All it took was being super nice, not stiff, and going against my natural instincts when it came to dealing with people on an everyday basis. Easy.
I extended a hand and she took it. “Jenna Sykes,” she said, still in that whiny tone.
Gosh, where had I heard it before?
“Do I know you from somewhere?” I asked, my brain ticking over. The library! Of course. There had been a woman on the phone in the library talking about Abigail. “You wouldn’t happen to be one of Abigail’s friends would you?”
Jenna released my hand. “I guess you could say that.”
“Oh, sorry. Did I say something wrong?”
“No, it’s not you,” she said, sighing. “It’s just… I’m always the bridesmaid never the bride, you know?”
“Abigail is getting married?” I asked, fiddling with the string of hearts. Cocoa Puff meowed at me then stretched out his front legs.
“No, she’s not getting married. She’s just… well, she’s Abigail, you know? Abigail the perfect. Abigail the popular.” She blinked. “No idea why I’m telling you this.”
“Sometimes people need to get things out.”
“I guess.” She scuffed her sneakers on the floor. “She’s always been the more popular one. She’s got great hair and eyes and parents and legs.”
“Not in that order, right?”
“No, not in that order.” She folded her arms. “Now, I just sound jealous. It’s just, like, everything that’s going on… it’s so crazy. She called me because she needed a friend after what happened to her sister, but she never has time to see me.”
“Oh, I’m sorry about that.”
“She’s always surrounded by guys. She has no time for me. And neither do my parents, I have no idea why I even came down here in the first place.” Jenna grabbed my arm. “Do you know what?”
“What?” I asked, hiding my shock at the sudden close contact.
“She’s not even that nice. The only reason she’s popular with guys or anyone else is because of all her money. She pays some of them, you know, to hang around? She thinks she can do anything with money, have any man she wants. It’s pretty gross.”
“What about her sister?”
“What, Hannah?” Jenna sniffed. “She was a wallflower. She was a real nobody. Not like me. Anyway, is there anything to eat around here?”
“Eat?”
“At the inn.”
“We’re having a lover’s lunch at midday. Valentine’s Day this week, you know?” I inwardly cringed at having said ‘lover’s lunch.’
“Oh, but nothing until then?”
“There’s a pizza place in town. Hold on a second.” I opened up a drawer in one of Gamma’s antique tables and brought out the takeout brochures we kept for just such an occasion. I handed them over. “All the Gossip food options you’ll need.”
“Thanks.” She took the brochures. “See ya around.” And off she went, dragging her sneakered feet. She headed out into the overcast day and disappeared from view.
“That was interesting,” I said to Cocoa.
He meowed, and I might’ve been biased, but I was sure he agreed with me. And found Jenna’s wordiness suspicious and helpful.
“She doesn’t like her best friend very much.” But she’d been dismissive of the murder victim. It seemed Hannah had been an afterthought for a lot of people. So why had she wound up dead? Who had cared or hated her so much that they’d wanted her out of the way?
It had to be the guy who’d worn the ring. But who was that? Did the ring necessarily mean it had been a man? If only we could make out the engravings on the inside of it.
Engravings were for wedding rings.
“Charlotte.” Smulder strode out of the kitchen. He wore a pair of gardening gloves and overalls and looked handsome and slightly soil-smudged. “Follow me.”
“Sorry, what?”
“Come with me, please.”
I frowned, but my curiosity got the better of me and I tailed Smulder into the kitchen and out the back door. He shut it tight then beckoned me toward the greenhouse.
“What’s going on?” I asked, keeping my voice low.
“Someone’s been hanging around the inn. Someone who doesn’t belong.”
Alarm bells and red flags went off in my head. Someone who doesn’t belong? Kyle?
“How do you know?”
Smulder stopped outside the greenhouse and gestured to the set of footprints that led between the trees. “Any of the guests taking strolls through the woods near the inn?”
“Not anyone with shoes that size,” I said.
“You routinely examine the guests’ shoes?”
“I’m the maid.”
“Right.” Smulder looked around the place. “I need to case this place out, properly. Georgina’s kept me so busy I haven’t had the chance to properly map out exits and entrances to the property. I’ve been slacking.” He drew off his gloves and placed them in a rusty bucket next to the greenhouse. “I should get started on that right now.” Smulder set off toward the back of the inn.
Where the Shroom Shed was. And the entrance to the basement. That just so happened to contain Gamma’s highly illegal armory.
“Wait.” I tugged on his arm.
He stopped and looked down at my hand. “Wait? What do you mean, ‘wait?’ Someone’s been snooping around the inn. I have to investigate this.”
“Oh, so now we’re OK with investigating?”
“Don’t start.” He tried to pull free, but I tightened my grip to vice-like.
“Seriously. If you want to find out who left the footprints, go in their direction. Into the trees.” I calmed my breathing. He’d know something was up if I was too obvious. “I’ll map out the exit strategy, OK? I’ll note it down and then we can discuss it later. Tonight.”
“Tonight?” he asked.
“Sure.” This wasn’t a date, of course. “In the library. We’ll go over it together and you can give your final mark of approval. And you can give me all the orders you’ve been dying to give me since you arrived.”
“Good deal,” he said, raising an eyebrow.
“Hey. I’m human. Sometimes.” I released him. “Now, off you go.”
Smulder stayed a second longer then headed back toward the greenhouse. Great. Now, I had another thing to add to my list of to-do’s for the day. At the top of it? Make sure Smulder didn’t find the armory. Oh, and find out who on earth was snooping around the inn.
19
I wriggled my nose and sat up in bed, scraping the heels of palms over my eyes. My alarm clock flashed 3 am, so why on earth was I awake? My nose itched again, and I inhaled deeply.
The sharp scent of smoke invaded my nostrils.
“What the—?” I clicked on my bedside lamp and leaped out of bed. That wasn’t smoke from a burnt meal. That was smoke from a fire. A wood fire. Something was very wrong.
Cocoa meowed from the door, his fur standing on end as he scratched frantically at it. I scooped him up and pressed him to my chest. “It’s OK, Cocoa. Don’t worry.” I touched my hand to the door, feeling for warmth. It was cool—that was good. If there was a fire, it wasn’t on the second floor yet.
Yet? This is horrible.
I rushed out into the hall, heading for my grandmother’s room. Gamma emerged before I’d taken two steps, her hair in curlers and her eyes wild. “Where’s it coming from?” she asked. “The fire?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “But we should evacuate everyone just in case.” Cocoa meowed and struggled in my arms. “We have to be quick. Where’s Cocoa’s carrier?”
“Entrance hall closet.”
Smulder crashed out of his bedroom. “Downstairs. Now.”
Under calmer circumstances, I might have given him a piece of my mind. Instead, I hurried down the stairs, Gamma on my heels, calling out and banging on doors as we sped past the occupied rooms.
The guests filed out in various states of grogginess.
“Downstairs e
veryone. Follow us!”
“What’s going on?” Bob called. “I was trying to get some sleep.”
“Fire,” I shouted back.
That got him moving.
The guests chased after us, and Smulder brought up the rear. I glanced back and caught him checking every room twice, his face completely blank. He was in emergency mode. I rushed down into the entry hall and wrenched the closet open then brought out Cocoa Puff’s kitty carrier.
He didn’t like being fed into it, but I got him inside, shut the little front gate firmly and got a long scratch on my knuckle as thanks.
Smoke billowed out of the crack underneath the shut door at the end of the hall—it led into Gamma’s newly renovated kitten foster care center area. The contractors had been only a few days away from completing it.
My stomach dropped, but now wasn’t the time to lament. We’d have to deal with that later. I barreled out of the inn and gathered with the guests and Gamma in front of it. Smulder strode out, looking in-charge and professional and not at all like the panicked gardener he should’ve been for his cover.
“Is that everyone?” I asked Gamma.
“I have to count heads.” My grandmother got onto one of the benches in the garden next to the driveway and started her count.
“I’m calling the fire department,” Smulder said, grimly. He already had a cellphone out and pressed to his ear, and he marched off along the front of the inn.
This was unbelievable. How had this happened? Everything had been going so well, and now this?
“I can’t believe it.” Lauren stepped up, staring up at the inn. A plume of smoke rose behind it. “Why is this happening?”
“The smoke isn’t coming from the kitchen.”
Lauren had an impression down her cheek from her pillow. “What do you mean?”
“The fire didn’t start in the kitchen,” I said.
“So?”
“So, where else could it have started from?” I bent and checked on Cocoa. He’d retreated into the corner of his kitty carrier and glared at me through betrayed yellow eyes. “It doesn’t make sense that it would have started anywhere else. Unless someone else started it.”
“Someone else?” Lauren kept running her fingers through her hair and tugging on the ends of it, nervously. “I can’t believe this has happened.”
“None of us can,” I replied, as Gamma clambered down from the chair and joined us.
“Everyone’s accounted for.” Gamma tugged her fluffy robe tight around herself.
Poor Gamma.
I touched her arm and we ambled away from the others, all gathering around and gossiping, horror and exhaustion painted on their faces. The cloud of smoke had doubled in size, and the first flickers of fire light had appeared in the inn windows near the front.
Not the library! Please, God, let nothing happen to the library.
The thought of all those books in peril made me queasy.
“What do you think?” I asked Gamma.
“Arson, obviously. Might even be the same person who set fire to the Hungry Steer.”
“What about the basement?”
Gamma pursed her lips. “I’ll handle it. You make sure that Brian doesn’t go anywhere near the firefighters when they’re here. If there’s damage to the basement, I’ll pay off the inspector to turn a blind eye to that area.” We couldn’t afford to have Gamma’s arsenal of weapons exposed. It would compromise both our covers.
“Got it,” I said.
We sat down on the bench Gamma had used as a stepping stool, side-by-side. My grandmother drew my hand into hers and held it tight. “Where are those darn firefighters?” she asked.
Sirens sounded in the distance, growing closer. “They’re coming. Gamma, don’t worry. I’m going to find out who did this.” And I was pretty sure I had a starting point already. A lead.
My suspicions about Sebastian Tombs had been growing for some time, now. Grayson had told his son to stay away from his restaurant, and we’d witnessed Sebastian’s antics at Abigail’s house the other day. First thing, I’d track that kid down and make him squawk.
Or could the true suspect be Gamma’s sworn enemy, Jessie Belle-Blue? We hadn’t seen her in a while, but at the start of my grandmother’s construction, she’d tried to interfere and had been snooping around the inn. Could she have lost it completely? Decided to sabotage my grandmother and the inn like this?
I didn’t picture Jessie as the fire-starting type, but my career had taught me that first appearances were seldom truthful. Digging deeper was always necessary for the unravelling of the character of a person.
“We’ll have to move everyone into that horrible hotel. What will they think of us? Come stay at the Gossip Inn, watch your belongings burn to ash. This is terrible,” Gamma said. “Oh, Charlotte, I don’t understand. Who would do something like this?”
I shook my head. I didn’t have the answer yet. But I would.
The fire trucks tore up the driveway and the crowd of guests and Smulder scattered onto the grass and out of the way. The men were out of the truck in seconds, the lieutenant shouting directions. The house was unfurled, and the work started.
Gamma squeezed my hand tight.
20
Grayson Tombs wasn’t at his offices—I’d called ahead to check in and been told he hadn’t come in to work yet—which left only one option. His home. The mansion that dominated the town, seated in the rich area, Loganville, just a few houses down from Abigail’s place.
‘A few houses down’ was a relative term here. The mansions sat on acres of land and the spaces between their front gates and winding driveways was sometimes over five or six miles.
Grayson’s mansion sat behind a set of golden gates, his initials engraved into them.
I stopped Gamma’s Mini-Cooper and took a breath, my mouth and nose filling with the smoky scent of my clothing. The firefighters had brought out what luggage they could after the fire had been put out.
Thankfully, most of the damage had been contained to the newly renovated area of the inn, but we weren’t cleared to go back in, yet.
I yawned and blocked it with the back of my fist.
“Wake up,” I muttered. “You have to have your wits about you.” Just because I’d spent the night organizing transportation and rooms for everyone at the hotel in Gossip, didn’t mean I could slack off now.
I had a lead, and I would follow it.
The intercom was gold plated on one of the sturdy stone columns that flanked the gates. I hit the golden button on the pad, and a camera on top of the column swiveled and glared down at me.
“Hello?” I poked the button a second time. “Is this thing on?”
“What are you doing here?” Grayson’s voice whipped out of the intercom.
“And hello to you too, Mr. Tombs.” The last time Grayson and I had spoken properly had been during the previous murder case. He wasn't a huge fan of me—probably thought I was too nosy for my own good.
“What do you want?” he repeated.
“To talk to you.”
“About what? Give me one good reason why I shouldn't call security, right now.”
“You have security?”
“Leave.”
“Wait, Grayson,” I called out. “Just wait a second.”
A silence followed.
“Are you there?” I asked.
“I'm here.”
I sucked in a breath. This was important. If I could figure out who had set fire to the inn then I could get Gamma the insurance help she needed. And keep my cover. Maybe focus back on the murder of the librarian hanging over our heads.
“Someone set fire to the Gossip Inn last night.”
Another minute of quiet.
A click startled me, and the gates swung inward smoothly. “Park in front of the house,” Grayson said.
I was in. I would've done a fist pump but I was kind of afraid the gates would swing shut before I got the Mini all the way through if I dawdled. Gamma
didn't need to factor in scratches along the side of her car—the current insurance nightmare was enough.
The long driveway was paved and wound between trees, past two sets of fountains, and up to the front of a house that had a massive wraparound porch and two front doors flanked by columns.
It was like a bigger, prettier version of Abigail's place.
I got out of the car and walked up the front steps. The doors opened and a butler appeared, wearing a suit and a wispy mustache. “My I take your coat, ma'am?”
I looked down at the fuchsia trench coat that smelled strongly of smoke. “Uh, no, I'm good. I'm not going to be here long.”
“Mr. Tombs has retired to the living room,” the butler said, signaling for me to follow him.
I entered the mansion and clip-clopped across the marble entrance hall. The butler led me down a few passages and halls and into a massive living room with shelving along the walls packed with books and curios. Grayson sat on a teal-colored sofa, wearing his usual suit and rubbing his fingers together on one hand.
The coffee table carried a selection of cakes, sandwiches, a pot of tea and one of coffee.
“Welcome, Miss. Smith.”
“Mr. Tombs.”
“Take a seat, please. George, why didn't you take her coat?”
“I want to keep it on.”
“Oh,” Grayson said, touching a finger to his nose. “What’s that smell?'
“It's me. From the fire.” I lowered myself onto the sofa.
“Coffee?” Grayson asked. “Sweet tea?”
“No, thank you. We had a fire at the inn, and I wondered if you happened to know anything about it?”
“Why would I know anything about that?” he asked. “You and your grandmother have a habit of accusing people of things they're either not capable of or—”
“I'm not here to accuse you,” I said. “I thought you'd have investigated the fire at the Hungry Steer by now, and you might, perhaps, have had a lead on it.”
“Oh. Yeah, shoot, I did have it looked into, but the police in this town are dumb, and the crack private investigator I hired didn't do any better. Good help is hard to come by these days.” He reached up and messed with his bolo tie.
Mission Inn-possible 02 - Strawberry Sin Page 8
