“I knew no such thing.” I crossed my arms and matched him glare for glare. Liar, liar! Whatever. He couldn’t prove I had known and, therefore, couldn’t arrest me. Probably.
After finding the bloody bookend in Annabelle’s closet, I’d planned to call the police. It was crucial evidence in a murder investigation. No getting around that. Unfortunately, I hadn’t counted on the police getting there before I could do so. Now we undoubtedly looked guilty instead of snoopy.
“Ms. Roberts—”
“Viola. Now listen, Detective. I admit that maybe I let my curiosity get the better of me.” He let out a loud snort which I ignored. “But the fact of the matter is, the moment I found anything of importance, I was going to call you. Wasn’t that nice of me?” I all but batted my eyelashes at him, trying to play the innocent. “You just got here first, and I panicked.”
Detective Battersea turned to Cheryl. “That what happened?”
“Yes, sir,” she chirped dutifully.
“What I should do is arrest you and throw away the key.” He sighed heavily. “Fine. Both of you get out of here before I change my mind.”
We got. Just as fast as our legs would take us. Cheryl, being taller and fitter, made it to the car and had the engine roaring before I was halfway across the parking lot.
“Geez,” I huffed, practically jumping into the car as she peeled out of the lot. “Good way to make us look guilty.”
“I don’t care. I do not want to spend the night in the slammer.”
“Yeah. Does anyone actually call it the slammer anymore?”
She shot me a death glare.
“Okay, fine. Maybe this wasn’t my most brilliant idea,” I admitted.
“Actually, it may have been.” I raised an eyebrow. “Oh, really?”
“Right before you found that bloody bookend, I discovered something on Annabelle’s laptop.” She gave me a smug smile as she backed out of the parking space.
“Go on.”
“I found a string of emails. I think she was blackmailing someone.”
My eyes widened. “She was emailing the person she was blackmailing?”
“No. Not that. She was emailing a friend and made some comments about how she knew some things about a local murder.”
“August Nixon!”
She nodded. “That’s my guess. The first mention of it was after his death. Then she made comments about how her life was going to be better soon.”
I mulled that over. “Sounds like blackmail to me. But no mention of who she was blackmailing?”
Cheryl shook her head. “Nope.”
“Of course not. That would be too easy.” I sighed and leaned back in the seat. Rain was still coming down, turning the world outside into a muted blur of color. “I’m willing to bet that whoever it was, it was August Nixon’s killer, and he, or she, also murdered Annabelle.”
“That’s a sucker’s bet.” Cheryl took a hard left toward the bridge leading back to Astoria. “Now what?”
“Now I think you better slow down,” I said, gripping the edge of my seat. She’d taken the turn a little too fast for my liking. And as we barreled toward the narrow bridge, I could suddenly see us careening out of control and plunging over the side into the Icey bay.
Cheryl shook her head. “Can’t.” Her voice was grim. “That jerk behind us is practically up my tailpipe.”
I turned to glance behind us. Sure enough, a big, black SUV with tinted windows was so close behind us he was practically in Cheryl’s trunk.
“Tap the breaks,” I suggested. “That ought to get him to back off.”
She did as I suggested. No luck. He seemed determined to drive over the top of us.
“Why doesn’t he pass us?” Cheryl asked, voice tight.
I didn’t answer because it was obvious. The two-lane bridge was heavily trafficked at this time of day. He had no room to pass even if it had been legal. Instead he was being a jerk face.
We both breathed a sigh of relief as we exited the bridge. The highway expanded into four lanes as it entered a roundabout. Cheryl took the inside lane, circling left toward Astoria. The SUV roared around to the right. Then, without signaling, it veered into our lane and smashed the front end of Cheryl’s car with an ear-piercing shriek of metal on metal.
We jerked heavily in our seats, my headache roaring to life, as our car careened into the middle of the roundabout, jerking and bumping over shrubs and flowers until it came to a stop against the “Welcome to Astoria” sign. The SUV roared off, fishtailing as it went.
“DIDN’T YOU JUST GET out of the hospital?” Detective Battersea eyed me as I sat in the back of the ambulance. I’d insisted I didn’t need medical attention. They’d ignored me. My head hurt too bad to argue.
I shrugged, wincing a little as the action jarred my head. “I like to live on the edge.”
He snorted. “More like survive by the skin of your teeth. She okay?” he asked the EMTs.
The female EMT, who had been taking my pulse, nodded. “It’s a miracle, but she’s good. They both are.”
“I can’t believe this.” Cheryl was stomping back and forth next to the ambulance, her face a thunderstorm. “That car was practically new, and now look at it.”
It was messed up, for sure. The entire front end was crumpled beyond repair, and there was a huge scrape along the passenger’s side. Other than a seatbelt bruise across her chest, Cheryl was fine. Grumpy, but fine.
“What happened?” Battersea poised his pen over his pad of paper. I glanced at Cheryl. She was still fuming, so I quickly and succinctly told the detective what had happened.
“You get the license plate?” he asked Cheryl.
“What?” She looked confused for a moment. Then her expression cleared. “Oh, no. It happened so fast I didn’t have time to react, much less think. It was deliberate, I tell you. I’ll bet you anything this was another attempt to kill Viola.”
“You’re exaggerating,” I assured
