Worked to Death (Working Stiff Mysteries Book 2) (13 page)

I nearly jumped out of my skin as the door behind me opened. Sunlight poured in, and I turned my head to the source too quickly. My neck stabbed with pain, and my headache intensified tenfold.

When I managed to make out the silhouette in the doorframe, I couldn't believe my watering eyes.

There stood one big-busted blonde, and she held something in her right hand that glistened in the sun.

Allyson Harlow had a knife.

"Look what the cat drug in." —Things We Say in the South

"I knew you were here, Mandy Murrin. You are absolutely everywhere," Allyson's voice spat out in an aggravated whisper.

I was too surprised to say anything and too terrified to respond with any sense at all.

I watched in nothing less than a mild case of shock as Allyson pranced across the room in her skintight Capri pants and strapless halter top covered with a small button-down sweater. Her latex stilettos made only small squeaking sounds as she walked on her tiptoes to avoid making noise.

"You just cannot stay out of my life. Every time I go somewhere—there you are—it is unbelievable." She was still ranting at me as she reached me and knelt down beside me.

Her perfume replaced the stale beer smell, but I was almost certain that I preferred the beer. Her perfume was ten times stronger than any perfume should be allowed to be and not be marketed as a toxic substance. I wondered if the Food and Drug Administration should get involved in controlling these types of things.

Maybe I was becoming delirious from my lack of sleep and my level of fear and stress for the day.

She continued mumbling under her breath and giving me the "what for" as she sliced through the tape around my hands and ankles. As my limbs were released from their stronghold, I breathed a small sigh of relief. Then I rubbed my wrists trying to restore the circulation.

"What are you doing here? How did you find me?" I asked, and she gave me a glare.

"Shhh. Are you crazy? Be quiet and come on," she scream-whispered at me and motioned for me to follow her with the tip of her knife. It looked like some sort of God-awful hunting knife. I wondered where she'd gotten it.

As I stood up, I wobbled a little as I tried to regain my land legs. She grabbed my arm, scratching me with her fake nails in the process.

"Ow." I jerked my arm out of her grasp.

"Big baby," she snarled. Then turned and stalked out of the room. Well, tiptoe-stalked. We stepped outside, and I realized that the sun was on its last leg as it had begun to set. I also realized that I had no idea where I was at the moment. But I decided it best not to ask her. I just followed along behind her like a lost puppy.

A few seconds later, she arrived at the corner of the building and held her hand back behind her to stop me. Unfortunately, I saw her hand just a moment too late and crashed into the back of her almost knocking both of us down.

Luckily, she was quite good at keeping her balance even in her hooker-style heels, and she caught us before we toppled forward. She spun around and held onto me to keep me upright. This ended us in a full-on embrace.

We made eye contact, a mutual grimace formed on our faces, and we jerked apart. We would never speak of this moment again. I was sure of that.

She cut her gaze around to me and gave me the evil eye. I mouthed the word "sorry," and she smirked slightly before facing forward again. After a thorough examination of the path in front of us, she must have thought the coast was clear because she proceeded around the back of the building and toward her shiny new Mercedes.

I figured that it was a dealer loner, as I knew that she couldn't afford something like that on her own. Unless her new sugar daddy bought it for her. I wondered if Tumpka Brown was her new big spender. He was certainly good-looking enough, and I bet that he had plenty of money.

Only, if she was in a relationship with him, why would she be helping me to escape? I planned to ask her this and much more as soon as we were well on our way.

We made it to the car and down the dirt road with no further complications. Soon, we entered a more populated area with a lot of trees and several teepees perched underneath.

Teepees?

I opened my mouth to speak and let out a huge breath of air that I hadn't realized I'd been holding.

"How do you get yourself in these situations? And how is it that you always butt into something that I have going on anyway?" Allyson asked, starting to give me the third degree before I had a chance to speak.

"Where are we?" I asked, completely ignoring her rant.

"Duh. We're at Fort Creek. Don't you recognize it?" She pointed to the teepees and craft tents set up along the roadside.

I hadn't been here since I was in fourth grade on a field trip, but now that she mentioned it, it did look a little familiar.

"Okay. Well, thank you for helping me. I need to call Ty. That guy Brown and Hank O'Hannigan have Paget and Denise Owens. I don't know where they're being held. Maybe somewhere else out here. I don't think they were in that building though, it seemed pretty empty."

"Would you stop babbling? There's no need to call the cops. I'm sure your sister and Denise are fine. I just saw them about an hour ago at Ingram's. They were getting groceries. I don't think anyone abducted them while we were here." She possessed a confidence that I didn't feel or understand.

"Wait a minute. You saw Paget and Denise at the grocery store? This afternoon? Just now?" I'd never even considered that Hank was lying about their abduction.

"Ugh. You must think I'm stooopid. If I say I saw them, I saw them. Okay?" Her voice was beginning to grate on my nerves. And the compassion and gratefulness I'd been feeling toward her was fading fast.

"Well…" I began but paused. After all, she was driving the escape vehicle.

She began to tap her fingernails on the steering wheel. "You know. I didn't even want to help you. Having you out of the way would make my life a whole lot easier in so many ways."

I crossed my arms over my chest, and my wrists felt raw against my shirt.

"Allyson, you don't like me. I don't like you. I doubt that will change during the course of this car ride. Could we just cooperate with one another for that short distance anyway?"

"Fine," she said.

"Fine," I responded. We both stared straight ahead as we tooled down Highway 14 toward Millbrook.

"Why is there no need to get the cops involved? I was taken, bound, and threatened. I'm pretty sure that's a crime. And I need to call and check on Paget. Can I borrow your phone, please?" I wasn't sure why she didn't want to get Ty involved. It seemed like we had to let the police know what was going on. I mean, besides my apparent kidnapping, even if they didn't abduct Paget and Denise as they'd claimed—there was something majorly criminal going on with these guys, and I suspected it was all related to the Brady Blue incident of this morning.

And now they'd made a connection to Mick in the trunk. Apparently, he'd had something belonging to them before he died, and they wanted it back. They'd mistakenly thought that I had it. I didn't know what it was, and I wasn't sure I wanted to know.

"Everything will make sense when we get to my place. Just hold your horses, Mandy Candy." She eyed me out of the corner of her eye. I supposed that it was to see if she'd hit a nerve with her high school nickname for me.

I ignored her and tried to play through the scenario back at the reservation. There were so many things that didn't make sense. I needed answers. I'd follow along with her weird demands and rules for now, but when I got my hands on a phone I was making two calls—one to check on Paget and one to Ty.

"Let's start with, how did you know I was there?"

"I'm not on the witness stand here, Mandy. I don't have to answer your questions." She smiled at me out of the corner of her mouth but never took her eyes off the road.

"Allyson. C'mon."

She shook her head.

"Are you in a relationship with Tumpka Brown?" I tried a different angle.

"Ha. He wishes." She dug her long nails into her thick mane of hair and straightened it in places where it was already looking perfect.

I didn't even want to know what my hair looked like right now. I reached up and wiped my face. It felt sticky. I remembered that I'd taken a nap in the car after Hank had blindfolded me. I'd probably drooled or something equally embarrassing.

In the car. My car. "Hey, wait. We've got to get Stella. I can't leave her there."

She turned and cast me a look of disbelief and kept right on driving at a steady speed of fifty-five. "You must be joking. We're not going back there. You're lucky we made it out at all. Who knows what those drug dealers would have done to us if they'd caught us trying to sneak out."

Drugs. Suddenly all the talk of shipments and bad batches and Brady Blue's state of mind this morning at the garage made perfect sense. But how was Mick involved in all of this? And Hank O'Hannigan was most definitely a world-class creep, but I just couldn't see Mick taking up with this crew.

"I can't tell you more. You'll just have to wait, Mandy. For once I actually know more than you do on something. I'm so impressed with myself," she continued her rant and then lifted her shoulders up a little straighter.

"Why are we going to your place? Can you at least tell me that? Why can't you take me home?"

"You never give up, do you?"

"Nope," I said and thought about what might be happening in my life right now if I had given up. Given up on my sister and just gone on back to Birmingham. If I'd finished my medical degree and dropped all this small town stuff. I wondered, but I'd never know.

"You'll find out."

"Tell me," I urged.

"No."

"Yes." I'd turn this into a high school game if she was going to act so snotty.

"Forget it."

"No, I'm going to keep asking until you tell me." I turned to face her and to better taunt her.

"Never."

"Yes, tell me. I don't want to go to your trailer park anyway." I couldn't stop myself now.

"That was low, Murrin." She gripped the steering wheel tighter.

"Who are you working with?"

She smiled when I asked that question. And I squinted my eyes at her.

"Who, Allyson?"

"Why do you think I'm working with someone?" She licked her lower lip.

"'Cause you're not smart enough to plan anything like this." The truth hurt, but it was still the truth.

"Oh, shut up. Not everyone can be a doctor. Oh wait, you're
not
a doctor, are you?"

Ouch.

"Why are we going there? I want to go home."

"No." She held steadfast.

We remained quiet for a moment as we pulled across the Millbrook City Limits and saw the sign indicating as much.

"Why did he tell you to bring me back to your house?" I asked, just taking a shot in the dark that she was working with a man. That was the only language Allyson spoke—male.

"He said that he'd meet us there," she answered before smiling coyly.

"Who?"

As she stopped at the red light at the corner of Highway 14 and Main Street, she turned to face me. "If I tell you who I'm working with, will you shut up for the rest of the way there?"

I nodded, showing her that I could be quiet.

"Colin." She said his name and then watched me so closely I thought I might crawl out of my skin and slide right out of the car via the small crack underneath the doorframe.

I did everything in my power not to react.

And then the light turned mercifully green, and her eyes went back to the road as we accelerated through the light.

Colin? My spy? He was the one working with Allyson?

Betrayed.

*  *  *

Twenty minutes later, I sat on the window seat in the bay window of her double-wide trailer. I hadn't said a word since we'd arrived fifteen minutes ago. I was tired, scared, aggravated, and more than a little jealous. There, I'd admitted it. At least to myself, anyway.

Colin was a mystery and had finally ghosted back into my life after all these months, and I had hoped to see him later tonight as he'd promised. It looked like he'd keep that promise. Except now, I'd be seeing him at Allyson's house?

That was a little bit of a killjoy if I'd ever heard of one.

There were so many questions. But I refused to give her the pleasure of asking. She'd made it clear that she wasn't going to answer anything until he got there.

That was fine with me. I'd wait for him, and I had a lot of things to say to him. Not the least of which was, "How could you work behind my back with my arch nemesis?"

Allyson was working on something over at the kitchen sink. She was singing something to herself and swaying her hips back and forth.

I felt sick. The clock over her microwave indicated that it was six o'clock. It felt much later.

I suddenly had the urge to just get up and walk out. Find a ride back to Ms. Lanier's house and eat the lasagna dinner that was waiting on me. I wanted to tell my friends about my day and hug Paget and Pickles.

I did not want to be sitting here with Allyson Harlow.

"Hey, Pussywillow," she said in a sickeningly sweet voice. My sick-feeling sensation intensified.