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Beverly really should put an end to her habit of following Adam. She really should. Worried when she couldn’t get him to reply to her texts or calls, she drove by the station in time to see him and two other men heading inside.
One of the two was a large man, the same fellow she’d seen Adam with at the Ironwood Pub & Brewery, while the other fellow was in handcuffs. A prisoner? The real murderer of Wallace Ryall?
Although her heart rejoiced at the thought, she didn’t recognize the guy. Dark hair, European-looking, like he hopped out of a travel poster for Greece or maybe Rome. Rome? As in Italian Stallion?
Beverly parked her car in front of the police station and slipped into the lobby. She knew the receptionist by sight and strolled over to her, with a smile. “Good morning, Arline. Looks like Detective Dutton’s been busy, and it’s not yet noon.”
Arline smiled. “That’s Adam for you.”
“Well, I’m glad he found his man. Have they processed Bruno Giacometti yet?”
Arline pulled up her computer screen and flipped through the records. “Preliminary only.”
“The turtle tracks of justice. Slower than watching paint dry.”
“Sometimes, watching paint is more fun.” Arline picked up a notepad. “Should I let Adam know you’re here?”
Beverly smiled. “Seeing as he’s busy right now, I don’t think I should bother him. I had some information for him, but it can wait.”
“Suit yourself. He’ll likely be tied up with questioning for some time.”
With her suspicions regarding the identity of Adam’s prisoner confirmed by Arline, Beverly returned to her car. She opened a suitcase in the trunk and stared at the wigs and makeup she still kept stashed there. Should she try the blond wig? With the brown contacts and cheek prosthetics?
With a shake of her head, she closed both suitcase and trunk. She’d promised Adam. Besides, Beverly didn’t need a disguise with Fern, who was as much a victim as Jane Campen or Nyssa Atkinson—women used by men like sacrificial pawns in a game of sexual chess.
When Beverly called the florist shop, she learned Fern had left early, and Beverly got directions from the colleague to Fern’s house. Only it didn’t turn out to be a house so much as a small trailer on the outskirts of Ironwood Junction.
It appeared Fern’s fortunes had taken a turn for the worse since her divorce. Or even since her breakup with Wallace Ryall. But if Bruno Giacometti was the type of man she’d turned to, he wasn’t going to help her situation any.
Fern seemed surprised to see Beverly, but not as embarrassed as Beverly had feared. When Beverly told her about Giacometti’s arrest, Fern rubbed her forehead and sighed. “I was afraid this was going to happen. I should never have trusted him.”
“I’m sorry, Fern. I know you hoped he’d be a better catch than Wallace.”
“My taste in men is only slightly better than my taste in housing,” Fern waved her hand around the bare interior. “I suppose I should go and talk to him.”
She looked hopefully at Beverly. “Could we take your car? Mine had a wobble when I got home last night. Think I might need a new tire, and I don’t have the energy to change it.”
Beverly agreed, and they started out on the road to town. But they’d only gone a half-mile when Fern looked in the side mirror and said, “Uh oh.”
Beverly looked in her rear-view and spied a black pickup truck following them. She couldn’t make out the man’s face clearly, but one thing was impossible to miss—his red beard.
Beverly said, “What the hell is he doing here? He’s the man who bombed Adam’s house.”
“We can get rid of him.” Fern pointed to a fork in the road ahead and told Beverly to take a right turn. Beverly didn’t know this area at all, so she let Fern direct her around several unmarked twists and dirt roads, packed hard from the recent snow. Fern directed her to a small clearing and had her pull behind an outcropping of rocks and park.
Fern slid out of the car and disappeared around the rocks. When she didn’t return after a couple of minutes, Beverly grabbed her cellphone, called up the contacts, and punched a familiar number. Then, she slipped her cellphone into her pants pocket and rescued her purse with the gun hidden inside, which she slung diagonally over her shoulder.
Not seeing either Fern or Redbeard, Beverly started to head back to the car when a pair of strong arms grabbed her from behind. With her arms pinned to her sides, she couldn’t reach into her purse. No purse, no gun.
She cried out, “What did you do with Fern?”
Then a feminine voice replied, “I’m right here, Beverly. I’m terribly sorry about this little charade. But circumstances have made it necessary to have a bargaining chip.”
“Bargaining chip? I don’t understand.”
Fern walked in front of Beverly to face her. “That idiot Bruno. Got himself caught. I knew we shouldn’t have brought him in.” She nodded at the man holding Beverly. “Beverly, meet Darnell Warner. My original partner-in-crime. Or should I say grime? Minerals can get rather dirty.”
The wheels in Beverly’s head were spinning so fast, it made her head hurt. But she needed to stay focused, to record everything she could for when she got out of this. And she knew that somehow, some way, she would get out of this.
“Minerals? You must mean those rare earths Adam talked about. You’re the rare-earths thief? But why?”
Fern replied, “My darling ex-husband, Kirk Joffe, ran off with his little bitch while we were still married. He had a dream of starting his own windmill manufacturing business. So he took everything in our savings and all our property and left me penniless. But he’s about as good a businessman as he is a husband. His company is on the verge of bankruptcy. He needs those shipments of rare earth minerals to produce his wind turbines.”
“‘You stole the shipment to push his company over the edge?”
“And it’s working. Of course, we’ll sell the minerals ourselves and make a tidy profit. A win-win.”
“Where do I fit in to all of this? The bargaining chip?”
“Detective Dutton is very good, isn’t he? Even if Bruno-the-weak doesn’t say anything, Dutton will be able to trace the line back to me. And our sexy detective seems to have formed an attachment to you. We need to buy time to get over the Canadian border.”
Beverly stared at her. “That’s your plan? You do a lot of off-the-cuff crime. I’ll bet you’re behind the robbery at Agnes Flamm’s shop.”
“Didn’t you wonder why I hooked up with mousy little Wallace?”
“You said he was loving and supportive, a kind man, misunderstood.”
“He was none of that. But he did have a rich father. And I needed money to buy the rare earths before my ex got his hands on them.”
“Buy? But—”
“When Wallace’s father gave his estate to Harlan Wilford, that meant I wouldn’t be getting a dime by marrying Wallace.”
“So, you tried to steal some of the items back?” The only items touched in Agnes’s shop were the ones from Harlan’s consignment boxes. Once again, Beverly’s suspicions were validated.
“Only one item. A 1927-D Saint Gaudens Double Eagle coin. It’d fetch over a million and a half at auction.”
“But you didn’t find it.”
“It wasn’t listed in the old man’s will. So, I figured he’d hidden it somewhere. I had to go with Plan B, stealing the rare earths. Much riskier, but I couldn’t wait any longer. If Kirk got that shipment, my plan to bankrupt him would be in pieces.”
“Why kill Wallace? Why not just break up with him?”
“He found out about the plan. Wanted a cut. So I gave him a cut. A permanent one.”
Beverly had a sudden image of Fern thrusting the sword into Wallace. “You’re the one who—”
“Right over there,” Fern pointed to a tree. That’s when Beverly noticed bits of yellow crime scene tape left over from the investigation. Beads of sweat broke out along her neck. Fern might not need her bargaining chip alive.
Beverly uttered a small cry and sagged against Redbeard. His grip loosened ever so lightly, and that was all she needed. She took the heel of her boot and rammed it into the man’s instep. When he hopped backward cursing, she ducked out from under his arms and took off running through the woods.
With an eye on the angle of the sun, she had a pretty good idea which way to take toward the main road, but she had to make it before her pursuers did. Even then, she knew it would be an impossible stroke of luck for someone to be passing through at exactly the right time.
Her boots made good foot-stompers but weren’t quite as effective as running shoes. Should she take them off? No, ice-block feet would be worse.
Feeling like a panicked deer, she jumped over branches and fallen tree limbs and sloshed through ice mud puddle after ice mud puddle. She paused for a moment to catch her breath, then pushed on again, thinking she could hear the thrashing of Redbeard and Fern catching up to her.
She crashed through the woods for what seemed like hours. But when she risked a quick peek at her cellphone, it had only been twenty-five minutes. Beverly pressed on, trying to buy some time.
She was in pretty decent shape, but she hadn’t exactly trained as a forest hurdler. Before long, she had to stop and catch her breath again. Another fork in the path—right or left?
She opted for left and started toward it when a burly figure loomed in front of her. Redbeard.
She looked wildly around for a rock when she remembered she still had her purse slung across her shoulder. Keeping her eyes locked with his, hoping he wouldn’t notice what she was doing, she jammed her hand inside her purse until her fingers curled around the gun.
He took two steps toward her, but stopped, his eyes wide, when he saw the gun pointed at him. Now what? Winded, tired, and cold, what was she going to do with her “prisoner?”
A baritone voice boomed out, “We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” but Redbeard’s lips hadn’t moved.
A woman’s voice added, “You got that right,” and soon Adam and Jinks came into view.
They had Redbeard quickly restrained, but Beverly said, “Fern. She’s in on this, too.”
Jinks grinned. “And she’s also in handcuffs. One of the uniforms is taking her to the station to join Lover Boy.”
Beverly followed Adam and Jinks and their prisoner to their car, realizing she’d doubled back during her run to end up at the starting point. And there was her own SUV, waiting for her like a faithful steed.
Adam smiled at her. “Brilliant idea to call me on your cellphone and keep it running the whole time.”
Beverly pulled the phone out of her pocket and turned it off. She was equally amazed it had worked. Maybe the phone company would hire her to be in their ads. She could hear the jingle now, “When you’re kidnapped, you want the very best cellphone coverage.”
Adam said, “What made you think this was a setup, Beverly?”
“Years of playing cons, I guess. And maybe it was the fact when Fern was directing me through the woods to avoid our ‘tail,’ she never once looked back. As if she didn’t care whether the route was working. Or knew it didn’t matter.”
Adam said, “Cray told me he thought you’d make a good private eye. I’d better not tell him just how good you are, or he’ll be luring my unofficial partner away.”
“Lure? I am not a fish.”
Adam laughed. “Fishing, you say? I have a feeling Harlan is going to be able to do it again real soon, thanks to you.”
“You’re not going to let him go ice fishing alone again, are you?”
“Not on your life.”
She put her hands on her hips. “What kind of bait do you use with ice fishing, anyway?”
“Damsels in distress.” He grinned at her, then when her mouth opened in indignation, he added, “Damselflies. Fake ones.”
