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I ignored Justin and danced on while thinking. Could the yarn and button found with Kara be from Wade’s sweater and shirt? Several people had worn green shirts and sweaters. It was popular with the men, I’d even seen Debra wearing green. If Kara was going to expose something, as the front desk person had overheard, what would she reveal about him? What would he have killed Leona over?
I remembered Leona was staying down the hall from Wade. Could she have seen him leave or return to his room the night Kara was killed? Of course, Wade saw her talking to Johan and a few hours later she was dead. He might have feared she would tell what she knew.
But Wade had his wife as an alibi. They were both asleep. But...
I had been watching Wade on the dance floor as the song continued. Our eyes locked for several seconds. I saw the recognition in his eyes that I suspected him with more than a theory. I think I understood how he killed Kara and even Leona. The details on exactly why were a little fuzzy still. His eyes flitted around the room. Looking for where the detective was maybe? He began leading his wife through the crowded dance floor in our direction.
“Justin, I need you to do me a favor. You need to find the detective and tell him I know who the killer is. Do you understand?” My voice must have revealed more than I wanted.
“Yeah, okay. Where’re you going to be?”
“Hopefully away from here and a potential hostage situation. Go. Now.” He let go of me and left the dance floor into the main room. I couldn’t say if Wade was desperate enough to take hostages, but I definitely thought he was desperate enough to have killed twice already. I had to keep the guests safe at least.
I walked down the center of the ballroom as quickly as I could. I didn’t see Tammy or Porsche around, let alone Johan. I stopped several feet before the entrance doors. If he was going to push the issue, I hoped somebody would witness I’d left with him.
I glanced back and he was approaching fast, no sign of his wife. I took out my phone and dialed Porsche, I didn’t even have time to text. I left the phone in my hand hoping he wouldn’t notice.
“Wade, why are you following me?” I wanted to make sure the phone picked up the conversation. I prayed Porsche could hear the phone over the party noise or it hadn’t gone to voicemail. Where was she?
“We need to take a little walk young lady and I won’t take no for an answer.” His voice was low, oozing malice. He grabbed my arm in a vicious grip and jerked me toward the door.
“Wade, stop you’re hurting me. You don’t want to hurt me, please.” All for the phone’s sake and to maybe talk him down. Mason had begun teaching me some self-defense, but that was mostly how to break out of chokeholds.
“Where’s your wife? Maybe we should all sit down and talk because this has to be a misunderstanding.” Where the hell was Porsche, and more importantly Johan. Had Justin found him?
“Leave my wife out of this. You loose sleazy women running around. You could learn from her. She knows her place, in the home raising children and obeying. This country has suffered enough from the likes of you.” He spat out.
I had never read any of his editorials, but that seemed one of his typical topics somebody had mentioned. He threw the exit door open and jerked my arm again. I yelped as pain exploded through my shoulder and I feared he would dislodge my arm from the socket if he jerked it again.
I wanted to stay quiet to avoid further injury to my shoulder, but I needed to keep the phone line updated as best I could. I was trotting to keep up with him so he wouldn’t jerk my shoulder again. We were at the spa, empty and dark now. It had a feeling of desertion.
“The spa? Why...”
He slapped me so hard my head slammed to the side and pain exploded near my left eye. For some irrational reason, a line from the movie Pretty Woman ran through my head when Vivian asked if boys were taught how to slap girls in high school.
That. Was. It. I took my arm and twisted it towards his thumb in a fast and equally vicious move hoping I’d broke his thumb. The move shot pain through my shoulder. Although my arm was free he blocked any escape.
There was no use in pretending I didn’t know. “Why? What happened that you would kill Kara?”
“That vile witch didn’t know her place either. How dare she presume to correct me on my behavior. I’m a man of faith and she was a godless witch. She had the gall to try and expose me. Me!”
Okay, score one for the gossip, she was going to expose somebody. Reading between the lines, it was definitely something he had done.
“What could’ve been so bad to warrant killing her? You could’ve faced whatever it was.” I used rational thought to get him to settle down.
He looked at me as if speaking to a simpleton. “I’m a pillar of the community and the taint of an affair, well, people wouldn’t understand. I’d lose credibility, influence, my standing as a leader.”
I had heard how he was big into his church and influenced political figures with his views, he and his wife even had some involvement in more politicized teaching materials they were trying to get schools to use as curriculum. News of an affair would be a scandal – of sorts, but these days it barely raised eyebrows because it was so commonplace.
From what little I had seen and heard of Kara, she would have thrown in his face how she discovered his indiscretion – his hypocrisy – and how she planned to go public. If she had just kept her mouth shut, she might still be alive. I couldn’t understand that need to push a person.
“Did Leona see you, try and blackmail you maybe?”
He let out a hollow laugh, “She was my mistress for several years. That’s why her room was so close, so I could visit easily day or night.” He watched the surprise on my face. “Don’t let that shock you, I had more varied needs that she satisfied. More, shall we say, vigorous and specific needs that she excelled in satisfying.”
Well, shut my mouth, literally. I wasn’t going to ask him, didn’t want to know the details on that one anyway. Hey, he called me loose when he had a mistress.
“You killed your mistress too?” I blurted out as the significance sank fully into my thoughts. I really hoped somebody was getting all this on the phone. Where was Johan?
“Leona served a need, scratched an itch. It was fine as long as she knew her place, on her back or on her knees. She dared to get angry that my wife had come with me when it was none of her business. Then she had the gall to threaten to tell the police I killed Kara. The little whore acted like she was better than me.” His eyes were soulless but his voice was saturated with disgust.
Other than being a cold-blooded killer, he was without any compassion... lacking any devotion or love that he could put his mistress a few hundred feet away so he could leave his wife in bed and slip out to be with the other woman. No true feelings for either woman.
He swiftly grabbed my hair gathered and pinned up at the back of my head and jerked my head close to him. Dang, he was lightning fast.
“I tried to warn you off in the hallway the other night. I guess you need to be taught a lesson in person. Typical rebellious woman – you should have a man keeping you in line.” I kept my mouth shut, this was not the time to counter his antiquated attitude.
His face was twisted into an ugly snarling visage. I had to find a way out of this. I took the heal of my hand from my undamaged arm and punched with all my might at the bridge of his nose. Thank you, self-defense video I had watched online intended to break the nose and inflict pain.
He howled, from pain or rage. Blood was running from his nose. I took my high heels off and had one in each hand with the spiked heels facing him and backed away toward the party where my chances of Johan finding me increased. Wade charged me and I braced myself.
When he got close and grabbed me by the throat I began striking his arms with the sharp heals as hard as I could, then moved to strike at his face. He had to remove a hand to protect his face. With his free hand, he grabbed a shoe, and I struck him in the face with my other heal.
“Freeze, police!” I couldn’t tell if it was Johan or not because I was fading to black for the second time at this resort. Crap. Just crap.
I opened my eyes again and found myself in the spa on a treatment table with people crowded around me.
“How long....?” My throat closed shut. It felt like a metal cheese grater had scraped my throat raw. I remembered Wade choking me and gently felt my throat. Yep, it was still there between my head and shoulders, tender in places. I would have spectacular bruises tomorrow on my throat and face where he struck me.
“Only five minutes or so hun.” Tammy, on my right, said.
Porsche, to my left, explained. “Justin got Johan and they found you fighting with him. Wade was losing that fight anyway from the looks of it. His face is worse for having tangled with you.”
With their help, I sat up on the side of the treatment table and they each hopped up to sit on either side to prop me up. Kylie and Zack were standing just inside the door with anxious looks pinching their faces.
“I’m...fine.” I pointed to my throat, “Hurts a little.” I sounded as bad as it felt.
Justin ran up to the door with a glass of water and a blue ice pack. Both felt so good on my throat. I smiled at him and he beamed.
“Pen...paper,” I whispered and made little writing motions.
Kylie and Zack ran through the spa and returned with some printer paper and a pen.
I wrote out how Wade had confessed he killed Kara because she was going to expose his hypocritical extramarital affair. Then he killed his mistress of several years. Although he didn’t mention it, I think Leona was finished with satisfying his darker desires when he brought his wife along on their anniversary of some sort. When I observed Leona over dinner, she had looked at Wade and his wife more with appraisal than jealousy.
Porsche and Tammy read along as I wrote it out, I handed the paper to the others and they gathered around to read it.
Kylie shook her head and looked ready to cry, tears poised to flow but she held them back. It could have become a maudlin group, but Johan walked in at that moment.
“I need a few minutes with her please.” Everybody deserted me pronto.
I handed him the paper I had started. After reading it, he looked at me with laser eyes.
“Why did you go off on your own? Because that was a serious risk.” Restrained anger reverberated off him.
I wrote on the paper how I was dancing when I saw his buttons and got to thinking, then Wade Lochran looked at me and he could see I had guessed the truth. I didn’t know what Wade might do in a crowd so I wanted to remove that risk and sent Justin to get him.
He read my reply and his shoulders relaxed a bit and I no longer felt he would combust from being mad at me.
“Calling Porsche and mentioning the spa helped. I got there as soon as I could.” His voice was gentle and laced with regret.
I wrote not your fault out on the paper for him. There was a knock on the door and Johan talked with the person for a few moments then turned.
“This is the doctor, I think you two met a few days ago.” Gee, how could I forget?
I lifted a hand and wiggled my fingers in a wave.
Johan let Porsche come in during my exam, but he returned to hear the verdict.
“Her throat is swollen from the choking but should be fine in a few days. The bruise starting around her left eye will look bad, but I don’t think there is any serious damage. Her shoulder took some abuse.” He took a pillowcase off a spa pillow and folded it to use as a sling for my arm.
“I’ll have an actual sling delivered first thing in the morning but use the pillowcase for now. You must wear a sling for at least a week to let all the tendons and muscles heal. Once you get home, your physician will want to do an MRI on the shoulder and an x-ray of your skull and neck because your head has had two blows. He needs to determine what your treatment should involve once you’re home.” He wrote it all down and handed Porsche the directions.
“I’ll make sure she does it.”
I was released to my room and I stood to make the trek when Johan actually picked me up and began carrying me, careful to keep my tender shoulder from door jams. It was kind but made me miss Mason even more. It was the sort of thing he would have done.
Settled into my room and in bed, Porsche got ice and used the towel again for a new cold compress on my shoulder, I still had the original reusable ice pack around my neck. She also dissolved one of the pain pills the doctor had left for me in some water so I could swallow it better.
I slept without any dreams.