The Tell Tail Heart

by Cate Conte

  “A little Google, a little inside scoop.” He shrugged. “I called a friend.”

  “Wait a second. What friend?” It had to be more friend than Google, because I did some Googling on the guy, too, and didn’t find any divorce terms. Although my Googling had, admittedly, been cut short and I hadn’t gotten back to it. But Becky hadn’t mentioned anything about that, either.

  He nodded. “It’s not public. One of my college roommates is a Hollywood agent. I figured he might’ve heard something, given that Holt’s books were flying onto the big screen. And once you’re in Hollywood, you’re in Hollywood, ya know what I mean? Plus, his wife is an author. I asked him to check with her, too, on anything she might know from those circles.”

  I felt a newfound admiration for my neighbor creep over me. “Well, look at you,” I said.

  He grinned. “What, you thought I was some boring midwesterner with a lobstah fascination?” He exaggerated his pronunciation of the word lobster, poking fun at me. It was one of the things I’d helped him work on when he first came to town and opened his shop—how to say it like a true New Englander.

  “I’m impressed,” I admitted. “What else did he have to say?”

  “Not much. He didn’t work directly with him or on his stuff, but word gets around in those circles. Holt sort of fell off the grid since word about the divorce got around. My friend heard they’re moving forward with the next screenplay, but he’s been pretty much uninvolved.”

  I thought about this. A life insurance policy was a no-brainer motive. I thought about the former Mrs. Holt, rushing to the island to ID her husband’s body. Was that all for show? Or to drive home the point that she hadn’t been on the island when it happened? Which meant nothing. She could’ve hired anyone to off him.

  Like someone who worked under an assumed name. Like Thea Coleman. Maybe there was something to my theory that they were acquainted.

  A chill set in and I hugged myself. Maybe that’s why I hadn’t been able to find anything on Thea Coleman. Maybe it really was a fake name. She didn’t look like a hit man, but how would I know what a hit man looked like in real life? They couldn’t all be dark, scary, mysterious men.

  “Maddie?” Damian looked quizzically at me.

  I snapped back to attention. “Yeah. Just thinking. What about McConnell?”

  “Well,” he said. “That’s the other thing. McConnell and Holt had a very public split. They weren’t working together anymore, according to my source.”

  “Really,” I said slowly. “Why?”

  “He didn’t know for sure, but one of the rumors going around is that Lexie Holt and McConnell were together.”

  “What?” I wasn’t expecting that.

  “I don’t know if it’s true,” he cautioned. “And if it was, it was definitely on the down-low.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure it was on the down-low. How did I not see that?” I shoved my chair back and stood.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “They both came to my cafe! They were totally playing me. She was babbling about how she wanted to get back together with Holt and now she’d never have the chance, and he was giving me some line about how the next book wouldn’t be the same without him. They both probably just wanted to get their hands on whatever he was working on. Probably because it was worth money. God, I’m so stupid. Thank goodness the notebook wasn’t there. I have to go. This is really great information, Damian. Thanks.”

  “Wait. What did you find out? Anything?”

  I shook my head slowly. “I got nothing. Completely struck out on my end. I guess I need friends in higher places.”

  Chapter 47

  I drove home, fuming and not sure what my next move should be. I wondered if the cops knew this whole thing. If they didn’t, they needed to step up their game a bit. I called Craig.

  “Did you know Lexie Holt and Zach McConnell were maybe having an affair?” I asked.

  He sucked in a breath. “I didn’t. But maybe Ellory did. I’ve been on weather duty.”

  “Well, you should check that out,” I said.

  “Why do you sound so cranky?”

  “I’m not cranky.” I hung up and tossed the phone into my passenger seat. I didn’t want to mention McConnell and the notebook, because then I’d have to tell him we had it and now we’d lost it.

  But I was stewing over this. I pulled into our driveway. Grandpa’s truck wasn’t around, nor was Val’s car. Ethan was holding down the fort alone. I hurried inside and almost tripped over a giant cage in the middle of the living room. I peered inside. There were four kittens, two black, one a velvety gray, and the other orange, playing inside. Wrestling, to be more accurate. Throwing one another around. One of the black ones fell right in the water dish and jumped out, shaking water everywhere.

  “Uh. Ethan?” I called.

  “Yeah?” he answered from the kitchen.

  “Where’d the giant cage come from?”

  He came to the doorway. “Katrina,” he said.

  “Did she … give you any explanations?”

  “No, I thought you were expecting them?”

  “Oh, she’s good,” I muttered. Waiting until I was gone and then acting like it had been planned all along. “Nope. We already have ten. Eleven actually.” Muffin had been the one who had bumped us over the agreed-upon threshold. “What, did she just drop them and run?”

  “Pretty much,” Ethan said. “She was in a hurry.”

  “I bet she was.” I’d deal with her later. In the meantime, the kittens were super cute. I bent down to stick my fingers through the crate. They all charged at me, gnawing on my hand with their tiny little teeth. “Do you know where Grandpa is?” I asked.

  “I don’t. He was here for a few minutes earlier, but then he left.”

  Of course he did. I left JJ to sniff around the kittens and hurried upstairs. I sank down on my bed and texted Becky.

  Got some interesting info on Mrs. Holt and McConnell.

  I got back a row of question marks in return.

  Life insurance and affairs. All kinds of rumors. Call me.

  She did, promptly. Becky was never one to sit on a story. I filled her in on Damian’s intel and how both Lexie and McConnell had come to my cafe.

  “Interesting,” she said. “My reporter had the possible affair piece, but not the life insurance. I mean, it’s always a guess, but nice to have it confirmed. Is it confirmed?”

  “According to this source it is.”

  Becky chuckled. “Look at you, with your anonymous sources. So she came to your place?”

  “She did. And then he shows up a couple hours later and asks about Holt’s things. Says he doesn’t want the ex taking them. What do you think’s going on? If they’re together, what does that mean?”

  “I don’t know,” Becky said. “Life insurance is always a good motive. But then if it was her, how’d she get him into the water?”

  It was another good point. But I really had gotten the vibe from Lexie Holt that she cared about her soon-to-be ex-husband. “Do they have any info from the car yet? Any leads on who was in it?”

  “Not that I’ve heard. I’ve gotta run.”

  Well, she wasn’t much help. I wandered back downstairs. Ethan was putting on his coat.

  “Where are you off to?”

  “I’ve got to pick up Val. Her car is acting up.”

  “Really? Where is she?”

  “At the yacht club. Again.”

  “Oh, did she finally hear from Ava-Rose?”

  “No idea,” he said. “But it’s so bad out I didn’t want her trying to get home if the car wasn’t working right.”

  “You’re so sweet,” I said. “But I already knew that. Drive safe. It’s nasty out there.”

  “Will do. By the way, Adele was here for a while this afternoon. She did all the cleaning.”

  “She rocks.” I locked the door behind him and wrapped my arms around myself to ward off the sudden chill. I really wished the winds wo
uld settle down so they would run the ferries again. I couldn’t believe Lucas was still not home.

  I cranked up the heat and pulled the blinds to try to shut out the noise of the wind and the tree branches whipping around. I didn’t like storms. I especially didn’t like them in a huge house alone, with the newspeople issuing dire predictions that power would be out for half the island at some point tonight, roads would be closed due to flooding, and basically calling this apocalypse now.

  But I guess I wasn’t alone. I had my babies. And now I had new kittens to take care of, too. I went over to the cage and peered in at the babies. They were sleeping like little angels. JJ had curled up next to the cage, like their big brother. I knew as soon as they woke up the nice clean cage Adele had worked on would be trashed. I wanted to move them into the other room but didn’t want to wake them right now.

  I checked on the rest of the cats, then turned off a bunch of lights and went upstairs. I wondered where Grandpa was tonight. Out with Leopard Man and Thea, parking that weird trailer somewhere new, maybe. I flopped on my bed and crossed my arms. I had no idea how to solve any of these problems. JJ strolled in. He must’ve seen me heading upstairs and left his post as protector to see how I was doing. I gathered him close for a kiss.

  “What do you think of this, JJ?” I asked.

  He stared at me, those piercing eyes locked on mine, almost like he was trying to tell me something.

  I sighed and dropped my head back onto my pillow. “Maybe we should go to Grammy’s for a bit. You want to go to Grammy’s?” JJ loved my parents, and he loved going to visit them.

  I called my parents’ house.

  My mother picked up on the second ring.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  “Honey. Where have you been? You hung up on me so fast earlier. Have you heard any news on that poor writer?”

  “Did you watch the press conference?”

  She snorted. “I did. I don’t know why. They never say anything at those things!”

  “I know. Becky says they have a whole system for how little they plan to say.”

  “Well, what does Grandpa think?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “We haven’t talked about it much. Hey, are you guys busy tonight?”

  “Busy? No. We were going to order some food and watch a movie. Maybe snuggle on the couch.” She giggled.

  I had to smile. My parents were still really cute together. I envied them. They’d found each other so young, and unlike so many other people who got together young, they stayed together and actually still liked each other. They weren’t just pretending.

  “Why do you ask?” she asked.

  “No reason. JJ and I were thinking about visiting.”

  “Oh, you should come. We’ll order whatever you want. Can you bring me your purple sweater, too? I wanted to wear it tomorrow. If the weather is better there’s a talk at the library I want to go to and that sweater is perfect.”

  I didn’t bother to ask what kind of talk demanded my fuzzy purple sweater, but I agreed to bring it. “I’ll be there in a half hour,” I said.

  “Just be careful, some of the roads are closed around here,” she said.

  I hung up and changed into my fleecy leggings and a comfy sweatshirt. Then I suited JJ up in his harness, grabbed my purse and jacket, and headed back into the nasty weather.

  We’d made it around the block when I realized I’d forgotten the sweater. I sighed. I hated when I was scatterbrained, and it always happened when I had too much going on and too many things crammed into my head. I banged a U-turn and headed back, parking haphazardly on the curb in front of the house. I grabbed my keys, locked JJ in the car, and hurried back up to the door.

  I was halfway across the living room when I heard a noise. Like something falling, maybe from the construction side of the house. I paused, listening.

  And heard a creak. Like someone had taken a step on a loose floorboard. And then a bang.

  My heart sped up. I clutched my keys tighter in my hand, working one of them up between my knuckles. I’d heard somewhere that was a good trick to remember in case you had to try to gouge someone’s eye out. I took a few steps forward, looking around for another weapon in case I needed it. There wasn’t much. But I could see the cats were on alert, too. They’d heard it. Muffin and Jasmine were staring in the same direction I was.

  Someone was in our house. Was it Thea Coleman? Come to steal JJ? At least he was in my car, safe and sound.

  That thought made me angry. I was tired of worrying every waking minute about whether someone would try to steal him. Or maybe it was McConnell, come back to see for himself about the notebook. Whoever it was, this was crap. And I wasn’t going to sit back and hide in the corner. I covered the rest of the room in two strides and threw the door to the side porch open, steeling myself against what—or who—I might find.

  The storm door was ajar, and the wind was blowing it open and shut, hence the bang. I paused, wondering if the old lock had just given out. And then I noticed that the window on the top part of the door was broken. Which maybe I could’ve attributed to the wind, if I hadn’t spotted the flashlight lying on the top step. Which didn’t look like any of the flashlights we kept around the house.

  Someone had been trying to break in. Then I’d come back and interrupted them.

  Chapter 48

  Now that I knew it was true, I wasn’t feeling so brave. Panic bubbled up in my throat. I was kind of afraid to move, but then fear that someone was creeping up behind me won and I spun around to check my back. No one was there.

  But what if they weren’t gone? What if they’d made it into the house?

  I reached for my cell phone, then cursed when I realized I’d left it outside in my purse. I had to get out of here. I did not want to be the dumb girl in the horror movie everyone yelled at who went down to the basement during the storm.

  I sprinted through the busted side door and made a beeline for my car, praying no one was lying in wait to attack me. I made it to the car, managed to unlock it with shaking hands, then jumped in and locked all the doors. JJ looked up at me, blinked, then went back to sleep.

  I turned the car on while fumbling for my phone with shaking hands and pressed redial next to Craig’s name. It took a few rings, but he answered.

  “Someone tried to break into our house,” I blurted.

  Silence. Then, “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, I’m sure! My porch door is busted and there’s a flashlight that’s not mine on the step near all the glass. I came back in and interrupted whoever it was.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “In my car outside. But I don’t want to leave the cats. What if they come back?”

  “You should call nine-one-one,” he said.

  I bit my lip to keep from crying. He was probably right, but still. A little concern would’ve been nice. “Fine,” I said, hating that my voice shook. “I’ll call nine-one-one. Sorry to bother you.”

  I hung up even though he started to say something else and made the call.

  A police car was there within five minutes. I wasn’t sure they’d be able to be so quick given the flooding situations. I also didn’t expect Craig’s car to pull up right behind it. What was he doing here?

  I got out of the car, locking JJ in, and hurried to the front porch to wait for the officer to climb out of the car. I recognized Officer Tina Hartless. She’d worked one of our big adoption events during the height of the summer season, directing traffic so we didn’t have a huge jam out front. She was really sweet and she loved cats. She got out of the car, leaving the lights flashing, pulling her hood up, too, and joined me on the porch. Craig was right behind her.

  “Maddie. Hey. What’s going on?” she asked.

  I explained what had occurred tonight, directing my words at her more than Craig. She glanced at him, openly curious, but didn’t ask what he was doing there. “Did you touch the flashlight?” she asked when I’d finished babbling about the broken door
.

  I shook my head. “I left everything. I did run outside through that door because I didn’t want to go back through the house in case they were already inside. Can you make sure you don’t leave any doors open when you go look around?”

  “I’ll go with you, T,” Craig said.

  I eyed him. “I thought you were busy?”

  “I was. But I wanted to make sure there was no crazed stalker trying to get into your house.” He nodded at Hartless. “Let’s go.”

  They both headed inside, leaving me standing there shivering. I didn’t want to leave JJ out in the car alone, so I joined him and cranked the heat. And then I saw Craig’s passenger door swing open.

  I couldn’t tell who the figure was, since he or she was covered from head to toe in a huge coat and a hood. Until she came over and rapped on my passenger window and opened the door, sticking her head in.

  Jade Bennett, the owner of Jade Moon.

  It took me a second to process. What was Jade doing in Craig’s car? And then it hit me. Craig and Jade were on a date.

  Craig and Jade were on a date? What was up with that? She totally wasn’t his type. Plus, I liked Jade. And her bar. And now this would make it weird. Wouldn’t it?

  I pulled JJ onto my lap so she could get in. She slid in, sluicing rainwater off her parka, and offered me a tentative smile. “Hey.”

  She looked different tonight than she did when she was bartending. Her hair was down, for one thing. Usually it was pulled back in a ponytail while she worked. It looked blonder tonight, and she wore it pin straight, the ends tipped with purple.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “You, uh, doing okay?” she asked.

  I nodded. “Yeah. I mean, aside from someone trying to break in.” I waved a hand at the house.

  “Yeah. I heard. That sucks.”

  I nodded. “Things are a little weird right now, but, you know…” I trailed off, not sure what to say.

  Jade nodded, too. “I hear you.” A pause. “So. Is it weird that I’m here?”