by Anna Gerard
“I guess I wasn’t hungry this morning,” he called back down.
I frowned. Sure, maybe not hungry, but he’d not yet missed a morning drinking his appalling cup of tea.
“Harry,” I called yet again. “I’m coming up. You’ve got about five seconds to get decent if you aren’t already.”
I didn’t wait for him to agree or protest but hurried up the ladder to the landing. I found him decent, modesty-wise, in jeans and the familiar nubby-textured brown shirt. But rather than packing, as I might have guessed he would be, he was sprawled in the comfy chair and contemplating Yorick, who was balanced on one knee.
“I wondered when you’d come up here,” was his careless greeting as he briefly glanced my way. “Because I forgot to say them, didn’t I?”
I frowned again. “Them?”
“Those three little words. You were right.” He picked up the skull and turned it so it was facing me. “What was that, Yorick? Ah, yes. Brava, Nina Fleet. All the Secret Squirrels are proud of you.”
What was going on? A frisson of alarm swept me, and I gave him a wary look. Because unless Harry was deliberately reinterpreting one of Hamlet’s mad scenes for his own amusement, something definitely was rotten here in Cymbeline.
“I might have been right,” I agreed, “but the only reason my plan worked was because of your acting. Without you, Susie never would have broken down and confessed.”
“I suppose that’s true. I am quite the brilliant thespian, am I not?”
Now the alarm bells were going full blast. I edged a bit closer. “Harry, I don’t know how to break it to you, but you’re acting kind of strangely. Is something wrong?”
“Wrong?”
He and Yorick exchanged quizzical looks. “What could be wrong? Oh, wait, of course. She must mean that phone call I received from my agent this morning. You know, the one where I found out my new series was axed before it ever aired.”
“Oh, Harry.” I sagged in sympathetic disappointment. “I’m so sorry. Did they tell you why it was canceled?”
“It seems that our director has been accused of sexually harassing some of the female crew during our shoot. Not that anyone spoke up about it at the time … at least, not that I ever heard. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”
He shrugged. “Anyhow, my agent said that the women are lawyered up and going public as of today, so it’s about to make headlines on all the news outlets. And the fact that my character isn’t the most woke guy out there is being mentioned as some sort of contributory factor. So the network is doing damage control by firing the guy and burying the show.”
“But you did get paid for all those episodes, right?”
“Sure. And after my agent got his cut, and I caught up on the loans I’d taken out to keep afloat, and sunk a little money into the bus … well, let’s just say I can probably scrounge enough to buy gas for the drive back to Atlanta. Of course, I won’t be able to pay the rent on my apartment anymore, but I can live in the bus again until another job comes along.”
He lapsed into silence. I did too, not knowing what to say.
And then, suddenly, I did.
“Look, Harry, you don’t have to go back to Atlanta and live in your bus … at least, not today,” I said before I had too much time to think about it. “Tessa and Bill and Chris are taking Len’s ashes on tour around Georgia after the service, which means they’ve arranged for their own car. Marvin already told me that he and Radney are renting a land yacht for the drive back to Atlanta. So unless you’ve got somewhere to be, you might as well stick around for a bit.”
Harry slowly straightened in his chair. “Let me get this straight. You’re offering to let me stay here in the tower room. For how long?”
“Not permanently, of course. But maybe a couple of weeks, even a month. Just until you have a chance to regroup.”
“And what about when your next paying guests arrive?”
“Well, it’s not like I normally rent out this room to anyone, so I’m not losing any revenue there. And it’ll be a few more weeks before we start up the yoga class again.”
“And how much would I be paying for the privilege of being a guest here?”
I considered that for a moment. When Harry had first shown up the week before, I’d been concerned about his using some sort of dirty trick to bolster the legal case he thought he had against me. But maybe we could resolve that situation here and now.
“How about we make a deal? You can stay here in the tower room for thirty days, rent free. But in return, you’ll sign a letter stating that you’ll cease pursuing any sort of legal action against me as far as ownership of this house.”
Something flickered in his baby blues. What it was I couldn’t read, and for a moment I thought he was going to refuse my offer outright. Then he got to his feet and plopped Yorick on the stacked suitcase table.
“I assume breakfast is included?”
I shrugged. “As long as the paying guests fill up first, you’re welcome to the leftovers. Oh, and you wash your own linens and make your own bed.”
“Done,” he said and stuck out his hand. “You have a deal, Nina Fleet.”
Then, as we shook, he added, “But I’m going to need a place to park the bus while I’m here. Now that the festival is over, I don’t think Connie and her deputies are going to keep looking the other way.”
“Maybe the Reverend Dr. Bishop will let you park it in his lot if you let him borrow it to haul around his congregation,” I suggested with a smile, pretending I wasn’t feeling just the slightest revival of that schoolgirl crush as he held my hand in his.
Slipping my fingers free, I swiftly regrouped and added, “Speaking of which, we’ve got a memorial service to attend in just over an hour. I need to get breakfast cleaned up, and both of us need to change before—what?”
For a sudden expression halfway between amusement and horror had flashed over his too-good-looking-to-be-safe-for-me features.
“Sorry. I just remembered what I did to get on Dr. Bishop’s bad side all those years ago.”
“So what was it? Drawing mustaches on the dearly departed?”
He grinned. “Even worse. Don’t worry, I’ll tell you all about it on the drive over. But for now, let’s just say that Sister Malthea never climbed into that big old Caddy of hers again without checking the back seat first.”
I was sure my face now reflected the same expression of mingled amusement and horror that I’d seen on his, as several Harry-in-a-Caddy scenarios had just flashed through my mind. And, to be truthful, a couple of those scenes had been of the not-safe-for-work variety.
“Maybe we can save your story for a more appropriate time,” I hastily told him. “Like, when we’re not on our way to eulogize a dead man. So how about I meet you at the front door in forty-five minutes?”
Leaving him and Yorick to decide on a proper outfit for the service, I hurried down the ladder stairs. Mattie was waiting for me in the hallway, blue-and-brown gaze fixed on me with what appeared to be disapproval. Doubtless, her supersonic doggie hearing had made her privy to the deal I’d just struck with Harry.
I sighed and gave her a quick scratch behind the ears.
“You’re right, I should have asked you first,” I wryly told her as we started down the corridor together. “But the guy just lost his job, and he was going to have to live in his bus again. Besides, it’s only for thirty days. On day thirty-one, Harold A. Wescott III and his Wild Hare Tours bus will be gone from here for good. In the meantime, what could possibly go wrong while he’s here?”
Before I could answer my own rhetorical question, Mattie halted midway down the hall. Plopping herself onto her fuzzy haunches, she raised her muzzle and let out a howl.
Also available by Anna Gerard
Georgia B&B Mysteries
Peach Clobbered
Black Cat Bookshop Mysteries (writing as Ali Brandon)
Twice Told Tail
Plot Boiler
Literall
y Murder
Words With Fiends
A Novel Way to Die
Double Booked for Death
Tarot Cats Mysteries (writing as Diane A. S. Stuckart)
Fool’s Moon
Leonardo Da Vinci Mysteries (writing as Diane A. S. Stuckart)
A Bolt from the Blue
Portrait of a Lady
The Queen’s Gambit
Author Biography
Anna Gerard is a member of Mystery Writers of America and was the 2018 Chapter President of the Florida chapter of MWA. She also belongs to the Cat Writers’ Association and the Palm Beach County Beekeepers Association. She has a BA in Journalism from the University of Oklahoma. A native Texan, she now lives in the West Palm Beach area with her husband, dogs, cats, and a few beehives.
This is a work of fiction. All of the names, characters, organizations, places, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real or actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2020 by Diane A. S. Stuckart
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crooked Lane Books, an imprint of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.
Crooked Lane Books and its logo are trademarks of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.
Library of Congress Catalog-in-Publication data available upon request.
ISBN (hardcover): 978-1-64385-306-2
ISBN (ebook): 978-1-64385-327-7
Cover illustration by Brandon Dorman
Printed in the United States.
www.crookedlanebooks.com
Crooked Lane Books
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New York, NY 10001
First Edition: July 2020
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