“Graf?” What the hell happened? Was he having a heart attack? What was wrong?
“Knock it off me!” He flopped over onto his side on the bed, and then I saw the cat, clinging to Graf’s back with all four claws.
“Pluto!” I lurched for the feline, but he was having none of it. He jumped to the headboard of the four-poster and struck a Halloween pose. He was damn good with the frizzed-out tail and arched back. Maybe he could find gainful employment as a model for fright-night posters when I booted his ass out the window.
“What’s wrong with that cat?” Graf twisted to determine the damage to his back. Good thing he couldn’t see it. Pluto had left his mark. Instead of a Z for Zorro, there were eight long, bloody claw marks from eight little kitty toes. So far, Pluto was two-for-two with Chasley and Graf.
“I have no idea why Pluto attacked you, or how he got into the room.” The bedroom door was shut and locked. I went to retrieve soap and hot water from the bathroom and noticed the grille for the air-conditioning vent hanging by one screw. The cat was using the duct system to navigate the house.
I soaked a washcloth in cool water and tended to Graf’s back with tenderness—and a bit of victory. “I hope you don’t have any more bedroom shots with Natasha. These claw marks would look…” Like they’d enjoyed hot, wild sex.
“Ouch!” Graf flinched as I applied a bit more pressure than I meant to.
“Sorry.”
He shifted so he could eye Pluto. “Is Chasley right? Is the cat a danger? I mean, why shouldn’t animals be psychotic if people can be?”
Still sitting on the headboard, Pluto licked a front paw and purred. “I don’t think he’s dangerous. He’s only displayed aggression when Chasley tried to break into Marjorie’s suite and now. Maybe he suffers from multiple personalities.”
Another thought occurred to me. “Or maybe he thought you were hurting me. When you tickled me and I screamed. He had to be hiding in the AC vent.” I pointed it out to Graf. “He heard me yell, and he jumped right on your back. From his perspective, he might have thought you were brutalizing me.”
An expression crossed Graf’s face, and in it I saw trouble.
“Oh, no, we are not testing that theory!” I tried to grasp his wrist.
He grinned. “Just a tiny test.”
“How?”
I should never have asked. He grabbed me and I let out a startled whoop. Pluto cleared the space between the headboard and Graf in under a second. He sprang between us, arched his back, and growled.
“He’s your protector, Sarah Booth.” Graf gave the cat an appreciative nod. “He attacked me because he perceived me as a danger to you.”
“But he’s Marjorie’s cat.”
I wasn’t screaming, and Graf risked offering his hand to Pluto, who seemed to accept Graf meant me no harm. He rubbed his whiskers on Graf’s fingers. “He’s one smart kitty.”
“I never considered you might be a cat person, Graf.” My fiancé had taken to my horses and he loved Sweetie Pie as much as I did. My mother had adored cats, and we always had half a dozen at Dahlia House. By the time I went to college, they’d died of old age. Knowing I was moving to New York, I hadn’t gotten any more. Since I’d been home, I always figured a cat would find me when it was the right time. “We can adopt a cat if you’d like one. Dahlia House is a great place for felines to romp and roam.”
“I would. Growing up, I had a gray tabby. Stripes. He slept with me every night. I broke my leg tagging out a runner at home base when I was fourteen. I was the star catcher, and I had to sit out the last of the season. I was upset because I couldn’t participate in the play-offs. Stripes spent every day for the whole six weeks I was in a cast lounging across my lap, purring and making sure I stayed calm. He lived to be twenty-two.”
Graf had charmed me yet again. Christmas would be a snap this year. One gray tabby straight from the animal shelter. Maybe it also meant that Graf planned to spend more time in Sunflower County with his soon-to-be bride. We’d made it past the engagement, but we hadn’t started planning our wedding. My future as Mrs. Graf Milieu Delaney had hung by a thread days ago. Now, I couldn’t imagine any future that didn’t include Graf. And I meant to show him.
This time I put the moves on Graf. I tended his wounds and softly sang the lyrics of a 1970s David Allan Coe song, “Would you lay with me in a field of stone if my needs were great, would you lay with me?” Graf didn’t seem to mind that I didn’t have perfect pitch.
One thing led to another, and finally tired of being pushed and shoved around the sheets, Pluto abandoned the bed and curled up on a chair beside the window to sleep while Graf and I made love. I couldn’t have told you if two hours passed or two days. For that measure of time, I immersed myself in Graf and the emotional and physical sensations that alerted me to the depth of my love.
17
A knock at the door woke me out of the soundest sleep I’d had in weeks. Light from the bedroom window told me dusk had settled over Heart’s Desire.
Graf slipped into his pants and opened the door to a sheepish Oscar. “Sorry, but Brandy Westin wants to speak with you. I told her you were resting, but she wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
It didn’t take a private investigator to detect that Tinkie had tied Oscar in a knot and then shook him loose. Satisfaction oozed from every pore.
“I’ll get dressed and go down,” Graf said with only a hint of reluctance.
Oscar looked past Graf and grinned at me. “How’s it going?”
Oscar was about as subtle as a keg of C4. “Real good. And you?”
“Best afternoon I’ve had in a while. Maid work seems to be good for Tinkie. I’m thinking I might hire her out at least twice a week.”
Bold talk for a man who’d been turned inside out. “I’d like to be around when you suggest it.”
“Suggest what?” Tinkie popped around the doorframe and pushed Oscar inside so she could shut the door.
Oscar begged me with a look and I let compassion win out. “Oscar was just saying what a fine afternoon he’d had.”
Tinkie slid an arm around his waist. “That would make two of us. You both look like you got the kinks snatched out.”
I had to laugh. Tinkie seldom fell into the use of common expressions, but I did feel exactly as she described. In fact, I would be willing to bet I was at least two inches taller.
“Oscar was telling us about your afternoon activities.” Graf had the very devil in him. “In explicit detail.”
“Yeah, beats the hell out of banking, doesn’t it?” I had to gig Oscar a little because he’d given Tinkie such a hard time lately.
“Oscar, a gentleman never kisses and tells!” Tinkie’s face burned pink. “Did you tell them about—?”
“They’re goading you,” Oscar said. He silenced Tinkie with a kiss.
There was nothing Graf and I could do but applaud his decisive action.
“I’ll see you downstairs,” Oscar said to Graf. “Be careful and get out of here,” he said to me. “Palk is pacing around all over the house. He knows something is up, he just hasn’t figured out what.”
“Marjorie is asleep right now, Sarah Booth, but she’s down in the dumps in the worst kind of way. I removed her prescriptions. I don’t trust her not to take a rash action.” Tinkie patted her pockets. “She has way too much medication. I’m afraid all of the ground we gained has been undone by Chasley.”
“Have you seen Chasley?” I asked.
Oscar shook his head. “Not hide nor hair. Tinkie and I were rather busy for a while. Since then, I’ve been out in the servants’ quarters and wandering around the grounds. Chasley hasn’t put in an appearance. Palk doesn’t take kindly to service staff in the ‘big house.’ He actually told me to leave.”
“Palk loves class distinctions.” At least he was consistent in his awfulness.
“The Zinnia bank has dealt with Chasley on some investments. Do you think Chasley will recognize you?” Graf asked Oscar.
“He de
alt with Harold. They knew each other as children, a brief period between Marjorie’s marriages when she was back in Mississippi. I never knew him.” Palk’s voice carried to us as he snapped an order on the first floor. “Palk alert. I’ve got to go.” He grabbed Tinkie and split. Graf and I were alone for another few moments.
My body told me to pull the covers over my head and refuse to leave Graf’s bed. My heart agreed. My conscience forced me up and into my clothes. I had work to do.
“What are your plans?” I asked Graf.
“I have a session with Sherry. I’m hoping to use my considerable charms to find out whatever you want to know.”
I turned slowly and appraised my fiancé. “You’re undercover in disguise, and now you’re snooping.”
“It’s research for the movie we’ll film in November. Remember, I sent you the script for Delta Blues.”
Oh, I remembered. I hadn’t read the script, and I didn’t want to admit it, because things were so good between us. “You’re really helping me with the case?”
“Of course, Sarah Booth. Oscar and I both are here to assist. Because you and Tinkie are of the lower class here at Heart’s Desire, I can find out different kinds of information. Oscar can hobnob with the guards and such, and I will charm any information you want out of the other guests and the Westins. Two new avenues of fact-gathering. So brief me quickly. What are you thinking about the murders of Amanda and Lola?”
“They don’t seem to be related, but they must be. Amanda was little more than a kid with a dream. She was dating a guard, Kyle McAty. She really just wanted to be done with Heart’s Desire and find a job as a chef.”
“Are the Westins involved in the deaths?”
He was asking all the right questions, but I had no answers. “What could they possibly benefit from killing Amanda and one of their guests?”
“Nothing, unless Amanda and Lola discovered something. Something secret that had to be kept quiet at all costs.”
It was the scent I’d been pursuing, but now I had to run it to ground. Something dark and sinister was happening at Heart’s Desire, and it was my job to find out what. “When you talk to Sherry, see if you can ascertain if she has any abilities as a medium. So far, I’m not impressed. This is all hocus-pocus stuff anyone could set up. As a client, she should give you some evidence. You have a right to challenge her.”
“I’m on it.” Graf pulled me into his arms for a long, passionate kiss. “Let’s solve this case and hie ourselves back to Zinnia. I want to go horseback riding at daybreak, and I want to make coffee and cook French toast for breakfast. I need some time with you, Sarah Booth.”
“I love you, Graf.”
“Then get busy.” He slapped my behind and pushed me toward the door.
* * *
I slipped through the door of the Periwinkle Suite to the rhythm of Marjorie’s soft snores. I listened for a moment and then left again. Tinkie’s fears ate at me. Our job at Heart’s Desire was to help Marjorie. So far, I’d discovered zip about her drowned daughter. Two women were dead, and I didn’t have a clue if Sherry Westin was a true medium or a con.
The only thing I could say for certain about Chasley was that he was handsome, arrogant, and rightfully upset with his mother. None of it made him a sister-killer or schemer. I’d wasted several days and ended up empty-handed. This was not the reputation the Delaney Detective Agency was built on. I had to engage my investigative talents. I’d spent the whole time at Heart’s Desire tracking down ghosts. In essence, I’d been sniffing the wrong trail. Amanda and Lola hadn’t been killed by ghosts. A flesh-and-blood killer stalked the halls of Heart’s Desire and it was time for me to figure out who that was. Answers were not to be found in the Periwinkle Suite.
Two doors down, I tapped lightly on Amaryllis Dill’s door. I wanted to talk to her. Privately. The door swung wide on silent hinges.
The room was a buttery yellow, the walls soft and soothing. Pale sheers floated at the open windows. In ninety-eight degree heat? Before I moved, I listened intently. While I didn’t think Amaryllis was in the room, someone else might be. I thought of Yumi slipping across the lawn to break into Amanda’s digs. What was happening at Heart’s Desire?
I was uncomfortable, but I couldn’t weasel out the door like some kind of coward. What if Amaryllis was hurt, unconscious in the bathroom or beside the bed? I took a deep breath and tiptoed into the room.
Restraining the impulse to call out to Amaryllis, I checked the off side of the bed, in the dining area, and finally in the bathroom. There was no sign of her—or anyone else.
Since she wasn’t there, I made the best of the circumstances and began a thorough search of her personal possessions. I hit pay dirt in her underwear drawer. Folded into a neat square was a newspaper clipping. I scanned the article. Linda Faver, wife of Congressman Lucas Faver, was killed in a one-car accident. Police ruled the death an accident. Mrs. Faver lost control of her car and struck an overpass abutment at a high rate of speed. So this was Amaryllis’s secret lover. She’d called him Lucas. Her ticket at Heart’s Desire wasn’t wealth but access to power. What had really happened to Linda Faver?
Perhaps a more in-depth investigation was covered in a later newspaper article, but judging from what I held in my hand and what Amaryllis had told me, I believed I could guess why she wanted to talk with the dead Linda Faver.
Coleman had to know about this. He could check with the D.C. police for additional details. If my suspicions were correct, Amaryllis was the third party in a very messy affair with a powerful congressman. Even worse, Amaryllis suspected the wife’s accidental death was no accident at all. Hence her desire to speak with Linda’s spirit.
And very possibly the reason someone tried to murder her in the spa. It was a hit. But who at Heart’s Desire would be a paid assassin?
And where in the hell was Amaryllis?
I went to close the windows and discovered sheets knotted together and dropped halfway to the ground. Amaryllis had pulled a teenager’s stunt of scrambling out the window. She could be anywhere on the grounds. And she had no protection. I took off like a scalded cat. Turning into the hallway, I smacked into Chasley.
“Whoa. Where’s the fire?” he asked as he caught my arm, partly to balance me and partly to hold me.
“Let me go.” I schooled patience into my voice.
“Looking for someone?”
“I am. Amaryllis. Have you seen her?
“She’s gone?”
“Gone. It’s a four-letter word. G-o-n-e. As in bye-bye.”
“I’m not surprised,” he said. “The way she was acting, I figured she’d blow out of here like she had fire in her pants. I presume she’s headed to Memphis. She mentioned earlier she had a plane ticket waiting.”
I didn’t believe him for a minute. All her things were still in her room. She wouldn’t leave everything, even her jewelry. She was probably still on the grounds, and likely terrified. I tried to jerk my arm free but he held on.
“Chasley, take your hands off me.”
He dropped my arm instantly. “Sorry. I have to speak with you.”
“About what?”
“Mother. I’m genuinely concerned.”
“Why? Did something happen?” He truly sounded worried.
He shifted from foot to foot. “I finally spoke with her this afternoon while everyone was busy. I think she listened.”
If it was about their screwed-up relationship, I didn’t have time. “Chasley, could we do this later?”
“No. Mother said she’d consider what I told her. But it was like she … shrank. She said the strangest thing about wasting her life. I have a bad feeling.”
“Let me find Amaryllis and then I’ll do what I can for Marjorie.”
“Please, do it now.” He grasped my elbow a little too hard and I gasped.
Out of the corner of my eye I caught movement. Not Graf or Oscar. Not Palk. The handsome devil who came to my rescue weighed only twenty-three pounds, but he
had claws and an attitude.
“Watch out!”
Confusion touched Chasley’s handsome face for a moment. Awareness dawned a second too late as Pluto launched himself at the back of Chasley’s head. Two black paws dug into Chasley’s face just below his eyes. It was like something out of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Blood spurted and Chasley screamed like a woman and dropped to his knees.
I shooed Pluto away and knelt beside Chasley to check the damage. The delicate skin above his cheekbones was bleeding, but it wasn’t a serious injury. “He thought you were hurting me.”
“The cat is a danger.”
“I’m sorry, Chasley. You aren’t seriously injured, and I promise, I’ll have a conversation with your mother. Soon.” I pushed Pluto into Marjorie’s room and set off after Amaryllis. I had to find her. I didn’t trust anything Chasley said.
* * *
Crime scene tape covered the door to the spa, which led me to believe Amaryllis wasn’t there. I’d searched the first and second floors. Tinkie took the servants’ quarters and other outbuildings, and Oscar volunteered to speak with the guards at the gate.
Not a trace of Amaryllis could be found. I couldn’t believe she’d left Heart’s Desire, but I was beginning to hope she’d somehow made good her escape. Otherwise it didn’t bode well for her safety.
I passed the front windows and realized night had fallen. Dinner would be served, and then, if patterns could be trusted, Sherry would attempt another séance. Speaking of Sherry, I wondered how Graf’s session with her was shaping up. They were locked in the library; I’d ascertained that much when I was poking around.
The underground rooms of the basement unnerved me, but that was the only place left to search. In Mississippi, normal people didn’t have basements. Too much humidity and sandy soil. I headed down the stairs.
“Sarah Booth.” A male voice called my name and I stopped.
“Oscar?”
He joined me and we descended. At the bottom of the steps, he touched my back. “Amaryllis never made it out the gate. The guards said they had orders from the sheriff not to allow anyone to leave.”
Bonefire of the Vanities Page 23