by Dixie Davis
Lori waved off the concern. “Computers are strange. This week, I found my computer’s clock was off by two days.”
“Really?” Heath cocked his head. “Do you use webmail or an email client?”
Lori searched her memory for either of those terms, but came up blank. “Sorry?”
“Do you use a program on your computer to check your mail, or do you get it through a website?”
“A program.”
“Because programs often set their send time based on the computer’s time.”
“Really? Good to know. I’m happy to report that’s been fixed now.”
The Evertons borrowed a movie from the inn’s library and headed up to their room.
So the computer had labeled outgoing messages with the wrong time? That explained why so many people seemed to think they should have replied sooner.
Like a lightning bolt, the thought hit her: what if that incriminating email wasn’t actually sent the day before the murder?
If someone had messed with her food, they could have easily gotten to her computer. Lori almost ran back to her office. She pulled up her email program and scrolled through the sent messages.
Luckily, they were still in the order they were sent. There — she spotted the gap where the dates skipped back in time. The last email she’d sent before the jump, a collection of accounting jokes Doug was sure to appreciate, was sent on Friday. Two days after the murder.
Who could have snuck in here Friday? Travis might have snuck into the office while she was out during the crime scene investigation, but not two days after the murder.
It had to be Heidi.
The doorbell rang. She wasn’t expecting another guest until tomorrow, and as far as she knew, all her guests were in their rooms.
Lori cautiously crept to the door — although would a murderer ring and wait like that? Probably not.
She reached the door and checked the peephole. It was only Oliver, the Salty Dog delivery boy. Lori accepted the food and brought it up to the O’Briens in the Ocean Isle Beach Room.
She was going to be jumping at shadows all night.
The doorbell rang again, and unless Oliver was back for a tip — which the O’Briens had presumably paid over the phone? — this time there wasn’t a good explanation.
Again, Lori checked the peephole. Now, Chief Branson stood on the porch.
Lori’s stomach dropped like a stone in the Cape Fear River, but she opened the door anyway. “Can I help you, Chief?” she asked.
“Actually.” Chief Branson shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “I should probably be helping you.”
“Um, really?” Had they already gotten enough evidence to catch Heidi? Or whoever the real killer was?
“If you’re not guilty, someone certainly wants to make it look that way.” He grimaced. “And if you’re not guilty, I should apologize.”
“It’s all right.” Lori tried to offer a smile. “I know what it’s like to fall in love with an idea and plow ahead without really thinking.”
Chief Branson frowned, as if he didn’t agree with her assessment one hundred percent. “Would you like some protection?”
She released her relief in a sigh. “Yes, please.”
“I’ll have one of my officers swing by to check the place every hour or so overnight.”
“Thank you, Chief.”
He nodded and turned away.
It wasn’t the same as having Joey on the premises — or even Mitch’s rescue — but it was better than nothing.
Lori looked back at the closed door, checking again that the deadbolt was locked. Maybe she’d sleep tonight after all. And maybe Chief Branson was taking her seriously as a victim instead of a suspect.
Good. As long as he caught Heidi before she struck again.
Lori did, in fact, sleep. She survived not only the night, but also her sample of the sweet potato hash, so she warmed it up in the oven the next morning for the guests. With eggs on top, and yogurt and granola and some “home-baked” apple turnovers courtesy of the Quik’n Easy’s freezer case, Lori wasn’t too worried about serving her guests breakfast.
She visited with the Evertons and suggested a few activities. They settled on taking the ferry to see Old Baldy, inspired by the miniature lighthouse in their room. Lori silently thanked Andrea again.
When the O’Briens finally finished their in-room breakfast and came down, they headed off to stroll around the historic parts of downtown. Since that wouldn’t take long, Lori suggested the Salt Marsh Boardwalk as well.
Lori spent the afternoon brainstorming ideas for summer events, housekeeping and finally talking to Adam about her engagement. Adam didn’t take the news quite as well as his brother, but he did finally see that she was happy, so he gave her his begrudging blessing, pending meeting Joey in person.
By the early evening, her guests hadn’t returned, so they must have had dinner plans.
Lori had plans, too. She hated to be so far away from the inn when they had guests — she made a mental note not to do this again — but she drove the forty-five minutes to Joey’s place for their promised dinner, and to work on their wedding vows.
“Hey.” Joey was a little out of breath when he answered the door for her. “Everything going well with our guests?”
“No complaints so far.” And more importantly, no deaths.
Joey stepped back to let her in. His apartment was already turning into a maze of boxes. Books, clothes and dishes stuck out of a few. “How is packing coming?”
Joey groaned. “Do you know how long I’ve lived in this same apartment? Trying to stuff all that into boxes is a nightmare.”
Lori grimaced. She’d been through that herself. “Are you taking out the stuff you don’t want? No point in moving something only to throw it away in Dusky Cove.”
“Good point; good idea. I’ve found some pretty crazy stuff.” Joey gestured for her to follow him. She picked her way through the maze a little less easily than Joey did.
Joey dug in a large box until he pulled out a stack of multicolor, neon Frisbees. “From my disc golf days.”
“What’s disc golf?”
Joey laughed — until he saw she was really asking. “You try to get the disc into the target — basket, sort of — in as few throws as possible. Like golf, but with Frisbees.”
Lori nodded. People actually did that?
“There’s a few courses in Wilmington and Castle Hayne. At least there used to be.”
“Sounds . . . fun.” She didn’t even sound convincing to herself.
He shook his head and dropped the Frisbees back in the box with a clatter. More clatter than a pile of plastic discs would usually make. Had he broken something in there?
Joey gestured for her to follow again, and this time they picked their way into the kitchen. On the stovetop, a tomato sauce simmered.
He dug in a box on the counter and pulled out a cassette Walkman, holding it out to her. Lori accepted the device and turned it over in her hands, fingering the Class of 1991 sticker on the case.
“Man, my friends thought I was the coolest with that. It even recorded.” He pointed at the red button with a circle on it. “I made the best mix tapes in high school.”
He used this in high school? Lori stared at the recorder. It belonged to an era after she’d lost interest in pop culture and before her boys discovered it, a lost decade she would never totally relate to.
Joey leaned closer like he was about to share something in confidence. “I was totally rad back in the day.”
Lori tried not to laugh at the slang and patted his cheek. “I think you’re pretty rad now.”
“Thanks. I made you a mix tape. Well, I started.” He took the cassette recorder and set it on top of a black box on the counter. No, not a black box. A VCR.
“This too!” Joey caressed the case. “VHS player. Don’t think I’ve used one of these since . . .” He trailed off into a shrug.
Lori still had a VCR. So d
id all the rooms at the inn, since the video library was half VHS.
But, then, it’d be expensive to update not only the rooms but also the full video library. “Think we should switch the inn’s video collection to DVDs?”
Joey pondered it. “Might be worth it down the road. Speaking of the inn, after we talked the other day, I talked to a lawyer and had these drawn up.” Joey reached behind a box and pulled out a manila folder.
“Wait, what?”
“We talked about this — didn’t want to leave a burden for your boys if something happened to you?”
Lori nodded slowly. Yes, they’d definitely said that. But that was when Damocles’ sword was hanging over her. Now she was not only not a suspect, but the Chief of Police seemed to think she might be a victim, too, of a frame-up. Without an emergency looming over them, there wasn’t really a hurry to set up the inheritance.
“I — I don’t know, Joey. I wasn’t expecting this.”
Joey flipped the folder open to a page full of fine print. “I know, but I tried to make sure we have it set up the way we wanted before we get caught up in the wedding stuff. One less thing we have to worry about in the middle of all this. Just to get it squared away.”
Lori shook her head, more from shock than from disagreement. “I have to think about this. Read it.” Probably talk to a lawyer herself. They didn’t need to do this now, did they? Although she knew well enough even perfectly healthy people could die very, very quickly.
“It’s pretty simple.” Joey held out a pen.
“You’re probably right,” she finally said.
“I like the sound of that.”
“But I’m not ready to sign anything right now.”
Joey frowned, but nodded. “Go ahead and read it first, of course,” he said. He craned his neck to glance at the sauce. “I’m going to run to the bathroom. Do you think you could wash up a couple dishes for us? I accidentally packed all but two of mine.”
Lori swallowed an inward sigh. Doing his dishes while she was supposed to be studying a legal document?
But she could do this small favor. “Sure, hon.”
“You’re the best.” Joey retreated to the back, leaving Lori in his messy, half-packed kitchen.
This time, she didn’t force herself to hide the sigh. She’d already cared for a husband and two sons, and she wasn’t really looking to add any more to that second category.
Lori grabbed the manila folder. She didn’t intend to read the contract right this second, but she moved the pages around. More than one page, but the last page didn’t have the same fine print. She pulled out that paper, a loose leaf in Joey’s handwriting. I pledge to care for you as much as you always care for others. I pledge to stay by you in sickness and in health. I pledge to honor and be faithful to you as long as we live.
Lori found herself tearing up. He’d already started working on his vows. She tucked the paper behind the contract and turned to the sink. She could care for him a little extra for the moment.
With a little hunting, she found a scrubber and the dish soap under the sink and turned on the water to wait for it to heat up. Not having to worry about how safe her food was felt wonderful, almost like she’d been the one to be scrubbed clean instead of the dishes.
While she waited for the water heater to kick in, Lori wandered back to the VCR — VHS player, he’d called it, like he wasn’t familiar with a VCR. This little stroll through Joey’s memory lane felt like wandering through a house of mirrors. His generation fell squarely between hers and her boys’, practically an era she’d completely missed.
Lori picked up the cassette Walkman. Even if she hadn’t grown up in the era of mix tapes, she could still appreciate the gesture. She carried the Walkman over to the sink, where steam climbed from the piping hot water. Lori clicked the button to play the tape and grabbed the first plate.
Before she even got it under the tap, a throaty scream split the air. Lori yelped and jumped. The plate clattered back into the sink.
“Joey!” she called. Was he okay?
And then a guitar joined in the screaming.
Goodness, this wasn’t her mix tape, was it?
The screaming continued. She couldn’t discern an actual melody in the madness, but the guitar and the drums battled on.
Battled was right.
This was what Joey picked for her?
She tried, she really did, but Lori was only halfway finished scrubbing the first plate when she had to turn off the tape.
It seemed music was not something they had in common. Maybe it was the age difference. Like the Walkman, this musical genre was something she’d seen bursting onto the scene with much fanfare years ago, and it was Joey’s version of nostalgia.
Time marched onward, though. He was twelve years younger than her; of course his tastes weren’t the same. That wasn’t a deal breaker.
Lori finished cleaning both plates in blessed quiet. Joey still wasn’t back by the time she dried them, so Lori turned her attention to dinner and the sauce on the stove.
Good thing she didn’t have to obey all the health code rules here. She quick-dipped a finger in the simmering tomato sauce and took a taste — and flinched. Was he seriously going to serve that to her? It was as bland as canned tomato sauce. And not spaghetti sauce, with herbs and spices. No, the kind that came in tiny cans with only one ingredient on the label: tomatoes.
This dinner was already in need of rescuing. Salt, rosemary, pepper, the whole deal.
Lori opened the cabinet door closest to the stove, but found it empty.
Exactly what she needed to do this week: spend more time searching for a missing spice bottle.
Lori checked three more cabinets and the pantry, but Joey’s spices were nowhere in sight.
She sighed and leaned against the counter. Where would he keep the spices?
Her gaze settled on the box in front of her. Of course! He might have already packed them. Lori grabbed the nearest unsealed box and dug in. This box contained only a jumble of flatware.
The next had dishes, like Joey had said he’d packed. They weren’t exactly inaccessible, though. If their roles had been reversed, Lori would have gotten the plates out of the box before she invited him over.
But he was a bachelor in the middle of moving. Could she really blame him for not being a perfect host at the moment?
Lori checked the last box on the counter. Spice bottles. She dug through the red-lidded bottles, hunting for salt and pepper shakers, and something else to give this awful sauce some flavor. If she had to choke this down, she’d do the best she could to make it palatable.
Some sauces were beyond help, though.
Paprika, nutmeg — didn’t he have a bottle of plain Italian seasoning anywhere? Lori sighed and dug deeper into the box. Finally, she spotted a bottle labeled thyme. If she couldn’t use a prepared spice mix, she could throw together a decent Italian seasoning on her own.
She pulled out the bottle of thyme. The light caught the top of the bottle and glinted off the silver lid.
This didn’t match any of the spice bottles in Joey’s box.
But Lori knew this spice jar. It was from her kitchen. The inn’s kitchen.
The spice jar that was missing because it contained poison. Because it had been planted by the killer.
She’d finally found it. Chief Branson wanted to know. She should call him. But . . . what was this doing at Joey’s house?
Ice seemed to trail down her spine.
The door to the bathroom opened and Lori dropped the spice jar like it had burned her. She scooped up an armful of spices and dumped them back into the box.
This didn’t make sense. Why would Joey have the poison that killed Dawn?
Why would Joey want Dawn dead?
“Looking for something?” Joey asked as he reached the kitchen.
“Um. . . .” Lori blinked, trying to remember what had brought her to this box in the first place. “The salt.” She held up the canister. “
The sauce needs it.”
Joey narrowed his eyes at her. He knew — he knew that she’d found the thyme. Slowly, Joey stalked toward her. He had to know. What would he do?
At the last second, he detoured for the pot on the stove and tasted it. “I guess, if you want more salt.” He shrugged, like “bland” was the flavor profile he was going for.
As long as it wasn’t aconite-laced thyme.
The question echoed through her mind: why would Joey want to kill Dawn?
“You okay?” Joey broke into her thoughts.
“Uh huh.” She nodded too quickly. How could she get away? “I just . . . need to go to the bathroom too.”
“Oh — uh.” Joey bit his lip. “Might want to run the fan.”
Lori tried not to cringe. She’d survived a house with three boys, though, and a little stench certainly seemed like the safer alternative right now.
Lori locked the bathroom door and flipped on the fan. She splashed water on her cheeks and glanced at herself in the mirror. She was as white as a sheet.
Why would Joey kill Dawn?
Then she remembered: Joey couldn’t have planned for the lemon thyme zucchini bread. No one could have. Whoever put the aconite in her kitchen didn’t care who they killed.
Why would Joey want to kill a guest, a random person?
But he couldn’t know thyme would be used on a guest’s food. It just as easily could have been a meal for Lori herself.
A meal they hadn’t planned. He’d nearly shouted at her when he found out she’d gone off his menu plan, the only time she’d seen him really angry.
Goose bumps prickled across her arms. Joey couldn’t want her dead, could he? Joey loved her. Joey wanted to marry her.
He wanted to marry her as fast as possible, to move to the inn. To take over the inn if she went to prison. Or if she died.
Could he really want to kill her over the inn?
Lori gripped the sink to keep from falling over. Her head was swimming. He hadn’t slipped her some of the poison already, had he?
No, he’d tasted the sauce, too.
Lori took a deep breath. What should she do now?
Chief Branson told her to call. Maybe he could help with an excuse. She dug her phone out of her purse. Could she say a guest needed her?
