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

by B. T. Alive

He scowled. “Do you really expect me to take advice on a murder investigation from an amateur? Who is also the prime suspect, with the murder weapon found in her room?”

  “It’s not my fault you’re too lazy to actually investigate,” I snapped. “Did you even know that Nyle’s fiance used to be in a relationship with his brother?”

  The sheriff frowned, but I caught his face flicker in a microexpression of doubt.

  “Please,” I said. “I promise I’m not going anywhere, but we need to find Tina. Or that teenage girl, Taylor Pritchett. She really is in lethal danger.”

  “Excuse me?” he said. “And how would you know that?”

  I hesitated. Was Sheriff Jake in the Inner Circle that knew Grandma’s secret?

  “Ms. Sassafras,” he snapped. “You’re stating a serious threat.”

  “And you,” snapped Grandma, “are being a serious nuisance.”

  Both the sheriff and I startled, and we turned to see Grandma glowering beside us, her arms crossed tight.

  The sheriff wilted slightly. Then he rallied and drew himself up. “I’ve got a warrant, Christina,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  “What you’re going to have is another murder on your hands,” she said. “Not that I expect you to listen to sense.”

  The sheriff stepped closer and hissed in a lower voice. “That’s not fair and you know it, Christina. In my world, there’s a little thing called evidence.”

  “Oh, of course,” she said, and she tapped him on his big nose.

  He sneezed, then angrily wiped his nose with the back of his hairy hand. “Christina Meredith!” he yapped in frustration. “When are you going to respect that this is a delicate instrument?”

  “Perhaps when you decide to supplement it with mental activity.”

  But I no longer cared about their bickering. At the full name, Christina Meredith, that strange tingle had quivered again in my chest, as when I’d first read the last name in her letter. Christina Meredith. The name made me ache, like when you wake up haunted by a dream that you know was piercingly beautiful, and you know that it’s lost forever.

  Then, at the front of the Inn, someone caught my eye.

  Beside the oaken double front doors, an arch of white blossoms framed a sign on the stone wall: The Inn at Wonder Springs. It was clearly designed as a selfie trap, and a woman was standing by the sign, holding out her phone and posing.

  Her phone.

  It was some kind of attack, Grandma had said. She was using her phone.

  But the woman was… Mercedes.

  The hair was all wrong. Grandma had dreamed of long dark hair, but Mercedes wore her hair shaved short on the sides and dyed bright pink. There she was, rocking a new punk outfit, puckering for the camera and checking the screen…

  …except, as I watched, she frowned at her photo, reached up behind her head, and shook out her long black top hair.

  Oh crud.

  “Mercedes!” I shouted.

  Both Sheriff Jake and Grandma shut up and stared at me.

  But Mercedes hadn’t heard. She raised her phone for another shot.

  “Mercedes!” I called again. I started fast-walking across the plaza, then broke into a jog.

  Behind me, the sheriff thundered for me to stop, but Grandma said something back, and I didn’t even catch it because now I could feel that something was horribly wrong; every hair on my limbs was standing straight up, full-body alert, right here in the sunny pretty plaza, and I wondered if this was how targets felt, in that last second before the sniper fired, and I was calling Mercedes! Mercedes! but she just kept looking at her stupid phone and I was jogging faster and I thought snipers are high and I finally looked up and oh my gosh this huge thing was falling…

  I ran and tackled her. Rolled.

  The thing smashed. The sharp crash was piercing, like the shatter of glass. Bits hit my back, both dirt and fragments of something hard. But also the brush of something creepy and soft.

  I twisted back to look. It was a tree.

  An ornamental tree, three or four feet long, prone amid the dirt and ruins of a pot that must have been enormous.

  And way too damn close. The blossoms were brushing my calf.

  I realized I was on top of Mercedes, and I heaved myself off and sat on my knees. “Sorry,” I said.

  “Sorry?” she gasped, still lying on the cobblestones. “Oh my God, you saved my life.”

  “I guess I did,” I said. “If you’re feeling grateful… I could really use some gas money.”

  Mercedes looked confused.

  Then she looked past me, up, and her face froze.

  I twisted back to follow her gaze.

  On a rooftop veranda, three or four stories up, at the top of the Inn, a man was leaning over the railing and looking down.

  Lionel.

  But though his face was far away, and the high sun cast him in shadow, I could still have sworn that he looked… surprised.

  Even horrified.

  Part IV

  Chapter 30

  Before I could even get up off the plaza stone, Grandma was at my side.

  “Are you all right?” she demanded. Her piercing gaze probed my face, then flitted across me in an instant triage. Her care was ferocious, like a mama panther.

  “I’m fine,” I said, staggering to my feet. “Really, I promise.”

  Her frown softened into a warm smile.

  “Well done, sweet pea,” she said, her voice husky. “Well done.”

  Yes, this felt amazing. I felt like I was five, and the teacher had just given me every gold star in her desk.

  Across the plaza, the sheriff hollered up to the roof. “Lionel Pritchett!” he barked. “Stay right there!”

  Lionel bolted out of sight.

  “Dang it!” he yelled. “Christina, where’s his room? What floor?”

  She told him (she knew, of course), and he took off toward the Inn. He ran exceedingly fast for a man with his age and paunch… he was practically loping like a hound.

  It’s these little surprise details that keep freaking you out. Even if you’ve just dodged an early death by a plummeting pot.

  “Go!” Grandma snapped at me. “I’ll care for Mercedes and lock down the Inn.”

  So I tore after the old man, panting to keep up and clutching my massive purse so it wouldn’t thud against my side. At least I was still wearing the stupid sneakers, not the sandals or high heels that would have looked like, you know, a grownup. I barely managed to keep the sheriff in sight as we pounded up the staircase.

  I’d worked very hard to catch this killer. No way I was going to let him slip out now.

  The sheriff burst through Lionel’s door, and I rushed in right behind. Lionel’s side of the room looked even more disastrous than before, with multiple suitcases disgorged on his bed. But he was hunched on a pile of clothes, feverishly scraping the touchpad of a laptop.

  “Hands in the air!” barked Sheriff Jake.

  “Wait! Please!” Lionel gasped. He was panting, his face flushed and his jowls quivering, like his run down here from the rooftop veranda had been the most exercise he’d had since high school. Honestly, I was feeling the burn myself. The sheriff didn’t even look winded.

  “I’ve got to show you this!” Lionel gasped. “Evidence!”

  The sheriff unsnapped his side holster. “Evidence of what?”

  “I didn’t do it,” Lionel said, still frantically swiping and clicking. “I don’t know how that pot fell. I was only there because I got a message. From Mercedes. To meet.”

  “Mercedes?” I snapped. “Why would she want to meet you?”

  Lionel scowled. “She didn’t say!”

  “Isn’t that convenient—” I started, but the sheriff cut in.

  “What kind of message was this?” he said. His eyes narrowed. “Email? Text?”

  “It was an email, but it said something about how it would self-destruct… you had to click through to the browser to see the actual message… oh, th
ank God!” Lionel exhaled, suddenly exhausted. “It’s still here.”

  “Let me see that!” I snapped, and I grabbed the laptop.

  On the screen, a web browser showed a short message that was just what he’d said it was. A typed note to meet on the rooftop veranda, “right now, this can’t wait,” with the signature Mercedes.

  Then the laptop croaked a loud BEEP, and the screen went black.

  Oh, come on.

  I made a mental note: next time a murder investigation hinged on evidence on an electronic device, let someone else touch it.

  (So dumb.)

  Sheriff Jake leaned in to look. “This computer’s dead,” he said.

  “What?” Lionel shrieked. He lunged and grabbed it back, fiddling with the keys. “No! No no no no no…”

  He rebooted the machine, and it seemed to start fine. But when he launched his browser again, the message was gone.

  “It was here! I swear!” he cried.

  Sheriff Jake eyed me with a suspicious glare, and his nostrils quivered. But whatever he’d heard about my “power”, if anything, it didn’t seem to include the part about sporadically frying electronics. (I wasn’t sure even Grandma knew that part yet.) And all he’d seen me do was take the machine, not press any buttons. So despite his obvious intuition that it was my fault, he turned back to Lionel.

  “I’ll take that computer,” he said. “I’ve got a tech guy who can take a look.”

  “You do?” Lionel said. He eagerly handed it over.

  “Absolutely. And I’ll need you to come with me.”

  Lionel blanched. The flush drained right out, leaving him pasty white. “But I swear, that pot just fell—”

  “Don’t worry, we’ll get your full statement,” the sheriff said, as he bent and took Lionel’s arm.

  Lionel winced at the meaty grip. But he rocked up to his feet. “I’m calling my lawyer!” he warned. “He’ll come down and slap you with a lawsuit so fast—”

  “That’ll be fine,” the sheriff said, as he urged him out into the hall. “Tell him we’ve got great fishing here in Wonder Springs.”

  As I watched them go, I felt torn. On the one hand, even that glimpse of the message had me convinced that Lionel was innocent. I’m not super techie and I knew that, in theory, he could have faked it… but Lionel just didn’t seem the supervillain type. He also didn’t seem that stupid, and what kind of idiot fakes an alibi that’ll vanish if he reboots?

  On the other hand, if Lionel was clear, that might put me back in the hot seat. Without Lionel, I lost my handy fall guy for whoever’d planted the poison in my room. Then it would my arm trapped in the sheriff’s mitt.

  And the real killer would still be out there.

  At the door, Sheriff Jake turned and gave me a gruff nod. “Don’t go anywhere yet, Miss Sassafras,” he said. “But, for now… good job. I think you saved that young woman’s life.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  But inside, I thought… she’s not saved yet.

  I had to find Mercedes and get the whole truth. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to crush her skull.

  Someone who would certainly strike again.

  Chapter 31

  I rushed to find Mercedes’ room. Even though I was in a hurry, I still avoided that creepy old elevator. I’d have to ask Grandma what the deal was with that thing.

  Mercedes wasn’t in her room.

  Then I remembered that Grandma was probably feeding her. This was the South, after all. When in doubt, bring out the comfort food.

  I totally nailed it. When I crept into the dining room, unsure whether Lionel’s public arrest meant I could now safely show my face, I found Grandma there, tending to a sparse lunch crowd. She caught my eye, then nodded across the room toward Mercedes, who was sitting alone in a sunny nook and digging into a teetering stack of pancakes.

  Pancakes…

  “Nice,” I said as I walked up, stealing a hungry glance at her plate and a heavenly whiff of warm syrup. “Maybe someone’ll try to kill me.”

  Mercedes frowned. “You can have the pancakes.”

  “Sorry.” I sat across from her, and her fork and knife clinked in the silence.

  Finally, without looking up, she said, “Did you get him?”

  “We did.” I hesitated. “But I’m still… concerned.”

  “You’re concerned?” she demanded. Now she did look up, incredulous.

  “Someone sent him a message. Claiming to be you.”

  I watched her carefully, but it didn’t take an empath to see that she was shocked.

  “So that means…” she faltered. “Whoever did it… they’re still…”

  She was starting to freak out, and I decided to take a chance. Besides, she wasn’t a Pritchett, so if things went sideways, the Touch might just actually wipe her memory, like it was supposed to, instead of blasting us both like a cattle prod.

  “Mercedes, listen to me,” I said. “I don’t know if it’s connected, but could this possibly have anything to do with… a guitar?”

  She stared. Then she blasted out a laugh.

  First it erupted. Then it fizzled into cascades of giggles, the pent-up stress spewing until she was gasping for breath.

  I waited, fingers at the ready.

  At last she could manage to talk. “That stupid parrot. What the hell is that about?”

  “It’s complicated,” I said. “But if someone’s trying to kill you over a musical instrument—”

  “No, no.” She sighed, and fiddled with her napkin. “This is so stupid,” she muttered.

  “If you’re sure it doesn’t connect to Nyle—”

  “Oh, it does. But it’s just…” She flickered with sudden sadness, wiped a finger across one eye, and took a deep shuddering breath. “None of this had to happen.”

  “How? What do you mean?”

  She straightened up and steadied her voice. “So… a very long time ago, I was… involved… with this minor celebrity. Punk rock.”

  “Really?” I said, trying to sound flatteringly surprised. She’d put her black top hair back up, so her pink sides made her look ready to jump on stage and sing backup. “Who?”

  “I’d rather not say,” she said. “Because when things didn’t end well, I kept a souvenir.”

  I laughed. “Wow! And he never knew?”

  “No way. He would have prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Trust me. Which is why it was incredibly stupid for me to tell Nyle.”

  “Huh,” I said, sensing where this was going. I decided to make another risky probe. We were still alone in the dining room, right? The Touch was still on the table. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I was kind of curious why you went for Nyle.”

  She scowled. “Is there a right way to take that question?”

  Crud. I eyed her bare hands, slicing away at the pile of carbs… I might be able to reach her wrist before she noticed…

  But she tossed her head. “Nyle could be smooth. In some ways, he was like an improved version of his brother. Who, by the way, was a totally different person before he went all corporate. You’d never guess it now…” She frowned, thoughtful. “Honestly? There’s definitely a perverse rush in getting with your ex’s brother.” She paused, and forked another syrupy mouthful. “Or maybe it was just the perversity of Nyle.”

  “How so?”

  “Let’s not go there,” she said. “I was done. I wanted out.”

  Shocker, I thought. “And he really thought he could use the guitar thing to make you get married?”

  “We didn’t really start fighting until after the engagement,” she said. “And he got so damn excited to announce the wedding date here, at the stupid reunion. Lionel and Deanna would have to take it in public, in front of the whole family.”

  “Sounds like Nyle,” I said.

  “The last straw was that creepy old Pritchett Manse. Have you seen any pictures? That place is like a Civil War nightmare; it’s falling apart, maybe the ghosts are chewing it t
o bits. I don’t know what family fantasy he thought he needed to act out, but I was not going to be the woman on his arm.”

  “So were you really going to do it? Marry him?”

  “No! I don’t know.” She rubbed her face. “I wasn’t thinking that far ahead. It was like, just get through this stupid reunion, let him lord it over Lionel, and then figure out some way to break it off.” She shrugged. “Or get some dirt to blackmail him back.”

  Yikes, I thought. “It sounds like this guitar thing was a long time ago. Are you sure you’d have even been arrested?”

  “I don’t know. At a minimum, I’d have lost my job. My department head is a stickler.”

  I startled, trying to imagine her walking into an office building.

  Mercedes smirked, and let down her hair. To my amazement, as she shook it out, the pink was entirely hidden. Her face was framed in a respectable corporate cut.

  She eyed me. “I really am pathetic,” she said.

  “No, not at all…” I said, weakly. I found myself remembering my own corporate suits, the ritual mornings preparing my battle garb.

  For the first time since I’d landed in Wonder Springs, I realized how utterly I was not missing that life. Not the endless sales calls, not the traffic and the urban blight, not a single one of my “colleagues”. If I had to choose, I’d much rather be broke here in this bizarre pretty town, having fun… chasing a killer.

  “So if Lionel didn’t attack you,” I said, “who do you think did?”

  “Who else?” Mercedes said, weary. “His wife.”

  “Deanna?” I tried to picture the beady-eyed neat freak as a killer. It was pretty easy. “But why would she have targeted Nyle? I could see Lionel wanting revenge, but his wife?”

  “She hated Nyle. He… we… were humiliating them both.” She shook her head, and slunk back in her chair. “The irony is, if she’d just waited a couple weeks, she’d have gotten all the payback on Nyle she could have wanted. I would never, ever have gone through with that wedding in the end. But I kept my mouth shut, procrastination won… and now he’s dead. And I might be next.”

  She looked so sad that I wished I could hug her. “I doubt it,” I said. “You don’t think she’d try again?”