No Gravestone Left Unturned (A Jane Ladling Mystery 2)

“Exactly right,” he told her, sounding bored. “Ana complained about your many harassing phone calls. It led her to work on a story about you and the cemetery’s gold. She planned to speak with you the morning she died. And I hoped to buy the cemetery once you were out of the way. With Tiffany’s money, of course.”

“Of course.” Jane reeled, almost dizzy with success. She’d had just scored an all-out confession. How many others could say the same? “Look at you.” She shook her head at him. “You’re not even sorry, are you?”

He smiled a little, but it was a cold facsimile of the one he’d always projected at Tiffany. His victims never saw him coming, did they? “I’m quite wealthy. What do I have to be sorry about? Other than your lack of an answer to my question.” He rocked back on his heels, rattling whatever he held in his pocket. A switchblade? A gun? Did he plan to kill Jane too? “I’m a very careful man. I like to learn from my mistakes.”

Stall him. Keep him talking. He might believe he’d taken Fiona, Conrad and Beau out of the equation, but he didn’t know the members of Team Truth like she did. Actually, he didn’t know Jane, either.

“Are you going to kill me as soon as I finish explaining?” she asked and gulped.

“I told you. There’s no need. I have what I wanted from Tiffany, as well as your gold. Your three guard dogs never noticed when I made an exchange.” He grinned again, a sharp baring of his teeth, completely unaware he’d replaced fakes with fakes. “I’ll disappear seconds after we finish this conversation, never to be heard from or seen by the people of this town again.”

Leave? No! She took a step forward, instinct demanding she grab him. But she caught herself before contact. Conrad had given her a self-defense lesson during the previous case, and she utilized those skills now. First up, assessing the target. Did Jake have a weapon or not? “The last thing I’m gonna do is help you deceive your next victim.”

“Ana was...necessary. Too nosy for her own good.” He pulled his hands from his pockets. Yep. A folded knife waited in his grip. “I won’t ask again, Jane. What gave me away?”

Her breath hitched when she spotted Fiona several yards back, sneaking through the darkness with a tire iron clutched in her hand. To keep him focused on Jane, she babbled her reasons in a rush. “Well, for starters, you only recently moved to town. That was a dead giveaway. In my experience as a killer catcher, it’s the new guy one hundred percent of the time. And you were too nice. Always smiling and being kind. It was off-putting. Plus, art is supposed to speak to people. Yours screams, I’m trying too hard to be like the greats. Also, I noticed right away that your name rhymes with Blake’s. Lastly, you treated Tiffany like a queen. It was super suspicious.”

He narrowed his eyes. “You don’t want to be honest. That’s fine. I’m afraid we’ve run out of time.” He took a step toward her, only to tense and spin, sensing Fiona, who was almost upon him.

Jane didn’t think about her next actions. She kicked Jake in the back of the knee. As he dropped to the concrete, Fiona swung the tire iron with the grace of a swan, nailing him in the shoulder. A pained grunt exploded from him as he toppled. The switchblade went flying across the distance.

“Who are you calling old?” Fiona hit him again when he tried to stand. “Sixty-two is young.”

He growled and huffed and labored to his hands and knees, as if to strike.

“Don’t hurt my young friend!” Jane threw herself at him, shoving him to his face. His chin crashed against the concrete first, and he roared, spitting blood.

“That’s for framing Jane!” Fiona swung the tire iron again and again, smacking his butt while Jane draped herself over his back. “And that’s for killing poor Ana.”

“And ruining my garden!”

“Jane!” Conrad’s voice drifted over the darkness. “She’s over here!”

Footsteps sounded. Suddenly he was there, pulling her off Jake and checking her over. Hightower came in behind him to help the now admitted thief to his feet. Beau was right behind her; he rushed over to hug Fiona and look her over.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Jane told Conrad between panting breaths. “But he did it. Jake Stephenson is the killer.” She pointed to the awful man. “He confessed everything. He’s a conman and a murderer and a framer, and he stole my gold. He came at me with a knife, but it skidded somewhere.”

“You don’t have any gold, Jane. And we will find the knife.” Conrad cupped her face and forced her gaze to meet his. “I am so mad at you right now. Do not take any more years off my life. Sit in that little plot of grass over there, under that beam of light, and stay there until I collect you. You and Fiona both.”