A Dead And Stormy Night

by A. R. Winters

  He waved a hand. “Jeremy, and far be it for me to encroach on the rules of etiquette.”

  “By the way, how was the boathouse?” Emily asked as Ash set the ramekin down on the table in front of her.

  Ashley’s brow furrowed. “The what?”

  “You mentioned the other day how much you loved the boathouse? I figured you must have gone there after you stormed off last night.”

  For a few seconds, Ashley looked at Emily like she had no idea what on Earth she was talking about. Then recognition flashed in Ash’s eyes, and her cheeks flushed.

  “Right, that. It was actually raining too hard by then.” Ashley cleared her throat and set the next ramekin of fruit in front of Jeremy. “I didn’t make it any farther than the front parlor. FYI, that couch is way more comfortable to sleep on than it looks.”

  Emily raised an eyebrow. “I can imagine. But I’m sure the noise must have made it a little hard to sleep.”

  “The thunder?” Ashley asked. “Nah, I’m from the Midwest. Anything that doesn’t force an evacuation is a typical summer for me.”

  “Actually, I was thinking about Hal, rest him.” Emily grabbed her fork and used it to slice a quarter of frozen piece in two across the center. “He did enjoy his drink and he was neither shy nor quiet about it.”

  “Em, is this necessary?” Jeremy asked. “Hal was my brother…”

  “You didn’t see how he treated her,” Emily insisted. “If you’d seen it, you would never have approved.”

  “Be that as it may, he was Tabby’s father,” Jeremy insisted.

  Emily clicked her tongue and frowned. “Crap, I’m so sorry, Tabby. Honey, I just plum forgot you were here.”

  “It’s fine,” Tabitha mumbled softly.

  Emily Jepsen opened her mouth to speak again, but before she could, Danielle swept into the room. Her eyes darted across the corners of the room, bounced to me, then settled on Ashley.

  A slight frown came to Danielle’s face, but her voice was pleasant when she spoke. Her customer service voice. “There you are, Ashley! Haven’t you finished with the desserts yet? I could really use your help in the kitchen.”

  Apparently, Danielle hadn’t changed her mind about keeping Ashley away from the guests.

  “I was just on my way back,” Ashley said, relief washing over her face.

  “Just a second, Ashley,” Emily said. “Rudeness is one thing, but what happened last night is something else entirely. It’s rude to speak ill of the dead, but I think it’s worse not to hold space for victims to speak whenever we can.”

  Danielle blinked in shock. “Victims?”

  Ashley shook her head. “There’s nothing I need to talk about, Mrs. Jepsen. Honestly.”

  “Emily, please.” There was an icy undertone to her syrupy-sweet voice. “If my late-brother-in-law did anything to make you uncomfortable—”

  “Sweetheart, that’s enough!” Jeremy insisted.

  “No, really. If Hal did something, I want you to know from the bottom of our hearts just how sorry we are.”

  Ashley was quiet for a while. Then her eyes drifted down toward the tray in her hands. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”

  “So something did happen?” Jeremy turned to Ashley with a furrowed brow. “My goodness, I’m… so embarrassed.”

  “It wasn’t a big deal,” Ash said.

  “Nonsense! I’d call a married man with a child almost your age getting handsy quite a big deal,” Emily said. “Was that even all that happened? I’m sure it wasn’t. I heard him puttering around when I went back to our room, and I’m sure he went downstairs. You must have seen him?”

  A look of dread came over Ashley’s face. “I did. But… I wouldn’t call it a friendly conversation.”

  “No, it wouldn’t be under those circumstances, would it?” Emily sliced her fruit again and speared the resulting peach cube with her fork. “Did you tell him to keep his hands to himself? Granted, that didn’t work when you slapped his hand in the library.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the color drain from Danielle’s face.

  Ashley hesitated. “I… told him that if he didn’t, I’d do worse.”

  Emily Jepsen hadn’t had a drop of alcohol that night, but she had the flushed face and sparkling eyes of a woman far too deep into a bottle of wine.

  “Ash, it’s all right.” I passed the tray of dinner dishes to my sister—while trying not to notice the look of utter horror on her face—and took the remaining desserts from Ashley. “Why don’t you go help Danielle in the kitchen? I’ll finish up here.”

  I hadn’t given Ashley or Danielle much choice, but I’d had enough. Something about the way Emily was pushing Ashley didn’t feel right.

  “I’m okay,” Ashley said. “Thanks.”

  I could tell from the slump of her shoulders and the softness of her voice she was anything but. She and Danielle left the room with downcast eyes. As if either of them had done something wrong.

  Emily Jepsen took another bite of her fruit. This time, there was no mistaking the smile that came to her face. It was satisfaction. Maybe she had enjoyed making Ashley relive such an uncomfortable and vulnerable situation. Maybe the power dynamics of the family were shifting, and she was testing out her new position and power within it.

  Whatever Emily had intended, she had just accidentally made it look like my best friend had a reason to hurt Harold Jepsen.

  She might have even had a reason to kill him.

  Chapter Twelve

  Not long after Danielle and Ashley left, Andy came back to the dining room. He was covered in sweat and carrying a lantern for each guest suite.

  “‘Looks like it’s going to be a sticky one tonight, folks,” he said. “I’m sorry, but there isn’t much we can do about it until the storm lets up.”

  “Any idea when that will be?” Jeremy asked. “You folks run a heck of a nice outfit, but I think I speak for my entire family when I say we’d like to get home.”

  “With any luck, it should clear up tomorrow,” Andy said as he led them back into the hall and up to their suites.

  Once all the footsteps had gone upstairs, I went into the kitchen with the last of the dessert bowls. Danielle was at the stainless steel sink with gloves up to her elbows. A stack of clean plates and soup bowls were on the drying rack next to her. She was down to the glassware. An extra plate of tacos and bowl of soup rested on the wooden farmhouse table in the center of the room.

  “Where’s Ash?” I set the ramekins on the tray.

  “She seemed upset so I gave her the rest of the night off.” Danielle tilted her chin toward the plate on the table. “That’s for you. Ashley took hers upstairs, and Andy is waiting in the condo with our plates.”

  I patted her on the shoulder and jerked my thumb toward the door. “Go on, get. I’ll finish up here.”

  Dani shook her head. “Your dinner’s getting cold.”

  “I can nuke it in the microwave.” I folded my arms across my chest. “Meanwhile, when’s the last time you saw that adorable nephew of mine?”

  Danielle wasn’t the only Fisher who could be stubborn. Heck, it was practically a family trait!

  My sister glanced at me over her shoulder, deep gratitude creeping into her eyes. She pulled off her gloves, set them aside, then hugged me. “Don’t forget to have Ash bring her dishes back downstairs.”

  “Sure, Mom,” I teased, kissing her on the cheek.

  As much as I wanted to dive into my dinner, cleaning up would be a lot easier if I weren’t fighting off sleep thanks to a full stomach. Such a carb-heavy meal was sure to put me into a coma. So I slipped on Danielle’s abandoned rubber gloves and started scrubbing.

  It didn’t take long for my mind to wander back to Harold Jepsen. I couldn’t shake the feeling that his death wasn’t an accident or natural causes. The storm hit sometime after we finished cleaning up for the night but before I fell asleep. There hadn’t been anyone else on the ground who we knew of. We would have seen or heard
some evidence of a break in.

  No. Whatever happened to Harold Jepsen… it happened because of someone in the house.

  But who in the family could be that cold? Maybe it wasn’t a matter of warm or cold feelings. Maybe it was just down to necessity and benefit.

  Emily and Jeremy Jepsen certainly benefited from the elder Jepsen brother’s death. With Harold out of the way, Jeremy was in control of the company and de facto leader of the family. Even in their grief, the family seemed happier with Jeremy as their patriarch.

  To say Emily was delighted to be the new matriarch was an understatement. The second she mentioned her pregnancy, it was like something had shifted. Every word from her perfectly glossed lips had a dagger edge, no matter how sweetly she presented it.

  I’d done portrait sessions for a few women like that in Seattle. They invariably arrived ten minutes late and insisted I add the extra time to the end of the sitting to compensate. If I balked, the nice ones “forgot” to credit me when they used my work. The mean girls trashed my name to the ends of the Earth and back on internet review sites.

  Catherine Jepsen, on the other hand, seemed determined to brand herself as the modern American version of the English Rose. Well-mannered, gracious, composed, and perfectly attired at all times. Even in the first twenty-four hours of her widowhood.

  And she certainly benefited from her husband’s untimely passing. If her brother-in-law’s guess was right, it was the only thing that could release her from both her marriage and her prenuptial agreement. Something told me a man who couldn’t stand to see her a little too toasted while on vacation would have fought her to the bitter end in court.

  Then again, with two daughters still under eighteen, it seemed unbelievable to me that a judge wouldn’t have given her something decent to live on.

  I couldn’t bring myself to consider the girls.

  Which left Kenneth. There didn’t seem to be much benefit for him in it.

  They weren’t the only people in the house, and you know it.

  I sighed and plopped the last ramekin upside-down in the drying rack. There were at least three more people in the house the night Harold Jepsen died. Danielle and Andy had nothing to gain and everything to lose from a second body turning up at their place of business.

  I couldn’t account for Granny’s whereabouts, but she wouldn’t have done anything worse to Harold Jepsen than pour hot grits over his head and dump raw shrimp down his shorts for being an insufferable jerk to every woman around him.

  But Ashley… By her own admission, she had been in the house all night—a violation of the operating procedures in and of itself. If she weren’t my friend and we weren’t stuck in a storm with a full hotel, Danielle might have fired her on the spot. There was too much liability in us staying in the hotel after hours. If a guest lost something, their mind would go right to us, even if they’d simply misplaced it.

  Now there was a new precedent for the staff not to linger in the hotel after dark. Something ugly happened between her and Harold Jepsen that night. Maybe she lost control, just for a second.

  No. She would have come back to the garden cottage if she really didn’t feel safe. And if anything serious happened, there’s no way she wouldn’t have told me.

  Even in my head, the words didn’t seem unconvincing. People didn’t always share their hurts so easily. Not even with their friends.

  But could Ashley end someone’s life? How would she even—

  The wound on Harold Jepsen’s head flashed in my memory. There was a bloody washcloth in the en suite bathroom, but I hadn’t seen anything that could have made that wound.

  It must have come from somewhere…

  We’d been so busy cleaning up after the storm and taking care of the executive suite that we hadn’t done our usual morning chores.

  I cast a glance over my shoulder at my stone-cold dinner. What difference would a few more minutes make? I grabbed one of the flashlights from the utility closet. It was late, but without going upstairs to check, I couldn’t be sure the Jepsens and Kenneth had gone to bed. Given the early hour and still raging winds, it seemed unlikely. So I moved around the ground floor as quietly as I could, sweeping for any sign of blood or disorder.

  Aside from a few misplaced cushions in the parlor courtesy of the younger Jepsen sisters, not a single thing was out of place. Considering we found Harold Jepsen upstairs in his room, that wasn’t exactly a surprise, but I needed to check everywhere.

  Next came the staircase. Could Harold have fallen at some point in the night, dragged himself back upstairs, and collapsed from a concussion?

  There was no sign of blood on the stairs, the banister, or the walls around them. The vase of flowers on the side table in the hall and one of the paintings were a bit askew. I frowned. That was the sort of thing that drove Danielle crazy. That it had gone all day unfixed was proof of how preoccupied she was with the crisis unfolding around us.

  Halfway down the hall, right between the suite that belonged to Jeremy and Emily Jepsen and the one that belonged to Kenneth, I found what I was looking for. A dark reddish-brown splotch near the baseboard. Blood.

  Crap! I left my phone and the camera in the office.

  As I turned around to go grab it, the door to Kenneth’s suite swung open. I was still trying to think of a quick lie to tell him when I froze, surprised by who I saw stepping out of his room.

  Instead of Kenneth, Tabitha Jepsen stepped out of his room and closed the door behind herself.

  Chapter Thirteen

  My mind started to work overtime to come up with a reason I was up on the second floor, lurking outside the guest rooms. The office, which was my bedroom for the night, was downstairs and on the other side of the house.

  Just stay calm. Act natural.

  For a second, Tabitha didn’t seem to realize I was there.

  Her brown curls hung loose around her face, obscuring her peripheral vision. A clap of thunder rang out over our heads, making her shoulders tense and jump. It was then she seemed to notice that the hallway wasn’t as dark as it should be.

  Tabitha turned to search for the source of the light, found me, and froze. Her eyes widened and filled with tears.

  “Please… don’t tell my Mom,” she whispered.

  All the anxiety I felt had leapt out of my body and into Tabitha Jepsen’s.

  The tears gave way to sobs that shook her body so violently it looked like she was shivering. This wasn’t the normal reaction of a good girl caught sneaking out of a boy’s room. She seemed terrified.

  “Hey, shh. Is everything okay?” Without thinking, I glanced at Kenneth’s door. Had he done something to her?

  Tabitha followed my gaze and grabbed my hand. When I turned back to her, she was shaking her head.

  “Kenny didn’t… He didn’t…” She tried to push the words out, but couldn’t catch her breath between sobs.

  Now I was even more confused. If Kenneth hadn’t hurt her, why was she so panicked?

  It didn’t matter. I couldn’t leave a young guest in the dark by themselves in the middle of a storm. Much less one as scared as Tabitha.

  “Come on.” I held onto Tabitha’s hand and led her back to the staircase and downstairs. The poor girl sniffled the whole way there.

  “Where… are we… going?” she asked between sobs.

  “Somewhere quiet where you can calm down.”

  “I… fine.”

  Mmhmm.

  I took Tabitha to the kitchen, set my flash light down on the table, and was pulling a chair out for her when Granny wandered in from the back porch.

  Granny looked at Tabitha and waddled over to the cupboard. “I know that look. Cozy blend, in a big mug.” She pulled three such mugs out and set them down on the counter before skittering back to the porch.

  The confusion on Tabitha’s face was obvious when she looked at me.

  “My grandmother’s deepest conviction is there are few problems in the world that can’t be solved with the r
ight mix of tea or spirits,” I said. “If you were over twenty-one, she’d be adding a shot of honey whiskey.”

  “I wouldn’t object anyway,” Tabitha said, wiping the tracks of tears away with the heels of her hands.

  Granny came back clutching her camping stove in one hand and a metal kettle in the other. She set the stove on the table between Tabitha and I and turned on the burner.

  “If you were kin, I’d let it slip,” Granny said. “But seeing as your guardians are paying customers, tea’ll have to do. I just happen to have brought the perfect blend with me.”

  Tabitha managed a weak smile, but it disappeared at the next clap overhead. “That thunder’s awful! I don’t see how anybody’s sleeping through it. That’s why I…”

  “Went to Kenneth’s room?” I asked.

  Tabitha nodded. Her eyes drifted down toward the table. “Yeah… Please don’t tell anyone. I know it’s weird to ask.”

  Granny and I exchanged a look. I didn’t know for sure what she was thinking, but by the way her lips were pursed, I didn’t think she was inclined to grant Tabitha’s request.

  To be honest, I wasn’t either. Tabitha Jepsen was an adult, almost old enough to drink. And I sure wasn’t about to judge a grown woman for how she had fun on vacation. But Tabby didn’t look like a carefree vacationer who’d been caught letting her hair down with Daddy’s right-hand man.

  She looked like a scared little girl.

  I couldn’t agree to keep her secret until I knew holding it wouldn’t do her harm.

  “That strapping young man who’s travelling with you?” Granny asked. “Are you two not getting along?”

  “We get along really well,” Tabitha said. “Actually, we get along great.”

  “If he’s being a gentleman, I don’t see what the harm is,” Granny said. “Your aunt certainly would support you even if your mom disapproves.”

  Tabitha rolled her eyes. “Some aunt. My father’s barely cold, not even in the ground, and she’s throwing him under busses like it’s no big deal. It’s all heirs and graces with her. Oh, God! I sound like my mom!”