by Bree Baker
“She taped a little on the way to Blessed Bee,” Aunt Fran said, ferrying completed plates to Aunt Clara and Ryan. I followed with plates for Aunt Fran and me.
Aunt Clara frowned. “A bunch of fans showed up when we were leaving for the shop and followed us to work. They nagged Rose for spots on the documentary crew, and she ate up the attention.”
“That’s what she filmed for the rest of the day,” Aunt Fran said. “Fans. Not us.”
“Rose says the reason for the extra publicity on this film is unfortunate, but it’ll lead to more people viewing the honeybee film, and that means more awareness. So it would be unwise not to take advantage,” Aunt Clara added.
I speared a scallop with my fork and dragged it through a sea of browned butter, enjoying the warm, rich scents as they mingled in the air. “Do you think it’s possible Rose could have planned this?” I pushed the bite into my mouth before saying more. I wanted my guests to have a chance to answer. I was positive Ryan would have an opinion on the matter.
Aunt Clara looked alarmed. “What do you mean?”
Ryan’s smarmy expression said he knew exactly what I was getting at. “Everly wonders if Rose is the sort of person who’d murder for this kind of attention. It certainly stands to further her career if she’s any good at documenting all this. While everyone is telling the mainstream reporters to butt out and show respect, Rose is positioned deep in the mix and welcomed here.”
“And honestly,” I said, “I’m not sure how much she cares about the bees. I get the impression she’s more of an artist than a bee-saver. Maybe this documentary was supposed to be her big break into the world of filmmaking.”
Ryan lifted his tea and paused, seeming to consider my theory. “The industry is brutal. Aspiring producers and directors need some extreme luck or a miracle to make it in the business.”
Aunt Fran set her fork aside. “Are you saying we’ve been spending our days with a murderer?”
“No.” I nibbled on a bite of asparagus, enjoying the tang of lemon I’d added to the cream sauce. “Maybe,” I adjusted, rethinking the theory. I turned to Ryan. “If the industry is tough to break into, then working with Mitzi could have been Rose’s big break.”
He nodded. “Any professional connection to a star of Mitzi’s caliber would be priceless for the networking and name-dropping alone.”
“Would chronicling the aftermath of Mitzi’s death be enough to propel Rose’s film career?” I asked. “Or would Mitzi have been more important to her alive?”
“Oh dear,” Aunt Clara said, setting her fork aside and resting a palm on her middle.
“Sorry,” I said. “I know this isn’t exactly the most dinner-appropriate conversation, but I have to get this out of my head before it explodes.
She nodded warily, waving a forgiving palm. “I’m fine. Go on.”
Ryan set his nearly empty tea jar aside and lifted his fork. “So, the killer could be Rose. Who else?”
“Mitzi’s ex-husband,” I said. I filled them in on what little I knew about the pending divorce, his investment in the film, and his recent trip to the island. None of it was a smoking gun, of course. For all I knew, he’d wanted to reconcile.
Aunt Fran frowned. “It’s always the spouse.”
Ryan dotted his mouth with a napkin. “It’s certainly a possibility. I’ve tried to talk with Mr. Pierce and Odette multiple times, but they won’t answer the door for me,” Ryan said. “They keep the curtains drawn, and they only leave when they have to. They get food delivered twice a day, usually salads or seafood from the diner on Bay Street. I’ve tracked them to the morgue and police station, but they’re very good at ignoring and avoiding reporters.” He gave a wry smile.
“Your cargo shorts and flip-flops didn’t fool them?” I asked.
“Not for a minute. After all those years with Mitzi, they can probably smell my interest a mile away.”
“Are you sure they’re still here?” I asked. “I was just attacked this morning, so if they’ve left the island, I can mark them off my suspect list.”
“They’re still here,” Ryan said. “I watched Odette answer the door for a delivery at four thirty. A large pizza and another salad. Too much for one person unless she’s planning leftovers for the rest of the week. Maybe I’ll try knocking again in the morning.”
“No, don’t,” I said. “Until we know what’s going on, there’s no reason to kick the hornets’ nest.”
“You don’t want to get them worked up?” Ryan tented his brows. “You really don’t understand journalism at all, do you?”
I ignored the jibe and swallowed my rebuttals about him knowing anything at all. “Any chance you’ve seen the Canary? I’d really like to know why he ran from me today.”
Ryan shook his head. “Sorry.”
I finished my tea and the last of my asparagus. No one I’d asked had seen the Canary since he’d run away. So was he long gone, in hiding, or neither? Normally a six-foot man who dressed like a villain from Victorian England would’ve been easy to spot, but all the Blackbeard’s Wife fans made a perfect camouflage for him.
Aunt Fran carried her empty plate to the sink. “Thank you, Everly. This was just as delicious as it smelled, maybe better, and the conversation is never dull.”
“Thanks.” I beamed. “Can I pack the leftovers to send home with you?”
“Already on it,” she said, selecting to-go containers from my cupboard. When she turned back to face us, her attention stuck on Ryan. “I’ve been meaning to ask where you found that catastrophe of an election sign you had outside.”
“On the courthouse lawn. I saw them on my way over here and stole one for Everly. I thought she’d get a kick out of it,” Ryan said.
Aunt Fran turned to me then, scowling.
“I didn’t get a kick out of it,” I said. In fact, I’d nearly forgotten about the dumb sign. “Mary Grace is the worst, and Chairman Vanders isn’t any better. I can’t believe they’re getting married. Are they running for office together too?” The idea was beyond horrific. “Getting married is probably their harebrained attempt to become a political power couple.” I imagined them in coordinating suits at campaign rallies and suppressed the urge to gag.
“They might not be wrong,” Aunt Fran said. “Two is often better than one, and some folks like Vanders for mayor while others prefer Mary Grace. Now they’ll get both sets of votes. What about Senator Denver?” Aunt Fran asked. “Is she still running?”
I bit my lip. I wasn’t sure. “I’ll ask Grady the next time we talk.”
Aunt Clara collected my plate, then Ryan’s, and took them with hers to the sink. “We should go to the Chatsworth-Vanders wedding reception together.”
“I’m in,” Ryan said.
“You won’t even be here,” I said.
“I will,” he retorted proudly. “I’m Amelia’s plus-one.”
I spun my stool until I faced him. “Why would you fly back here from New York just to attend the reception of two morons?”
“For Amelia,” he said slowly, then wiggled his eyebrows.
I shut my eyes against whatever his eyebrows were implying.
“You know,” Ryan said, “dragging Blessed Bee into a murder investigation, even peripherally, could have been terrible for your business and your reputation.”
“But it’s not,” Aunt Fran said. “Business is booming. We’re low on everything.”
“But,” he said, lifting a finger, “it could have gone the other way. People could have been turned off by the bees that stung their heroine to death and boycotted your products until you went broke,” he said.
Aunt Clara bristled, nearly dropping the stack of plates she’d been rinsing. “Our bees did not sting her to death.”
“Hear me out,” Ryan said. “This makes the second murder in under six months with you in close range. It could
have made for some really ugly press. Maybe even incited some questionable feelings toward you as a mayoral candidate. Anyone with motivation could have attempted to use this to create doubts about your character before the election.”
Aunt Fran crossed her arms. “You think Mary Grace killed a beloved silver screen icon to make me look bad?”
He shrugged. “Not necessarily. I’m just asking questions. Floating possibilities. And you’re right about your bees not killing her.” He moved his gaze to Aunt Clara. “I spoke with the coroner’s assistant yesterday and confirmed that she was given a sedative before being dumped into the demonstration box.”
I nodded, seeing where he was going. “Grady told me the sedative interacted with her prescription medications and killed her, but that wasn’t public knowledge. And I read everything I could about Mitzi last night. There wasn’t any mention of her bee allergy, either.”
“So the whole thing could’ve been a fluke,” Ryan said. “Assuming the person who injected her didn’t know about her prescriptions or hadn’t predicted the results of mixing them with the sedative, and most wouldn’t, her death could’ve been a horrible accident.”
“Or,” I suggested, “We’ve just limited our suspect pool to those in Mitzi’s inner circle. People who had personal knowledge of her health conditions. A spouse and personal assistant, for example.”
“Don’t forget the Canary,” Ryan said. “He knew everything about her.”
That was true enough. Hadn’t he told me he kept one man on the inside at all times?
Aunt Clara shifted on her seat, looking paler than usual. “But if the injection was expected to kill her, why bother dumping her with the bees?”
Ryan shrugged. “To cover the fact that they knew the sedative would kill her? Maybe to try to cover the needle’s injection site? And if the killer didn’t anticipate the interactions of the medication, the sedative could have simply been used to get her into the box.”
“But why?” my aunts asked in near unison.
“Stings are painful,” Ryan said, “and being found doped up and covered in honey is humiliating. Maybe she had an enemy who wanted to punish or ruin her.”
I considered that a moment. “What if this wasn’t about Mitzi at all? What if someone had just wanted to ruin the show and ended up a murderer?”
“Awful,” Aunt Clara said. “How could anyone live with a truth like that?”
My guess was that the culprit would run. Or hide.
Chapter Sixteen
I fell asleep on my couch, waiting for the nightly news. One minute my mind was racing over possible suspects, stolen files, and bees in the archives. The next minute my phone was buzzing on the coffee table and I was dragging my eyes open, trying to remember why I was on the couch. My heart seized at the sight of Grady’s number on the phone screen. He rarely messaged me without a prompt, and I could only imagine what new and awful thing had happened now.
I swiveled upright and grabbed the phone to read his message. Was someone else dead? Were my aunts in trouble?
Are you awake?
Kind of, I thought. Now that he woke me. I rubbed sleep from my eyes and raked shaky fingers through my tangled hair.
Yes.
I lied, panic and curiosity already winding me up.
Grady’s response was immediate.
Can I come up?
“Up?” I asked the empty room. Not over? As if he was already… Oh no. I ran to the window overlooking my front porch and spotted his truck in the driveway. Shoot! I made a mad dash for the bathroom and attempted to brush my teeth and hair at the same time. It was the adult equivalent of rub your head and pat your belly, and I wasn’t any better at it today than I had been twenty years ago. My brush was momentarily stuck in my hair as a result. I let it hang there while I rinsed and spat, then went back to freeing the brush. I ran a washcloth over my face and balm across my lips, then grabbed an elastic band on my way to the steps, wrangling my wild hair into a ponytail as I fumbled to the foyer on sleepy legs.
I greeted Grady with a cautious smile, unsure if the news he’d come to deliver was the sort that warranted one. “Come in.”
He followed me back up to my living quarters, and I set a kettle on for tea.
“Make yourself at home,” I said. “Are you hungry?”
His mouth said “No” but his stomach growled, giving away the lie.
“Okay,” I said, pulling sliced ham and cheese from the refrigerator and selecting a loaf of fresh baked bread from the pantry. I hit the preheat button on my oven before turning to face him. “What’s up?”
Grady’s gaze jumped from my bare legs to my eyes when I turned. He had his black cowboy hat in hand, held close to his chest, and for a moment I thought someone else really had died.
“Grady?”
“Denise told me what happened today. With Ryan,” he added for clarification, as if anything else Denise had done today warranted a late night face-to-face.
“And you’re here why?” I asked. To apologize for his au pair’s behavior? Explain it away? How was that his responsibility? And why did he think the event needed further discussion—unless there was more to the story, as I’d suspected.
“A couple reasons.” He watched me for a long beat before speaking again. “We know Mr. Butters separated from Wyatt and Amelia before the luncheon. He was caught, alone, on the security feed from the police station camera.”
My pulse leapt. “He forgot, or he would’ve said something sooner. He left you a voicemail. I was there. I heard him.”
Grady furrowed his brow. “Doesn’t change the fact he omitted a very important piece of personally damning information during questioning in a murder investigation. And while you’re thinking it’s nice he called as soon as he remembered, he now has no alibi for the time of Mitzi’s death. And taking a day to get his story straight is right out of a criminal’s handbook.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Mr. Butters didn’t do this, and any amount of time you’re wasting looking at him is time lost for locating the true killer.” I felt my head begin to bob in a slow nod. “This is exactly why I get involved. I know him. These people. This town. And I have a sixth sense about folks. My aunts always say so.”
Grady’s lips twitched as he rubbed his forehead.
I could practically hear his thoughts. My great-aunts believed all sorts of things and none of those were true either.
“I’m just letting you know because you’ve got a personal interest in the Butterses. But that’s not why I’m here,” he said. “You mentioned before that I haven’t been myself lately, and I feel as if I owe you an explanation.”
A bubble of anticipation replaced the anger coiling in my stomach, and I bit my lip against an upbringing of Southern manners that demanded I tell him he didn’t owe me anything. Which he didn’t. But Grady had come to tell me something private. Something personal. He wanted to bring me into his confidence, and I was desperate to know anything he wanted me to know, plus a long list of things he didn’t. “Go on.”
Grady ran his fingers along the line of his jaw. “Olivia didn’t really come to the island to be closer to Denver.”
Well, that was a letdown. I’d thought I was going to have my suspicions of Denise’s true identity confirmed. Russian spy? MI6? Covert operative for a foreign dignitary? Avenger? I reset my thoughts to Olivia while assembling an award-worthy sandwich and smearing garlic butter across the top. I slid the masterpiece into my oven on a cookie sheet, then turned to face Grady directly. “So, why did she really come here?” I asked, hoping it hadn’t been to drag him back to Arlington as he’d suspected before.
Grady’s jaw popped and locked. He set his hat on the island between us, looking torn and unsure.
“You can tell me,” I said, locking his conflicted gray eyes with mine. “I won’t tell anyone, and I’d really like to know what
’s been going on with you. I worry.”
“I know,” Grady said. He released a steadying breath. “Olivia was contacted by her party’s next presidential hopeful last year. He asked for her backing on a significantly controversial bill, and she agreed.”
The teapot whistled softly, and I nearly knocked it off the stove. “What kind of bill?”
Grady took a seat at my kitchen island and folded his hands on the counter. “She didn’t say, and I didn’t ask. I assumed it was run-of-the mill petty politics.”
In complete confusion, I poured two mugs of steaming tea, then returned the kettle and set the drinks on the island. “So, you’re saying Senator Denver moved to Charm because she was asked to support a controversial bill? Maybe I’m still asleep, but isn’t it more important that she be in DC where she can support the thing, whatever it is?”
“I thought you said you were awake when I got here.”
I rolled my eyes. “Let’s focus, please.”
He scrutinized my face for another long beat before moving on. “There’s been a complication with her agreement. The truth is that she moved here to be closer to me, and she bought Northrop Manor for its Fort Knox–grade security potential. Plus, the additional buildings on-site that are suitable for housing an extensive security detail.”
“I thought those were for her household staff,” I said. That had been his story at Christmas.
“There’s plenty of room for household staff in the manor. It has twenty-six rooms.”
Olivia had made up a cover story to move here, all because she’d agreed to support an unpopular bill and her party’s next presidential candidate? I sipped the tea and pretended to process calmly while my insides screamed WHAT AM I MISSING? My mind was officially boggled. “I still don’t know why she needs to be near you or why she needs the extensive security.”
Grady gripped his cup without lifting it, running the pads of his thumbs along the handle. “It’s because she’s been receiving death threats since she was announced as a supporter.”
“And she wants to be near you so you can protect her too?” I guessed.
