Wrapped in Murder (The Darling Deli Series Book 19) Read online

  “I didn’t know the gun would go off when I hit him. He must have pulled the trigger just as my car slammed into him. Then I saw the truck’s windshield shatter, and I thought I might have been too late.”

  “No, he missed me,” Moira assured her. “But you didn’t miss him.”

  They both turned to look at the farmer, who lay in the gravel a few yards away. His face was pale white, and he was holding his hands against his ribcage. Moira could tell that he was still breathing, but shallowly.

  Karissa hurried forward and snatched the shotgun off the ground. “I don’t think he’s getting up,” she said. “But just in case.”

  “I can’t believe you hit him,” Moira said, staring at the dent in the hood of the other woman’s car. “Your timing was amazing.”

  “I followed you,” she said grimly. “I saw him take you. I didn’t have time to go get David… I didn’t want to risk losing track of you. I called the police on my way, and told them where we ended up. They should be here any minute. I watched the entire thing, but then he pulled the gun out and I knew I had to act. I could never forgive myself if he killed you.”

  “After everything I thought about you…” Moira shook her head, at a loss for words. “I’m so sorry, Karissa. I owe you my life.”

  “You don’t owe me anything,” her sister-in-law said. “I know you would have done the same for me. Just next time, maybe come and talk to me if you think I might have killed someone, okay?”

  Moira grinned. “I promise.”

  EPILOGUE

  * * *

  “What’s going to happen to the farm now, do you think?” Moira asked, gazing across the driveway at the farmhouse. It was evening, and the setting sun glinted off the windows. The police had already come and gone, combing through the property for any evidence that Mr. Anderson might have left behind.

  “I don’t know,” David said. “It’ll go on the market after his trial, I suppose. Or if he has a next of kin, they might get it.”

  “Do you think the new owner will mind about the brewery?”

  “I don’t think it will be an issue,” her husband said. “But if it is, we’ll figure out what to do. We always do.”

  She smiled as he took her hand. She was still shaken by what had happened earlier that day — she thought it might be a while before she forgot the way it had felt to be locked in the back of the truck with no idea where she was going — but sitting outside the microbrewery with the man that she loved, and sipping a cold beer, was going a long way toward making her feel better.

  “Now, we should take a look at that cut,” David said. “I know the paramedics said you didn’t need stitches, but it looks pretty bad to me.”

  “It’s just a scrape,” she told him, feeling the cut skin on her temple. She hadn’t even noticed it when it had happened. She had a few more small nicks from when the windshield had shattered on her. Considering what might have happened, she felt lucky.

  “I want to throttle the man.” Her husband was evidentially thinking along the same lines as she was. “He could have killed you. Worse, he wanted to kill you.”

  “We won’t ever have to see him again,” she reminded him gently. “Thanks to Karissa, he’s going to be spending a few weeks in the hospital before his trial.”

  “I don’t know if I can ever thank my sister enough,” he said, shaking his head. “I can’t believe that I was here chatting with people, while you were almost being killed. I should have known that something was wrong, somehow.”

  “You couldn’t have known,” she told him. “Don’t beat yourself up. Neither of us thought that Anderson had anything to do with any of this.”

  She still hadn’t told him that she had suspected Karissa was the murderer. Her sister-in-law had promised not to say anything. She seemed to have forgiven her completely, though Moira still wasn’t sure if she forgave herself. She had never been so wrong in her life, and it was supreme irony that the person that she thought was a killer had ended up saving her.

  “We should get to cleaning,” she said, tugging on David’s arm. “We’ve got a lot to do. I’d say the grand reopening was a pretty good success.”

  “I should get you home,” her husband said. “After what you went through earlier, you deserve to be relaxing in bed while I bring you dinner, not picking up trash and sweeping the floors.”

  “After having a gun in my face, pretty much anything else sounds like a good time,” she said. “Besides, I don’t mind cleaning. We can turn up the music, snack on the last of the sandwiches, and have a fun time with the whole thing. Come on.”

  He grinned and let her pull him to his feet, then pulled her into a tight hug. He loosened his grip just enough to kiss her.

  “I don’t know what I’d do without you,” he said.

  “Luckily for you, you won’t have to find out,” she said. “I’m here to stay, and no man with a gun is going to get a say otherwise.”