Free Charleston with a Clever Cougar: A Dance with Danger Mystery #6 by Sara M. Barton

harm her? And if it wasn’t Doug, who
else had a motive?
     

Chapter Eight --
     
    I thought about Mimi, the former member of
the Board of Ed. She had been forced to resign after the affair
became fodder for local gossip. The public backlash over the shabby
treatment Carole received from her husband and his mistress didn’t
die down as quickly as Mimi hoped. When she left for her new job as
a corporate lawyer and town solicitor, it was clear she expected to
re-launch her political career. Those triplets were almost ready to
walk and talk. Maybe Mimi felt this was the time to put herself
back into the public spotlight. What if this was her effort to
somehow make Carole look like an unfit mother?
    “That doesn’t make any sense,” I said into
the darkness, hearing my own voice break the stillness. “It has to
be something else.”
    Between the constant, dull ache of my
shoulder and the nagging worry that Daisy was in grave danger, I
tossed and turned until three, when I got up, thinking I would
watch something on TV downstairs. As I padded into the living room,
I found myself wondering if Doc was still awake. Pulling the drapes
apart a scant six inches or so, I peered out. Doc’s van was gone,
and in its place was a dark pickup truck, not unlike the one that
carted away Daisy’s fleeing assailant. For a moment, my heart
stopped. I saw a slight movement in the front seat, and then a man
got out. I clung to the shadows, glad that I hadn’t turned on the
lamp. I watched as he headed towards the Walchuk unit.
    The rush up to the bedroom to retrieve my
cell phone took a lot out of me. I was moaning and groaning by the
time I finally wrapped my trembling fingers around the case and
went through my contacts list to find Doc’s number. I hit “call”
and waited. Seconds later, it went to voicemail. When it beeped, I
left a breathy message.
    “Doc, there’s a guy heading for Carole’s
condo. He got out of a dark pickup truck. I think it might be the
guy from the other night.” As soon as I hung up, I dialed Carole’s
cell. She answered on the third ring. “There’s a man heading to
your house and Doc’s gone!”
    “It’s okay, Cady,” she told me, her voice
calm. “Doc took us to a safe place. He and his friends are waiting
inside the house.”
    “Oh.” Relief flooded over me, knowing that
Carole and the kids were elsewhere. I was glad Doc was careful
enough to remove them, but I wished he had shared that with me. I
wondered what would happen next. When I asked, Carole told me Doc
had been rather vague about the plan.
    “Call me when it’s over,” I told her, before
I terminated the call and stumbled back to the window. The truck
was still parked in its spot, but its driver was nowhere to be
seen. I pulled the ottoman over to the window and sat down,
wondering, waiting. Listening. The minutes ticked on. A glance at
the living room clock told me it was quarter past three. Another
fifteen minutes crawled by before I saw a giant black spider sprint
across the sidewalk, like something out of a horror film. As I
looked closer, I saw it was really four men, all dressed in black,
restraining a fifth man. The man from the pickup truck. The man who
assaulted Daisy. He was tossed in the bed of the truck, accompanied
by two of his guards, while a third got behind the wheel. The
fourth man passed in front of my living room window before
disappearing. It was Doc. A minute later, Doc’s van pulled beside
the pickup truck. In the faint light, I observed the pickup truck
driver sliding over on the front seat. Suddenly his head was out
the window. There seemed to be a conversation going on between Doc
and the driver. It ended quickly. Doc backed his van out of the
space and rolled about fifty feet forward. The lights on the truck
went on, the engine started up, and the truck slowly backed out of
the parking spot. Taking its place behind Doc’s van, the pickup
truck followed dutifully, and the two vehicles left the parking