by B. T. Alive
I cringed. In a flash, the woman had turned furious.
“Ms. Sassafras,” she said, with cold control. “To my office, please.” She swept her gaze around the room, eyed Tina, and snapped, “You too.”
As she marched off, and I hustled after her like a shamefaced kitten, I realized that I was worrying less about the possible murder charge and more about getting Grandma’s opinions on everything Nyle had managed to say about what I had done.
Maybe I should have taken that jail cell while I had the chance.
Chapter 10
Grandma’s “office” was more like a castle turret.
A wide bank of windows with deep stone sills offered a spectacular view of the main street and the whole town as it sauntered down to the bridge and the river. If you sat on the cushioned window bench, you could see everything, down to the tourists strolling along the cobblestones.
To one side of the windows, a massive old roll-top desk stood at the ready, every little compartment pristine and tidy. I had never seen one of these desks in actual use, but as Grandma sat in her leather executive chair and swiveled to pluck a folded paper from a cubbyhole, she seemed to have the entire town (at least) at her manicured fingertips. The overall tone was godlike surveillance.
But a few vases softened the effect, perched here and there on the wooden antique furniture and fresh with branches of lilac or cherry blossoms cut from the trees below. The scent was pure soothing spring.
“Did you kill Nyle Pritchett?” Grandma snapped.
So much for soothing.
“Of course I didn’t kill anyone!” I snapped right back. “Not even Nyle!”
Grandma flicked a questioning glance to Tina, who stood to the side between us, watching with anxious care.
“She’s telling the truth!” Tina said. “Totally. No doubt.”
“How would you know?” I said.
“Enough!” Grandma cut in. She lowered her eyes, and thoughtfully tapped her knuckles. In a softer, grimmer voice, she said, “This is unprecedented.”
“Don’t blame yourself, Grandma!” Tina said. “You couldn’t have seen this coming! Well, I mean, technically—”
“Quiet!” Grandma barked.
Tina flinched. “Sorry.”
Grandma swiveled toward me, eyes blazing. “I have not yet heard your full history with this Nyle person, but thanks to your inability to hold your temper—”
“I did not start that—”
“Excuse me,” Grandma intoned, in a voice that could shrivel granite.
I shut up.
After a taut pause, Grandma continued. “Thanks to your aggrieved theatrics, our local sheriff now has it in his thick skull that you’re a murderer. I know Jake; the man’s only got one slot in his head. Once he gets hold of an idea, he’ll worry it to death like a dog with a bone.”
“Speaking of which,” I said, “what’s with all the sniffing?”
Tina’s eyes twinkled, but Grandma scowled. “Don’t torture the simile, child,” she snapped. “The point is, until the real murderer is found, you’re in serious danger.”
“I know,” I said. “So how do we catch him?”
Both Grandma and Tina gaped.
“Or her,” I added. “Though I’m pretty sure the statistics are way on the side of him.”
Grandma found her voice first. “What exactly are you proposing, child?”
I bristled. “First off, I’m not a child.”
Her lips tugged in a half-smile. “Everything’s relative, sweet pea. But, duly noted. You’re a grown woman, Ms. Sassafras, and I believe you said your expertise is… sales?”
“I’m not going to just sit around trapped in Wonder Springs, shopping the boutiques!” I shot back. Although now that I mentioned it, a few of those stores through the window did look super cute… oh right, my current net worth was less than the loose change under a couch cushion. Focus up, Summer. “That snuffly sheriff wants to throw me in jail, and you said yourself he’s got a one-track mind.”
“I’ll handle it,” Grandma said.
“No, I’ll handle it!” I said. “I don’t even know you! You’re a total stranger to me!”
She arched her eyebrows. “Oh?”
“Aren’t you?” I said. “I appreciate the night’s stay and the free breakfast you didn’t actually give me—”
“You did also have that wrist problem,” Tina put in, mildly.
“Right! What is that about?” I said. “You wrote me this random letter that you’d tell me all about my mom’s family, but you haven’t said anything, and then you made me take that stupid plate and now I’m going to wind up the freaking prime suspect in a stupid murder!”
“Pardon me,” Grandma said. “Are you saying it’s my fault that you chose to defraud your clients with your gift?”
Silence.
Now that I knew that this woman knew, I was much more frightened than I’d expected.
“Who are you?” I said quietly, fighting the shake in my voice. “How do you know about that?
“In light of recent events, I’d prefer not to say.” Her eyes went narrow, and she crossed her arms. “You may handle this yourself.”
“May?” I said, piqued, even if I was scared.
“Yes,” she said. “And until you clear your name of this crime, we can set aside the question of your mother’s family.”
“Grandma, no!” Tina said.
“You can’t be serious,” I said. “You’re still not going to tell me anything?”
“I don’t believe you quite understand our position,” Grandma said. “You just handed one of our guests a dish, prepared in our kitchen, which most likely killed him. The publicity from this may shut us down. And not only us; the Inn is the heart and soul of this town. This crime puts us all at risk.”
“I’m really sorry to hear that,” I said. “It’s not super great for me either.”
She glared. “I’ll give you one week.”
“One week!” I cried.
“I consider that more than generous,” she said. “I don’t want you anywhere near the kitchen. But you may keep your room and eat with the staff. At no charge. All I ask is that you prove your innocence.” She sighed. “I doubt I can hold off Jake for more than a week anyhow.”
She frowned, fiddling with the folded paper she still clutched between her fingers.
“That… is generous,” I said. It was, but I hated that I couldn’t pay my own way, that I had to take favors from people… especially this woman. “Thank you,” I ground out.
I realized I had to be scowling, because I noticed that Tina’s brows were hunched with sadness. Man, she was sensitive.
“And if I don’t successfully complete my first amateur murder investigation within a single week?” I added.
“Then, Ms. Sassafras, you’re out of my inn. We can’t be seen as harboring a murder suspect. You’ll have to take your chances with the sheriff.”
“He can’t actually arrest me without proof, right?” I said. “I could just leave this crazy town and go home.”
Grandma sighed again, with a note of real sadness. For the first time, she looked hesitant.
A pang of fear pricked my neck. “What?”
“I’m sorry, Summer,” she said, and she handed me the folded paper.
It was an ordinary piece of printer paper, but as I pried it open, my fingers shook. The single page was a short article, printed off from some news site, but what first caught my eye was the single, grainy graphic. It was a photo of an apartment building… my building. Or what was left of it.
“FREAK FIRE DESTROYS APARTMENTS,” the headline yelled. “ARSON SUSPECTED.”
I tried to read the text, but I thought I might puke.
Softly, Grandma said, “You don’t need to do this all alone.”
But I crushed the article into a ball of trash, and I pitched it at her elegant little wastebasket.
“I’m fine,” I said. “A week will be plenty.”
I me
t her gaze, and I was surprised to see that she looked concerned. Almost as concerned as Tina, who also looked so upset that she might be nauseous herself.
I felt the impulse to reach out, to touch these women who might actually care.
Instead, with a polite nod, I walked out. This was no time to risk trusting strangers. I might get hurt even worse.
This was me, remember? Touch just wasn’t my thing.
Chapter 11
Honestly, right then, I was feeling pretty wiped. Between inadvertently killing a dude, getting accused of murder, and finding out some sorcerer creep had fried everything I owned, I was ready to curl up with Mr. Charm and take a long nap. Like, until Christmas.
But that was no way to catch a killer.
Come to think of it… how did you catch a killer?
As I walked away down the hallway from Grandma’s office, running my hand along the cool, smooth polish of the hardwood trim that ran waist-high along the walls between the thick old doors, I ransacked my mental store of mystery shows and novels. What exactly did detectives do?
Hmm. Mainly, they seemed to snoop around and bug suspects with trick questions.
In other words… this was basically a sales job. Entry level.
And I was already a pro.
No, seriously! Swap “suspects” into “prospects,” and you had yourself a sales detective. What else did we warriors do all day but poke and pry our targets to yield up their secret yearnings, hidden motives, true desires? How had I never seen this parallel?
Granted, there were minor differences. Closing a sale was usually far more pleasant for the client than getting hauled off to prison. (Though with some of the long-term contracts I’d seen, prison might be a tempting alternative.)
Also, in sales, if you pushed a bit too hard, you generally didn’t have to worry about a cold prospect turning into a cold killer.
That thought froze my warm enthusiasm for a sec. If I actually did this detective thing, it would eventually mean talking to an actual murderer.
This was legitimately creepy.
On the other hand… this particular murderer was the sort who snuck around lacing breakfast platters with poison. The danger level seemed several notches down from, say, some ax murderer who collected severed toes. Or a housebreaker who threatened to choke your cat and could magically kill your plant, give you cancer, and burn down your house…
… which was now apparently part of my life! Yay! So compared to thinking about that, plus the rest of the pile of recent trauma that was waiting to pounce the second I stopped to breathe, one-on-ones with potential sneaky poison people would be just fine. Avoidance was my specialty.
Besides, at my peak, I’d wined and dined CEOs who called the shots on sweatshops. If I could split a Merlot with a man who’d pay starvation wages to kids and take a million-dollar bonus, I could definitely handle some small-time measly poisoner of one.
It’s amazing what can give you confidence. At the time.
And just as I was rounding a new corner and striding along through that maze of hallways, with fresh energy and zest for my brand new job description, whom should I see struggling to unlock her room door but that mousy blond Kitty woman who’d been running that video call on her laptop? A suspect… meaning, a warm lead.
“Hi! How are you this morning?” I said, with my best bright smile that oozed rapport.
“Well, my cousin was just murdered,” she said, frowning at her jammed key. “Not super great.”
I resisted the urge to palm my face.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “If there’s anything you want to talk about—”
“What? With you? Why?” she said. “Are you a cop?” She looked up and eyed me, seeing me clearly for the first time. Her eyes widened. “You’re the waitress,” she gasped.
Crud. Of course she would recognize me as the person who’d actually brought Nyle the fatal plate. This could prove a major roadblock in the whole murder investigation plan. I should probably think about at least scrounging up a different outfit. And maybe shaving my head.
“You poisoned him!” she said. “The sheriff said—”
“Let’s start over,” I said, and I touched her wrist.
The pain stabbed me hard, catching me by surprise. Normally, touching one person wouldn’t hurt worse than a static shock. This felt more like I’d touched both prongs of a plug. What the heck?
Kitty had jolted and staggered back, leaving her key ring dangling in the door. Now she swayed and teetered, dangerously close to tipping… this was why I usually made sure people were sitting first.
I tugged off my wrinkled jacket and rolled it under one arm, and I twisted my hair in a loose, sloppy bun behind my neck. It would fall out in five minutes, but at least she might not recognize me in the first instant.
Then I carefully steadied her from behind, with a hand on either sweatered hip. The trick here is to avoid the person accidentally grabbing you when they come to, but to also let go in time, so they don’t feel some unseen person gripping their waist.
In my experience, this is often trickier with dudes, who tend to have a lot less experience with random people feeling entitled to handle their body.
Unfortunately, some women are hypervigilant. For instance, Kitty.
“What the—?” she snapped, twisting back toward me and catching me by surprise. I was spooked; she was fully alert again way earlier than most.
“Are you all right?” I said, trying to act like it was totally natural to be adjusting her posture in the hallway. Casually, I patted her shoulder and retracted my hands. “You looked a bit dizzy.”
“Huh,” she said, frowning. She looked around and spotted her keys in the door, then placed a hand to her forehead. “I do feel… off.”
“Can I get you anything?” I said. “I’m Summer, by the way.”
“Kitty,” she said, automatically. “Kitty Carter.”
“Oh, you’re not a Pritchett?” I said, all chatty. “I thought I saw a family resemblance.”
As soon as I said it, I knew I’d goofed. Of course she was a Pritchett; hadn’t she just told me that her cousin was murdered? True, the Touch had probably made her forget she’d said that, but she’d also told me the same thing hours ago, when we’d first met in the dining room. She couldn’t have forgotten that.
Did I explain this part yet? Long-term memories were always safe from the Touch. However it worked, the Touch had never erased more than the last few minutes of memories. It was often less… especially when someone recovered this fast.
Honestly, for a secret superpower, the Touch was pretty darn glitchy.
Anyway, to my mild shock, Kitty smiled. For someone who looked like Nyle, her smile was surprisingly nice.
“Of course I’m a Pritchett,” she said, proud and beaming. “My dad remarried into the family, so I’m not technically a blood relative. But people always say I look like family, and my grandmother says I’m more Pritchett than any of them.”
“Wow!” I said, hiding my surprise. So she was actually his… step-cousin? Or maybe “second cousin, thrice removed, with a side of bacon” or whatever… the point was, I had trouble believing she didn’t share any genes with Nyle. She looked like she could be his sister. It was uncanny.
I tried to steer back toward safer ground. “That’s right, I remember, we spoke earlier. You were doing that video call with your aunt.”
“Yes,” she said, and her smile faded.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “You were probably still doing that call when… it happened.”
“She heard it all. My aunt,” Kitty said, her eyes dull. “She could have missed this whole thing… she would have… if I hadn’t broadcast it right onto her screen.”
“Oh no! You couldn’t have known,” I said. I wished I could give her a hug; I’d braced myself to face a possible murderer, but I’d forgotten all about grief.
Kitty rubbed her eyes with both hands, suddenly weary. “Of course I couldn’t,” she sna
pped. “But she still heard it. I was even recording the whole call… oh my gosh… in case she wanted to watch it again later.”
“Wait, you were recording? That whole time?” I said. “That’s fantastic!”
“Fantastic?” she said. She eyed me in disbelief. “There’s going to be… screaming…”
“But that’s just it!” I was so excited, I started pacing in the narrow hall. “Whoever poisoned Nyle had to do it after he placed his order, but before I brought his plate. You’ve got a video record of exactly who couldn’t have done it, because they were onscreen talking with your aunt! You might eliminate multiple suspects here… who knows, your family’s not that big, we might even figure out the killer…”
At this point, I remembered one of the golden laws of salesmanship, namely, Do Not Start Pacing And Ignoring Your Prospect’s Face, Especially If She Gets Really Quiet.
Too late.
Kitty was glaring with cold suspicion.
“You brought out his plate,” she said. “And then you told him to choke… that’ll be on the video too.”
“Oh, you heard that?” I said. “I’m so sorry… it’s a long story… if there’s any way you could just share a quick copy—”
“Copy?” she said. “My cousin just died, and you want a copy of his final moments?”
“Only when you get the chance—”
“Who are you?” she demanded. “Some sick pervert? This is my family. I’m not going to put them on display for a total stranger! Especially the stranger who might have killed him!”
“I did not kill Nyle,” I snapped. “I’m trying to catch his killer.”
“What? Why?” she said. “Are you with the police?”
“No, the police think I did it,” I said. Brilliant, Summer.
She gasped. “That’s right! I heard that sheriff—”
“You know what?” I said. “I think we got off on the wrong foot.” I reached for her wrist.
But she yanked it away.
That creeped me right out. People don’t usually remember the Touch, not even on some unconscious instinctive level. I mean, maybe she just didn’t like me, but in the moment, I had this irrational fear that she had somehow sensed my secret.