“Charlie, I’m not trying to be the bad guy here. You need to pay attention – maybe get your head out of the clouds – and focus on the job you were hired to do.”
“I’ll do better.” I meant it. It was my third day on the job and I was already slacking. That’s not how I was raised. The guilt settled in my stomach like a hard, immovable ball.
“Okay.” Jack forced a smile, his dark eyes searching my face. “This is a fun gig if you relax and enjoy it. But there is work to do.”
“Yeah, I’ve got it.”
“Okay.”
I gripped the door handle, raising my head as I did. Bay stood in front of the Tahoe staring, her expression unreadable as she glanced between Jack and me. Somehow I knew what she was thinking, but she was so far off she needed another ZIP code to be in the right area.
This was so not how I saw this day going.
PENNY’S CONDO was really a condominium in name only. It was clear that the facility had once been apartments – and low-quality ones at that – and I couldn’t help feeling unbelievably sorry for the woman when I saw how messy the one-bedroom was.
“Who lives like this?” I asked, horrified as I stepped around a plate of half-eaten food – it looked to be rotting spaghetti, but I couldn’t be sure given the mold – sitting in the middle of the tiny living room. “Did someone break in and do this?”
“No, this is how she left it,” Landon replied, riffling through a stack of mail. “Women are messier than men in some instances. When I first started dating Bay she left her underwear around the guesthouse. She wasn’t the only one. Thistle and Clove did it, too. They didn’t think anything of it. So when I sat on the couch I’d find my head leaning against a bra and panties. It was … distracting, to say the least.”
“Was it dirty?” Jack’s expression was grim. “Like … were they stripping in the middle of the living room and just leaving their panties behind?”
Landon narrowed his eyes as he glanced over his shoulder. “That’s my girlfriend you’re picturing.”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t,” Jack argued. “I was simply asking a question.”
“I know exactly what you were asking, because I asked it, too,” Landon countered. “I pictured them having pillow fights and giggling. That’s not what was happening.”
“What was happening?”
“Don’t answer that question,” Chief Davenport growled. “I don’t want to know what they were doing. Those are my sweethearts. All three of them.”
“Even Thistle?” I asked, dubious.
“Even Thistle,” the chief replied, not missing a beat. “She looked like an angel when she was little. So did Clove and Bay. Bay had all of that light hair, and I swear there were times I looked at her and saw a halo.” He took on a wistful expression. “I won’t allow whatever story you’re about to tell to tarnish that halo.”
“No, it’s not,” Landon argued. “There’s nothing nefarious or dirty about the story. Well, actually that’s not entirely true. All three of those girls were filthy. They refused to clean up after themselves. They’d strip on the way to the shower and just leave panties and bras behind. I was so disappointed when I learned the truth.”
Bay poked her head out of the bedroom. “You know I can hear you, right?”
“That’s why I’m talking so loud,” Landon replied.
Bay rolled her eyes. “Did you notice that the window in here doesn’t latch properly?”
Landon stilled, amusement from his storytelling skills fading as he moved in Bay’s direction. “No. Are you sure?”
“Would I have said it if I wasn’t sure?”
Curious, I followed the rest of the group into the bedroom. Penny was apparently even more slovenly when it came to this small space, because I had to take a step back when I saw the mountain of laundry heaped on the bed. “Did she leave that, too?”
“No, we came in here and did laundry when we were bored,” Chief Davenport deadpanned, watching as Landon looked over the window. “That wasn’t like that when we were here yesterday.”
“No, it wasn’t,” Landon agreed, his hand automatically moving to Bay’s back. “Someone was in here after we left.”
“Who?” My mind momentarily flashed to a picture of Bigfoot climbing through the window. “You don’t think it was an animal, do you?”
“Not bloody likely.” Landon rubbed his chin and shot Jack a hard look. “You guys were out watching us last night. Before that, where were you?”
“Do you think I’m a suspect?” Jack’s eyebrows flew up his forehead. “Why would we break into this place?”
“I’m not suggesting you killed her,” Landon clarified. “I’m simply suggesting that you might’ve broken in here to investigate. If you did, we need to know now.”
“They weren’t here,” Bay interjected, taking me by surprise with her fortitude. “Charlie and Millie attended a party at the resort. Bernard and Jack followed them. They weren’t in this apartment.”
Landon let out a relieved breath. “Okay. Wait … how do you know that?”
“Yeah, how do you know that?” Jack challenged.
Bay pointed at me. She almost looked haughty in turning the tables to become the resident blabber. “Charlie told me.”
“You have a huge mouth,” Jack grumbled, shaking his head. “You don’t have to answer every question people pose. You know that, right?”
I shrugged, unbothered. “I saw no reason to lie. We weren’t doing anything wrong.”
“Except for trespassing and drinking with underage minors,” Bay offered.
I narrowed my eyes. “Really? Is this because I told Landon what you said to Phyllis Grimes?”
Bay grinned. “Maybe. They won’t do anything to you anyway. The resort is in a different town. They don’t have jurisdiction.”
“Oh, well, that’s a relief.” I brightened as I locked gazes with Jack. “See. No harm, no foul.”
“I’m an FBI agent,” Landon reminded me. “I have jurisdiction wherever I want.”
I deflated a bit. “Oh, well … hmm.”
“Yeah, big mouth.” Jack muttered. “Get out of their line of sight so they forget you’re a lawbreaker.”
“You were with me,” I complained, following him out of the bedroom.
“I’m smart enough not to admit things like that,” Jack said, moving toward the kitchen. “See if you can find anything in the living room, okay? And keep out of trouble.”
I shot him a dark look. “The only thing I’m going to find in the living room is the bubonic plague. Did you see the mold on the spaghetti?”
Jack’s grin was utterly charming when he flashed it in my direction. “So definitely don’t eat it.”
“Yes, I’ll try to refrain from eating the weeks-old spaghetti.”
Jack snickered as he opened a cupboard. “Investigative work isn’t as much fun as you thought, huh?”
“Now who can’t stop asking stupid questions?” I challenged, my cheeks burning as I slid around the offending plate. “Seriously, though, who lives like this?”
“Someone who didn’t care about cleanliness,” Jack replied, his expression sobering. “Penny Schilling had a plan to get out of here. I think she was focused singularly on that. She didn’t care who she stepped on to get what she wanted.”
“So are we back to a human killing her?”
Jack held his hands palms up. “Your guess is as good as mine. I doubt very much a Dog Man opened that window and searched her apartment. I really don’t know what to think.”
He wasn’t the only one.
Seventeen
When no one was looking I touched a few of Penny’s items, being careful to avoid anything that looked overtly filthy. Unfortunately – or, perhaps, fortunately – I didn’t get any flashes from the items I touched. Part of me was terrified I would see the woman’s death – it had happened before when I touched a wrecked vehicle after one of my classmates died in a terrible collision when I was a senior in high s
chool. The other part of me wanted to see her death so we could put aside any debates about the killer being paranormal or human.
It simply didn’t happen.
When we were finished we headed back to the inn to regroup and get ready for dinner. Bernard had stayed in town, expressing zero interest in searching Penny’s apartment, so Jack sent Chris to pick him up when he was done at the scene. It was just the two of us on the long drive back to The Overlook.
“What are you thinking?” Jack asked about halfway through our trip.
“I’m thinking that Penny Schilling must’ve been an extremely sad individual.”
Whatever answer he expected, that wasn’t it. Jack shifted on his seat. I could feel his eyes on me even though I didn’t turn to meet them. “Why do you say that?” Jack’s voice was soft.
“She was clearly looking for something she never found,” I answered, keeping my gaze trained out the window. “I think it would have to be sad to be looking for something externally when the answers are probably internal and you don’t have the ability to seek them out.”
“Profound.” Jack made a clicking sound with his tongue as he debated how to continue. “Not everyone knows what they want out of life at a young age. I think you understand what you want despite your youth. You seem to be driven to find answers.”
“You don’t think Penny wanted answers?” It was almost a rhetorical question, and yet I still expected an answer.
“I think Penny wanted comfort,” Jack clarified. “You saw her apartment. That wasn’t a home. It was a place to live. There are some people in this world who spend all of their time searching for what they think will be a happily ever after. In Penny’s case, I think that’s why she kept going for older men she believed could provide financial security.
“Somewhere in her past, Penny went through life wanting things, maybe even food and warmth,” he continued. “She didn’t know what she wanted, but she was certain she didn’t want to be cold and hungry. I think that’s normal for people who grow up poor.”
He spoke the words as if he had special insight into the issue, and I filed the notion away to reflect on later.
“Penny was probably one of those people who have a hole inside of her that she was desperately trying to fill,” Jack continued. “A lot of people have holes like that. They use alcohol, food, sex, manipulation, tears … whatever … to fill that hole.”
“And you think Penny used sex,” I mused, stretching my arms. “She thought if she could snag one of those top resort guys that she could fill the hole and then start living the life she thought she deserved.”
Jack nodded. “She didn’t realize that you find the answers within when you want to plug a hole like that. A person can’t do that for you.”
I dragged my eyes from the window and focused on him. “You don’t believe one person can complete another?”
“I believe in love, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“It’s not.”
Jack pursed his lips, seemingly straddling a line as he considered his next words. “I don’t believe that one person can fix another,” he said finally. “I do believe people can love and complement one another. Is that what you’re asking?”
It wasn’t, but it was close enough.
I WAS EXHAUSTED by the time we hit The Overlook, my late-night antics the previous evening finally catching up with me. I took a brief nap, my dreams so muddy and dark that I was relieved when I woke. I hopped in the shower, cleaned up, and then headed downstairs. Most of my team and the Winchesters were already in the dining room.
“Sleep well?” Jack asked, lifting his eyebrows as he studied me. “You look better … kind of.”
“Oh, well, thank you so much for the compliment,” I deadpanned, annoyance bubbling up. “I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t have you around to fluff my ego.”
The words were biting, but Jack easily shrugged them off. “I only meant you have some color back in your cheeks. You still look tired.”
“Sorry.” I mumbled the word into my hand as I rested my chin on my elbow.
Instead of being offended, Jack smirked. “You’re more than welcome.”
Dinner was a festive affair, but mealtimes apparently always are at The Overlook. Tillie sat at the head of the table regaling everyone with hilarious stories of her misspent youth. She peppered exciting babysitting tales throughout some of the more serious stories – including the time she made her great-nieces act as lookouts while she stole flowers from the cemetery.
“That’s when Clove earned her nickname,” Tillie supplied. “That was the first time she was a complete and total kvetch.”
“I was five,” Clove protested from the far end of the table, Sam beside her. They didn’t regularly come for meals, but did pop up several times a week. Marcus and Thistle were fairly frequent guests around the table – including tonight – but Bay and Landon appeared to be the only ones who showed up for breakfast and dinner daily.
“You were still a kvetch,” Tillie argued. “Bay and Thistle treated the entire thing like an adventure. You spent the whole night whining that Terry was going to arrest us.”
“He would’ve if he caught us,” Clove argued.
I slid a sidelong look at Chief Davenport, who joined us this evening and sat to my left, and arched a dubious eyebrow. “Would you have arrested them?”
“Probably not,” he conceded. “I might’ve arrested Tillie.”
Bay snorted, amused. “No, you wouldn’t have done that either,” she argued. “You would’ve been too worried about us crying. You hated it when we cried.”
“I didn’t care about making you cry,” the chief countered immediately, although there wasn’t much conviction behind his words. “You girls all act as if I melted into a puddle of goo whenever I saw you. That’s not how I remember things.”
“How do you remember things?” Landon asked. “All of the stories I’ve heard end with you spoiling them. I even heard one in which you carried all three of them through four-foot snow drifts because Aunt Tillie had them spying on Margaret Little and you refused to leave them in the woods.”
Tillie’s eyes widened to comical proportions. “You have a big mouth, Bay! Why did you tell him that story?”
“How do you know I’m the one who told him that?” Bay hedged, averting her gaze. “It could’ve been Thistle, Clove or Chief Terry.”
“Why would I tell him that story?” the chief challenged. “You were making them spy on Mrs. Little. That was after attacking her with yellow snow for three days straight, if I remember correctly.”
“I’m pretty sure your memory is faulty,” Tillie sniffed. “That doesn’t sound anything like me.”
“No, of course not,” Chief Davenport deadpanned, causing the table to erupt in riotous laughter.
“Did your great-aunt take you on adventures often when you were kids?” Hannah asked. She was a sincere individual who mostly minded her own business – which made me largely ambivalent toward her – and honestly seemed to be enjoying the conversation.
Bay nodded, smiling. “Our mothers were busy trying to learn everything they could about the bed and breakfast business when we were younger. They wanted us to amuse ourselves a lot while they studied.”
“They had jobs, too,” Thistle added. “This house didn’t look like this when we were younger. It has grown a lot over the years.”
“It was a simple homestead when the property first came into our possession,” Winnie explained. “Then every generation started adding. Eventually it was a Victorian. The finest house in town.
“We always knew we wanted to start our own inn, so eventually we turned the Victorian into a bed and breakfast. Then, several years ago, we did the big expansion to turn the place into a full-fledged inn.”
“Will your daughters eventually take over the operation?” Laura asked. I didn’t fail to notice that she’d managed to steal the spot on Landon’s right side this evening, something he refused to acknowle
dge as he kept his attention on Bay.
“I don’t know how that will work,” Winnie admitted, her eyes flicking to Bay. “I’ve never considered the girls to be all that interested in running the inn. The property will certainly pass to them. What they do with the house … well … I guess that’s up to them.”
“That’s a long way off,” Landon noted. “Who knows what will happen in that time.”
“Exactly,” Tillie added, bobbing her head. “I’m barely middle-aged. We have decades in front of us before we have to make any tough decisions.”
Laura let loose a derisive snort, but she recovered quickly when she realized that everyone around the table was glaring at her. “I … um … that’s a good point. So what about you, Landon? Do you see yourself living here forever? Are you going to be an FBI agent who happens to run an inn on the side? That sounds like an odd book or a cozy mystery, doesn’t it?”
Landon rested his arm on the back of Bay’s chair as he studied Laura’s face, his fingers light as they traced small circles on the back of Bay’s shoulders. “I see myself living with Bay forever. If that’s here, I’m fine with that.”
“So she’s your one and only?” Laura asked the question in a casual manner, but it was clearly pointed.
Landon answered without hesitation. “Yup. Why would I possibly want someone else? Why would someone even ask a question like that?”
Laura balked. “I didn’t mean … .”
“He knows what you meant,” Tillie interjected, cutting off the stuttering vixen. “Everyone has seen the way you look at him. You’re panting up the wrong police-shaped tree.”
Landon’s lips quirked as he reached for his glass of wine, but the expression on Laura’s face was dark and dangerous.
“I don’t know what you think you’ve seen, old lady, but … .”
“Laura, that will be quite enough of that,” Chris barked, taking everyone by surprise. I hadn’t heard Chris raise his voice since I started working for him. In fact, when I really stretched my brain, I couldn’t remember sharing more than a few hundred words with him. He was so caught up in the work – the actual work of examining the scene where Penny was found – that my enthusiasm for the investigation led us in different directions. I couldn’t help but feel a bit guilty about that.
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