The pursuing SUV careened toward us.
Gamma leaned into the steering wheel, pulling it toward the truck to ram them back, but the point of impact was off center. Our car spun sideway and crashed into a shop off Main Street. The airbags popped, and the tinkle of breaking glass the last noise I registered before the interior of the car faded to black.
“Charlotte. Wake up, darling. Charlotte. Can you hear me?” Pain erupted in my cheek, and I opened my eyes.
My grandmother had pushed the airbag out of the way and held her gloved hand aloft.
“Gamma?”
“Georgina,” she corrected. “Never forget your cover. Now, get out of the car. We’re on fire.”
I unbuckled myself, and tried my car door, but it was buckled inward from where we’d struck a lamppost. The flicker of fire and the smell of acrid smoke sent a jolt of fear down my spine.
“Climb out on my side.” Gamma had already kicked the driver’s side door open. She stood on the sidewalk and held out a hand. I accepted it and clambered to safety, my stomach lurching and a headache sprouting behind my eyes.
“Where?” I turned in a circle, searching for our attacker. “Where?”
“Gone,” Gamma replied, and snatched the balaclava off my head. She tossed it into the burning vehicle then removed her gloves. “Gloves off. Bulletproof vest too. Anything that looks suspicious. The cops will be here soon. We have to go.”
I did as she’d said, tearing off my spy gear and throwing it into the burning vehicle. “Shoot! The serum!” I started toward the truck, but Gamma caught me by the arm.
“Leave it. It’s not worth your life. That plan is shot anyway. Dr. Briggs is being watched.”
The distant whoop of sirens came, and Gamma and I ran off down the street, away from the burning wreckage and the shredded front of what had once been the Curl Up ‘n Dye salon. We darted around the corner—well, Gamma darted, and I limped at my fastest—and ducked into an alley.
We traveled in silence, keeping to the shadows whenever a car appeared in a road, and climbing over fences where necessary. Finally, we stopped in the park, and I dropped onto a bench under a Pecan tree.
“Ten minutes to catch your breath. Then we’ve got to move. Do you have a concussion?”
“No, I don’t think so. If I do, it’s mild.” I probed my temples and winced. “Mild. But I can keep moving.”
“Anything broken?”
“No. You?”
“I’m fine, Charlotte.” Of course, she was fine. Gamma was practically a bionic woman at this point.
The distant sirens drove home what had happened, and I looked up at my grandmother, suddenly feeling about ten-years-old again. “What now?”
“We’re going back,” Georgina said, “to Dr. Briggs’ home. I didn’t just lose a custom-made SUV for nothing. If whoever’s doing this doesn’t want us near Briggs, then we’ll be darn sure to find out what it is they’re trying to hide.”
“It’s Kyle. It’s got to be.” I rolled my shoulders and stretched my neck, probing it with my fingers too. “We should have stopped and fired at them.”
“And risk your cover and mine?” Gamma asked. “I’m not leaving Gossip for anyone, let alone the waste of flesh and bones that is your ex-husband.”
I nodded.
She was right. Evasive maneuvers were the best option in that situation. Perhaps if we’d lured him out of town but that hadn’t been an option.
“Ready?” Gamma asked.
“Ready.”
19
The powder blue car that had been parked outside Dr. Briggs’ home was gone, and the house itself was deathly still, shrouded in darkness. Not a single light was on in its windows, though the houses surrounding displayed light and the odd blue flicker of a TV behind drawn curtains.
“The front door’s open,” I whispered.
“Noted.” Gamma crouched beside me in the front yard. We were hidden behind a tree still wearing all black though we no longer had our bulletproof vests or guns.
Do we still go in? This is dangerous. Unproven territory. We don’t have any back up.
“You can stay out here if you’d like, Charlotte. It might be an ambush.”
“As if I’d let you go in there by yourself,” I hissed back. “I’m not letting you risk your life for me.”
“That’s what grandparents do,” she said.
And it came back to me then.
In the crash, when she’d been slapping me awake, my grandmother had called me ‘Charlotte, darling’ rather than just Charlotte. She wasn’t the most emotive person, but Gamma loved me dearly as did I her.
“Plan of action?”
“Breach through the back of the house,” Gamma said. “The front entrance could be a trap.”
“Agreed.”
“On my count.” She counted down three on her fingers then formed a fist, her hand pale by the sliver of moonlight peeking through the clouds in the inky black sky.
We crept along the side of Briggs’ house and around to the back porch. We traversed the stairs and came to the back door. The window next to it was open a crack, looking in on a gleaming white kitchen, entirely empty.
“I don’t like this,” I breathed.
Gamma opened the window and vaulted inside, noiseless as a cat.
I followed her with less panache but as little noise. Inside the kitchen, we paused to regroup. The house was quiet, and we moved through the rooms together, checking corners and searching for any sign of other intruders, or enemies lying in wait for us.
There was no one.
Inside the master bedroom, Gamma closed the curtains, shut the door and switched on the light. The room was a mess, the closet doors flung open and empty of clothing. The bed was unmade, as well, and the drawers in a desk opposite had been pulled open.
“He’s gone,” Gamma said. “He packed everything and ran.”
“Then he had to have been guilty of something, right? He was involved in Hannah’s disappearance?”
“Maybe. That’s what makes the most sense.”
“What do we do about this?” I asked. “We don’t know who drove that powder blue car or where Briggs has gone. We have no idea who chased us down either.” Though it was Kyle, right? It had to be.
“My guess is that Briggs was working with your ex-husband,” Gamma said. “And that he’s been killed or has fled for fear of that happening. I doubt a rogue spy will show any loyalty to a dirty medical examiner. Briggs must’ve known that his time was up.”
I chewed on my bottom lip. “None of this helps us.”
“No, it doesn’t. We don’t know why Hannah was taken.”
“Maybe she knew too much?”
“How?” Gamma asked. “How might that be the case?”
“I don’t know.” Frustration nearly overwhelmed me, and I tugged my fingers through my hair. “None of this is making sense.”
Gamma switched off the lights in the bedroom, plunging us into cold darkness. “We had better get back to the inn,” she said. “Detective Crowley might suspect us and come looking. And we’re not going to find out anything else here.”
20
The following day…
Remarkably, I had one large bruise on my arm to show for last night’s activities and that was it. My headache was gone, my neck was stiff, but I could manage. Not that there was much to manage in an inn where there weren’t any guests.
Regardless, Lauren had come into work as usual and had fixed us a delicious breakfast.
I sat at the kitchen table, eating it without really tasting it and staring off into space. Brian hadn’t come to join us, possibly because he’d found his new favorite hobby—gardening—or because he couldn’t stand the stress.
Gamma pushed her waffles around on her plate, occasionally sighing.
“What’s going on with you two this morning?” Lauren asked, in her friendly twang. “Y’all haven’t touched your waffles. You usually love them.”
“I’ve eat
en mine,” I said, gesturing to my empty plate.
“Sure, but you ate them like you didn’t taste a bite. I’ve been watching both of you for the past couple of days and you’re not acting right.”
“Everything’s fine, Lauren,” Gamma said. “We’re just concerned about the inn, that’s all.”
“You sure that’s all that’s bothering you? Brian isn’t acting right either. He’s all pale and jumps like a squirrel whenever anyone says a word.”
“I’ve got to go to the kitten foster center,” I said, grasping at the excuse to get out of here before I let my cover slip too much. “Thanks for the breakfast! It was great.”
Lauren frowned at me, twirling one red pigtail around her finger. “If you say so, Charlie.”
I hurried off to the kitten foster center and shut the door behind me. The assistant on duty, Marie, sat in the incubation room and waved at me, barely glancing up from her magazine. She was attentive to the kittens, middle-aged, and unbothered by all the craziness at the inn.
I plopped down in the center of the room, and my favorite kitty Sunlight came over, immediately. He jumped into my lap and purred and rub up against me. It was a warm welcome and definitely what I needed.
“You’re so low effort,” I said to him, stroking his furry ginger head. “I’m going to miss you when—” But I couldn’t finish the sentence. When I left? Heck, I hadn’t been able to leave Gossip to hide out in the underground, and that had been a threat to my life.
Why would I do it once the threat was gone?
I let the question drift around in my head, unanswered.
The kitten foster center’s door opened, and Gamma entered, her expression dour. Not that it had been anything else the past few days.
“Charlotte,” she said, glancing over at Maria in the incubation room, “let’s talk outside in the sunshine. I’ve just received some interesting news.”
I gave Sunlight a quick kiss on his furry head, set him aside, and followed my grandmother out of the back of the kitten foster center. We stopped under the trees, and Gamma checked the bushes were empty.
“I’ve spoken to Brian,” Gamma said. “He hasn’t had any contact with Grandpa and his friends since yesterday. Most unusual.”
“What do you want us to do about it?” I asked.
“Nothing yet. I just thought you ought to know.”
“All right.” That was alarming. If Brian was worried, then we had to be too. The last time we hadn’t had contact with the NSIB, he’d panicked and taken me straight into hiding. Now, that wasn’t an option.
The agents had come out to Gossip to deal with Kyle. The ultimate prize would be capturing him rather than killing him, and after the way Special Agent in Charge Grant had acted about keeping us safe and in the inn, it was beyond strange that he had suddenly fallen silent.
“Detective Crowley has also taken the seal off the library door,” Gamma continued. “So, it’s accessible again, not that it matters.”
No guests to use the library. “That’s good. Then Grandpa and his friends can resume their places around the inn, right?”
“Correct,” Gamma said. “Or they would be able to if not for the fact that Grandpa is currently unreachable.”
I gritted my teeth, trying not to let the many roadblocks frustrate me more than they already had.
“But I have good news,” Gamma said. “I got a report back from my contact.” She removed her phone from her pocket and opened the screen to an email. She handed it over.
Georgina,
Interesting find. I’ve attached a full report and chemical breakdown on what was in the capsule, but I’ll break it down simply for you here as well.
The liquid inside the capsule was a high dosage of tetrodotoxin. Or pufferfish venom. It’s a rather potent neurotoxin, that’s found in the skin, liver and ovaries of the fish. Interestingly, it’s possible to take smaller doses of this venom and not die but mimic the effects of death.
Of course, the person in question would need to be placed on a respirator or life support until they revived, but an interesting side note, nonetheless.
I haven’t seen anything like this in a while. Where did you find it, if you don’t mind me asking?
Sincerely,
Dr. Geoff Sharpe
My eyes widened. I re-read the email three times before looking up at Gamma, who nodded repeatedly.
“Tetrodotoxin.”
“Surely not,” I said. “Surely you don’t think…”
“Jordan’s not dead. He faked it.”
“But why? How? Why?” The words tumbled from me.
Gamma and I walked down the path and out into the open on the grass, so that we could surveil the surrounding area and talk where we knew for sure we wouldn’t be listened in on or interrupted.
“Double agent. Or just a dirty agent working for Turner,” Gamma said. “That’s my only thought.”
“He had that pill from the start,” I replied, inserting what we knew so far. “He gave the necklace containing the pill to Kayla to keep it for him and to throw us off the scent. Then he must have taken it, removed the pill, left the necklace in the library. The necklace gave Josephine a rash. She must’ve been allergic to tetrodotoxin—maybe some of it spilled out of the pill when he removed it. After that he went upstairs and faked his death. But how? The noose?”
“Did you see his neck at all?”
“No. I didn’t take a close look.”
“And it was the medical examiner who fetched him,” Gamma said. “The same medical examiner who has now fled, probably because he was working with the person who stole Jordan’s corpse.”
“Except he wasn’t a corpse.”
“No, he wasn’t.”
I paced back and forth letting the ideas on the tip of my tongue bounce out and off my grandmother. “Jordan fakes his death, his corpse is retrieved by Kyle, has to be Kyle because who else would have access to something like tetrodotoxin. He is taken from the medical examiner’s office and kept alive. But why? Why?”
“Because he knows the inn,” Gamma said, instantly. “Remember when we first found him in the inn? He was hiding out in the secret passages.”
I nearly lost my breath. “If Kyle knows all the passages, some that aren’t on the map we have then—”
“Trouble,” Gamma said.
“But what about Hannah?”
“She saw Jordan setting up a camera. Maybe they thought she knew too much,” Gamma replied, not pacing, but her heel tapping in the moist grass. “I doubt she’s alive, but if she is we need to find her. We need to figure out where they’ve hidden her.”
A whistle sounded from the back of the inn. Brian stood there, waving at us.
21
“I want to take you away,” Smulder said, arms folded because he’d anticipated my response already. “Both of you. The inn isn’t safe, and Grandpa has gone completely dark.”
“You tried to contact him again?” Gamma asked.
“Yes. And the contact number is dead. The phone doesn’t even ring. Something is very wrong.”
“Too bad,” I said. “I’m not leaving.”
I tried to walk past, but Smulder caught my arm, gently. “Charlie, stop.”
“I am not leaving. What are we supposed to do, Brian? Run away? Leave the cats and Lauren and Maria here to deal with whatever happens? I’m not doing that.”
“Georgina, please.” Brian let go of me and turned to my grandmother, realizing that appealing to her was the only option he had left.
“This is Charlotte’s fight,” my grandmother said. “And her choice. Your plan was to have Turner come here, and now he’s arrived you want to shift the goalposts?” Notably, my grandmother had broken cover by mentioning Kyle’s last name, but that was because she believed it didn’t matter. It was too late to turn back.
“I want to keep Charlotte safe.”
“I don’t need you to keep me safe, Brian,” I snapped. “I need you to be on my side for once.”
“Yeah. Stop trying to keep me out of trouble and help me deal with this instead. And if you don’t want to do that, then just leave.”
“What? No. I’m not leaving.”
I was so annoyed, I walked past Brian and into the kitten foster center. Maria was still in her spot, paging through her magazine, and the kittens played with each other or went potty in the main area of the center.
Gamma followed me inside, and once we were in the inn's hallway, she stopped me.
“We need to talk to Lauren,” she said. “This isn’t going to be pretty. Turner will come here, and he will try to harm her and everyone you care about. It’s time she knows the truth.”
My stomach jolted. “Are you sure? This could ruin everything for you.”
“I’m sure, Charlotte. It’s the right thing to do. I know that woman, and she won’t leave without a fight. We can’t keep her safe without revealing the truth to her, so that’s what we’ll have to do.”
I squared my shoulders before Gamma and I both entered the kitchen to find Lauren mixing a bowl of batter.
“There you are,” she said, grinning at us, her pigtails bobbing. She’d been happier of late, which made this even more difficult.
“Lauren, we need to talk. Take a seat.” My grandmother spoke in her commanding tone.
“I was just about to put some cupcakes in the oven.”
“Now, please.”
“Oh, a-all right. What’s wrong, Georgina?” Lauren swept her skirt underneath herself as she took a place at the table.
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to leave for about a week,” Gamma said.
“Leave?”
“Yes,” she continued. “You’re going to have to stop working here. But only for a week.”
“A week. Why? I don’t understand. Have I done something wrong? Georgina, I’m sure that people will come back to the inn. You can’t take what Jessie Belle-Blue said seriously. You know she’ll do just about anything to get under your skin. People love the inn. They love my cooking.”
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