Free Killer Moves: The 4th Jolene Jackson Mystery (Jolene Jackson Mysteries) by Paula Boyd Page B

you.”
    “They won’t,” Lucille said emphatically. “I just need another day or two. You just get Jerry Don to get me some backup out here and I’ll be fine.”
    Oh, this was wrong on so many levels. “Mother, I can’t leave you here. I just can’t.”
    “You can and you will, Jolene,” Lucille said, wagging a finger at me. “These are not the first things that have happened here. I told you early on how Helen Williams’ arm just fell down to her side like a dishrag for no reason at all after she got here. She’s not the only one either, and you just saw another dead body get hauled out.” She pointed to the vial in my hand. “You did what you thought was right, Jolene, now you let me do the same. I know what I’m doing.”
    Well that made exactly one of us. Still, she had me trapped. She wasn’t leaving and I couldn’t make her. Yet I felt frozen and couldn’t leave either.
    “I’m not taking another pill or letting them poke me with anything, so don’t you be worry about that. Besides, I know how to work them. I just wish you hadn’t made me empty my purse.”
    Oddly, so did I. A laser-sighted pistol tucked in her pocket was disturbingly appealing at the moment. However, since there were no firearms in the room, we were both just going to have to rely on her cunning wit and superb ability to lie through her teeth. Yep, that was almost as good as bullets.
    “I’ll need to get down to the PT room more often that I have been so I can watch that office,” Lucille said, tapping her nails to her lips as she pondered. “That’s it!” she said, clapping her hands together. “I was pretending I wasn’t doing good so they wouldn’t come after me, but now I’ll start acting like I’m all interested in getting better. I’ll tell Christine that she was right about everything—she’ll like that—and get her to set me up where I can go down to the workout room by myself. Yes, that’s exactly what I’ll do.”
    I didn’t like it, not even a little. Her stream of consciousness dialogue made some sense, if you ignored the million reasons why it didn’t. Still, it wasn’t as though I was leaving a sweet little old lady such as Doris to the wolves. No, I was giving free reign to a conniving geriatric mayhem-making machine, and to paraphrase Mr. T from the old days, I pitied the fool who tried to cross her. “Keep your phone charged and with you at all times. This is just for tonight.”
    Lucille pointed over to the table by the wall. “You need something to hide that blood vial in. They just filled my big cup over there, but you better not take it because they might stop you.” She opened the drawer in the cabinet beside the bed, pulled out an insulated travel mug and held it out to me. “Agnes brought me this from home. You can put your sample in it.”
    I grabbed the mug, dumped in ice and water from her big cup then stuck the tube inside then stared at my mother. “Don’t volunteer that I’ve been here—that your daughter has been here. The nurse only saw me with Doris and Melody, so maybe they won’t connect me with you.”
    “I know better than to blab,” said the Queen of Duplicity and Half-Truths. “I don’t tell anyone anything I don’t have to. Now you need to get out of here and get your business taken care of,” she said, shooing me out. “Leave that door open so I can see who does what when it breaks loose.”
    I shook my head and hurried out the door before I changed my mind. I walked quickly but casually toward the front exit with my insulated mug and bulging pockets. The door to Doris’ room was still closed and no one was running up and down the halls, so I presumed she hadn’t been discovered missing yet. Ditto for the little mix-up in the lab. Thankfully, no one gave me a second glance, and I was out the door and in the Tahoe in less than a minute.
    As I closed the door and cranked the engine on the oven-hot car, I breathed a deep sigh of relief, and this time it