He chuckled dryly. “Well, someone needed to go down for the murder, and everyone in town knew it wasn’t going to be Fern. Except you, apparently. The spouse is usually suspected so I just had to make it look convincing.”
I thought back to the evidence Cole mentioned earlier. Drugs and something on the computer. Russell must have tampered with it.
“Like her husband, Patty isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. It was easy. Almost too easy. But I’ll give you credit for your tenacity, Miss King. You stuck with it. Which was stupid and foolish on your part, but you didn’t give up. Even after finding Floyd.”
“Did you kill Floyd too?” What kind of homicidal maniac was I dealing with here?
“No,” he said, shuddering slightly. “I don’t like blood.”
And Floyd’s throat had been slit, reminding me of another man who’d threatened to kill me.
A door at the back of Russell’s office opened, and a man wearing loose jeans and a baggy black sweatshirt with the hood pulled up hurried in.
Oh no.
The man shoved the hood back, revealing a creepy stare and that greasy dark hair.
Sting Ray.
Sting Ray raked his leering eyes over me, his mouth forming a sinister smile. “You again. I figured as much.”
How did they know each other?
“You killed Floyd,” I accused. “Was that because he talked to me? You didn’t have to do that,” I admonished. Although both men didn’t appear to have a conscience so I’m not sure it mattered.
“Floyd knew the rules. He broke ’em’,” said Sting Ray, matter of fact. “You knew ’em too.”
“Oh no,” I shook my finger at him. “I was never part of your—”
“You were warned,” Sting Ray seethed.
Okay, he had me there. Why hadn’t I listened to Cole? I should have trusted him to do his job. He knew Anton Parks, aka Sting Ray, was trouble; surely, he would have figured out that Russell was their guy.
“Are you selling drugs, too?” I asked Russell.
“Would you shut her up?” he ordered Sting Ray.
“You are.” I was a little surprised by this. I shouldn’t have been. Earl and Russell were two peas in a pod, making an easy buck wherever they could. Why hadn’t I seen this sooner? “What, did you take over Earl’s job?”
Russell continued to fume, which I took as a yes, and Sting Ray approached me.
“Hold out your hands,” the smuggler commanded. I did as he asked, only because I didn’t see a better option.
Russell still had his gun on me, and while I doubted he would shoot me here, since he admitted his aversion to the sight of blood, it would also be impossible to cover up my murder. However, I wasn’t willing to take that chance by fighting back. Sting Ray might be skinny (I suspected he was using his product), but he was wiry and undoubtedly stronger than me.
I winced as zip ties were cinched tightly around my wrists. “Take her purse,” barked Russell, “and make sure you find her phone.”
The drug dealer picked up my purse off the floor and searched for my phone. Unsuccessful in that attempt, he raked a slithering eye over me, and reached into the pocket of my wool pea coat. As he pulled it out, I kept my face as neutral as possible, anticipating their anger when they realized they’d been caught.
Sting Ray let out a string of curses, some of which even I hadn’t heard before. He dropped the phone on the floor and stomped it with the heel of his boot. Then he backhanded me across my cheek. Stumbling from the impact of his blow, I blinked several times, trying to clear the spots dancing in my eyes.
If I thought Russell was angry before, he was absolutely livid now. Frantically rummaging through drawers, he started throwing items into a duffel bag he’d procured from underneath his desk. “Go; hurry up!” he shouted. “The cops could be here any minute!”
“Yes, I’m sure they will be,” I said as confidently as I could. “Russell, you might as well give it up. It’s over. My Aunt Fern heard every word.” At least I hoped she had. The phone was in my pocket, and not on speaker, I now stupidly realized.
But she should have been able to glean enough. “If you let me go—” Sting Ray gagged me with a smelly handkerchief. I didn’t even want to consider where this thing had been.
Yanking on my bound hands, he dragged me out the back door to a dark blue sedan. With a click of a button, he popped the trunk and shoved me forcefully inside. My shoulder slammed into the bottom, sending a sharp pain down my back, followed by a loud bang.
Darkness enveloped me, and it took me a second to realize it was only the trunk lid that had been closed. Unaccustomed to this type of physical pain, it was messing with my senses.
The engine roared to life, tires burning as the car screeched out of the parking lot. With my hands bound, I couldn’t brace for the sudden takeoff, sending me crashing into the side of the trunk. I was going to have some serious bruising from this, that is, if I survived.
Be positive. I had no doubt that Russell and Sting Ray would be caught. It was more a matter of when. And would I still be alive then?
I would be, I resolved. And then I started to pray desperately. Because really, that was my best chance at this point.
A hundred bumps and potholes later, the car finally skidded to a stop. A door slammed, and then I was blinded by light. I squeezed my eyes shut, as the brightness made my head pound. Well, worse than it was from the headache I’d developed after being slapped in the face and thrown into a trunk before a bumpy ride down to…
Sting Ray grabbed my shoulders and pulled
