No Charm Intended

by Mollie Cox Bryan

  “This retreat has been awesome,” Ruby said. For some reason the word awesome sounded strange coming out of Ruby’s mouth. She’d been influenced by the younger crowd here this weekend. Jane tried not to grin.

  “I think it’s been great. And I’m looking forward to the Big Island Beach Retreat next month,” she said.

  “Me too. What are your plans for it?”

  “Sand,” she said. “I’m doing something with sand, sea glass, shells.”

  “I’m teaching a class on herbals near the beach,” Ruby said. “So, will London be coming with us?”

  “I’m not sure. She was going to stay with . . .”

  “Gracie,” Ruby finished for her. “How is she handling all this?”

  “About as well as can be expected.”

  Ruby crossed her arms. “It’s tough as a single mom, I know, in more than one way. You just don’t know who to trust. But Gracie seemed so trustworthy.”

  “Yes, I still think she was an amazing sitter,” Jane said.

  “But maybe there’s something we just don’t know about her.”

  “I’m going to have a heart-to-heart with Chelsea tomorrow. She’s the woman who hired Gracie as a nanny. Perhaps she knows something.”

  Ruby’s eyebrows lifted. “I’m sure she does.”

  A tone in her voice prompted Jane to ask, “Do you know her?”

  “Oh sure, not well, but she’s a woman in the know. Very powerful family. Always has been. I’d think if there were any secrets to be known about a young woman working for her, she’d definitely know them.”

  “And she’d definitely tell other mothers, right?”

  “You’d think,” Ruby said. “Oh, there’s the caterer.” She walked off and opened the door for the crew.

  Along with the crew came the scent of sugar, fat, and chocolate. Swoon-worthy. Plates, pan, and goodies were plopped down on the counters by the caterer, crisp and clean and dressed in their black and whites.

  Jane thought Cora would be pleased—as the last event was catered by an annoying crew, especially its leader. But these folks were as pro as it could get. The kitchen was not a good kitchen for large events, and yet they managed beautifully.

  Jane imagined each of these retreats would have a different set of challenges. Last time, well, it was the first one and there was a murder just down the street—plus the issue with the caterer. This time, unfortunately, murder and a disappearance of a young woman marred the retreat, but maybe only slightly. The retreaters seemed to still be retreating. Except maybe for Liv, who was in the corner of the dining room back on the phone with her father.

  “No, Dad,” she was saying. “I’ll be fine. I’m here for one more night. You don’t need to come and get me tonight. Tomorrow’s fine. I promise.”

  Liv was a joy to get to know—she was complex and standing at a crossroads in her life. Jane felt honored she could or would be able to guide her in any way. That she listed Jane as one of her artistic influences both amused and honored her. She mused about all of all the faces she had worn: Wife to a troubled actor who was an addict and abuser, daughter to a couple who adopted her, but then seemed to regret it, mother to the wonderful, but challenging London. And now, an inspiration to a young artist? Jane Starr, inspiration? Influence? Her heart filled with pride.

  Chapter 44

  As Cora walked through the garden to Kildare House, her phone buzzed. “Hello,” she said.

  “Cora,” came the soft, lilting voice of her new acquaintance Zora. “If you want to speak with you-know-who, he’s alone in the park, near the fountain. I just thought you might want to know.”

  “Thanks so much, Zora. I do think it would be helpful to talk with him,” Cora responded, glancing at the time. “I better get moving.”

  “Yes,” Zora said. “Time’s a wasting.”

  Cora could be at the park in five minutes—if nobody saw her and tried to get her involved with a conversation. She decided to move quickly.

  * * *

  When Cora saw Professor Rawlings, she was surprised at how much younger he appeared in person than on his profile page from the university. Odd, usually it was just the opposite.

  “Mind if I sit down?” she asked him.

  He tilted his head up. “No, not at all.” He smiled. “I come here to feed the birds, when I can. I’m about done.”

  He was handsome, she supposed, in a kind of unassuming way: nice big brown eyes framed by dark lashes and a pleasant enough face. Certainly not an over-the-top handsome that she would expect from an older man having affairs with his students.

  Birds flitted about them. Rawlings held a nearly empty bag of birdseed.

  “I thought about becoming an ornithologist,” he said. “I just love birds.”

  Birds? This professor who’d been painted an evil psychopath was sitting here feeding the birds?

  The fountain gurgled behind them. Birds chirped and darted around them. It was a veritable Disney scene, Cora mused, half expecting Snow White to come dancing along in front of them.

  “I like birds more the older I get,” Cora said. “Or should I say I appreciate them more the older I get.”

  “You appreciate a lot more with age,” he said, and scattered more seeds around. The birds flocked and landed, eating up the seed.

  “I’m Cora, by the way. New in town,” she said.

  “Oh?” His eyebrow went up. “Nice to meet you. I’m Gerald. I’ve lived here for pretty much my whole life.”

  As he spoke, Cora was psychologically profiling him. He really didn’t even want to be an English professor—he loved birds. He was aging—and was not happy about it. Plus, he’d lived here his whole life. Midlife crisis?

  “How nice,” Cora said. “You must know everybody here.”

  He grunted. “Yep.”

  “Tell me, do you know that poor Gracie who’s missing?” Cora said after a minute.

  His head snapped back around to look at her. His eyebrow gathered into a V.

  “Say, you weren’t just looking for me at the Blue Note, were you?” he asked.

  “Yes, I was,” she said. “We needed to know if Gracie was with you. The cops weren’t telling us a thing.”

  He let out a whistle and puffed his cheeks out.

  “Gracie was not with me, I can assure you,” he said. “I knew her briefly. She’s not from around here, but she was a student at the university where I teach English.” He threw the last of the birdseeds, crumpled up the bag, rolled it into a ball in his hands, and kept rolling it back and forth.

  “Not ornithology, then,” she smiled, then laughed a little.

  “No,” he said, chuckling.

  “You don’t like your job?”

  “It has its perks,” he said, after a minute.

  Perks, like young females? Cora wanted to say but didn’t.

  “I love the teaching part. I love being around young people, especially bright ones. It’s fabulous. Inspiring. But I don’t like the politics. The need to constantly be getting published. It gets tedious,” he said.

  “I guess you’ve got to take the good with the bad. In anything,” Cora said, thinking of how she loved to craft, loved her crafters and her blog, but the organizing part not so much. How she used to love the women she helped at the Sunny Street Women’s Shelter, but how she couldn’t handle the flip side of it—when she couldn’t help, no matter how hard she tried.

  “True,” he said. “What do you do, Cora?”

  “I run a craft retreat,” she said. She liked the sound of that, liked the feel of it. She was no longer a counselor at a women’s shelter. It was taking time to get used to that. “We live over at Kildare House. Do you know it?”

  He perked up. “Why yes, I do,” he said. “I’d heard something about new owners. That’s you, hey?”

  “Yes, in fact, we have a retreat going on right now,” she said. “I’m taking a bit of a break. Had to get out for a few minutes.”

  “I see,” he said.

  �
��Part of the reason we moved here is because it’s so safe here, you know? The next thing you know there were the murders of the librarian and her ex-husband, and now that boy, what’s his name, Henry, and then there’s Gracie who’s still missing,” she said. “It doesn’t seem so safe here anymore.”

  He bristled at the mention of Henry. “Henry was a brilliant young man.” His voice cracked as his gaze fell off. “Gracie? She was a bright, hardworking woman. Good as gold, really.”

  “I hope they find her,” Cora said.

  He bit his lip. “Me too. It must be awful for her parents. I saw them on TV, pleading for her release. It broke my heart.”

  He was really torn up about this. He was not faking it. Cora was astute about knowing when someone was lying. She found herself feeling sorry for him, in a way. Yes, he was a lech when it came to young women. But sitting here on this bench, he seemed like a nice guy, maybe in the throes of a midlife crisis. He didn’t seem crazy, as his soon-to-be ex-wife had portrayed him. She knew better than to leap to conclusions, but he didn’t seem like a killer.

  “But this is all very unusual for Indigo Gap,” he went on. “Don’t judge us quite yet. Stick around a while longer.”

  She had no choice. She was deep in debt for the mortgage. She and Jane had to make this work.

  “Well,” he said, standing. “It was nice chatting with you, Cora. Maybe we’ll see you around sometime.”

  “Sure,” she said. “Maybe you can come and do crafts with us.”

  “Crafts?” he said. “Nah, I’m a woodworker. I bet you don’t give classes in that.”

  “You never know, Gerald. Don’t judge us yet,” Cora said, and grinned.

  After he left, Cora sat, listening to the fountain and watching the birds. Gerald Rawlings surprised her. She was glad of it. A good reminder that you couldn’t judge people based on what others said about them, what was online about them, and not even really, what they had done in their past.

  Chapter 45

  After she got back to Kildare House, Cora uploaded the photos to her Web site and wrote some captions to go along with them. Her Web site and blog were her pride and joy. Throughout the years of hard work, she’d learned a lot about blogging and technology and the intersections of it all with her own creativity. It felt more like work than passion sometimes, but most of the time, she loved what she was doing. But she’d rather be crafting, of course.

  This week, after everybody left and her life settled back down a bit, she was giving herself an inspiration week. Several new craft projects called out to her for exploration and she was going to give herself time to do it. Several guest posts were scheduled for the week. One from a grief-stricken knitter she’d met during the last retreat. But her post on “Knitting a Life Without Your Partner” was beautiful and scheduled to publish on Wednesday. Another guest post was coming from a famous crochet artist in Paris, all about the new trends in crochet. In the meantime, crochet was one of the things Cora wanted to delve into. She planned to catch up on some upcycling projects. She recently found some pretty old cotton shirts at a yard sale and thought about turning them into aprons. She wasn’t the world’s best seamstress, but she liked sitting and stitching. She also thought she might make some bags from the shirts. She had purchased linen towels that begged to be bags or aprons or something. The shirts and linen towels were piling up in her bedroom.

  She had collected more old silverware, one of her favorite items to craft with. She wanted to make standing frames with them. A box of silver with pretty flourished handles sat on her kitchen table. Oh, and they sat next to the whisks Cora wanted to turn into candleholders.

  She drew in a breath as a wave of weariness overtook her. Soon, tomorrow, she and Jane would visit and make inquiries into the Gracie and Henry situation—and then her time would be her own. A week. For her. And for the business.

  She crawled on top of her quilted bed and pulled an afghan over her. Luna jumped on her stomach, kneaded the blanket with her claws, and curled in a purring ball on Cora’s lap. Cora concentrated on the relaxed purring and drifted off into a dream of goddesses and light and cats and candleholders.

  She awakened about an hour later, which was longer than she expected to sleep. She curled on her side and thought about her dreams. Yes, she thought, the next room would be a Brigid room. Kildare House now offered “Mémé’s Boudoir,” “Clothilde’s Tapestry Room,” and now she planned a Brigid room. She knew the exact room, and as she thought it over, she realized it had been happening all along.

  She rose from her bed. Luna meowed, letting her know it was time to eat. Cora fed her and then hopped into the shower to prepare for the big night.

  She selected a black and orange polyester minidress, along with her platform boots. This would be a fun night, she told herself, willing away the skittering of nerves she felt when she thought of Adrian. Or when she allowed her thoughts to wander to Liv, or Henry, or most especially Gracie. Where was she? Was she dead or alive?

  Did Detective Brodsky have any answers?

  She hoped he did by now.

  She slipped on her boots and smeared matching orange lipstick onto her lips. Wild, she thought. It really matched. She dug around for her huge gold hoops and the chain she wanted to wear, found them. Then she ran her fingers thought her red hair.

  Ready or not, here I come.

  As she walked down the steps, she thought of this moment. She wanted to capture it; it was every bit as special as the first retreat. Perhaps more so. Holding the first successful retreat was glorious, but doing two? A triumph!

  The scent of chocolate welcomed her. The sound of the banjo quartet she hired was providing a festive atmosphere. All the crafters were gathering in the living and dining rooms and as Cora walked around, they smiled at her with warmth. Ah yes.

  The table in the dining room was stacked with chocolate-covered fruit, cake, bread, and oh yes, fondue.

  Women were piling their plates high—as she soon would.

  “Look who’s here!” Jane came over, dragging Adrian alongside her.

  “Why, hello!” Cora said, and hugged him politely. Well, he was looking fine, his jade-green eyes taking her in. “Glad you could make it,” she said.

  “Of course,” he said. “You look stunning. And very groovy, I might add.”

  “Thank you,” Cora said. “You look great, too.” Extremely great, as a matter of fact.

  She allowed herself to be whisked away momentarily for a bit of private conversation, knowing it could not last because she must socialize with the other guests.

  “How are you?” she asked.

  He glimpsed away for a second and then looked back at her. “I’m fine. Or, um, I’ll be fine. It’s been rough.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Cora said. “Is there anything I can do?”

  He cocked an eyebrow and grinned flirtatiously. “Perhaps we can talk about that later.”

  Brave words for a man who’d yet to even kiss her. Good Lord, the man made her tingle! She struggled to keep her composure.

  Their conversation was interrupted by Cashel O’Malley, who was full of smiles and swagger, as usual. “Who’s this, Cora? A crafter?” He gave a sarcastic tilt of his head and a crooked smirk.

  Cora refrained from swatting him, but then made the introduction he so clearly wanted.

  Cora sipped from her champagne glass and surveyed the room. Cashel and Adrian were chatting about something near the fireplace. She didn’t know why that made her curious. What could the two of them possibly have in common?

  Adrian was sweet and bookish. Cashel was brash and annoying. Yet, they stood smiling and chatting, as if they were best friends.

  Maddy came up to her just then. “I just wanted to thank you, once again.”

  “For what?” Cora said.

  “For the retreat,” Maddy said. “My life is so crazy. You have no idea. This has been such a treat. I feel like I found a part of myself I’ve been missing. I hate to leave this place.”
r />   Cora blinked back a tear. “You can always come back,” she said. “And please stay in touch.” Her throat constricted the way it did when she was trying not to cry. This is one of the many reasons she wanted to hold these craft retreats. Today’s women were often pulled in so many directions they rarely reflected, or paused for anything like crafting or reading. Or whatever.

  She didn’t hold the retreats just for the battered and damaged women—but also for the woman who just needed to learn to carve space for herself. It was a different kind of healing. If you were working on a craft project, it could help to carve inner space.

  Cashel laughed loudly from the other side of the room. Adrian laughed a charming, not too boisterous laugh.

  “I hope to come back. But I saw in an ad you’re doing the Big Island Beach Retreat soon. I’ve read a lot about that retreat. It’s pretty famous,” Maddy said.

  “It’s going to be fun,” Cora said, but she wasn’t certain. So far, the organizers had yet to firm up the plans and the retreat was only six weeks away. “I’ve read a lot about it as well. I think this is the fifteenth year.”

  “The resort looks fabulous,” Maddy said, as Sheila and her daughter joined them.

  Cora pictured it in her mind. Yes, it did look relaxing and fabulous.

  “I taught there last year,” Sheila said. “It worked out.”

  Something about the tone of her voice made Cora bristle. “That’s good to know. We’ve not gotten an itinerary or anything yet.”

  Sheila laughed. “Sounds about right. They seem disorganized. But it always works out.”

  “We love it here. So inspiring,” Donna said.

  “I’m glad you enjoyed it, even with the problems,” Cora said.

  “Please let us know how that turns out,” Donna said. “We’re leaving tomorrow afternoon. We’re going to hang out in town a bit before we go. Indigo Gap has so many wonderful shops to explore.”

  “Have you visited Patty’s Paperie?” Cora asked. “They just opened. Fabulous paper products. Loads of scrapbooking supplies.”