Lauren and Gamma continued their chat about ghosts, occasionally peppering in spooky anecdotes, but I kept my focus on the porthole windows of the kitchen.
There were a few smiles, definite chatter, but Peggy wasn’t eating lunch and, every now and again, a guest would glance over at the table where Pete had sat on that fateful morning he’d keeled over.
Bella, the gorgeous Latina, was one of those people. She glanced there a little more frequently than the others and fidgeted constantly with her napkin.
What’s that about?
“—clear the plates?” Lauren’s voice cracked through my concentration.
“Right, yeah, of course. Sorry,” I said, trying for a sweet smile. “I’m not used to the schedule yet.”
I exited the kitchen into the dining area, grabbing a tray from the breakfront to my left, and started collecting plates from tables. My gaze darted toward Bella’s table, where she sat with Harley, talking less than amiably.
“Hello again,” I said, and collected Harley’s empty plate.
Bella’s was still full of food. She’d barely touched her lasagna.
“Not hungry?” I asked.
“Oh, no, not really. I, um, I had a big meal at the, um… the Hungry Steer?”
“Of course. Can I take your plate for you?”
Bella nodded, her lips thin. Her hand snaked out toward her purse on the table, and she reached inside and withdrew a pack of cigarettes. “Excuse me.” She rose and hurried out of the dining area.
“Don’t worry about her,” Harley said. “I think she’s just a bit shaken up about what happened. Everyone is.”
“Of course.” I finished collecting the plates then hurried them back into the kitchen, my thoughts racing at about a mile a minute. Bella smoked cigarettes. There had been noises and disturbances in the museum portion of the inn. What if…?
But no, there wasn’t enough evidence to make any deductions yet.
“Are you all right, dear?” Gamma asked.
Before I could say a word, Lauren let out a protracted groan. “No, no, no. Not again.” She stood peering out of the porthole window on the left side, stroking her hands over her apron, frantically.
My heart thudded. Had someone else dropped dead? That was the last thing I needed. Or the inn needed. Or anyone in Gossip needed for that matter.
I followed her line of sight, but there were no dead bodies on the floor or people screaming or chaos.
Everything was perfectly peaceful.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“He’s here.” She nodded toward the open windows at the front of the dining area.
Outside, a glitzy Porsche had just rolled up. The door swung open, and Grayson Tombs emerged, dusting off his suit jacket. He removed his sunglasses from his face, a sharkish grin parting his lips.
9
“I have to hide,” Lauren hissed, darting away from the kitchen doors. She took a step to the left then to the right then the left again. She raised her hands and flapped them in front of her. “Hide me. Hide me. I don’t want him in here again.”
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Grayson’s inappropriate crush on Lauren,” Gamma replied. “Remember at the Hungry Steer? The way he was behaving toward her?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, this is his new thing. He comes by the inn to check in on how she’s doing.”
“And I keep telling him to leave me alone and that I’m married,” Lauren said, “but it doesn’t seem to make a difference. Now that my hubby is out of town, the visits have gotten more frequent.” She was pale around the face. “I can’t stand it anymore.”
Anger wound through my stomach. I wasn’t the knight in shining armor type of person, but I definitely liked to kick butt when people did the wrong thing. The reason it wasn’t noble was because I enjoyed it too much.
“Wait here,” I said. “I’ll handle this.”
Gamma sighed and got up. “I’d better come with you. He’s pigheaded at the best of times.”
We exited into the dining area together. The guests had already cleared off, their tables in need of a dusting—I’d get to it later. After we’d dealt with the creeper.
Grayson Tombs strode into the dining area like he owned the place and stopped, popping one hand into the pocket of his jacket, scrunching it slightly against his hips.
“Good afternoon, ladies,” he said. “It’s good to see you again.”
“Lunch is over,” I replied. “If you want to eat here, you have to stay here, by the way.”
“Precisely.” Gamma folded her skinny arms over her chest. “Have you decided to stay, Mr. Tombs?”
“Stay in a murder hotel?” Grayson asked, his cheer dropping off instantly. “I’d rather die, excuse the pun.” He tapped his heel on the Persian carpet. “I’m here to see Lauren. Where is she?”
“Occupied,” I said.
“With important work,” Gamma put in.
“And with speaking to her husband on the phone. You do know she has a husband, right?”
Grayson’s temperament went from irritable to angry, quickly. Too quickly. Interesting—a man with a temper who hung out around the inn too much. Did he smoke too?
“It’s none of your business what I say to my friends,” Grayson replied, “and you’ll do well to remember that if you want to remain on my good side.”
“I don’t want to stay on your good side,” I replied, channeling the actual ‘Charlie Mission’ instead of my cover, Charlotte Smith. “I want you to leave the Gossip Inn and Lauren alone.”
Gamma touched me on the arm. “Lauren’s occupied at the moment,” she said, gently. “You’ll have to come back some other time.”
“You can bet I will,” Grayson said. “Though I don’t like having to do it. I bet it was one of you who killed that guy. You know, looking for publicity. Wouldn’t put it past either of you.”
“How dare you.” Gamma glared at him. “How dare you!”
“One of us?”
“Or one of your guests,” he said, pursing his thin, old lips. “Don’t think I don’t know what this place really is. A cesspool of filth.”
I raised an eyebrow at him. The inn’s living room, pristine with its gorgeous cream curtains and antique chairs, would’ve raised its eyebrow too if it’d had one.
“And the Hungry Steer is what, Michelin-star dining?” I asked.
He spluttered, the flappy skin around his neck undulating. “Rude, horrible woman. Y’all don’t know who you’re messing with.”
“Enlighten us,” I said.
Again Gamma tapped me on the arm. A reminder to behave, to pretend to be the meek and mild Charlotte. It was difficult. I liked Lauren. She was a great baker and cook and a lovely person, and this guy had made her uncomfortable.
Grayson’s mouth opened and closed. “Murder hotel,” he said, softly. “That’s all this place is. And a place for adulterers and thieves.”
“Adulterers?” I asked.
“Thieves?” Gamma stiffened.
“I saw them together, you know,” Grayson said. “They had the nerve to come to my restaurant and conduct their illicit little chat.”
“What on earth are you talking about?” Gamma asked.
Grayson thrust a finger toward her. “Don’t act like you don’t know, old woman,” he said. “That dark-haired vixen who’s been staying here.”
“Bella?”
What did Bella have to do with anything?
“Yeah, her. She was at the Hungry Steer with that Pete idiot. The one who went and got himself killed. If he’s even dead,” Grayson continued, making less and less sense by the second. “I wouldn’t put it past you to fake a murder so that you can get what you want. And I know what you want.”
“What’s that?” Gamma asked, as puzzled by his odd behavior as I was.
“To oust me from town. To put me out of business. Well, that’s not going to happen.” He craned his neck and peered past us at the kitchen doo
rs.
“It’s time for you to leave, Mr. Tombs,” Gamma said. “Lauren’s busy, and you’ve done nothing but insult us and my inn since you arrived. Good day to you.” Her British accent came out particularly strong.
Tombs flapped his lips a few minutes longer then marched from the room. The Porsche tore from the driveway a few minutes later, the man glancing back, his lips curling at the corners.
“Nice guy,” I said. “I’d like to get to know him better.”
“You have to be more careful, dear. Whether you like it or not, Tombs is right. You don’t want to make an enemy out of him. He’s got friends in high and low places.”
Low enough places to commit murder? And why had he seemed so disdainful of Pete?
And, more importantly, what had Bella and Pete been doing together at the Hungry Steer?
This is none of your business. Smulder will call and tell you that Kyle’s been caught soon. And then you’re out of here. No problem.
But curiosity tickled.
What had Bella and Pete been up to?
10
I paced back and forth in my bedroom, clutching the phone that was my lifeline to the real world I’d come from. Smulder was due to call any minute—it was a quarter to six in the evening, and I had just finished serving dinner to the guests.
My pulse raced.
This wasn’t like me. I’d been in too many high-pressure situations to count, but this was different. Every time Agent Smulder called, I got news about the search for my ex.
What if they never find him?
I snorted at myself.
Gossip, just in the past few days, had made me weak and worried. There was no way the NSIB wouldn’t find Turner. They were the most trusted agency in the United Sates—and the most secretive. How could he possibly survive in the face of their wealth of knowledge and their access to equipment, tools, hackers, and anything else they needed?
“You’re just being paranoid,” I muttered.
Cocoa Puff, who had taken up his favorite spot at the end of my bed, meowed at me.
“I am,” I said to him. “I’m just being paranoid. Isn’t that right?”
He flicked his tail and meowed again.
“Exactly.” What was it with me and talking to the cat? Was I having some sort of breakdown?
My phone rang, and I hit the button to answer, right away. “What news do you have for me?”
“And hello to you too, Miss Smith.”
“Cut it out, Smulder. You know how tense the situation is.”
A long silence followed the proclamation.
“You there?” I asked.
“I have a duty to inform you about the ongoing investigation,” he said, “and a duty to behave professionally at all times as set out by the bureau.”
“Yeah, I’m familiar with the rulebook, Smulder.”
“But I want to break from that for a second, Smith,” he said, “and tell you that I’m sorry about this.” For a second, his face—handsome, dark hair cut neatly, stubble along a strong jaw—drifted up from my memories. He had kind eyes.
“What do you mean? Sorry about what?”
“He’s gone,” Smulder said. “The target has disappeared. We don’t have him coming out of Prague, but he’s gone completely quiet. The trail is dead.”
“What? How is this possible? I thought…” I’d thought that I would be out of Gossip by next week. “What do you—? You have to have some Intel. Something. Anything.”
“Not yet. But we’re working on it,” Smulder said, sounding beleaguered. “Trust me. We’re working around the clock. Our last information indicated that he may have taken up with a Syrian arms dealer.”
My stomach muscles clenched. That was not good. I’d been the one who’d first discovered he was dirty, but this?
“I’m afraid you’re stuck in Gossip for the foreseeable future. I suggest you start taking the undercover portion of your stay seriously, Smith.”
“This can’t be real. You have to have something. You always have something. We always do.”
“I’m sorry. Take care.” And then he was gone. The call ended. I was stuck with Cocoa Puff and the horrible uncertainty in my gut. There was nothing more frustrating than this.
I was one of the NSIB’s best agents. If anyone could’ve tracked down Kyle, it was me. But I was the target and that meant I couldn’t be involved.
You’re going to be in Gossip for a while.
While I loved the thought of spending more time with Gamma—perhaps, catching up on the years we’d lost while I’d been busy with work—and even with Lauren, I didn’t see how I’d survive the slow pace of the town.
I tucked the cellphone into my bedside table drawer then locked it and put the key into the pocket of my apron.
Cocoa Puff meowed at me.
“Yes, everything’s fine,” I said, even though it wasn’t. And hey, there I went, talking to the kitty cat again.
I walked over to Cocoa and scratched behind his ears. He purred and butted his head into his palm and the warm, fluffy contact was so lovely it helped me forget the irritation of the call. If only for a moment.
A flicker of movement down in the garden, beneath the fairy lights that Gamma had strung through the trees, caught my attention. I stepped carefully to one side, instantly alert.
But it wasn’t a masked assassin stalking toward the inn.
It was Bella. And she was on the phone.
Bella and Pete had been meeting at the Hungry Steer. If I was here to stay, perhaps, it would be fun to occupy myself with figuring out who’d committed the crime. That would irritate Smulder, but so what?
If I didn’t do something to keep busy—and that didn’t include dusting or collecting cigarette butts—I’d surely lose it.
Bella paced beneath the trees near the fountain. I didn’t dare crack a window in case she looked up and spotted me, but I could go out to the greenhouse. It was a small glass construction a short way from the fountain. Gamma insisted on growing her own produce and herbs.
“Be right back,” I said.
Cocoa Puff meowed a complaint, and I gave him one final stroke then headed out of my room and downstairs.
I hurried into the kitchen—now empty since Lauren had gone home for the evening, taking her jolliness and pigtails with her—and whisked out of the back door and into the garden. I had to admit it—there was something magical about the Texan sunset. And the Gossip Inn too.
The doors were heavy, the light-fittings old but working, and the garden filled with the soft noises of the approaching night. It was no wonder Gamma had decided to retire here.
“—don’t know if I can do that.” Bella’s voice slithered out of the trees.
I crept closer, keeping my steps silent from years of practice. I stood in line with the greenhouse so I’d be able to use it as an excuse—just in case.
“No, I don’t think so. Look, do you want to take it off my hands or not?” she asked. “No, I’m not selling that one. I told you. That’s… different.”
Selling what? Is this a business call? I peeped out from behind a tree trunk.
Bella stood near one of the benches in the garden, her back stiff. She stamped her foot. “I’m not going to argue with you about this. What happened changes nothing, all right? No. No, of course not. Yeah, well just because the cops are going to be hanging around here… yeah, we can meet somewhere else.”
I slunk back, my ears burning from that little tidbit of news.
The cops? If it was a business call, she definitely wouldn’t have mentioned them. Suspicious. Intriguing. I needed to know more.
“Yeah, I’ll talk to you later,” Bella said.
I dipped between the trees and pressed my back to one of them. Bella strode by and a strong whiff of cigarette smoke came with her. A door clicked shut near the front of the inn.
What had that been about?
I was pretty darn good at reading people, and her demeanor had been nervous since after Pete’
s death. The smoking, the pacing, the phone call, the lack of eating at lunch this afternoon. Something was up.
And I’d find out what it was.
11
“Would you mind running out to the greenhouse for me, Charlie?” Lauren stood with her palms pressed to the countertop in the inn’s kitchen, frowning at her recipe book.
The same recipe book I’d tried to look through this morning. I’d nearly lost my fingers as a result. Lauren was the friendliest woman I’d ever met, and conflict avoidant too, but the minute I’d touched the hallowed recipe book, the gloves had come off.
She’d actually snapped at me. The only person I’d ever allowed to snap at me had been my instructor in the Academy.
“What do you need?” I asked—I’d decided to put the slight behind me. Firstly, I liked Lauren. And secondly? I doubted that Charlotte Smith the waiter and maid would snap back at a friend. She was the ‘under the radar’ type of person.
I’d already gone too far the day before with Grayson Tombs.
“I’d like to fry up some tomatoes,” Lauren said. “Oh, and if you could get me a few sprigs of rosemary for the roast tonight, that would be great too. Ooh, and while you’re at it, could you run around to the Shroom Shed in the basement and get me some button mushrooms?”
“There’s a Shroom Shed?” I asked.
“Oh yeah. My pride and joy,” Lauren replied.
“Apart from the recipe book, you mean.”
“This recipe book is my life, Charlie. The mushrooms are my pride and joy. And the cupcakes? Well, they’re just for fun.” She fiddled with a silver chain around her neck and withdrew a thick silver key from under her blouse. She detached it then handed it over to me. “There. That will get you into the Shroom Shed. Be sure to lock it behind you. Georgina’s strange about letting people in there. She has a few things stored in the basement.”
A shed in a basement. Now, this I had to see.
“Where can I find this Shroom Shed?”
“The external basement entrance is near the museum section of the inn. You can’t miss it. I painted it with toadstools.” Lauren offered me a warm smile. “Oh, and Charlie?”
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