Chapter 15 #2
“You think you should give her a call?”
“Maybe I should give him a call,” he suggested. “He can’t get mad at her for that.” Then he pulled out his phone and tapped his newfound brother-in-law and possible sister-killer’s number as Willow watched.
He put the phone on speaker and set it on the console.
Montrose picked up on the first ring. “Jeremiah?”
“Yeah, it’s me, bro. I went to see Elena but they said she was so much better they sprung her.” He tried to make his voice upbeat, happy even.
“Yeah, they did.”
“That’s great news! You care if I talk to her?”
“Yeah, thing is, I don’t know if she was really ready to come home. She passed out soon as I got her into her bed.”
Willow swore in a whisper.
“Yeah, I thought maybe. That’s why I called you and not her, I didn’t want to wake her. Anyway, you can pass this on for me, then. Tell her, no hard feelings.”
He was silent.
“About her contesting the will. Shoot, I told my lawyer this morning, he didn’t have to go to the trouble. I’d have split it with her if she’d asked.”
“That’s…generous of you.”
Willow was typing madly on her phone, and he knew why when a text from her popped up on his.
Willow: Make up some paperwork he has to sign. Get inside.
“Anyway, uh, things aren’t quite final yet. The deposits have been made, but uh, they won’t clear the bank without one more signature. I have the paperwork on me. I could bring it by.”
Another long pause, then, “Sure. If you can give me an hour—”
“I’m actually in neighborhood.”
Silence.
“Dude, I don’t know about you, but I been waiting a long time for this money to come through. I’m on the brink, you know? I need funds like, today.”
“Frankly, same,” Montrose replied. “Okay, you can stop by, but listen, we’ll talk on the back porch. I don’t want you goin’ inside and disturbing Elena.”
“For sure. See you soon, dude.” He hung up. “Why did I keep calling him dude?”
“Doesn’t matter. He bought it.” She pulled over, and when he sent her a questioning look, she said, “Let’s wait a couple of minutes. We don’t want him to know we were right outside.”
“I don’t like her in there alone with him.”
Willow looked at her watch, tapping the steering wheel. “I don’t, either. So listen, you keep him distracted on the back porch. I’ll get in the front, and find your sister. All right?”
“Okay, good. You be careful, though.”
“I will.”
She put the car in gear, but he shifted it back, then pressed a hand to her cheek to turn her face. Then he leaned in and kissed her.
Damned if a tear didn’t roll all the way to her lips before they parted.
“Gringo, you got me turned upside down and inside out, you know that? Am I comin’ or goin’?
” She shook her head, pulled the car into gear and drove.
She parked two houses away, putting a bushy tree between her pickup and the line of sight from the Montrose house.
The sister killer wouldn’t see Jeremiah getting out the passenger side that way.
“Turn off the sound on your phone,” she said. “Haptics too. But keep an eye on it, and don’t let him see it. Now, how are you gonna let me know when the coast is clear?”
“I’ll send an emoji. I can do that quick and easy.”
“Okay,” she said.
“Okay.” But he didn’t get out. Instead he leaned her way.
She swayed out of his path. “Oh, no. No, uh-uh. Go.”
He sighed, and then he opened the door and got out. She watched him walk along the sidewalk to the Montrose home and then toward the house, but instead of going to the front door, he vanished around the side, headed, she knew, for the aforementioned back porch.
She waited, drumming her fingers until her phone pinged, which reminded her to turn off the sound. Then she looked at Jeremiah’s text.
Hot Gringo:
She got out of the truck and walked casually up the sidewalk, but before she even made it to the front door, somebody came up behind her, and slid a hand over her shoulder.
She looked up fast, startled. “Ethan! Sheesh, you got here fast.”
“Whole fam’s here. You just can’t see ‘em. What’s the situation?”
“We think she’s inside. Husband says she’s sleeping. Jeremiah’s distracting him with some made-up inheritance paperwork he doesn’t have on the back porch. I was plannin’ to slide in the front.”
“You don’t have a warrant.”
“I have probable cause to believe Elena is in danger.”
Ethan nodded. “And the rest of us just went in out of concern for our cousin the deputy.”
She looked ahead and saw Baxter already at the door, playing around with the lock, swingin’ it open with ease. He went inside.
“Keep the others out here in case we need backup,” she said. “We don’t want to make a racket.”
Ethan was texting before she took off for the front door and followed Baxter inside.
Baxter was tiptoeing around the living room, peering around corners, so she headed for the stairway, and walked softly up. It was hard to place each foot with care when she was so impatient to reach the top. But then she did and started checking bedrooms.
Elena was in the first one she checked, splayed on the bed, atop the covers. Her mouth was slightly open, her eyes were closed. Willow leaned closer, feeling her neck for a pulse, and turning her cheek toward Elena’s nose and mouth to feel her breaths.
And she did.
“Thank God.” She shook her. “Elena. Hey, come on, you were not hurt that bad that you should be this out of it.”
Elena had no response.
Willow heard footsteps on the stairs, so she went to stand behind the door, which put her right over a small wastebasket with a syringe lying on top, and a vial of something in the bottom.
She took the plastic liner right out of the can, knotting it to her belt as the person reached the top and stage-whispered, “Will?”
She came out from behind the door and poked her head out. It was Baxter. “She’s in here. Alive, but unconscious.”
Baxter crossed the room to the bed as she said, “We have to get her out of here.”
“Well, now,” said a man who should not have been there. Richard Montrose was in the bedroom doorway. “What have we got going on here? A little breaking and entering, a little kidnapping?”
“A little attempted murder,” Willow said. “What did you do with Jeremiah?”
He shrugged and started to raise the gun that had, up to then, been hidden by his sweater. But Jeremiah appeared behind him, his head all bloody on one side. He poked Montrose in the back of the head with something and said, “Put. It. Down.”
Montrose lowered the gun to his side and Jeremiah took it from his hand. Other booted feet came up the stairs, then, Uncle Garrett and Lash leading the way.
Jeremiah turned Richard Montrose around toward Garrett, and Willow saw what he’d been poking him in the head with. The metal handle of a kitchen spatula.
Behind her, Baxter was gathering Elena Montrose up from the bed, speaking softly to her.
Willow looked from the spatula to Jeremiah’s eyes and he smiled with one side of his mouth, then dropped to the floor like his bones had all dissolved.