Love Can Be Murder

room.
    "Give me a reason to pull this trigger," he said through gritted teeth.
    Allyson cursed violently under her breath and put up her hands. "I prefer the giving end of pain over the receiving end." She rolled her eyes at Penny. "I knew this guy was going to be trouble the minute I saw him."
    Quaking with relief, Penny ran to turn off the sound track. By the time she returned, B.J. had handcuffed Allyson and bound her ankles with a cable tie, all of which she seemed to enjoy. He turned to Penny, and she fell into him, sobbing.
    "Are you okay?" he asked fiercely, covering her with his coat. "God, I was terrified of what I would find."
    "How did you know?"
    "The DNA results came back—the hair belonged to Jodi Reynolds."
    "She's being held upstairs, with another woman."
    He nodded. "I brought a team of people with me. They're swarming the building and grounds."
    "They've done horrible things," Penny said, choking.
    "I know," he said. "Some of the crushed bones mixture they're selling is human bones."
    "Premium product at a premium price," Allyson said.
    B.J. pointed his gun at her. "If you say another word, I will shoot you, do you understand?"
    Allyson nodded meekly.
    He looked back to Penny and his jaw hardened. "Did she kidnap you?"
    "No. One of the women being held managed to get to the cupola and wave a rag. I saw it from my garden and...came to investigate."
    He frowned. "Why didn't you call someone?"
    She smirked, her energy returning. "A lot of good it would have done to call the police."
    He leaned his head closer. "Why didn't you call me?"
    A hot flush made its way up her neck. Because it was the first thing she'd thought of, and the instinctual response had spooked her. "I..."
    "It's okay," he said gently. "You don't have to explain. What matters is that you're okay. When we found the opening in the gate, and the tools you'd left behind...I thought the worst."
    "I was terrified," she admitted, still reeling over what could have happened and no one would have been the wiser. "Thank you, B.J., for coming when you did."
    He bit into his lip, then winked. "Get dressed, babe. This nightmare is over."

Chapter Thirty-two

    If the recipe is a success, pass it on...

    MARIE AND PENNY SAT at the juice counter and watched as the voodoo festival banner that had been stretched across Charm Street was taken down.
    "This town will never be the same," Marie said, sipping from her juice glass.
    "So true," Penny said. And neither would she.
    "Do you think they'll have the festival next year?"
    "I don't know." The fact that Allyson and her little club had been using the festival as a way to attract victims and to fence their gruesome contraband wasn't exactly Chamber of Commerce ad copy. “The town has a lot of healing to do."
    "And how amazing that Jodi Reynolds is Sheena's sister ."
    Penny made a rueful noise. "Apparently, Sheena changed her name when she was a teenager and moved away from her family. Jodi came to Mojo looking for her, but was kidnapped before she found Sheena."
    Marie shook her head. "I just can't believe all these gruesome things happened in a town like Mojo."
    It was national news. The little town famous for its Instruments of Death and Voodoo Museum was now infamous for the things that had gone on within the museum's walls. The governor was sending a task force to have the entire house analyzed for DNA that might be linked to open missing persons cases.
    "And Sheena Linder is really Ruth Reynolds. Wow, I would never change my name—would you?"
    A little smile curved Penny's mouth. "I certainly understand why some people do it."
    Jodi was the reason B.J. had stopped at Sheena's house the first day Penny had seen him. He'd asked Sheena if she was Ruth Reynolds, and she'd slammed the door in his face. The next time, he'd gone back with personal items of Jodi's her grandmother had given him—a pair of shoes Sheena had sent to her sister and a videotape of Jodi's graduation, to try to soften Sheena and convince her Jodi might have been in the vicinity of Mojo when she'd disappeared.
    Sheena had been afraid Deke would discover what she considered to be her low-class history and later, had shunned the cameras so no one from her past would recognize her. But the sisters were together now, and from what Penny had heard, Sheena was a changed woman. Indeed, she had changed her mind about suing Penny for the broken tailbone when she'd learned Penny was the person who had rescued her sister from the Torture