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Back A Penny for Your Thoughts Save as PDF
Chapters (62)
  1. Cover
  2. A PENNY
  3. Dedication
  4. Acknowledgments
  5. One
  6. Two
  7. Three
  8. Four
  9. Five
  10. Six
  11. Seven
  12. Eight
  13. Nine
  14. Ten
  15. Eleven
  16. Twelve
  17. Thirteen
  18. Fourteen
  19. Fifteen
  20. Sixteen
  21. Seventeen
  22. Eighteen
  23. Nineteen
  24. Twenty
  25. Twenty-One
  26. Twenty-Two
  27. Twenty-Three
  28. Twenty-Four
  29. Twenty-Five
  30. Twenty-Six
  31. Twenty-Seven
  32. Twenty-Eight
  33. Twenty-Nine
  34. Thirty
  35. Thirty-One
  36. Thirty-Two
  37. Thirty-Three
  38. Thirty-Four
  39. Thirty-Five
  40. Thirty-Six
  41. Thirty-Seven
  42. Thirty-Eight
  43. Thirty-Nine
  44. Forty
  45. Forty-One
  46. Forty-Two
  47. Forty-Three
  48. Forty-Four
  49. Forty-Five
  50. Forty-Six
  51. Forty-Seven
  52. Forty-Eight
  53. Forty-Nine
  54. Fifty
  55. Fifty-One
  56. Fifty-Two
  57. Fifty-Three
  58. Fifty-Four
  59. A Sample Chapter of Don’t Take Any Wooden Nickels
  60. About the Author
  61. Other Books by Mindy Starns Clark
  62. About the Publisher

Finally, unable to resist the call of the smooth blue water below me, I decided to go for one last nighttime swim in the Smythes’ heated pool.

Fifty-One

Fifty-One

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Heavenly, I thought as I leaned back in the water, letting my hair float out behind me. This water is just heavenly.

Tonight, I decided, I wasn’t even going to do any laps. I was just going to lie here and float in the water and relax. After all that had happened, I deserved to pamper myself.

I let my feet rise up to the surface and tilted my head back so that only my face was above the water line. Arms stretched out beside me, I closed my eyes, lying flat in the water, trying to clear my mind of everything but the soft gentle waves that surrounded me.

It almost worked, too. But the longer I floated there trying to relax, the more my mind kept racing back to Alan Bennet, to the moment our eyes met at the airport. The eyes of a killer.

Or were they?

Something about it was bothering me, something about the way that this entire thing tied together. Had Alan Bennet killed Wendell Smythe? For the last few days, I had felt pretty sure that he had. But now, in spite of all that had happened, for some reason I was suddenly doubtful. It was almost as if things had tied together too neatly, too simply, and that bothered me. I just didn’t know what to think anymore.

I sat up in the water and swam slowly, going back over the day’s events in my mind. I had watched while Alan robbed the company and had seen him arrested and then shot at the airport. I knew he had conned two different women into giving him what he needed and tricked one very unsavory man into trusting him to come through in the end. Even poor Carlos had been caught up in the man’s lies, risking his own life to prevent Alan’s escape.

Poor Carlos. I thought of the two of us in the tower, of the brave way he had headed down those dark stairs to the crowd waiting below. How odd that this whole thing began—and ended—with me heading down a flight of stairs.

The stairs.