Bound For Murder (29 page)

Carmela took another deep breath and tried to mash herself into the vault another inch or two. Then she forced her hand to dig where she thought her fingertips had felt something.

Trying to blank out the pain in her jaw, the revulsion in her stomach, thoughts of spiders in her hair, Carmela calmly and carefully felt for the key.

Fingers functioning like a hermit crab, scuttling carefully and methodically across the debris, she groped for that all-important treasure.

And, suddenly, there it was. Cool, metallic, infinitely different in texture from the bone fragments she’d been fingering.

Carefully, gently, Carmela curled her thumb and index finger toward each other . . . and snagged the key!

Bringing her arm up carefully, then backing out of the hole with even greater care, Carmela clung tightly to her prize.

Pulling herself into sitting position, Carmela reached for her jacket and wiped her face off as best she could with one of the sleeves.

Then she slipped the jacket back on and edged toward the door.

Okay,
she decided,
now that I’ve got the key, I’ve got to figure a way out of here.

Ten minutes of examining the wooden door told her there was no way it could be opened from the inside. It didn’t lock, but she recalled that it had a latch that could only worked from the outside. Only if she got the door open could she get to the wrought iron gate beyond and use her key.

Maybe, she decided, if someone came along tomorrow, they’d hear her screams and get help. Maybe then she could slip her precious key under the door through what seemed to be a tiny gap between the bottom of the wooden door and the stone lintel.

But those were gigantic maybes, and it meant spending the night here. Entombed.

Carmela fought back tears.

Sliding to the floor, she rested her throbbing head against the door. She thought of Boo, who’d be wondering where she was, why she hadn’t come home. Carmela thought of Ava, who’d probably call to say hi and figure she was out on a date. She thought about her cell phone that she’d left in her car. And Carmela thought of Shamus, whom she’d pretty much blown off and hung up on earlier. He’d had something important to tell her, but it hadn’t been important to her. Then.

Carmela huddled there, thinking how her life had been so topsy-turvey in the past couple years. Marrying Shamus, starting the scrapbook store, separating from Shamus but still feeling a closeness with him.

Closing her eyes, Carmela willed herself to relax. If she was going to keep her wits about her and get through this, she had to somehow calm her still-fluttering heart and quell her anxious mind.

I need a mantra,
Carmela decided.
A word I can focus on. Something that makes me happy, something that calms me.

Scrapbooking.

That was it, she decided. Scrapbooking, made her happy. It released her creativity, drew dear friends together, dispelled tension, touched her soul.

Scrapbooking,
she thought to herself.
Let me drift off, thinking about scrapbooking, meditating on the word
scrapbooking.

She tried to clear her mind, to focus on that one word.

Carmela’s brows furrowed.
Not scrtch scrtch. Scrapbooking.

Carmela shook her head, worried that she was imagining sounds. Terrified that Jud had hit her harder than she’d initially thought, had maybe given her a concussion.

Then she heard it for real. A scratching outside the crypt.

Carmela leapt to her feet, screaming at the top of her lungs. “Help! I’m inside! Please get me out!”

“Carmela?” came a very faint voice.

“Shamus?” she screamed at the top of her lungs. “Shamus!” Her words reverberated inside the crypt.

“Hang on, honey,” came his faint reply. “I’ll go get help!”

“Wait, Shamus!” shrieked Carmela. “I’m going to try to pass a key out to you!”

“You’ve got a key?” came his muffled but surprised answer. “Where the hell did you get a key?”

But Carmela was already on her hands and knees, scrambling to shove the hard-won little key through the crack under the door, pushing with the tips of her fingers until they felt numb.

And then the key disappeared. Under the door and . . . she wasn’t sure where.

Until there was a sharp crack and a sudden
whoosh
as the wooden door creaked open.

Then she was flying into Shamus’s arms, listening to him croon her name over and over again, faintly aware of excited barks and yips.

“Don’t ever let go,” she told him.

“I’ll never let you go,” he promised, holding her tight. “But for God sakes, honey, who did this to you?”

“Jamie Redmond had a brother. Jud.”

“You’re kidding,” murmured Shamus, stroking her hair.

“And he murdered Jamie,” sobbed Carmela. “His own brother.”

“Shh,” said Shamus, kissing the top of her head, her eyebrow, her cheek.

“Ouch.”

Shamus raised an eyebrow. “Ouch?”

“I got smacked hard in the jaw,” she told him.

“Oh, my God!” said Shamus, his eyes filled with concern. “We’re going straight to the emergency room.” Shamus had suddenly assumed the take-charge attitude Carmela had always admired.

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” she cried. The adrenaline was really kicking in now, making her feel schitzy and a little hyper. “How on earth did you find me?” She clung to Shamus like he was her one, single lifeline.

“I went to your shop, looking for you,” explained Shamus. “And that weird St. Rochs Chapel photo was propped up in the middle of the table. For some reason, I had a hunch . . . you never could keep your nose out of trouble. Anyway, I drove over here and then, of course, spotted your car.” Shamus stopped and suddenly held her at arm’s length. “But I didn’t find you,” he said. “Poobah did.”

Carmela gazed down at the little brown and white dog with the torn ear. He’d been milling about their knees anxiously.

“Poobah tracked you here,” explained Shamus. “He just picked up your scent and dragged me over her.” Shamus smiled. “Poobah remembered you. He’s the one who really saved the day!”

Carmela knelt down gingerly. “Come here, boy.” She held out her hand.

Tentatively, Poobah crept toward Carmela. He stretched out his nose for a sniff, unsure what to do, but anxious for her approval. Then Carmela was gathering him into her arms. Cradling the little dog, hugging him, her tears dampening his furry coat.

“Good boy, Poobah,” she told him. “Good boy.”

“
T
HEY got him,” Shamus told her as he hung up the phone.

Carmela was home in bed, cozied up under a down comforter, holding an ice pack to her aching jaw. Boo and Poobah were snuggled at her feet. There had been no mention of fleas.

The doctor in the emergency room at St. Ignatius had taken x-rays and assured Carmela her jaw wasn’t broken, but urged her to come back tomorrow to see a specialist. An orthopod. Just because the bone bruise was so severe.

She blinked slowly and turned to stare at Shamus. “They got Jud Redmond?” said Carmela. “Are you serious?”

Shamus nodded, looking pleased. “With major help from you, of course. You gave the police very credible information. A good physical description of Jud Redmond and, of course, the tip on the blue car. And you were dead right about him high-tailing it down to Boothville. They apprehended him on Highway 23, just south of Ironton.”

While Carmela was being checked out in the emergency room, Shamus had hastily summoned the state police. Laying on the gurney, feeling tight-jawed and clutching Shamus’s hand, Carmela had recounted her abbreviated and somewhat sketchy story, but the police had seemingly jumped on her information.

Carmela shifted the ice pack from her jaw to her cheek, wincing at the cold.

“Call Wren,” she told Shamus, her voice a hoarse whisper.

He bent down, frowned slightly. “Now?”

Carmela nodded. “Before she reads something in the newspaper tomorrow or sees it on TV. Before the rumor mill starts cranking out misinformation.” She grabbed for his hand. “Please? It’s important.”

Shamus nodded. “Okay. But you stay here, awright? Tucked in tight.”

Carmela gave a faint wave with her hand. She was deliriously content to remain in bed, being ministered to by a very solicitous Shamus. A Shamus who still seemed enormously shaken by her encounter with the dangerous and nasty Jud Redmond.

And, truth be told, Carmela rather liked this subdued Shamus. He reminded her of the Shamus she’d married not so long ago.

Closing her eyes, Carmela wiggled her toes, felt one of the dogs shift slightly. She knew that tomorrow she’d have to fill everybody in. Ava, Gabby, Tandy, Baby—they’d all been part of this, they all had a stake in it.

But for now, she was quite content to lay in her own bed where it was clean and safe and warm. Carmela could hear Shamus on the phone, but couldn’t quite make out any words. Oh well . . . he’d be in later to tell her, she decided, as she slid into a light slumber.

 

 

“WREN WANTED TO HURRY RIGHT OVER,” SAID Shamus, breezing into Carmela’s bedroom some ten minutes later. “But I told her to hold off until morning. Wait until you’re feeling better.”

“I’m feeling better now,” Carmela croaked. Her voice sounded so bad even she had to laugh. “So how was Wren? How did she take it?”

“She was absolutely stunned,” said Shamus. “Had no idea there was a doppelganger brother hanging around. And, of course, she was terribly upset. And I think she felt responsible for what happened to you tonight. But in the end she was mostly grateful. Grateful that Jamie wasn’t really a forger or counterfeiter or whatever. Grateful that you stumbled upon his parents’ grave, even though the circumstances were certainly not the best.”

“Everything turned out okay,” murmured Carmela.

“Oh, and she had some good news she wanted to share with you,” said Shamus.

“What’s that?” asked Carmela. She was starting to yawn now. To feel uncontrollably sleepy again.

“Apparently, in her frenzy of conducting an inventory at the bookstore, Wren stumbled across some sort of Mark Twain book. Not a manuscript per se, but a type of pre-publication edition. Jekyl thought it might be worth seventy, eighty grand.

There it is,
thought Carmela.
The money Wren needs to pay off Dunbar DesLauriers. The money that will make her home-free and clear. And even help pay back part of that Preservation Foundation grant, if need be.

“So it’s been a night of surprises,” said Shamus, exhaling. “One hell of a night.”

“I’m still stunned the state police caught up with Jud so fast,” Carmela told him. She couldn’t believe her misadventure at St. Rochs had wound down so quickly.

“For one thing, it’s Federal,” Shamus explained to Carmela. “Anything to do with counterfeiting almost always brings in the Secret Service.” He shook out a pain pill from the little bottle the hospital pharmacy had given them, then handed her a glass of water. “And it didn’t hurt that you were part of the Crescent City Bank Meechums.”

“Am I really?” she asked him. “Am I still?”

Shamus sat down on the bed next to her. “Don’t you want to be?” he whispered softly.

Carmela nodded her head. Slowly, so her jaw wouldn’t hurt any more than it already did. “I do,” she said.

“No,” said Shamus, tilting her chin up oh-so-gently. “
I
do.”

Her eyes locked onto his. “You said those words once before,” she reminded him.

Shamus met her gaze with fierce intensity. “This time I sincerely mean them.”

Carmela lifted the covers, let him crawl into bed with her. “What were you so fired up about?” she asked as he eased himself down next to her. “When you called me earlier, you said there was something you had to tell me.”

They snuggled together, Carmela suddenly feeling happier and content and more hopeful than she had in so many months.

“I want us to move back in together,” Shamus whispered in her ear. “Into our old house.”

“I thought your cousin was living in that house.”

“Not anymore.” Shamus reached up and snapped off the bedside lamp. “Real estate being what it is, there’s been a sudden vacancy.”

Carmela let the icepack plop to the floor as her hands sought him out.
This is it,
she thought.
We’ve reconciled before, but this is for real. The third time’s the charm!

 

Colorful postage stamps also look great on scrapbook pages. The U.S. Post Office has issued thousands of colorful and sometimes crazy stamps. Check out Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elvis, sea turtles, sports stars, even big-eyed cartoon pets.