Whatever it turned out to be, it was sure to be delicious, and with that thought, Clara took a bite. “Oh! It’s root beer!”
“Odd choice, I know,” Evelyn grinned again, “but I happened to grab a root beer barrel out of the candy dish at the bank the other day, and inspiration struck.”
Clara handed the other half of the creation to Mag, who took a closed-eyed nip and hummed with appreciation. “You have a gift, my dear. Passed down through the generations, it seems.”
Evelyn beamed, “Thank you! Enjoy, and I’ll see you two later.” She greeted the next customer in line as the Balefire sisters made their exit.
Outside, around the corner from the front door, Sebastian was leaning against the exterior with one foot propped up against the wall behind him. A smartphone nearly the size of a tablet rested in one hand, and his thumb scrolled so fast Mag wondered how he could even register what he was looking at.
“Oh, hello there,” he said when he noticed the Balefire sisters glancing his way. “Make any more progress on your investigation?” The word investigation came out with a sneer of derision that made Mag’s blood boil. She had no patience for young people with no respect for their elders. She suspected Bas had no respect for anyone, including Cheyenne, but it wasn’t her place to judge the bad taste of others. At least, not out loud.
He made a half-decent latte, she’d give him that much, but the attitude that came with it wasn’t worth the price of the paper collar around the cup. Snark she could forgive. In fact, being Mag, she admired a good, pithy comeback. Sarcasm was her second language, but the line between it and just plain snotty was one he danced over with absolutely no grace whatsoever.
Worse, her estimation of Cheyenne dropped a notch for being such a bad judge of character when it came to choosing a boyfriend. Not that she’d thought much of the girl to begin with, but she wanted to believe, for Stephanie’s sake, that Cheyenne’s intentions were benevolent.
Clara may not have had more patience, but she had a better filter, so, shooting Mag a sideways glance, she quickly answered, “Not so far, but I’m sure we’ll figure out what’s going on eventually. We always do.”
“You know you’re just giving Stephanie false hope, don’t you? What she needs is a dose of reality. Didn’t it ever occur to her that Brad just wanted out? I mean, just because she’s got money she thinks everyone should worship the ground she walks on. Typical snob.” He spat the last word. “Money doesn’t make her better or more important than anyone else.”
Mag raised an eyebrow, but kept her cool, knowing it would be far more fun to watch him squirm if she remained calm, “It’s interesting to me that you spend so much time worrying about something you claim not to care about. If you really want independence from society, why not go live off the land instead of peddling coffee and playing with your phone?”
Sebastian blanched, “Think what you want about Brad, but I saw him leave. At least I didn’t just take off on my girlfriend out of the blue. Speaking of, here she comes.”
One of Stephanie’s town cars had pulled up to the curb while they’d been talking, and Cheyenne bounced out and over to Bas. She planted a lingering kiss on his lips, and even Clara was disturbed by the level of PDA going on in front of her.
“Hey ya’ll, how’s it going?” Cheyenne greeted the Balefires warmly, but Mag was too focused on what Bas had said right before she arrived.
“You saw Brad leave? Why didn’t you say something before? Tell us what happened.” Mag demanded.
Cheyenne’s eyes widened, and she took a step back from Sebastian and repeated Mag’s question. “I’d like to know the answer to that, myself. Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I didn’t think it made any difference.” Bas’s voice took on a whiny, somewhat contrite tone. “So what if he left in the morning or the middle of the night? He’s still gone. Anyway, Cheyenne left something at my place and I was dropping it off on my way to work. My day to work the early shift means I’m up and out by five, so it must have been quarter after by the time I got here.”
“What else?” Cheyenne’s temper was showing, and she stood with her arms crossed, glaring at Bas who grew more panicked by the second.
“I don’t know, nothing really. I was going in, he was coming out, and in such a rush he practically mowed me over. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. I said hey, he mumbled something and kept on going. That was the last I saw of the dude. I dropped Chey’s handbag on the table, and just about made it to work on time.”
And that was that. Proof that Brad had walked out the door under his own steam. Stephanie was not a killer, and Roma’s unfinished business hadn’t been much business at all.
Mag spent a solid minute imagining the exact color of fur she’d give Bas when she turned him into the jackass he’d already shown himself to be. He knew he was sitting on information that would have made a difference to Stephanie’s state of mind, and he chose to do it anyway. She just hoped Cheyenne was smart enough to know that once a liar, always a liar.
“I can’t believe you kept this to yourself. Just exactly what else are you hiding?” Cheyenne remained eerily calm, her emotions bubbling below the surface, making her seem even more formidable than if she’d been yelling and cursing.
“Nothing, baby, I swear!” Bas panicked, his eyes now the size of saucers, darting from Cheyenne over to Mag and Clara as if looking for assistance. Both Balefire sisters held their hands up in a gesture indicating he was on his own, and took a step back to see how things played out.
Mag muttered under her breath to Clara, “This is better than reality TV.” Clara heartily agreed.
“Don’t ‘baby’ me, Bas. In fact, don’t ever call me that again. I’m not your baby anymore.”
“But, wait, Chey, come on. It’s not like I lied to you, I just didn’t say anything. Please, don’t do this to me.” Bas sputtered, and Mag wished she had a bucket of popcorn.
“It’s called a lie by omission, Sebastian, and it still falls under the umbrella of dishonesty. Now, maybe if what you had failed to mention was that you were the one who used the last of the toilet paper, I could get past it. But what you did do was leave out vital information, and to me that feels like an outright lie. You hurt Stephanie, which means you hurt me, and I won’t stand for either.” Cheyenne spun on her heel and stalked back over to the town car.
“Mag, Clara, why don’t you follow me up to the manor.” She tossed behind her. “Brad needs to get back to his brew steward duties. That is, if he still has a job.”
Clara thought the odds of that were doubtful, since every one of Evelyn’s customers—and the lady herself—were staring out the front window as if this really were reality television. She caught Evelyn’s eye and smirked, then followed Cheyenne’s lead and left Bas standing on the sidewalk, a priceless expression on his face.
Chapter Thirteen
Normally unruffled, Constance looked ten years older when Mag, Clara, and Cheyenne walked through the door. When she lifted a hand to push back hair she hadn’t bothered to put in her usual neat bun, her fingers trembled. Wrinkles in her dress, the collar sticking up on one side, all spoke of a woman in some distress.
“I promise we won’t take up too much of Stephanie’s time. This has to be hard on her, not knowing where Brad went, and it can’t be easy for you to watch her struggle through this. Is there anything we can do for you?”
The offer, or the kindness behind it, sparked a reaction from Constance. Turning, she let the mask of polite service fall to show the weariness underneath. “Find out what happened and give my girl some peace. It’s all I ask.”
Sympathy oozing from every pore, Clara patted Constance on the shoulder and agreed to do just that as the sound of violin music filled the house. Each note vibrated with heartbreaking purity and Clara’s breath caught in an ache at the back of her throat. How could something sound so beautiful and haunting at the same time?
Stephanie sat on a piano stool, her back straight
and strong, yet somehow fragile as she played. When the last note drifted into silence, she turned and placed the violin back in its case before looking at her guests.
“That was lovely. You have a gift.” Even the mighty Mag was not so heartless that she didn’t felt a little choked up.
“Thank you.” she stated, then raised an eyebrow in an expectant gesture. Clara remembered Roma’s comment about Stephanie possessing ‘the gift’ and wondered if the woman could tell they weren’t making a social call.
Cheyenne launched into an animated retelling of her breakup with Bas. The part where she mimed his expression when she’d left him standing, at a loss, in front of Evelyn’s Bakery brought a shadow of a smile to Stephanie’s face. The tale ended with, “It all comes back to what happened that morning to send Brad out so early. If we had that, we’d have the whole story.”
“She was amazing,” Mag said gazing at Cheyenne with newfound respect, “and it was hilarious watching him try to figure out what had just happened.”
“Good riddance, is what I say. Cheyenne, you could do far better than that arrogant knob.” Constance, as usual, minced no words.
Cheyenne bristled slightly, in the way most women do when their taste in men is questioned by, essentially, two little old ladies. “He had his good qualities, you know. And he …” Cheyenne trailed off and mumbled something that sounded like troubled childhood.
During all of this, Stephanie’s face ran through a gamut of emotions. Relief that Brad had been alive and well when he left that morning, and therefore she couldn’t have had anything to do with his disappearance. Fear that she’d been wrong all along and that Brad actually did leave because he didn’t really love her. And finally, misery at the thought that for her, it was a no-win situation. Dead, done, or on the run—none of the options brought a smile to Stephanie’s face.
Clara felt the waves of tension rolling off Stephanie and sent a tendril of intuition to test the flavor. “Stephanie Huffington. You stop thinking that way right now.” The exclamation came out of the blue for everyone who wasn’t Stephanie or Clara.
“There is still hope, but you’re going to have to woman up and think positively. I’m positive that you’re strong enough to do that. Are you?” Clara demanded.
Stephanie gathered herself together, sat up a little straighter, and looked Clara in the eye. “Yes. I am. What I’m not is certain I have any idea what to do from here.”
“If only we knew what happened between the time he went to bed and the time he jumped in his car and took off.” Cheyenne repeated her earlier statement.
Stephanie shook her head. “Oh, but he didn’t get in his car and leave because it wasn’t here at the time.”
The picture forming in Mag’s head shifted like a kaleidoscope and settled into a new configuration of scenarios that she let run rampant for a moment.
“Where’s the car now?”
“I assume it’s still over at Malverde’s garage. We’d dropped it off there for its yearly service and detailing and I forgot all about it with everything that’s happened.”
A little spark of discovery fired, and took the energy level in the room up a notch. There was something here, a detail that might make all the difference. “Did he get a loaner? Use your car? Ride a bike? It’s a long walk from here to town.”
Pausing for a moment, Stephanie considered. “At that time of day he’d have caught a ride with Pete Barber. Pete lives a mile or so down the road, and milks cows over at Willow Hill farm. He’s dependable as the tides and comes through here at the same time every morning. That’s brilliant thinking, Mag.”
Accepting the compliment as nothing less than her rightful due, Mag barely preened at all. “That would explain why he was in such a hurry to get out the door when Bas saw him. And now we have a new line to tug.”
“You’re going to have to tug it without me, because I have a class to get to,” Cheyenne lamented. “I wish I could skip it, but there’s an exam today. Promise you’ll text me if you find out anything useful?” She kissed Stephanie’s cheek on her way out, a little spring in her step.
***
About a mile down the road, just as Stephanie had described, sat a little farmhouse that looked like it dated back at least a hundred years. Rows of meandering pumpkin plants had been picked clean, with only a few oddly shaped stragglers left over from jack-o-lantern season. The grounds appeared well-kept, as did the house, though it needed a bit of work and could have used a fresh coat of paint to cover the spots where the siding showed bare wood.
Pete Barber’s eyes goggled about out of his head when he opened the door to find Stephanie standing on his stoop flanked by Mag and Clara, who made an interesting pair all on their own.
“Come on in. Is everything all right, Steph?” Mag noted the familiarity with which he spoke to Stephanie, his attitude at odds with most of the people in town who thought of the girl as nothing more than a symbol of wealth and the power that came with it.
Mag appreciated the fact that Stephanie’s personal relationships were few and far between—it was a trait they both shared—and reserved for the folks who could look past the status and see the smart, compassionate woman underneath. She immediately liked Pete Barber just based on that principle alone, and her gut screamed they were getting closer to solving the mystery.
“Actually, it’s not, and I need you to answer a few questions for us, if you don’t mind.” Stephanie replied. “These are my friends, Mag and Clara.” She gave no further explanation for their presence, and Pete didn’t ask for any.
“Sure, sure. Come on in.” Pete led them through a narrow hallway and into a small country living room where he offered them a seat on a sofa that Mag suspected dated back to when the house was built. When she sat down between Clara and Stephanie, one of the springs poked straight into her backside, causing her to scoot a bit closer to her sister. “What’s going on?”
“Well, there’s no easy way to say this, but Brad’s gone missing.” Stephanie explained. “We suspect foul play of some kind, and I need you to tell me everything about the last time you saw him. You gave him a ride into town last week, right?”
Pete looked back and forth between the trio and nodded. “Last Wednesday morning, yes, that’s correct.”
“That’s the day he disappeared. Tell me what happened and don’t leave anything out. It’s important,” Stephanie implored.
“Well, there’s not much to tell, really.” Pete’s eyes drifted to one side, and Mag’s opinion of him as one of the good guys took a bit of a beating. Dollars to donuts, he planned on holding something back, and she intended to find out exactly what it was.
“He flagged me down on my way to work and I’ll admit it didn’t look like he’d slept a wink. Asked could I drop him off in town, even though I told him it was no problem to swing by Pets Alive if he needed to get to work,” Pete explained.
“Where exactly did you drop him?” Mag opened her mouth to ask, but Stephanie beat her to it.
“Right in the square. He hustled out of my truck so fast, I didn’t have time to see if he needed me to wait for him. But he said he had to talk to your uncle.” Another shifty eye caught Stephanie’s attention this time.
“What aren’t you saying, Pete? I’ve known you my entire life, so there’s no need to beat around the bush.” She pierced him with a gaze that explained at least part of why people tended to walk on eggshells around Stephanie. The woman could be formidable when necessary.
Pete sighed and gave in. “Well, I wasn’t in a mood myself, and spent most of the drive complaining about the dismal pumpkin sales we’d been seeing. Christine’s been working double shifts at the hospital just so we can get by, and that money was supposed to go toward getting the house fixed up.”
He waved a hand to indicate the state of the interior. “You know she’s been dying to redo the living room, and we’ve been saving to replace the old wood siding with vinyl. Anyway, we had that drought and then all that rain, and to top
it all off there were more drive-offs than usual this year.”
Clara gave Mag a look. They’d had some part in the weather trouble over the summer, and now she felt bad.
“We expect to lose some profits since we can’t be right here to cash people out, but this year it was worse than ever. I said something about how small-town life was going down the toilet, and Brad responded with something like ‘people are rarely who you think they are’.” He couldn’t meet Stephanie’s eyes, and it was clear Pete had taken Brad’s statement as a slam against Stephanie.
“I figured maybe the two of you had a fight, and I didn’t want to pry.” He finished lamely.
“We didn’t have a fight. That’s what I can’t understand.” Stephanie was quiet for a moment. “Was there anything else that seemed off to you? Any detail might be critical.”
Pete thought for a second before answering. “No, not really. I remember feeling sorry for him. When he walked away across the square, he looked angry and hurt. His fists were clenched, and the thought crossed my mind that I wouldn’t want to be on the other end of them that morning. I know that doesn’t help much. He gave me money for gas, and I felt low taking it, but he insisted.”
“You’ve been a big help, actually. Thanks, Pete. I appreciate you talking to us. Now, I’ll call them and give permission for you to use my account the hardware store. You haven’t got much time left to get that siding up, and combined with my discount, you’ll save half the cost just in heating bills this winter. You can start paying me back if the pumpkin crop is good next season.”
When he started to protest, she added, “I mean it, Pete. I’ll just have them send the materials over myself if you don’t, and I’ll choose the ugliest color they have.” She threatened with a smile. “I think of you like family, so you’ll let me do this for you.”
“You’re a classy dame, Stephanie Huffington.” Pete said gruffly as the three women exited. Neither Mag nor Clara could disagree with the sentiment.
Haunted by Murder Page 12
