by P. Creeden
“Don’t forget I’m a detective. You’ll need more than a little mystery to keep me interested.” He was flirting. What was he doing?
“I’ll remember that. And I’m closing this book right now and heading to bed. Have a good night, detective.” She had a little lilt to her voice that made him smile.
“Goodnight, Felicity.” His voice grew husky when he said her name. Suddenly he was really liking saying it. He hung up the phone before things could get any sappier than they had.
He eyed himself in the mirror again, blinking hard and running his hands through his hair. There was no doubt about it. Felicity Stilton was having an effect on him. She was more than just the family of a victim in his case. She was more than just a childhood friend he was getting reacquainted with. The banter that they’d shared throughout the day and even while they were getting their burgers felt natural. It felt right. It felt like the piece to the puzzle of his life that he didn’t even know had been missing. He wanted to spend more time with her, but at the same time he was afraid of his growing affection for her.
The screen on his smartphone had gone dark, and he lifted it, pushing the home button. Then he went to his last phone call and added her name to the number, so it wouldn’t come up unknown again. His heart squeezed in his chest. Hope. Hope grew like a balloon in his chest, making little room for anything else, pushing his heart and affecting it as well. He hoped she’d call again. He wanted her to—but didn’t want her to.
He’d just gotten the new position of detective. Things were looking up for his career. He’d been saving up for a down payment on a house that he could then move into with his dad and have him move in with him. It would be the start of life outside of apartments and paying rent. They could get a yard and maybe even a dog, like the one Felicity had.
With a shake of his head, he turned on the hot water faucet. Even when thinking about his goals for the future, she was worming her way into his thoughts. He needed to get back on track. He wasn’t ready for a relationship. They were too difficult, and he had too many responsibilities. Too much baggage. Why would any girl want to come in on the middle of that?
He blew out a breath and pulled his shirt over his head. It was time to focus on his own life and push aside any thoughts of banter and flirting. He set his phone on the counter next to the sink. Besides, she’d probably have no reason to call him again anyway. After another deep breath, he hopped into the shower.
Chapter Six
Felicity lied. Though not because she’d wanted to. Sleep avoided her, and she tossed and turned for over an hour before giving up and picking up the journal to read more. Although she could find no definitive proof that her birthmother didn’t take her own life, her gut feeling had become much stronger that the journal was written by a hopeful, all-business Liz—the same strong woman she’d met on several occasions who never seemed to have a hint of manic or depressive behaviors.
By five-thirty a.m., however, she was utterly exhausted, and her vision had gotten a bit blurry from the strain on her eyes. She shut off the bedside lamp in her room, though the faintest bit of gray glow seeped through the blinds on her north-facing window as the sun rose in the east. She sighed and picked up her phone to shoot a text message to her boss, the vice principal. Her teeth ached from gritting them so hard while she typed.
She needed a sick day, though. Not only because she couldn’t possibly get up in an hour and get ready for work, but also because Darren had promised her one day only to find evidence that Liz’s death was something other than suicide. If it wasn’t suicide, and it was just an accident, it would rest easier on Felicity’s mind and soul. If it was neither suicide nor an accident, and there was foul play involved, she needed proof so that Darren could take the investigation more seriously.
All in all, she honestly hoped it was just an accident. Maybe Liz’s cold medication interacted with her sleeping aid? Maybe she ended up taking too much sleeping aid because she’d thought she hadn’t taken it yet. But that didn’t make sense with the suicide note. If it had been just an accident, she wouldn’t have left a note. And if it wasn’t suicide or an accident, then someone else wrote that note. The thought of it gave her a shiver, and she pulled her blanket up higher on her shoulder as she settled into her bedding, her back facing the window.
“Hey, sleepy-head. Get up,” Georgia said in a sing-song way, shaking Felicity’s shoulder.”
“Ugh,” she moaned. “I called in sick today, let me get a little sleep. Can you get me up at nine?”
Georgia laughed. “Girl, it’s ten.”
Felicity shot up to a sitting position and picked up her cellphone. It was a few minutes after ten a.m. How could that be possible when it felt like she’d hardly been asleep at all?
Jay sat on the edge of the bed with his chin resting on the mattress, his tail wagging behind him. Felicity met eyes with him, and her irresponsibility made her stomach queasy. “I’m so sorry, boy. You probably need to go outside so badly.”
Georgia ran her fingers through the longish hair on the back of Jay’s head and neck. “Nah, he’s good. I figured you had called in sick since you never sleep in, and no matter if you were close or not, Liz’s death is going to affect you. After all, she is your birthmother.”
Tears stung the back of Felicity’s eyes. “What did I ever do to deserve a friend like you?”
“Not enough, I’m afraid,” Georgia said, leaning back with a huge grin on her face. “Because this friend of yours just walked JJ down to Sweets and Treats, picked him up some of those vegan doggie biscuits he’s so crazy about, and grabbed us one of those giant donuts to share. Now, who do you love?”
“You. Nobody but you, wifey.” Felicity’s heart swelled in her chest and she pulled her covers off, taking the coffee cup offered by her best friend and roommate.
“Of course it’s nobody but me.” Georgia lifted a brow and then turned on her heels and headed for the door. “Now get in the kitchen; I’m ready to get started on this donut, aren’t you?”
“Yes, girl!” Felicity jumped from her bed and hugged Jay, like she always did in the mornings. “Good morning, sunshine,” she said in his ear as she gave him a squeeze. Then she stood and followed her roommate toward the kitchen to enjoy the donut and her coffee.
Once Felicity drove up to the winery, she let Jay out of the back of her SUV and commanded, “Stay by.”
She hated putting Jay on a leash, and the Golden Retriever had been trained to walk without one. Jay sat at her heels while she grabbed her messenger bag from the back seat and closed up her vehicle.
“It’s great to see you again, Felicity,” a deep baritone called to her from the covered porch of the wine store. Heath Anderson stood, leaning against the railing with a smile, wearing a rumpled suit similar to the one he’d worn the night before, but this one was a shade of brownish-gray rather than blue.
“Thanks. I’m going to head up to the house and look around at some of my mother’s things.” She rarely referred to Liz as her mother, but for some reason she felt the need to convey that so that no one questioned her motives. She wasn’t ready to share her thoughts on what she thought about Liz’s death with anyone yet. Heath was, after all, the vice president of the vineyard and Liz’s ex-boyfriend. He’d likely have motive to kill Liz.
Felicity frowned at herself as she turned up the walkway with Jay. She didn’t like to think of people she’d met as being potential murderers. That thought was almost as hard for her to believe that Liz took her own life. When she got up to the house, she went to put the key in the door, but found it unlocked.
With a frown, she opened the door and called inside, “Hello?”
Clattering noises came from the kitchen, and then a young Asian woman poked her head out from the doorway, her hands covered in rubber gloves and hair pinned back in a bun. She bowed slightly. “Hello.”
Jay started trotting her direction, tail wagging in greeting. “JJ, stay by.”
The Golden stopped in h
is tracks and sat where he was, halfway between Felicity and the woman from the kitchen. Felicity would have guessed the woman at about the same age as herself. “Hello, can I ask what you’re doing?”
Even though the woman’s accent was thick and her English, broken, she was easy enough to understand. “I clean. Start with kitchen.”
Felicity always had much respect for people who could speak more than one language, even if they didn’t speak the other one perfectly. After taking four years of Spanish in high school, she didn’t think she could even do as well as this woman did with English. “Are you the housekeeper?”
“Yes.” The woman nodded vigorously.
Felicity frowned. Didn’t Darren say that the woman had just started the job yesterday, and even found Liz’s body on her first day? How traumatic that must have been for her. Felicity drew a few steps closer, standing next to Jay, who obediently stayed seated on the hardwood floor, next to the couch. Then she remembered why she’d come to the house in the first place, and her heart sunk. How would she possibly find any clues at all if the woman had been cleaning this whole time? She used as many gestures as possible while she spoke in the hopes that the woman would understand her. “What time did you come in to clean? Did you start with the kitchen?”
The woman looked toward the ceiling, thoughtful for a moment before lowering her gaze and nodding. “I start at ten. I clean upstairs first.”
Disappointment flooded her. It was just after one p.m. There was no way that this woman could clean so poorly that she’d leave clues behind. Although Darren had left the case open, he hadn’t made the scene secure so that no one would mess with it. Now it had been thoroughly changed. She collapsed onto the couch arm in disappointment.
“Mr. Page say it’s okay to clean.” The woman frowned when she saw Felicity’s expression and pulled her gloves from her hands.
“Mr. Page?” Felicity asked, remembering the tall sour man she’d met the afternoon before. Now that was one man she might believe actually capable of murder. In fact, had he asked her to clean the scene to obscure any evidence of his wrongdoing?
The woman nodded enthusiastically, saying something under her breath in a language Felicity didn’t understand.
Felicity shook her head. She needed to think clearly. What other clues might there be of foul play? Just then footsteps stomped on the porch outside. She looked up in the direction of the afternoon sun and found Mr. Anderson coming in through the screen door.
He smiled and knocked on the open doorway. “Hello, again. I thought I’d come up and see if there’s anything I can do to help.” He bowed slightly in the direction of the housekeeper.
Handsome and polite. Her heart fluttered at the thought.
“It seems you’ve met Miss Kim. She’s Mrs. Park’s replacement.”
“Oh?” Felicity wondered. “So, Liz had a housekeeper before Miss Kim?”
He nodded, drawing closer to her and sitting on the arm of the chair across from her. “Yes, but it seemed Mrs. Park had sticky fingers. Some of Liz’s things went missing over the past few months. At first it seemed like she’d misplaced and lost things, but when it seemed much too obvious to be anything other than theft, she fired the woman. Because Liz had no actual proof, she did it discreetly and didn’t get the police involved.”
Felicity’s eyes widened. A thief under Liz’s nose? And she fired the woman not very long ago if it was Miss Kim’s first day yesterday. “When did all this happen?”
With a half shrug, Heath answered, “Last week?”
A sigh escaped her lips as she watched Miss Kim bow slightly and head back into the kitchen. Cleaning noises continued. Felicity frowned. “A lot happened last week then in Liz’s life.”
“For sure. That much stuff can really affect a person who was prone to depression, like Liz was.”
A frown tugged at Felicity’s lip. “Was she seeing anyone for her depression? On medication?”
He shook his head, the wrinkles in his forehead deepening. “No, your mother wasn’t diagnosed with depression, but she battled with it often enough. The winery was a stressful business. If I’d known all this stuff would be too much for her, maybe I could have stayed with her. It’s shameful that I abandoned her… maybe I could have—”
Felicity shook her head. “No. You can’t blame yourself. You can’t burden yourself that way. Liz made her own choices, and who’s to say that anything you did could have stopped her from doing what she did?”
For a moment, she felt that she sounded like Darren, and her heart fluttered at the thought. But Darren had been right, and that was why his words slipped past her lips. Her heart felt burdened by the sad expression on Heath’s face.
He looked up at her, eyes watery. “Thank you for saying so, but I still feel guilty. I know it’s not entirely my fault, and I felt like our breakup was somewhat mutual. We promised to remain friends and business colleagues.”
“That’s good. Very adult, too.” She’d read something similar in Liz’s journal.
“I just didn’t realize how lonely Liz had gotten, and how much the stress of running this place, firing Mrs. Park, and everything else was affecting her.”
“You’re talking yourself in a loop of destruction now. Your guilt won’t subside until you accept that these changes in her life were inevitable and it’s impossible to change the past, no matter how much we’d like to.”
He lifted a brow. “That sounded a bit professional. What do you do for a living?”
A blush rose to Felicity’s cheeks. “I work in Educational Psychology, helping children with reading disabilities.”
He snapped his fingers and nodded. “I knew it had to be psychology or psychiatry. The advice you gave was just too professional.”
The blush ran down the back of her neck. “I guess so.”
After clapping his hands together and standing, he said, “Anyway. What can I do to help you? I’m willing to do my part in helping you settle the estate and get the winery going in the best possible direction as fast as possible.”
She frowned. Honestly, she had no idea where to start in that direction. For a moment, she wondered if he could help her with looking for clues. No one alive probably knew the house better than he did, or her things. But she threw out that idea immediately. She didn’t want someone else to tell her she was crazy or trying too hard to see clues where there weren’t any. She decided to conjure an excuse. “Actually, I’m here to just process everything personally. I didn’t know Liz very well, even though she’s my birthmother. I’d like to just spend a day getting to know her through her things.”
His eyes went a little wide, and he nodded, offering a knowing smile. “Of course. That makes sense. I don’t want to intrude on your private moment.” He pulled out his phone. “But let’s exchange contact information, if you don’t mind. This way you can call me if you need anything at all. I don’t usually answer unknown phone numbers, I’m afraid. I really hate spam.”
Felicity laughed a little with him as he chuckled. He was right. She rarely answered unknown numbers for the same reason. They exchanged contact information, and then he left quietly. She took a deep breath as she watched him step off the porch and onto the path between the house and the wine shop. Several cars were now parked in the little lot, and an employee in a purple polo shirt led the group for a tasting on the covered porch.
“Excuse me,” a small voice said behind her in a thick accent.
Felicity turned around and met eyes with the woman, offering her a small smile. “Yes, Miss Kim?”
The woman’s eyes shot toward the doorway where Heath had just left, and then her gaze slipped past Felicity’s before pointing at the ground between them. “I sorry I heard what the Mister say.” Her gaze came back up to meet Felicity’s and she shook her head. “No. Mrs. Park… She no take anything. She not a thief.”
Felicity blinked at the woman. The housekeeper certainly understood English much better than she spoke it at least. That was fairly nor
mal as well for people who have at least a cursory knowledge of two languages. She smiled down at the woman. Even though she was only five feet six inches, Miss Kim couldn’t have been any taller than her roommate, Georgia. “Okay, I’m not sure what’s going on here. I just got here yesterday and only heard about that situation just now. I’m not accusing anyone of stealing, and won’t take someone else’s word on the matter, understand?”
Her eyes narrowed at Felicity a moment, but then her expression softened. She nodded slowly. “Mrs. Park no stealing.”
“Okay, I understand.” Felicity nodded. Trying to get the housekeeper to understand that it was none of her business seemed futile. It was best to patronize her a little and placate her. Then Felicity eyed the woman as she went back into the kitchen to resume her work.
Heath had told her that the former maid had been stealing, but it seemed that the new maid and the former maid had some sort of relationship with each other, as it seemed Miss Kim knew Mrs. Park well enough to stand up for her when someone insulted the woman. Fair enough.
Jay lay on the hardwood floor, half on the carpeting between the coffee table and the sofa. The position he slept in showed he wasn’t much worried about all the humans had to talk about in this situation. Felicity sighed and looked around. It seemed that the winery was doing well enough that Liz could afford a maid anyway. But was it possible the place had invisible debt. One of the reasons people Liz’s age took their own life was due to debts and failing business. She decided to head up to the nook in Liz’s bedroom where she had a dark wood desk and a laptop laying on the top of it.
The Golden followed her up the stairs and into Liz’s room. When she sat in the chair at Liz’s desk, Jay plopped down on top of Felicity’s feet. She scratched him a bit behind the ears. Having Jay in her life made sure that she rarely, if ever, felt lonely. The warmth of his body on her feet comforted her from the slight draft that came into the room.
She opened the silver and white laptop, listening to the start-up sequence music as the laptop fired up. Once the lock screen popped up, it asked for a password. Felicity frowned. How on Earth would she figure out what her mother’s password had been? No matter what, people tended to be the same when it came to password creation. They used things that they loved in their lives and things that would be easy to remember. But what did Liz love? She thought about the journal written in Liz’s words, trying to figure out what she loved and what she might use as a password.