Mother-Daughter Murder Night(107)

Chapter Fifty-Four




“Paul?”

Lana coughed, expelling smoke from her lungs. There was white dust everywhere, floating in the air, covering the stalls, as if someone had sprinkled the inside of the barn with powdered sugar.

“Not Paul.” It was a woman’s voice. Low. “You told me you were the one who had Paul, remember?”

Lana blinked, trying to clear the grit from her eyes so she could see.

“Ms. Rubicon. You can lower the shoe now.”

Lana looked down. Her field of vision was slowly expanding to encompass her body. She was half sitting, half lying on the ground, holding one of her spike heels to Martin Rhoads’s throat.

“Is he dead?” Lana blinked again, searching the smoky air for her daughter and granddaughter. She kept her grip tight on the shoe.

“He’ll be fine,” Beth said. Lana looked up.

“Jack knocked the wind out of him. With the kayak. She saved us all.”

Through the smoke, Lana could now see her daughter and granddaughter on either side of her, covered in white and gray dust.

There were two other figures in the middle of the barn. On the ground, Diana was bent over, her blond hair turned fully white. She looked broken, cracked, as if she’d aged a lifetime in an evening. The second person was standing, a red fire extinguisher in her hand.

“You came,” Lana said to Detective Ramirez. She dropped her arm, the one with the shoe, which poked into Martin Rhoads’s larynx. The man coughed, and Lana jolted back from him, letting his head bonk onto the dirt floor.

Martin clutched his head and groaned. He rolled onto his hands and knees, turning his head from side to side to shake the powder loose from his face.

Ramirez strode over and stood directly above him. “Martin Rhoads. You are under arrest for murder. Attempted murder. Arson. And a few other crimes.”

Lana watched the detective put handcuffs on him with a practiced snap of her manicured hands. She couldn’t have been prouder if she’d done it herself.



Soon, the ranch was lit up with a flotilla of cop cars and ambulances. Lana sat in the back of a fire truck, a metallic blanket around her shoulders, and watched, squinting, as Jack walked the sheriffs through the importance of the catcher’s mitt, the lone life jacket, and the black bag. They pulled five shovels, seven cattle brands, and two wheelbarrows out of the barn to test them for human blood.

Overseeing all the activity was Teresa Ramirez. The young detective stood in the center of the asphalt in tall black leather boots, spotlighted by the high beams from the trucks. The other officers, even Nicoletti, looked small in comparison. They scurried around like ants, approaching her with information and dashing off to do what she commanded.

After the first hour, there was a lull in the excitement. Diana was on her way to a private hospital. Martin was handcuffed in an ambulance, awaiting his fate. The Maserati and the barn were being meticulously picked over. The left side of Lana’s face was now completely numb from an ice pack, and the cold had sunk through to her bones. Even Beth and Jack looked exhausted, their adrenaline shot through. They were leaning up against each other, engaged in a slow, sleepy discussion about whether sailboats were more or less dangerous than murder investigations.

Lana glanced at her phone. It was time.

She walked up to the young detective, who was sipping from a coffee cup an officer had delivered to her a few minutes before.

“Can you help me with something?”

Ramirez looked at Lana. Lana could only imagine what she saw. Her wig was a mess, and the left side of her face was blossoming into a purple bruise. The old stitches on her cheek had broken open as well. But Lana’s eyes were bright, her voice clear.

“What is it?” Ramirez asked.

“Paul Hanley.”

“Oh. Right. He’s not a priority now that—”

“I just want to confirm that. He’s no longer a suspect? Not wanted for anything?”

The detective shook her head.

“And I wouldn’t be in trouble anymore for harboring a dangerous criminal?”

Ramirez looked at Lana, perplexed, as if she hadn’t just lived through the past two hours.

“No.”

“Good,” Lana said. “Then could you help me get him out of my trunk?”





Chapter Fifty-Five




Lana walked into the yacht club three weeks later in a new tailored suit, with a large gift-wrapped box under her arm. Her face had finally healed. The only evidence of what had happened was a thin yellow halo under her eye, one she easily covered up with concealer.

At the door, Lana paused to run her hand across her scalp, checking that everything was in place. Her real hair was growing in, and she had paid a tattooed girl in Santa Cruz a small fortune to shape it into a chic pixie buzz cut. Lana was still undecided about the wigless look, despite Jack’s repeated assurances that she didn’t look like a Chia pet.

She found Paul and Scotty at the bar, deep in conversation about a new business scheme involving giant inflatable hamster balls you could rent and take out on the water. Scotty gave her a friendly nod. Paul shrank back, as if he was still afraid of her. Not as if—he was still afraid of her. Which was ridiculous. It wasn’t her fault the key fob had slipped out of his pocket in the trunk.