I open my eyes and look directly at Paco. “Okay, I’ll do it. I’ll take a bite of this muffin laced with cyanide. I’ll do it right now.”
Please, Paco, I need your help.
I take a bite, filling my mouth with as much muffin as I possibly can cram inside. Darren’s eyes go wide with surprise. He probably thought I’d take a tiny delicate bite, but that won’t work with my plan. I chew the muffin, praying that Paco understands what I need him to do.
Okay, here goes.
Right when it seems like I’m about to swallow, I spit all the chewed-up muffin straight into Darren’s face.
“What the—!” Paco leaps in the air, knocking Darren off balance. The knife falls from his hand and lands on the floor. Brittany scurries to scoop it up.
“Get that dog off of me!” Darren shrieks like a girl. He’s flat on his back with Paco on his chest growling down at him.
“Good boy, Paco!” I shout.
“Lucy, call the cops!” says Brittany. “And wash your mouth out!”
Right. I call 911, then run to the bathroom to rinse my mouth out like Brittany suggested. Ugh. I don’t know what’s worse, the taste of the cyanide or the blueberry muffin.
When I get back to Brittany’s office, she’s standing over Darren’s head with the knife in her hands. “How dare you?” Her eyes are dark with indignation. “I took you under my wing, and this is the thanks I get! For the past week I’ve had to listen to your stupid slogans and ideas and pretend to like them! No wonder the Catfish Cove Chamber of Commerce is in trouble with you at the helm.”
Paco growls at Darren like he agrees.
A couple of minutes later, Zeke and Travis bust into the office. They take one look at Darren on the floor with Paco and Brittany standing guard over him and holster their weapons.
“What’s going on, Lucy?” asks Travis. “The dispatcher said you were in trouble.”
“That,” I say, pointing to Darren, “is Tara Bell’s killer. He admitted to poisoning her. Oh, and you better call the cops in Catfish Cove and have them pick up Gilly. She was his accomplice in the whole thing.”
“Please,” Darren whines, “get this friggin’ dog off of me before he tears my face off.”
Zeke looks around the office. “What happened here?”
I open my mouth to explain, but Brittany jumps in first. “Lucy figured out that Darren was the one who poisoned Tara. When he realized he was cornered, he tried to get Lucy and me to eat a poisoned muffin, but between the three of us we managed to out-trick him.”
“The three of you?”
“Yes.” She lifts her chin in the air. “The three of us. Lucy, me, and Paco.”
Paco barks as if to say, Yeah, the three of us!
Chapter Twenty-One
It’s Sunday night dinner at the McGuffin homestead. The usual suspects sit around the table, including Brittany and Will, and thanks to my mom’s eager-beaver ways, Travis and Jim are here tonight as well.
Talk about the most awkward dinner of all time. The two guys I’m interested in are sitting less than three feet away from each other. The only thing saving me from whisking up Paco, placing him in my car and driving far, far away is that Travis is filling us all in on what’s going on with Tara’s case. That and my mom’s lasagna.
“Gilly signed a confession and has already cut a deal with the DA,” says Travis.
“Did she tell you why she showed up here the morning I found Tara’s body?” I ask.
“That night after you left, Gilly and Tara had words. Tara suspected Gilly might have given her something to make her sick and pretty much accused her of trying to poison her. That’s when Gilly freaked out and sprinkled the cyanide on the remaining muffins. The next morning when she went to check on Tara and found her bed empty she was terrified that Tara might have gone to the hospital, or worse the police, so she drove all over town trying to find her. When she found Tara’s car in your parking lot, she assumed that Tara had come to ask you for help.”
It’s what I thought, but it’s still hard to hear. “I wish I’d answered my phone when she called.”
“You couldn’t have known, Lucy,” Will says quietly.
“What about Winters?” asks my brother.