by Kathi Daley
“I can understand that,” Georgia said.
I turned to Gaylord. “Did you get all the information you hoped for during your trip north?”
“That and more,” he answered.
“I understand you are writing a book,” said Keith Goodman, the guest who had checked into unit one with his wife.
The next twenty minutes were spent listening to Gaylord share detailed insights into the novel he was working on. I’d heard his spiel before, so my mind tended to drift, but everyone else at the table seemed to be engaged in the conversation. I wondered if Colt had made it to his parents’ house by now. I supposed if he’d gotten out of town when he hoped, he might have. I realized I was really going to miss him, which was something I wasn’t expecting. Sure, he was a friend, and it wasn’t all that odd to miss a friend when he was away, but the estate would be filled to the brim with friends tomorrow, so it wasn’t as if I was going to be alone.
“So, what do you think?” Georgia asked me.
I furrowed my brow. “I’m sorry. I guess my attention has wandered a bit. What do I think about what?”
“Barbara and I were discussing the idea of asking Hannah if she would be willing to come here for a private concert of sorts. You do have a piano in the main seating area. We could invite Hannah and her family for dinner on Sunday, and then she could play a few numbers for us afterward.”
“I like that idea if she is willing.”
“I’ll speak to Adam,” David offered. “If I know Hannah, and I do, I think she will be tickled pink to have a chance to perform for this small group.”
A short time later, the group broke up, and Georgia, Jeremy, and I began clearing the table.
“Your meal was delicious,” I said to him.
“I’m so glad you enjoyed it.”
“Your references and background have checked out, so I would like to officially offer you the job we spoke about.”
Annabelle jumped up and down, clapping her hands. I could see that she at least approved of the idea.
“I’d like that very much,” Jeremy said, hugging Annabelle as soon as she’d settled down a bit.
“The basement apartment won’t be ready for at least a month, possibly longer because we want to work around our guest and event schedule, but you’ve already booked your room for another week and a half, and Tanner Peyton has offered you the use of one of his cottages if you’d like to start work before it’s been completed.”
“Annabelle and I will need to go back to my sister’s to pack up the things we want to bring with us. That should take us a week or so. I’ll call my sister later and let her know exactly what we’ll be doing. I need to think things over, but I’ll probably just stay for the remainder of my reservation and then drive home to pack. We can work out an official start date from there.”
“Sounds good.”
“In the meantime, I’d like to help out,” Jeremy offered. “You don’t need to pay me until I officially start, but I’d like to work with Georgia and begin learning the details of what my job will entail. I’ll also need to visit the school Annabelle will be attending and get her registered. There is a lot to do.”
I had to smile at his enthusiasm. The job wasn’t all that grand, but Jeremy and Annabelle both seemed as happy as if they’d won the lottery. I had a feeling that Georgia and Jeremy were going to get along just fine and, as Colt had suggested, Annabelle would soon be looking at Georgia as some sort of surrogate mother, if she wasn’t already. It seemed as if my little family kept growing and growing.
Chapter 10
I woke to a dark room. Turning slightly, I looked at the bedside clock. Ugh: 2:12 a.m. I hated it when I woke up in the middle of the night because I rarely could get back to sleep. Burrowing down beneath the covers, I closed my eyes and tried to return to the dreamland I’d been enjoying minutes earlier. I soon gave up and tossed the blankets to one side. The first thing I noticed was that the room was cold. Colder than it ought to be. The next thing was that while Molly was sleeping soundly near my feet, Rufus was missing from the pillow beside my head.
“Rufus?”
I waited and listened but didn’t hear a response.
“Where are you?” I asked into the darkness.
When I still didn’t get a response, I sat up. I pulled my legs toward the side of the bed and adjusted my position. “Are you in here?” I called again.
Still no response.
I turned on the bedside lamp, stood up, and pulled on my robe. There was a definite chill in the air. I checked the window, which was closed tightly. “Rufus? Where are you, buddy?”
I glanced at the bedroom door. It was still closed. Rufus had been sleeping on my extra pillow when I’d gone to sleep, and the door was closed then, so logic would dictate that he would be here in the bedroom somewhere. I got down on my knees and looked under the bed. Molly lifted her head, thumped her tail, but didn’t move. I got up and walked to the room’s large walk-in closet. “Rufus?” I said, moving my clothes to one side. If he wasn’t under the bed or in the closet, the only other place he could be was in the attached bath, so I went in that direction. “Here, kitty. Where are you?”
I looked behind the door, in the shower, and behind the toilet. Still no cat. I stood for a moment pondering the possibilities and eventually headed to the bedroom door. Perhaps Georgia had opened the door for some reason and Rufus had scooted out. I couldn’t imagine why Georgia would open my door, but maybe she’d heard a noise or I was snoring, and she wanted to make certain I wasn’t being attacked by a bear. I didn’t think I snored, but Ben had mentioned it a time or two, so I supposed it was possible.
I stepped into the common area. “Rufus,” I called softly so as not to wake Georgia. When he didn’t answer, I walked into the kitchen. The cottage wasn’t that large, and there weren’t many places to hide, but I did my due diligence and looked behind the sofa as well as behind the chairs that framed the fireplace. When I still couldn’t find him, I’d all but decided to call in the cavalry. I returned to my bedroom for my slippers because my feet were freezing and there he was, lying all sweet and innocent on my pillow.
“Where have you been?” I went to the bed, picked him up, and cuddled him to my chest.
“Meow.”
“No, you have not been here all along, so don’t try to convince me of it. Unless I was sleepwalking…” I paused. Had I been sleepwalking? As far as I knew, I’d never done it in the past, but in a way, that made more sense than the alternative explanation, which was that Rufus had disappeared only to reappear from out of nowhere. Shrugging, I put Rufus down, closed the bedroom door, rechecked the window, and crawled under the covers. I had no idea where my silly cat had gone off to, but he was back, it was late, and I was tired. In the end, I supposed it didn’t really matter. I felt a draft on my face just as I drifted off to sleep. Was someone breathing on me?
Chapter 11
When I told Georgia the story of the missing cat the next morning, she laughed and suggested that I’d dreamed the whole thing. Maybe she was right. It certainly didn’t make sense that Rufus could be gone one minute and back the next when the cottage had been closed up tight. Once he curled up next to Molly and me, we had all gone back to sleep, which was a good thing except for the fact that I overslept and had to scramble to get everything ready for Harvest on the Lawn, which was to begin at noon.
Thankfully, the weather had cooperated, and we’d been presented with a perfect fall day: clear blue skies, not too hot yet not too cold, and a slight breeze ruffled the colorful fall leaves, occasionally sending some flying through the air. The bright orange pumpkins we’d arranged in the patch on the lawn provided a colorful contrast. Georgia had erected interestingly dressed scarecrows to provide additional authenticity, and the hay bales that served as dividers and backdrops added the perfect amount of country appeal to our holiday display.
The band was set up in the gazebo, and the face painter, who’d woken up feeling fine, had her booth no
t far away. There were tables for pumpkin carving, eating, and just sitting and catching up with neighbors. Georgia and Nikki, with Jeremy’s help, had the barbecue area covered. Lacy volunteered to keep the cider jugs filled, and Dixie and Holly both joined in to help her. The folks selling crafts were positioned in the drive and didn’t seem to need help or supervision, which was nice. All in all, the day was starting out exactly as Georgia and I had envisioned it on the snowy afternoon when we’d first begun to make our plans.
“Did you want this hot spiced wine on the table with the cider or the table with the beer?” Nikki asked.
“You’d better put it with the beer,” I answered. “I’d hate for one of the kids to drink it by accident. Lonnie told me that the band would be ready at about three and would play for an hour, then take a break. The food seems to be disappearing at a much faster rate than I anticipated, so I think I’m going to have Georgia send him to the store for more ribs and chicken while he is waiting for the rest of the band to show up. If you could check to see what else we might need, that would be great.”
“I’m on it. Maybe we should get more dessert type items as well. The caramel apple vendor has just about sold out, and the guy selling pumpkin ice cream has been fielding a crowd since before we opened.”
I paused and looked out over the sea of people. Perhaps Georgia had done too good a job advertising. Of course, if we could survive the day, we, along with the local craftspeople and food vendors, stood to have a profitable day.
After I sent Nikki off on her errands, I headed toward the kitchen, where I found Georgia, Jeremy, and a woman I didn’t know busily making what looked to be apple fritters.
“Oh good, you’re here,” Georgia said when I walked in. She nodded to the woman standing next to her, elbow deep in flour. “This is Faith Danson.”
I smiled at her but must have looked confused because Georgia elaborated. “Faith is David’s daughter-in-law. Hannah’s mother.”
My eyes widened. “Oh, Hannah’s mother. Now I remember. You own a bakeshop.”
Faith nodded, wiping flour from her cheek with her forearm. “That’s right. And you must be the owner of this lovely inn. Georgia has told me so much about you.”
“I’m very happy to meet you. Georgia says you are an even better baker than she is, so you must be phenomenal.”
Faith smiled. “Thank you for the compliment, but I believe Georgia was being modest.”
I didn’t doubt that for a moment.
“Faith showed up with Hannah and her husband, Adam, but when she saw that I was desperately trying to keep up with demand, she volunteered to pitch in and help,” Georgia explained.
“Wow. That is so nice of you.”
The woman shrugged. “Happy to help. That’s what neighbors do.”
“I mentioned to Faith that we’d like to have her family come to dinner on tomorrow night and we hoped that Hannah would want to play a few songs for our guests,” Georgia said as she added chopped apples to the filling she’d been mixing.
“Hannah would really love that,” Faith said. “Thank you so much for inviting us.”
“It sounds like we should be thanking Hannah. According to what we heard from her proud grandfather, it sounds as if Hannah is an amazing musician.”
“She is pretty spectacular,” Faith said with pride.
“I can’t wait to hear her play. You can work out the details with Georgia. And anything you and your family want or need today is on us,” I offered. “Food, pumpkins, face paint, you name it. Your help in the kitchen is appreciated more than you’ll ever know.”
I chatted with Georgia and Faith for a while longer and then went back outdoors. Annabelle was playing with Lonnie and Lacy’s older five. She was such a sweet little thing. I was sure both she and her handsome uncle were going to charm the socks off our guests.
“Good turn out,” Velma said as she walked up behind me.
“Too good. We thought we had a handle on things, but I’m sure we are going to run out of food by the halfway point.”
“I spoke to Lonnie as he was leaving with Tanner on a grocery run. I’m heading into the kitchen myself to help Georgia, but I saw you standing here and wanted to tell you about Sam.”
“Sam? Sam Trotter?”
Velma nodded. “He is open for a half day on Saturdays, so after I spoke to Georgia about the mob that had descended on this place, I stopped by his store to see what sort of meat he had left that might be useful to fill in some of the shortages. When I arrived, there was a note on the door that said the shop would be closed until further notice. I called Sam at his home, but he didn’t answer. Then I called the woman who lives next door to him to ask if she knew what was going on. She saw Sam loading suitcases into the trunk of his car in the middle of the night last night when she got up for a drink of water.”
“Maybe he’d planned to take a trip,” I suggested.
“My friend said no. She’d spoken to him when he got home from work on Friday, and he never said a thing about going away. It was her opinion his departure must have had something to do with a personal emergency of some sort.”
“I suppose it might have been.”
“It might have been, but I also spoke to Colt on Friday when he came in for lunch, and he mentioned that Sam was on his suspect list. I think the timing of this is very odd. I would have mentioned it to Colt, but I know he is visiting his parents, so I thought I’d pass the information along to you. I know you and Colt are sort of working together on the Wesley Hamilton case. You were, after all, the one who figured out where his body was.”
“I wouldn’t go so far as to say that we are working together, but he has shared his thoughts about the case with me. I’ll make sure he gets this information.”
“Thanks, doll.” Velma looked toward the house. “I’ll go see what I can do to help out that roommate of yours.” She took a few steps and then looked back. “You know, if Charlee shows, you might want to have a chat with her about Wesley and his relationship with a man named Ashton Fitzgerald.”
Charlee Weaver had lived in Holiday Bay for a long time. She was retired now, but she’d been a teacher at the high school for many years. “Charlee knows something about Ashton Fitzgerald? Something relevant to Wesley’s murder?”
“I can’t say for certain, but I think she might.”
Velma walked toward the kitchen, and I headed for the pumpkin patch. When I first saw how many pumpkins Georgia had ordered, I’d been sure we’d have tons of left over. I thought wrong. From the rate at which the pumpkins were being picked out and sold, I figured we’d be completely out by the time the dinner crowd arrived. I hoped that our being short on certain items wouldn’t result in some of our guests having a less than fantastic experience. Georgia and I had discussed the fact that these events would have a learning curve. I now knew that our inventory for the next event would need to be doubled, but I supposed that was a good thing. Rather than stressing over this week’s shortages, I was going to choose to be grateful.
I wanted photos from today’s event to use in future marketing campaigns, so I went back to the cottage to grab Georgia’s camera. The last time I’d seen it, she’d left it sitting on the kitchen counter, and I was sure she wouldn’t mind if I used it. The two of us had taken photos of downtown Holiday Bay shortly after the shopkeepers had put up their decorations. We’d waited until just after sunset so we could capture the magic of the orange and white twinkle lights in every tree and around almost every window and door. I picked up the camera and turned it on, and an image of the last photo taken was displayed on the screen.
I frowned as I studied the photo of Hannigan’s Homegoods. They’d really outdone themselves with their window display, and Georgia had snapped several shots. What I hadn’t noticed when we’d taken the photos was that next to Hannigan’s was an empty lot where Francisco’s Pizza used to be. It was torn down after a kitchen fire had spread through the entire building. On the other side of it was the bank parkin
g lot. According to the time and date stamps, Georgia had taken the photos of Hannigan’s at six p.m. on the day that Wesley had disappeared.
Hitting the Display All button, I scrolled back. It was the third photo that Georgia had taken in which a dark blue sedan first showed up on the street that ran along the rear of the bank’s lot. Both Colt and Martha had said that someone had seen Wesley speaking to someone in a dark-colored sedan just minutes before he must have disappeared. Shivering slightly as a chill crept up my spine, I grabbed my laptop and downloaded all the photos we’d taken that day. The sedan was clearly visible in three of them and someone—I assumed Wesley—was leaning inside the driver’s side window, no doubt chatting with whoever was inside. I enlarged those photos as soon as they were downloaded. I couldn’t see the car’s entire license plate, but I could see the first letter—a W—and the last two numbers—10. Most license plates had six or perhaps seven digits, which meant there were three or four numbers or letters between the W and the 10. I’d sworn I wasn’t going to bother Colt while he was visiting his family, yet that was exactly what I found myself doing.
Chapter 12
Colt was fishing with his father and uncle when I called, but he promised to look in to the plate when he got back to the house. He asked me to text him the numbers and letter I had, and he would forward it to someone who could use that information to try to extrapolate all possible combinations. From there, we would need to use the data we had available to us to narrow it down. It sounded like the process might take a lot longer than I would have liked. As soon as I hung up with Colt, I headed back outdoors to take my photos, which was where I ran into Charlee. Following up on Velma’s suggestion that I speak to her about Wesley and Ashton, I suggested that we grab a drink and find a secluded spot to talk.
