He saw what had happened between us as a betrayal. The fact that I had followed him across the country, that I had had my suspicions and had caught him meeting with an enemy organization had only been the tip of the iceberg.
My chest tightened, and I forced myself to take a calming breath. Not that it worked.
“—I do have news that there are other entities interested in Turner and in you, Miss Smith.”
Mission. Agent Mission. I reminded myself of that every day.
“We’ve received information that three other agencies based in Ukraine, Iraq and China have taken an interest in your situation. We’re not sure whether their intentions are nefarious or not, yet, but it’s better to err on the side of safety in this case. All that means for both of you is that you’ve got to keep your noses clean and your heads down. No trouble.”
My blood boiled. I oscillated between anger and despair. No news on Kyle and now this. Other agencies interested. Kyle could use that to his advantage somehow. Keeping my nose clean meant staying out of Bob’s murder investigation.
Strangely, there was a tiny hint of relief drifting in my sea of conflicted emotions. I wouldn’t have to leave Gossip or the inn. I could stay with Gamma for a while longer.
“That’s all. Stay safe.” He hung up.
I removed the Bluetooth earphones from my ears and handed them to Smulder. He accepted them and tucked them into a plastic baggie then placed that, and his phone, back in his pocket. “Seems like the rooster is no-nonsense this evening.”
I wasn’t in the mood to talk in codenames. I needed a long bath, a book, and a cupcake. Goodness, I had grown soft. Before, when I’d been frustrated, I’d taken my emotions out on training dummies and the track. Thanks to that training, I’d beaten the NSIB’s track record for the 800m inter-agency race. Those FBI suckers hadn’t known what’d hit ‘em.
“Charlotte,” Smulder said, in his meltingly warm voice. “We’ll deal with the wolf.”
“I don’t need reassurance,” I replied. “I’m fine.”
He raised an eyebrow. I ignored it.
“We need to talk about something else, though,” I said, and my stomach did a fluttering leap. “Georgina’s informed me that—” I could do this. “That some of the people in the inn and around town have been gossiping about us.”
“Gossiping about us,” Brian repeated, as if he’d never heard the words before or didn’t understand them.
“Yes. Apparently, the rumor is that we’re a couple. They’re going to continue talking until we clarify our relationship status,” I said, stiffly. “Georgina’s suggestion was that we pretend we’re in a relationship until… the rumors subside. Or until we’re done here.”
Brian’s cheeks pinked. He fiddled with his collar. “That’s fine,” he said. “We’ll do that.”
“Fine. Good. OK.”
An awkward silence followed.
I’d once gone underground as a Russian babushka—this wouldn’t be more difficult than that. “All right.” I got up. “Then that’s done. Goodnight, Brian.”
“Goodnight, Charlotte.” He got up as well and took a step toward me, but faltered.
I squeezed between the chairs and walked for the door. I unlocked it and placed my hand on the knob.
“I like the dress,” Brian said, suddenly. “I just thought you should know. You don’t look bad in it.”
I rushed out of the library before he could catch sight of my burning red face.
6
The following morning…
“THAT’S WONDERFUL!” Lauren clapped her hands, scattering flour over the kitchen floor. “I’m so happy for you, Charlie. I always knew you and Brian would end up together.”
I cringed inwardly but put up a sweet smile. “Thanks, Lauren.” This was difficult. I wasn’t the romantic type. “Anyway, it’s just going to be business as usual at the inn. Nothing’s going to change because of this.”
“But everything changes,” Lauren said, opening her arms wide and coming over. She hugged me tight and transferred flour from her apron to mine. “You’ve got a man! You’re probably going to get married and then you’ll have children, and oh my. Maybe Georgina will let you live here together. Our babies can be best friends.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” I squeezed out of her grasp. I adored Lauren—she was well-meaning, sweet, bubbly and a great cook. She was enthusiastic about everything. But she also had her head in the clouds.
Right now, her green eyes were filled with happy tears like I’d just announced I’d one Miss Universe. Her bright red hair, tied up in pigtails, bobbed as she threw her arms around me again. “I’m so happy for you.”
“Really, it’s nothing.” It was just an excuse to keep my cover intact. Once again, I withdrew from the Lauren’s hug, trying to smile brightly. “This isn’t the biggest news this week. What about poor Bob?”
Lauren’s smile vanished. She traipsed back to her baking station, where she’d started making bread dough for today’s lunch. “It’s terrible. I can’t believe that he was just… shot like that. In broad daylight.”
“In an Easter Bunny costume,” I mused.
“Oh, Charlie, that’s not funny.”
“No, it’s not funny. But he wasn’t well liked,” I said. “It’s fair to say he had a few enemies.”
“Yes.” Lauren had had her fair share of trouble with Bob too—he’d complained about her cooking and that wasn’t done when it came to the chef at the Gossip Inn. “But it’s one thing to have a disagreement and another entirely to actually… you know, shoot them.” She shuddered.
“Yeah.” People had strange motivations. I’d seen some crazy things during my career.
Footsteps sounded in the hallway outside the kitchen. “Hello? Is anyone down here?” The questions were punctuated by sniffs.
Lauren frowned. I hurried to the doorway.
A young, pretty woman with caramel-colored hair stood in the foyer. She wore heavy makeup, but it was smudged as tears rolled down her cheeks, and she held Sherlock, our gorgeous calico kitten, in her arms. He meowed at me.
Was she upset about the cat? And how on earth had Sherlock escaped again?
“Hello,” I said. “Are you OK?”
“Oh, sorry,” the woman replied, sniveling. “It’s… I’m just upset about Bob.” She held out Sherlock, and I took him from her.
“Bob? This is Sherlock,” I said.
“No, Bob. Bob Bolton.” She drew a Kleenex from the pocket of her jeans and wiped under her eyes. Her mascara smudged badly. “My fiancé. He was… he was m-m-ma—” She burst into tears and buried her face in her hands.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” I said. “Bob was a—uh, he was a good person. He dressed up as the Easter Bunny for the kids.” It was a struggle to find words that weren’t mean.
Bob had been old with a bushy beard, yet here was his fiancée, a young, beautiful woman who might’ve graced the cover of a magazine if her makeup hadn’t made her look like a character from the Nightmare Before Christmas.
“Thank you,” she said, sniffing. “Do you mind if I hold the kitten a bit longer?”
I’d almost forgotten Sherlock purring way in my arms. “Of course. Where did you find him?”
“He was sitting in front of my bedroom door,” she replied. “I’m Leanne, by the way.”
“Charlotte,” I said, and frowned at the door to the kitten center. It was shut and likely still locked, so how on earth had Sherlock escaped again? Curious. And even more curious was that Bob had had a gorgeous fiancée.
In the NSIB, we’d learned to profile and look for suspicious connections—though it was shallow, this was one of them. Besides, the spouse is always a suspect. Maybe she wanted his money? Was Bob rich?
I had to find out. Curiosity overrode my irritation at having had no good news from Special Agent in Charge Grant. I handed Leanne the kitten then drew out my key to the kitten center.
“I think I have something that might
make you feel better,” I said. “More cats.”
“I love cats.” Leanne gave me a watery smile.
7
“This is amazing,” Leanne said, her eyes lighting up. She stroked Sherlock’s head, and the pain that had twisted her features slowly dropped away.
It was amazing what cats could do. They had a reputation for being aloof, but most of the cats I’d encountered had been friendly, spunky, and affectionate. It depended on the personality. Just like with people.
Leanne walked through the main room of the center, smiling at the kittens that played with each other or meowed, or finished off the last of their food at the bowls lined up along one wall. The doorway to the room where the youngest kittens, who needed the most care, was blocked off by the lower half of a door that was too tall to be climbed by rambunctious kitties. Leanne hovered in front of it, peering at the incubators and the woman, Susan, working inside.
“What’s going on in there?” she asked.
“That’s where the youngest kittens are kept,” I replied. “This is a foster center for kittens and cats who were picked up off the street or who needed to be saved. When they’re old enough to be adopted, people can come see them and apply.”
“That’s wonderful,” Leanne said, and put Sherlock down. She wiped under either of her eyes. “How wonderful. That’s such an amazing thing to do.”
“It was Georgina’s idea.”
Leanne tucked her arms behind her back and meandered through the main room, pausing to scratch a kitten under the chin or tickle the belly of another. It was kitten chaos in here, but the happy purrs and meows told me everything I needed to know about the center.
It was a success.
My grandmother’s unsinkable enthusiasm had brought it life, even after the museum portion of the inn—now the center—had nearly burned to the ground a few months ago.
And that had happened because of the last investigation we’d gotten involved in. Now, I had Leanne, the fiancée of the deceased, standing right in front of me. The choice was there: ask her the questions I wanted or walk away before I got too involved and in more trouble.
If I was too obvious, if I drew too much attention to myself, those mysterious ‘players’ who worked for other agencies, would sniff me out and my time in Gossip would come to an end. And if I did nothing? I would possibly go insane from boredom, or Gamma’s inn would once again come under fire because the murder had happened to one of the guests. At least, it hadn’t been in the inn itself this time.
Leanne straightened. She had a fresh Kleenex grasped in her fingertips now, and wiped away the near-constant stream of tears tracking down her cheeks.
“I really am sorry for your loss,” I said.
“Thank you. It’s just so hard to come to terms with this. One second I was helping him get dressed in the Easter Bunny costume and the next…”
I gave her a sympathetic look. I wasn’t great at being patient with people, and I was rough around the edges, but being an agent had taught me how to fake it until I made it.
“I blame myself,” Leanne blurted out. “If he’d never gone to the festival, this wouldn’t have happened.”
Not technically true. My experience was that if someone wanted you dead, they’d find away. “What do you mean?”
“I was the one who forced him to wear that silly costume and to go in the first place,” Leanne said. “I don’t know how well you knew Bob, but he wasn’t the friendliest of men. I just… I wanted him to relax and smile like he did when we first met.”
“How did you two meet?” I asked, walking with her toward the back doors of the inn. The sun was out, and glimmered through the windows, catching the swirls of dust motes and loose kitty fur in its rays.
“In France,” she said. “Over a year ago. We were both on holiday and we met at the Arc de Triomphe. He had a Nikon camera and we got into a discussion about lenses and camera specifications. He was so knowledgeable that we wound up talking well into the afternoon. We went to lunch and then to dinner and then… well, the rest was history.” Leanne dabbed her cheeks again. “I had to stay in Paris, but he told me that he would write to me once he was back home. He never did.”
“Oh.” I frowned.
“Until about two weeks ago. He apologized to me for being so quiet and told me that, well, he had had some trouble with family.” Leanne paused. “The moment he told me he was still interested, I flew out here to see him.”
“Flew out?” Gossip had a bus station—no airport.
“I flew to Dallas first. It was such a long trip from Dubai.”
“Dubai?”
“Yes, I’ve been traveling the world,” Leanne replied, her tone shifting toward dreamy. “It’s the most amazing thing, being a traveler of the world. Experiencing its sights and sounds first hand. Learning to—”
“When you say Bob was having family trouble,” I said, “what do you mean by that?” I had to interrupt because I couldn’t stand another second of the wistful monologue.
“Oh. Oh well, Bob was wealthy and a lot of his family members wanted a piece of him,” Leanne said. “Take Gracie, for example. She’s his great aunt, and she traveled all the way from Tennessee to come here and spend time with him. Or so she says. I bet she just wants his money.” The fiancée had gone all sour around the edges. “She acts sweet and innocent, but I know the truth about her.”
I made a mental note of ‘Aunt Gracie’ for later dissection. “So, you think that—”
A shout rang out nearby, and Leanne’s hands flew to her lips. She went white as an apple slice.
“What was that?” she asked. “What if it’s—?”
“Idiot!” Another shout, this one closer to the back of the foster center. I peered out the window and caught a glimpse of my Gamma, storming toward the back steps. She stomped up them, but didn’t enter.
“You have lost your mind,” my grandmother shouted.
“Oh no,” Leanne whispered. “Oh no, something bad is happening. Something—”
I grasped her by the shoulders. “Leanne, thank you so much for sharing your story with me and coming to see the kittens. I think you should go check out the smaller kittens in their incubators. Susan’s in there and she’ll tell you all you’d like to know about them and their feeding schedules. Sound good?”
Leanne’s bottom lip wobbled. “I-I guess.”
“Good. It’s right through there.” I pointed as the shouting outside intensified.
What in the name of the hot and seriously unpleasant place downstairs was going on out there? This wasn’t like Gamma. She didn’t get into screaming matches. She was a master at keeping the peace and a low profile.
I waved Leanne toward the incubator room then faced the inn’s back doors.
“Over my dead body you will,” Gamma yelled, and a bang rang out.
I shoved the back door open and rushed onto the porch.
8
Gamma stood on the back porch, her hands on her fists.
Jessie Belle-Blue, her sworn enemy, had one foot on the bottom step, the other planted on the balustrade where she’d clearly slammed it down in a temper. Her pudgy cheeks were red, her blue eyes glittering coldly, and her dark-haired bob ruffled.
“What’s going on out here?” I shut the door so none of the kittens could escape. Or Leanne for that matter. “I was just showing one of the guests the cats.”
“Ah-ha!” Jessie proclaimed, raising a finger. “I knew you were up to no good.”
“Huh?”
“You’re already trying to sell cats. Cats who probably aren’t the right age to be sold, yet. I’ll have to report this to the relevant authorities,” Jessie said, a smirk forming on her lips. “I’ll have to tell the Gossip Cat Rescue Shelter that—”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Belle-Blue,” Gamma snapped.
“I wasn’t selling cats,” I replied. “And the correct term for it is ‘adopting’ by the way.”
“We’ll just see about that.” Jes
sie stomped onto the second step and Gamma moved into place, blocking her path.
“You’ll go nowhere near my foster center,” she said. “I’ve had enough trouble from you and I won’t abide any more of it, I tell you. You leave my property or I’ll call the police.”
“Oh please,” Jessie spat. “You and I both know that’s the last thing you’re going to do. You’re too afraid of the police to call them out here. You know that if they come, they’ll question you after the death of another one of your guests. You and your murder hotel are despicable.”
“It’s an inn,” I interjected.
“Really, Charlotte, that’s not helpful at all.” Gamma pinched her nose. “Belle-Blue, I have no fear of the police officers in this town whatsoever and I have no fear of you either. Take one more step and I’ll be forced to subdue you.”
Uh oh. From Gamma’s tone, she was serious. And neither of us could afford for her to pull out her spy moves on Jessie Belle-Blue. No matter how satisfying it would be to watch the woman get dumped on her behind.
I put a hand on Gamma’s shoulder. “Jessie,” I said, “I think you should leave.”
“I’m not leaving until I get an admission of guilt,” she replied.
Gamma grumbled something that I was glad I couldn’t make out.
“Guilt?”
Jessie narrowed her eyes at me. “Listen, flunky, I didn’t come here to talk to you. I don’t mince my words and I won’t spend any of them on someone’s assistant.”
OK, maybe compromising both our covers for the sake of teaching this woman a lesson wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
“Don’t speak to Charlotte like that,” Gamma snapped.
“You stole my appointment!” Jessie thundered.
“I didn’t steal your appointment. I have no need to steal appointments, Belle-Blue. Unlike you, I’m not the type of person who sabotages—”
“Spare me the self-righteous speech, Georgina. I know exactly who you are and what you would do.” Jessie tugged on her pashmina—her go-to accessory. “You’re a no-good, two-bit, piece of trash and you’re a thief. You house murderers and—”
Mission Inn-possible 03 - Cocoa Conviction Page 3
