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One Killer Move: Margot Harris Mystery Series Six, page 1
One Killer Move
Margot Harris Mystery Series Six - Book 3
Nora Kane
One Killer Move by Nora Kane Copyright © 2023 by Nora Kane.
All rights reserved.
No portion of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without written permission. This book is a work of fiction. Any reference to real people or real locales is used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Books by Nora Kane
1. Wolverine Harbor Novellas Series
Book 1 - The Veil of Deceit
Book 2 - The Veil of Envy
Book 3 - The Veil of Vengeance
2. Emmy Grimm Series
Book 1 - Lured
Book 2 - Chased
Book 3 - Blindsided
3. Margot Harris Series One
4. Margot Harris Series Two
5. Margot Harris Series Three
6. Margot Harris Series Four
7. Margot Harris Series Five
8. Jade Pearson Series One
9. Jade Pearson Series Two
10. Sofia Simms
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When the Patriarch of the Woodcrest Family was found dead in the flowerbed under his bedroom window, the local police department called it suicide. His son hired Private detective Emmy wanting to uncover the real truth behind his father's death. Surrounded by so many individuals who could benefit from his death, now the responsibility is on Emmy to figure out who was responsible. When Emmy starts to talk to the heirs the Woodcrest family's secrets begin to emerge.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
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Prologue
“Tired?”
Officer Wayne Kantor stopped reaching for the cup of coffee he’d somehow dropped on the floor and looked up at the prisoner. He’d been watching her for eight hours a day for the last week and this was the first time she’d tried to initiate a conversation with him. Of course, the first four days or so she’d been in a coma, but she’d hardly been more talkative since.
He was good with that; he didn’t want to talk to her anyway. He’d been a prison guard long enough to know the inmates, no matter how friendly they might appear, were not his friends. Especially the good-looking ones.
Melanie definitely fell into the good-looking category, even now, without make-up or having put a brush through her auburn hair in over a week. After being stabbed repeatedly and beaten into a coma, she was still somehow attractive. Kantor was glad she chose to keep her nose in a book just like he did to pass the time at the hospital. Even though he knew better than to give someone like Melanie a chance to manipulate him, he was still a man and talking to pretty girls, especially on the rare occasions when they talked to him first, was ingrained in his system.
Kantor realized if he were to answer her, he’d have to say yes. He was beyond sleepy, which was weird; he prided himself on his ability to stay awake, even when getting little to no sleep. That wasn’t even the case right now. Of the six men given the Melanie Harris hospital duty, he didn’t have the best shift, which would be eight to four. Basically banker’s hours, but the four to midnight wasn’t bad and he was used to it. He’d put in a full eight hours of sleep before his shift started so there was no reason to be so tired.
Even if he hadn’t put in a full night’s sleep (or in his case, full morning’s) his shift was just getting started. He’d even had a cup of coffee.
Which he’d dropped. He looked at the spilled coffee and then back to Melanie, who was smiling ear to ear.
He tried to ask her why, but his mouth wouldn’t work right. It occurred to him he must have been drugged right before he passed out and fell into the puddle of spilled coffee.
The coffee hitting his face woke him up just long enough. He saw the nurse taking his gun out of the shoulder rig he wore along with the keys to the handcuffs holding Melanie to the hospital bed.
Kantor dropped back into dreamland as the nurse went over to unlock Melanie.
“With the shift change and dinner break, it’s as clear as it’s going to get,” the nurse said as he helped Melanie into a waiting wheelchair.
“No shit, Nate. I know the plan. It was my plan.”
“No need to be mean.”
“Give me the gun.”
“You sure?”
“You took the one off the guy outside, didn’t you?”
“No, it would look weird if he didn’t have his weapon,” Nate said as he handed her the Glock he took from Kantor and started wheeling her toward the door.
“Him sleeping on the job won’t?”
Nate the nurse didn’t reply. Unlike the guard in the room, he’d propped this guy up since him being on the floor would get someone’s attention for sure. He thought about pausing to grab the pistol but kept moving. This was the riskiest part. They were out in the open in a busy hospital. Sure, since this floor had a prisoner on it, it was restricted. A couple of guards like the two Nate just roofied made sure no one unauthorized made the trip to this floor. But that didn’t mean people weren’t here. The hospital didn’t have enough beds to give up an entire floor for one patient. If someone saw him wheeling her down the hall, there’d be no way he could lie his way out of it.
The floor may have been restricted, but the service elevator the staff used was still operational. Employees of the hospital were instructed not to use it to go to this floor, but they didn’t turn it off. Nate’s keycard would still work.
He turned a corner and the elevator was in sight when he heard a voice behind him say, “Hey.”
He didn’t look back. Instead, he started to run.
As he ran, he noticed Melanie chambering a round on the pistol.
“You can stop, or I can put a bullet in your back,” the voice called.
Nate looked back and saw the detective who’d been questioning Melanie standing at the end of the hall. A gun much like the one he took from the guard was pointed at him. Nate kept moving.
“Stop, you idiot!” Melanie said. “Even if he doesn’t shoot you, he’ll have an army of cops waiting for us when we get off the elevator.”
“But if I stop…”
“This is the last time I’m going to ask,” the detective yelled.
Melanie shook her head. “I wouldn’t push him.”
Nate stopped.
“Hands on your head and then get on the floor.”
“Do as he says,” Melanie told him.
Nate did as he was told. It was hard to go to the floor with his hands on his head, but he managed.
Just as the detective told Melanie to put her hands where he could see them, she turned and brought up the gun.
He didn’t anticipate her being armed; he was more worried about the nurse, but he adjusted quickly. They both fired at nearly the same time. He put a bullet through her chair that hit her in the stomach, but she hit him in the chest. His bullet went right through her while hers caught him in the sternum and knocked him backward.
She was quicker on the second shot, putting another bullet in his chest while he fired over her head. He hit the floor.
Melanie had to scoot up on her knees to get a good angle for shots three and four. He didn’t return fire this time. She thought she might have wasted two bullets on a dead man, but it was always better to be sure.
Nate sat up. “Holy shit, you just shot a cop!”
“No kidding. We need to move. Someone is going to be coming, but we might have time to get down to the parking lot before they figure out what happened.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“Push the damn chair, Nate.”
Nate started pushing the chair.
“That’s a lot of blood,” he said as they reached the elevator.
“Good thing I have a nurse with me.”
Nate had called the car to this floor before going to retrieve Melanie. The timing had been excellent; by the time he got back to her room, the guard in the hall was dropping off. Nate was able to catch him and prop him up in his chair before he fell without being noticed. It was lucky he got there to catch him since the guard was no stranger to the weight room or steroids.
Everything had been going so well until the detective showed up. Nate was pretty sure he’d wasted his luck on the guard in the hall now. He was sure the elevator car had moved on.
It hadn’t though. The d
“They’re going to be waiting for us for sure,” Nate said as the elevator started down.
“If they are, they are,” Melanie said as she checked the magazine to see how many bullets she had left. “You didn’t happen to grab the spare mag, did you?”
“No. What would it matter? Even if we had both guns and all the bullets they had, it wouldn’t be enough to get us out of here.”
“Who said anything about getting us out of here?”
“You’re not planning to shoot it out with them, are you?”
Before Melanie could answer, the door opened. The only thing waiting for them was the ambulance the Proctors stole just for this occasion.
Mrs. Proctor opened the back door and Nate wheeled Melanie over.
“She’s bleeding,” Mrs. Proctor said.
“We had to improvise a little,” Melanie replied as they lifted her inside.
They put her on the bed for patients and Mr. Proctor started driving.
“How hot is it going to be out there?” Mrs. Proctor asked.
“A cop is dead and I’m not in my room. They should figure it out pretty quickly.”
Mrs. Proctor took an AK-47 from under the bed and chambered a round.
“Turn on the lights,” Nate said. “They won’t think to stop us if they think we’re on a call.”
Mr. Proctor did as he was told. They drove out of the parking lot without being stopped. He hit the siren and traffic cleared a path. They were pulling out as the cops were pulling in.
“Can you stitch her up?” Mrs. Proctor asked Nate.
“I’m not a doctor.”
“I didn’t ask you that.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Melanie told him.
“You’re losing a lot of blood,” Nate replied.
“I noticed. Do what you can to stop it, then call Blake. He can fix me up.”
“I thought he wanted out of this shit.”
“He did, but that’s not the way this works.”
Mrs. Proctor nodded.
“Won’t that mess up our getaway?” Nate asked. “What about the plan? The plane won’t wait forever.”
“It’s not really a getaway if I bleed to death, Nate. Besides, it won’t take that long.”
Nate wasn’t so sure, but she did have a point. It would be weird to go to all this trouble to bust Melanie out of prison just to let her bleed to death when they didn’t have to.
Nate did his best to patch up the wound while Mr. Proctor guided the ambulance to the alleyway where their van was parked. They switched vehicles without being noticed and left the ambulance behind.
They headed south and Melanie felt as in the clear as an escaped convict with a bullet hole in her gut could.
Chapter 1
Four hours before
“You come here to gloat? Say I told you so? Or just enjoy my pain?” Melanie asked without looking up from the paperback she was reading.
“None of the above, though I can’t honestly say I don’t not enjoy your pain.”
Melanie sat up a bit in her bed. She made a show of reaching a shackled wrist over to the button that let her release pain medicine into her system. She let her thumb hover over the button as she said, “Bad news, I haven’t even had to use this.”
Margot pointed at the bag of clear liquid hanging from the I.V. tree next to the bed. “Doesn’t look full to me.”
Melanie pressed down on the button. “I didn’t say I hadn’t used it, it’s not like I have a lot else to do here for fun. I just said I haven’t needed it.”
Margot had nothing to say to that.
“Are there some threats you need to make?” Melanie asked. “Need to warn me of something?”
“Why would I do that?”
“I don’t know, just seems like a very you thing to do.”
Margot couldn’t argue with her on that.
“If not for sadistic pleasure or empty threats, then why are you here?”
“Uncle Stan seems to think since we’re sisters we should play nice.”
“We should be friends because of a mutual breeder and sperm donor?”
“That’s what Uncle Stan thinks.”
“What do you think?”
“I think hearing you call Mom a breeder makes me want to walk over there and put you back in a coma.”
“That wouldn’t be very nice.”
“I’m not very nice.”
“You’re not even a little bit nice. If Uncle Stan knew what an awful sister you were…”
“You going to blame me for making you a murderer?”
“Attempted murderer. Everything else is allegations.”
“Sure, but we both know they’re not just allegations.”
“You come here to trick me into a confession?”
“No. Like I said, Uncle Stan wanted me to visit you. I had to be up north anyway, so I gave in. He seemed to think your near-death experience might have changed you.”
Melanie shrugged. “Wishful thinking on his part.”
“He tries to see the good in people.”
“Must be tough with two nieces like us.”
Margot paused; she wanted to say she was nothing like Melanie but couldn’t lie to herself well enough to say it aloud. Instead, she said nothing.
After a long silence, Melanie said, “I suppose since you’re here I should be thanking you.”
“For what?”
“I hear you solved my attempted murder.”
“I didn’t solve shit.”
“Sure you did and then your boyfriend put a bullet through the head of one of the lead conspirators. Tell him thanks for me.”
“He didn’t do shit for you. He was just doing his job.”
“Doesn’t matter what he meant to do. The end result was the same. Poor lovesick Detective Winters and the envious Amy Cruise decided to put me down, and thanks to your boyfriend, Polis is dead.”
“Does it bother you Amy Cruise is still alive?”
“No more than it bothers me that you are.”
“Planning to do something about that?”
“Of course not. That would be against the law.”
“When do they take you back to regular prison?”
Melanie lifted her shackled hand. “This isn’t enough for you?”
“This isn’t a prison.”
“You think that makes it better? I wish I was back in prison. This hospital sucks. The sooner I’m back, the better.”
“Really?”
“You think they let me wander the halls? Go to the cafeteria? Hell, other than doctors and guards, the only people I see are cops and I can’t stand talking to any of them.”
Melanie looked at the guard posted in the corner of the room. He felt her gaze and looked up from the book he was reading. Melanie showed him her middle finger and he went back to reading his book.
“I know a cop you liked to talk to,” Margot said.
“We didn’t do a lot of talking and he’s not around anymore is he?”
“No, thanks to you.”
“I didn’t order a hit on him. I liked him.”
“If he’d never gotten involved with you, he’d still be alive. His daughter would still have a father.”
“Are you talking about that misbegotten abomination he had with Amy Cruise?”
“If I were you, I’d watch what I said. I could do a lot of damage before he could do shit.”
The guard looked up and then shrugged and went back to his book.
“You like the kid? You know the odds she doesn’t end up with me in prison at some point aren’t very good. She has the DNA of a killer and a dirty cop and was raised by petty criminals. Nature or nurture, she’s screwed either way.”
“She doesn’t have to be.”
“What? Are you going to raise her? Even if it wasn’t too late, you’re hardly better.”
“Maybe not, but that doesn’t mean I have to listen to you talk shit about them.”
“It was Winters’ choice to be involved. Let’s not act like it was all me. He was involved long before I arrived on the scene. If he really cared about his kid, he could have taken her away. Do you think Amy Cruise cares about being a mom? Even if he wasn’t ready to be a dad, and I mean a real dad, he could have stayed away from me. It’s not like I could go to him.”
