An Arm and a Leg Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty -Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Thank you for purchasing this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  An Arm and a Leg

  by

  Olive Balla

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  An Arm and a Leg

  COPYRIGHT © 2014 by Olive Balla

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contact Information: [email protected]

  Cover Art by Tina Lynn Stout

  The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  PO Box 708

  Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

  Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

  Publishing History

  First Mainstream Mystery Edition, 2014

  Print ISBN 978-1-62830-607-1

  Digital ISBN 978-1-62830-608-8

  Published in the United States of America

  Dedication

  To the men in my life:

  my husband Victor

  and

  my sons Kevin, Patrick and James O’Donnell

  —my fiercest cheerleaders

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to:

  Dr. Dennis Burns, Professor of Pathology;

  APD Detective Christine Munsey;

  Author Bonnie Tharp;

  Proof Reader Susan Welch;

  Beta Readers Vivian Maheu and Nancy St. John.

  And special thanks to my amazing editor,

  Ally Robertson

  Chapter One

  Alone.

  In an empty house.

  Certainly not what Frankie O’Neil had intended. But then, not much of her life had turned out as she’d intended. She stood in the center of the room that would become her den, sighed and chewed on her thumbnail.

  She should be filled with euphoria at the purchase of her first home. Should be flitting from room to room, arms and hair flying in joyous celebration. And she would have been, had there been someone special with whom to share it.

  But that chapter of her life was done. Done and best left in the past. Especially since it was her fault, her failure that had brought her here. Step right up folks and take a gander at the life lesson in her solitary habitat.

  At least, Frankie told herself, she was making progress. She was moving forward, getting on with her life, making better choices. Just, by gosh and by golly, getting better and better every day and in every way. She snorted at her bastardized version of the old mantra, the derisive sound reverberating through the empty room.

  The house itself was the perfect oasis. With eighteen-inch-thick adobe walls, arched doorways, and a heavy pole-beamed ceiling common to Albuquerque during the early 1900s, Frankie had loved the eighty-year-old house on sight. The lot on which it sat, a tad over an acre, was located just where the Albuquerque city limits curved upward toward the Sandia Mountains. Those mountains, bathed red in the afternoon sun, had called to her, and she’d plunked down most of the cash inherited from her Uncle Mike as a down payment. She’d had just enough money left to buy curtains and a few items of furniture.

  The ringing Big Ben doorbell interrupted her thoughts. The unexpectedly loud sound reverberated through the empty space and sent her heart rate into the stratosphere.

  Making a mental note to dial down the bell’s volume, she pushed an auburn curl behind her ear, stood on tiptoes and peered through the peephole. She slid back the deadbolt and opened the door.

  “Hey, Little Brother, you’re up early this morning.”

  “Hi, Sis. Got a minute?”

  “Sure.” Frankie stepped to the side, pulled the door open wider and held it while her brother crossed the threshold. “Come in out of the cold.”

  Tim O’Neil tossed his car keys into a wooden bowl on the floor next to the front door and headed toward the living room. His usually squared shoulders sagged, and his short brown hair looked like a well-worn pot scrubber. His shirt and trousers, always immaculately pressed, looked as if they’d spent several weeks stuffed inside a too-small box. With red-rimmed gray eyes and a stubble-stippled face, he bore little resemblance to the well-known and respected doctor he was in the process of becoming. The oddly-shaped, ratty duffel bag he carried added to the down-and-out image.

  He crossed to the stucco fireplace and sat cross-legged on the bare, red brick hearth in front of it. The duffel he placed on the floor beside him.

  “Still no furniture?” His voice echoed through the hollow space.

  “Everything was supposed to be here yesterday afternoon.” Frankie pursed her lips. “But some of it’s been back ordered. At least the electricity’s on and I have appliances. Most of my clothes and things are still in boxes in the garage.” She shrugged. “I told the furniture store to hold the new stuff until after I get back.”

  “About that.” Tim ran his hand through his hair several times, mussing it even more. “I know it’s your vacation, but I’d like to tag along just for a couple of days.”

  “Of course, it’s your cabin too.” Frankie looked more closely at her brother’s ragged face. “If I didn’t know you better, I’d swear you’ve just come off a bender. What’s going on?”

  “Nothing I want to talk about.” He hunched his shoulders in his bullheaded mode.

  “Okaaay.” Frankie’s voice became playful in an effort to lighten her brother’s mood. “Let me guess, you decided to drop out of medicine and travel the world to find yourself.”

  She was surprised to see the strain around Tim’s mouth when he raised his head and swiveled it toward her. “What part of ‘I don’t want to talk about it’ don’t you understand?”

  Frankie’s smile dissolved like an effervescent cold remedy in water. “What the hell. Where’s all the defensiveness coming from?”

  Tim blew out a long breath through puckered lips. “Look, I didn’t come here to get into an argument.” He stood, lifting the duffel by its straps. The weight of whatever was in the bag pulled the nylon handles taut. “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.”

  Frankie stepped towa
rd her brother and touched his arm. “Lighten up. You know you’re welcome to come with me. I won’t ask again, but if you want to talk, I’m here.”

  Tim’s face relaxed a bit and he breathed out a long sigh. “I’m sorry, Sis. Got a lot on my mind.”

  “No harm done. At least your timing’s good. Let’s get a move on. I want to get to the cabin by mid-afternoon.”

  She walked to the hall closet. Careful to position herself between Tim’s line of vision and the boxes, cans, and bags of food stacked there, she opened the door only enough to slip an arm inside and retrieve her nylon windbreaker. It wouldn’t do for Tim to catch a glimpse of her collection of provisions. He’d just start asking questions, and she was neither in the mood to come up with a reasonable explanation nor to scramble for words to defend herself. People get hungry, plain and simple.

  Sliding her eyes in her brother’s direction, Frankie whispered a sigh of relief to see he’d moved out of view. She opened the closet door wider, stood on tiptoes, and pulled down the pet carrier for Collette, a cat she’d agreed to babysit for a musician friend on tour with the Albuquerque Symphony Orchestra.

  After managing to corner the animal, she put the grumbling kitty into the carrier, slipped her hand through the handles and headed back toward the living room. Tim was just returning from the direction of the kitchen—the duffel bag was gone.

  “Hope it’s okay for me to leave that in your freezer for a couple of days.”

  “Sure.” Frankie shot a quizzical look at her brother. “What is it?”

  “Just something I picked up. It’s too big for the tiny thing above my fridge. I’ll get it when we come back on Monday.”

  “Mi casa es su casa.” Frankie moved through the house, checking locks and making sure lights were turned off. “I’ll get the Jeep while you get your stuff,” she yelled from the kitchen.

  After Frankie backed out of the garage, Tim stood at the open passenger door and stared into the idling vehicle’s interior. “Holy crap, Sis. Planning on feeding the Denver Broncos?” He scrunched his small travel bag into a ball and struggled to find an empty space. “And since when do you eat those god-awful canned sausages?”

  Frankie cleared her throat. “They’re protein. Never know when we’ll lose power at the cabin and have to survive on non-perishables, especially this time of year.” Grateful her brother could neither see her face nor read her mind, she attempted a light-hearted chuckle. “I’d hate to have to raid a squirrel’s nest for breakfast.”

  “Ouch.” Tim flapped his hand. “Damn. Jammed my thumb on a case of freaking tomato sauce. Tomato sauce and sardines, now that sounds yummy.”

  After a couple of minutes and several muttered imprecations, Tim finally managed to stuff his bag into a tiny space atop two boxes of ramen noodles. He climbed in and buckled up as Frankie backed into the street.

  They delivered the cat to a pet boarding establishment and headed north on Interstate 25. A pickup merged onto the highway behind them, its front bumper so close to the Jeep’s rear that its grill was hidden from Frankie’s view. She goosed the accelerator to put some distance between the two vehicles.

  Scenery flowed past the windows in flashes of color. The tan and ochre of the high desert gave way to green-splotched hills peppered with wildflowers and piñon trees. The dry, herbal fragrance of prairie grass, juniper, and sage brush became the loamy, earthy smells of scrub oak and conifers. Fluffy thunderclouds flattened and condensed into a low-hanging gray ceiling. A few tentative drops of rain turned into a torrent, and the fragrance of precipitation in the mountains seeped through the air vents.

  Traffic thinned as they turned onto the Santa Fe Bypass and the road to Eagle Nest. Thankful for the Jeep’s four-wheel drive, Frankie turned onto the muddy unpaved road that would take them the remaining few miles to the cabin. Again, she picked up speed to open distance between them and the only other vehicle on the road.

  The beginnings of alarm buzzed up her neck when the other driver also sped up. She slowed to allow the guy to pass, but he slowed as well. Jerking her eyes back and forth between the highway in front of her and the images in the rearview mirror, she alternately sped up and slowed down, only to have the other vehicle duplicate her moves.

  “Do you know someone who drives a dark green pickup?” Frankie turned her head slightly toward her brother.

  “A green pickup?” Tim’s face reflected surprise. His voice sounded high-pitched and tight. “Are you…” He started to swivel his head back over his shoulder.

  The move was never completed. The sharp report of a rifle sliced through the silence, and the front and rear windows exploded almost simultaneously. Red and pink liquid sprayed the dash in front of Tim as the sudden smell of copper suffused the air. Without comprehending the reality of what she was seeing, Frankie looked first at the dripping dashboard, then at her brother.

  “Tim? Tim?” Whimper became shriek as it moved through her lungs and exploded through her open mouth. She stared at her brother’s bowed head. This wasn’t real. None of this was happening.

  Another shot slammed Frankie’s self-preservation, fight-or-flight instinct into high gear, and she floored the gas pedal.

  Tires threw up chunks of brown mud in an effort to gain traction on the rain-soaked dirt road. After what seemed an eternity, the wheels’ impotent whirring stopped and the tires bit into more solid soil. The Jeep shot forward.

  Between frantic glances at the road, Frankie looked at her brother sitting slumped against the seatbelt, bright red drops falling into his lap. His bowed head bobbed up and down as the Jeep flew over rises and plummeted down gullies. Gorge rose in Frankie’s throat. Her chest tightened and her vision blurred.

  “Tim? Oh God, oh God, oh God…” She brushed her brother’s shoulder with the fingertips of her right hand, half afraid she’d further hurt him but needing the contact.

  Tim breathed out a final, long sigh. The soles of his shoes did a tap dance against the floorboard as his nerves fired off their final salvos. That sound—the sound of death—would have in reality been barely audible, but to Frankie’s ears it became a pounding jackhammer.

  Chapter Two

  “No. No, no, no…” Frankie cried the word over and over, as if by force of will she could make the universe stop whatever was happening. She swallowed hard against the panic that threatened to make her vomit, while shoving the recognition of what Tim’s wounds meant into the recesses of her conscious mind.

  Another shot shattered the outside mirror on the driver’s side. Frankie’s eyes jerked to her rearview mirror. The pickup had nearly closed the gap between them.

  Slowing barely enough to keep from rolling the vehicle, she made a sharp turn onto what looked like a trail in the woods. Relief filtered into her panic-stricken brain when the pickup fishtailed and then stalled as the driver took the same turn while going too fast.

  Frankie jammed her foot on the accelerator with all her strength in hopes she could somehow make the Jeep go faster. Fast enough to become airborne. Fast enough to reverse time.

  The Jeep sped cross-country down gullies and over ridges toward Taos and the nearest hospital. She fought to maintain control of the whipping steering wheel as the vehicle gee’d and haw’d. Every bump jogged pieces of the shattered windshield loose. Brickled bits of glass rained onto the boxes of food, where they slid and tick-tacked with every frantic turn.

  But after only a few miles, the engine sputtered and died. The odor of gasoline filled the interior, and the light on the dash indicated an empty gas tank, the evident victim of a stray bullet.

  Her stomach dropped, even as her brain refused to admit what the empty tank meant. For several seconds she gripped the steering wheel, her neck and shoulders rigid.

  She turned the key in the ignition over again and again, pumping her foot on the gas pedal. She pounded her left hand against the steering wheel, willing the useless vehicle to roar back to life. But the Jeep only responded with a sputtering cough that soon gave
way to a series of impotent clicks.

  Frankie’s heart set up a drummer’s paradiddle in her chest. The pulse in her temples throbbed in cadence, her breathing came in shallow gasps. The Sangre de Cristo Mountains, host to years of happy family campouts, now surrounded her like a troop of malicious hump-backed ogres.

  Sodden pine needles muted her footfall as she stumbled out of the Jeep. The rain-slick carpet made for treacherous walking, forcing her to step carefully as she walked around the vehicle to the passenger’s side. She unbuckled her brother’s seatbelt, pulled him toward her and struggled to gently lower him to the ground.

  Her eyes were drawn to Tim’s face. The air whooshed out of her lungs at the sight. Was it only minutes ago they’d been laughing at childhood antics? And now Tim lay unmoving at her feet, her clothes soaked in his blood.

  A keening moan bubbled up from somewhere inside, and she swallowed hard. If she gave in to the urge, she might never stop screaming. And hysteria would serve no purpose now.

  Gripping Tim’s still-warm hands, she struggled to pull him toward the thick underbrush. Her feet kept slipping out from under her and she often fell to her knees. Each time, she hoisted herself back up.

  In a few hours, the sun would fall behind the trees and the forest would become dark as a galactic black hole. While she would welcome the concealing darkness, it would also blot out any familiar landmarks. And an inability to find a landmark in the mountains could result in a number of outcomes, none of them good. She dragged her brother’s body in the direction she hoped the cabin lay.

  An hour or so later, the burble of water flowing over stones buoyed her courage. She could follow what she knew to be the only stream in this part of the forest almost to the cabin’s back door. Offering thanks to the Creator, she pulled Tim’s body toward the sound of rushing water.

  The adrenaline infusion had long since worn off by the time she reached the river, and her back felt as if it would be permanently cocked at a forty-five degree angle. Every muscle in her body ached and twitched.

  She dropped Tim’s now-cool hands and straightened her back, gritting her teeth at the resulting pain. No use in racing against the clock any more. No use praying for Tim’s life to be spared. No more pretending not to recognize what the coldness of his body meant.