Thorn to Die

Ian Larson was the first to jump out of the squad car. He ran toward Andy with his gun drawn, screaming at him to put his hands out. Three other cops followed, piling on top of him with their guns and cuffs out. Andy twisted and issued a guttural scream. With a little extra help from Raven’s heel digging into his jugular, he was soon in handcuffs.

“Nice of you to finally show up,” I said to Ian, throwing the bag we’d found in his hands. His mouth fell open as his eyebrows knitted together in confusion. “I think you’ll find we have your killer.”

Chapter 16

Ian rubbed his fingers on his temples for the tenth time and shook his head at me. More officers had arrived at the scene and were already in the process of examining the shed. They’d led us far away, on the other side of Andy’s home. Having a few more feet between me and his homemade bomb allowed me to relax a bit more.

“Tell me again why you think Andy is the murderer?” Ian asked. “I’m a little confused. And I thought I told you to stay out of this.”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “Okay, I’ll say this nice and slow. Andy was carrying that bag the day we went to ask Laura some questions. He didn’t want us to see it.” I pointed to the white burlap sack that was currently being placed into evidence by one of Ian’s officers. “When you told me it was ricin that had killed Mr. White, I realized that’s what Andy had been hiding. I figured, if we found the poison, then you’d believe me.”

He pursed his lips and stared hard at me for a long moment. I shifted my feet and began running my hands through the snarly mess of curls that had fallen out of my bun, avoiding his eyes. He wasn’t very happy with me, which was easy enough to see. But that wasn

’t fair. It wasn’t my fault these bad things kept happening to me.

Snarls coming from behind us captured both of our attention. Andy struggled against the force of two police officers pulling his arms. They kneed him in the side of his thigh, forcing him to his knees. He spat at them, his teeth bared like a lion.

Raven and Blythe were a little further down the property, talking to another officer holding a notepad. The poor man couldn’t decide whether to write on his pad, stare at Blythe’s chest, or blabber incoherently in Raven’s face. Blythe was being very patient with him, but Raven had crossed her arms and was tapping her toes in annoyance.

I couldn’t be more thankful for my cousins at that moment. They were crazy and odd at times, but at this moment, I loved them all the same. Andy would’ve killed me if they hadn’t been there.

“Wait! You can’t take him!” Laura Blight came running up the hill from Mr. White’s manor. Without the white blouse and black skirt, she appeared almost unrecognizable in a gray hoodie and athletic shorts. She ran toward Andy, throwing her arms around his neck before the officers could stop her. “He didn’t do it.”

“Ma’am, step away.” Ian had his hand on the gun at his side. He held out his other arm as a warning. “Step away, please.”

Laura shot her arms up in the air. “You can’t take him. He didn’t kill Mr. White.” She burst into ugly wracking sobs and clutched her abdomen. “I did it!”

There was a moment of silence as everyone around the yard exchanged looks. Little quiet Laura didn’t exactly strike me as a murderer. With her delicate features and thin arms, she looked about as dangerous as a swallow.

“Are you confessing to a murder?” Ian asked, sliding in slowly to Laura’s side.

She looked up at him with crocodile tears falling from her lashes and nodded. “It was me. Andy had nothing to do with it. I put it in Mr. White’s cream cheese Danish. He couldn’t resist a breakfast pastry. I knew he’d eat it all up. I killed Mr. White.”

At that point, Kat could’ve knocked me over with one little kick of his hooves. Everyone else standing in that crazy overgrown lawn seemed to be as stable as me. I certainly didn’t see that one coming.

“No, Laura!” Andy struggled to pull his arms loose from the cuffs, but only succeeded in curving his gangly torso around her in an awkward hug. “Don’t say anything else. Don’t give them anything to use against you.”

“I don’t care.” Laura wiped at the tears under her eyes. “This guilt is eating me up inside. I have to tell them.”

Ian pushed Andy back to his knees and pulled Laura away. They walked toward me. “Are you telling me you put the poison in his breakfast?”

Laura sniffed. “Yeah. I did it the night before and laid them out for his breakfast, so that I wouldn’t have to be here when it happened. All I wanted was to make him a little sick so that I could spend the day with Andy. I didn’t mean to kill him.”

I stuffed my hand in my jean pocket and found a small chunk of eraser. It was left over from last week’s hike around the lake when I’d taken my sketching pad and decided to try my hand at nature drawings. I kneaded the eraser, finding a bit of comfort in the squishy little ball of rubber. Everything was unraveling so quickly. Raven had been right about Laura and Andy. They couldn’t be together with Mr. White around. But that was a majorly efficient way to get some vacation time.

“So did you get the ricin from Andy?” I asked Laura, stepping in. That part just didn’t make sense. How would someone like Laura get her hands on that lethal poison? I wasn’t quite convinced of Andy’s innocence in all of this. “Did he encourage you to put it on the roses?”

“Ricin?” Laura’s eyes narrowed. “What’s that?”

“The poison that killed Allen White,” Ian added, giving me a warning glance.

“No…I didn’t…” she shook her head and looked at me questioningly. “I didn’t use ricin. I put kiwi fruit in his breakfast. He’s deadly allergic to it. I thought he’d just have to go to the hospital.”

A sigh of relief flowed from my chest. Laura wasn’t the murderer after all.

Ian dropped his hand from the handcuffs and sighed as well. “You didn’t kill him, Ms. Blight. Allen died from a deadly serious poison called ricin. I doubt he even ate the Danishes you left him. They were probably taken into evidence by my team.”

“You mean…?” The tears immediately dried up on her cheeks. “I didn’t kill him?”