Death Vetoes The Chairman (Lizzie Crenshaw Mysteries Book 7) Page 3

  Angel screamed, and I focused my attention back on her. “I don’t want to have my baby in the bank vault.”

  I didn’t want her to have the baby in the bank vault, either. That baby needed to wait for the paramedics to get here, because there was absolutely no way I was going to deliver a baby. Nope, not happening on my watch. “I have an overwhelming urge to quote Gone with the Wind right now, Angel. I have no idea what I’m doing.”

  “I do. Just do what I tell you to until the paramedics get here. I trust you.”

  “All right,” I nodded, taking off my jean jacket and oversized scarf, and pushing up the sleeves of my blue shirt. “What do you need me to do?”

  “Help me get more comfortable.”

  It took a couple of minutes to get her situated. I was impressed by how calm she was, even when she was digging her nails into my arm and drawing a little blood. Watching someone else give birth was a great form of birth control for a single girl, let me tell you. “I wonder if Chicken Little is going to come back,” I said, trying to distract her from the pain for a minute.

  Angel laughed. “As fast as he ran out of here, I wouldn’t count on it. I just hope he remembers to call 911.”

  “You and me both.”

  She gasped, and then started her breathing thing again while she squeezed my hand. When she was done, I massaged my hand to get the feeling back. “Was it like this when you had the boys?”

  “Oh yes,” she said. “I was in labor with little Richard for twenty hours, but only eight with Manuel.” I prayed that her daughter wouldn’t make an even faster appearance than her older brother.

  A sharp bang from outside the vault got my attention. “What was that?” I said, looking at the open vault door.

  “I’m not sure,” Angel said, a worried look on her face. “Maybe Dale ran into someone out there trying to get to a phone.

  Somehow, I doubted that. There was a bunch of yelling for a couple of minutes, and then silence, which was broken when a very strong contraction hit Angel and she screamed.

  Dale appeared in the doorway. “Thank God you’re back,” I told him. “Did you make the call to 911?”

  “Not exactly,” he said nervously.

  “What do you mean, not exactly? Get back out there and make that call. This baby isn’t going to wait around forever, you know.”

  “Well, there’s a teeny tiny problem,” he said, glancing over his left shoulder.

  “What problem?”

  Someone new stepped into the doorway beside Dale. He was about six feet tall, wearing black boots, blue jeans, a black jacket zipped all the way up, purple latex gloves on his hands, a Glock in his right hand, and the ugliest clown mask I had ever seen in my life. “The problem is,” the man said, his voice muffled because of the mask, “this bank is being robbed.”

  Chapter 4

  I stared at the moron in the clown mask, not believing what I was seeing. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I finally said.

  He held the gun up. “Does it look like I’m kidding, lady?”

  “Put that thing away. She’s in labor; are you trying to scare her to death?” I snapped.

  Dork the Clown lowered the gun so Angel couldn’t see it anymore. “Are you sure?”

  “Well, she’s not down here on the floor with her legs bent because she’s practicing her yoga.”

  “Lizzie, don’t tick him off,” Dale hissed. “The man does have a lethal weapon.”

  “I don’t care if he’s got a nuclear bomb in his pants,” I retorted. “My only concern is Angel right now.”

  “You know, you’ve got a smart mouth on you, lady,” Dork said.

  “So I’ve been told.”

  Angel tensed and started doing her panting again. “Holy cow, she really is in labor.”

  “Duh.”

  Another person in a clown mask joined us. “What’s the holdup?” Great, two male clown dorks.

  Dork number one waved his gun in our direction. “Red says the lady on the floor is in labor. I think they’re just trying to keep us out of here.”

  I could see Dork number two’s eyes focus on Angel, watching her closely for a minute. “She is in labor, you idiot,” he said, smacking his fellow clown upside the head. “Did you call dispatch yet?”

  “He was supposed to,” I replied, pointing at Dale, “but I believe your little heist kept him from making the call.”

  “How far apart are the contractions?”

  “About five minutes, maybe less,” Angel told him.

  Dork number two grabbed Dale by the back of his shirt and pulled him backwards. “Make the call. Tell them there’s a woman in active labor, contractions five minutes apart. Go on,” he snapped when Dale didn’t move, “that baby is coming. Are you going to deliver it?”

  Dale shook his head, pulled out his phone and moved away to make the call. Dork number two handed his gun to his partner, removed his jacket and took off his mask. “Go on, get out of here,” he said. “Out the employee entrance. Get rid of this stuff. I’ll call you when I can.”

  Dork number one didn’t have to be told twice. Dale came back as he left. “Ambulance is on the way,” he said.

  The second man, who looked to be in his late twenties, came over to us. “I’m a paramedic,” he said, kneeling down by Angel’s feet. “Let’s see what we have here.”

  “You’re kidding,” I said, totally shocked.

  He shook his head. “I’m serious.”

  “Then what are you doing robbing a bank, for crying out loud?”

  “I work in a very small town. We don’t get much funding. Our ambulance is on its last legs, and we can’t afford to fix it anymore or buy a new one. We’ve tried doing fundraisers, but we only got enough to cover the last repair bill.” Angel sucked in some air. “Ok, ma’am, just breathe through it. That’s it…you’re doing good. Is there a first aid kit around here?”

  Angel nodded. “Employee lounge.”

  “I really need it,” he said, looking at me.

  I looked up at Dale, who went to get it. “What’s your name?” I asked him.

  “Geoff.”

  “I’m Lizzie, and this is Angel. Chicken Little who just left is Dale.”

  Dale came back with the first aid kit. “The dispatcher just called me. She said the only available ambulance is about an hour away.”

  “She’s joking,” Geoff said. Dale shook his head. Geoff turned back to Angel. “What do you think? Do you think you can hold on for an hour?”

  She shook her head. “I’m already a week past my due date. And it doesn’t feel like she’s going to wait.”

  “You know it’s a girl?” Angel nodded. “That’s great. Well, judging by your contractions, and the fact that the baby’s head is starting to crown, I don’t think she’s going to wait, either. We’re going to have this baby right here in this vault.”

  Dale made a choking sound, his eyes rolled back in his head, and he was down for the count.

  I will spare you all the gory details. Needless to say, the ambulance was diverted to another accident (the curse of living in a small town with one ambulance), and Angel’s baby girl decided she wasn’t going to wait much longer. We finally sent Dale away because he kept passing out every time Angel had a contraction. By the time the ambulance got there, about three hours after her water broke, there was a new sound echoing off the walls of the vault: a baby crying at the top of her lungs.

  The paramedics loaded Angel and the baby onto a stretcher, took down some information from Geoff and I, and wheeled her out. Dale came back in as they were leaving. “Police are outside. They want to talk to us about what happened.”

  I saw Geoff’s shoulders slump. He knew he was probably going to go to jail. “Tell them there was a woman in labor back here, that’s what happened,” I said.

  Dale’s eyes grew wide. “But…but what about him?” he said, jerking his thumb.

  “What about him?”

  “He held a gun on us, and he tried to rob th
e bank!” Dale said, clearly frustrated with me.

  “Do you see a gun?”

  “Of course not. He gave it to his partner.”

  “Do you see any proof that he was one of the robbers?”

  “Oh, come on, Lizzie. Just because he helped deliver Angel’s baby does not mean he gets a free pass here!”

  Geoff just stood there, not sure what to say. “He had a good reason, Dale.”

  “You are not serious.” I nodded. He threw his hands up in the air. “And just what am I supposed to tell T.J. and Owen? ‘Gee, I’m sorry, it was a false alarm! Have a nice day!’”

  I looked at Geoff. “That works for me. How about you?”

  Dale shook his head. “You’re trying to kill me here, woman.” I just looked at him. “Fine, what do you want me to do?”

  “Tell them the robbers took off out the back door. Then Geoff can calmly walk out the front door.”

  “They aren’t going to buy that for a minute.”

  “So tell them that seeing a woman in labor freaked them out. They’ll believe that, considering your reaction to the situation.”

  Dale considered that point for a minute. “It might work. I’ll try, but get him out of here quick.” He glanced at Geoff, shook his head, and walked out.

  “Why are you doing this?” Geoff asked me.

  “Your intentions were honorable, even if your methods leave something to be desired. And you helped a woman in distress.”

  “I was just doing what I was trained to do.”

  “Then get out of here and go do it.” I looked down at the lockbox, which was still sitting on the table waiting to be opened. “Wait a minute,” I told him. Glancing around, I spotted the keys on the floor under the table and picked them up. It took a couple of tries before I found the right key and opened it. I stared at the contents in shock. Stacks and stacks of money. More money than I had ever seen in one place in my entire life. “How much does a new ambulance cost?”

  “Roughly? About $130,000. Why?”

  I started counting out $10,000 stacks until there was $140,000 sitting on the table. “Will that be enough?”

  Geoff looked at the stacks of money, then up at me for a minute, and then back at the money. “I can’t take that.”

  “You need it, don’t you?”

  “Well, yeah, but that’s your money.”

  “I just inherited that money.”

  “All the more reason you should keep it for yourself.”

  I shook my head. “There’s more where this came from, trust me. And it will make me feel good to do something with the money. I can’t tell you more than that. Just trust me. Take it.”

  “How am I going to get it out of here?”

  “Stuff it inside your shirt, then zip your jacket halfway up.”

  “What about those two cops?”

  “I’ll take care of them. Hurry up.”

  He hesitated for a minute, then did what I told him to. He looked like he had some extra weight around his middle, but hopefully no one would stop him on his way out.

  Dale came rushing in. “They’re looking at the security tapes first. I’m not sure you’re going to be able to get him out of here.”

  “He can go out the employees’ entrance like his friend did.”

  “You better make it quick then,” Dale said. “It’s not going to take them long.”

  “You heard him,” I told Geoff. “Get out of here.”

  “I don’t know how to thank you.”

  I started pushing him out of the vault. “Just don’t do anything this stupid again. Now go!”

  He gave me a kiss on the cheek and hurried away. “You are out of your mind, woman,” Dale said. “How do you know he’s not going to come back?”

  I showed him the lockbox. “Because Debra just bought him an ambulance.”

  Chapter 5

  Late the next morning, I was sitting behind my desk at the newspaper office. On the left side of the desk were the articles we were going to print in Wednesday’s edition. On the right were the ones I was considering for Sunday. But my attention was focused on the center of my desk. Dale had wasted no time. Once we confirmed that I had the funds to pay his asking price this morning, he had hightailed it over to his lawyer’s office first thing this morning, and had drawn up the papers for the sale of the newspaper. One of my purple sticky notes was attached to the corner: Talked to Jake. He will be in to see you today. So far, he hadn’t shown up yet. Running away to hide wouldn’t do any good; he’d just track me down.

  There was a knock at the door, and I braced myself for the onslaught of questions I knew Jake would throw at me. But it was Ellen Carpenter, one of the newspaper’s best reporters, who opened the door. “You have this look of fear on your face,” she said as she entered the office. “Are you expecting the Boogie Man or something?”

  “Just Jake.”

  “And you’re afraid of him because…?”

  I motioned for her to sit down in a chair. “There’s something I need to tell you,” I said.

  “Why do I get the feeling you’re about to give me bad news?” Ellen replied. “You’re not going to fire me, are you?”

  “Good grief, why would I do that? I’d fire Jake first before I ever fired you!”

  Ellen breathed a sigh of relief and sat back in the chair. “Thank God. I really didn’t want to go look for a job at another newspaper in this economy.”

  “You’re not going anywhere,” I assured her. “I’m going to need you in the upcoming days and weeks.”

  She tilted her head slightly to the right. “Why?”

  I took a deep breath. “Dale is selling the newspaper.”

  “So he’s finally going to do it.”

  “Excuse me?” I said, surprised at her reaction. “You knew?”

  She nodded. “He told me a few months ago that he was thinking about it. I think he should have done it a couple of years ago, truth be told. I wonder who the new owner is going to be?”

  “Me.”

  “You?” Ellen gasped. “You’re joking!”

  I held up the sheaf of papers in front of me. “It’s all here in black and white. 80% to me, 20% to Jake.”

  “Jake? Wow, I didn’t expect that. Well, I mean, I did. But I thought Dale would sell the paper to him, not to you. No offense.”

  “None taken.”

  “What did Jake say when you told him?”

  “Dale thankfully talked to him. I haven’t seen him yet.”

  “I can only imagine his response.” She wasn’t the only one. “How can you afford to buy 80%?”

  “It’s complicated…and personal. But don’t worry, we’ll be just fine.”

  “Wow, this was not what I expected to hear when I came in here. I just came to tell you that I heard from a contact of mine at the hospital in Dallas. The little girl who was injured in that car accident last week is going to be released from the hospital tomorrow. She’s going to need some rehab, but she should be just fine.”

  “That is great news. See if you can talk to the family before she checks out of the hospital. It would be nice to have some good news from this whole tragedy.”

  Ellen stood up. “Will do, boss.”

  “Really? Just call me what you usually call me.”

  “Clueless?”

  I laughed. “Get out of here before I change my mind and fire you.”

  After she closed the door, I looked over the paperwork again. I had called an old college friend, who was now a lawyer, and discussed everything with her after I faxed a copy to her. After making sure there were no loopholes that Jake could exploit to his advantage, she encouraged me to sign it and wished me luck.

  Another knock at the door interrupted me an hour later. “Come in.”

  Again, I expected Jake, and I was disappointed once again. This time, it was Captain Super Creepy Crawly, aka Ethan Winthrop. He was wearing a dark blue suit, light blue shirt, brown tie, and brown loafers. “Ms. Crenshaw, I hope you don’t mind me
dropping by unannounced,” he said from the doorway.

  “Actually, I’m rather busy at the moment.” I slid my phone off the edge of the desk and pressed a couple of buttons.

  “I won’t take more than a minute of your time,” he assured me as he came into the office and closed the door.

  “Please, by all means, do come in,” I replied as he sat down in the chair Ellen had just vacated.

  “Thank you,” Ethan said, ignoring my sarcasm. “I just wanted to come by and apologize for what happened the other night. We got off on the wrong foot.”

  “One of us did, and it wasn’t me.”

  His light blue eyes narrowed at me briefly. “You’re right,” he conceded. “I was a bit…forward that night.”

  “Do you always make passes at women you’ve never met before?”

  “Not until I know for sure they are as interested in me as I am in them.”

  “Trust me when I say, I’m not interested. Is there something else I can do for you, Mr. Winthrop?”

  “Please, call me Ethan.” He looked around the office. “Well, I wanted to make sure that you weren’t going to do anything about that incident, since it was just a misunderstanding,” he smiled. “It was just some harmless flirting.”

  “In other words, you want to make sure I’m not going to sue you for sexual harassment.”

  “Well, you agree not to sue me for that, and I won’t have you arrested for assault.”

  “Let me explain something to you, Mr. Winthrop,” I replied. “To me, it was not harmless flirting. It was very unwanted attention. It was a man with an overinflated ego, using his powerful position and his money it to make the moves on a woman. I’m not a pushover, nor am I someone you can come in here and charm.” I got up, walked around the desk, and moved toward the door. “I think you should leave…”

  Winthrop reached out, grabbed my right wrist and stood up. “You know, I don’t find a lot of women who will talk back to me like that,” he said. “Frankly, I love a woman who isn’t afraid to speak her mind and stands up for herself.” He pushed a loose strand of auburn hair behind my left ear. “I find it rather exciting.”

  “And I hate condescending jerks who believe that flattery will get them everywhere,” I retorted. I slapped him hard with my left hand, and tried to wrench my right arm out of his grasp. I swung my arm to the right, hoping it would throw him off so he’d let go. But the move left me unbalanced, and he used that to his advantage, jerking my arm to the left, and pushing me backwards until I hit the wall. “I came in here with honorable intentions, Ms. Crenshaw,” he growled, holding my upper arms tightly in his hands, “but you are making it rather difficult. If you hadn’t become so aggressive, I would have asked you out to dinner.”