Sticks & Stones (A Hollis Morgan Mystery) (24 page)

Hollis noticed the faint gleam of the bar
he was still holding.

“All that money, where did it come from? So what happened, Carl? Did you get sloppy?”

“It was only a matter of time before she would stumble onto my side business. There was too much at stake.”

Hollis worked on keeping
the fear out of her voice. They didn’t have a chance. She could talk Devi blue in the face and he would still be blocking the elevator with a gun in his hand.

“Don’t think I don’t know you’re trying to stall.” He smiled. “It won’t work. I’m just waiting for the building to empty.”

Hollis felt her anger build and adrenaline pump to her heart. It made her sore head a little dizzy, but her peripheral vision, now sharp, sought the figure that was inching toward Devi.

“And Gail?”

“Gail? She would be considered a nuisance on a good day. Nobody will miss her.” His voice was ominously quiet. “I had to kill her. She might have started putting things together about a few conversations I had with her supervisor and come up with me.”

Without taking his eyes off Hollis
, he reached behind him and turned on an overhead light.

“Now I’ll have to do it again.” He pointed toward Vince. “And again.”

Hollis blinked from the glare and licked her lips. “I’m not stupid. I told Detective Faber to meet me here.”

“Really, how did you call him?”

“I have a cellphone. I placed the call just before I got here.”

Devi shook his head. “No, Hollis
, you didn’t. I put a bug in your phone that day your condo was broken into.
Transformation
prides itself on its spy toys. I’ve been tracking your calls for days.”

Hollis thought back to all the visits to centers that knew ahead of time she was coming. She needed time. “Is that gun really loaded?”

“As a matter of fact it is.” He laughed.

“You know what? I hate threats. Did you know I’ve been to prison?” She smiled. “No, I can tell you didn’t. Well, believe me
, you won’t last for a minute in the slammer.” She nodded toward Vince. “He’s just a kid. Hold me hostage. Let him go.”

Devi looked over at Vince
, who still stood with his hands behind his back.

“You’ve been awfully quiet, kid.” Devi motioned with the gun. “Turn around
and let me see your hands.”

Hollis sighed as Vince held out the metal bar.

“Drop it and kick it over here.”

Vince said nothing as the metal clanged loudly
against the floor. Hollis felt his dejection as they both saw their last hope slide away.

“I’m not ready to
let go of my lifestyle just yet.” Devi moved toward her with deliberate slow steps. “Once you’ve killed two people, a third and a fourth is just an inconvenience.”

He looked down at his watch. “Only a few minutes more to be safe.”

Hollis could feel her forced bravado fading. “Then what?”

“Then you and your friend will get a little tap on the head and go back into the trunk for a final ride.”

Hollis almost shut her eyes, but just then she saw Vince yell and lunge toward Devi. Devi was caught off guard but had enough time to push Vince off him. Hollis picked up the metal bar as she ran toward the struggling men. Vince and Devi wrestled, but Vince didn’t have the strength to withstand Devi’s bulk.

Hollis stood to the side holding the bar in her hand like a bat.
She knew she would have only one chance to get it right. She jumped when seconds later a shot rang out and Vince fell to the ground. Devi stood over him, breathing with deep gasps.

Hollis moved quickly. Without hesitation, she swung the bar as hard as she could. Devi fell at her feet, blood gush
ing from his skull.

“See how you like getting hit in the head.”

Her chest heaved as she tried to catch her breath, but for only a moment. She ran to Vince. Blood was already pooling under him. She turned him over and held him close. His thin body had only a faint pulse. She had to get help. She rose from the floor when his eyelids fluttered. He looked at her without speaking, and then his eyes closed.

“No!” Hollis screamed.

T
he elevator doors opened onto the lower garage, just as Vince had described. Hollis ran to the passenger elevator and began pushing buttons, leaving smears of blood on the panel. But she could go no farther. She needed a security card to call the elevator. Tears blurred her vision; she wiped them away as she ran to the ramp. There was the wrought-iron gate, but it needed a remote to open.

“Help
!” she screamed through the bars. “Help me!”

After what
felt like an hour of constant screaming, she heard footsteps. She tasted her own blood. Her throat must be bleeding.

“Hey lady, this is security. We’re on our way. You’re going to be okay.”

Shaking with sobs, she slid down to the ground.

She sat off to the side as the police and medics rushed past her to the elevator.

It was over.

She put her head in her hands. She felt arms around her shoulders.

“Hollis, it’s John. Are you okay?”

She looked up and grabbed him by the arm. Her voice rasped. “John, help Vince. He’s down there with Devi. He’s just a kid. I think he’s …. He might be ….”

“Sh
h, stay here.” He patted her hand. “I’ll be back. I’m going down.”

The elevator rumbled its return.

An EMT carrying a bag knelt beside her. “Lady, let me look at your head. You had a couple of real nasty blows.”

As he
examined her, she winced with pain.

He reached into his bag. “They’re more
bloody than serious; fortunately they missed your eye.” He quickly cleaned and swabbed her head and hair with a wet cloth then wrapped both in a gauze bandage. “You need to get to the hospital, too. You’re going to need an MRI and possibly an EEG.”

The elevator doors opened again
, and two stretchers rolled out, one with an IV setup, rushing toward the ramp. The other held Devi.

Devi was handcuffed to the bed, his head swathed in white bandages.
His stretcher was followed by Cavanaugh, who spoke rapidly with Faber as he strode up the ramp.

Hollis hobbled over to
the ambulance, leaning on the arm of a medic. She looked down at Vince. “Is he … is he alive?”

The medic looked at her sympathetically. “He’s likely concussed. We need to get him to a hospital as soon as possible. He took a bullet to the chest. He’s going to need surgery.”

She picked up his pale hand with its badly bitten dirty nails. “Oh, Vince, why did you do it?” Her tears fell on his cheeks.

His lashes flickered
and his eyelids fluttered open halfway. She blinked because she thought she saw the vaguest hint of a smile. She put her ear to his lips and heard him whisper, “Because I could.”

“W
hen did you figure out the motive?” Faber stood next to Hollis’ bed holding her hand while they waited in the hospital emergency room for her MRI results.

She knew he was trying to distract her from worrying about Vince’s surgery. Stephanie stood on the other side of the bed looking equally concerned. The edge of her own bandage was still evident under her sweater.

Hollis’ forehead wrinkled. “Actually, it was another matter that had my attention—a probate case about missing heirs.” She took another sip of water. “One of the principals hid his brother’s suicide for over thirty years so he could share his own anguish with my client, who was already guilt-ridden. That’s when it clicked in.”

“I must be tired.” Stephanie brought a chair close to the bed and sat. “How did you connect his guilt to this?”

“It kept bothering me that Cathy could have been so sloppy with her due diligence. It wasn’t like her. Then we kept coming up with articles and pictures that had nothing to do with Fields. Then there were the interviews at the charities that Devi was feeding us …. Everything pointed to libel,” Hollis paused with a wince, “but it wasn’t until I showed Cathy’s photographer friend Devi’s picture, and he identified Devi as being one of three men he saw in a meeting. That turned our assumptions upside down. I did a little extra digging. It was really you, Stephanie, who put me on the right road. Remember with the settlement dollars?”

Hollis continued, “Devi was blackmailing Arlo Mueller. His wife may or may not know. Devi discovered that Mueller was involved with that Roemer scandal
and offered to keep Mueller’s role quiet if he settled with
Transformation
and gave Devi a kickback.”

Faber nodded. “I get it. D
evi needed to deflect attention because Cathy was hot on his trail. He gave her a fake Fields of Giving story and kept up the pretense.”

Stephanie frowned. “Okay, I’m with you there, but what had this to do with the probate case?”

“Eric Ferris, who did time for his brother’s murder, learned later that his brother had actually committed suicide. Realizing our client was full of guilt, he steamed open her letters to him, but he didn’t want her to know he’d read them. He would steam them open, read them, and send them back—‘return to sender.’ He hid the real story even from his family.” Hollis paused.

Hollis felt her energy waning. “There was never a Fields story. Devi had set everything up to protect the real story, and him
self. And I bet it wasn’t the first time.”

The doctor entered.

“Hollis Morgan?” He came over to the bed. “Your brother is conscious. He wanted me to let you know he’s okay. He’s groggy and won’t be able to have visitors for another day or so, but with proper care he’s going to be fine.”

She nodded and stopped Stephanie’s protest with a look. John pretended to be engrossed
in the curtains.

Hollis smiled. “Thank you, doctor. Please tell my brother when he wakes up that I have his GED application.”

S
he hesitated to look at the CalBar website for her scores. Much like parents who want to wait to know the sex of their unborn child, Hollis was torn between wanting to know and remaining in the dark.

“Give me your username. I’ll check for your scores.” John Faber reached for the laptop sitting on the kitchen table.

“Yes, wait … no.” She pushed his hand away.

“Hollis, we’ve been sitting here staring at the computer for twenty minutes,” he said patiently. “We’re going to be late for our dinner reservations. You don’t even know if the scores are posted.”

“The scores are in. There’s a notice on the CalBar website saying six o’clock on Friday.”

John looked at the clock on the oven. “It’s almost seven.”

She sighed.

He held her hand. “Okay, tell me how it works.”

“I go to the results page and type in my applicant number, and then type in my California State Bar file number. If my name pops up on the screen, it means I passed. If my name doesn’t pop up, the screen says the website didn’t recognize my information for any number of reasons. One being, I didn’t pass.”

“No matter how long you wait, whether you passed or not, it’s already decided, right?” John said. “You want me to go to the website?”

“What if it’s bad news? I’ve worked for this for so long.” Hollis sighed. “I don’t think I’d be able to eat dinner either way.”

He took her by her shoulders and turned her to face him. “
During these past weeks and months, all you’ve done is face the truth. Compared to what you’ve been through, this notice is nothing.”

Hollis nodded. Enough
was enough. John was right. She quickly tapped in her ID. Squinting with one eye, she read the simple sentence:

“The Committee of Bar Examiners is pleased to inform you that you passed the California Bar Examination.”

* * *

R. Franklin James
worked as a paralegal for a prestigious law firm in the San Francisco Bay Area. A graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, she pursued a career in public policy and government service. Her short story “The Award” was published in the 2008 Sisters in Crime Anthology. She and her husband now live in northern California.

Sticks & Stones
is the second book in Hollis Morgan Mystery Series, following
The Fallen Angels Book Club
. Coming soon:
Return of the Fallen Angels Book Club
. You can find R. Franklin on the Web at www.rfranklinjames.com.