“There are no drugs going through my hotel.”
Well, that denial sounded authentic. Too authentic. This was about to get awkward.
“We have proof that Bryan was a drug dealer, and the rumors were that he was using your hotel as a base of operations to get drugs to your customers,” Brecken said quietly.
The businesswoman persona was gone, and she was back to the woman I knew. Her face scrunched up in confusion as she processed the words.
“I know that we have a dealer, and that they would occasionally meet our customers’ less traditional needs, but never at the hotel. Never. There’s no way it would happen underneath my nose.”
Brecken handed her his phone, and she studied the photo of Bryan and the night manager for a second, then handed it back while her jaw worked back and forth.
“That traitorous bitch. I can’t believe she would be that stupid.” Dee’s voice shook with anger. “Her name is Gina Spitz. She is the night manager at the hotel. She has worked there for the last six months after she had… conflicts with one of my son’s managers about the meaning of the word ‘no.’ This was supposed to be her clean start away from all the drama.” She looked away for a second before turning back to us. “The manager was fired, and we offered to help her press criminal charges, but she kept saying we owed her money for her pain, not jail time for the aggressor. She threatened to sue. We pointed out that she didn’t have a case, but it seemed easier to help her get a new start in a new business. I guess that didn’t work out so well for me.”
“So, she has a personal grudge against you and your family?”
“Yes.” She looked at the photo again and shook her head. “The poor thing needs to have better taste in men. If Bryan was your dealer, then he was playing a few girls. Most notably his boss.”
Hold up. Laura?
“He was sleeping with Laura? And cheated on her? Again?” I exclaimed. Wow. Some women really did have horrible taste in men. Maybe matchmakers weren’t such a bad idea after all.
“What’s this about Laura?” Alice asked as she came up behind Dee.
“The man that was murdered. He was sleeping with Laura and my night manager,” Dee told her. Sally Mae followed on Alice’s heels.
“Wasn’t he sleeping with that redhead we saw him with at the beach that one day?” Sally Mae asked Judy, who looked surprised.
“That was Bryan? I didn’t recognize him,” Judy added before turning to Brecken and continuing. “We were out bird-watching when we stumbled upon them… well, let’s just say they were doing things that shouldn’t be done on public beaches. But I didn’t get a good look at his face.”
“I wasn't looking at his face,” Sally Mae commented. When we all turned to look at her with sagging jaws, she realized what we thought she meant and clarified. “His leg! I was looking at his leg. And that Marine Corps. tattoo he had. It was definitely Bryan’s.”
I was stunned. I had slept with fewer men in my entire life than the women Bryan had been sleeping with right before his murder. So much for our earlier logic. I was willing to bet that the killer was a woman. I also imagined she could plead a pretty sympathetic case. All the women would vote for her to get off due to insanity.
“So, he was sleeping with three women at the time of his murder,” Brecken summarized.
“Four,” I murmured absently. “You’re forgetting Becky.”
“I’m starting to see why he was murdered,” Dee commented. Alice, Judy, and Sally Mae all nodded in agreement. I turned to Brecken.
“But which one did it?” I asked.
“Or group,” Judy added.
“Or group,” I corrected.
“Becky was at the Pub,” Dee offered. “I was there meeting one of my gentleman callers Sunday night.”
“Do we even have a time of death?” I asked Brecken, realizing I didn’t know when he was killed.
“Yes. It was—nope! I’m not telling you information about the case.” He glared at me over his almost mistake then went back to thinking.
“Okay then.” They would have needed to know my location at the time of the murder. I thought back to my schedule that day. Since they hadn’t questioned me further, I must have had a verifiable alibi. “He was killed in the morning or around mid-day.”
“How did you—?” Brecken’s face turned pink as his lips pressed together.
“Logic, my dear Watson.” I couldn’t hold back my smirk.
“Then poor Becky isn’t off the hook,” Dorothy added, “but Gina is.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Gina was at church. She’s a very religious girl; she never misses.” Ironic.
“And then there were three.” Sally Mae rubbed her hands together.
I didn’t blame her. This was fun. In a sort of sick way.
“Was Laura at her shop that morning?” I asked.
“Yes. But so was Bryan,” Alice cut in. “I saw them both before church around 9 a.m.” I looked at Brecken. He would know the timeline.
“They both got off at 11 a.m. It didn’t seem suspicious at the time,” he conceded.
I snorted. “It does now. Do you know where they went?” I asked, and his eyes flashed at me. “Come on. Tell me more. I know you don’t like to tell civilians, but we’ve discovered more in ten minutes here than you have in your whole investigation. Start telling me everything and maybe I can go home sometime soon! I don’t want my house to be a crime scene anymore.”
“Laura went home. Bryan went to go hiking,” Brecken grunted.
“Well, that’s a lie,” Gran offered as she came up behind me.
“How do you know?”
“Because no one goes hiking on Sunday. The parks are closed. That, and I saw him pulling into his house before noon.”
“How do you know which house is his?” he asked.
“Please!” Alice said with a sniff. “He had a huge house and no reasonable way to pay for it. We’ve been keeping an eye on him.”
Brecken’s hand went to his forehead again, and he rubbed the same spot in the center. “Did you ladies tell John or Benny about your suspicions?”
“No. Why would we? We didn’t have anything concrete. So, we watched,” Alice replied.
He rubbed harder.
“If your husbands ask, I didn’t just learn that.” They both nodded like his response made sense. That their husbands would care about Brecken knowing that they were watching… Ahh. They were doing something stupid and their husbands would be upset about it.
Blake had never cared what I did. He still didn’t. Maybe that should have been the first clue that the relationship wasn’t meant to be. Or that he wasn’t really in love with me.
“Were there any other cars parked at his house?” Brecken asked Gran.
“A red mustang.”
Well. I smiled at Brecken. We had ourselves a winner.
“But how did they cut up the body?” I asked, my shoulders drooping again. “There’s no way that they would be able to cut up the body at his house. Do we think they left to go somewhere after meeting?”
“They?” Brecken questioned.
“Redhead and Bryan, of course. Oh, you mean the first ‘they.’ Please. The redhead is like, five-foot-nothing. I can believe that she killed him, but moving the body? And cutting it up? That would be near impossible for her to do without attracting attention. She must have gotten help.”
“Not if they did it during church. Everyone was there. Except for you, Laura, Bryan, and Becky,” Gran said.
“Was that unusual?” Brecken asked Gran.
“No. Lark, Laura, and Bryan all work Sundays. Becky doesn’t go because she isn’t religious, so she stays late closing out The Pub so the other people can go.”
“That’s so sweet! She’s such a sweet girl,” Alice commented to Judy.
“It is. We need to find that girl a man. Someone better than Bryan. No offense, Detective,” Judy responded.
I kept forgetting that Bryan was his cousin.
I was glad I didn’t refer to Bryan as a man-whore out loud.
“None taken. Once you sleep with multiple women at the same time, you do lose your ‘good boy’ title.”
“Which was already tarnished,” I commented. They all looked at me before Sally Mae caught on, which wasn’t surprising; she was a teacher until she retired a few years ago.
“That’s right! He had cheated on Laura once before. In high school.” Sally Mae shook her head in disgust. “Wow. She had to have been livid.”
“But did she know?” Brecken asked, pulling out his phone.
“She’s one of the few people in town that follows all of Lindsey’s blogs. She pays for advertising and she wants to make sure she gets the most out of it,” Judy replied.
“So, she saw the picture,” Brecken commented.
“And knows our redhead girl,” I added.
“And has a motive. Revenge,” Alice suggested.
“No alibi.” Sally Mae smiled. We were on the right track.
“The ability to cut up a body and dispose of it and then clean it up later.” We all turned to Gran in surprise. “I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me before. Her father was an avid hunter, but he was one of those ‘if you kill it you eat it’ people. Since we don’t have a butcher in this town, he would butcher his own meat. He got pretty good at it after a while. His equipment is still at his house. Laura never cleaned it out after he died.” We all gaped at her.
She had just been sitting on this information?
“Gran?”
“Yes, darling?”
“You didn’t think that would be valuable information to tell the police when BODY PARTS STARTED SHOWING UP?” I cried.
“Lark, dear. You shouldn’t yell like that. It’s unbecoming. I swear, Brecken, she’s usually such a cool cucumber. This behavior is just because of the body parts. She has a delicate constitution.”
I loved my grandmother. I loved my grandmother—
“This yelling has to be the coffee talking. Lark, you should really switch to tea,” Gran added.
It was on, old woman.
Brecken caught me as I lunged to pull on her hair. One little tug in the right place and it would come down. Yes, it was petty revenge for not telling us that there was a location in town that was basically abandoned and available to cut up a body. But imperfect hair? At the Sewing Circle? Her world would end. For her part, she just smiled at me and tsked.
“Nice reflexes, Brecken. I have always appreciated a man with good reflexes.”
She was certifiably crazy.
“Hello? Is anybody here?” My aunt came walking in the door, actually carrying fabric, unlike everyone else. Nice to know someone tried to at least sew something. “What’s this?” She dropped her fabric as her hand flew to her mouth when she took us in. “Oh, Lark! I knew it. I just knew it! From the moment you brought him home, I knew he was The One.”
I looked around. We were all gathered in the entryway, me in Brecken’s arms, which were still wrapped around my waist from holding me back. I hadn’t even noticed that they were still around me. They just felt too good. Too natural. Like we fit together. Uh oh, spaghetti-o. I squirmed until he let go, and then I walked as far as I could get before addressing her.
“It isn’t what it looks like.”
“Oh, Lark. So proud. It’s okay to like a man. So, you are divorced. And your ex cheated on you multiple times. And you have a daughter. Some men like that.”
Oh. My. God.
“Brecken? Can you drive me home?”
“You think that’s a good idea?” he asked.
“I think if I stay here, I might kill one of them.”
“Don’t say things like that to the police. Just think them very, very hard.”
“Noted.”
Chapter 15
I ended up driving Brecken’s car home so he could text and let John and the team know about our new lead. Since I wanted to have my life back before my child forgot who I was, I was happy to drive. I pulled into my driveway before realizing I didn’t know if it was okay to stay here.
“What’s the plan, Stan?” I asked as I stared at my house. It was weird. Despite the body parts and the craziness of the last few days, this was still home. Which was strange, to be honest. I would have thought after the first body part I would have been out. But I wasn't. This cottage, this town, as much as they frustrated me, were home.
And… it had a light on.
Could I have left a light on? No, I hadn’t even been in the living room long enough to turn on a light. Did the police? Was that a MOVING SHADOW? I hoped I was just paranoid.
“Brecken,” I hissed. He was still staring down at his phone, typing furiously and trying to coordinate whatever. “Brecken! Someone’s here.”
“No, those are just the cops watching your house. We have one set of them two houses down from what I saw when we drove up. The rest of the cars are ones that were here earlier.” I watched as he checked in the rearview mirror to confirm, but he didn’t look at the house. That was supposed to be secure. Because people were watching it. I blew out a long breath. I had to be imagining things. Maybe the stress of the situation was getting to me.
Nope.
No, I was pretty sure there was movement.
“You sure that no one is in the house? Because I am pretty sure I didn’t leave a light on.”
That got him. He looked up and homed in on the light in my living room.
“You’re sure that you didn’t leave any lights on?”
“Yep. I turned them all off when we left. And the only light I had turned on before we left was the kitchen. Could someone on your team have left a light on?” We caught the shadow again, passing the window as we watched. I turned to Brecken and lifted my eyebrows.
“Okay. You’re right. Someone’s in there.”
“No kidding, Sherlock.”
“After this is done, we’re talking about your Sherlock obsession.”
“Please. These days everyone is obsessed with Sherlock. Deal with it.”
“Okay. Here’s what’s going to happen. You are going somewhere safe. Maybe your grandmother’s? I already called in back-up. Take this car and go.”
“Okay. Is there any risk to the house I am going to?” I was watching him carefully and saw his hesitation. Yeah. Not going to Gran’s house.
“I wouldn’t go anywhere that’s normal. Just in case.” So not Jen’s. And not Gran’s, either. The barn. I could go to the barn. The barn apartment would work. No one was at the barn.
“I’m going to my barn. Call me when the house is safe?” He nodded. He got out just as John approached quietly in his own car. Jogging back, Brecken got into John’s vehicle and it went back to being silent. Oh. They were waiting for me. I pulled out and made my way to the barn, stressing about how much damage my house could endure. I prayed there would be no bullet holes. Or damaged furniture. Or damaged pictures. Oh god. There were so many ways this could go wrong.
I pulled into the barn parking lot, driving back to the living quarters area. Shifting the car into park, I grabbed my purse and paused mid-lean. Dagnabit. The barn doors were open. Snickerdoodles. Billy always closed them after the night feeding. Always. I bet one of the boarders left them open. Putting my purse back down, I grabbed my phone to use the flashlight and noticed a text from Jen.
Jen: I heard you went on a date with the hot detective. I didn’t know there was a hot detective. We need to talk about your sharing skills.
Me: Sorry. I have been…
Oh lord. I didn’t know what I had ‘been.’ Trying to ignore him? Pretending he wasn’t making me wake up and notice that he was attractive? How his sense of humor stirred things in me I thought were dead after my divorce? Trying to ignore how his hands sent sparks through my body, or how his lips tempted me to ignore my caution? Was it even caution? Or were they right? Was it...fear?
Delete. Delete.
Me: Sorry. Telling you would have made it real. My feelings. Eve
rything. And I wasn’t ready.
Send.
Jen: Fine. You are forgiven. But we are going to talk.
Me: Fine. Tomorrow morning.
Clicking on the flashlight, I got out of the car and headed over to the barn, grabbing one door before I heard Twice. She was snorting and kicking the wall. I hesitated, listening for another kick. And then another. Was she kidding me? If she injured herself kicking the wall, I was going to kill her. Or if she ruined my barn. Stupid bratty mare.
I stomped in two steps before I saw a shadow dodging towards my tack room. I froze. Fudge balls. Again? I had to be setting a record.
“Hello?” I called out before I thought about it. Stupid. Now they knew I was there. Why did we always yell ‘hello’? If they were here innocently, they wouldn’t be slinking in the shadows.
In fact, why was I here? I should have called the cops. I should have gone somewhere safe. That was the smartest way to go. Twice kicked the door again with a snort. Shoot. Stupid mare. Stupid trainer. In the middle of a break-in, who actually debated saving a mare from injuring herself because the mare was too irritable to deal with strangers? Chestnut mares. Never, never again. Twice kicked even harder. Darn it. I had to save the brat from herself. This was the worst decision in a long list of bad decisions.
I inched along the barn until I got to the lights and flicked them on. Nothing. This was stupid. So stupid. I was setting the record for stupid. I—
A noise from the tack room caught my attention and made it past my fear.
My saddles! Fudge buckets. Those saddles cost a fortune. Someone was trying to steal my saddles!
I charged towards the tack room, hesitating to glance at Twice before continuing. Other than upset, she looked fine.
“I have a … gun! I have a gun! Come out of there now!” Wow. I needed more practice at bluffing.
“Lark Davis doesn’t have a gun. Unassuming, sweet, accomplished, pretty Lark Davis would never have anything so brazen.”
Laura? What the hell?
Leg Up Page 15
