by Darci Hannah
It was unbelievable. Carleton Brisbane was most definitely flirting, and Hannah, standing possessively beside him, was furious with me. Her fair cheeks flushed bright as sautéed cherries. Her lips pursed to one side of her mouth, and her light blue eyes darkened in warning. Hannah was tall and flexible. It was a warning not to be ignored.
“I … I am,” I said, and gave a nervous laugh. “But there are a lot of great cherry pies in the competition. And you won’t be the only judge. There’s another man joining you who also considers himself to be quite an expert on cherries. I imagine the two of you will have the time of your lives tasting all the entries.” That said, I made a point of glancing at my wrist. “Oh, would you look at the time! Carleton, Hannah, Tay, it’s been a pleasure, but I really must go.”
“Yes. Yes, you must,” said Hannah, giving me the eye.
Remarkably, they all politely ignored the fact that I wasn’t wearing a watch.
Twenty-Five
I had chased Erik Larson away, was scolded by Jack for doing it, and had possibly just flirted with my best friend’s man. It was shaping up to be quite the day in Cherry Cove, I mused, feeling slightly guilty on all accounts. But I was not about to be deterred from my purpose. Although all the people who’d gathered under the tent for the wine and cheese tasting appeared to be enjoying themselves, the wait staff’s demeanor told another story. All the young waitresses and busboys were working hard, but they appeared nearly robotic as they went about their duties. True, the recent murder had something to do with it, but I got the feeling there was a bit more going on. There was no youthful joy or pleasant camaraderie, only a palpable tension in the nervous faces and furtive looks that passed between them. Determined to get to the bottom of it, I decided to embrace my cover story for real. I grabbed an apron from the wait-station and tied it on. Of course, I had no intention of actually waiting tables. I just wanted to get close to the boys who were avoiding me, and there was no better way to do that than to join their ranks. Smiling, and with my best foot forward, I picked up a tray and made for Erik Larson’s raven-haired friend.
He was across the room, clearing glasses and plates from a crowded table. I gave a quick look around to see where Jack was. Thankfully he was at the back of the tent, scanning the crowd while drinking water from a plastic cup. The moment I looked his way our eyes met. Jack, no doubt, was keeping an eye on me as well, and that eye could only be described as suspicious. I wasn’t in a mood to be bullied in my own backyard. I cast him a sardonic grin and held up my tray. I don’t know if he bought it, but I wasn’t about to stick around and wait for him to come over and berate me. I needed to speak with the boy I assumed to be Cody Rivers.
“Cody, isn’t it?” I said, sneaking up on the young man from behind.
At the sound of my voice, the kid froze. His bin of tableware, I could see, was half full. He picked it up and slowly turned around. “Yea,” he said. Then the dark eyes lowered and he tried to slip around me.
I stepped in his path. “Wait. Listen. I don’t know what you think I’m going to do here, but I’m definitely not going to hurt you. If anything, I’m here to help you, Cody. My name’s Whitney, and I just want to ask you a few questions about last night.”
There was fear and perhaps loathing as well in the young man’s eyes as he looked at me. He then looked away, scanning the crowd as if searching for someone. “No,” he finally answered in a harsh whisper. “You’re working for him, aren’t you?” By “him” I could tell he meant Jack. Why was he afraid of Jack? Then I remember Jack telling me that he’d caught this kid along with Erik last summer stealing bikes from tourists and then selling them on Craigslist. While this young heartbreaker was clearly no angel, I hardly believed he could be afraid of Jack. Still, the fear behind his eyes looked real. I needed to set his mind at ease, which I had a God-given knack for doing.
I gave a soft chuckle. “You think I work for him? Ha. Hardly.” I rolled my eyes for dramatic effect. “Officer MacLaren is an old friend, but I definitely don’t work for him. And I’m not a detective. I want to talk with you for my own reasons. Do you know who I am?”
“Yeah,” he said, shifting nervously. “You’re the daughter. You’re the one who made that ad.” The way he said it, the pointed look and oozing challenge, were no mistake. He meant to take a swing at the low hanging fruit of my previous career.
Truthfully, I was a little shocked he’d gone there, but he had. The gloves were off. Pushing my rising anger aside, I took a deep breath and calmly replied, “Yes. I made that ad. Interesting you remember it. You’re hardly my target audience … unless, of course, you have a disturbing interest in feminine hygiene products.” I gave him the probing eye. He shrank a little, his black brows furrowing with open disgust. “Don’t worry,” I told him breezily. “I don’t judge. In fact, I’m kind of flattered that you mentioned it. But enough about my ad. I’m here because you’re a smart kid, Cody, and because Erik Larson is your friend. Did you work for Mr. Carlson as well?” He gave a quiet nod. “No one can work for a man like Jeb and not care for him even a little bit. Look. I don’t know what’s going on here, but clearly something’s going on. I’ve never seen a group of young people acting so skittish. I’m even okay with the fact that you’re not willing to tell me what it is just yet. But I am going to insist that you take a look at a picture and tell me if you recognize it. Okay?”
As I reached for my iPhone, I noticed his shifty black eyes scanning the tent area. A moment later they stopped, focusing on one of the waitresses, the pretty tawny-haired girl I recognized as Erik’s girlfriend. I wanted to have a word with her next, but first, the picture. I opened my phone and went to retrieve the shot of the twig-face. “Here,” I said, turning the screen to the young man, only to find he was no longer there. I swore inwardly. Not again! Like his friend, Cody had slipped away. Another moment of frantic searching and I found him halfway across the lawn, heading for the kitchen. I looked back at Kenna and realized that she was gone too. Tucking the tray under my arm, I resolved to follow Cody. I’d only taken two steps before I found myself surrounded by a thirsty group of patrons, every one of them telling me at once which wine they’d like to sample next. I had no choice but to attempt to take their orders.
Walking through a thirsty crowd with an empty drink tray was not exactly the best disguise for blending in. Everyone seemed to be hounding me now, and I had no choice but to head to the bar. I had over twenty drink orders, and I honestly couldn’t remember what they were, but I had to attempt to look like I was working. Then I spied a familiar head bent over a case of wine and dropped my tray on the bar.
“Hey, Lucky Charms,” I said, dropping a little playful banter as well. “How about grabbing me a bottle while you’re at it.”
Although I was tired, perplexed, and utterly confused by the drink orders, this time my elbow was firmly planted on the bar. The man behind it, however, wasn’t the man I’d been expecting. Irish hottie was gone, and in his place stood the tall, lanky bartender I’d first seen in the kitchen.
“No problemo, babe,” he said, displaying a crooked grin. “Here you go. Want some company drinking that?” He winked. I blinked and hastily shook my head.
“Oh, no. Sorry. I mean … I didn’t mean ‘no.’ What I meant was, I was expecting someone else.”
He twisted his lips in what I thought might be a sneer and said, “Don’t you all. Unfortunately, Lucky the Charmer is on a break. I’m here now.”
“Right,” I said amicably, and then asked him to fill twenty glasses with whatever he felt like filling them with, because I honestly couldn’t remember what was ordered.
I was about to attempt to lift the overburdened tray when Tate appeared beside me.
“Hey, lovely. Whoa. Tell me you’re not going to try to carry that thing? In your condition, it’s not going to end well.”
I ignored the compliment in favor of the insult. “Condition?”
I was about to ask him just what he meant by that when I noticed the man standing next to him.
“Easy, darling,” Tate was quick to add, employing his dimples to their fullest effect. “I meant nothing by it, only that it’s been a long time since you waited tables, and that tray is an accident waiting to happen. Besides, I came here to introduce you to Brock Sorensen. I don’t believe you two have met. Brock is Baxter’s new business manager, and I think you should listen to what he has to say.”
“Yes,” I said, pleased to finally be putting a face to the name, especially since his was a name that had made our suspect board, falling under the category of Person of Interest. Truthfully, I knew little about Sorensen other than the scant details Dad had told me. He was supposedly a top-notch accountant and a capable business manager. Bill Lundquist, the man he had replaced, had been a kindly family friend in his mid-seventies. Sorensen was younger by far, somewhere in his mid-thirties was my guess. He was a trim, lean, trendy, beta-male type with man-scaped facial hair and black-rimmed glasses. In advertising, his demographic would be comfortable in an urban setting, fond of craft-brewed beers and a prime target for a Whole Foods campaign. Brock’s hair was a nondescript color, hovering between dark blond and light brown; it was hard to tell which in the shade of the tent. But his eyes were definitely green, a color set off to good effect by the slim-fitting electric green polo he was wearing, tucked firmly into his form-fitting black slacks. Sorensen smiled and thrust out his hand.
“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Brock,” I said, shaking hands. “Your name keeps popping up in conversation. I heard you were one of the unfortunate souls who went to the orchard last night with my dad.”
Brock gave a grim nod. “Yes,” he replied. “The single most disturbing night of my life. Poor old man.”
“I can only imagine.” I glanced at Tate. He had picked up two glasses of wine, one of which he handed to me. I took a small sip, thinking. There was really no nice way of asking tough questions, so I decided to be kind, but direct. “If you don’t mind me asking, Brock, what were you doing last night before you learned of Jeb’s murder?”
“Damn, Whit. You sound suspiciously like MacLaren.” Tate, casually resting against the bar, cast me a pouty look. “Sorensen isn’t a suspect.”
“It’s all right,” Brock was quick to say. “I’m a stranger to Miss Bloom. It’s perfectly natural that she has questions.” He then picked up a glass from the bar as well, a crisp white, and took a meditative sip. “I stayed for dinner,” he bluntly admitted. “In fact, I eat dinner at the inn any chance I get. It’s one of the best perks of this job.”
“I can only imagine. Not a bad perk for a single man.”
“Oh, Sorensen’s married,” Tate put in, and gave the accountant a playful punch on the shoulder.
“I am,” Brock admitted, rubbing his shoulder. “But my wife’s a strict vegan and my kids have a lot of food allergies. As you can imagine, our diet at home is pretty restrictive. I applaud my wife’s veganism. Sometimes I even enjoy it myself. Mostly, however, I find that I’m too tempted by all the delicious smells wafting into my office from the inn’s acclaimed restaurant. They grill a mean New York strip, you know. I’m not strong enough to resist it.” He flashed a mischievous grin. “After dinner last night I went back to the office at the inn to finish up some paper work. I don’t know if you’re aware of this, Miss Bloom, but when I took over after Bill Lundquist left, I found that the books were in bad shape. The poor old guy probably thought he was helping your folks, but in reality, what he was really doing was fudging the numbers, making it appear that the inn and orchard were turning a profit. Once I’d reconciled the books as best I could, I learned that this lovely enterprise is bleeding money twice as fast as it’s being made, and thanks to a slew of pesky mishaps that have been occurring lately, things are getting worse.”
My heart, so intimately linked to this extraordinary place, reacted to the news before I did and began pounding painfully in my chest. The cherry orchard and inn were in trouble? I’d never entertained that thought. “Pesky mishaps?” I croaked, feeling nearly as ill as I had when hearing the news about Jeb.
“Silly, annoying things, Miss Bloom—“
“Please, call me Whitney.”
“Whitney,” he said, and launched into a litany of things that had gone wrong since the first of the year, when he’d taken over. New reservation software had been installed in January. In March it had gotten hacked, resulting in lost reservations and compromised credit card numbers. The mishap had shaken the confidence of potential guests, and there were a handful of lawsuits pending. In April, when the health inspector came to inspect the restaurant kitchen, he opened the door to the walk-in pantry only to find a spontaneous infestation of rats. The rats got spooked and scurried into the kitchen proper. It took five hours to kill them all and another two weeks before the
inspector would come back. The rats had obviously been planted there, but no one could figure out by whom or why.
Then there were smaller incidents. Cases of cherries had gone missing and small amounts of money had disappeared as well—fifty dollars here, a hundred there. Unique room accents and the odd antique had also been reported missing by the maid staff. Jack had been alerted to these minor incidents, and all the employees had been questioned, but no one was ever charged. Brock told us that Jack believed guests might be to blame for the missing decorations, which wasn’t so unusual, but that he found the missing money and the cases of missing cherries more troubling. Those were still under investigation. But lately the incidents seemed to have stopped, Brock reported. Everything had appeared to be running smoothly again until last night, when Jeb Carlson was murdered.
Brock appeared clearly stumped by what he referred to as “this string of bad luck.” Ironically, when I asked the question, he admitted that all the problems—with the exception of the flagrantly padded account books—began after he took over. He seemed acutely aware of this but not overly troubled. What was troubling, however, was the fact that my parents hadn’t bothered to mention any of this to me.
Tate, with a grim set to his lips, leaned in. “Whit. I know you love this place. I also know that you’d do anything to help your parents. That’s why I thought you should know what’s really been going on here.”
Although my head was spinning with this new information, I was moved by the fact that Tate had made the effort to introduce me to Brock Sorensen. “Thank you,” I said, and squeezed his hand.
I won’t lie. It felt good to touch him, and to lean on his familiar, quiet strength. But this was my problem, and I eventually had to let go. Tate was trying to win me back, and he had just taken the first adult step in doing so. I appreciated that. Regarding Brock Sorensen, however, there was something about the guy I didn’t entirely trust.
“Thank you,” I said again, as my mind chewed over this new, troubling information. “I appreciate you telling me this. However, as much as I’d love to stay and chat, I have a tray of wine to deliver.”
With half the glasses removed, I lifted the tray and walked into the crowd, heading for the table of thirsty guests. I was nearly there when the young busboy Gunderson suddenly appeared before me, blocking my path.
An awkward grin lit his blunt, childlike features as he said, “He told me to give you this. He thinks you’re hot.” I was confused until the thick, dimpled hand shoved a crumpled note in the pocket of my apron. Before I could ask “who?”, he was gone.
I set the entire tray of wine on the crowded table and walked out of the tent. There, in the privacy of the open lawn, I opened the note and read the hasty scrawl.
Tonight. Processing shed. 9 p.m.
Come alone.
I stared at the note, wondering who it was from. Pete Gunderson had said that the sender thought me hot, but staring at the cryptic lines, I doubted that was the case. I half hoped it was from the Irish bartender, but why
a note? Clearly he was confident enough to ask me in person. No, I thought, high schoolers delivered such notes under such pretenses. This I knew because back in the day I’d written quite a few myself. I then thought of Cody Rivers and Erik Larson. It was likely that one of them had asked Pete Gunderson to deliver the note. Which one was ready to talk, I wondered, staring at the words a little longer.
Then, however, I was struck with the unsettling feeling of being watched. I looked up and across the empty lawn. One of the bushes in the thick screen of greenery near the woods rustled. It was either the wind or someone was definitely watching me. I placed the note back in my pocket and went to find Tay.
Twenty-Six
You’re not going alone.”
It had been the argument of the past few hours, ever since I’d showed Tay the note. Tay had insisted we show it to Hannah as well, believing it would be akin to extending the proverbial olive branch, and she’d been correct. Hannah was still miffed at me for hitting on Briz, and upset at Briz for flirting with me. The poor thing was driving herself bonkers with jealousy over a man she wasn’t even dating. Showing her the note, however, had snapped her out of it. Our old friend was back and ready for adventure. It was a slight relief … slight because the whole notion of meeting a stranger in an empty building on the whim of a note was unnerving. Who had written it? Why did they want to talk with me? What if it was a trap? These were all questions we had no answer for, but we weren’t about to let that stop us.
The wine and cheese tasting event had come to a successful end, yet Erik Larson was still missing. Cody had reappeared but kept his distance. I didn’t try to speak with him again, partly because the note might have been his, and partly because he was seriously busy. Erik’s absence had continued throughout the Cherry Blossom Barbecue Dinner, held on the torch-lit patio. Many of the guests were still lingering there, stuffed with cherry-glazed baby back ribs, loaded baked potatoes, gilled corn on the cob, and the inn’s signature Cherry Cove Salad (lettuce, pink lady apples, dried tart cherries, toasted pecans, and grated mozzarella cheese tossed with homemade poppy seed dressing) while contemplating large fresh-baked slices of Grandma Jenn’s famous cherry pie. We had skipped the pie. It was 8:45, and I was in my room with the girls, changing into a pair of dark jeans and a black hoodie.
