by Avery Aames
Delilah glowered at me.
“Why are you wearing that silly getup?” I asked.
“It’s a marketing ploy.” She thrust her chin in the air. “May I post these on your windows? Our ticket sales are down. Your window display is drawing interest.”
Indeed, a crowd of children and parents had gathered to watch the eggs mature, even though all of them were crackless. Watching water boil would be more exciting, in my humble opinion, but I wouldn’t turn away potential customers. If even ten percent came inside, the display had succeeded.
“If we post these on the front door, we’ll get some action.” Delilah thrust them into my hand. “Please? You’ll be at opening night, right?”
“Wouldn’t miss it.” I set the posters by the cash register. I’d hang them later.
“I’ve got to run.” Delilah glanced at Quinn, nodded a hello, and then pushed her whiskers away from her eyes and took a better look. “It’s you. You’re out!” She eyed me. “Ask her about the brick wall.”
One thing I could say about my energy-charged friend was that she didn’t have a subtle bone in her body. Perhaps that was why Delilah and Grandmère had hit it off. She hippety-hopped out of the shop, sticking a theater notice on the door before skipping east.
“What about the brick wall?” Quinn shifted feet.
“We think the brick wall that was in the winery cellar was new,” I said, speaking softly, treading lightly. “We think the murderer built it.”
“Why?”
“As a metaphor,” Rebecca said.
Quinn’s face turned stony—my kind of lying face—probably thinking that if she held it steady, nobody would sense that she knew something. I stared at her, intent on making her uncomfortable. Finally, her shoulders gave way. “Chief Urso asked me if I built it,” she said. “I told him I didn’t. I’m as inept as my father. I glue my fingers together with a glue gun. I can paint. That’s all I can do.”
“Did you know your father had purchased bricks?” I said.
“We all knew. Dad came back from winter break and told us the whole sorry story. He starts so many projects that he doesn’t finish.” She sighed, and in that sigh, I sensed a daughter’s lifelong embarrassment. “That was when we started planning the field trip here.”
“What about the jewels?” I asked.
“What jewels?”
“There were jewels strewn around Harker’s body.”
“We think those were metaphorical, too,” Rebecca chimed in.
“I didn’t see any jewels,” Quinn said, her voice thin with panic. “I didn’t see anything. Why were there jewels? Did somebody find the treasure? Did Harker? Was that why he was killed?”
Meredith wrapped a protective arm around her shivering niece and explained about Harker’s former fiancée, Julianne. “Whoever killed him might have been pointing out Harker’s mistreatment of Julianne.”
Quinn glared at each of us, as if we were a panel of Salem elders and she was the innocent witch being burned at the stake. “I didn’t do it!”
“We know you didn’t,” I said. Despite her anxiety, I needed to coax the full story from her. “But you knew about Julianne, didn’t you?”
With a growl, Quinn shook off Meredith. “Harker said she was a nutcase.”
“You never met her?” I asked.
“Never!”
“But you were angry about him giving you her ring,” I said.
She glanced at her empty fourth finger. “She might have been crazy, but Harker was obsessed with her. He painted her. All the time. Even after she was dead. When I called him on it, he said it was his fault she was dead.”
“That’s why he wanted to break it off with you,” Rebecca said.
Quinn nodded. “Harker said he was damaged and I deserved better. I told him I didn’t, but he blew me off. I flirted with the other guys to make him jealous. He got mad, all right. He called me a ...” She fluttered her hand in front of her face. “That’s when I threw the ring at him.” She sobbed into her palms. “Oh, no, no, no. He’s dead because of me.”
Meredith wrapped her in her arms. “Sweetheart, it’s not your fault.”
But it was someone’s fault. Someone had killed Harker. Someone who knew about the bricks as well as about Julianne. Any of the students. Freddy. Winona.
Meredith gazed helplessly at me. I screwed up my mouth as an apology and suggested she take Quinn into the annex. As they trundled off, hunched together like a team in a wobbly three-legged race, the front door opened again.
“Charlotte,” Jordan called.
I grinned, more than pleased to see my hunky boyfriend strut through the door. A sexy sheen of perspiration clung to his face and neck. As he drew near, I detected the scent of freshly mown hay.
“Tending to the cows?” I teased.
“Do I smell bad?”
“You smell incredibly good.”
He kissed me on the cheek, and unbridled thoughts of the two of us tumbling around a hayloft swept through my mind.
“Um, Charlotte?” Rebecca toyed with her ponytail. “Why don’t I whip up a batch of champagne fondue to put out on the tasting counter, okay?” She didn’t wait for my answer. She retreated to the kitchen.
Thankful for the privacy, I cozied up to Jordan. “Where’ve you been hiding?” The second the words fell out of my mouth, I wished I could scoop them back in. I didn’t want him to think I was keeping tabs on him. But I missed seeing him and hearing his yummy voice in person.
“Tending to business. A couple farms to the north are thinking of selling.”
“And you’re going to expand?”
He quirked a smile.
I wondered how a man who was trying to stay incognito could do so if he became the wealthiest landowner in Holmes County, but I kept mute. It wasn’t my business, right?
“Yipes!” Bozz yelled from the office. He tore out and cut around the cheese counter. “I just saw the time, Miss B. Sorry, but I’ve got to go. I left the search you requested open on the computer.” He flew out of the shop.
“What search?” Jordan said.
“Into Sylvie’s financial claims.”
Jordan tapped my nose. “You are becoming an A-One snoop.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Bozz has certainly gotten more handsome in the last year,” Jordan said. “He’s going to break hearts one of these days.”
“Or get his broken.” I explained that he had a crush on brainiac Philby Jebbs. “You know her father, don’t you?”
“In passing.” Jordan ran a finger down my sleeve. “Now, let’s talk about this man stalking Jacky.”
“Outside.” I threw on a sweater and led Jordan into the co-op garden behind the store. I paced in front of the bench at the far end of the garden. Jordan stood at one end, arms hanging at his sides.
“Describe the guy,” he said.
I did. “When I left the pottery store to confront him, he ran.”
“And you chased him?”
“I lost him at the church. He must have hopped the fence.”
“What did you expect to do if you’d caught him? Were you prepared to take him down? Prepared to fight off his counterattack?” He stopped me from pacing and grabbed my shoulders, his gaze dark with concern. “What am I going to do with you?”
I had a list. A very steamy list.
He kissed me firmly and pulled me into a warm embrace. He stroked my hair and kissed my forehead. “Charlotte, Charlotte.” He held me at arm’s length. “You can’t be so rash when it comes to your own safety.”
“But I was worried that it might’ve been Jacky’s husband.”
“No way.” He shook his head. “For one thing, her husband would never dress in a B-movie detective outfit. For another thing, his colleagues are typically larger than the man you described.”
“Are they still husband and wife?”
“In former name only.”
“What does her husband do?” I said. “You ha
ven’t told me.”
“It’s better if you don’t know.”
“Come on. I’ve kept Jacky’s secret safe. I haven’t told a soul.”
His eyes narrowed. “If you must know, he’s a very powerful lawyer.”
With large colleagues. Did he represent a sumo wrestling gym? Fight obesity? Did he hire only associates who were larger than himself because he was as big as Jabba the Hut?
“And you? Who are you?” I asked, hoping I could catch him off guard.
“A man with no power.”
“But you had power once upon a time.”
“Never.” He paused. A cloud of uncertainty suffused his face. As quickly as it appeared, it disappeared. “I never had power,” he said, his voice controlled.
I snuggled up to him. “You’ve got to let me in. Tell me something more about you. Who are you? Why should I trust you? I think I’m falling in love with you, but there’s a piece of me holding back because I’m afraid of you.”
“You never have to be afraid of me.” He ran his knuckles gently along my jaw.
I melted. “At least tell me how you learned about cheese.”
“A Frenchman taught me.”
I pulled away. “Very funny.”
“That’s the truth.”
If it was the truth, had I ever met his teacher in my travels? Had Pépère? Jordan eyed me with an impish gleam. I knew him well enough to know that I would get no more. Not today. I would have to be satisfied with that teensy shred of a clue.
“Back to Jacky,” Jordan said. “Don’t worry about the guy in the fedora. I think I know who he is.”
“Who? I’ve never seen him before.”
“He’s from two counties over. He just signed on at the Quail Ridge Honeybee Farm.”
“Why did he run away from me?”
“He’s sort of simple, you know? I don’t think he realizes that hanging around Jacky isn’t cool. He’s got a little crush on her.” He laughed. “But who doesn’t? Including Urso.”
“Chief Urso? Umberto Urso? You’re kidding. Really?”
There went my theory that Urso was interested in me. I wasn’t upset, just curious.
“It’s rather obvious,” Jordan said.
Not to me. Not to my grandmother, who would be shocked that she had missed the clues.
“He’s always making excuses to stroll by her shop and peek in the window,” Jordan said.
And here I thought he was always dropping into Fromagerie Bessette to have a chat with me. Talk about being a little narcissistic. Sheesh!
Jordan scratched his chin. “Though I’m not sure he’ll be as interested once he finds out Jacky’s pregnant.”
CHAPTER 27
“Pregnant?” I slumped onto the bench in the co-op garden and gazed at the birds searching for worms. Being pregnant would explain why Jacky had been crying at the diner and why she’d looked so tired at her pottery store. Except the timing was all off. I glanced at Jordan. “How can she be pregnant? It can’t be her husband’s. She’s been here nine months, and she’s certainly not showing.” My mouth fell open as Jordan’s last statement clanged in my head. “Is it Urso’s?”
“No.” Jordan sat beside me and took my hand in his. “The father isn’t anyone you know.”
“He doesn’t live here in town?”
“He’s not here at all.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The father of the baby died.”
I gasped.
Jordan perched beside me on the bench and took my hand in his. He caressed it with his thumb. “I told you that Jacky’s husband was abusive. Ultimately, she looked elsewhere for affection and fell in love with another man. She and her lover were going to run away together, but he died.”
So much mystery and sadness surrounded Jacky. My next thought made my breath catch in my chest. “Did her husband ... murder him?”
“No, he had a car accident.”
“A real accident or staged?”
Jordan chuckled. “That Rebecca has really done a number on you. You see conspiracies in everything. He was hit by a drunk driver, who died, too.”
“How horrible.”
“I made plans to move them both here, but—”
“I still don’t understand. He died before Jacky moved here? Then how could she be pregnant with his child?” Before he responded, the answer came to me. Jacky and her lover had planned for the future. “They banked his sperm in the event her husband did something dastardly to her lover, right?”
He nodded. “They didn’t have a clue that fate would intervene. She’s dealing with it. And though she’s feeling a little sick to her stomach, she’s excited about having a baby.”
“Wait a minute. She’s not fully divorced, is she? She must be terrified that her husband will find her and claim the child is his.”
Jordan squeezed my hand. “We’ve taken pains to make sure the paternity is documented. Besides, her ex—”
“Her husband.”
“He won’t find her. Her past is over.”
Tacit in his tone was the fact that his past was over, as well. Would I ever know who he was or who he had been? Was I ready to take a leap of faith and trust that he was a good guy and not a made man?
Listen to you, Charlotte. A made man? You’ve seen The Godfather one too many times.
Jordan traced my jawbone with his finger.
“What?” I said, my insides growing hot with longing.
“I adore you and your good heart.”
He kissed me, full-throttle, and out of nowhere, I heard imaginary violins and pictured the two of us walking along a moonlit country lane.
When we took a breather, he said, “I hope that was okay.”
“Better than okay.”
And yet I felt so conflicted. I was happy for Jacky yet sorry for her at the same time. I felt guilty that I had found love when she had lost it, but I was also exhilarated, because only a year ago, I’d believed my chances of falling in love with a fabulous, albeit mysterious, man were slim to nil.
Jordan pressed me to him, my hands to his chest, and kissed me again. Deeply. Passionately. His heart pounded beneath my palms.
When we broke apart this time, a smidgen of fear crept back into my psyche. I said, “Are you sure about the guy in the fedora?”
“Yes. Don’t see evil in every nook and cranny. It doesn’t suit you.” He tapped my forehead with his finger. “Neither does that frown.”
I didn’t know I was frowning.
“I’ll check on my sister. Happy?”
“Ecstatic.”
“Good. Now go inside. It’s cold out here.” He pecked my cheek then rose from the bench.
As he strolled past the hothouse toward the street, I found myself humming a deliciously wicked tune.
I returned to the shop and was surprised to see my grandmother sitting at the cheese-tasting counter, a tiny pot of fondue in front of her, a basket of bread chunks nearby. She dipped a piece of bread into the pot and ate hungrily.
Rebecca jerked a thumb at the kitchen and held a finger to her mouth. Apparently Grandmère hadn’t discovered that Pépère was doing inventory in the kitchen.
I suppressed a smile. Ah, the secrets we kept in the name of peace. “Where’s Meredith?”
“She and Quinn went to find Freddy. You know, I couldn’t help thinking again about that Winona Westerton. Stealing Harker Fontanne’s portraits of her sister wouldn’t be enough to satisfy her.”
I chuckled. “You’re a psychology expert now?”
“House would say—”
“House? As in Gregory House from the TV show? You’re quoting a fictional character?”
She shot daggers at me. “House would say Winona had a deep-seated need for vengeance.”
“But someone else might have an equally strong motive.” If only I knew what it was.
“Chérie, hello!” Grandmère beckoned me with a piece of cheese-drenched bread between thumb and forefinger. Her gloomy face s
truck a chord. What was wrong?
I patted Rebecca’s arm. “We’ll continue our discussion later, okay? In the meantime, why don’t you put together the gift basket for the church receptionist.” I sauntered around the counter and kissed my grandmother on the cheek. The black peasant blouse she wore over her leggings sapped the color from her face.
“Give me some consolation,” Grandmère said as she eyed the ladder-back chair beside her.
I perched on the chair. “Why do you need consoling?”
“After last night’s tech rehearsal, our play received a bad review on the Internet.”
“Grandmère, you know that you don’t give a hoot about reviews. You never have.”
“This time ...” She shook a finger.
“You already had a good review. Why did you need another?”
“I am a fool. She said she liked avant-garde plays, but I think she was plotting against us. This review is harrowing.” She pulled a piece of paper from her pocket and flapped it at me. “See what she says about our leading man.”
I took it and read: Barton Burrell, the star who is a farmer by day, has the emotional depth of one of his cows. Throw in an inappropriate amount of moaning and the performance was bucolic, at best.
“So she didn’t like an actor, big deal.”
“Non! Read on ... about the playwright.” She stabbed the paper.
I dragged my gaze down the page and read: The playwright believes she’s hit upon a novel idea, but she mixes her metaphors like a hack. Poe does not belong in a Sartre play. Give up and get out of show business, lady.
“Of all the gall!” I blurted.
Grandmère snatched back the review and stowed it in her crocheted satchel. “Delilah might never write again. She is devastated.”
Delilah hadn’t seemed at all worried when she’d come into the shop earlier in her bunny costume, but then she was an actress. A very good actress. “She’ll come around,” I said, hopeful that I was right. “And your regulars are open-minded, savvy theatergoers. They’ll adore the play.”
“I am not so sure.” Grandmère grabbed both of my hands. “Please. I am having an impromptu rehearsal right now. Will you come? We need your objective opinion.”
