Read Danger in Dallas! A Floyd Sisters Mystery Page 13

CHAPTER 13

  They were staring at Adam Benning! He looked scared.

  “What’s this?” Lynda grabbed a brown bag out of Adam’s grasp and looked inside.

  “This looks very much like the missing VR equipment,” commented Cheri sarcastically. “What do you have to say, Adam?”

  Adam shakily got to his feet. He couldn’t look anyone in the eye, and lowered his head as he confessed.

  “I needed money. I found out that my Mom was embezzling money from her accounts at High Tech Electronics. After Daddy was killed, we found out that all he left us were bills. Mom took it very hard. She cried and cried when we had to sell our house in Highland Park. She complained all the time about our small apartment and how we couldn’t go on fancy vacations any more. Mom refused to permit me to go to a local college. She wanted me to go to a prestigious university back East. So she stole money from the company, but it wasn’t enough. I was going to use the money from selling the virtual reality equipment to leave home and attend MIT.”

  “Did you stage the burglary yourself?” asked Lynda. “Who was the man in the suit and sneakers that Mr. Nelson captured outside? Was he in this with you?”

  “Yes. Mom had nothing to do with it.” Adam answered. “The man Pablo works for a rival company. We met at a software game conference in Dallas when Mom took me to work in the company booth to help demonstrate some new games. Pablo had a buyer in Tokyo and said we would split the profit. He said there’d be no trouble.” Adam explained that another woman, Joan, the one they had seen at the antique car show, was a representative of the buyer.

  “Girls! Are you all right?” Mother ran in the door and hugged all three girls.

  “We’re fine, Mommy!” said Sinda, “And we caught the bad guys too!” Lynda held up the VR equipment and brown bag.

  Mother looked over at Adam Benning and couldn’t believe her eyes!

  “Adam, tell me this was all a mistake,” said Mother. Just then Anne Benning rushed up from around the corner and looked in confusion from Adam to Mother to the policemen. JT had called her on his cell phone while they were still outside the building.

  Adam merely looked down at his hands which were being handcuffed by a policeman. The officer said to Adam, “You have the right to remain silent...” Then the officer said to Anne, “Ma’am, you need to come with us to the police station because your son has been arrested for burglary.”

  The policeman then turned to JT Nelson and commented that the woman suspect had been arrested while waiting in her car.

  Mother and JT Nelson took the girls to the security office in front of the building where Nelson’s sixteen-year-old son Jim Bob was waiting. Jim Bob had been worried and decided to drive his pick-up in to town to look for his dad since JT hadn’t come home that night.

  JT told his son to get a first aid kit from his cabinet and they applied antiseptic and bandages to Sinda’s scraped elbows.

  “I found your note when I got home from the movies and couldn’t believe what I was reading,” commented Mother. “You girls really put yourselves into danger this time.”

  “I’m thirsty, “ whined Sinda.

  “Jim Bob, let’s head down to the vending machine to get sodas for everyone,” said JT.

  In their absence, the girls and Mother went into Mother’s office where they took turns interrupting each other to tell Mother about the whole adventure. Mother smiled, in spite of herself. When Lynda heard JT and his son come into the office, she turned and her eyes met Jim Bob’s.

  I wonder what he thinks of me, thought Lynda.

  She’s kinda cute, thought Jim Bob.

  JT handed each girl a soda. Sinda took a sip and put hers on the window sill.

  “Don’t drop that!” Lynda and Cheri yelled in unison as the can began to slide off the sill. Sinda smiled. It was so nice to have older sisters...

  THE END

  The Floyd Sister Mysteries is a series of stories written by two sisters, Sinda Floyd Slagle and Cheri Floyd Mills. Sinda lives in Reno, Nevada and Cheri lives in Dallas, Texas. The mystery series is loosely based on their childhood with older sister Lynda Floyd Stiles who lives in Wylie, Texas.

  Please download the next book in our series: Calamity on Coronado Island, A Floyd Sisters Mystery. A sample chapter is included for your enjoyment.