Maple Syrup Mysteries Box Set 2: Books 4-6

by Emily James

  “Can we get you something else before we leave?” Shawn asked. “Something to eat?”

  After the giant lunch of sausage and pancakes I’d had from the Short Stack and the array of sweets Nancy dropped off, food was the last thing I needed, but a drink sounded great. “A glass of something to drink would be nice. Anything from the fridge.”

  Shawn headed for the kitchen.

  Kristen came to stand beside me. Up close, I could see she wasn’t wearing any makeup. This whole situation must have upset her even more than I realized. She’d done her makeup even for the tour out into the sugar bush.

  “I really am sorry. Shawn was sloppy.”

  You’d think I was in critical condition with how solemn she looked. “Don’t worry about it. You couldn’t have known this was going to happen any more than I could have anticipated what happened on the tour.”

  For a second I thought she might argue with me again, but Shawn returned and set a glass of grape juice on the table beside me. “If there’s anything else we can do for you, let us know.”

  He took Kristen by the arm and led her toward the door. She glanced back over her shoulder at me one more time and gave a feeble wave.

  As soon as the door closed behind them, I picked myself up off the couch and shuffled to the door. I flipped the lock. Russ had a spare key, and I’d given Mark my set. I didn’t need any other visitors at this point.

  I’d barely made it back to the couch before a key turned in the lock and Russ came in for the dogs. I really should have known better. A revolving door would make more sense than a lock at this point. Still, I had him lock the door on his way out.

  All the movement and the talking had made my ribs feel like the blood in my body was pooling there and pulsing. The area practically vibrated with pain. I poured two ibuprofen out of the bottle Kristen and Shawn brought me—the doctor had prescribed me some but I’d accidentally left it upstairs this morning—and gulped them down with half the grape juice.

  The juice tasted off, almost bitter. I hadn’t bought the bottle that long ago, so I must have left it sitting out too long at some point. I returned the glass, still half full, to the side table, and nestled back into my cushions. I leaned my head on my pillow.

  A text dinged on my phone. I couldn’t be sure whether I’d drifted off or not.

  Have to work late, Mark wrote, but my mom is on her way to make you supper.

  Normally I would have felt awkward letting my boyfriend’s mom who I’d never met take care of me, but considering how many people had been in and out of my home already today, it almost seemed normal. Hopefully Mark had given her the keys. He might not have since he’d expected me to leave the door unlocked.

  I tried to write a reply about the keys, but my blood pounded behind my eyes and the phone slipped from my hand as if I’d been trying to hold a twenty-five pound weight rather than a phone that weighed only a few grams. Cramps flared across my abdomen.

  Something was wrong.

  16

  Panic crawled up my throat and made it difficult to breathe. This didn’t feel like food poisoning from spoiled grape juice. It didn’t feel like the symptoms the doctor had warned me could signal a complication with my ribs, either.

  Thunder rattled my door. Was there a storm?

  No, not a storm. Someone was knocking. Pounding. On my door.

  “Nicole, it’s Mrs. Cavanaugh,” a woman’s voice called. “Mark sent me. Can you unlock the door for me?”

  She didn’t have my keys. She couldn’t get to me. My throat felt raw, almost like I’d swallowed powdered glass, and my voice came out in a croak. Velma whined, a pitiful keening sound, and Toby nudged at me with a cold nose.

  “Nicole!” A note of concern had entered Mrs. Cavanaugh’s voice. “Are you alright?”

  I scooted along the couch. It might as well have been a marathon with how weak my body felt. All I could think was that I was going to die here alone if I couldn’t get to the door and the first glimpse of me Mark’s mom would get was when they wheeled my corpse out on a stretcher.

  I reached the end of the couch and pushed to my feet, the shriek of my fractured ribs dull compared to the raging in the rest of my body. I took one step and my legs gave out. I fell back into the couch. The door was too far away.

  Mrs. Cavanaugh might go away if she thought I was asleep. I had to find some way to signal her. Tell her that I was in trouble. My vocal cords seemed to lack the strength to call out.

  With as much force as I could muster, I knocked over the new lamp I’d bought to replace the one Velma broke. It crashed to the floor.

  “I’m calling for help,” the voice on the other side of the door shouted, “and I’m going to get in to you somehow.”

  She sounded farther away this time. I couldn’t tell if she actually was or if my hearing was fading. The room around me spun like someone had dropped me into a blender.

  The door flew open, and Mrs. Cavanaugh sprinted across the house, her skirt flapping around her legs, my clearly-obvious hide-a-key rock in her hand. She dropped the rock halfway to me.

  I tried to stand, fell into her arms, and threw up all over her shirt.

  My next clear memory, I was riding in an ambulance, sirens blaring above me, an IV in my arm, and Mrs. Cavanaugh was trying to answer questions she couldn’t possibly know the answer to.

  I closed my eyes, and when I opened them again, I wasn’t moving anymore and the walls were farther away than an ambulance’s would be. I didn’t remember passing out, but I must have. My body felt more normal again, still a little weak but the pain had located back in my ribs where it belonged.

  I shifted my head on the pillow. Mark sat in a chair beside my bed, head bowed over folded hands like he was praying.

  “Please tell me I only dreamed I barfed on your mom,” I said.

  Mark’s head snapped up. He grabbed both sides of my face and kissed me hard on the forehead, then on the lips. “Thank God you’re awake.”

  I guess even doctors weren’t calmer or more confident than anyone else when it was someone they cared about in the hospital. His reaction also meant it was a safe bet I hadn’t imagined the whole throw-up-on-my-boyfriend’s-mom thing. That was so much worse than meeting her covered in dog slobber. What I wouldn’t give for a Harry Potter Time-Turner right about now. Though if I had one, I’d change a lot more than simply vomiting on Mark’s mom. “What’s wrong with me? Was it my ribs?”

  Mark sank back into his chair. If it wasn’t a complete impossibility, I’d think he had a few more gray hairs now than he had when I saw him this morning—assuming it was still the same day. I could have been out for a week for all I knew.

  He linked his fingers through mine and adjusted the bed so I could comfortably sit up. “You had dangerously high levels of nicotine in your system. My mom got to you in time, but you could have died.”

  He didn’t have to say that someone had tried to kill me. Again. It was a given since I didn’t smoke or have any other sources of nicotine in my house. Maybe I should have felt scared, or remorseful for not listening to Mark’s concerns that this could happen, or shocked. But I didn’t. All I felt was angry. How could so many people think this was an okay way to solve their problems?

  But ranting wasn’t going to get us anywhere, and my parents had raised me to be practical if nothing else. “Did they find out how I ingested the poison?” Since my body tried to get rid of it, it seemed like a safe bet I’d eaten it rather than taking it in through my skin.

  “It was in your grape juice. Chief McTavish wants a list of everyone who’s been in your house lately.”

  I snorted, which got me a confused smile from Mark. “About half the town was in my house today.” But most of them hadn’t been anywhere near my kitchen. Only three, in fact. One was Mark, who I knew hadn’t tried to kill me. “Our cook from the Short Stack brought me lunch, and she could have done it, but she wouldn’t have a reason to. But I also had a visit from Shawn and Kristen White. He got
me the glass of juice. Didn’t the chief find his fingerprints?”

  “He did, but the nicotine was in the bottle of juice, too, not just the glass. Shawn claims he didn’t know anything about it, and since it was in the bottle, we can’t prove otherwise.” He gave my hand an extra squeeze. “Before you ask, yes, I did tell Chief McTavish about your suspicions about Drew and Shawn. Without any solid evidence, we’re deadlocked.”

  Poisoning the bottle rather than the glass—smart. He’d covered his tracks in case I somehow lived. “Just once, it’d be nice to deal with a stupid criminal.”

  A muscle pulsed in Mark’s jaw like he was clenching his teeth. “I’d rather you didn’t deal with any more criminals at all.”

  I dropped my gaze to our interlinked hands. Coming back to this topic eventually had been inevitable. The reprieve the other day couldn’t last, especially given how I’d ended up here. “I don’t know what to tell you.”

  “Why you keep doing it would be a good place to start.”

  It was a fair question, but I’d only begun working through it myself. A normal person would have quit after the first time someone tried to kill her. “What I didn’t like about being a lawyer was trying to pretend people were innocent when they were guilty. With the cases I’ve been a part of here, I’ve been doing something worthwhile. And I’m good at it.”

  What I wasn’t good at was all the other parts of being a lawyer. Even prosecuting attorneys spent a large amount of their time in court trying cases. I wouldn’t ever be good at that, and it’d be irresponsible of me to try cases that would be lost due to my ineptitude rather than due to the guilt or innocence of the defendant.

  Tears built up in my head. I sniffed them down. Crying doesn’t achieve anything, my dad would say. Even as a little girl, I hadn’t been allowed to cry. When most people cried, we found solutions. Except I couldn’t see one here. “I’ve been happier than I’ve ever been since coming to Fair Haven, but I don’t know if I’ll be content to spend my whole life making maple syrup.”

  He smoothed my mangled hair. “I love you. I don’t want to lose you.”

  My heart did a weird little jitterbug in my chest. It was the first time Mark had said he loved me. But it felt like it was coming with a but. I braced myself for an ultimatum—either you stop investigating crimes or we break up. It didn’t come. As much as it scared him to see me in danger, he wasn’t going to take from me something that I’d started to think was at the core of who I was.

  What I’d felt for Mark for so long finally came out in words. “I love you, too.”

  He leaned in for another kiss, but this time I was awake enough to remember I hadn’t had a toothbrush in who knows how long and the last thing I’d done was expel all the food in my stomach. I slid a hand between our lips, and his mouth hit my knuckles.

  “I don’t suppose anyone brought my toothbrush,” I said from behind my fingers.

  He laughed, moved my hand, and kissed me anyway. “I don’t have an answer for your career, but we’ll work on a solution together. For now, can you be more careful about how you go about things? We spend too much time together in the hospital.”

  That was an understatement. “I’ll try my best.”

  Mark flashed me the dimple that still set fireflies loose in my stomach. “And don’t let Shawn White into your house again, no matter who he has with him or how innocent he seems.”

  Good Lord. How could I have missed it? Shawn White. SW. The SD card that Drew’s mom brought me might not have pictures of Sugarwood on it at all.

  17

  I hadn’t bothered looking at the SD card Drew’s mom gave me. The original disc from Drew had so many images on it that I’d found all I needed to launch the new website even without hiring another photographer right away.

  I had to get back to my house and check the SD card, but I was trapped here by the IV still in my arm. I stuck my arm out toward Mark. “I need this out. I need to go home. I think I might know how to tie Shawn White to Drew’s murder.”

  “I’m not taking that out.” Mark pushed my arm gently back to my side. “And you’re not going anywhere until the doctor says you can. Tell me what you’re talking about and I’ll go look for it.”

  “The police didn’t get all of Drew’s records, and neither did whoever broke into his house and Holly’s. Drew’s mom brought me a camera memory card that she thought was full of Sugarwood pictures. But she hadn’t looked at it, and neither did I. The SW on the card could as easily stand for Shawn White as it could for Sugarwood.”

  Mark rubbed the finger where his wedding ring used to be. It was still strange to me to see it naked. “It wouldn’t be enough to arrest him, but it should be enough for a warrant.”

  I bobbed my head. I told him where to find the card and my laptop. He was back in thirty minutes. If I was right, Chief McTavish wouldn’t need to wait for me to recover to question Holly. Holly wouldn’t be a suspect anymore.

  Mark rested the laptop on my lap and pulled his chair as close as possible. We slid the card in.

  My computer queued the pictures up.

  Drew hadn’t owned a telephoto lens, so the first pictures were far off and grainy, showing only a man who had a similar height and build to Shawn White with other people.

  Drew must have realized those grainy long shots wouldn’t get him anywhere and had picked a better place for a stakeout. The next pictures looked like they’d been taken through a car window, but they were close enough to clearly identify Shawn White. In some of them, the faces of the kids he was taking money from and handing small bags to were even visible.

  There were nearly two hundred images on the card. It seemed like Drew had been following Shawn White for a while, collecting evidence until he felt like he’d have enough to prove his accusations.

  It was more than enough to get a warrant. If the police could ID the other people in the pictures and convince one of them to talk, not only would they have a conviction for drug dealing, but they’d also have strong motive for him killing Drew.

  I looked up at Mark. “I think it’s time to call Chief McTavish.”

  The next day, I’d just finished changing into a fresh set of clothes Mark had brought me on his way to work when a soft knock came from the doorway of my room.

  Chief McTavish stood one step inside my room, holding his hat in his hands. “I have some news about the case, and considering your assistance, I thought it was only right to share it with you.”

  The words came out jerky, like they were choking him. I wasn’t a gloater, but it was a bit hard considering our history.

  I motioned to the chair next to my bed and eased my way back up onto the bed myself.

  He sat and rested his hat on his knees. “I assume you’re recovered,” he said, as if he’d just now realized it might be polite to ask how I was.

  I was fine with skipping the small talk. “Did you get a warrant?”

  “For his house, his classroom, and his phone. We didn’t find anything, but we didn’t really expect to. If he was concerned enough to poison you, he’d have known there was a chance we’d eventually be able to get a warrant. He even bought himself a new phone, claiming he lost his old one.”

  The names I wanted to call Shawn were anything but ladylike, but Chief McTavish didn’t look frustrated. In fact, if he’d smiled, I might have seen canary feathers hanging from his teeth. “I think you might be enjoying keeping me in suspense, Chief.”

  That earned me a small smile. “The principal identified two of the teenagers in the photos, and both of them turned on White in exchange for community service.”

  The grin that split my face was so big it hurt my cheeks. “Did he confess after you told him that?”

  “In a manner of speaking.” The corners of Chief McTavish’s mouth turned down. “He took a plea but he defended what he’d done, like he was doing a public service because he knew the kids were going to try it. He could give them safe product and make sure they were using it responsibly,
he said. He kept track of how much and when they purchased to help prevent overdosing. Claimed it was no different than sex ed.”

  The thought of him thinking he’d been doing a good thing brought a bad taste to the back of my mouth. “What about poisoning me?”

  “Unfortunately, he’s stonewalling us on that, and we didn’t find anything to tie him to it. Yet, anyway. I have officers out to all the locations that sell any nicotine products in the area. Hopefully someone will remember selling him something. He doesn’t smoke, so it’d be hard to explain why he bought something he didn’t plan to use.”

  He’d left out the most important charge. “And Drew’s murder? I’m guessing he wouldn’t confess to that, either.”

  “Nope. And that one’s going to be hard to make stick even with the proof that Drew was spying on him and meant to turn him in. He says he had no idea Drew was photographing him, so he wouldn’t have had a motive. Plus, his wife insists they weren’t apart long enough that day, and that he had their son with him the whole time.”

  A needle prick hit my heart. How much had Kristen known about all this? And when did she know? She’d seemed so nice and open the day of the tour that it made my brain ache to think that she’d known the whole time. Then again, she’d also been more upset than the situation merited when they visited my home. It was possible she’d known what Shawn planned to do, but hadn’t felt like she’d had any way to stop him. She clearly loved him and loved their kids. She might have chosen to sacrifice me over losing her provider husband and her children’s father to prison for ratting on him.

  I smoothed the bedsheets on either side of my legs. Or Kristen was telling the truth about Shawn’s inability to kill Drew. The thought made my skin want to crawl off my body in frustration because it was plausible. Kristen hadn’t had their son when she returned to the clearing with Riley. Shawn would have needed super speed to return to the clearing, kill Drew, hide his gloves, and make it back deep enough into the woods to retrieve their son from Kristen.