Maple Syrup Mysteries Box Set 1: Books 1-3

by Emily James

  There was no sign saying whether patrons should wait to be seated or not. I catalogued that fact away. While a few hungry travelers might straggle in, I had a feeling that this place tended to be frequented by regulars or those invited along by regulars.

  If I was right, I’d have to break the privacy barrier, and it didn’t bode well for being able to speak to George Abbott.

  The bartender seemed to be around thirty-five or forty, close enough to my age that a little eyelash batting might help me out. Good thing I’d left Elise in the car. I certainly wouldn’t rise any higher in her opinion of me if she saw what I was about to do.

  I slid out of my jacket, glad I’d worn my fitted blue sweater, and fluffed my hair, saying a mental thank-you to my hairdresser Liz for being a miracle worker when it came to hair.

  I drew my shoulders back into my best mother-trained posture and strode over to the bar. When the bartended looked in my direction, I flashed him a smile that I’m sure would have gotten me accused of flirting had Mark been with me.

  His return smile wasn’t exactly smarmy, but he wasn’t looking me in the eyes either. Other parts of my anatomy clearly interested him more. “What can I get you?”

  Asking for a water or a soda was sure to shut the conversation down before it even started—he’d probably think I was a police officer—but I didn’t drink alcohol. My Uncle Stan’s drinking had destroyed his heart, and that, along with his lecture, put the fear into me early enough in life that I’d decided to stay away from it. And, really, I was clumsy and goofy enough without alcohol adding to it.

  But it left me with a quandary now. Maybe I could use it to curry some good will. “Is this the kind of place where I can buy the house a drink instead?”

  His mouth quirked up on one side. “I never turn one down.”

  I slid a five dollar bill across the table and mentally crossed my fingers that would be enough. I had no idea what a drink would actually cost in a place like this.

  He took it and poured himself a shot, then leaned a hip against the bar. “So you a narc? You’re wasting your time if you are. Everything we sell here is licensed and legal.”

  And there went the subtle approach. Direct approach it was. I plopped my arms on the bar. “I’m not a cop. A friend of mine owes some money to George Abbott and I’m here to talk about clearing his debt.”

  His smirk clearly said that he thought “talk” was a euphemism for something else. I finally understood what people meant when they used the expression I threw up a little bit in my mouth.

  “Follow me,” he said.

  I trailed behind him, suddenly glad I had Elise outside for backup if I needed her.

  The bartender knocked on a door leading into a back room and a woman’s voice answered. He stepped inside. He was back out too quickly for me to lose my nerve and go running to Elise.

  He held open the door for me into a smallish office. The only person in the room was a petite red-head in her late thirties sitting behind the desk. Her nails had tiny daisies painted on them.

  I glanced back at the bartender and he gave my chest one final stare before closing the door.

  I turned back to the woman behind the desk. Something was definitely not right here. “I was hoping to meet with George Abbott.”

  The woman behind the desk rose to her feet. She was a good two inches shorter than I was and waif-thin. Even her button nose was tiny.

  She held out a hand that I was almost afraid to shake for fear of snapping all her bird-like bones. “I’m Georgiana Abbott, and you are not who you claim to be. Anyone who actually owes me money knows that I’m a woman.”

  My mouth drooped open before I could catch it. My parents would have been so disappointed that I couldn’t control my reaction better.

  “So,” Georgiana Abbott picked up a cup of what smelled like chamomile tea from her desk and took a sip, “who are you really and why are you here?”

  That tickle in my throat that always preceded a stutter when I’d have to speak in front of a jury feathered its way up my throat.

  Pull it together, Nicole. This is no different from any other witness or suspect who wasn’t what you expected them to be.

  My throat calmed down. I moved around her to the chair in front of her desk and sat without waiting for an invitation. “My name’s Nicole Fitzhenry-Dawes”—I wagered that my hyphenated last name might actually help me this time— “and like I told your bartender, I’m here to pay the debt of a friend of mine.”

  Georgiana’s eye roll clearly said sure you are. “I’m a very busy woman. Devin thinks you’re a cop and that I should have you thrown out.” She moved over to the window to the right of her desk and hooked a thumb toward it. Outside I could see part of a dark gray car. “But I think a cop wouldn’t show up in an unmarked police car to do surveillance on me. So unless you’re ready to tell me the real story, I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

  She might have been the politest, most well-spoken bookie I’d ever met. Not that I’d met any bookies before this, but based on what I’d seen on TV. Which probably wasn’t the most reliable resource.

  Time to throw all my assumptions out the window and play it like I was as confident and cutthroat as she was.

  I crossed my legs, folded my hands over my knee, and gave her my best imitation of my mom’s don’t-mess-with-me smile. “I’m a businesswoman as well, and earlier this week someone came onto my property and attacked one of my employees, a man by the name of Noah Miller. I think it was you, and so I’m here to settle Noah’s debt with you so that we can make sure something like this doesn’t happen again.”

  A muscle next to her eye twitched. “Someone hurt Noah?”

  If it hadn’t been for the twitch, I would have thought she was faking her shock. “You didn’t know?”

  She put a finger to her lips like she used to be a nail biter and the temptation was still hard to resist when she was under stress.

  “Noah’s one of my regulars.” She sank down into her chair. “Was one of my regulars, I should say. He got mixed up with some girl and wanted to ‘turn his life around.’ I’ve heard that enough times from men who are right back here the next week, but Noah asked me to cut him off. He was so far in the hole by that point anyway that extending more credit to him would have been a stupid business decision, so I did what he asked. A couple of times he managed to sneak into a poker game in the back room, but other than that, he’s been making regular payments ever since.”

  All her body language said she was telling the truth. Even her hand movements matched up the way they should with her words. I’d try one more thing to rattle her, but if she held solid to her story, I was inclined to think she’d had nothing to do with Noah’s attack. “Why should I believe you that you didn’t order the attack on Noah?”

  Her confident smile peeked out again. “You know why. I’m a businesswoman. A man who can’t work can’t pay his debts, and that’s bad business all around.” She rolled her chair sideways and typed something into the laptop on her desk. “You’re still welcome to pay his debt if you’d like, though. I never turn down a genuine offer of repayment.”

  I’d come here fully intending to pay off however much it took to keep Noah safe, but if Georgiana hadn’t been behind the attack on Noah, I wasn’t inclined to put Sugarwood at risk by draining my finances. If it was a small amount, though, I’d do it simply for the peace of mind. “How much does he owe?”

  8

  “So how much did Noah owe?” Elise asked as soon as I was back in the car.

  My catatonic expression and zombie lumber must have given away that it was a lot more than I’d been expecting. “More than he earns in two years.”

  For a second, her expression said she thought I was messing with her. “Wait. You’re serious?”

  I filled Elise in on everything that had gone on while I was inside, minus the part where I tried to flirt my way in to see “George” Abbott.

  “Are you still going to pay it?”
<
br />   I shrugged. Uncle Stan had left me his life insurance policy and retirement investments, but they hadn’t been a huge amount of cash. Most of what he’d set aside during his years as a cardiologist he spent buying Sugarwood. If I drained what I had to pay Noah’s debt, and we had a bad year, I’d have nothing in reserve to make sure Sugarwood stayed afloat.

  Elise was still waiting for an answer from me, one eyebrow cocked.

  “Because it’s so much, I can’t make that decision without talking to Russ since it’d drain the cushion I’d planned to keep to protect Sugarwood. I don’t think Georgiana Abbott did it, but I’m not naturally a risk-taker either. Paying her would make sure Noah was safe from her at least.”

  “You must really love him.”

  I choked on my own spit and coughed for a full thirty seconds. Red alert sirens went off in my brain like it was the bridge of the USS Enterprise. That statement felt suspiciously like she was trying to trick me into admitting a relationship with Noah. But I had no relationship with Noah, and asking the same question a thousand different ways wasn’t going to change that.

  How could she still think I’d had something to do with this? Surely after I’d gone to all this trouble to meet with Noah’s bookie, she should realize I hadn’t been the one to attack him.

  “I’m not in love with Noah.” I kept my voice even, since I was sure any sign of emotion at all would be willfully misinterpreted. “He’s my employee, and he needed help.”

  Elise rolled her eyes in a way that clearly said she thought I was a terrible liar. Which was ironic, really. I was a decent liar when I needed to be, and this time I was telling the truth. But nothing I did seemed to change this woman’s opinion.

  I shoved my hands into the pockets of my jacket. Was this still about me being a Fair Haven newcomer and therefore inherently untrustworthy? A lot of the people in town had been generous and open, but an equal number had treated me with suspicion and sometimes outright contempt because I wasn’t one of them. I’d been told that was normal for a tourist town. With the number of strangers who passed through in a year, the permanent residents learned to trust only each other.

  Up until now, I’d been patient, but I’d had about all of it that I was going to take.

  I shifted toward her as much as the seatbelt would allow. “Look, I know I haven’t lived in Fair Haven for hundreds of years like everyone else, but it’s my home now, too. If you have any real reason to believe I had something to do with this or to just not like me, fine. Otherwise, stop treating me like everything I say has about as much truth to it as a celebrity gossip magazine.”

  “I have plenty of reasons not to like you.”

  Her voice was filled with enough venom that it could have kept medical researchers working for years.

  I shrank back. That was not the reaction I’d been expecting. “You don’t even know me.”

  “I know all I need to know about you.”

  Heat crept up my neck and into my face. Elise had said something about my reputation the first time we’d met. I hadn’t paid much attention to it then. Now all the old insecurities that I was supposed to have left back in Virginia threatened to choke me.

  Fair Haven, for all its flaws, was my fresh start. If I already had a reputation—one that would make Elise dislike me this much—then what chance did I have? Small towns had long memories. If you stole a jar of jam as a kid, you’d be known as a thief until the day you died.

  So basically, I’d moved to a place that was like being perpetually stuck in elementary school.

  Screw that. I hadn’t enjoyed elementary school the first time around.

  “All you have is gossip. If you have so many reasons not to like me, you should at least make sure they’re true.”

  Elise’s hands tensed around the steering wheel. “Fine. You’re a criminal defense attorney, working hard to put scumbags back on the street, undoing all the hard work law enforcement put into catching them.”

  Aside from the fact that she’d used the word scumbags like we were on an 80s cop show, I could see why this would bother her. My dad always used the argument that everyone deserved fair representation, but part of why I’d left my old life was because I didn’t agree. I couldn’t continue defending clients I knew were guilty.

  “I’m not a lawyer anymore.”

  Elise gave me a sidelong glance. “Uh huh. You defended a client last month.”

  I had done that, but not in the way she’d taken it. Tension built in the space between my eyes, and I rubbed at it with my fingers. The truth could be so easily twisted. How could I ever hope to unravel it?

  But since Elise seemed to be the only one as interested as I was in investigating what had really happened to Noah—and the only one giving me a chance to explain myself—I’d give it a try.

  “That case never went to trial. I didn’t hide my client’s guilt.” It’d been a special situation, but I didn’t know how to explain that to Elise. I’d only done it because that was how I could bring justice to a good man who’d died and also try to make it as easy as possible on a woman who’d made a single bad decision in a moment of anger. I didn’t know if Elise’s worldview allowed for enough grayscale to understand that, but she should understand that I’d never tried to pretend my client was innocent. “Despite how much I liked her, my legal counsel was to turn herself in, confess, and accept the punishment for her crime.”

  Elise licked her lips and shifted in her seat. She kept her gaze on the road. “Okay, then why do you keep going out with Erik—Chief Higgins—when you’re clearly not interested in commitment? Maybe in the big city it’s okay to date multiple men and then drop them when you lose interest, but we’re a small town. You hurt more than just the men you’re leading on.”

  I pressed my fingers into the side of my nose and held them there.

  She’d had to correct herself to call Erik Chief Higgins. That sort of slip usually happened when people thought about someone one way privately and had to address them a different way publicly. I hadn’t seen them together, so I couldn’t be too hard on myself for not figuring it out, but Elise’s problems with me had nothing to do with me being a lawyer or even a newcomer to town. We’d hit the real reason she disliked me so much.

  She was interested in Erik, and she thought I was stringing him along. She’d probably been hoping I was in love with Noah and would leave Erik alone.

  I was in love with someone else, but it wasn’t Noah.

  I leaned my temple against the window and let the coolness seep into my hot skin. This was such a mess. It was no wonder I’d had so much trouble making friends since coming here. The locals thought I was a heartbreaker, as my grandmother—and probably Elise—would have said.

  Part of me wanted to plug my ears and hum rather than hear what else was being said about me, but I couldn’t sort this out until I knew the full extent of it. “Multiple men?”

  Her gaze slid toward me and little creases formed between her eyebrows. “Chief Higgins. Noah. The guy who runs your rental shop. Mark Cavanaugh.”

  “Oh good Lord.” I buried my face in my hands to give myself a moment of privacy. Every innocent thing I did had probably been warped beyond recognition. “People are saying I’m fooling around with Dave? He’s nearly ten years younger than I am.”

  “Cougars are a thing now.” Elise’s voice carried a shrug.

  I sucked in a fortifying breath and put my hands back in my lap. At least I knew the worst of it now. “Thank you for telling me.”

  “So how much of it is true?”

  Her voice had softened, like my obvious distress had earned me a little compassion at least. And had convinced her that some of the gossip might be off-base.

  Her lips twitched. “You did say I should ask.”

  I might soon regret that. “Very little. I never went out with Dave or Noah. They’re my employees, and my parents taught me to keep those lines firm.”

  The tightness in her arms and upper body telegraphed that I ha
dn’t addressed the person she was most interested in.

  “Erik and I went out a couple of times when I was first in Fair Haven, but then we mutually decided that we were better as friends. As you might have guessed, I don’t have a lot of those in Fair Haven yet, so I spend quite a bit of time with the ones I do have.”

  I’d swear her control slipped enough that she almost smiled. Next time Erik and I had breakfast, I was going to do some gentle nudging to suggest he might want to ask her out sometime. I could see them as a couple. They were both hard-shelled with a soft interior.

  The furniture store where we’d left my car came into view ahead of us, and Elise pulled up alongside my car.

  Then she turned off the ignition.

  My stomach tightened. There was only one reason for her to not simply put the car into park while I got out. Our conversation about my reputation wasn’t over.

  “You left one out,” Elise said, the edge back to her voice.

  I’d left out Mark intentionally. Elise might not be the best detective on the planet, but my feelings for Mark apparently broadcast themselves like a lighthouse beacon whenever I was around him or talked about him. Erik noticed it. Russ noticed it. I had the uncomfortable suspicion that even Oliver had noticed it.

  Why would she care that I hadn’t explained Mark? Her interest in Erik precluded any interest in Mark, so it couldn’t be that. It could be that he was a married man, and I shouldn’t be corrupting one of the most well-liked men in town.

  I had no answer to give that wouldn’t destroy the speck of goodwill I’d earned from her in easing her mind about Erik. “I left one out.”

  I rested my hand on the door handle. Maybe I should get out and let her draw whatever conclusions she wanted.

  Elise’s police-issued shoes squeaked on the floorboard. “You haven’t been in town long enough to know this, but my maiden name was Cavanaugh.”

  Ugg. I should have recognized it sooner. The dark hair. The way they both had super-human control over their eyebrows. And the slight geeky awkwardness in the things they said.