by Amy Saunders
She was about to say, “I should have you come work for me,” but bit her tongue before it slipped out. Instead, Belinda replied, “You really got around in the job department.”
Bennett shrugged. “I was on my own a lot and wanted something to do. And”–he added, his gray eyes shifting away a moment–“I wanted to save as much as I could to buy a car and later on get my own place. What about you? What did you do for work?”
“Well, um…” Belinda stared at the ceiling in thought, embarrassed. In her current disguise, someone in her position would probably have worked since high school. In reality, Belinda spent most summers traveling with her family, not working at lemonade trucks, mowing people’s lawns, and stocking shelves at a market. She flushed, trying to think of something–anything–that would count as work. “I got to help backstage once before a performance at Tanglewood.” And that was only because her former opera-singer mother had connections and got them in.
Bennett’s eyebrows arched above the rim of his glasses. “Really? What did you do?”
“Uh…” Belinda gazed up at the ceiling, admiring how the lights flickered in abstract patterns. “I helped with makeup and wardrobe. And by help, I mean they let me put a little blush on one of the performers, and I stood and directed extras to where they were supposed to go.”
Bennett’s face brightened. “Cool.”
“You think so?” Belinda’s shoulders dropped, relieved he didn’t think that was stupid.
“Yeah…that’s pretty unusual. And sounds a lot more interesting than any of my summer jobs.”
“It wasn’t really a job, but I did like being backstage. There were people warming up and getting into costume and tuning their instruments and just all this…I don’t know…electricity in the air.” She could understand why her mother had been drawn to it. “I haven’t really experienced that anywhere else…”
She ran out of air, realizing that Bennett had leaned forward on the table and she’d automatically mimicked him. Their eyes locked, and she had to remind herself that they had to keep their distance. Maybe she had experienced that type of electricity since her adventures backstage…
“Belinda…”
She leaned forward expectantly, Bennett’s eyes softening.
His mouth opened to add something important, Belinda had no doubt, when a crash reverberated around the restaurant, making them both jump.
The scare from earlier that day had put her on high alert, and she straightened up, glancing around. “What was that?”
Their waiter appeared around a corner, grinning apologetically. “Sorry,” she said. “Minor disaster in the kitchen.”
Belinda’s shoulders relaxed, sort of, but she felt all the awareness of her surroundings again, the quiet gone.
Bennett exhaled, forcing a smile. “We should probably get going. We’ve got an early start tomorrow.”
Belinda agreed and they headed out soon after. The ride back to the inn was quiet, even though they were free to talk about anything they wanted at that point. The lightness back in the restaurant evaporated, and other than a hand squeeze before they exited the car, they went their separate ways pretty quickly so they wouldn’t draw attention.
Belinda locked her door behind her, resting her forehead against it. She didn’t want to talk about things in the car, but she did want to just be with Bennett, knowing they were okay. Especially since thinking about hiding under the desk again gave her goosebumps.
Something about this whole place gave her the shivers. And the sooner they did their job and could get out of there, the better.
Chapter 12
Jonas was eager for information. It was strange having Belinda and Bennett off sleuthing without him, and to be honest, he felt kind of jealous about it, like they were cheating on him. When Bennett called him early that morning, he was more than happy to take a few minutes to talk to him.
“I thought you couldn’t talk to me while you were away,” Jonas said, hauling his cereal bowl to the sink in the kitchen of his apartment. Since he had the day off, he’d crashed out on the couch in his boxers, watching TV.
“I’m chancing it anyway,” Bennett said, talking quietly. “Belinda had a scare and I want someone else to know.”
Jonas dropped the bowl into the sink, the spoon rattling against porcelain. “Are you pulling out?”
There was a pause. “Not yet. It may have been nothing…this place is…well, creepy. And everyone there acts funny when you bring up Henry Lawson or anything to do with him. We may just be on edge.”
The corners of Jonas’ mouth drooped down. He might agree if he was talking to anyone else. But he wasn’t. These were the two most “accident” prone people he knew. Especially the blonde-haired one. “What do you think so far about the claims that Lawson’s death was an accident?”
“We don’t have anything concrete yet.”
“But?”
Again, there was another pause. “All I have is a vibe, and it’s not positive.”
Jonas nodded. Even the little he knew about the case made him suspicious. “You have good instincts. I’d roll with them.” He waited a beat, wondering if he should bring up the other thing on his mind. “So…any chance a certain question was asked yet?”
Bennett sighed in exasperation. “No. I’d hoped I might have an opportunity last night, but…we got interrupted and it ruined the mood. It wasn’t good timing, anyway.”
Jonas half smiled. He knew his friend’s penchant for plotting things out. “You may have to wing this one. Bels has a knack for foiling your best-laid plans.”
“Tell me about it.”
Jonas smirked to himself. Belinda could be a handful in her own way, but really, he knew underneath it all that Bennett wasn’t that bothered by it. He was just eager to propose and move forward.
“You’ll get your chance,” Jonas said, shrugging. “What is it you like to remind her about? Oh, that’s right. Patience.”
He could feel Bennett bristle on the other end. “Thanks.”
“Any time.” Jonas strolled into his living room, shutting off the TV. “Listen, I hate to cut this short, but I have to meet Ardith soon.” They were taking advantage of his day off to spend together, which they tried to do the previous week.
“No reports to write?”
It was Jonas’ turn to frown. “Possibly. But they can wait. I will never understand the need for all this paperwork.”
“And I will never understand the amount of useless garbage in this guy’s house, either. But I’m still cleaning it up.”
“All in the name of justice.”
Bennett harrumphed. “More like in the name of Belinda.”
Jonas smiled. She did have some crazy powers when it came to getting people to follow her.
They parted ways, leaving Jonas to get ready to head out. At least now he had something interesting to think about.
~ * ~
Belinda met Bennett outside the inn, carting a paper coffee cup. She’d found getting ahold of anything like coffee at the Lawson estate was nearly impossible.
Bennett leaned up off the front of the truck, nodding in greeting. Belinda smiled back, tossing her bag into the front seat. Once they were on the road, and alone, Bennett finally said something. “How’d you sleep?”
Belinda sipped her coffee, timing it around the bumps in the road. “Not terrible, but not great either.” The dark circles under her eyes that morning made that clear. She’d had tons of weird dreams, most involving the Lawson house.
Bennett reached for her hand, squeezing it. “We’ll be out of here soon.”
Belinda told herself that morning that her fears from the day before may have been overrated. After all, lots of other people were in the Lawson house packing items and hauling things in and out. Surely someone went into the more private sector of the house sometimes. They may have heard her and stopped to check, which wasn’t strange. It may have just been the Warden.
When they reached the house, a large mo
ving truck hogged the better part of the driveway, so they parked on the street instead. A team of men loaded a red velvet sofa into the bed of the truck.
“They’re really not wasting any time here, are they?” Belinda said as they hiked up the driveway. Staff members queued up like ants to load smaller objects, like vases and art, into a smaller truck parked behind the larger one.
“I guess there’s no point wasting time.” Bennett squinted into the distance. “No one’s inheriting the house, so they may as well get all of this over with and move on.”
As usual, the Warden stood in the kitchen barking orders at the moving guys and household staff. Everyone hustled, looking like they really wanted to just finish and go home.
Even though no one really talked, there was a more somber mood hanging over the house that day. Belinda wondered if it was because the end was close and soon, they would all need new jobs.
They received their assignments and parted ways. Bennett was assigned to the shed again, which he looked none too happy about, and Belinda found herself cleaning up what was left of rooms they’d stripped of valuables. Anything left behind was trash.
Another staff member showed up to help her and they got to work bagging anything that wasn’t nailed down. “Is everything alright?” Belinda finally asked, when the girl barely even smiled after minutes passed. “Everyone seems a little…depressed today.”
The girl paused, holding a tattered basket in her hand. She stared at Belinda in confusion at first, then her eyes lit up in understanding. “I guess you’d already left by then,” she said quietly. “So you wouldn’t know.”
“Know what?”
The girl glanced at the open door, then leaned forward, whispering quickly, “Alex got hurt yesterday and ended up in the hospital.”
Belinda blinked, her mind racing. “What happened?”
The girl’s eyes darted to the door again. “No one knows for sure, but she was packing, and something sliced across her arm. She bled like crazy.” The girl shook, her face contorting. “I can’t even stand thinking about it.”
“Is she still in the hospital?”
The girl shook her head. “She got stitches and went home. But she didn’t show up today, and we’re not exactly allowed to ask questions.” She rolled her eyes.
“Do you happen to have her contact info? It might be good to check up on her.”
“Oh, sure.” She whipped out her phone without blinking an eye and Belinda took down the details. As soon as they finished, she hoped she and Bennett could visit Alex.
Once she broke the ice, her partner, Caroline, didn’t stop talking until they parted ways for lunch. She found out all kinds of tidbits, including every detail about the guy she liked who hadn’t asked her out yet. As Belinda wandered outside for lunch, she thought she spotted Caroline chatting with him.
Belinda searched the backyard for Bennett. Even if they couldn’t act like normal, it was still nice to sit with him and make small talk. And it kept all the flirtatious girls in the house at bay.
Not everyone had broken for lunch yet, and there were shadowy figures moving in the shed. Belinda plopped down in the same shady spot as before, figuring they were about to wrap up to eat, too.
As she bit into her turkey club sandwich, a crash reverberated from the shed. It shook the ground under her. Belinda dropped her sandwich and ran, expecting half the building to have collapsed on top of Bennett.
Bennett crawled away from his assistant, who was facedown on the dirt floor, coughing from the dust that blew up into the air.
Belinda stared wide-eyed at part of the ceiling that was now splintered open, pieces of wood dangling overhead. It looked like there was an attic. And an ax lay embedded upright in the middle of the carnage, the blade lodged in the dirt floor.
“Are you alright?” Belinda shrieked, using every ounce of self-control not to fling herself on Bennett.
Bennett scrambled to his feet, helping his very dazed and shocked friend to stand up. The young man gazed around, his orange hair sticking up in lumps around his head. He swayed on his feet as his eyes landed on the ax. He pointed at it and said, “I was standing right there!”
Then he fainted.
Bennett managed to grab him in time to soften the fall, but the kid still hit the ground with a thud. Belinda bent next to him, his eyes fluttering.
“What should we do?” Belinda asked, wondering if she should pat his cheeks or throw water on his face or what.
By then, the ruckus had drawn a crowd from the house and lawn, and Belinda vaguely heard anxious whisperings behind them, including Caroline’s voice.
“Move aside!” The Warden pushed through the spectators, lumbering over to them and leaned over the man. After a second of studying his face, the Warden gave the guy a good slap across one cheek and he bolted upright.
“Wh-what happened?!” His blue eyes darted around in panic, settling on Belinda.
“It’s okay,” Belinda said soothingly. “You just…conked out.” She didn’t want to say “you fainted like a Victorian woman” in front of everyone.
“See,” the Warden said to the crowd behind them, “everything’s fine. You can go back to what you were doing.”
No one seemed in a hurry to leave, gawking at the mess–and the ax–and the three of them until the Warden set her glower on the group. “I said, go back to what you were doing!” she bellowed.
Snapping out of it, all the spectators dispersed.
With a cursory glance at the caved-in ceiling and sharp tools now stuck in the dirt, the Warden nodded to the three of them. “That goes for you too.”
The orange-haired man fumbled to his feet, bits of grass and ancient sawdust now caught in his hair. “Are you kidding? That thing almost killed me!” He looked behind him at the ax. “I’m getting out of here.”
“You won’t get paid.”
The man shook his head. “I don’t need it that badly. Nobody does.” After shaking Bennett’s hand appreciatively and nodding at Belinda, he pushed passed the Warden, shaking his hair out as went.
The Warden’s jaw tensed, her eyes set, but not as confident as they’d been earlier. “If you want to follow him, don’t expect me to lie to your boss.”
“You don’t think all of this is a bit strange considering the circumstances?” Belinda said.
“What circumstances?”
Belinda listed her head to one side.
“Either things aren’t what they seem,” Bennett said flatly, “or you have someone with a twisted sense of humor around.”
The Warden breathed in deeply through her nose, her heavy-set frame lifting taller in the process. “You can finish your job or leave.” She didn’t wait for an answer, barreling back to the house. The handful who had lingered nearby, scurried in different directions, pretending to be otherwise occupied.
Once she was out of sight and they seemed to be relatively alone, Belinda couldn’t stand it any longer and threw her arms around Bennett’s neck. “Are you okay?”
He gave her a squeeze before gently pushing her away, then brushed the dirt off his arms. “I’m fine.” He nodded toward the damage and Belinda followed him to inspect, glancing behind her. She walked around the ax while Bennett examined the broken attic floor. “It could be wood rot or just too much junk putting pressure on the floor. Or both.” He wagged his eyebrows, looking over the splintered boards.
“Or it might just conveniently appear that way.”
Bennett nodded. “I don’t think it would take much to cause it to cave in. A little more pressure, a good whack with this”–he pointed to the ax.
“Did you hear anything in the attic before it happened?”
“Other than the wood splitting right before it let go? No.”
Belinda frowned, gazing up into the swirl of dust.
Bennett scratched his neck, squinting up. “I suppose with the clanging and banging down here, we might’ve missed someone taking an ax to the floor. But they would’ve had to hole
up there a while. There’s only one easy way in and we didn’t leave since the morning.”
“And they obviously couldn’t have just left. You would’ve seen them.”
“Yeah…I think this was planned out ahead of time. And they would just have to hope it let go when someone was in here.”
Belinda’s frown deepened. “What do you know about your helper? Would someone want to kill him?”
Bennett shrugged. “No idea. He wasn’t much of a talker.”
Belinda smirked until he caught her eye.
Bennett sighed, brushing it off. “I did try. But he wasn’t taking the bait.”
No one seemed to want to talk, except Caroline, who didn’t seem to know anything. “I think we need to visit Alex tonight. Find out what happened. Maybe being away from here she’ll be more inclined to open up.”
“I can only hope.”
Belinda couldn’t agree more. If all of this was a hoax, she wasn’t amused.
Chapter 13
Alex agreed they could visit, so they drove over to her apartment after dinner that night. But before they went in to talk to Alex, Belinda took Bennett’s hand, squeezing it tightly. “I don’t like when you end up hurt,” she said.
She’d felt jumpy the rest of the day and hated that they’d been separated. The shed was abandoned temporarily, and Bennett had been tasked with something in the main house. But she still didn’t like it.
Was the “accident” meant for Bennett or the other guy? Or was it entirely random?
And while she didn’t buy it was coincidence, what if it was, and they were just on edge?
“I’m not hurt,” Bennett said.
“But you could be. If you hadn’t been able to get out of the way in time. And you’re only here because of me…” She took a breath, glancing out the windshield into the dark. “Maybe we shouldn’t be here.”
