Chapter 34
I backed away from Gloria, watching her hands. They remained steady on the gun. Where had Gloria gotten a Glock?
“What’s going on?” Brooke asked.
Henry pulled her aside and stepped in front of her, shielding her. “Okay,” he said, raising a hand. “There are too many people with too many guns in here. I’m an official process server. I order you both to put the guns down.”
Gloria tilted her head to the left. “Are you serious right now?” Her jowls moved and the lines seemed deeper in her face. Was she on the edge or what?
Henry stepped toward her, his chest bare with a few scratches down it. “I’m an officer of the court. You have to listen to me.”
Gloria pulled the trigger. The sound slammed against the walls, and the air filled with the stench of gunpowder. Blood spurted, and Henry dropped, clutching his leg.
“Henry,” Brooke screamed. She hit her knees beside him, pressing both hands to the wound.
He groaned, face pale. “Oh—” The rest broke off in a grunt.
“I should shoot you too,” Gloria said, eyes locked on her niece. Then she aimed at me.
My stomach tightened.
“Drop the gun, Anna,” she said, her eyes glinting.
I slowly bent down, my hand purposefully shaking on the gun, as I swiped my finger across my phone and shoved it in my back pocket. Glancing up, I confirmed Gloria was watching my gun. I placed it on the floor, stood, and kicked it toward her.
Hopefully my phone called somebody. Anybody.
My pulse thudded in my ears. Outside, a car door slammed, then silence.
Her hand trembled once and then steadied.
Henry groaned, kind of rolling back and forth while Brooke pressed on his wound. It looked like an upper thigh hit. “You just shot a process server.”
Gloria snorted, looking every bit her sixty or so years. “You might want to cover that wound.”
“Are you insane?” Brooke shouted. She rose, planting herself between Gloria and Henry, hands shaking. “What are you doing, Aunt Gloria?”
“Listen, you little shit.” Gloria’s tone cut deep. “You think I didn’t know you were selling tea to my enemy?”
I spread my hands, slow and careful. If I could get close enough, I could take the gun. “Nana is not your enemy, Gloria. Not at all.”
Her eyes flared. “Another move from you and I’ll shoot you next.”
“I understand.” I lifted my hands higher. “But Gloria, there’s no need to shoot anyone. Maybe you thought burglars were here and hit Henry by accident. We can fix this.”
She shook her head. “I’m not that stupid, Anna.”
Of course she wasn’t. The pieces clicked into place. Wait—this had all been her. Not Brooke. Not Henry. Not Brad Backleboff. The tunnel made it all possible.
“You switched out my Nana’s tea,” I sputtered.
Brooke’s mouth fell open, then closed. “You didn’t do that, did you?”
“Of course I did.” Gloria’s chin lifted. “How dare you sell tea to that woman? How. Dare. You. You set that woman up with wellness tea. I run a supplement store.” She threw out her hand toward the shelves. Bottles rattled. “You betrayed me.”
I shook my head. “So wait. You used the tunnel and replaced Nana’s tea with tea laced with mushrooms, didn’t you?”
Gloria laughed, short and sharp. “Yes. She’s going to prison now. At the very least, she’ll be out of business.”
The facts slapped into order way too slowly. “Where in the world did you get laced tea supplements?” I breathed.
She sighed. “I plan to sell them once things calm down and have been working with a distributor out of Washington State. The market is huge. You just have to label it so the feds don’t notice.
” She gave a small, proud nod. “I’m going to be rich, Anna.
Plus, your grandmother deserves some pain.
She cheated in the pie contest every year. You know that.”
Heat climbed up my neck. “Nana doesn’t cheat. She just makes a better pie than you.”
“Ha.”
I blinked once, then again. “Wait a minute.” Nana had the only key to the fridge at the Elks. Nobody else got to that damn pie. “You put the lotion in your own pie?”
I couldn’t believe it.
She snorted. “Yes. Of course.”
“Why?” My brain wasn’t keeping up.
“She deserved it, and I liked the idea of suing her. A lot. Ruining her reputation has been a goal of mine for a while.”
What a nutjob. I blinked. “So you used the tunnels to steal lotion?”
“No, Fiona gave everybody free samples of that months ago. I just kept mine and shoved it in my pie before planting it in that fridge.” Gloria laughed, the sound quick and sharp. “Even then. I bet it tasted better than hers.”
“All right. This is absolutely ridiculous. Wait a minute. Did you also dress like a leprechaun?”
“Yep.”
I stared, aghast. “You set the dynamite?”
Gloria lost her smile. “Yes. I used a blasting cap with a time delay, and it shouldn’t have gone off for another thirty minutes or so. Darn thing.”
My muscles bunched. “Thirty minutes? So after the pie contest and when Nana most likely headed back to her store?” She’d wanted to harm my Nana?
Gloria smiled. “Yep.”
Oh, I needed to take her out. Keeping her talking was the smart move, though. “Why did you dress like a leprechaun that morning to leave the dynamite?”
Gloria snorted. “The leprechaun outfit was so everyone would think Fiona was doing the damage, and especially if the local cameras caught me. I figured the ones at the bank would.”
She wasn’t wrong.
She giggled. “Plus, it was fun.”
Gloria and I had different ideas of fun. I edged closer to her. “Where did you even get dynamite?”
“When I found the cellar beneath the store, there were maps of all of these tunnels through the town. I followed all of them. It was tons of fun. And of course, in a couple I found that dynamite. They were old mines. Do you know how unstable old dynamite is?” She waved the gun as she spoke and I took another step toward her.
“The blasting caps with the delays were with the sticks, and my partner and I looked up how to use them.”
Partner? The tea. All of the tea. It had to be Brad Backleboff. He’d also been way too intense in charging Nana. “Who’s your partner?”
“Doesn’t matter.” She pointed the gun at Henry again, thoughtfully this time. Was she going to kill all of us?
“Gloria?” I had to bring her attention back to me. “You wore the leprechaun outfit again during the parade. Did you plan to blow up Nana’s shop again?”
She tightened her grip on the gun. “Yes, but you saw me before I could plant the sticks, so I had to run.”
I couldn’t believe her. She didn’t seem the least bit sorry. “Why did you lead me into that tunnel? You could’ve killed Aiden.”
“It was your fault you followed me,” she said.
Yeah, I had. “So you tried to kill us?”
She shuffled her feet. “I needed to stop you somehow.”
I had to take her down before Brad showed up. One more step, and I barely slid close enough. “Did you steal Nana’s silver boxes just for money?”
“No.” She lowered her shoulders.
I struck, grabbing her wrist and shoving her into the wall.
She screeched, but I was a good forty years younger and a lot stronger. I smashed her hand against the doorframe and the gun dropped. She lunged at me with her nails, and I ducked back, punching her in the face.
Blood spurted from her nose, and she grabbed it, going down.
I scrambled toward my gun.
“Stop,” a male said.
I jerked, looking up at another Glock. This one bigger than Gloria’s. But it wasn’t Brad. Taking advantage of the moment, I ducked under the gun and hit Zippy O’Bellini square in the gut.
He slammed the gun down on my head, and I fell, wincing and rolling to the side.
“Hey,” Brooke protested.
Lights flashed behind my eyelids, and I forced them open, swallowing down nausea. “Zippy?”
He sighed and motioned with the gun. “Get over by them.”
I crawled to where Brooke still crouched with her hand on Henry’s bleeding leg. He had sat up, legs straight, face pale.
I forced myself to stand, sucking in air as I did so. “Zippy?”
Keeping the gun pointed at me, Zippy reached down and hauled Gloria to her feet. “You okay, dove baby?”
Dove baby? I gagged.
Henry pushed to his feet and tried again to get Brooke behind him.
Blood streamed down his leg and spattered across his stomach hair.
He looked pale but determined. “There’s no need for anybody to get shot,” he said, voice rough.
“Why don’t you two just go? We promise we won’t call the police for a couple hours. ”
I didn’t think it would be that easy. “You two are partners?”
“Yes.” Gloria leaned into him, blood flowing down from her nose. I hope I’d broken it. “We’ve been planning for quite a while, and it’s finally time.”
I couldn’t breathe. “For what?”
Zippy lifted his chin, his hair a steely, impressive white.
“I’ve been working with a group out of California dealing in medicinal mushrooms. The FDA is way behind in regulating them.
We have a good thing going here. We’re going to branch out from Gloria’s store to stores all over Idaho, Montana, and the Dakotas.
We’re in it for the billions.” He glanced down at Gloria and smiled.
“She chose me all those years ago, and now I choose her.”
Brooke pushed to her feet. Blood covered her hands. “You two are nuts.”
I totally agreed. There had to be a way out of this mess. The longer I kept them talking, the more time we had to be saved. Had my phone called anybody? I prayed really quickly. “Why steal Nana’s silver boxes? Just for the money?”
Zippy focused on me. “You’re stupid. I actually want to shoot you.”
A chill raced down my spine.
Gloria spit out blood. “I get to shoot her.” Red coated her teeth.
Henry leaned on Brooke, still trying to protect her with his body. “Not for nothing, but old people ain’t supposed to be evil.”
Gloria leaned back. “I want to shoot him, too.”
I exhaled, my brain hurting. How hard had Zippy hit me? “Why take the silver boxes?”
He looked at me like I was dumber than a box of rocks. “For the map.”
I took a step back. “Seriously? The treasure map?” I shook my head and instantly regretted it. “There’s no treasure.”
Gloria reached for a Kleenex under the counter. “No shit. As part of her grand opening schtick, your grandmother planned to let people take pictures of the map.”
“So?” I gingerly felt the lump on my head. Good. No blood.
Irritation crackled across Zippy’s still handsome face. “We’re also growing mushrooms, and that damn map would’ve led people right to our grow site.”
Oh. Okay. “You know we have leftover maps around, right?” I muttered.
Zippy shrugged. “Sure, but that’s different than a hundred or so more folks going treasure hunting. I bet you haven’t looked at a map in a decade.”
He wasn’t wrong. I stilled. “You shot Sheriff Franco.”
Zippy smiled, looking kind of evil. “Yeah. I guess he was just chasing poachers, but he got too close to my grow. So I shot him. Lucky bastard. Didn’t die.”
My stomach rolled over. “The bear trap I found along with the wire strung between trees. Yours?”
“Yeah. They’re gone now, though. I didn’t get to you fast enough the other day, but I had time to hide both of those.
A couple of local deputies were out there looking around after you notified the sheriff, but they didn’t find the grow.
” He glanced down at Gloria. “Well, Dove? We should get going on the rest of our lives.”
“Please tell me you didn’t kill Dr. Walton,” I said slowly.
Gloria rolled her eyes. “I guess my dear husband is next.”
“I’ll take care of it, my dove. For now, we better do this,” Zippy said, stepping forward.
“Wait.” I held up a hand. “Which one of you stole the silver boxes from my dad’s rig?”
Zippy’s chest puffed out. “That was me. It’s far easier to jimmy a lock than I thought.”
“You’re on CCTV,” I lied, trying not to panic.
One of his eyebrows rose. “I’m not a moron. I clocked exactly where the cameras pointed, and I’m fine. Nice try, though.”
Darn it. I didn’t have a choice. Now was my chance. I ducked my head and dove for his legs just as all hell broke loose.
The front door burst open, the back door swung wide, and a side window shattered. People stormed in, guns drawn. Chelli came through the window with Saber right behind her. Deputy McCracken charged through the front door while Aiden came through the back.
I smashed into Zippy’s knees, and he fell over me, flattening us both.
Aiden ripped him off me and threw him at McCracken, yanking his gun away.
Handing the gun off to a deputy, Aiden dropped into a crouch, gently turning me onto my back. Pain flared through my head and shoulder. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
I blinked up at him. “What are you doing out of the hospital?”
He swept hair away from my face and gingerly probed my head.
“Ouch. Stop that.” I pushed his hand away. “Help me up.”
He did so, and I swayed against him. “My phone called you.”
“Yeah. I called my team and the sheriff. The team was already headed to Montana for the case and turned back. They were close,” Aiden said.
“Oh.” My brain tried to catch up. “That makes sense.” There was too much to process. Zippy knelt on the floor, snot running from his nose as he clutched his bleeding arm. Gloria screamed until Franco barked at her to stop, and her nose seemed to still be bleeding.
Brooke slipped an arm under Henry’s shoulder and helped him stay upright. His breathing came in short, rough bursts.
Aiden’s eyes swept the room, then fixed on me with quiet calculation. “What in the world just happened?”
The room swirled around me. I could only catch one thought as unconsciousness began to take me under. “It was Gloria. She sabotaged Nana’s pie.”