Page 133 of Family Jewels

“He’s out cold, Neely Kate,” I said as I held the gun on him and walked around to pick up his weapon.

“What happened?”

I spotted another tube of lipstick and grinned. “I think your lipstick took him out.”

“What?”

“I think he stepped on that one tube, lost his balance, and then fell backward and hit his head.”

“See?” she said with a tiny gloat. “Wearin’ lipstick saved our lives. Maybe we should become spies instead of PIs.”

I laughed even though I was shaking from nerves. “One thing at a time.” I opened my top desk drawer and grabbed a pair of scissors. Then I pushed the screen out of the way so I could keep an eye on Homer while I cut Neely Kate’s legs free.

“How much time do we have?” she asked.

I glanced over at the clock on the wall. “Less than an hour.”

I cut the last piece of tape and stood. “We have to take care of Homer.”

“Good idea,” she said, grabbing his roll of duct tape and strutting toward him. She rolled him over with her strappy sandal and then knelt beside him and started to wrap the tape around his wrists.

He released a moan.

“He’s comin’ to,” I said. “We have to work fast.”

“No we don’t.” She stood and grabbed her Taser off her desk before heading back toward Homer and squatting in front of him. “Hey, you boot-lickin’, no-good,murderin’piece of slime. This is for killing Rayna . . . and for possibly ruining my new capris with duct tape.” Then she zapped him with her Taser.

He flopped around before falling limp. We had his arms bound behind his back with his duct tape, and it only took another minute for us to get his lower legs bound together. Thankfully, he was still unconscious, but we had another issue.

“We can’t just leave him here bound,” I said. “What if someone sees him and tries to play Good Samaritan?”

“Good point. Let’s drag him behind the screen.”

We both grabbed his feet and dragged him across the floor, bumping his head into the corner of Neely Kate’s desk.

“Oops,” she said with too much glee to sound truly apologetic.

When we got him out of sight, I moved to my desk and began putting all my belongings back inside. “We need a plan. We have to figure out a way to stop this.”

“I’ve been thinkin’,” Neely Kate said. “We didn’t get a chance to finish questioning Miss Mable earlier because of that sorry excuse of a dog, but I think we were on the right track. I’m pretty doggone sure Rayna didn’t keep the necklace, which means Miss Mable reallydidtake it with her. The jewelry was loose in her drawer, which means she saw all the pieces. It was her momma’s, so she must have realized it didn’t belong.”

I turned back to look at her. “Raddy said he broke in a day later and it wasn’t there. And if Newton and Mable were right about when Leah went over, it was days after that.” My eyes widened. “Which means Miss Mable was the last person to see it.” I gestured to the back. “But what about Homer? Why’s he lookin’ for it?”

“Not because he saw it, but because he heard about it from everyone else,” she said, getting excited. “You know how I told you that Homer kept his business away from his wife? What if she does the same with him? He’s taken a nosedive off the deep end with his off-the-grid stuff, and he made Miss Mable stop goin’ to church and her quilting group. What if she saw that necklace and figured it was her ticket to freedom?” Her eyes lit up. “That would explain why she got so upset when she asked if someone killed Raddy for the necklace! He couldn’t find it and it got him killed!”

She was onto something. “I think you’re right.”

“We have to go back out to the Dyer farm,” she said. “We have to get that necklace from her.”

I glanced back at the clock on the wall. 7:35. All of our shenanigans had taken more time than I’d thought. “There’s not enough time for us to go back out to the Dyer farm and make it to the meetin’ on time.” I steeled my back and tried to look forceful. “You have to get the necklace and bring it to the Trading Post. I’ll stall.”

“Have you gone crazy?” Neely Kate demanded. “Did that tape cut off circulation to your head? You’re not going in there alone.”

“No. I’m not.” I grabbed my phone and placed a call. “Jed,” I said when he answered. “We think we know who has the necklace, but there’s not enough time for us to get it and make the meeting. I need someone to go with Neely Kate to help coerce the woman who has it into handin’ it over, but I need someone else to go with to the meetin’ with Buck and Kip.”

“You’re not goin’ to that damned meeting.”

“Jed!”