use that plan. He’d hoped he’d never need it.

Just as he was about to check of
f
Get gun from safe
,
a sudden movement caught his attention. The woman was rising from the couch, lifting her arms as if they were angel wings and letting his robe fall to the ground like a cloud. She flexed her foot, grabbed her big toe and lifted one leg into the air.

Who knew a woman her age could look that good without clothes on?

Oh hell yeah, she can come with me.

Abby Ruth strode toward the front door of the fancy condominium at the corner of Oak and Main like she owned the place. Maggie trotted along trying to appear like at least a princess to Abby Ruth’s queen. They stopped by the security desk.

“We’re here to see the hot hunk in 821,” Abby Ruth told the guard.

“Warner?” He reached for the phone.

Maggie almost squealed with excitement. Talley might be using a fake name, but creativity wasn’t his thing if the best he could do was use his daddy’s name. It was him. Sera was here.

The guard cast a suspicious look their way. “This is awfully late. I’ll just give him a call and see—”

Abby Ruth placed her hand over his, leaned over the desk and before Maggie’s eyes she became a sultry sex kitten. “Sugar, it’s the man’s birthday, and we’re—” she gestured between Maggie and herself, “—his surprise present. Now you wouldn’t want to ruin that, would you?”

The guard swallowed and eyed them both.

Who in tarnation would believe she was in some kind of threesome with Abby Ruth and Nash Talley?

“It’s highly unusual, but since it’s his birthday…”

Abby Ruth gave him a smile that could’ve boiled ice cubes and then sauntered away to the elevator. Maggie shot after her.

Maggie felt the guard gawking at them as they walked away.

When the doors closed, Maggie said, “What was that?”

“I was actually a double major in college—journalism and drama.”

“God help us all.”

The elevator
whooshed them up eight floors, and they stepped out into a hallway tiled in slate and lined with muted gray wallpaper. This was no criminal hidey-hole, it was a retreat. Nash Talley deserved to pay—and pay big—if this was how he’d spent the money he’d stolen. They found number 821, no problems.

Maggie stuck her ear to the door. “I don’t hear anything. What if they’re not here?”

“What if he’s in there carving Sera up while you’re jacking around with the door?”

“Fine.”
Maggie pulled out her supplies and knelt to study the door.

“Why don’t you do it with that knife again?”

“Because he’s engaged the deadbolt.” Maggie inserted her tension wrench and worked her pick inside. Slowly. Slowly.

Abby Ruth paced in jerky little circles. After all of forty-five seconds, she pulled the gun from the small of her back and aimed it at the lock.

Maggie jerked upright and felt the pins give. “Dammit, Abby Ruth. You made me lock it again.”

“
Lemme just blow it off.”

“No! If we walk in there with guns blazing, we’ve lost the element of surprise.”

“I could surprise him with my little friend here.” But Abby Ruth reluctantly reholstered the gun and patted it.

Maggie wound up her plug spinner and slid it inside the lock. She regulated her breathing like Sera had taught her and became one with the lock. Gave the plug spinner a quick snap and…

Click.

“We’re in.” Maggie slowly turned the knob. “Cover me.” She’d always wanted to say that.

When they swung open the door, Abby Ruth stayed high while Maggie ducked low.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Maggie and Abby Ruth turned the corner into Nash’s living room, almost blinded by the white
everything.
If the decor hadn’t done the job, seeing Sera buck nekkid in what she’d described to Maggie just the other day as a Standing Hand to Big Toe was enough to cause anyone to stop and stare.

Nash
was frozen, gawking at Sera.

Jackpot.

“It’s over, Talley,” Abby Ruth said with more gusto than Dirty Harry.

He spun around. His hair
was ruffled in little ducktails and his eyes were wide and glassy. “What do you people want? First, this wacko—” he flicked a hand toward Sera, “—is in my trunk—”

Abby Ruth motioned him away from Sera with her gun and then kept it trained on him.

“How did you get in here?” He practically tripped over his feet trying to move. “And now you’re standing in my house waving a gun at me. Why?”

Maggie advanced on Nash, one deliberate footstep at a time.
“Justice. Not only did you set Lillian up—” she lifted her finger and pointed it straight at him, “—you stole from old people, people who need every dime just to make ends meet.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I know you’re a dirty rotten scoundrel. How could you do this to your father?” Maggie asked. “He would be so disappointed in what you’ve been up to. Thank God, he won’t ever know. That sweet man loves you, misses you, and this is the way you repay him?”

Nash swept a hand through his hair. “You don’t understand.”

“We understand perfectly,” she told him. “We saw the ledger, Nash.”

“Wh-what ledger?”
Only his stammering didn’t hide the panic rising in his voice. He edged toward the coffee table.

Maggie tracked his movement.
“The one sitting right there on the table. The one you’re about to hand over to us,” she demanded.
Wow, I like this giving orders. No wonder Abby Ruth is addicted to it.

“Don’t forget the money,” Abby Ruth added.

Nash’s expression sharpened. “What money?”

Sera finally lowered her leg. “He packed the money in that suitcase over there. There’s another ledger in there too.”

“Shut up,” he screeched. “Don’t you ever shut up?” He dove forward and grabbed the suitcase.

Maggie dove, too, but he had the suitcase and Sera in his arms before she got there. He pulled naked Sera against his chest, creating a shield in front of himself. “I’ll hurt her.” His eyes went wild. “I swear I will.”

“With what, your hand sanitizer?” Abby Ruth didn’t look impressed. She took two steps toward him. “May as well just give it up, Nash. I’m in no mood to put up with this kind of crap.”

He turned Sera and backed out of the living room as if they were engaged in some perverted waltz. Peering over Sera’s shoulder, he shouted as they waddled away, “You won’t use that thing. You old ladies are softies and easy marks. Lillian was the easiest of all.”

Pressure built in Maggie’s head.
Wanna see just what kind of softie I am?

“Think I won’t?” Abby Ruth laughed and took aim at one of the sinuous statues in Nash’s foyer.

“You wouldn’t,” he sneered.

She squeezed the trigger. And just that quick, the male statue was a eunuch. “Then think again.”

“What the hell are you doing?” Nash hopped around in a circle, dragging Sera with him.

But his distress and momentary distraction was all it took.

Sera broke away, kicked up into a Downward Facing Dog Planning to Pee and clocked him right in the jaw.

He staggered back and bounced off the wall.

“What do you think you’re—”

Maggie darted forward, caught Nash in the side and tackled him
facedown on the floor. But in her hurry, she must’ve brushed the now penis-less statue because it teetered off its perch and toppled, clunking Nash on the head.

Before he could shake it off, Maggie whipped out her duct tape. She slapped a piece of duct tape over the wound on his head before it could start bleeding, then grabbed his wrists and one ankle—quite forcefully, if she said so herself—and trussed him up like a bawling calf.

Maggie patted her handy duct tape dispenser like it was a gun in holster. “He won’t be going anywhere.”

Abby Ruth set her fancy boots into a wide stance and took aim. “I got a bead on the back of his head.”

Sure enough, right there in front of Maggie’s eyes, a red dot marked a spot in the middle of Nash Talley’s tousled hair.

He groaned and tried to turn his head.

Abby Ruth spoke low and steady. “Flip him over, girls. I’ll line up a shot on him like I did that big-ass Casper boy in the living room.” She hitched her chin toward the now smashed statue.

“You won’t kill me.” Nash’s words sounded like they’d been put through a meat grinder, but they still had a cocky edge to them.

“Didn’t say I would. Said I’d blow your boy parts to nethers.” Abby Ruth’s laugh made Maggie a little nervous, but it wasn’t enough to dull the anger she was feeling for Nash right now.

Maggie rocked on her heels and shoved him to his back. “I wouldn’t tempt her, pretty boy.”

When Abby Ruth moved the laser dot from his head to the fly of his shorts, his smug attitude wilted.

“Fine,” he practically squealed. “Tell me what you want.”

“Answers,” Maggie barked out.

His gaze darted from Maggie to Abby Ruth and back to Maggie. “Then call off your gun-crazy psycho Annie Oakley, would you?”

Reluctantly, Abby Ruth lowered her gun.

“How?”
Maggie asked.

“How what?”

She nudged him in the ribs with her toe. Okay, maybe it was a kick. “How did you hornswoggle all those nice old folks? We know you were running some kind scam through Meals on Wheels.”

“If I tell you everything, will you let me go?”

Abby Ruth flipped the laser back on and waved it toward him. “Don’t push your luck, Tidy Boy.”

Maggie grabbed Abby Ruth’s arm and pushed the gun back down. “We’ll see.”

He slumped a little, but it only took a moment—and another of Maggie’s toe nudges—for him to start talking. “I drove the Meals on Wheels van on the days Social Security checks showed up in the mailboxes.”

“Didn’t people ever miss the money?”

“No. Those people were dead. I just skipped a step in the paperwork at the funeral home. The checks kept coming and I only took the ones from the deceased spouses. No one was looking for them anyway. I wasn’t hurting anyone, not really.”

“So you call Lillian being in federal prison camp not hurting anyone? Same thing could have easily happened to everyone else you were stealing from.”

“That wasn’t part of the plan,” he mumbled, his gaze cast toward the floor.

Abby Ruth looked doubtful. “That doesn’t seem like it would net him that much money.” She tapped her chin with one finger. “Because how many people get actual checks these days? Everything’s gone direct deposit.”

“True.” Maggie turned to Nash. “So, what about that?”

Nash
huffed a sigh. “Isn’t it obvious? All I had to do once someone died was to request a change of banks.”

“So the money was diverted to your account.”

“Accounts,” he said. “It wouldn’t do to have just one.”

Evil, evil man.

“You’re going to let me go, right? I’ll be out of here in five minutes and you’ll never hear from me again. I promise.”

“I don’t think so. Settle down there.”

“What? Do you want the money? If it’s about the money I’ll split it with you.
Fifty-fifty. Just let me go. A man like me would never make it in prison.”

Abby Ruth laughed. “You got that right, pretty boy.”

“Stop antagonizing him. Come here, girls. Let us talk about it,” Maggie said.

Sera and Abby Ruth followed her back into the living room and out of Nash’s earshot, but as
soon as they were out of sight he started making a racket.

“What if he gets loose?” Sera asked.

Abby Ruth waved a dismissive hand. “He ain’t goin’ nowhere. You’re pretty good with that duct tape, Maggie.”

“Thanks.” Maggie shook a finger at Sera. “What were you thinking, doing naked yoga when we came in?”

“A thank-you would be nice here.” Sera propped her hands on her still-naked hips. “You two took forever to get here and then you were noisy. I could hear you at the door, and he would have heard you too. I had to do something to save your butt, and that was the best I could come up with on short notice.”

Her best was pretty good.
“
Could you put some clothes on now?”

Sera grabbed the robe from the couch and slipped into it. From the pocket, she pulled out Maggie’s phone. “By the way, someone’s been trying to call you all night, but I didn’t know how to pick up the messages.”

Maggie grabbed it and checked the screen. Oh, no. Lillian. Lord, it was after one in the morning. She couldn’t call this number and risk getting Lillian in trouble.

“I’m going to find something else to wear.” Sera headed down the hall to what Maggie assumed were the bedrooms.

She took a breath and asked Abby Ruth, “What are we going to do with him?”

“Looks pretty damn clear to me.”

“You talk a big game, but you’re saying you’d pull the trigger and kill a man in cold blood?”

“Well…”

“Never mind. There are some things about you I don’t need to know.” Maggie rubbed the center of her forehead. “It sure doesn’t seem right to just let him up and walk out of here, even if we take the money, or just call the cops on him. That’s going too easy on him.”

“He needs to be punished,” Abby Ruth said.
“Taught a lesson he’ll never forget.”

Nash thumped around in the other room and she heard him gag. He was one tender-bellied OCD man.
Looked like poor Angelina Broussard was going to have to find herself another historic preservation committee member.

“We may not be able to get Lil out of jail, but we can at least help save Summer Haven if we take back every penny Lil’s doing time for.”

Sera came back wearing a man’s shirt. “What are we going to do?”

Maggie snapped.
Oh, I have just the thing.
“I have an idea about how to give Nash Talley what he’s got coming to him. Follow me.”

They trooped back into the foyer and circled Nash.

“Y’all grab his leg and flip him back over,” Maggie instructed.

Abby Ruth and Sera wrestled him back to his stomach and grabbed his untied ankle. “Ready.”

“Pull him back that way.” Maggie pointed down the hall. “Sera, you know where the bathroom is?”

“Yep.”

“Then let’s go.”

They tugged and slid him slowly across the carpet while Maggie strolled alongside. She
winked at Sera and said casually, “Sera, have you ever heard about the kind of things that hide in carpet?”

“Like what?”

“I read somewhere that carpet is one of the top five places in a home that harbors germs.”

Nash struggled in their hold and tried to spit. “I know what you’re doing.”

“And another thing.” Maggie grinned down at him. “A person sheds about one point five million skin flakes an hour. Most of those fall to the floor and sink into the carpet.”

Nash’s head thunked against the wall as they made the turn into the hallway. “Just kill me now.”

Sera patted him on the leg and he shivered. “Our friend here doesn’t like germs much. Has a bit of weak stomach. By the way, did you know I get carsick if I don’t have enough air?”

“Oh, Sera.”
Maggie mock-sympathized. “Did you get sick?”

“Sugar, are you okay?” Abby Ruth added.

Nash coughed and sputtered, finally going limp. “What about me? Doesn’t anyone care if I’m okay?”

“No,” they all said in chorus.

They dragged him into the guest bathroom and Maggie said, “This’ll do, girls. Sera, why don’t you keep our friend company while Abby Ruth and I run an errand?”

“Happy to.”
Sera eased down beside Nash in a cross-legged pose.

Maggie walked over to the two suitcases in the living room and opened the first one. She dumped out his clothes and started to wheel it toward the door.

Abby Ruth grabbed the other one. “Do you need this one too? What’s the plan?”

“Yes, empty that one too.”

Abby Ruth unzipped the bag and then took one of the envelopes out. “Well, lookie here. Even a blind hog finds an acorn now and again, but it looks like Nash packed us a whole dang picnic.” She reached down and picked up a stack of similar envelopes. “We are
not
dumping this out. Look at this.”