The Reluctant Coroner by Paul Austin Ardoin (distant reading txt) 📖

Dez.” Fenway rolled her eyes.

“Soak in some Epsom salts, girl. It’s magic.”

Fenway walked out of the office and out the doors. The sun had dipped behind the horizon, and the sky was stippled with pinks and purples. It had been a long ten hours since Fenway got to work—not as long as either McVie or Dez, but still grueling and emotionally draining—but the beautiful sky, the brisk sea air, and the promise of a great Italian meal almost made up for it all.

She nearly walked past her car in the parking garage, not recognizing it right away in the pale yellow light, but she stopped after she passed the car, shook her head, and turned around.

Fenway saw a large man walking up from the front of the garage, silhouetted by the harsh entrance light behind him. She felt a chill run up her back—was it Stotsky?

Fenway took her keys out of her purse, putting a key between the second and third fingers of her closed fist. The man came closer.

She heard a car start up behind her and spun around. A Ford pickup turned its headlights on.

The stranger was the parking lot attendant. He smiled at Fenway and nodded, walking past her to the stairwell on the second floor.

Fenway exhaled. The pickup truck passed her.

It was enough to rattle her. She took her phone out of her purse and put the flashlight on. She shined it in the back seat. Nothing. She shined it in the front seat. Still nothing. She took her remote out and popped the trunk. The lid slowly raised, but the trunk was empty. She crouched down a few feet from the car and shined her light underneath the car. There was nothing but concrete.

Fenway stood up. She walked around to the back of the car, closed the trunk, and unlocked the door.

She got in, and checked the back seat one more time: still nothing. She started up the car and drove out of the garage.

Fenway turned the radio on and some old Michael Jackson was playing. She made the short trip back to her apartment complex and looked at her watch. She still had about fifteen minutes before Rachel was supposed to be there. It would give her a chance to get out of the black dress and the sexy but increasingly uncomfortable high heels, and put on some sweats and her sheepskin slippers.

She got out of the car. Fatigue overwhelmed her as she climbed the single flight of stairs to the second floor. She got to the landing, walked to her apartment, and reached out to put the key in the deadbolt.

The door was open a crack.

She gasped.

The door flung open.

Rob Stotsky came at her with a black flannel scarf.

Fenway tried to scream but the scarf—her scarf—covered her mouth. Her keys fell from her hand. In a quick, fluid movement, Stotsky grabbed the ends of the scarf behind her head and tightened, gagging her. He swung her around into the apartment by her head, and slammed the door shut.

Fenway tried to shout again, but the scarf covered the sound. Stotsky pulled harder, and, using the scarf for leverage, pushed her down to her knees. Her purse fell to the floor. One of her heels came off. Then he shoved her down onto the floor on her stomach, her head turned to the side, the scarf pushed up almost over her nose. Her dress slid up to the tops of her thighs, and she briefly thought of the Russian Lit professor again.

“Oh, Fenway,” he growled. “If only you had let me leave.”

Stotsky put a knee on the small of her back. Her breath went out of her.

“I was about to empty my bank account. I had my train ticket. I would have been in Tijuana by midnight, and you would have never seen me again.”

Fenway struggled but couldn’t move.

“But you had to mess everything up for me, didn’t you? Putting a hold on my cards. Getting an officer to watch for me at the train station.”

She could barely breathe.

“I saw how you took down that crazy guy in the church,” he hissed in her ear. “I’m not going to underestimate you like he did.”

Fenway was a tall woman, but Stotsky outweighed her by at least a hundred pounds. She didn’t think she could take him down—not without help.

“Here’s what’s going to happen to Fenway Stevenson, the girl who killed the goose that laid the golden egg,” he whispered in her ear. “You’re going to give me your car keys. It’ll be tougher to track a car that doesn’t have plates yet. You’re going to get in the trunk. Then we’re going to Mexico, and your father is going to wire me all the money I need. Then, and only then, will I let you go.”

Fenway saw her high heel was next to her right hand. She wondered if she could grab it without Stotsky noticing.

“Now, you’re not going to do anything stupid, right, Fenway? You’re probably just as useful to me dead, but if your dad insists on proof of life before sending me the money, I’d like to be able to give it to him.”

“Mm-hmm,” Fenway wheezed through the gag.

“Swear on your mother’s grave,” he sneered.

That knocked the breath out of her almost as much as his knee in her back.

“Swear it!” He pulled the scarf down.

“I swear,” she gasped.

“Where are the keys?” he said.

Fenway realized he hadn’t seen her drop them out on the landing.

“In my purse,” she lied.

“Where’s your purse?”

“I don’t know. I dropped it.”

Stotsky grabbed a handful of her hair. “Where did you drop it, damn it?”

“When you first threw me in here. I dropped it. Maybe over by the kitchen island.”

He pulled. “There’s nothing by the kitchen island.”

“Ow—then I don’t know.”

“Tell me where you dropped your purse!” he hissed.

“I dropped my purse when you spun me around. I didn’t see where it went.”

He increased the pressure on the small of her back. “You are such a pain in my ass.” He let go of her hair, stuffed the scarf back in her mouth, straightened up, still on top of her, and turned his head away, looking for the purse on the floor.

Something in his voice told Fenway she would not survive the trip to Mexico. Once Stotsky had his money from her father—assuming Ferris would even send it—Stotsky would have far less trouble killing her and getting rid of her body than letting her go.

Fenway scooted her right hand up and laid it on top of her shoe. He didn’t notice.

“Under the kitchen table,” he sighed. The tone of his voice made her think he saw the purse. “Don’t move or I’ll kill you.”

Fenway was waiting for him to take his weight off her back so she could drive hard up into him and swing around with her shoe, the sharp heel out. She thought about where his head might be, and whether or not she could hit his temple.

But Stotsky was thinking ahead. He grabbed the scarf tied around her face, then picked her head up quickly and slammed it into the kitchen floor.

It surprised her, and it hurt. Her ear rang where it smashed against the floor.

It might have briefly incapacitated her, except the floor was cheap linoleum, not hardwood or tile. It hurt, but it didn’t knock her out. Her lip curled.

He rose to a squatting position over her and started to stand.

She pushed herself up fast. She arched her back fast, then twisted to her left, the high heel in her right hand. Stotsky was off balance and barely caught himself on the table.

She swung hard; the heel caught his left cheek and ripped a big flap of skin off, slicing across his face.

He roared in pain.

Fenway scrambled out from between his legs.

He grabbed at her with his right hand, then dropped to his knees and clipped her right hip. It was enough to knock her down, as she fell she kicked out with her left foot—the foot still in the other high heel—and caught him in the mouth, splitting his lip. He grabbed for her ankles but missed.

She scooted back and stood across the kitchen from him.

The knife block.

It was next to the microwave, out of both of their reaches. Maybe out of his line of sight, too. Could she grab the big knife before he noticed?

But he was closer than Fenway was. Maybe he’d get to her before she got to the knives. Fenway’s high heel would have to do for now.

Kneeling, he spat a wad of blood onto the floor. He snarled although his lip and cheek bled badly. He touched the wound on his cheek and glared at the blood on his fingers. “I’m still taking your car.”

She pulled off the scarf. “But you’re not going to take me.” Fenway held the high heel as menacingly as she possibly could.

Keeping his eyes on her, he backed up to where her purse had come to rest under the kitchen table. He pulled it in front of himself and dumped everything out. He rifled through the mints and coins and hand lotion. He recoiled slightly when he touched the tampons. Fenway