A Wonder Springs Cozy Mystery Omnibus: Books 1, 2 & 3

by B. T. Alive

  “Gold digger?” Keegan chirped.

  I flicked Tina a private scowl. She needed to gag that thing.

  But Fitzgerald laughed, way too loud. “Your parrot is a remarkable judge of character,” he said. “I’ll give Nyle this; at least he would have kept the Manse in the family. But that little Carter…” His fists clenched. “I expect she’ll liquidate the Manse before my mother is cold in her grave.”

  The dread vision entranced him. He seemed to stare past us, seeing a future where, despite his decades of futile scheming, the Manse would slip past his children into the hands of strangers.

  My mind was buzzing with new questions. Bryce had said that Nyle needed money. Had he needed it so badly that he’d tried to woo his awful grandmother?

  And if he had… had Kitty killed him to keep a grip on the huge fortune?

  On the other hand, what if it wasn’t Kitty who’d seen Nyle as the looming threat?

  Fitzgerald was clenching his fists so hard that his knuckles were turning white. I knew I wouldn’t want to be the one standing between him and his obsession.

  More than one Pritchett might be capable of murder.

  Chapter 27

  Tina and I (and Keegan) made an awkward goodbye and scuttled off down the hall. At the corner, we held a conference, whispering beside the wainscot paneling.

  “Now what?” I said. “We’ve got yet another suspect for Nyle, but we still have no idea who’d want to kill that teen.”

  “We’ll just have to stay and watch,” Tina said.

  “All day?” I said. “Couldn’t we post a security camera or something?”

  “I don’t know where we’d get one.” She scrunched her forehead, thinking. “Actually, wait. We might have a camera in storage. Grandma was thinking about an indoor security system, and she ordered one to test it, but then she ran into some hitch. You’re supposed to be able to watch the feed on your phone.”

  “Perfect!” I said.

  “I guess.” Tina frowned, and peeked back down the hall at Taylor’s door. “But wouldn’t it feel kind of… creepy?”

  “What, and it’s less creepy to stand around all day like stalkers?”

  “Kind of,” she said.

  “I don’t get this. We’re trying to save this kid’s life. And you spend half your time spying on people’s emotions.”

  “Maybe that’s why! I’d just feel more comfortable if—”

  Down the hall, the door opened.

  We darted around the corner, then both slipped our heads out just enough to see. Behind us, hidden by the wall, Keegan clacked and muttered on Tina’s arm.

  Fitzgerald Pritchett shuffled out, followed by his son Tyler and… that was it. Fitzgerald called something to his daughter, then he closed the door and the two walked off.

  “Why’s she staying?” I said.

  “Maybe she ate already,” Tina said. “They’ve got enough junk food in there to host a convention.”

  “The others are going to breakfast?”

  “Must be,” Tina said. “Which reminds me. I need to get down there during the rush.”

  “What? No!” I said. “Don’t leave me here alone! I’ll die of boredom!”

  She smiled. “No worries. You’ll have Keegan.”

  She tried to hand me the bird, but Keegan squawked and flapped in a panic.

  “No! No!” he cried. “Help!”

  Tina rolled her eyes, but she took him back. “Fine, you can stew in your cage. Won’t that be fun?”

  “Yes!” Keegan chirped.

  “Seriously, what am I supposed to do here?” I said. “Just stand here and watch? I don’t even have a phone to play with!”

  “Then you won’t get distracted,” she said. “I’ll take a turn after breakfast, promise.”

  “Wait, wait!” I said. “That stupid bird pooped on your shoulder.” I swung my giant purse around front and started digging. “I think I’ve got baby wipes.”

  “Baby wipes?” Tina said.

  “I’ve got everything in here,” I said. “Shoot, they’re in here somewhere…”

  “It’s fine,” she said. “I’ll get a napkin.”

  And off she sprinted down the elegant hallway. With a handful of parrot.

  That’s Wonder Springs for you.

  I leaned against the corner, watched, and waited. And waited. And waited some more.

  I have never been so bored in my entire life.

  I don’t know how cops and detectives do stakeouts all the time. I would lose my mind.

  True, I guess they might have a partner along, and they could trade quips. Or take turns reading. Or knitting. Something.

  I found myself totally coveting Taylor’s phone. What was she doing in there? Reading news? Watching videos? Checking Tribesy? Could I somehow sneak in and watch over her shoulder? No, that would probably be weird.

  But so would me having a psychotic break out here in the hall.

  What are you so anxious about? I wondered. I was pacing now, making a tight circle on the old plush carpet, stirring up the dust motes in the musty stillness. What’s wrong with a bit of reflective solitude? Don’t you have a few life questions you could be sorting out?

  Of course I did, you priggish neocortex. That’s exactly why I was anxious.

  I wish I could report that I had some big personal breakthrough, just me, myself, and the loving old grandmotherly Inn.

  But mainly, I obsessed about whether the Sheriff had a warrant yet to haul me off to jail. For all I knew, that tox report on the vial from my room could be coming any minute.

  When Tina finally came back to me, after about six months, I’d worked myself up pretty bad.

  “We can’t spend all day doing this,” I hissed. “We’ve got to keep talking to people and figure out who got Nyle.”

  “I thought we’d catch the killer when he came for Taylor,” she said.

  “You mean if,” I said. “And we don’t even know it’ll be the same person. There’s no conceivable motive to get both Nyle and Taylor. Maybe the Pritchetts are all homicidal maniacs.”

  “What about the will?” Tina said. “Maybe there’s more going on there; maybe ‘Nana’ is having second thoughts about that Kitty woman after all.”

  “Good point,” I said. “We haven’t even talked to her yet.”

  “Go ahead. I’ll stay, you go.”

  “By myself?” I blurted. Tina smiled, and I hastily added, “No empath drama? No cryptic parrot?”

  “You’re welcome to try getting Keegan.”

  I shuddered. “No thanks.”

  “Text me when you’re done,” Tina said. “I’ll tell you where I am; Taylor might have moved.”

  “I broke my phone, remember?”

  “Oh. Then try not to take too long. It’s fine, I doubt she’s going anywhere.”

  “Where is this Nana woman?”

  “Second floor, first door left of the elevator, because she can’t walk so well. Her name’s Priscilla Pritchett.”

  “Priscilla?” My stomach twinged with dread, and I recalled her stentorian abuse of the usually intimidating Vladik.

  Tina frowned with concern. “Are you all right?”

  Of course I was all right. I was leaving Tina alone to maybe tackle a killer, while I jaunted off to chitchat with an old lady. I had no excuse to feel so intimidated.

  So tell that to my cold sweat.

  Chapter 28

  “Enter!” boomed Priscilla Pritchett.

  I fumbled open her door and slipped in. I blinked; the room was large, the largest suite I’d seen yet, but shrouded in shadow. The wide curtains were drawn, and a single lamp cast a dim pool of light around the grand old matriarch.

  Priscilla was settled in an easy chair, her bulk at rest. Her body seemed to have turned against her. Her calves were swollen, poking out beneath her elegant dress, and I noticed that across the long room, on a counter in the kitchenette, a massive pill box was stocked for at least three weeks. The pills were the size of jel
ly beans.

  She was flipping through papers that had dense, difficult print, and looked like financial statements. And when she snapped me a glare through her glasses, her gaze was clear and sharp.

  “What do you want?” she said. “I didn’t call for room service.” She squinted, searing me with even greater scrutiny. “Or for anyone to poison my meal.”

  Great.

  I considered trying to be clever, but this lady struck me as the type who enjoyed eviscerating any efforts to persuade. The sort who wants the price up front, and woe unto you if you slip in any fees.

  Kind of like Grandma, come to think of it.

  “I want to clear my name, Mrs. Pritchett,” I said. “I didn’t kill your grandson, and I want to know who did.”

  The matriarch cocked her head, bemused. I calculated that my candor had bought me, at most, an extra sixty seconds. Maybe less. I hate hard sells.

  “I see,” she said. “And what makes you think that this tragedy would have any connection with me?”

  I steadied my breathing. Why was this woman getting so much under my skin? “I was just speaking with your son Fitzgerald,” I said. “He seemed to think—”

  “I know exactly what he thinks!” she snapped. “The man’s only had one thought for the last twenty years. And if he’d ever bothered to make something of himself, he wouldn’t have gotten himself into a bidding war with his own nephew.”

  “Bidding war?” I said. “You mean Nyle wanted… your house?”

  “Of course he did,” she said, contemptuous of my slow wit. “Just like his uncle, he had it in his head that he was going to carry his wife over the threshold and raise himself a little brood of Pritchetts, right there in the ancestral home. The difference was, Nyle was willing to pay for it.”

  “Fitzgerald wanted your house for free?” I said.

  “Not free. But the man couldn’t wrap his mind around the concept of market value. He’s been badgering me for decades for a ‘family discount’.” She sniffed. “I worked very hard to get where I am, young lady. And you can’t pay insurance premiums with filial affection.”

  “Couldn’t you have rented him part of the house?” I said. “The Manse sounds pretty big.”

  She fixed me with a gimlet glare. “I prioritize my privacy.”

  Maybe she wasn’t quite like Grandma after all. Grandma’s “house” was an Inn; she literally took in strangers. This woman couldn’t even stand to share a mansion with her own family.

  Granted, this was Tyler and Taylor we were talking about.

  But still. It’s not like they were loud or disruptive. If someone kept their fridge stocked and the electricity running, those kids might not emerge from the basement till they were thirty-five.

  Then I realized a problem. “Why didn’t you mind Nyle and Mercedes moving in?”

  “I did,” she said. “But Nyle was willing to be… generous. I could have bought myself an even more suitable home.”

  I didn’t even want to know how much money Nyle had promised to throw around. No wonder he’d been leaning on Bryce to get his money back. I wondered whether Mercedes even knew she’d inspired all this domestic strain.

  “But what about Kitty?” I said. “Wouldn’t she want the Manse?”

  Priscilla scowled. Softly she said, “Fitzgerald has been chatty, hasn’t he? He always had a weakness for a fresh young thing.”

  I bristled. “Actually, it wasn’t me—”

  “I’ll tell you a little secret,” the matriarch said. Her scowl deepened, till it was positively venomous. “My family has been one lifelong disappointment.”

  “Oh,” I said, stunned. “I’m… sorry to hear that.”

  “Thank you. But the one exception, in all that brood, has been Kitty.” A small warmth crept into her face, a distant hint of affection. “Kitty’s more Pritchett than the rest put together. Of all the family, she’s the most like me.” She frowned again. “And I can assure you, Kitty couldn’t have cared less who owned the Manse. She knew that she’d be very well taken care of.”

  “So does that mean…?” I trailed off. Kitty couldn’t have killed Nyle. What had I been thinking? She’d been doing that video call the whole time… she was the one Pritchett who had an actual documented video alibi. The only one automatically disqualified.

  Well, aside from Priscilla herself. Not only had she been publicly arguing with Vladik the whole time, but even if she hadn’t, she could never have nipped in and out of the kitchen on those swollen legs. She’d have needed five or ten minutes just to cross the dining room.

  Who did that leave? Fitzgerald?

  A disappointed old man, on the verge of losing his dream… to Nyle?

  But if he was the killer, who was coming for his daughter?

  Could Fitzgerald have some deranged scheme to move Priscilla to pity? Like, if Taylor was killed, Priscilla would finally see how much she really loved her grandchildren, and the least she could do was welcome the surviving Tyler into the Manse?

  That… was a stretch.

  A more likely option: now that Fitzgerald had killed once, he figured he might as well take care of his annoying daughter while he was on a roll.

  Then I felt terrible for thinking that. Truth was, I was jealous of her for having a doting dad.

  “Would you care to share your fascinating reflections?” Priscilla asked, jolting me out of my ill-timed reverie.

  “I apologize, I got distracted,” I said. I very much did not want to overstay my welcome. “Thank you so much. I appreciate your time.”

  “And what is your name, may I ask?” she said, her beady gaze boring up at me.

  “Oh,” I said. I hesitated, but I couldn’t very well refuse. “Summer. Summer Sassafras.”

  “I see.” She set down her papers, and folded her thick fingers across her lap. “I don’t believe I’ve ever heard that name.”

  I shrugged. “It’s not very common,” I said.

  “I won’t forget.”

  I had the urge to reach out and make sure she did.

  But that was pointless; it was way too late to wipe the whole conversation. And she could easily get my name from Tina or anyone else.

  Plus, she had to be pushing ninety, and she clearly had health issues. I’d never done any real damage with the Touch (assuming Bryce had recovered), but I didn’t want to push my luck if I could possibly help it.

  Besides, what could she really do to me? Sure, she sounded wealthy enough to hire five separate assassins, but that was just paranoid.

  Still, as I walked away, my back could feel the prickle of her gaze.

  As I pulled the door shut, my hand on the knob, I realized that I’d forgotten to ask her one key point. Fitzgerald clearly believed that Nyle had wanted her fortune, rather than the house. What if other Pritchetts had made the same mistake? If Nyle had been killed to get access to the fortune, but Kitty was innocent… who stood to inherit after Kitty?

  What if Kitty was the next target?

  I popped back into the room. “Mrs. Pritchett?” I called. “I just had one more quick—”

  “Out!” shrieked Priscilla, in a terrible voice that skewered me right in the chest.

  I froze. Why on earth was she glaring like that, her eyes wide and wild with rage? My gaze dropped to her hands, but she wasn’t counting piles of cash or drugs or anything; she was just fumbling with that huge pill box. Was she that ashamed of her meds?

  “I’m sorry!” I said. “I didn’t mean—”

  “Now!” she roared. “And don’t you dare invade my privacy again!”

  I scooted back out, my heart pounding. As I hurried back to the hall where Tina was keeping watch, I kept cycling those final moments through my mind. What the heck was that all about?

  Priscilla had to be hiding something. Something huge.

  But I couldn’t shake the feeling that whatever it was… I’d already seen her secret. Somehow, it was right in front of my face.

  Frustrating.

  I w
as still mulling this over as I panted back to the hallway corner where I’d left Tina.

  She was gone.

  “Relax,” I muttered, as I fast-walked down the empty hall to Taylor’s room. I listened at the door. Nothing. I knocked, waited, and then tried the knob, and to my surprise, the door creaked open.

  The room was empty. And trashed.

  “Tina?” I called. “Fitzgerald? Taylor?”

  No answer.

  Now my pulse was pounding in my neck. I ran to the spiral staircase and leapt down two at a time. “Tina?” I called. “Tina!”

  What had I been thinking, leaving her alone with some psychopathic killer? If anyone had hurt that girl, I would hunt them down and zap them senseless.

  I tore through the lobby and over to the dining room. Maybe Taylor had finally moseyed on down for brunch?

  Nope. Empty. The breakfast crowd was long gone.

  Where could they be? I tried to focus on the options that weren’t lethal. What about shopping? The town was practically one big walking mall; she must have drifted out there, right? Of course. I ran back to the entrance, rushed outside and across the front plaza…

  … and plowed right into Sheriff Jake.

  Chapter 29

  “Ms. Sassafras,” he intoned, with a deep, noisy sniff. “Just the person I was hunting down.”

  “Have you seen Tina?” I panted.

  “I have not,” he said. “But I’m going to need you to turn around and put your hands behind your back.”

  From a work belt crammed with cop tools, he slipped out a pair of cuffs.

  I drew back. “Wait! No! You don’t understand, she’s in danger!”

  “Ms. Sassafras, as a courtesy to the Inn, I’d prefer not to make a scene. However—”

  “Do you even have a warrant?”

  “Of course.” He showed his teeth in a grin that was freakishly doggy, like a mutt so pleased with his catch that he couldn’t stop wagging his tail. “We expedited that report. The evidence is in, Ms. Sassafras. And the judge agrees you’re a flight risk.”

  “Flight risk? I can’t even buy gas! And there are multiple suspects that actually make sense! His whole toxic family is festering with motives!”