She loved the Ravenwood Inn, even with all the work it entailed, but running a bed and breakfast and being sure that everyone was happy and fed was a huge task, let alone all the cleaning. Rolling up her sleeves and turning on some high-energy music, she tackled the kitchen first. Oscar watched from his plush dog bed, satisfied to be the supervisor since he had already had his breakfast.
By the time she had everything shipshape it was time to go. Amanda grabbed her coat and keys and headed out the door to pick up Jennifer. She’d taken Jennifer over a small pot of homemade chili the day before, hoping to lift her spirits a bit after her father’s death, but as soon as they sat down at the cottage’s little kitchen table, Jennifer had dissolved into tears and Amanda had simply hugged her while her young neighbor had a good, long cry. Jennifer was lonely and still grieving the loss of her father, and finally confessed that it had been hard for her to even get out of bed in the mornings. “I don’t even know how to cook for one person,” she finally said, her voice full of regret. Hearing the pain in her voice, Amanda silently vowed to be a better friend to her, and offered to take her out for coffee and grocery shopping the next day. She’d seen a flicker of gratitude and hope in Jennifer’s eyes as soon as she asked, and with a final hug, their plans were set.
Their time at Ivy’s Café was full of laughter and there were only a couple of times where tears threatened to spill over. Amanda listened to Jennifer tell story after story about her father, remembered as having a wicked sense of humor and a very protective side. When she told a story about the first time Jennifer had a date and her father followed behind in his car, Amanda had to wonder if it was because he was being a good dad or if it was because he was afraid that his underworld connections made his daughter a target for something terrible.
Watching the emotions play across Jennifer’s face as she talked, Amanda couldn’t help but marvel at her strength. It was apparent she hadn’t known about her father’s profession until he’d gone into the witness protection program, and now that he was gone, Jennifer was all alone in the world and barely making ends meet. Even though she was listening carefully, Amanda was mulling over Jennifer’s situation when a sudden thought popped into her head. A huge grin spread over her face and Jennifer stopped in mid-sentence.
“What? What is it?”
“I have a brilliant idea, one that will help us both out. Jennifer, you need a job, right?” At her friend’s confused nod, she continued. “Well, if you don’t have anything else lined up, how about coming to work with me at the Ravenwood Inn?” She saw a flicker of resistance on Jennifer’s serious face and suddenly realized that she might consider Amanda’s offer as some form of charity.
“You should see me trying to manage that whole place by myself! I run around like a chicken with its head cut off. Please say you’ll come work with me, even if it’s just temporarily. I could really use the help, and you’d be doing me a huge favor by saying yes. Please?”
Jennifer sucked in her breath and seemed to weigh the offer, then finally broke into a smile. “Well, I certainly couldn’t beat the commute time.” Amanda laughed, knowing that her quiet neighbor could just slip through the loose board in the fence between their houses to walk to work.
“It’s a deal!” she said enthusiastically, and stuck out her hand. With a simple handshake, Amanda had her first employee ever.
Coffee achieved, they stepped outside, still laughing, when a cold gust of wind whipped through Main Street, sending tumbling leaves rolling down the sidewalks. Potted plants and shop awnings shook and trembled at the sudden blast of autumn air.
“I can’t believe I forgot my jacket,” Jennifer said, rubbing her hands up and down her arms in a bid to keep warm. “These days I think I’d forget my head if it weren’t attached.”
Amanda smiled, her eyes kind. “Stress will do that to you. We’re not that far from your place. It’d only take a couple of minutes to go back and get it, if you want.” Jennifer agreed and when they’d driven back to the cottage she handed Amanda the house key.
“Would you mind getting it while I check the mail? It’s right inside, on a chair by the door. I’m expecting a registered letter from the government, and it looks like the mail’s been delivered already. It’s kind of important.”
As soon as Amanda opened the front door and flipped on the light switch she could see the red fleece jacket right where Jennifer had said it would be, on an overstuffed armchair in the tiny living room. The room still smelled of chili and spiced tea from her visit the day before.
Just as she reached out to grab the collar of the fleece coat she caught a sudden blur of movement out of the corner of her eye, coming at her with ferocious speed from the arched kitchen doorway and so fast that only her instincts made her turn toward it. There was a bright, sharp flash of red, a sound like buzzing bees in her head, and a sickening sense of falling, falling, falling…
It was all a big, dark, warm cloud. Amanda was swimming in it, hearing things around her that made no sense at all but that seemed to be more and more insistent and demanding. Amanda tried to brush away the sounds but they became louder and she finally reluctantly swam upward through the fog trying to ignore the throbbing pain in her head. Her eyelids were so heavy she could barely open them but she just wanted to tell whoever was yelling at her to shut up so she could sleep. With monumental effort, she at last heaved open a single eyelid. There was someone standing over her, someone she knew, and he looked scared.
This was a first, him looking scared. It hurt to even pull the memory from her swollen brain but at last his name surfaced.
“James.” It came out as a croak, but his face broke into a frightened grin. “Paramedics are on their way. Just stay with me, Amanda. Stay with me…”
She really wanted to, but the effort was too much. Back to sleep…
Chapter 13
Everything was quiet and sanitized white when Amanda finally woke. She was looking straight up, trying to focus her eyes, flat ceiling panels above her. The pain in her head throbbed viciously but she stifled a moan as she ran a hand over the smooth sheets and tried to turn her head to see where she was, but at the first whimper of sound she felt someone grab her hand and Lisa was leaning over her, her face full of alarm.
“Don’t try to move. Stay still, and I’ll let the nurse know you’re awake.” She took Amanda’s silence for compliance and within seconds a second woman was leaning over her, checking her vitals and also telling her not to move. It took Amanda a bit to slowly realize that her neck was in a padded brace, so she tried to keep still while the nurse did her quick examination, and could hear the sigh of relief when the woman smiled and straightened up.
“Looks like you’re doing much better. The doctor said your x-rays are clear and you could remove the neck brace if you want. You may still have some soreness but it won’t damage anything to have it removed.” At Amanda’s approval the nurse slowly undid the Velcro tabs on the brace and opened it, pulling it off and putting it on the bedside tray.
Lisa had been watching all of this with serious attention. “How do you feel?” She asked, her face showing her concern.
“Like hell, thanks for asking,” Amanda joked, wishing her voice didn’t come out in a hoarse croak. “What happened to me? How long have I been here?”
She tried turning her head to see Lisa better but the room swam up in a disconcerting way and she felt her stomach lurch. Lisa grabbed her hand.
“Stop moving. You’ve got a concussion and it’s going to take a while to heal. You need to take it easy for a bit.” She pulled up a chair and sat close to Amanda’s head.
“You’ve been here for about eighteen hours.” At Amanda’s surprised reaction, she continued. “You don’t remember what happened at Jennifer’s house?”
Amanda thought back to being at Jennifer’s little cottage and slowly she started remembering that something had jumped at her and hit her on the head. It almost seemed like a dream, except that she could still feel the t
hrobbing at the back of her skull.
“Something… Someone attacked me, right?”
Lisa nodded. “Yes. You’re lucky Jennifer was able to call 911 so quickly because that bash you got on the head was no mistake.” She shifted in her chair. “Jennifer said she saw someone running from the back door, by the kitchen.”
“Can you help me sit up a bit?”
“Okay, but let me know if it’s too much for you. I think everyone in town’s been up here,” Lisa said, plumping a pillow and slowly leaning Amanda forward so she could slip it behind her. “George and James have been here, Jennifer and Meg brought Mrs. Granger, and even Roy Greely and Mrs. Mason stopped by. Let me know if that pillow doesn’t work out,” she added, keeping a close on eye on her friend.
“But everybody’s okay? Who was the guy that hit me?”
Lisa grimaced and settled into her chair with a magazine. “You’re not going to like it when I tell you.”
“Tell me.”
“James says he’s pretty sure it was Richard Loomis.”
“Richard Loomis? That weird guy who stayed at the inn?”
“Yeah, the mystery man himself. If he is who James thinks he is, apparently he’s got a police record a mile long. From the state of the rest of the house, he was definitely looking for something at Jennifer’s place.”
Amanda’s mouth went dry. “Something of hers, or something of her father’s?”
Lisa’s face was deadly serious. “Nobody knows, but Mr. Peetman’s old bedroom and Lisa’s room were both ransacked. It looks like he’d started going through stuff in the kitchen and Jennifer’s spare purse, too.”
“I knew there was something weird about that guy.” Amanda tried to sit up further but the room spun and she clutched at the railing on the hospital bed to keep from falling, Lisa grabbing her hand at the same time.
“Stop that! You need to rest. Now lie back down and I’ll tell you everything.”
“I can’t rest,” Amanda said, almost babbling. “Who’s going to take care of the Inn? If I stay here – “
“If you stay here you get better,” Lisa said firmly. “There’s only the couple from Alberta right now, and they’re already all checked in and happily exploring the tide pools at the beach. I think they’re enjoying themselves and they said they planned to drive down highway 101 later on, so they’re covered. I’ll take care of whatever they need, and Jennifer told me you hired her, and that she’ll take care of the Inn, too.” Lisa smiled. “So let us do the work and the worrying, and you lie there, okay?”
Amanda did what she was told, gratefully settling back into the pillows and waiting for her friend to tell her the rest of what happened.
Seemingly satisfied that Amanda was comfortable again, Lisa continued. “James is doing some investigating about who this guy is, and he doesn’t think that Richard Loomis is his real name. He says it’s gonna take some digging to confirm his identity but he’s alerted the authorities all over the area to keep an eye out for him so hopefully they’ll be able the get to the bottom of why he was in the Peetman’s house.”
Amanda closed her eyes, trying to stop the room from spinning. “We’ve got to figure this out, Lisa. With everything that’s happened, I just get the feeling that there’s still terrible danger, and people are going to get hurt.”
“Hey, you almost wound up getting dead. Quit worrying about other people and just get better.” Lisa reached over and took her friend’s cool hand in hers. “James is on the case, and everything can wait until you get out of here.”
Amanda focused on her friend’s words. James was on the case. That was good, but she still felt like a ruthless killer was on the loose.
Chapter 14
It was two more days before Amanda was well enough to go home, wheeled to the hospital door by James, Meg trailing behind carrying the three bouquets of flowers she’d received while in the hospital. Mrs. Granger was already ensconced in the backseat of Meg’s car, anxiously watching James help Amanda into the passenger side, and she leaned forward to gently pat Amanda’s arm several times as she buckled her seatbelt. The ride home was nearly silent, and by the time Amanda was up the stairs and safely in her own comfy bed she was absolutely exhausted. Meg pulled the quilt around her tired friend and laid a gentle kiss on her forehead, before clicking off the light and pulling the door shut so she could sleep. Just before she drifted off Amanda felt the sudden weight of a familiar friend on the covers, and her last thought was that Oscar was definitely eating too much because he was getting kind of fat.
The next morning bright sunshine streamed through the window, the heavy drapes that she normally pulled shut having been left wide open. As soon as she slid out of bed she could tell that an uninterrupted night’s sleep had been very good for her and that most of her old energy had come back.
A bit of breakfast and some food in Oscar’s bowl, and she was ready to face her day. Scrolling through her texts, she tried to ignore the continual glare she was getting from her big orange cat, due to his bowl being empty far sooner than he would’ve liked.
“Sorry, sweetie, but you’re starting to look like an ottoman,” she told the unrepentant cat.
She hadn’t had the energy to keep up with all the well-wishers who had sent messages and cards, and when she saw that the most recent text was from James she called him back and gave him permission to come over in half an hour.
Hearing his knock, she slid off the kitchen stool and was walking to the door when he stuck his head inside and looked around.
“You’re up.”
“Yes, I told you I’d be ready. Want some coffee?”
He clicked the heavy front door shut behind him and grinned mischievously. “Sure. I have a surprise for you.”
“Is it the head of Richard Loomis on a plate? I think I’d like that as a surprise, please.”
He took his coat off and hung it up, then followed Amanda to the kitchen. “A bit bloodthirsty this morning, aren’t we?”
“My head still hurts, so I get to be as bloodthirsty about that guy as I want, thank you very much.” She set out a couple of spoons. “Have you figured out who he really is yet?”
James was already pulling two mugs out of the cabinet by the sink. “I have my suspicions but can’t confirm anything yet. I can tell you that if I’m right, he’s a very dangerous man.”
“Ya think?” Amanda pointed to her head and James burst out in a laugh when Amanda cracked a smile.
““If I’m right,” he continued, “he’s part of the group of criminals that Peetman worked for.”
“So he’s in Ravenwood Cove, looking for something?” Amanda sat on one of the stools and James poured her a cup of coffee, then one for himself.
“I think so.” He took a sip of his drink, the silence between them comfortable and welcome.
“So, you said you had a surprise for me?”
James nodded. “Yep, let me get it.” He jogged out to the foyer and rifled through his coat pockets, bringing back a folded set of papers.
“I’ve got the toxicology panel results. Thought you’d want to hear what the medical examiners found out.”
Amanda felt her breath catching in her throat. If they were going to solve this mystery they were definitely going to need more pieces of the puzzle to fit together and maybe this was one of them.
“What did they discover? Anything new?”
James flipped through the papers. “The heart medicine is a common one, called Digoxin. It’s been around for ages. Now, we know that he didn’t have a prescription for any drugs except sleeping pills but the search of his hotel room didn’t turn up anything except some smutty magazines and about an ounce of marijuana.”
“So no trace of the Digoxin?” James shook his head. “No, but I did learn something about the drug. It turns out that too much of it won’t just kill you, but before you die it can lead to hallucinations and confusion.” Amanda’s mouth dropped open in shock, her thoughts instantly going back to what Ian had s
aid about Anderson Bowles’ behavior when he had rented the boat, how he had been confused and talking about seeing strange colors.
“Somebody overdosed him? On heart medicine?”
“Looks like it.”
“Was that the reason he stripped naked? Was he hallucinating?”
“With this drug, it’s very possible. It affects judgment and vision, as well as the heart. Toxicology came back with traces of marijuana in his system and heart medicine. That was it. No brain tumor found at his autopsy, nothing else that we could find that would cause him to behave strangely.”
Oscar hopped up onto the stool next to James and looked at him expectantly, finally jumping into his lap. James looked a bit startled, then started to pet the happy cat, who instantly began to purr loudly.
“What’s up with Oscar? He’s never done that before.”
Amanda’s eyebrows were raised over her upturned coffee mug. She set it down on the counter.
“He’s sucking up to you. I just put him on a diet and he’s ticked off at me.”
James laughed. “I wondered why he was getting so chunky lately after he’d been so thin. Maybe you should’ve named him Garfield.”
“Maybe I should stop feeding him so many table scraps.”
“Probably a good idea.”
Amanda’s eyebrows furrowed in thought. “James, if he didn’t have a prescription for Digoxin, is there any way to find out who takes that medicine? Here in town, I mean.”
James shook his head. “Nice try, but no.”
It was obvious Amanda was still mulling over the information he’d given her. “So, if he was overdosed, how would the killer get the medicine into something that Bowles would eat or drink? He had to have a method, right?”
“You’re right that he’d have to have a method, but we just don’t know what that is yet. Also, you’re forgetting that it may not be a he at all. It may be a she. Statistically, you’re forgetting that women are more likely than men to poison someone to death instead of using violence.”
Ravenwood Cove Cozy Mysteries Books 1-3 Page 24