Allison Brennan - Love Is Murder

There were pills in some of the bottles. She opened one up and it was coated in a fine powder-more powder than would naturally rub off the pills from friction. Lucy looked in the drawer and found a small mortar and pestle-a classic tool used for hand grinding. Such as to grind pills into a fine powder that would more easily dissolve in liquid. And the bitter taste would be masked by a strong drink. Like orange juice.

The front door opened and Lucy quickly put everything back and closed the drawer.

“Angie and I wanted to use the snowmobiles this afternoon if the snow lets up,” Kyle was saying.

“I think tomorrow.”

Lucy breathed in relief. It was Steve. But she didn’t want him to know about Grace, not yet. Not until the police arrived.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Look, Kyle, I’m sorry, I’m just really tired. It’s been a long couple days and I need to check the barn, the wood-”

“Let me help. Please, I’m going to go insane in that house without anything to do.”

“Okay. Fine. I’m just need to get my parka.”

Two minutes later, they were gone.

Lucy didn’t want to tempt fate. She watched out the window until she saw Kyle and Steve go into the barn, then she left the cottage and retrieved her snowshoes from where she had stashed them on the side. She crossed over to the lodge, retracing Steve’s and Kyle’s tracks.

She saw something odd to her right where the root cellar entrance came out of the ground on the side of the house. The doors were open.

Who had gone down there? Trevor? The killer? Patrick had the key-but he was in no condition to check on the body.

She needed someone to investigate with her-she wasn’t going to go down in the cellar alone, especially when no one knew she was checking it out. She stepped toward the lodge, but movement on her left startled her. She turned and saw Grace Delarosa skiing rapidly toward her. Before she could move, Grace had rammed into her, sending Lucy sprawling into the snow.

She struggled to get up, the snowshoes making it nearly impossible, and Grace grabbed her arm. Lucy opened her mouth to call for help, and Grace backhanded her with a gloved hand. Lucy tasted blood and spit into the snow.

She felt a pinprick in her neck and hit at it. Something warm trickled down into her shirt.

“You’re too late,” Grace said and she pushed Lucy back down. Lucy tried to talk, but her muscles weren’t working right. She tried to stand, then crawl, but couldn’t control her limbs.

Grace dragged her to the root cellar. Darkness ate at the edges of her vision.

“I’ll be long gone before anyone knows you’re missing.” She reached into Lucy’s pocket and pulled out Patrick’s keys.

“W-why did you?” Lucy managed to whisper.

“You’re so smart, you figure it out.”

Grace pushed Lucy down the rough earth staircase that led down into the root cellar and closed the doors. She heard the lock slip into place.

Everything was black.

She lost consciousness.

Lucy woke up not knowing how long she’d been unconscious, but certain she was freezing. Her face was flat on the frozen ground, her cheek numb. The musty smell of damp earth brought images of a graveyard to mind, and her heart quickened. She opened her eyes-or thought she had-but it was pitch-black in the root cellar.

She slowly got up on all fours. One snowshoe had broken off when Grace had tossed her down the stairs. She turned to sit and take off the other.

Her muscles felt weak and uncoordinated, but she didn’t think Grace had gotten enough of the drug into her. There had been an instant effect, but she didn’t seem to have any lingering side effects. She had to find a way out. What if Grace hurt Steve? Or someone else? Was Patrick okay?

Thinking about Grace drugging her brother pushed Lucy through the pain. She was sore everywhere, but nothing was broken. The padding of her winter clothes had protected her from the fall. She reached to her lower back and found Patrick’s.45 still there.

There should be a light switch somewhere. She felt around the hard-packed dirt floor to make her way to the wall. Her finger touched plastic, and her stomach rolled as she realized she’d been sitting right next to Vanessa’s body. She crawled away until she reached a metal shelving unit. She stood up, knees cracking and muscles still weak. She held the shelf as she shuffled along the edge until she found the wall. It, too, was hard dirt, and she felt along for a switch. There was none.

“Of course not,” she said out loud, her voice startling her in the dark silence. It would most likely be suspended from the ceiling; the root cellar was cut out of the earth to preserve food without refrigeration. The light would most likely be tapped into the housing electricity.

She considered the layout of the house. What room was directly above the root cellar? She could find something to bang on the ceiling and maybe someone would hear her.

She realized she was directly beneath Beth’s room.

Lucy hesitated. Beth could be part of the scam to steal money from the Delarosa estate. She had no way of knowing whether or not the sisters were in this together.

She’d heard Grace lock the root cellar, but Lucy had to try to escape. She found the stairs and crept up, crawling at the end as the ceiling got lower. She pushed the thick wood doors. They didn’t budge.

But she heard something. Two men’s voices. They were getting closer. Steve and Kyle?

“Steve!” she cried out. She banged on the door. “Help! Steve! Kyle! I’m trapped!”

Silence, then Steve called through the doors, “Lucy?”

“Yes!” She relaxed with relief. “Thank God. Get me out. And don’t talk to Grace!”

“What did you say about Grace?”

“Get me out and I’ll explain everything.”

“Hold on, I know where the spare key is.”

Spare key? That’s what Grace must have used.

“Get the key from Patrick!” Lucy called.

Kyle said, “Steve went inside. What happened?”

“Grace locked me in here. She tried to drug me, too, but I didn’t get the full dose. It’s a muscle relaxant, and I think that’s what she used on Vanessa before she killed her.” If Vanessa had been incapacitated with a muscle relaxant, Grace could easily have suffocated her. Lucy hadn’t thought to look in Vanessa’s nose and throat for cotton fibers from a blanket or pillow-but often those fibers were only visible under a microscope. An autopsy would provide a definitive answer.

“Grace killed Vanessa?” Kyle asked. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” Lucy admitted, “but Grace has at least five identities, including one in Phoenix where Vanessa is from. She took Patrick’s keys. Did you see or hear his truck leave?”

“No,” Kyle said. “Steve and I just came from the garage-no one was there. Patrick’s truck was still there.”

What was Grace up to?

“Kyle, how long has it been since you and Steve went to his house?”

“Fifteen minutes? Twenty at the most.”

That meant Lucy had been knocked unconscious for only a few minutes. And since Patrick’s truck was still here, Grace was still here and was probably planning something. What? Was she in her cottage packing, thinking she had more time?

“Lucy? Are you down there?”

It was Patrick. “What are you doing out of bed?”

“I’m fine.” He unlocked the padlock and opened the doors. The light from outside poured into the cellar and Lucy instinctively shut her eyes. She crawled out and Patrick stood her up. “What happened?”

“Grace ambushed me and locked me in the root cellar. She took your keys.”

“Why would she take my keys and not use the lodge truck?”