Azure Secrets

by Patricia Rice

  After what she’d been through, living in rural Hillvale should be simple—even if the hunky dude smelling of money accelerated her pulse. She wasn’t a stupid teenager. She knew men out of her league were users. She knew how to stifle her natural urges.

  Despite the mayor’s cocky attitude, he possessed an underlying odor of uncertainty that had simply lowered her defenses for a while. The expensive aftershave had muddled her senses, leaving her confused.

  Driving out thoughts of the untouchable mayor, Fiona drank in the smells emanating from Dinah’s café. They were nearly flawless, which was scary. It was hard to prove her worth with someone who knew more than she did. But Dinah’s was the only place in town, and Peggy had mentioned there were opportunities.

  Before approaching the café, Fee hauled the Yorkie back to the cabin. “What am I going to do with you while I look for work?” she asked as she propped the front door closed so there was no escape route. “I don’t want you running after me again. You saw what happened on that street!”

  She didn’t think a gang-banger like Sukey’s owner would call the cops or had even noticed who had taken her, so she didn’t add that to her list of concerns.

  Sukey merely sniffed along the floor boards of her new abode. With a sigh, Fiona left her backpack and bedroll on the floor so the dog could burrow in and nap. It made her nervous to abandon her most precious possessions to the uncertain guardianship of a two-pound mutt. Her roomie back in town had promised to keep the rest of her stuff in the closet, but she didn’t want to test that theory too long. She had to find a new home soon.

  “Keep the place safe, and I’ll see what I can find for us,” she told the dog as she slipped out the working back door.

  Montgomery Kennedy. Biking back to town, she savored the fancy name, along with the ride in the luxurious leather seats of a BMW. How had a guy that athletic become mayor? She bet he belonged to country clubs, played golf, had gone to ritzy private schools. She’d never come out ahead with people like that. They had resources she couldn’t even dream of.

  One memorable night a movie star had come slumming after word had gone out about her cooking. He’d flashed his gold rings and capped teeth, but he’d smelled vaguely fishy. So she hadn’t performed any magic for him, and he hadn’t returned. At least she’d resisted peppering his cheesecake. Denial was about the only power she had against people like that—and they didn’t even know they were being denied.

  Parking her bike at Dinah’s back door, Fee took a deep breath to prepare herself. She was good. She knew she was good. She just had. . . a little problem.

  The kitchen door was open with only a screen door in place. She could hear Dinah humming. Before she could touch the handle, the cook sang out, “Come in, come in. You’re just in time to fix lunch.”

  “I earn my meals,” Fiona said firmly as she entered. She’d used this line before. It worked occasionally.

  “Understand that, hon. Wash your hands, grab an apron, put something on your head besides that ugly cap.” She gestured at a stack of linen underneath a counter.

  Dinah was wearing sequined heels and an apron over a bright turquoise blue flared shirt dress. She’d covered her graying nap with a chef’s hat. Fiona couldn’t match the attire, but she wrapped an enormous apron twice around her tank top and yoga pants and found a box of hair nets. Despite its short length, her brown hair was thick and naturally wavy and needed control. She’d never owned heels. Her thrift-store Nikes served her better.

  “You have to learn to work the counter first,” Dinah warned. “You don’t know who you cooking for, you can’t cook.”

  Fiona knew that, but she was shocked to hear anyone else say it. She hated working the counter, but she knew how to do it. Grabbing a ticket pad, she swallowed hard and set out to meet Hillvale.

  The café was almost entirely full already. She felt as if every pair of eyes in the place watched her, but she kept her head down in invisibility position and started taking orders. Everyone knew what they wanted, so she guessed they were all local.

  The orange-haired lady wearing bangles who’d hugged her this morning looked vaguely familiar, rather like an out-of-focus image from the past. Dispelling Fee’s foolishness, the customer held out a plump hand adorned in amber rings. “I’m Amber, the tarot reader. Dinah’s new waitresses get a free reading. What’s your name, dear?”

  Amber of the amber rings—she noted that for the future. She wasn’t good with names, but she tried. Fiona reluctantly touched the tips of her fingers to Amber’s hand, then returned to her pen and order pad. “Fee. What can I get you?”

  “Fee? Did you just say your name was Fee? As in fee, fi, fo, fum? I’m afraid you don’t make much of a giant, dear. I’ll have a salad with dressing on the side and just water, thank you.”

  Amber smelled like old roses, which meant she might be as unhappy and almost as insecure as Fee. The kind lady needed a little delight with her rabbit food. Fee made a note on the pad, just in case she could get away with it.

  This was why she needed her own place. She was tired of sneaking.

  “You’re supposed to put the orders on that spike in the window,” the next customer said—the dandelion-hair lady. “I’m Samantha Walker. Do you have a last name, Fee?”

  Fee fought an inner battle. She wanted to start over. She didn’t want people looking her up wherever people looked up others. Still, she didn’t want to lie. “I go by Fee or Fiona.” She used the long e pronunciation everyone accepted. Why had she told the mayor differently? “What can I get for you?”

  Dandelion-hair Samantha grinned. “You’ll fit in just fine. I’ll have whatever Dinah fixes.”

  Fee tried not to raise her eyebrows. How did she write that down? She scribbled Samantha’s name and request and stuck it on the spike with Amber’s. She itched to get into the kitchen and add shrimp to Amber’s salad and a touch of sweet relish to her dressing. Samantha—well, she smelled pretty well grounded. She wouldn’t worry about what Dinah should fix for her.

  With long years of experience, Fee stepped up to the register without giving it a second thought when a customer was ready to leave. It was pretty old-fashioned and easy to work out. She listened to the discussion of Peggy swirling around her as Dinah passed dishes through the window for delivery.

  The locals knew about as much about Peggy as Fee, which was to say, not much. She already knew Peggy was a social worker in her early thirties, and that she had an ex-husband and a little girl. Fee knew the ex’s cousin owned a restaurant because they’d just fired her. But that was irrelevant to any discussion.

  It was the little girl she worried about. Losing a parent had devastating consequences most adults didn’t understand.

  Peggy had been one of the few good people in Fee’s life. She hadn’t deserved to die so horrifically. She hoped Peggy’s child had family who would help as well as Peggy had helped Fee.

  After most of the lunch crowd had cleared out, Fee studied the colorful mural on the wall behind the counter while she grabbed a nibble for herself. The people in the mural were obviously hippies from a different era, but the paint seemed fresh. The café’s ancient gray Formica counter and red vinyl booths were a throwback to the same era, but the mouth-watering smells covered a lot of flaws.

  She’d smeared peanut butter on a crust of Dinah’s wheat bread when the tough looking Asian cop entered. He didn’t wear a hat on his expensively-styled thick black hair. He simply took a seat and nodded. She decided he was probably a mutt like Sukey. The hooded lids and green eyes looked out of context.

  “Here’s Walker’s lunch,” Dinah called through the window, pushing out a paper sack. “You tell him to leave you be.”

  The cop’s mouth quirked in a corner. “I can’t be bribed, Dinah.”

  “Rich cops shouldn’t be allowed,” the cook sniffed before returning to her work.

  Fee almost snickered as she set the sack in front of him. She had no reason to like cops, but she’d never met a ric
h one. Hillvale was really turning out as strange as she remembered. “Walker? Like Samantha Walker?”

  “My bride. We live up the lane. If you hang around long enough, you’ll know everything about us.” He picked up his bag but didn’t leave. “I’d like to know what you saw this morning. Any little thing might help.”

  “I told Mr. Kennedy everything I saw. Did he tell you?” She tried not to twist her hands in her apron. Grabbing a cloth, she began to wipe down the counter.

  “Not the same as hearing it from you. You’re the only one who actually saw the collision.” He waited.

  He wouldn’t leave her alone until she talked, she understood. He smelled okay. He did have that rich leather scent about him, which didn’t mean he was incorruptible by any means. But Peggy deserved to have her killer caught.

  Organizing her thoughts, Fee told him exactly what she’d told the mayor. She couldn’t say the crash had been deliberate, just that the fancy red car had to have gone off the road to hit the lady.

  He nodded without expression. “And the license plate?”

  “One of those black and gold California plates, KY8. That’s all I saw. I told Mr. Kennedy,” she said defensively.

  “Monty knows his cars, but he has a little problem with numbers. I wanted to make sure he got it right. If you remember anything else, I’m always around. Just let me know.” He saluted and strolled out.

  She let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding. A mayor who had a problem with numbers? Bet he didn’t have a problem with dollar signs.

  The air still smelled safe after the cop left. She could do this. Somehow, she knew, she could breathe up here as she hadn’t been able to do elsewhere. She had a lifetime of experience in learning how to fit in. She just needed to stay in the background, keep her head down, and pay attention.

  Super Dude Mayor stalked in, looking grim. “Why is your dog holed up in the old Weldon place?”

  Four

  Tuesday, afternoon

  Xavier, their rental agent, had warned Monty that the Weldon place hadn’t been worth fixing up even when they’d had the money. The corporation was close to flat broke these days. But the old cabin was the only property that hadn’t been rented out for some part of the summer.

  He wasn’t handy like Kurt, but he thought he could rough it until the summer was over and the tourist rentals were gone. Except the place didn’t even have a bathroom. How long had Fiona been camping there?

  And damn if she hadn’t taken up the job at Dinah’s. Fee might be cute, but she’d been nothing but trouble since she’d arrived.

  He glared at the waitress across the counter. She’d taken off the long-billed cap so he could see more of her face. She still looked like a fey elf with her pointed chin and huge crystal-blue eyes. Beneath the net, her hair was a shiny curly cap of russet. But he didn’t mistake her for a college student any longer. Her posture and expression were all full grown, defiant female.

  Chin up, deliberately not looking at him, she took off her ridiculously large apron, uncovering a trim but not fragile figure. Revealed by the pink tank top, her arms had muscles, and insta-lust smacked him upside the head.

  “I got in late last night, and it was raining. I’ll move Sukey now,” she said curtly, breaking the spell.

  She departed through the kitchen—Dinah’s domain where he didn’t dare trespass unless he wanted to be bonked over the head with her lethal frying pan. Dinah tended to protect her chicks.

  That didn’t stop him. Monty strode out, down the alley, and caught Fiona climbing on an ancient beach bike that didn’t look much better than the one Peggy had been riding. She’d come up the mountain on that thing?

  “Do the gears even work?” he asked incredulously, stepping in front of the handlebars.

  “I’ve been taking care of my bike longer than you’ve been driving,” she said, angling the wheel around him in the narrow alley.

  He didn’t know why he was so outraged that she’d camped in an abandoned shack even he couldn’t call home. It had an outhouse. “Do you have a place to go?”

  She ignored him and pedaled out of the alley, leaving him with the trash cans.

  He had better things to do than worry over bean-brained waifs with big eyes. Walker would take care of notifying Peggy’s family, but Monty had to deal with the Lucys and their demands for services. On top of that, the town was stupidly expecting his number-hating brain to come up with a budget for the farm property development, or at least Hillvale’s portion of it. They needed to develop zoning restrictions for the various parcels. His architect brother was supposed to help with that, but Kurt was getting married and had other things on his mind.

  First though, Monty needed a place to lay his weary head at the end of the day—and apparently so did Fiona.

  Not his problem, he tried to tell himself as he left the alley. The Lucys could handle the newcomer. The women were always interfering—as evidenced by the tall African-American nuisance bearing down on him now.

  “Aaron’s studio,” Tullah told him, in her usual enigmatic way. “Peggy’s spirit will linger until she knows what happened, and your girl has answers.”

  He’d been here way too long if he could translate that, and he could.

  Aaron’s antique store was one of the properties in the Kennedy corporation. Xavier hadn’t mentioned it because Aaron rented the entire building, including the upstairs studio apartment. Now that Keegan, Aaron’s last renter, had moved in with Mariah, the studio was empty. Monty could ask Aaron if he could bunk there for the summer.

  Even his Null brain knew Tullah wasn’t telling him to grab that apartment for himself.

  “I doubt Dinah pays enough to cover Aaron’s rent,” he told her. “And what do you know about Fiona that Walker doesn’t?”

  “Only what the spirits tell me.” With head held high, Tullah strolled back to her thrift shop.

  Monty could almost imagine her wearing one of those voodoo queen turbans and a colorful dashiki. She had that kind of presence. But this was modern day California, and she had customers to impress. He figured the red-and-orange flowered swishy dress she wore was a more recent reincarnation of queenly attire.

  He wanted Aaron’s studio for himself. But the damned female couldn’t keep living in that shack. Avoiding the candles already appearing in the spot where Peggy had died, Monty strode in the opposite direction, into the gloomy antique store.

  Sporting a neatly-trimmed goatee and wearing his usual black blazer and jeans, Aaron spoke as Monty entered. “Tell me the cops found the Jag driver, and I’ll give you anything in here that you want. Peggy was a good woman. She didn’t deserve that treatment.” He continued the delicate work on a mechanical toy without looking up.

  Monty grimaced. “They found the Jag with a crumpled front end outside a hotel in Baskerville. It was reported stolen last week. The interior’s been wiped clean. Forensics are still working on it. Can I still have anything I want?”

  Aaron set down the brass toy. “I want to see that car. Get me into it, and the choice is yours.” He gestured at his inventory of old furniture, crystal chandeliers, and books.

  “I’ll talk to Walker.” Monty knew Aaron claimed to be able to read objects. He had no understanding of how or why, but the antique dealer was normally a sensible man. He wouldn’t chant spells or light fires or whatever else the weirder Lucys did. “And I want your studio.”

  Aaron shrugged. “It’s nothing like that fancy place of yours. First month is free. I didn’t say you can have it forever.”

  Monty chuckled. “Fair enough. Tullah just told me the new girl has clues to Peggy’s death. If we want to find out more, we need to keep her here.”

  Aaron looked interested. “Here here? Upstairs? With me? Is she interesting?”

  Single women their age were in short supply in Hillvale. Monty scowled at him. “She’s young, smart, and apparently homeless. Don’t go hitting on her or she’ll leave.”

  He didn’t know at what
point he’d decided to let Fiona have the studio. Maybe when he’d been offered it for free. He had money. He could pay his own way. Fee couldn’t. Decision made. He’d take another look at the Weldon place.

  He left Aaron and sought out Walker. His police chief looked resigned at Aaron’s request to see the Jag.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” he reluctantly agreed. “The Lucys have made a difference before, although it’s a struggle to interpret what they mean. Do you know where the new girl is staying? If we do catch the driver, she’s the only real witness we have.”

  “If I play it right, she’ll be staying in Aaron’s studio.” Monty had already calculated how he’d work the situation. He was pretty certain she wouldn’t accept anything he offered. He liked a good challenge—that didn’t involve numbers.

  Leaving City Hall, he crossed the street to Dinah’s. The café was slow in mid-afternoon. He found the skinny cook baking bread for the dinner crowd. He explained about the month’s free rent in Aaron’s studio.

  Dinah wrinkled her black brow, then nodded. “That girl need someone to care. I’ll do it.”

  Satisfied that problem was in hand, Monty returned to City Hall to find his architect brother and Keegan Ives waiting in his office. He donned his mayor thinking cap to discuss improving the road into the interior and utilities for the new development.

  Which gave him ideas—

  “If the utility companies will be up here anyway, can we cut a deal to have lines run to the old Weldon cabin? The corporation can pay for the work, of course.” He sat on the edge of his desk and bounced a ruler against his knee, trying to figure out just exactly how a broke corporation would pay for it.

  Kurt frowned. “We haven’t torn that place down yet?”