I couldn’t help but smile at her. “It’s good to see you. I’ve been meaning to take you up on your offer of a haircut, but since you’re here, you can come with me to do a little investigation job I have to do.”
Her eyebrows went up. “Investigation? Okay, what are we investigating?”
“Someone’s threatening me. They’ve left two threatening notes by my bed, and yesterday, someone put a rattlesnake in my shower.”
She gasped out loud. “No!”
I nodded. “I was just going to question Camille.”
Eliza smacked her lips. “That’s just like her. She’s been a blight on this town for years.”
“What do you know about her?”
“She works at the DoubleDown Diner when she’s not working here. I’m sure Marty Tucker could talk your ear off about Camille. He owns the diner, but he’s also the head cook. He works with her all the time, and he hates her guts. If anybody can give you the low-down on Camille, it’s him.”
My eyes flew open. “Hey! How about you and I go out to dinner at the diner tonight? I’m paying. We can put it down to a business expense for our investigation.”
Eliza laughed. “I’m all over that. What time do you want to pick me up?”
I grabbed her hand. “You’re not going anywhere, sister. We’ve got a full day of playing detective in front of us, and you’re the only person on God’s green Earth I’m certain didn’t plant those notes. Now come on. We’re going into the lion’s den.”
We started for the kitchen door when Nathaniel sauntered in from the dining room. He made a sour face when he saw Eliza, but he didn’t say anything.
“Oh, there you are, Nathaniel,” I called out. “I was going to come looking for you later, so I might as well talk to you now.”
He narrowed his eyes. “What do you want? Don’t think I’m going to cut any of your holly sprigs for you. I don’t do interior design.”
I smacked my lips. “Yeah, I’m hearing that a lot lately. I don’t want you to cut any holly sprigs for me. I want to know where you were yesterday around eleven o’clock in the morning.”
He threw up both hands. “I don’t have time to give you a play by play of my daily schedule.”
He whirled around the other way, but I grabbed his arm and spun him back. “Answer the question, Nathaniel. I’m the new owner of this inn, and you and the rest of the staff are going to start answering to me. Where were you?”
He set one hand on his hip. “I was in the greenhouse. You can ask my aunt Glenda if you don’t believe me. I was there with her all day.”
“No, you weren’t,” I countered. “I visited Glenda in the greenhouse at nine-thirty, and you were nowhere in sight.”
“That’s because I didn’t get there until ten. She was there. She can tell you.”
He stormed off before I could answer. I frowned at Eliza. “Darn. I was hoping I could pin it on him.”
“Sounds like he’s got an alibi. Who else is on your list besides Camille?”
“Just Glenda, but if she was in the greenhouse with Nathaniel, then they can both back each other’s stories. Oh, and I can’t forget Levi.”
Eliza elbowed me and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Who could forget Levi? Huh?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Every woman with a pulse in this town is after that man. Don’t you just love the way his tight jeans hug his butt? Mmm-mmm. I wouldn’t mind getting him around to my place to fix my gutter. I love watching him work up a sweat on a ladder.”
My eyes popped out. “You’re not seriously telling me you get him to work around your place just so you can admire his… his manliness.”
“Oh, yes, I do, and I can name a couple dozen other women in town who do the same thing. Levi Stokes is the hottest thing on legs in this town.”
I turned away to hide my burning cheeks. “Well, I’m not hiring him for that. He’s here to work, and if he had any reason to plant a snake in my shower, I’m gonna find out.”
She followed me down the hall. “Come on. You can admit it. You think he’s hot, too. Anybody in their right mind would. It’s okay to admit it, just between friends.”
I rounded on her. “Can we stop talking about that?”
She held up her hands. “Sure. I’m just saying.”
We made another sally for the kitchen door when a bump caught my attention from the direction of the card room. I stuck my head through the door to see Levi himself standing inside. He bent over the fireplace to peer up the chimney.
Eliza gave me another nudge in the ribs. She smirked and winked at me. I waved my hand to try to get her to stop, but at that moment, Levi stood up and noticed us. “There’s something caught up there. I’m trying to get it down.”
I took a deep breath. Eliza’s eyes burned a hole in my back while I talked to him. He might be smoking hot, but he was still a suspect on my list. I had to keep that in my mind the whole time. “I have a question for you about yesterday.”
He brushed his hands on his pants. “Shoot.”
“What were you doing right before you heard me screaming in my shower?”
He frowned. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
“I’m just wondering.”
“Well, wondering things like that can get you into trouble. You’ve got your hands full running this place. Don’t go looking for problems that aren’t there.”
He strode toward the door. I barely had time to turn around and call, “Hey! I’m not finished talking to you.”
“You’re finished talking to me if you want that chimney unblocked. Just be grateful I got to you before that snake bit you, and don’t go looking a gift horse in the mouth.”
He walked out the door. I turned to Eliza for help, but she only gazed in dreamy silence at the door where he vanished. I smacked her on the shoulder. “Wake up! I need your head in this game, not fantasizing about his rear end.”
She brightened up. “But his rear end is so fantastic. It’s perfect for fantasizing about.”
I snatched her by the sleeve. “We’ve got an investigation to run here, and you’ve got your head in his pants. Come on.”
I dragged her off to the kitchen. “There must be a reason he didn’t answer my questions. He didn’t want me to know what he was doing before he heard me screaming.”
“Maybe he just happened to walk in at that moment.”
I rounded on her. “You’re not really suggesting that, are you? He was the closest to my bathroom when it happened. If you weren’t so preoccupied with his assets, you would see he’s the most likely suspect.”
“You haven’t interviewed Camille yet.”
“No, but I’m going to do that now.”
I didn’t waste any time getting to the kitchen this time. Why were all the staff so hostile and cold about this? Not one of them had been as friendly to me as Eliza. Maybe they were all in this together. Two notes and one snake. That made three incidents. Maybe the staff did one each. Maybe they were working together to drive me away—but why?
I found Camille kneading bread dough on the big work table in the kitchen. She bared her teeth and snarled when I walked in. A perfect start to another glorious experience.
I put on a friendly face. “Hi, Camille. I really appreciate you keeping up all your work while I get the inn straightened out. I couldn’t run this place without you.”
She didn’t stop kneading. “Do you know how many times your aunt said that before she died? No one can run this place without me. I run this place single-handedly. This place would be nothing without me.”
“I was just wondering if you could tell me what you were doing around eleven o’clock yesterday morning.”
She humphed under her breath. “No, I couldn’t.”
I blinked at her. “What?”
“No, I couldn’t tell you.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. “Well, were you working here? Were you somewhere else? Were you anywhere anybody else might
have seen you so we know what you were doing?”
She never stopped punching and leaning her weight into the dough. “I couldn’t tell you.”
“Don’t you remember what you were doing?”
“I remember perfectly, but I won’t tell you. You can leave now.”
I stared at her with my mouth open. “What?”
“Leave now. You asked your question. You want to know if I could tell you what I was doing at eleven o’clock yesterday, and I answered you. I couldn’t tell you, so you can leave.”
I looked at Eliza, but she offered no help. I couldn’t think of one decent thing to say to this witch of a woman. “Well, I want to know.”
She stopped her work with her fists embedded in the dough ball. “You think you can walk in here and take over the place? You’re nothing around here. Do you hear me? You’re nothing. You just said you couldn’t run the place without me, and no truer word was ever spoken. So, pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and go back where you came from, ‘cuz nobody wants you around here.”
She went back to what she was doing, but I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Her words matched the note so exactly I couldn’t mistake them if she hit me over the head with a stick. She must be the one sending them, and if she hated me that much, she probably put the snake in my shower, too.
I inclined my head to Eliza, and we retreated back to the front desk. Eliza’s hand flew to her heart. “Phew! That woman could freeze lava.”
“She must be the one. Let’s go see Marty and see if we can dig up any more dirt on Camille.”
I kept Eliza with me for the rest of the day, but I didn’t have to work hard. She pumped my head full of every juicy piece of gossip I ever wanted to know about everyone in the town. She knew them all down to their most intimate secrets.
Her presence filled me with relief. At least one person in this madhouse backed me up. She cast a ray of sunshine into the gloom so I could see the end of this ordeal. I didn’t have to venture alone to the diner to investigate Camille.
Night came soon enough, and I loaded Eliza into my car to drive downtown. The streetlights around the statue in the center of the crossroads gave the place an eerie atmosphere. Mist drifted down from the forested mountains to shroud the town in mystery.
I parked as close to the door as possible, and Eliza and I went inside. We got into a booth near the kitchen, and I shrugged out of my coat. “What can you tell me about this Marty Tucker?”
“He’s a gambler and a brawler,” Eliza told me. “Word has it his great-grandfather won this building and the land around it in a game of blackjack. He’s always placing bets on crazy stuff. The weird thing is he always seems to win. He has his share of enemies in this town, but you gotta admire the way he runs this place. He’s never lost money on it in twenty years of business.”
At that moment, a crash and a clatter of utensils rattled the whole diner. I glanced over my shoulder in time to see a stout, middle-aged man with a bushy brown mustache barrel out of the kitchen. He wadded up a dirty rag and tossed it on the counter. “You think you can come in here and start ordering me around? I’ll show you who’s boss in this place.”
A female voice shot back from behind the partition, but I couldn’t make out the words.
“Who’s he talking to?” I asked Eliza.
“He must be talking to Camille. She’s the only other worker in the place.”
“Is it like this all the time?”
Eliza nodded. “They’re always yelling at each other. Marty hates her.”
“Why does he keep her around?”
“She’s the only person he can get to work here. Most everybody else in town already has a job, and she is good at what she does, even if she’s not the most pleasant person to be around.”
He stormed up to the service window and bellowed through it. “You want to get your own place? Go back to the Barrell Inn. You’ll have better luck buying that. You won’t get this place out of me, no matter what you do. You’ve been after my place for years, and I won’t stand for it anymore.”
I froze to my seat. Camille wanted to run her own establishment. She tried to get the DoubleDown from Marty, and she must have wanted to get the Barrell Inn away from my aunt. So, that explained why she was so hostile toward me. It also gave her a perfect motive for foul play.
Chapter 8
I shifted from one foot to the other. “Umm, Levi?” He waited for me to say something else. My cheeks flushed, and my throat ached. “Would you please help me put up the Christmas lights around the front windows?”
He threw up his hand. “Is that what you’ve been taking so long to say? Come on. Where are they?”
I had to hurry to keep up with his long strides back to the front entrance. He almost tripped over the strings of light I spread out all over the floor. I got a few of the strands tangled, and he smacked his lips when he picked them up. “Why didn’t you ask me in the first place?”
“I was trying to do it myself. I know you’ve got better things to do.”
He spread out the strands and carried them up the ladder. He mumbled around the nails in his mouth. “I don’t have anything better to do than help you.”
I blushed hotter than ever. “Thanks.”
“That’s what you pay me for, right? Hand me up that hammer, will you?”
I handed it up. His fingers brushed my skin on the way down. This was definitely not what I had in mind when I asked him to help me hang the lights. I steadied the ladder for him and found myself staring straight up at his jeans. They certainly did fit him nicely. I could make out every hill and valley around his chiseled muscles.
I looked away. “You’re not from around here, are you? Where did you come from before you took this job?”
He cocked his head. “What makes you ask that?”
“Just curious. I’m trying to break the ice, but it doesn’t seem to be working. Everyone around here wants me gone.”
He studied me from the top of the ladder. Then he shook his head. “No one wants you gone.”
“Camille does. She came right out and said so, and someone has been saying so in those notes I keep finding.”
“Well, I don’t. Someone’s got to run the inn. It might as well be a nice person like you. Better you than a demon like Camille.”
I had to smile at that. “So, are you going to tell me or not?”
“Tell you what?”
“Where you came from and what you were doing before you took this job. I’m guessing you haven’t been working as a handyman your whole life.”
He stepped down the ladder and stopped right in front of me. “Now what in the world would make you say something like that?”
I couldn’t look into those clear eyes of his. He could cast a hypnotic spell over anybody when he looked them in the eye. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“You didn’t offend me. I just want to know what makes you think I haven’t been a handyman all my life. You’re gonna blow my cover talking like that.”
I flashed him a smile. “Let me guess. You’re a superhero in disguise, and you’re posing as a handyman to hide your secret identity.”
Then it was his turn to blush. “Don’t talk so loud. If anybody found out, I would have to leave town.”
I laughed. It was a good joke, but I could believe it was really true. You could just imagine a big S printed on his chest under that tight T-shirt. “You’re not going to tell me, are you?”
He shook his head and lifted another string of lights up the ladder. “You don’t want to know. It’s ancient history, and a handyman is all I’m ever going to be from now on, so there’s no sense talking about it.”
“Don’t you trust me?”
He squinted down at me. “Trust… you?”
I shrugged. “You know what I mean.”
“No, I don’t. You want me to trust you. Do you trust me?”
The sun gleamed right behind his head. If I looked up into his eyes, it blinded me. Tha
t gave me the perfect excuse not to look at him. I didn’t trust him. How could I, when I still suspected him of planting that snake in my shower?
How could I expect him to trust me with secrets out of his past when I didn’t trust him? I thought I was making friendly banter asking about his history. I didn’t know I was treading on sacred ground.
Somebody had to make the first move to cross that divide, and I couldn’t expect him to do it. I had to offer an olive branch. “I’m going Christmas tree shopping tomorrow. Do you want to come with me?”
He cast a sidelong glance down at me. “Do you mean like on a date?”
I bit back a smile. “I wasn’t thinking a date. Eliza will be with us, but it might be kind of fun. What do you say? I promise I won’t ask you any more probing questions.”
He climbed down so I could look at him head on. “And will you get offended if I ask you probing questions?”
“What probing questions would you like to ask?”
“The same ones you just asked me. Where were you before this, and what made you come out here to take on this old dump?”
When he asked that, I realized how embarrassing it all was. I didn’t want to answer any more than he did. I didn’t want to admit what a chump I was. I had to keep holding out that olive branch, though. I had to hold it out until he accepted it. If I didn’t answer, I could never expect him to open up to me.
“I lived in New York. I lived with my boyfriend for five years, right up until the day I caught him in bed with my best friend. That’s why I left.”
I hated myself for even saying those words out loud, but he didn’t turn away. He searched my face with his crystal blue eyes. “I’m sorry to hear that. Hopefully you’ll find a fresh start out here. This place is good for that.”
I dared steal a peek at his face. “Is that what you came out here for—a fresh start?”
He turned away and climbed up the ladder where I couldn’t see his face anymore. “Something like that.”
I couldn’t think of anything to say after that.
He startled me by calling down from above. “I can see you’re not offended by probing questions, so yes, if the invitation is still open, I would like to come Christmas tree shopping with you and Eliza.”
Green with Envy Page 5
