Twice Baked Read online

  Having enjoyed the fireworks, the crowd was beginning to spread out again. I knew Peggy would be looking for me to resume my position at the pie stand, but that was going to have to wait.

  Believe it or not, there were more important things going on in Second Springs than peaches, pies, or the combination of the two.

  “Keep a watchful eye,” Darrin said. “Someone hiding would likely try to blend in. So look for the largest crowds.”

  “I know,” I answered. “My father…um, used to watch a lot of Law and Order.”

  “You were about to say that your father taught you that, weren’t you?” Darrin asked, keeping his eyes on the crowds and, mercifully, not on me. “Because he was the sheriff. Because you think you’re Rita Clarke.” He sighed. “Of all the people I’ve ever met, you are definitely the most-”

  “Interesting?” I finished, looking through the patchy crowds myself.

  “I was going to say something much harsher, but let’s just go with complicated and split the difference.” His tone got a lot more serious as he continued. “You know, after this, you’re going to have to-”

  “I can’t think about what happens after this,” I answered. And I really couldn’t. If I solved this murder, that would mean I would- as Charlie put it- move on. Did that mean heaven? Did it mean being reincarnated again? Did it mean something else entirely, something that human beings have never even contemplated in regards to life after death? Whatever it was, it certainly meant that I wouldn’t be here anymore. I would leave Aiden and Peggy. I would leave Second Springs. I would leave my Dad. At this point, even the thought of leaving Darrin brought up more than a little sadness in my heart.

  No. I couldn’t think about that right now. I just needed to focus on making this right.

  “Do you see her?” Darrin asked.

  “I see a lot of ‘hers’,” I said. “And they’re all wearing peach dresses. “She had too big of a head start. This is impossible.”

  “We should split up,” Darrin suggested. “You go left. I’ll go right. We’ll circle the perimeter and meet in the middle. If you see her-”

  “I’ll scream,” I answered.

  Nodding, I headed off to the left, keeping a hand in my clutch, around the base of the pistol.

  I made sure to steer clear of Peggy, who seemed very disheveled was looking for me on her tippy toes.

  Darting around her, I almost ran smack dab into Dad. Thankfully, he didn’t see me as I scooted the other way. He had told me to keep my distance from this case and, I certainly hadn’t done that. Though the body I now resided it wasn’t technically his daughter’s, disobeying him so blatantly still pulled at me. Explaining it to him wasn’t something I needed added to my metaphorical plate right now.

  I moved through the festival pretty handedly. For once, I was glad to not be Rita Clarke. She’d have been stopped by every person at this event. She’d have had to make small talk and be invested in the lives of those around her.

  Rita Redoux on the other hand, she was practically invisible. And it meant that I could do what I needed to do; find Angela.

  I was halfway through the perimeter when I saw her. She was, as Darrin figured, in the middle of one of the biggest crowds in the entire place. She had her hands clasped together and she was talking to a group of people that included, among other people, Officer Dunberry.

  If attempting to throw myself out of his moving squad car wasn’t enough to do the trick, the poor guy was definitely going to think I was crazy after this.

  “Hey!” I yelled, and started fumbling at the pistol in my clutch. “Darrin!” I screamed.

  The clutch fell away, and I was left with only the pistol.

  “Oh my God! She’s got a gun!” I heard someone scream.

  “Darrin!” I shouted again, but things were starting to spin out of control. People were rushing away from me, scared and staring at me like I was the killer.

  Which was probably what all of them thought now.

  “Hold it right there, Little Lady,” Officer Dunberry said, reaching for his gun around his massive belly.

  But I wasn’t paying him any attention. No. My focus was completely on Angela. She’d no doubt try to get away again, but I wasn’t going to let that happen. So, as people bolted away from me, screaming as you figure they might when confronted with a perceived murderer brandishing a weapon, my eyes stayed trained on Angela.

  And it didn’t go unnoticed.

  “Don’t move,” I said, pointing the gun at her. She didn’t know me. She had no idea that it would have taken an executive order to force my finger to pull that trigger.

  As such, she stayed put.

  But then there was Officer Dunberry. His gun was pointed at me now. It was like one of those old fashioned standoffs you see in the Westerns, except he had pie on his shirt and I had flour in my hair.

  It wouldn’t matter. Even if he didn’t hear my shouts, there was no way Darrin didn’t notice this. He’d be here in seconds and, with him, validation.

  We were about to put an end to all of this.

  As though she heard the thoughts laying against my brain, Angela jumped into action. I thought about pulling the trigger but, of course, I didn’t. Instead, I watched her pull a lighter from her behind her back, strike it, and throw it into a large brown box sitting beside her.

  It took about three seconds for me to figure out what the box contained.

  Just long enough for the first Roman candle to go off.

  Like a chain reaction no one saw coming, fireworks started exploding around us. One loud boom sounded after another. Sparks began shooting violently out of the box until all I could see was the mayhem of multicolored missiles flying around our heads.

  I tried to keep sight of Angela, the creator of this chaos, but a particularly bright green dragon looking thing shot across my line of sight, blinding me.

  When my eyes regain their focus, it was just in time to see a fireball shooting toward my head. I flinched just in time to feel a quick force pushing me to the ground.

  Once again, Sheriff Darrin Dash was on top of me. Once again, he had saved me.

  “Are you okay?” He asked breathlessly.

  “Been better honestly,” I answered. “Angela…”

  He looked up, rolling on his side and hopping back up.

  “She’s gone,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “Then we have to find her,” I said, standing to meet him.

  “And how do you suggest we do that?” He answered. “My men are already trying to quiet this near riot down, and we idea where she’s headed other than out of town.” He shook his head. “So unless you have another hunch like that life insurance policy tucked up your sleeve, I’m not sure what our next move should be.”

  “Hunch?” I asked, furrowing my brow.

  “You knew Angela would be looking for something inside Mrs. Hoover’s house.”

  “That wasn’t a hunch,” I answered. “The place was disheveled that night. There were holes in the floor.”

  “What are you talking about?” Darrin asked.

  “I know. We’re not dealing with the whole ‘reincarnated’ aspect of things, but-”

  “No, that’s not what I mean.” He shook his head. “There were no holes in the floor. The place wasn’t trashed at all. I read all the police reports. They even mentioned how untouched the place was.”

  “That-that doesn’t make any sense,” I answered. My mind flashed back to that night, to the house, the way things were thrown about, the holes dug into the floor. “It was definitely…”

  I gasped as all of it clicked into place.

  And then my heart broke.

  “I-I know where Angela is going,” I said softly.

  “What? How?” Darrin asked.

  “Because I know who her accomplice is,” I said, swallowing hard. “Though I really wish I didn’t.”

  Chapter 26

  Darrin sighed as he pulled to a stop in front of the area where I dir
ected him.

  “Are you sure about this?” he asked, looking over at me with a familiar heaviness in his eyes.

  I wanted to say no. More than anything, I wanted to be wrong about this. But I knew I wasn’t. It made too much sense. The pieces all fit together too perfectly.

  I didn’t answer, but that seemed to be a loud enough response for Darrin.

  “Fair enough,” he answered, and ran a hand through his hair. It seemed strange to me, with the light of a nearby street lamp reflecting off his eyes, how familiar I had become with his face.

  He irked me so much when I returned here. He had replaced my father, after all. And he had been so cocky about it. He still was, in fact and-though I had to put it on the back burner at present moment, the truth was he did still irk me.

  But I also respected him.

  “My good hand is still busted,” he said, glancing over at me. “And he’ll know how big of a disadvantage that is for me more than most.”

  “Just give it to me,” I answered.

  His jaw set. “You don’t have to shoot it,” he said, handing it to me carefully.

  “I’m not sure what I’ll have to do anymore,” I responded. I slid out of the car, closing the door quietly as not to alert Angela or her accomplice to our presence. I didn’t want to give them any time to get away. In order to prove this, I’d have to catch them together. It was the only way anyone would believe it. It was the only way I would believe it.

  “You need to stay behind me, Rita,” Darrin said, settling in front of me. I had wrapped his injured hand with a cloth. It wasn’t a permanent solution, but it would have to make due until we could get him to a hospital.

  “I’m the one with the gun,” I scoffed.

  “And I’m the one with the badge,” he retorted.

  “Side by side?” I suggested, giving him a once over.

  “Only until something bad happens,” he relented. “After that, you can consider me your human shield.”

  “My hero,” I muttered. But that was the thing. I didn’t want a hero. I had already died from this and, if it turned out that this return was a very short lived one and I would be on my way to some big, sparkly afterlife after tonight, then I could probably deal with that.

  What I knew, without the faintest shadow of a doubt, that I couldn’t live with would be if something happened to Darrin while all of this went down.

  Dred filled me as we moved through the dark space toward the woods.

  “And you’re sure they’re going to be here?” Darrin asked.

  “Surer than I want to be,” I answered, swallowing hard. The truth of this was weighing hard on me. It would almost be enough to let Angela go if I could just be wrong about this. But I knew I wasn’t. I knew it in my gut and, as I made my way into the shallow edge of the woods, I was proven right.

  There he stood. He was arm in arm with Angela, looking at her longingly with eyes that were as familiar to me as my own.

  “Stop right there!” I said, bursting through the treeline tree line and pointing the gun at them.

  “You!” He said, his eyes wide and his mouth agape.

  “I mean it,” I answered, blinking hard and looking at him. “Don’t move, Dwight.”

  Chapter 27

  Dwight stared at me. To the Rita he saw in front of him, he probably assumed he was mysterious or an enigma. But the Rita that actually resided in this body could read his expressions like they were a road map.

  He had met Angela here, at his speed trap spot at the town line because it was his place. He had always loved it here, at the end of Second Springs- where it looked out at the rest of the world. He could clear his head here, think about the life he wanted to have, about the man he wanted to be, and all that other essential nonsense people are always wringing their hands over.

  But if this is what he came up with, if this was the man he decided he wanted to become, it seemed he might have had too much time on his hands after all.

  “I saw her in the woods,” Dwight said. “She seemed afraid. I wanted to make sure she was okay.”

  “Stop lying,” I demanded, holding the gun in the air toward him.

  Dwight looked past me at Darrin, who had settled beside me. “Boss, you’re got to believe me. I don’t know what this woman told you, but I’m not lying. I was just here trying to make sense of things.” A slow smile spread across his face. “You know me, Sheriff. I’m always trying to make sense of things.”

  “And you just happened to run across Angela?” Darrin asked apprehensively.

  “Did she do something wrong?” He asked, looking from Darrin, to me, to Angela, and back again. He was trying really hard to make it work and, as hard as he was trying, I was trying even more. I wanted to believe that Dwight had nothing to do with this more than anything, but I couldn’t. There was too much evidence.

  And I was about to lay it out at his feet.

  “Deception doesn’t suit you, Dwight,” I answered. “It never did. Now please tell your girlfriend this is over. She needs to come with us peacefully.”

  “You’re not a cop!” Angela screamed. “You’re not anything but a stupid girl who doesn’t know enough to mind her own business!”

  “Stop,” Dwight said, putting his palm against her arm. “Look, I’m sure I’m missing something and- if you need to bring this poor widow in for questioning to clear something up- then I’m sure we can arrange that. But I’m not lying, and this woman certainly isn’t my girlfriend.” Dwight shook his head. “She just lost her husband, for goodness sake.”

  Darrin looked over at me, his eyes narrowing.

  “You know, I was wondering how the killer stayed one step ahead of everyone, how she stayed one step ahead of me,” I said. “I figured she had to have an accomplice, but after I found out that it was Angela, I assumed that Patrick had helped her kill Mrs. Hoover before things went south for them. I was right, of course. I just didn’t realize how deep everything went.”

  I moved toward him, trying desperately to keep the gun from shaking in my hands.

  “When you confronted me that day in the police station, I actually believed that you thought I was Amelia Hoover, but you never did. You always knew Angela was actually Amelia. You threw the name at me to see if I would lie about it. Which makes sense, given the timing of my arrival in Second Springs, but you couldn’t help but tip your hand, could you?”

  “What are you talking about?” Dwight asked. Looking over at Darrin, he added, “She’s crazy, Sheriff. You can’t listen to anything she’s saying.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that,” he answered. “There are officers on their way, Dwight. I’ve alerted authorities in the next three counties. Their setting up road blocks. This is over.”

  “Lair!” Angela yelled, dropping the useless pretense of innocence. “If you had backup, they’d be here right now.”

  “I thought it was strange how upset you got about Amelia not speaking to her mother for so long. You seemed emotionally invested in it somehow. And then you said something that wasn’t like you at all.”

  “You don’t know me!” He screamed.

  “You said family was everything. You said you had just began figuring that out. I didn’t know what that meant at the time. But then Angela said the same thing when we confronted her about the pregnancy.”

  “Shoot her Dwight!” Angela yelled.

  Dwight didn’t move.

  “I didn’t want to believe it at first, and honestly, that wasn’t enough evidence for me to brush past the kind of man you had always been. But then Darrin told me about the floor.”

  “The floor?” Dwight asked.

  “Shoot her!” Angela screamed.

  “The floor of Mrs. Hoover’s house was torn to shreds, but it’s not in any of the police reports. In fact, it says exactly the opposite, as if someone on the inside doctored them after the fact.” I shook my head. “After you learned the truth about Angela, she convinced you to alter the reports, to delete the photos. That way,
when the case went cold, no one would think you were looking for something.”

  “Shoot her right this instant, Dwight!” Angela yelled.

  I looked down. The gun sat untouched on Dwight’s hip.

  “He’s not going to shoot me, Angela. Because he’s not a killer. He might have made more than a few mistakes, but he was lonely. And when he got you pregnant, he saw keeping you safe as his responsibility, even if you didn’t deserve it.” I looked back at Dwight. “But he never killed anybody. I know it for a fact.”

  “And how do you know that?” Dwight asked his voice shaking.

  “Because I know you,” I answered. “You’re the son my father never had. You’re the kid who used to keep bullies away from me in grade school. You’re the guy who proposed to me when we were five years old and we had a ‘wedding’ in the treehouse in the back yard. Your heart is gold, Dwight. And you are not a killer.”

  Dwight’s eyes narrowed, moving up and down me as though he was seeing me for the first time. “You…” he said, stammering. “You’re not…Rita?”

  “Hey Dwight,” I said, blinking back tears. “I’m so sorry this happened to you and, more than that, I’m sorry I wasn’t here to help you out of it.”

  “This isn’t possible,” he murmured. “I…is it you?”

  “It’s me,” I answered, lowering the gun.

  “I did bad things, Rita.” Tears poured down his face.

  “Shut up!” Angela yelled from beside him.

  “I was so alone,” Dwight answered. “You were gone. Your dad might as well have been gone. I met her and I thought I might have a chance to actually have a family; a real family.” He shook his head. “I know it was wrong. I know I shouldn’t have done it.”

  “You didn’t kill anybody,” I said, moving toward him. It wasn’t a question. I knew this man. There might have been blood on his hands, but he hadn’t shed it.

  At this point though, that might have been a distinction without a difference.

  “I didn’t,” he answered. “I tried but…”

  “But he was too much of a coward!” Angela screamed. “All he’d ever do is erase security footage and change police reports. I couldn’t even get him to drive the wrench into your windshield.”