by Patti Larsen
I finished telling him everything while I stood to one side, forcing my hands to stay calmly and quietly at my sides, chin up, voice level and steady while Dr. Aberstock checked out Ron’s body, the paramedics waiting to transport the victim to the morgue. I purposely averted my eyes from what the doctor was doing because I didn’t need to look.
Nope. I’d taken my time while I waited for Crew to arrive to do my own little examination—no touching, I swear—and was confident I’d come to the same cause of death Aberstock would. Asphyxiation wasn’t a huge leap considering the circumstances I’d found Ron in.
“I’m not going to get into just how much trouble you’re in right now.” Crew’s attempt to make me feel cowed and contrite was so far off the mark I had to bite my lower lip to keep from grinning. It was like he’d given up the effort, knowing it wouldn’t do him a lick of good. Gone was his bullying anger, his disappointment even, replaced by a numb kind of acceptance. Cool, I was wearing him down. No, this wasn’t funny, but surely he knew better by now than to even try? That everything he said was kind of a waste of breath, no matter how it was delivered? I have no idea where the boost of gravitas came from or when I’d decided actively to just shrug off his attempts to keep me out of his business but it happened and I was done arguing with my natural talent for curiosity satisfaction. He’d either have to arrest me for real or live with it.
I think he sensed my attitude shift long before he even tried to intimidate me because he sighed heavily before he tossed his hands, turning away from me so all I could see was his profile. Jaw jumping, cord in the side of his neck standing out. Typical Crew without the usual bossiness. I wondered if he was giving up on fighting me or me in general. That would suck, but didn’t change my mind.
“I should arrest you for trespassing,” he said.
“You should find out why someone sabotaged Mom’s cupcakes,” I snapped.
Crew spun on me, brows low over his blue eyes as some of his anger returned. “You do realize how ridiculous that sounds. Or, on the other hand, how it makes your mother a suspect.”
Oh no, he did not just play that card on me. “You know,” I snapped, keeping my voice down though it was hard, so hard, not to yell at him, “you’d think you’d be over that kind of dumb ass reaction by now, Crew. That you’d know better than to accuse a Fleming of anything.”
There was the left eye twitch, awesome. “A man was murdered,” he said. “And yet again Fiona Fleming is in the middle of it. Maybe I should arrest you. God knows the town could use the break from violent crime.”
There was a time such an attempt to make me feel bad—clearly a ploy to get me to back off, I could see that now—would have worked. Sent me scurrying back to Petunia’s to feel badly about myself before some evidence trail lured me out into the world again to find out things he should have uncovered himself.
Not this time. “So do it, Sheriff,” I said. “Or stop being an obtuse and arrogant jackass and listen to me for once.”
He looked like he was about to respond and likely in a way that would make both of us regret ever meeting each other. But Clara’s appearance ended that, followed by the hurried arrival of Janet and Molly. The only person who seemed to have his head on his shoulders was Dale. The young production assistant appeared at wits’ end regardless, doing his best to corral the two stars before they could stumble into the crime scene.
Naturally, summoning Crew had lured out the showrunner. He’d likely called her, or hotel security had. Whatever the reason for her appearance, she made damned sure I was the least of Crew’s worries at that moment.
“What the hell is going on?” She stared at the sight of Ron Williams being zipped into a body bag while Dr. Aberstock stepped back from the scene and let the two paramedics do their job. “Is that Ron?”
I spun on Clara personally, glaring at her while she met my eyes with her own scowl. She seemed rather low on the sorrowful scale and more irritated than anything. “He’s been murdered.” Crew grunted like I hit him but I didn’t let him interrupt. “And my mother’s cupcakes were sabotaged.” I jabbed a finger at the counter where the incriminating glass jar still rested. She could come to her own conclusions which I thought was the lesser of the crimes. “So tell me, what kind of show are you running here?”
She tsked at me, rolling her eyes. “This is TV, kid,” she said. “This crap happens all the time. Get over it.” When she turned to Crew again, she blanched. “I meant the baking. Not murder. He was murdered?” Finally her humanity started to show through, bleeding past the rigid and angry woman I’d met earlier today, again just now. “Who killed him?”
“Excellent question,” I snapped, only to have Crew’s hand snake out and grasp my wrist. He didn’t squeeze, barely touched me, but it was enough to silence me, his touch surprising in its gentleness.
“This is terrible.” Molly appeared at my side, Janet next to Clara. They both stared as the paramedics rolled the body out of the room toward the lobby. I winced, thinking about Jared and Alicia and how having a corpse in their dining room wasn’t going to be good for business. Considering this was their second murder in a year? Then again, death hadn’t deterred tourists from Reading in the past, so who knew? Maybe it would be a good thing. Flinching from my line of truly inappropriate thought, I turned back toward Molly as she hugged herself and leaned into me. “Fee, how’s Lucy?”
Wow, so kind of her to think of Mom at a time like this. Even though she was all I could think about. “Pissed,” I said. “And Clara doesn’t seem to give a crap.” Well, considering someone just died, I should be cutting the woman slack. But, for all I knew, he’d died in part because of what happened to Mom, right? Sounded plausible.
Hey, don’t judge me for putting my mother first.
“Seriously,” Janet sniffed in my direction, pinched expression making her look like a shriveled apple. “A man is dead. Your mother’s terrible baking is not the issue here.”
Molly opened her mouth, frowning, looking like she wanted to protest, when someone lunged from around Clara and attacked Janet. Can I be honest here? Just before I could.
“Cheater! Liar!” It took me a moment to realize it was Bonnie Williams. Fists flying, her long, dark hair whipping around her as she pummeled Janet in a fit of rage, the newly created widow of Ron Williams shrieked at the top of her lungs while the other woman shrank from her, forcing Crew to lunge between them and hold the attacker off. “You did this! You took him and took him and then you killed him because he didn’t want you anymore.” She sagged, words slurring as she staggered in Crew’s grasp, sobbing then, almost falling and would have if he hadn’t held her up.
Um, what was that? Before I could ask any questions, someone grasped my arm and tugged and I found myself being partly led, partly herded toward the exit. I fought against Dale’s hand for a moment, but when Molly followed me, the two of them insistent with their expressions and their almost relentless retreat, I gave up and let them escort me out into the lobby.
The large space was abuzz with people gathered to talk about the death. It was still early enough in the evening to catch the attention of the guests, whispering as they stared out into the January night and the retreating ambulance. Word would get around town pretty quick that I’d found another body. Awesome. Didn’t matter, not when I had two people in my presence I could grill for answers.
Molly beat me to speaking first. “I feel terrible for Lucy.” Her long lashes blinked over her hazel eyes, her face pale, hands shaking as they took mine.
“Not for Ron?” Her sympathy wouldn’t help Mom and I wasn’t in the mood to accept it for my mother right now.
She flinched a bit, looked down, hands falling to tug her thin robe closed around her lean body. A bit early for bed, wasn’t it, barely 6:45PM? Dale grasped her elbow as if he could support her with that simple touch.
“It’s terrible, all of it.” Molly spun away and ran for the elevators while Dale stared after her. Okay, pretty obvious he had fee
lings for her, but when he turned back to me I could see the naked love in his eyes and refreshed my assessment accordingly.
“Ron Williams won’t be missed,” he said, then shook his head. “I’m sorry about Lucy, too, Fee. But not Ron. And I think you’ll be hard pressed to find anyone who misses him.”
He spun and marched back into the dining room and, grim faced, I followed. Only to be blocked by the one person who could keep me out as Deputy Jill Wagner emerged from the doors and planted herself on the lobby side, shaking her head at me with a firm but sad expression.
“Sorry, Fee,” she said, shoulders bulky in her uniform jacket, no nonsense blonde ponytail hanging over one shoulder. “Not tonight.”
I ground my teeth together, crossing my arms over my chest. Jill was my friend, but she was also a deputy and I knew asking her for help meant she’d put herself in trouble with Crew. If it had been my cousin, Robert Carlisle, I would have pushed past him and to hell with the consequences. Who was I kidding? A chance to get Robert in trouble? I’d have done it just to piss him off. But Jill was a whole other story.
Crew knew me too well already and we hadn’t even had a date yet.
Fine, whatever. I spun without a word to her and marched for the front doors. I could still circle around and sneak back on set if I wanted to. Except there was nothing for me to do there, not right now. Maybe I could track down Dr. Aberstock? I stopped myself on the steps, breathing mist into the cold, clear night, shaking myself a little.
What was I doing and why? Mom needed me more than some dead judge who, it appeared, no one actually liked. I’d come here to prove her baking was sabotaged and I’d succeeded at that. While I might not have gotten any actual satisfaction from the parties involved, at least I knew now Mom hadn’t made a mistake. As for Ron Williams’s murder, it had nothing to do with me. I had a brief moment of headshake and resentment. Wished with a rush that made me shiver this whole dumb show idea had never happened and that Clara would pack up her horrible set and ridiculous fifteen minutes of fame offer and get out of my town.
Crew could have the murder. I was done.
But, as I descended to the parking lot at a clip, heading for my car, I couldn’t miss the woman who hovered at the bottom of the stairs, staring off down the mountain. I hesitated beside her, caught her profile and recognized her as the woman Dale confronted earlier, the one who’d snuck onto the set much as I had.
My mouth opened, brain firing before my decision to walk away could kick in again.
“You’re on the show?”
She turned her head, met my eyes, hers full of something I couldn’t identify. But I finally put a name to her face, though she looked different than I remembered from TV. “Yes, I used to be.” She sounded so sad and kind of broken. When she tried to walk down the last step she tripped. I reached out without thinking and caught her, helped her steady herself. Her weak smile triggered my curiosity and my empathy.
“Fiona Fleming.” I tried a smile, surprised to find it came easily.
“Joyce Young.” She seemed unable to stop herself from looking back down the mountain, in the direction the ambulance went. “Last season’s runner up.”
Yes, she was indeed. “What are you doing here?” Because that was my business.
She didn’t seem to mind the question, though she answered it with one of her own. “Is he…” she swallowed hard. “Is he dead?”
I nodded, not sure what to say. Even as Joyce turned to me, caught my affirmative and burst into tears.
“Thank god,” she whispered and ran off.
***
Chapter Eleven
I should have run after her, chased her down, asked her why she reacted the way she did to the death of Ron Williams. She’d been runner up in the show last year. Did she have hard feelings about him and her loss? I’d seen firsthand how horribly he treated people who didn’t live up to his standards. But then there was the Bonnie attack on Janet and the clear to me now implication that maybe Ron wasn’t so faithful to his wife.
Did that mean Joyce had a history with Ron that could make her a suspect in his murder?
Voices behind me turned me around, my attention caught by Crew and Jill as the two exited the front doors. Without thinking—my favorite—I retraced my steps and joined them. Jill seemed startled by my appearance, ducked out about a second before Crew realized I was there. The look on his face gave me pause and made me wonder if my timing could be worse or if I should just turn around and go back to my car without my typical blurting to put distance between him and me.
Instead, I spoke up, because yeah. “You need to talk to Joyce Young,” I said.
“You need to mind your own business.” Crew said it like it had become rote to him, a saying he wished I’d finally get through my thick skull. Not happening.
“You don’t understand,” I said, spluttering as I turned and gestured in the direction the woman ran off into the darkness. She must still be on the property. He could catch up with her easily.
Crew settled one hand on my shoulder and attempted to push me down the stairs. Okay, that sounded worse than it was. He didn’t try to kill me or anything. At least, I didn’t think so. But he was certainly taking liberties, manhandling me like that. I jerked away from his touch, scowling at him for the attempt. To his credit he backed off, letting his hand fall to slip into the pocket of his jacket, though he looked about as grim as a block of stone carved from the mountain around us as he spoke.
“No, Fee,” he said, “I don’t think you understand.” So cold, that tone. Uncalled for. “I wasn’t kidding in there. About Lucy. You seem to think you and your family are insulated from the law, that you have some kind of free rein over this town.” He said what? “But I’m here to let you know I’ll be talking with your mother in short order, likely in the next hour or so. Just in case you want to warn her ahead of time. So she can get her story straight.” He didn’t sound like he was trying to be helpful.
Jerk, how dared he? “If you think for one second I’m going to let you bully my mother because you’re having a rough night, you’ve got another thing coming.” Did he. Like my foot up his very shapely behind. Cute or not, like him or not, if he tried to pin this on Mom he was a dead man. He could come after me all he wanted, had, in fact, when Pete Wilkins died. Even came for Dad. But Mom? Yeah, they’d find his corpse floating in the lake before I’d let him near my mother.
Growl.
“Ron Williams died after humiliating your mother in public,” Crew snapped then, nose inches from mine, the scent of coffee on his breath reaching me as the mist of his exhale washed over my face. “Suffocated with an empty bag that her show apron was wrapped in.” Wait, I didn’t know that. “Sounds like motive and means to me.”
I’d give him motive. “You really think she’d be that stupid?” Seriously. “You’re just trying to punish me for finding another damned body in this freaking ridiculous town.” I thought we’d gotten this out in the open in October. None of the bodies I’d encountered had been my fault. “And before you ask, smartass, I didn’t kill him. Would have loved to choke him on a handful of the cupcake my mother baked after whoever sabotaged her chances broke her heart. Because I can tell you one thing.” I shook my finger in his face while his nostrils flared, pupils dilating as his temper rose. “If I was going to kill Ron Williams you’d know it was me. As for Mom, she’s an expert marksman. And smart enough to kill with a bullet from a distance.”
Okay, I was exaggerating. Um, outright lying? Mom hated guns, always had. The one time Dad took her to the firing range she’d been so shaken by the explosion of the pair of small blocks shaped like rabbits I thought she was going to fall over. Besides, defending Mom by saying she was capable of murder by single bullet? I wasn’t sure that was exactly a rousing cry of innocence. Did make me think of my father in the heartbeat between my ridiculous statement and what I planned to tell him he could do with his accusations. Could Dad have…? Maybe if Mom was physically hurt in som
e way. But over cupcakes?
“Are you done?” Crew waited for me to nod. I took my time. Just because. Watched the tic under his eye dance and the irritation on his face that he saw me notice. “Last time I’ll tell you this, Fee. Go home. And stay out of it.”
It was so tempting to stick my tongue out at him in that instant. The most childish of reactions, I could barely hold it in. Instead, I tossed my head, my red hair swirling behind me in what I told myself was a majestic flow of auburn mane before striding for my car. Slipped twice on patches of ice that utterly ruined my queenly exit, but whatever.
I was only home for five minutes, long enough to bundle on another scarf and stuff Petunia’s rotundness into a harness and protective shoes before I exited the B&B again and hurried to Mom’s. I could have taken my car, but I needed the physical outlet and a brisk walk in the chill of the January evening did a lot to cool my temper, much more than the annoyed and sniping drive I took down the mountain, telling Crew off in my head to the point if he’d shown up in front of me I’d have run him over.
By the time Petunia clattered up the walkway to Mom and Dad’s, her little booties tapping on the cold pavement, I had a handle on my anger and a plan. At least, I told myself that when I knocked on the door before letting myself in.
Petunia bounded away from me, heading for the kitchen when I unhooked her harness, her boots sliding over the hardwood floor with a squeaking sound. I heard Mom say her name and hurried to join my pug, finding my mother sitting on the floor with her back against the stove, Petunia in her lap eagerly licking tears from her cheeks.
I stood there a long moment and stared down at Mom, wishing I could help but knowing Petunia was doing a far better job than I ever could. By the time my mother released the pug from her hug, the wiggling dog chatting with her over her excitement in seeing her, Mom was at least no longer crying openly.
