Miz Scarlet and the Holiday Houseguests (A Scarlet Wilson Mystery #3) by Sara M. Barton Page B

brother’s
favorite flashlight. With the blue Maglite in hand, I turned on the
thermostat for the electric baseboard heater. Then I retrieved two
plastic patio chairs from the corner and set them on the floor in
the corner. Max and I lifted my mother to her feet and helped her
into one of them.
    “Here,” I handed Lacey the heavy
flashlight. She groaned under its weight. “It’s heavy, I
know.”
    “We don’t have much time,” Max informed
them. “Stay here. You’ve got your phones?”
    “We do,” Lacey told him. I could see
the Googins girls were terrified.
    “We’ll come and get you as soon as this
is over. Keep the light off.” I hugged my mother, kissing the top
of her head, and then I threw my arm around Lacey’s shoulder. “Be
safe.”
    “Scarlet, come on!” Max had the
wheelchair and he was standing in Bur’s open bay. I flipped off the
ceiling light and shut the door to the workshop, following in his
wake. That’s when a pair of headlights flashed in the driveway.
“Crap!”
    “What are we going to do?” I cried. I
started to run for cover, but then the horn honked. It was a
familiar horn. Looking up through the glare, I saw the SUV had New
Jersey plates.
    “Kenny! What is he doing
here?” Relief flooded over me like a big, warm wave of pure,
unadulterated love. Kenny to the rescue. My
hero. Everything will be okay now.
    “Say what?” Max was stunned. We stood
there as the car rolled down the driveway towards us. “His timing
is perfect!”
    “You’re telling me!”
    Thirty seconds later, Kenny’s Ford Edge
was safely ensconced in the garage, out of sight. The three of us
sprinted back to the house with the wheelchair in tow, even as Max
and Kenny were plotting strategy.
    “You call the state police....” The
former homicide investigator barked out orders, giving Kenny the
contact numbers to get the ball rolling. “If you hear me say ‘rock
and roll’, Ken, that’s your cue to burst in.”
    “Got it.”
    “You armed?” Max wanted to
know.
    “You bet. And I can be dangerous when I
need to be.”
    The two men put the wheelchair down in
the hallway and Max settled into it. “Do you have a lap blanket for
me, Scarlet?”
    “Sure. There’s one in the living room.”
I went to fetch it. The soft whir of the motorized machine told me
the anxious investigator was hot on my heels, giving it a test run
before the action heated up. He got stuck on the lip of the
threshold, as one of the wheels spun, and had to back it up and try
again. “Make sure you go over the threshold with the full force of
the motor behind you, Max.”
    “Front wheel drive, huh?”
    “I guess so. Here’s your blanket.” I
laid the Black Watch tartan over his knees. “What do I
do?”
    “You act like you don’t know Larry.
You’re just an innkeeper and she is a guest, just like I
am.”
    “Okay,” I nodded. “What about the
credit card?”
    “Take mine.” Max pulled out a Bank of
America credit card and handed it over to me. “Put it in your
pocket, but don’t hand it over unless it’s absolutely
necessary.”
    “They’re here!” Kenny popped his head
into the living room to warn us. He finagled with the mantle
greenery, tucking something behind it. “This is a wireless camera.
I’ll be able to monitor the action in this room. I have a couple
more set up in other rooms, just in case.”
    “Oh, where is Huck?” The Yorkshire
terrier wasn’t on his sofa.
    “I put the dogs are on the sun porch,
so they won’t be in the way. I’ll be in the library. State cops are
en route. ETA is ten minutes.”
    “Roger that,” Max told him. “Okay,
people. It’s show time! Don’t rush to answer the door, Scarlet.
We’ve got to use up as much of that ten minutes as we can, so
stall, stall, stall.”
    “Right.” My hands were clammy and cold
as I stood in the hall. I rubbed them briskly together, trying to
warm up. When the doorbell rang, I forced myself to count to one
hundred before I slowly made