by Bree Baker
I looked up and caught Amelia staring.
She turned her phone to face me, eyes glistening with unshed tears. A picture of Mr. Butters in full Blackbeard attire centered the screen. The watercolor painting from Mitzi’s dressing room was in his hands. Beside that photo was a grainy shot of the evidence bags and Mr. Butters’s painting in the hands of a cop.
“Read the caption,” Amelia said.
“Charm Lawmen Search for Possible Stalker.” I glanced at Mr. Butters, who was working his way through Amelia’s slice of rum cake as if he might find some comfort there.
The article went on to describe the photos of Mitzi, taken since her arrival in Charm late last night, and the creepy letter. The signed painting was described as “ominous and worrisome.”
I grimaced as I prepped Quinn’s berry bowl. The locally grown strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries went into a dessert bowl with a dollop of vanilla yogurt at the bottom. I placed the bowl with the food and waiting teas.
Amelia snaked her hand out to catch my wrist before I lifted the tray. “Help us.”
“Okay,” I said, keeping the deliveries carefully balanced. “Give me a minute to drop these off and think about what to do. I’ll be right back.”
She released me on a ragged inhalation of breath.
I ferried two iced teas to the pirate couple, then moved on to Rose and Quinn. When the tray was empty, I tucked it under one arm and offered an encouraging smile. “Enjoy. If you need anything else, just holler.”
“Actually,” Rose began, her phone positioned between them on the table. “Is it true that you help local police solve crimes?”
“No,” I answered quickly, hating the speed at which news traveled when it wasn’t in my favor.
“Are you sure?” Quinn asked, one brow quirked. “The reporter who told us seemed pretty certain.”
I shook my head and bit the insides of my cheeks. Not only did I definitely not help police with their investigations, I’d been asked repeatedly not to. “Reporters always seem certain about everything,” I said. “Honestly, they’re kind of a pain.”
A bout of familiar laughter erupted behind me. “Really? I rather enjoy a good reporter.”
No way. I spun on my toes to find Ryan, possibly the world’s most annoying reporter, striding confidently through my café.
I needed to get louder wind chimes, or maybe I could just get Ryan a warning bell to hang around his neck.
I left Rose and Quinn to their food and went to greet my newest guest. “What on earth are you doing here?” I asked, grabbing him in a hug. Ryan made me crazy, but we’d shared a near-death experience once and that sort of thing creates a bond.
He hugged Amelia next, lifting her easily off the ground as Mr. Butters rose to greet him with a handshake.
Amelia beamed up at the somewhat attractive, obnoxiously overconfident reporter. “You’re late.”
“Late?” I asked. “You knew he was coming? Why didn’t you tell me?”
Ryan smirked. “Everyone knows how much you enjoy a good surprise.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “A good surprise.”
“Ha!” He arched his back in laughter. “I came to cover Mitzi Calgon’s return to the spotlight after nearly a decade of living reclusively, but it seems I’m a little late.”
“She wasn’t a recluse,” I said defensively, though I barely knew her. “She was retired. It’s different.” If she had been a recluse, I wouldn’t have blamed her. Not with hordes of people following her around, dressed as pirates from a movie she’d made decades ago, taking her picture without her consent, and writing weird poems for her.
Ryan pulled his chin back in a look of disbelief. “Please. Actors love the spotlight. She’d obviously been hiding out for a reason, and now I guess we all know why.”
I gaped. “Crass.”
He shrugged. “I call them as I see them, and right now, I see a woman who knew she was in danger but came out of hiding to do a favor for a friend, and that favor got her killed.”
“Get out,” I said, pointing to the door, but only half meaning it.
He took a seat at the bar beside Amelia and smiled at me. “I missed that Swan sass. Lucky for you and Ms. Calgon, an extremely talented investigative reporter is now in town, and word has it that when I pair up with Everly Swan, criminals don’t stand a chance.”
“We’re not teaming up.”
“That’s what you said last time.” He winked.
Amelia patted his arm and smiled.
I cast a look toward Rose and Quinn’s table and found them watching me. I’d just told them I didn’t investigate things.
“Fine,” I said softly to Ryan and the Butterses, angling my back toward the documentary production team’s table. “I’ll help clear up the confusion over whether or not Mr. Butters wrote that letter or took those photos, and I’ll see what I can do about clearing his name as the killer, but that’s it.”
Ryan laughed again. Loudly. Drawing more attention. “And leave your grandmother’s friend’s murder unsolved? Yeah, right.”
“How did you know…” I began.
Ryan tapped a finger to his temple, successfully ending my question. I’d nearly forgotten he claimed to know everything. “That reminds me. Let me see your phone,” he said.
My hand went protectively to my pocket. “No.”
Ryan tipped his head over one shoulder and made a get-serious face. “Come on. I found something you need for your blog, and I want to get it for you.”
“You follow my blog?” I asked incredulously.
“Sure,” he said. “I’m OneHotEnglishMuffin.”
I gave him the phone for making me laugh. “What are you doing, Muffin?”
He ignored the jibe and tapped my unlocked screen a few times. “I’ve downloaded an app that all the big vloggers are using. Vlogs are video blogs.”
“I know what a vlog is,” I said, taking my phone back. “What does this app do?”
“It streams in real time. Not like those overedited, after-the-fact posts you put up. This is real. You hit one button, and the app begins to record. People want to see you working, flaws and all. Not watch you put dough in the oven, shut the door, pull it out, and it’s done. That’s not very realistic.”
I grinned. “You watch my baking tutorials?” I asked, slightly shocked, mostly entertained.
“Of course.” He folded his hands on the counter and frowned, as if he was offended I’d not expected as much. “Your followers want to see the flubs and follies, not a perfectly polished performance. They want to know you’re real. Real people make messes and drop stuff sometimes.”
I pocketed the phone with a grimace. I liked seeing online personalities as relatable too, but I wasn’t ready to put my every flaw and incompetency online for the world to watch. And I’d completely forgotten about the footage I’d taken before the luncheon today. It seemed wrong to use any of that now, after the way things had gone. But it would be nice to offer my followers a little variety. “I’ll think about it.”
“That’s all I ask,” he said magnanimously. “Now, what can I do to get some of this rum cake I’m hearing so much about?”
* * *
I stayed busy until the shop was empty and the clock on my stove indicated it was seven o’clock. Time to call it a day, though it felt more like a week since I’d gotten out of bed with the morning alarm. I flipped the deadbolt on the door, turned the sign to Closed, then headed to my deck to clear my head.
Balmy air kissed my face as I leaned against the handrail. I re-centered myself in the stillness, absorbing the blessed white noise of endless rolling waves, inhaling the uniquely seaside scent of sand, salt, and sunblock.
The house seagull, Lou, landed on the railing a few feet away with a gentle thud. Wings outstretched and chest puffed, he scrutinized me with one beady black e
ye.
“Ryan’s back,” I told him as a tear rolled over my cheek.
I hated what had happened to Mitzi. I hated losing a link to my grandma that I’d only just discovered. I hated that my emotions had a way of swelling until they leaked from my eyes even when I wasn’t in the mood to cry. “I don’t like how he looks at Amelia,” I continued, complaining about Ryan, hoping to pull myself together. “I also don’t like admitting he’s a pretty good guy, if you ignore all the arrogance. He’s not a bad reporter either. Probably a wise choice in an investigative partner, if I wanted a partner.”
Lou settled his fully fluffed body over his feet until they disappeared. He wasn’t much of a conversationalist, but he was a great listener. I appreciated that in a man.
“Do you think I should get involved in this?”
He cocked his head but didn’t answer.
“Mitzi brought all my grandma’s letters to Charm with her,” I told him. “More than two hundred. She must’ve been pretty important to Grandma for her to write all those letters, which makes me want to help. Mitzi was going to give those letters to me, but now they’re probably in the evidence room at the police station. If I ask for them, Grady will assume I’m meddling again.” I chewed my lip, an idea forming in my head. “Unless the letters aren’t in evidence yet. In which case, they might still be in Wyatt’s office at the nature center. I’ll bet Wyatt would sneak me in if I ask.”
If I went to look for the letters, not to snoop, and I happened to come across something that could help Grady find Mitzi’s killer faster, that wouldn’t be a bad thing. “I bet Grandma would want me to help her friend,” I reasoned, “and surely Mitzi would want justice for what happened to her. I would, if I were her.”
Lou made an ugly gull caw just as my phone gave a long buzz.
I frowned at the gull. “That was crazy timing. Did you know the phone would ring?”
I turned the device over and swiped the screen, ready to make a return trip to the nature center and try to catch Wyatt. I didn’t recognize the number. “Someone left me a text message,” I told Lou. “I hope it’s not that lady reporter.”
A close-up image of a honeybee nearly stopped my heart.
Lou made a repeated throaty caw sound as I read the three-word note below the photo.
Don’t Bee Stupid.
Chapter Four
“I can’t believe you’ve been threatened already,” Grady groused, looking somewhat defeated as he crossed the empty café to my side. His dark fitted T-shirt, blue jeans, and boots made him look more like trouble than the law. His haggard expression didn’t help.
“Thanks for coming,” I told him, passing my cell phone into his open hand and ignoring the way he looked in a cowboy hat and stubble. I lowered the volume on the small television I’d turned to the evening news while waiting for his arrival. I’d been hoping the local reporter who had harassed me earlier might’ve captured some useful footage—something that would lead to the truth about what happened behind the stage curtain today.
Grady tossed his hat onto the counter and leveled me with an accusing look. “Who did you talk to about what happened?”
“No one,” I said, mentally running through the list of usuals. My great-aunts, Denise, Amelia and her dad, Ryan, and Lou… Plus, that television reporter had approached me, and I’d offered condolences or reassuring phrases to a couple dozen café patrons. “No one who would threaten me, anyway.”
“Uh huh,” he said, sounding wholly unconvinced. “Been asking questions about Mitzi? Maybe talking to the production team? Nature center staff? People from the crowd?”
“How do you know that?” I asked, suddenly suspecting Denise was a plant sent to spy on me for him.
“I know you, Swan, and this isn’t our first rodeo.” He rested the heel of one hand on the butt of an exposed sidearm on his belt and caught me in his signature cop stare. “Someone with a connection to your family was killed today. I’d have to be willfully stupid to think you aren’t trying to get a lead on who did it. Do I look stupid to you?”
“I’m a victim here,” I said, hoping to change the subject. I scooped a pair of empty jars off the rack and filled them halfway with ice, then set the cubes afloat in a flood of old-fashioned sweet tea, Grady’s favorite.
He pursed his lips and rolled stormy gray eyes up to meet my gaze. “It’s only been a few hours. The sun hasn’t even set yet.”
I glanced through my windows at an amber and apricot horizon. “It’s getting close.”
Grady sighed and rested a palm on the counter, my phone still cradled in his opposite hand. “Let’s start over. First, I’m sorry you lost a friend today.”
“Thanks,” I said, feeling a lump form instantly in my throat. “We’d just met, but she knew Grandma and we were going to talk about her tonight over midnight pancakes with my aunts.”
“You’d never met before today?” he asked.
“No. I knew Mitzi Calgon was doing the voice work, but I didn’t know she was doing it as a favor to my aunts or that Mitzi had known Grandma until today. It was a surprise my aunts had set up for me. They told me this morning.”
Grady’s expression eased. “I’m truly sorry.”
“S’okay,” I said, softening as regret registered in his eyes, the set of his jaw, and rigidity in his shoulders. Grady had an excellent blank cop face, but I was learning to look for the things he couldn’t hide when I wanted to know what he was thinking. I’d begun to notice little things he probably didn’t realize he did, like running the fingers of his right hand along his left jawline when he was contemplative or angry.
“How are you doing?” I asked, sincerely concerned. “You look exhausted, and I know it’s not just from today.”
“I am,” he admitted, “and it’s not.”
I fetched a lemon cake from my pantry and placed it on the counter between us. The only thing Grady liked more than my family’s old-fashioned sweet tea was my lemon cake. His eyes widened at the sight of freshly set icing hanging in thick white strips and droplets over the tangy curves. I took my time cutting and plating the slice, then slid it to him in offering.
“Want to talk about your thing?” Whatever it was.
“Not yet,” he said, trading my cell phone for the cake and fork. “Why don’t you go first?”
“You already know about the worst parts of my day,” I said. “Also, Ryan’s back,” I smiled as his expression soured. Ryan tended to have that effect on people. Everyone except Amelia, anyway.
“Great.”
“He said he came to get the scoop on Mitzi and her return to the spotlight but was too late.”
“I don’t like him being here right now. He fuels your fire for this stuff,” Grady said, forking a bite of cake with unnecessary roughness.
“I fuel my own fire,” I told him. But he was right. Ryan did get me going. “He called Mitzi a recluse and wanted to know why she’d been out of the public eye for so long, but she wasn’t. Not really.”
“She’s seventy,” Grady said. “She retired.”
I sipped my tea and paddled the cubes around with my straw. “That’s what I told him, but he’s always expecting to uncover some big story. He thinks Mitzi staying out of the limelight for so long had something to do with her death.”
Grady grunted.
“What’s that mean?” I asked. “You agree with him? You think the photos and letter from her dressing room were part of a larger problem she was having?”
He chewed his next bite of cake more slowly. “All I know is someone put her in that box today. She wouldn’t have gone willingly.”
“She was allergic,” I said.
He nodded. “I haven’t seen an official report yet, but one look at the skin around those stings told that story.”
I pressed my eyes shut as the image of Mitzi’s swollen face reappeared in my m
ind. “Will you be able to find out who sent me that message?” I asked, forcing my eyes open once more and turning my focus to the threat I’d received via text.
Grady’s frown returned, and he pressed the tines of his fork into the lemon cake. “I forwarded the message and the number it came from to Tech Services. We’ll see what they can do with it.”
I glanced at my device on the counter between us. “What if it was sent from a burner phone?” I asked. “Will they be able to see who the phone belongs to?”
“Depends on how it was paid for. But as long as it stays on, we can still trace it, and that’s something,” he said. “Chances it’s still on are slim. More likely, the phone was purchased solely to send that text and is now at the bottom of the ocean.”
“I hate pollution,” I said.
Grady stifled a smile.
“What about Mitzi’s phone?” I asked. “Have you gone through her calls and messages yet?”
Grady squinted at me. “We’re trying, but the phone was password protected. Tech Services is working on it now. Why?”
I stepped closer, nerves buzzing and jangling in my core. “Mitzi got a call right before she went to lunch. She didn’t tell me who it was, but she looked bothered by it and when I asked, she just said, ‘small annoyances.’ Maybe Ryan was right. Maybe she was avoiding someone, and he or she contacted Mitzi just before she died. What if you trace that call and find the killer?”
“Maybe,” he said, before stabbing another bite of lemon cake. “What’s most important is that you understand I will get to the bottom of whatever’s happened here, not you.”
I locked my hands on my hips and narrowed my eyes at him. “I thought you’d want to know about the call.”
“I do. Thank you,” he said. “Meanwhile, I’ve already requested a copy of her phone records, so you don’t need to worry about that.”
“Good.” I sliced a second piece of cake for Grady and refilled his tea, then went to sit on the stool beside his. “Did you find anything useful at the nature center? Some kind of lead to get you started?”
He rubbed his left cheek with the fingers of his right hand. “No. There were too many people in that building today. Thousands of footprints. Fibers. Hairs. Whatever amount of materials we normally process from a crime scene, multiply that by a hundred. My men are combing surveillance footage from the police station right now because the nature center doesn’t have any cameras.” He gave a soft, humorless laugh.
