She sent me away with a huge mug of brandy-nipped hot coffee and a plate of gently warmed fried chicken.
I went straight from the kitchen up to the little bathroom Joel and I shared attached to our room. There, I filled the tub with hot water and added all-natural bubble bath supplied by the B&B. I’d been eyeing it since the day we’d arrived.
Sinking into the steaming hot water was bliss, even against my heat-stressed skin. I submerged myself up to my shoulders, then took a double-fisted approach with the mug of coffee in one hand and a chicken drumstick in the other.
I drained the tub’s soothing cool water and refilled it three times before I was ready to climb out. I was glad that Joel wasn’t around to see my follow-up crawl to the bed. I might as well have been a one-hundred-and-one-year-old woman. That’s how much strength I had, and sleep took me as soon as my head hit the pillow.
I wasn’t sure how long I’d slept, but however long it was, it wasn’t long enough. Weird dreams of being tossed about on rough seas pulled me back to consciousness. But the tossing didn’t stop even after I’d woken up.
I opened one eye. “Zoey, what are you doing?” She was sitting cross-legged at the foot of my bed bouncing up and down. It was quite the feat, considering she was holding a big plate of food and eating while doing it.
“Time to spill,” she said.
I shifted my legs and did my best to make her spill off the bed and onto the floor. It didn’t work.
“Hey,” she complained. “I came bearing gifts. Check the bedside table.”
I blinked blurry eyes and stared next to me. My vision instantly cleared. “French toast?” But there was more. I sat up so that I could get a better view. “Loaded baked potato soup?”
“Mmm, clam chowder. Good guess though. You slept through breakfast and into lunch, but Mama Hendrix didn’t want you to miss out, so she made you some fresh french toast and piled it on with all the rest.”
“Is that… beef stroganoff?” I could smell the tang of wine mixed with the richness of the seared beef. It made my mouth water.
“Mmhmm, she cooked up all the hearty dishes she could think of. Figured you needed it.”
“Ahhhh!” I arranged the pillows behind my back to help me stay upright and moved the tray into my lap. I didn’t realize how hungry I was until I took a bite of the clam chowder. The warmth hit my stomach and spread before a noisy rumble demanded more.
Zoey let me get several more bites in before pressing me about the night’s escapades. “Tell,” she finally demanded.
“Lucas,” I said a half second before shoving my mouth full of large flat egg noodles doused in the creamy, decadent sauce of the stroganoff.
“He kidnapped you?” she asked, her brows lifting.
I shook my head as I chewed, then said, “He wanted to show me something. He led me through the woods to a spring house. It’s got a big… I don’t know… a tub. Spring water feeds into this big tub inside this tiny stone hut out in the middle of the woods.”
“You found where Dougie Dan was drowned?” she asked, excited.
“Found might be stretching it. Shown was more like it.”
“Does Lucas know who killed Doug?”
“He didn’t say.”
“Think he did it?”
I ran through the logic of it in my head. “No, I don’t so. Why would he show me the spot where he’d killed him if it were him?”
Zoey shrugged. “Some killers want to get caught. They crave people knowing how clever they are.”
I thought some more, then shook my head. “He thanked me for saving Rita. Him showing me the spring house had something to do with that.”
“So, Dougie Dan ditched Rita at the altar. Rita and her dad ended up at the B&B where Dan had started working as Doug. Then Dougie Dan is murdered less than twenty-four hours later.”
“And then someone bashed Rita on the back of the head and burned the tech tent. Given that the hit was hard enough to kill her, I can’t see how she could have done it to herself.”
“Sounds like some sleight of hand to me. Her dad bashes her on the head to take the heat off of her but hit her too hard?”
I frowned. “Or maybe Lucas did. He cared about me having saved her. Maybe he’d hit her to get the suspicion off of her but hit her too hard.”
“And the tent fire?”
My frown deepened. “What if it was to get everyone out to the yard so that Rita would be found?”
“If Lucas had hit her, it’d explain why he was so keen on her being saved.”
“And it would explain why he wouldn’t want to be around when she was found. If he wasn’t there, he couldn’t have done it—that sort of thing,” I said.
Zoey gave me an odd look up and down.
“What?”
“You want to continue with this? You’ve been through the wringer. You up to it?”
“I’m doing better than Dougie Dan and Rita,” I retorted.
“Exactly. I’d like to keep it that way. You almost got charbroiled. Then almost froze to death—”
“It wasn’t that bad.”
The look she gave me made it clear she knew I was lying.
“Okay, it was bad, but I’m here. I’m fine. Have you seen Lucas around today?”
She shook her head.
“Michael?”
“He made it back for breakfast, took a nap, ate lunch, and I think has plans to head back to the hospital soon.”
“Has Rita said who hit her?”
“Rita hasn’t woken up.”
“Oh….”
“Michael’s destroyed. Looks awful.”
“Mmmm, let’s go talk to him.”
As bad as Michael’s day had been, it was time to make it a little worse.
Chapter 27
Getting out of bed and pulling on clothes proved harder than I’d imagined it would. I was shaky with exhaustion by the time I’d zipped up my jeans. I’d gotten maybe four and a half hours of sleep, tops. I would have sat down on the bed to rest and catch my breath if Zoey hadn’t been there.
“Ready?” she asked.
“Yup,” I answered with feigned energy.
She hesitated. “We can still drop things, let the sheriff figure it out.”
The sheriff… It was like a bad taste in my mouth. The woman was chipping away at my world, person by person. She’d sink her talons into Zoey next, but that’d be over my dead body.
“I could talk to Michael on my own, come back and fill you in on what he said.”
“No.” The word came out so fast and so clipped, I felt the need to soften it by adding, “I want to see his face. Read his expression.” Of course that wasn’t the reason why. I just knew that if I didn’t go with her, Zoey would end up being the straight man to Sheriff Palke’s femme fatale. I’d get left behind. I’d get forgotten. I’d be the new Rita—bitter, broken, and alone.
I forced my Jell-O legs to carry me down the two flights of stairs to the main floor. A quick check with a passing geek-squad trio had Zoey and I rushing outside. Michael had left the house, his car keys in hand.
“There,” Zoey said, pointing. Michael was almost to the B&B’s miniature gravel parking lot. A car different than the one he’d had at the bar bleeped to life when he held a key fob out before him.
Zoey took off at an easy run across the lawn. Her sloppy-laced, loose-tongue combat boots slapped the soft sod. If there’d been hurdles for her to jump, her graceful advance on the unwitting man wouldn’t have suffered one ounce.
I broke into a jog then dropped down into a walk.
Come on. You’ve got this.
My mental pep talk worked, and I managed to push back into a jog. I did my best to hide the fact that I was out of breath by the time I reached Michael. He had his back turned to his car and his key fob held out between him and Zoey, as if that would somehow protect him from her.
“Michael,” I said with a breathy, toothy smile in hopes of dispelling the tension and fear emanating from
him.
“I know what you two did,” he said.
My smile fell. “What did we do?” I asked, filled with trepidation.
Did he think we hurt Rita? Or, was he about to blame us for what happened to Rita to redirect any blame we might be about to dump on him?
“They just delivered this car this morning, and I need it. I can’t afford another replacement. They’re charging a grand in fees because of what you did to the last one.”
“Ohhhh,” I said, my eyes going wide. “No, no, no,” I reassured. “We don’t want your car.” But doubt had me glancing over at Zoey. “We don’t want his car, right?”
“You sober?” she asked.
“Yes,” he answered.
“Then we don’t want your car.”
“But we would like some answers,” I hurriedly added.
Michael’s features softened. “Answers about what?”
“We just want to know how Rita’s doing,” I said.
“Oh.” His tense shoulders eased some more, and he stood a little taller. He no longer looked like a coiled sprinter, ready to run. “She hasn’t woken up, but the doctors are hopeful,” he added. “They’re very hopeful.”
Desperation tinged his eyes. It was clear he wanted what he was saying to be true.
It was a terrible thing to do, and I felt heartless, but this was the moment to push. “Why did you and Rita come here, Michael?”
His mouth gaped open. I could see the thoughts behind his eyes reshaping themselves to find the answer. “We told you already. We told all of you. We wanted to see Mama Hendrix’s operation.”
“And the place you magically end up is the same place Dan had reinvented himself as Doug?”
Michael shrugged noncommittally, as if to say “So?”
“Was it you who killed Doug,” Zoey asked, “or was it Rita?”
“Neither of us killed Doug!”
“Then why come here?” I asked again. “You could have gone to a dozen other B&Bs to study their business plans. But you didn’t. You came here.”
“I told you! It doesn’t matter if you don’t believe me.”
“I think that Sheriff Palke will believe the death threats that Rita posted about Dan.”
The color drained from Michael's face. “What?”
“Yeah,” Zoey said. “Rita was all over social media about the things she wanted to do to Dan after he jilted her at the altar. Except, funny thing is, she deleted all those posts before the two of you came here.”
Now to offer a sprig of hope. “But we haven’t told Sheriff Palke that,” I said. “And maybe we don’t have to.”
“What… What do you want?”
“Tell us why you came here to this B&B,” I said.
He nodded, ready to tell all. “It was because of Dan.” He lifted a hand. “But it’s not like you think. We didn’t search Dan out. A private investigator found us, told us where Dan was and that we should come. Dan stole a lot of money from us, and he destroyed our maple trees. He salted the ground. Recovering from that has burned through all the savings. I’ve even had to take out a mortgage, and now over half of that money’s gone, and we still aren’t bringing anything in. We’re two more years away from being able to bring any money in. We need that money he stole from us. We need it back.”
“If it was only about the money, then why did Rita clean up her social media history?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Michael shrugged. “I hadn’t even known she’d said that stuff. Did she really say she wanted to kill him?”
“In detail,” Zoey answered, crossing her arms over her chest.
“No,” Michael said, shaking his head. “She was hurt by what he did. We both were. But no, she wouldn’t have hurt him.”
“Would you?” I asked.
“And risk leaving everything on Rita’s shoulders? I’m all she’s got. Dan was… was…”
“A worthless slime bucket of pus?” Zoey finished for him.
“Yeah,” Michael nodded, “that. He definitely wasn’t worth what it would’ve cost to kill him. Now, I gotta go. I’ve got to get to the hospital.”
I stepped closer to get his attention and focus back on me. “Michael, what was the private investigator’s name?”
Chapter 28
Michael’s expression went warily blank. “I gotta go,” he said again without giving a name in answer to my question.
He opened his car door and pulled his cell phone from his back pocket in preparation of sitting down. His eyes dropped to the phone’s screen, and a bright smile overtook his face. “She’s awake!” he exclaimed upon seeing a text highlighted on his locked screen, then just as quickly, he added again, “I gotta go. Gotta be there.”
He slammed his car door shut without waiting for me to get out of the way. I had to do a quick step back, but the man had his priorities. I could respect that.
“You think he did it?” Zoey asked at the sight of Michael’s rear fender driving away.
“Not really, but I think Rita could have.” Scratch that. I knew that I probably would have had I been in Rita’s shoes. I’d been married—now divorced—and I could not imagine the pain Dougie Dan must’ve caused when he stood Rita up at the altar. I would’ve killed him and then danced on his grave.
I posed a different scenario to Zoey. “You think Michael could have hit Rita on the head to help her look innocent but hit her too hard?” It was an idea I’d already considered. It was one I’d rather let go of, but all roads seemed to lead back to the father-daughter duo.
“Maybe,” Zoey said. “We should talk to the docs. See how hard the hit was. It’s not easy to kill someone. Takes effort, and she died.”
I gave Zoey some side-eye. I wanted to ask her how she knew how hard it was to kill a person but decided that she might actually tell me if I asked. In some things, I preferred my ignorance.
“We should talk to Rita,” I said instead.
“Yep.”
The mournful wail of a hound dog on a trail reached my ears.
Zoey and I made our way back up into the yard to a spot that allowed us to see the mulch trail. It was empty.
The mournful wail filled the air again.
“This way,” Zoey said.
We walked around the side of the house to where the dilapidated tent continued to stand as if in defiance of everything that had been done to it. The geek squad was buzzing around, in and out of it like worker bees.
Wide swaths of the tent had been recreated with duct tape. Bright orange, smooth nylon cords mixed with tan frayed ropes to pull and tug at the tent’s ravaged underpinnings to somehow keep its peaks aloft.
“Does anything even still work?” I asked, thinking of the thousands of dollars’ worth of equipment inside.
“We’ve been able to salvage a lot. Got a few Frankenstein machines going now. The guys are loving it.”
“Really?” I said in surprise.
“Yeah, the fire made it all real instead of stuff just happening on a screen. They feel like they’re in it. Involved instead of removed.”
The sorrowful bay of competing hounds pulled my attention forward. A chill ran up my spine when I saw the two droopy eyed beasts emerge from the very spot I’d started my trek into the woods. Sheriff Palke was birthed from the dense growth next, then Joel and Brad.
I considered adopting the snootiness that’s been long perfected by teenage girls around the world—the one that provides that unspoken message to all woebegone suitors that it is they who are not worthy of her time and affection, not the other way around. But I was too tired. Copping attitude was going to take way more energy than I had to give.
I waved in greeting and got two eager waves in return from Joel and Brad. One glance at their eager reception of me got me a frown from Sheriff Palke. I’d like to say it was an ugly frown, but she couldn’t even do that right. Her face soured, but on her it looked endearing instead of off-putting.
One of the hounds broke away from Sheriff Palke’s grip and
surged forward with a lumbering gait that might as well have been in slow motion. Adorable didn’t begin to describe it as its whole face lifted and fell with every bounding leap.
The hound left behind threw a jumping, twirling fit, and Sheriff Palke gave in by throwing two leash-free hands into the air. The second of the great big hounds rushed me.
Soon, I was met with what had to be two hundred pounds of dog! They had me falling over them and my tangled feet in a matter of seconds. They took turns baying next to my ears and rubbing sloppy wet floppy jowls over my neck and face.
Zoey—the traitor that she is—stood back and let it happen.
“Help me!” I cried out to her, but she simply crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head. The quirk of her mouth and lift of one brow told me she was more than a little bit amused.
“Somebody has a fan club,” Sheriff Palke said, strolling up at a leisurely pace.
I took in Brad and Joel, standing to either side of her a couple of paces behind, but Sheriff Palke’s loving gaze was locked on the dogs. Her comment hadn’t been a snarky jab about my two boyfriends, it’d been about the two lugs making sure that every inch of me now smelled like them. Or was it vice versa?
Either way, I thawed toward the woman a little more.
Sheriff Palke snapped her fingers, said a word my ears couldn’t decipher, and like magic the dogs climbed off of me. She extended her hand to help me stand, and I took it.
“Did you guys find the stone hut?” I asked.
“Mmhmm,” Sheriff Palke said. “The guys here took us on your whole path. Ya got a bit lost out there.”
I blushed. “Maybe a little.”
Her smile was like a sunbeam peeking out on a cloudy day, and my heart constricted with worry that Brad and Joel would see it. The woman had mad skills, self-assurance, and beauty. She was the sane and safe version of Zoey.
“So do you think it was where Dougie Dan was killed?” I asked, hoping the somber note of the question would chase her smile away. It worked.
“Dougie Dan?” she asked.
I blushed harder. “Uh… It’s what I call Doug.”
“Why?”
A Berry Horrible Holiday Page 16
