Number's Up

by Annabelle Hunter

  “Kenneth. Donald. How nice to see you today,” Dorothy greeted, with a fond smile.

  Nice Shoes stopped to give Dorothy a kiss on her cheek and I saw the second man, following in Nice Shoes’ shadow. Short, grumpy, and unremarkable. He did have the same brown hair and brown eyes of Nice Shoes, but without any of the pleasant features.

  To be fair, they both were frowning. It was unfair to excuse one’s unhappiness just because he was more attractive. Then again, my mentor had just died. I was allowing myself a little bit of unfair judging. Dumpy followed Nice Shoes’ example, dropping a kiss on Dorothy’s cheek, although I noticed Dumpy’s lips hadn’t actually touched her.

  “Jen, these are my grandsons. Kenneth—” She pointed to Nice Shoes. “—And Donald.” She pointed to Dumpy.

  “Don. Please,” Donald interrupted, thrusting his hand out in front of his brother’s. Kenneth fell back with a sigh, letting his brother shake my hand first. I guessed that it wasn’t the first time Donald had cut Kenneth off. What a charmer.

  “Nice to meet you.” Maybe. He looked me up and down before his smile grew broader. I guessed he liked what he saw. Gross. I turned to Kenneth, who also offered me his hand but without a word. Just a nod. He wasn’t a talker.

  “Grandmother. We have a problem,” Kenneth said, turning away from me.

  I’d been dismissed. Fun.

  Her face sobered up, and she glanced at me. I could guess the problem.

  “The police are handling it,” she said, reaching out to wrap my shoulders in a comforting half hug. Kenneth’s face softened slightly, as he realized I knew the victim.

  “The guests are starting to notice. We need to get it contained. The police have cordoned off the entire floor. They have checkpoints. How do we control this?” he asked quietly. His words were insensitive, but his soft tone and sympathetic glances made me forgive him. The world kept moving. Business kept going. Just because my world was shaken didn’t mean that they needed to stop theirs.

  “My friend’s business partner has been killed, basically in front of her. We will allow the police to do what they need to so they can solve this as soon as possible.” She gave my shoulder another squeeze. “Plus, Lindsey will tell everyone in about five minutes, anyway.”

  “Who?” Kenneth asked, his eyes narrowed.

  “Lindsey—” Her voice stopped when her phone alarm went off. “Hmm.” She pulled it out and looked. “She’s early. It’s good to know she is on top of things.”

  “Town blog.” I filled him in. “We couldn’t support a paper, so Lindsey took it over in a blog form a few years ago. She’s how all the town gets their news.” And gossip. She added that in for free.

  Kenneth looked like he wanted to say something, but glanced at me and closed his mouth, giving us both a sharp nod before spinning and walking away. Donald stayed behind, shifting his weight anxiously.

  “Grandmother, do you have a minute?” Donald sent me a dismissive glance, trying to catch Dorothy’s attention. “I wanted to talk to you again about my ideas for the—”

  “Not now, Donald. Maybe later? I really need to be here for Jen right now.”

  And the gossip. I wasn’t kidding myself on what my value to her was.

  “But the special project isn’t going to be available for long—”

  “Not right now. Jen, honey, what are you doing tonight? Should the girls and I come over and help you mourn?”

  Not going to happen.

  “I’m sorry, Dorothy. I’m… busy…”

  “Working with me on the case.” Nic came around the corner.

  Nic for the save. When did Satan switch to being on my side? Did I sell my soul to get it?

  “Yes. Sorry, Dorothy. Got to help the police.” Fingers crossed for good luck that they were leaving.

  “Perfect. I’m just worried about you.” Dorothy gave me the eye. The one that said she had a goal, and I was a part of it. “Donald was just commenting on how he wanted to see more of the town.” Donald startled slightly at the mention before looking at me again, this time with more calculation in his eyes.

  No. Really. No. “Not today. I need to…” What was my excuse again?

  “Work with the police.” This time Nic said it slower with a frown. Like he was leading me toward an answer.

  Maybe trying to get the lie stuck in my head?

  “Well, then, maybe when you are up to it?” She beamed at us both, but for some reason I felt like the smile was aimed more at Nic. Plus, shouldn’t she be upset that I turned down her over-the-top matchmaking scheme? They never let Lark get away with saying no.

  I tried not to take another look at Donald, mostly because I was afraid my complete lack of interest would show. Answer. I needed to answer.

  “Fine. Another time.” I sighed. I could always say no later.

  Donald seemed indifferent, or maybe he didn’t look disappointed because he took my answer as a yes? Either way, Nic seemed to guess I was just delaying and shook his head at my weakness. He had a point. I was being a pushover.

  “Great! See you tomorrow, Jen.” Dorothy swept away, Donald giving me a smile and a nod before following.

  “Am I a horrible person for not wanting to go out with him?” I asked Nic.

  “You mean, short and grumpy? Do you like short men?” he asked, looking truly curious.

  “He isn’t that short,” I defended. I wasn’t sure why. He kind of was.

  Nic shook his head. “What are your plans for today?”

  “I need to… wait. Why?” I looked at him through narrowed eyes. As of a few minutes ago, I had new plans. Ones that involved some wine. Maybe a cider or two.

  “No reason,” he said, eyes too wide, feigning innocence.

  Well, my eyes weren’t narrowed anymore, but that was only because my eyebrows were arched in suspicion.

  “Am I expected to believe that?” I demanded.

  “Well, there might be a few questions I want to ask you away from the hotel.”

  “Fine.” No. My business partner just died. Murdered. Practically in front of me. “No, I’m not answering any more questions today. Tomorrow morning. But I need to be back here before eleven.” I would help them. I would, just not today.

  “You’re going to make me a liar—”

  “Jen!” A woman in a fashionable yellow sundress ran at me from the side, the matching hat falling behind her as she slammed into me. As I swayed, I noticed Nic sliding into the background. Close enough to hear, but not obviously a part of the group. Coward. “Can you believe that he’s dead? They just told me. To think that we were down at brunch while it happened.” Her arms enveloped me in a hug that I struggled to breathe through.

  “Charlotte? What are you doing here?” Because I was pretty sure that Henry and his ex-wife were not vacationing partners. In fact, they had never vacationed together when they were married.

  Also, we needed to talk about how short that sundress was, because I didn’t know that anything needed to show off that much skin. It was late fall, so it wasn’t like she was worried about being too hot. Her legs were fantastic, though. I was sure the surgeon that gave them to her was happy with the results.

  Oops. That was mean, too. I wasn’t a good person today.

  “Henry told us that he got three suites at the resort for the weekend and invited all of us. As a family. I didn’t know…” She looked away, bringing her hand to cover her mouth as if she was holding back a cry. For some reason, I had trouble believing it. Maybe it was the way it was artistically done, as if she had practiced it in the mirror. Maybe it was the way she had screamed how she hated him in the lobby of Henry’s office before the divorce.

  “He had three suites?” Wow. For a man who hated to vacation and never upgraded anything, three suites were a big expense. I mean, he told me that he wanted, just once in his life, to stay in a nice suite, but he always said he would do it after he retired. As his gift to himself. Then again, he had been looking at jail time, so maybe that was it.r />
  “Yes. Frank and I are on another floor, though.”

  Funny, I didn’t see any tears anymore. Guess she was over her despair.

  “Where is Frank?” I asked, not able to think of anything less polite.

  Charlotte’s mouth went flat, and her eyes squinted in anger. “He was supposed to be at brunch with me and some friends, but he decided, last minute, that he had something better to do. He took his car and left for who knows where. We were just finishing up brunch when we heard the news. Our reservation got messed up and we had to go earlier than expected. This hotel is just not up to our standards.”

  “How horrible for you to be stood up like that.” I tried to keep my face impassive, hiding my anger at her complaint against Dorothy’s resort.

  “He left before we even sat down and still hasn’t come back yet. I’ve been calling him but he won’t pick up. Children! You are so smart not to want to have any.”

  Ouch. I smiled politely at her dig at my unmarried, childless status. Frankly, I would rather pretend that I was single by choice than admit to this woman that I was failing in my personal life. Plus, I had a potential date with Grumpy sometime in the future. Maybe he was shy, and that's why his grandmother was setting him up.

  Wine. Wine would make this all feel less overwhelming. Maybe a cocktail? This was quickly heading into cocktail category. And it was all waiting on the other side of town. I could do this. I could be polite to the somewhat grieving widow of my business partner.

  “Yes. I’m sure.” I nodded like I agreed, and she kept going.

  “Did Henry tell you anything? I know he was supposed to talk to you today.” She focused on me, trying hard to read my face.

  “No. He was…” I stopped, taking a deep breath to control the tears and tried again. “No, I didn’t get there in time.”

  That made her pause for a second before she hugged me, then pulled back. Thirty seconds of empathy. That was pretty good for her. After the hug, she pulled herself up, looking away as she went back into her distraught wife act.

  “We were being investigated again. Can you believe that? Henry wanted to keep you in the dark. He said that this one was a false claim, and that you didn’t need to worry about it, but I disagreed. You should know everything. Transparency. That’s what they call it, right?”

  “Yes.” Henry was trying to keep me out of the investigation? I was… hurt? Relieved? Something like that. Another thing to process later. With my good friend Captain Morgan®. Yep, I was escalating, but it was starting to be a liquor kind of day.

  Also, who was this ‘we’? When did Charlotte and Henry start talking again?

  “They accused another one of his clients of insider trading.”

  “No,” I murmured soothingly.

  “And what’s worse…” Charlotte leaned in to whisper as if she was confiding a secret. “What’s worse is that Henry had records of deposits from extra payments in one of the business accounts. Ones that the business couldn’t account for.”

  “No.” I didn’t have to fake my surprise this time. That information stunned me. I had to fight my instinct to look at Nic. His choice to hide in the background was starting to make more sense. Wait, were we working as a team?

  I pulled back a little as I processed. Henry was one of the top CPAs in the state. We both were exceptional at our jobs. That was why people paid us huge bucks. How did a CPA of Henry’s caliber, if helping with illegal dealings, not cover his tracks for illegal payouts? Had Henry degraded that badly, and I hadn’t noticed?

  “Yes. Can you believe that? He was taking payments to look the other way.”

  Then why did he allow the account to get transferred to me? If he was taking payments? Something wasn’t right.

  “That’s horrible,” I answered, knowing better than to ask her any of the questions floating in my brain.

  “You want to know what’s even worse? That horrible Dan Ellson is in this hotel. This very weekend. I bet you he did it. He was screaming at Henry at the office in the city last week. Yelling that he believed Henry was the one who had turned him in. If anyone was going to kill Henry, it would be him.” She brought her hand up, but this time it went to her chest. “He even accused Henry of turning him in last night in the lobby.”

  Too bad she didn’t have pearls to clutch. I bet she was regretting that.

  Also, why was Dan Ellson, a client of Henry’s from San Francisco, here, in Barrow Bay? And what were the chances that they would all be here at the same time as Henry and his family?

  “I’m sure the police will look into that,” I murmured, still fighting not to look at Nic.

  “And that nasty FBI agent is here. Let me know if he bothers you, dear. Do you have a good lawyer?” She patted my shoulder, opening her mouth to continue, but I cut in.

  “Yes.”

  “I can give you—” She stopped mid-sentence when my answer processed. “You already have a lawyer?”

  “Yes. I had some legal questions, and he’s been helping me. Thank you for your offer, though.” I was careful to keep my face even and polite. Right that moment, I wished I was more assertive. Blunt, even. My honest answers were sitting in my chest wanting to burst out and tell her how fake I found her.

  But filters were a good thing. Professional. Lucrative. Polite. Boring.

  “Well then, I guess we’ll be seeing you around?” she muttered absently, probably still processing that I had a lawyer.

  “You’ll be staying at the hotel after what happened?” I asked, shocked.

  “The police won’t let us leave,” she said, narrowing her eyes.

  I could see that. If I didn’t know that Charlotte would never lower herself to fire a gun, I would suspect her first. The police didn’t know that Charlotte would never take the risk of gun powder staining. She would hire an assassin before doing it herself. Plus, she would’ve killed him before the settlement. She gained nothing in killing him now.

  “I guess I’ll be seeing you around.” I smiled and started to wave before I stopped. “Charlotte?” I waited until I had her full attention again. “Do you know why Henry didn’t tell me he was coming? Or why he would take a vacation in the middle of the investigation?”

  Her body softened, and she looked at me with sad eyes. “He felt that he’d disappointed you. He wanted to tell you sorry in person. He was so proud of you, Jen. You were like a daughter to him. The thought that he had destroyed what the two of you had built… it hurt him more than the shame of being caught.” With that, she turned and left.

  I collapsed onto the couch again. He had been proud of me. I was a daughter to him. And I turned him in. My face dropped into my hands as the sob I was trying to hold back threatened to come up. The cushions next to me dipped and Nic’s large hand started rubbing my back.

  “Sometimes the people we love aren’t who we want them to be.”

  “They never are,” I mumbled. The tears leaked out, but the sob stayed stuck in my chest.

  I wasn’t sure how long we sat like that, but he didn’t push it. Just let me breathe and fight down my despair.

  Okay. That was enough self-pity. I had things to do. A plan.

  I just had to remember what it was.

  Chapter 6

  I went home and got drunk. It wasn’t a healthy reaction. Or particularly smart. But I was a happy drunk, and so for five hours I forgot about all my worries. I watched romantic comedies and drank. I texted Lark, who had a family dinner, and made plans for tomorrow. I ate a gourmet cake that I picked up from Dough & Nuts, our local bakery and nut shop. Turned out that white wine didn’t go with chocolate cake very well, so I switched to champagne. Then it turned out that champagne was a good way to get a hangover. That’s why the next morning, I was still sleeping when my doorbell rang.

  I shot straight up in the air, my eyes snapping open, only to be covered with my hands when the sunlight made my headache worse.

  Advil… Advil. I knew I put it around here somewhere. There. Popping two, no
three, into my mouth and swallowing, I took the glass of water with me to answer the door.

  “What?” I snapped, my hand covering my eyes. After a second of silence, I peeked. There was a man holding a to-go cup.

  “Here.” He shoved it at me.

  Wolverine? No, Satan? Wait. I was calling him Cyclops now, wasn’t I? Whatever. Nicknames could wait until I had less of a hangover.

  “Nic?” I blinked up at him, hoping my eyes could handle the sunlight. I was wrong. “What is it?” I asked, looking down at the cup.

  “I don’t know. The tall, mouthy girl took one look at us, shoved it at me, and said you would need it.”

  Lark had brought me something? I calculated the odds it was coffee. No, I remembered some pretty drunk texts last night. On second thought, maybe coffee wasn’t a bad idea. I brought it closer to smell. Vanilla and black tea hit my nose. It was my favorite tea from her grandmother's shop. Wow. She had to have gotten up early and made some pretty hefty promises to get this. I loved her.

  “Thank you.” I took a sip. “Now, why are you here?”

  “You asked. We got it.”

  “Got what?” Oh. The warrant. In his hand. Well, my squinting wasn’t working great, but I was pretty sure that it was the warrant in his hands. Fabulous.

  “Drink too much last night?” he asked.

  In my head there was a smirk, but I wasn’t risking sunlight exposure to see.

  “How could you tell?” I scowled, before turning and walking into the house, leaving the door ajar. That was as much of an invitation as I was able to give today. Was I wearing a bra this time? I looked down. Yes. Sports bra. Still needed to keep an eye on my thoughts, though.

  “Was that a good idea?” Nic asked, following behind me into the kitchen.

  “You mean, should I have gotten piss drunk the night before the FBI served a warrant to search my office and house? No. Not at all. But that’s what I did.” And I regretted it. So much. The champagne had been a bad call. And not enough water. Amateur mistakes. I knew hydration was key. One of the more practical things I had learned in college.