Gamma sat at the rough kitchen table, sipping her coffee and paging through the local newspaper. I didn’t know why she’d want to read The Gossip Rag after the negative things written in it about the inn. Maybe because it was better to keep your enemies close?
“Belle-Blue’s taken out a full-page ad in here for her inn.” Gamma tapped the page. “I wonder how many bookings she’s had.”
“I bet not that many,” Lauren said, though she sounded doubtful.
“You know, it’s probably that new husband of hers financing it. But why now? Jessie’s never expressed any interest in running an inn. How odd.”
I drank my coffee and kept my opinion to myself. In all honesty, I didn’t have much of one when it came to Belle-Blue. The necklace puzzle had occupied my brain power. Why had Jordan given it to Kayla? What had been in the pill? Why had someone taken it from Kayla’s bedside table then abandoned it in the library after removing the pill?
“I’m going to make us something to eat.” Lauren pushed up from the table. “I can’t sit here and do nothing. What do you feel like? Chocolate cupcakes? Omelets? Bacon and eggs? Chicken fried steak? Stuffed mushrooms?”
“Whatever you want,” Gamma said.
“Yeah.” I wasn’t particularly hungry. Funny how stress killed appetite.
The kitchen’s back door opened, and Brian entered, dark circles under his eyes and his cheeks wan. “Everyone in here?”
“Unless we’re in an alternate universe and I’m unaware of it,” Gamma said, turning the page without looking up at him. She’d been cold ever since the incident with the ring and the feedback that the NSIB had no plans to move closer and help us setup an operation.
At the beginning of this week, I’d desperately wanted freedom. Now, I had it in spades and the growing fear that Kyle would attack us for accompaniment.
“Mind if I join you ladies? Not much to do in the garden this morning.”
“Sure,” Lauren said, merrily. “I was about to make chicken fried steak and waffles.”
“Sounds great.” Brian took a seat next to me and squeezed my knee under the table. As the first caring contact we’d had in days, it was a little too late for my liking.
I gave him a forced smile in return.
“Calmed down, have we, Brian?” Gamma asked.
Of course, my grandmother was protective over me. She had been the one to encourage the relationship with Brian in the first place. I hoped she didn’t regret that decision. It had been my choice to start dating him.
And you weren’t ready. You shouldn’t have rushed into it. What’s going to happen when this is all over?
A knock sounded at the inn’s front doors, cutting off Brian before he could reply.
“Expecting somebody, Georgina?” Lauren asked, from where she stood in front of the counter, paging through her recipe book.
“Definitely not.”
Gamma, Brian, and I all rose from the table and moved into the hall. The inn’s doors, usually cast wide open to invite guests and bring that cozy feeling of home, were shut today. We walked to them and Gamma opened one a crack.
“Oh, Detective Crowley,” she said. “What are you doing here?”
“Mind if I come in, Georgina? Better to discuss this inside.”
“Yes, of course.” She allowed him entrance.
“This won’t take long,” Detective Crowley said, glancing at Smulder. “I need to speak to Georgina and Charlotte alone, if you don’t mind.”
“Fine.” Brian shrugged and strode back toward the kitchen, his shoulders stiff.
“Would you like to take a seat, detective?” Gamma asked, even the polite hostess.
“No, thank you, Georgina, this won’t take long.” Detective Crowley ruffled his dark hair, his gaze softer than usual. “I’ve come to talk to you about something serious, but—look, the first thing I need to ask you both is where you were last night.”
“Here.” Gamma and I answered instantly.
“Has something happened?” I asked.
If it had, surely Crowley would question us separately.
“Yes.” Detective Crowley paused. “I’m only telling you this because of the circumstances and because it’s impossible for you two to have been involved but… Hannah Greerson is missing.”
“What?” Again, Gamma and I spoke in unison, identical tones of confusion and horror.
“What do you mean she’s missing?” Gamma asked. “She was fine yesterday afternoon.”
“Yeah, she was in the kitten foster center. Happy as usual.”
“Her boyfriend reporter her missing at 9:15 p.m. last night. They live together, you see, and he—well, I can’t go into much detail, but I thought you ought to know.”
“And we’re not suspects.”
“No. The circumstances are specific,” Detective Crowley said.
“Please explain what that means,” Gamma said, and held up a hand when Crowley looked ready to deny her. “Don’t tell me you can’t divulge information. This is my assistant you’re talking about. I deserve to know what’s going on.”
Detective Crowley hesitated. “Last night, at approximately 9:00 p.m., Hannah Greerson went outside to take out the trash. She didn’t return.”
“Are there any clues? Any signs of what might’ve happened to her?” I asked.
“The only information we have at the moment is that a black SUV was seen circling her home an hour before. Her neighbors noticed it.”
The black car again! Now, the NSIB and Grant couldn’t deny what was going on. They’d have to be on the lookout for the truck. That was all there was to it.
But was there a connection to Kyle? And what about Jordan’s body?
“Poor Hannah,” I said, at last.
“We’re doing everything we can to find her. Rest assured, Charlotte.” Detective Crowley patted me awkwardly on the shoulder.
“Thanks,” I said.
Detective Crowley said his goodbyes to us then left the inn. Gamma shut the door behind him, her right hand balled into a fist, knuckles white.
“This is too much,” Gamma hissed. “First Jordan and now Hannah?”
“We’ll find her,” I said. “Don’t—”
“Find whom?” Brian strode toward us, his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “What did Crowley want?”
“To tell us that Hannah’s missing.” My stomach jolted saying it.
Brian’s face fell. “I’m sorry. That’s—”
“It was the black SUV again,” Gamma put in, quickly. “The one Charlotte told Grandpa about. Now, he’ll have a reason to be on the lookout for it.”
“Oh. I’ll text him.” Brian brought out his phone right away and input a series of innocuous words—all code words—that would tell Grant exactly what we’d found. He sent it off. “There. We’ll have a response soon enough. This isn’t good news, but it’s something. A lead.”
I wanted to scream, “I told you so” at the top of my lungs, but I held back. That wouldn’t improve my relationship with Brian, and it certainly wouldn’t change anything regarding the investigation or the NSIB’s objective.
A text reply came through on Brian’s phone and he lifted it, frowning.
“What?”
“It—uh… Grandpa’s responded that they have everything under control and that the SUV is not an issue.”
“Not an issue?” Gamma asked, coolly. “It was seen outside Hannah’s home an hour before she went missing. And It was witnessed circling the medical examiner’s office before Jordan’s corpse went missing. How is it not an issue?”
Brian shook his head, clearly without an answer. Even he had to be perplexed by this.
What got to me was how brazen this SUV and the person driving it had behaved. If it was Kyle, surely he would be wary of being discovered by the NSIB. But if it wasn’t him then who? Who would have the wherewithal to straight up kidnap people and steal bodies?
“I’m sorry about Hannah,” Brian said, after a beat. “But I’m sure Gr
andpa knows what he’s doing.” My ‘stickler for doing the right thing’ boyfriend left us, dipping out of the front of the inn rather than returning to the kitchen.
Likely, the prospect of breakfast with my angry grandmother wasn’t the most exciting.
Gamma glared after him. “Meet me downstairs after breakfast,” she said to me, then made for the kitchen and the tempting smells of frying chicken and roasting coffee.
She had a plan, and I had a feeling I knew what it was.
17
It had been a month since we’d entered the armory, and I had to admit, it felt so darn good to be back in here. With the NSIB withdrawn to a safe distance, we could enter it without risking its discovery. The rows of shelves containing ammo and tech, the two stands holding full body armor, and the casings on the wall that held guns, reminded me of what it was like to feel in control again.
My grandmother sat in front of her touchscreen desk, tapping away, intensely focused on the task at hand. “We can’t break in,” she said, “but we can tail him at the very least. Corner him and confront him. We’ll use this.” Gamma beckoned for me to join her.
I walked over to the desk.
Gamma had tapped the screen and brought up an image of a spinning syringe. “Truth serum.”
“Truth…”
“Serum, Charlotte. Truth serum. It’s designed to lower the subject’s inhibitions making them more susceptible to answering questions.”
“Yeah, I know what truth serum is, just… if we had this, why weren’t we using it before this? On people who were suspects.”
Gamma pursed her lips at me. “Charlotte, you realize that this is incredibly expensive. I’ve only got one syringe, and I’ve been saving it for an emergency. This is the emergency.”
I nodded. “You want to use it on the doctor, don’t you? The medical examiner.”
“Yes. He’s the only missing link.” Gamma lifted a hand and started ticking facts off on her fingers. “We’ve already cleared Kayla and Josephine Wart of the crime. Hannah is missing, which means she’s most likely not the killer, though she didn’t have an alibi to speak of since she went home before Jordan was last seen.”
“Yeah.”
“Jordan’s body went missing from the morgue at the medical examiner’s office, and Dr. Briggs acted suspiciously when we questioned him.”
“And called the police on us afterward,” I said.
“Precisely. I have a feeling he knows more than he’s letting on. Specifically about this black SUV he mentioned.” Gamma tapped a few buttons on the screen, and a cool female voice announced that the freezer had been unlocked.
My grandmother rolled back on her chair, rose and walked to a central block in the middle of the basement armory. She pressed her hand to it, and a smaller cube rose from within it accompanied by a pneumatic hiss and clouds of cold air.
Gamma unscrewed the lid of the block and gingerly removed a syringe from within. “Let’s put this to good use. It will cost an arm and a leg to replace it once we’re done.”
I nodded, chewing on the inside of my cheek.
“What’s the plan?” I asked.
“Get in our own black SUV, drive out there and circle the building once. Build tension. See if the doctor notices and comes out. When he does, we pounce. You’re going to need to suit up. Balaclava, all black.”
I started collecting the items she’d mentioned and putting them on.
“This is an abduction,” Gamma said. “Prepare for a struggle. And don’t worry about the doctor remembering anything. The truth serum will help him forget. It’s part of the cocktail of drugs in this little beauty.”
“Has anyone ever told you just how terrifying you are?”
Gamma’s lips turned upward at the corners. “I’ve lost count of the times that’s been mentioned, Charlotte dear.”
Morning turned into afternoon, and afternoon into evening while we waited, parked across the street from the medical examiner’s office in my grandmother’s black SUV. The police hadn’t yet revealed to the public that Hannah had been abducted by a vehicle matching this one’s description—though, a press briefing had been scheduled for later this evening.
We didn’t have much time left to sit around waiting for Dr. Barry Briggs to emerge into the purple dusk.
Gamma tapped her fingers on the wheel of her SUV impatiently.
“Do you think it’s a coincidence that the vehicle seen both at Hannah’s place and here matches the description of yours?” The SUV was my grandmother’s undercover car. Whenever she wanted to get up to no good in small town, Gossip, she’d drive it around. She had several license plates that she’d switch out so she could never be tracked, and, in case of emergency, license plate shields that slid into place in the event of a chase.
Before I’d come to Gossip, my grandmother hadn’t used the vehicle much.
“Nothing is a coincidence. Whoever’s operating behind the scenes, be it your miserable excuse for an ex-husband or not, knows exactly what they’re doing.”
I folded my arms and settled back in the passenger seat, scanning the front of the medical examiner’s office and the rest of the street. As was the case everywhere in Gossip, wrought iron lamp posts lined the wide roads. They clicked on, casting warm light over the sidewalks.
Gossip was a picturesque little town, filled with strange people who loved a gossip but meant well. Though I had been here over a year, I felt as if I’d only scratched the surface in getting to know the town and its people.
A pity since I would have to leave soon.
“Movement,” Gamma said.
My gaze snapped back to the front of the building.
Dr. Barry Briggs had emerged. He walked quickly, looking left and right over either shoulder, and stopped on the sidewalk. He didn’t notice us parked under the tree opposite him.
A powder blue car pulled up, a woman driving it, and he got inside. The car drove off.
Gamma followed at a safe distance, her eyes narrowed and her knuckles white on the wheel.
“Who is it?” I asked. “Do you think it could be Hannah? But why would Hannah be meeting with Dr. Briggs? Unless this is some ploy on her part to run away with him.” Or she’d killed Jordan and Briggs had staged her abduction to get her to safety.
My mind ran wild with the possibility. Gamma didn’t answer my questions, her focus on the car and keeping it in her sights. It wound into Gossip’s suburbs and soon parked in the driveway of a single-story brick home. The name ‘Briggs’ was printed on the side of the mailbox, peeking from the concrete.
Gamma and I stopped the SUV well back outside a picket-fenced home.
Dr. Briggs emerge from the car along with a short, chubby woman with brown hair. They entered the home together, not touching but caught in friendly conversation.
“Any idea who she is?” Gamma asked. “Do you recognize her?”
“No. You?”
“I do not,” I said.
“We’ll have to wait until she leaves before we take him,” Gamma replied. “We simply can’t risk witnesses.”
I settled in to wait. I got the feeling it was going to be a long night.
18
By 9:00 p.m., my butt had started hurting. Nothing against the leather chairs in Gamma’s SUV, but there were only so many hours one could sit still for before the pain started.
“Walk me through the serum again,” I said. “The instructions, I mean.” I needed the distraction from the butt ache and my constant worrying about the inn and when Kyle would strike next. If it was him doing the dirty work and not another killer who had an SUV.
“All right.” Gamma popped open the secret cubby underneath her seat—in case we were stopped by cops or another faction of agents—and removed a small rectangular case. Silver, with a latch. “This truth serum,” she said, hitting the button on the side of the case, “is incredibly strong. See the markings along the side of the syringe?”
“Yeah.”
“We’re only
going to inject up to the first line. That leaves fifteen milliliters of fluid in the syringe. It is exceptionally important that we don’t inject more than five, or we will kill Dr. Briggs. And while I have moral compunctions about murder, I have none about disposing a body if it’s necessary. And that disposal would provide too many challenges for us, right now.”
“You’re doing the injection, right?” My palms had grown sweaty at the thought. It was silly—I’d performed injections before in my job, but this was different.
I eyed the syringe, nestled in the temperature-controlled interior of the box. White mist rose from it.
This was a make-or-break moment for us.
“Yes. I’ll do the injection. It will be up to you to—”
A black SUV screeched around the far corner and roared toward us, its headlights off.
“Georgina!” I yelled.
Gamma tossed the open box toward me and slammed our SUV into reverse.
I fumbled for the box in mid-air and caught it by the tips of my fingers. Blood rushed in my ears, deafening me, but I kept my eyes peeled, myself grounded.
The approaching vehicle followed us, the driver hidden from view by the dark of night and tinted windows. But it didn’t stop coming.
Gamma screeched backward, turned the SUV in a circle and tore off down the road. She maneuvered evasively, drifting the car around corners at high speed and putting distance between us and the pursuing vehicle.
But losing them wasn’t so easy. The pop of bullets hitting the windows and doors of our car sounded, and I slipped my pistol free from its holster, and held it, waiting for instruction from my grandmother. As the senior spy in this operation, she would instruct me.
Thankfully, our car was bulletproof.
Gamma skidded around another corner, the SUV hot on our tail, and entered Main Street.
“It’s going to get rough,” she yelled, as the car with blacked-out windows pulled up alongside us. “Get ready for contact.”
Chocolate Chills (A Mission Inn-possible Cozy Mystery Book 6) Page 7