SCENT OF A MYSTERY...A CITRUS BEACH MYSTERY (Citrus Beach Mysteries Book 2)

by Victoria LK Williams

  In order to keep Charlotte busy and out of their way, Megan sent her to meet with Paul, so that he could fill her in on what they had found out about the Jamison man. She hoped Charlotte would be able to confirm the picture she seen in Taylor’s wallet was the same man that Charlotte had rented her cabin to. It didn’t take long for Charlotte to find Paul and soon the two of them were sitting at a coffee shop enjoying a second cup of coffee.

  Not wanting to waste any time, Paul started right in by placing copies of the papers that he had given Megan in front of Charlotte on the table.

  “Charlotte what do you know about the man that is renting the grove cabin? I don’t remember ever seeing him around town before, did you know him before he rented the cabin?”

  “I don’t know, Paul. I’d never seen him before, either. He just showed up one day and I felt like I could trust him. He seemed a bit of a lost soul and I didn’t ask for references; I just went with my gut feeling. I’ve been around long enough to I know when I can trust someone, it’s rare that somebody can pull something over on me.”

  “He’s been living in the grove cabin for about six months, hasn’t he? Have you learned anything new about him or where he’s from? He never seems to get involved in anything going on around town, just always seems to be on the outskirts looking in. I don’t know if he’s trying to hide something or if he’s naturally a quiet person. But now with Taylor showing up, the information we found on the Internet and the clippings that we found in Taylor’s box, I’m starting to have questions.”

  “I had a feeling this has something to do with Taylor, just from the way Megan was acting. This has something to do with her father doesn’t it, Paul? Megan was just about twisting her neck trying to get a good look at the picture Taylor had put on the table for me to see.”

  “We’re just not sure, Charlotte. Do you remember anything about Taylor’s father or his disappearance?

  “After Beth moved away we lost track of each other, I never did get to know her children. I do remember hearing about the disappearance. I know I sent her a condolence letter and the yearly Christmas card, it is shameful the way that I let our friendship go. But everything happens for a reason, and you can be sure that I will be getting in touch with her now that Taylor has come into our lives. You and Megan can’t possibly be thinking that the man I have rented the grove cabin to is Tom Jamison? That coincidence is just too outlandish, even for Megan. Is that where your thoughts are going?”

  Paul nodded his head not quite sure how to answer her, but he knew his cousin well enough that if she was getting vibes about this, then this was just one more reason that they needed to follow through with it. Something had happened when Tom Jamison disappeared and Megan had decided that it was up to her to figure it out. Paul knew from dealing with his cousin that it would be up to him to look out for her safety; if there was trouble around, Megan could find it.

  “Okay then, I guess we are going to have to start asking questions. I’ll call Beth and let her know that Taylor is with us and will be working at Lady Fish Bay to help with the retrievals. That will give me an opening to question Beth about what happened to her son. There doesn’t seem to be any love lost between Megan and her mother, I think I’ll find out what’s going on with that as well.”

  “While you’re doing that, Charlotte, I’m going to drive out and see what I can find out from the man himself. Who knows, I may come face-to-face with him and see that it’s a totally different person.”

  Paul and Charlotte both exchanged glances, they knew from past experience that Megan’s intuition was usually right. If she felt that Tom Jamison and the man from the grove cabin were the same person, then they had a mystery on their hands that would need to be solved. They finished their cups of coffee without talking further about the situation at hand instead talking about the repair that is going to be needed to the Potter cottage in Lady Fish Bay.

  At the same time as Charlotte and Paul were going over the details for repairing the deck of the fishing cottage, Megan and Taylor were on their way to the cottage. Megan was relieved to find the traffic for their return was going back to normal. Repair trucks lined the road making sure that all telephone and power lines were properly restored to their previous working order. Since Taylor was following Megan, she kept her speed at the legal limits, allowing Taylor to keep up with her on the unfamiliar roadway.

  When they reached Lady Fish Bay, Megan pulled right up to the front parking area as she had before, leaving room for Taylor to park right next to her. Turning off the car, she clipped Barney to his leash, got out, and waited for Taylor to walk over with her to the cottage.

  “Let’s just leave our stuff here for a while. I’d like to give you the grand tour and show you what we’ve collected so far and get your input for the return process. Did you ever come up here as a child, Taylor? I’m not sure which house was your grandmother’s, but we have recovered a few items that were hers, as you know. It looks like neighbors have started working on their repairs; I know Paul’s crew will appear later on this week to work on the deck repairs for Charlotte. If you head down to the beach just be careful; the dune has been eroded from the force of the high waves during the storm. It’s a little tricky getting down to the beach from the boardwalk, but let’s face it you’re young and it shouldn’t be too much of a struggle for you. I only have one request and that’s to keep an eye out for Barney. I don’t want him to run away. The last time we were here, there was one ornery seagull that seemed to want to challenge the dog and of course, Barney found a stray cat.”

  “Of course I’ll watch Barney, he’s just too cute to lose. I know I was here as a very young child, so young that I don’t remember much of what I’m seeing. Maybe it’s because the storm has changed things so much. My mother hated being here and she resented any time she had to spend with my father’s family. The only time that I came here was with my father once or twice when he came up to visit his parents. They were very short visits; the most I remember is playing on the beach. I do remember being happy here. It was a far cry from when they came to Miami to visit us; there was always so much tension in the house. The visits from my grandparents were short. It was usually just my father and I that spent time with them.”

  Before Megan had a chance to reply, she heard her name called.She looked up to the upper deck to see Robert waving at them. It was reassuring to know that he would be here for security reasons for the next few days while the two women worked.

  “Taylor, I want to take Barney for a walk and let him stretch his legs. Why don’t you do a little exploring and then we’ll meet back here and unload the vehicles? We can probably work on recovering more items; that will give you a feel of how we have worked and maybe you will come up with some ideas of your own on how you want to proceed. Oh, you’d better make sure you put on a healthy dose of insect repellent. I swear the mosquitoes are getting bigger every time I walk outdoors.”

  Taylor laughed with Megan and agreed to her suggestions. She started in the direction of the beach, as if the call of the waves was welcoming her home. Megan and Barney walked the perimeter of Charlotte’s property while Robert came down the stairs to greet them.

  “Hello, Robert. Have you seen much activity around here today?”

  “Not all that much, Megan. I had the opportunity to speak with a few of the homeowners that have come back and started their repairs, but so far things have been pretty quiet. Guess some of the owners will have to wait for their insurance adjusters to settle things for them before they can start work.”

  Megan nodded her head in understanding. For some like Charlotte, there would be no waiting for settling claims. But the vast majority of the homeowners were not that fortunate. Once the insurance checks started arriving, you could be sure that there would be plenty of out-of-towners sweeping in the area offering cheap work. Unfortunately, some of these contractors would also be swindlers, or to use an old term: carpetbaggers. The homeowners had to be cautious that they were not ha
nding over their money and getting nothing in return.

  Once Taylor was done exploring and rejoined Megan, it didn’t take the two women long to unload their vehicles, with Robert’s help. They quickly got their supplies put away, and each grabbing a pair of heavy work gloves, started towards the river to see what they could find and retrieve. They worked steadily for a few hours until the heat and the mosquitoes got to be too much for them. By mutual agreement, they decided to take a break. Grabbing cold water bottles, they wandered down the boardwalk to sit on the end of the dock. When Megan had run upstairs to grab the water, she also grabbed the wooden box which she now handed over to Taylor.

  Taylor didn’t say much at first; her eyes misted over with tears as she thought of all the things that she knew were in the box. She turned it over and over in her hands, as if she was afraid to open it. She looked over to Megan as if seeking guidance.

  “You know I haven’t thought about this in years, now I feel if I open it, everything I know is going to change. It was so hard when my dad disappeared. I was too little to really understand what was going on. My mother didn’t want to talk about it. Everything seemed so empty without him. All the laughter from our house seemed to have gone with him. Mother took it upon herself to take over his position at his import company. Soon she was putting in so many hours that I had a nanny raising me instead of a mother. And then my dad’s business partner became so entrenched in our lives that it seemed that it was only natural after my father was declared dead that my mother married him.”

  “Taylor do you want to be alone to open the box?”

  “I don’t think so, Megan, somehow I think, with your finding this box, that you are about to become a large part of my life. You’re finding this has set things in motion. Things that I think have just been waiting for a catalyst to start them moving.”

  Megan glanced over at Taylor, amazed at the intuition that the young woman was showing. Things were going to start happening and Megan just prayed that nothing would happen that would hurt Taylor, she wanted to believe in fairytale endings. Taking a deep breath, Taylor opened the lid to the box and the secrets of her past. She lifted out the papers that were in there and asked Megan to hold them so she could read them later. A soft smile was on her face as she pulled out little memories from her childhood; it seemed automatic when she grabbed the jacks to start playing with them. Each item was lifted up and looked over, sometimes with a word of explanation to Megan, other times with just a smile, and then they were put back in the box. When she was finished looking over the small pieces of her past, she held her hand out for Megan to give her the paperwork.

  Most of the paperwork was happy memories and needed no explanation, she just glanced through them and put them aside using a seashell she had picked up to hold them in place on the dock. When she got to the newspaper clipping about the memorial service for her father, Megan was surprised to see her get angry, not sad.

  “She had no right to declare him dead. How could you just give up hope on him? To me he’s not dead; he is just missing. I refuse to accept this, it just doesn’t feel like my father’s dead. Wouldn’t I know? Wouldn’t I have some kind of feeling, something inside me that would say he is definitely gone? When my mother put this article in the paper and made all the arrangements for the Memorial service, that’s when our relationship fell completely apart. I almost felt as if she had been counting the days since he disappeared until she could legally declare him dead. She just wiped him out of her life and started a new one. One that included a new man, a man that was my father’s partner. It made me feel as if she wanted nothing to do with anything that revolved around my father, including me.”

  Without waiting for an answer from Megan, Taylor gathered everything and put it back in the box. She got to her feet and told Megan that she was going for a walk along the beach.

  “Take your time, Taylor, you got a lot of things to work out in your mind. I’ll be here if you need to talk.”

  Megan watched the young woman start down to the beach and hoped that they would have answers that would make her happy shortly. Deciding that this was the perfect opportunity to go online and try and do some research on Tom Jamison, Megan got to her feet and headed back to the cottage. As she set up her laptop at the kitchen counter, Robert walked past. He saw that she was going to be busy for a while so he told her he was going to go down to the other cottages and see how their repair work was going. Once Megan had the house to herself she quickly got to work.

  As she googled Tom Jamison’s name, she found there was a lot of data online. Deciding to leave it up to Charlotte to work on the family background, Megan dug right into any information she could find about his business dealings and any other avenues dealing with his adult life. The more research she dug up, the more impressed she was. Megan found that the man had built a small import company from the ground up starting out with small trinkets coming in from overseas, to becoming a company that dealt almost exclusively with high-end Chinese furnishings. Over the years, he built his clientele to include designers, small art studios, and private collectors. As his company continued to grow and become more exclusive, he took on a partner and together they also opened up a bonded warehouse facility. While his company was growing, she found that he became a prominent citizen down in the Miami area. He gave back to the community, constantly striving to improve the area he lived in and offering other young entrepreneurs the opportunity to explore their own possibilities.

  From what Megan could find on the Internet it seemed as if Tom Jamison handled the importing side of the business and his partner was in charge of the bonded warehouse facility. She found it interesting that Tom Jamison was the most noticeable partner that involved himself in community activities. There were plenty of press releases regarding fundraising functions that Tom and his wife attended. By looking over the pictures, Megan could easily see that Tom seemed to be a little bit more laid-back than his wife, who looked as if she was posing for photos and obviously dressed for high fashion.

  Before Megan could dig deeper into her research, she heard Taylor approaching and quickly shut down the computer. There would be time to work on this later, without having to worry about involving Taylor sooner than she needed to be. Looking up with a smile, she watched the young woman walk into the cottage. Megan looked her over discretely, to see if she was upset over the contents of the wooden box. Instead, it seemed as if Taylor had a determination about her. She stood taller with her shoulders squared as if she was ready to hold the weight of the world on them.

  “While you have your computer out, Megan, I’d like to show you some ideas I’m thinking about regarding returning these items to the proper owners. Would you like me to show you what I’ve come up with?”

  “That would be great. Where do you want to start?”

  Realizing that Taylor did not want to talk about anything personal at the moment, Megan went along with her change of attitude and moved over to make room for her at the table.

  “Let me get my laptop up and running and I can show you what I think will work. We can use yours for internet access and mine for outlining our plans.”

  Within minutes, the two of them were deep into Taylor’s outline, making plans and adjustments as they worked. What was left of the afternoon passed and before they knew it, Robert was shooing them out of the kitchen while he put out the dinner that he had picked up earlier.

  They continued talking about their work as they ate, listening to Robert’s suggestions when he joined the conversation. It was the sound of distant thunder coming from the west that broke up their meal.

  “I think that we had better get that roll of painter’s plastic out of the storage shed, Megan, and get downstairs to cover up those tables. I found some bricks earlier that will hold it in place. Let’s not put this off; these storms move fast this time of year.”

  Agreeing with the older man, the two women jumped up to help. Megan secured Barney in the room she would be sleeping in and went
to join the others. As she started to walk out the door, the sound of music suddenly came from the radio over the kitchen sink. Turning around, Megan grinned with delight as she realized what this meant: the power was restored to the cottage.

  Rushing down the stairs to help, she shared the news. Grinning, Robert knew that this would mean they would be able to sleep with air conditioning tonight. Before he went to retrieve the bricks he had gathered and stacked by the edge of the carport, he walked over to the breaker box and turned on the switches that had been shut off for safety when they had first gotten to the cottage. This would also mean they would be able to store and cook their own meals, a task he loved to do.

  Chapter Nine

  As work progressed and plans were being made in Lady Fish Bay, Paul had started to look into things from his end. Charlotte had decided that she would not be so easily dismissed; before he knew it, he had a partner to help with his snooping. As much as he hated to admit it, Paul found that Charlotte was an asset to his plans.

  When they left the diner after finishing their coffee, Paul had asked Charlotte where he could drop her off before he went to his next destination. The older woman simply smiled at him and settled herself more comfortably in the passenger seat of his truck.

  “Oh, I think I’ll just come along for the ride with you, Paul. Now, before you go and get yourself all worked up, hear me out. I am the homeowner of that rented house and it is only natural that I would show up to check-up on things and make sure that my tenant has no storm damage. He’s not going to think twice about it. On the other hand, if you suddenly show up out of the blue, then notice is going to be taken. Admit it, Paul, I’m right on this matter and you know it. And while you’re driving, I can call Beth and gently retrieve some information about her son from her.”