“Cheers,” she said, laughing as I hoped she would. “But seriously? Ugh. What a horrible way to get answers.”
We each took a sip of wine, and I said, “It was pretty gross. I kept wishing I’d remembered to bring rubber gloves.”
“Next time, for sure.”
“For sure.” I told her the scary details about Petsy suddenly showing up while I was trying to escape the second floor.
“Didn’t you almost die?” she asked, with a shudder and shake of her head. “I know I would’ve. She freaks me out.”
“I did just about die,” I admitted. “But then I got mad. She irritated me so much that I gave her an earful before finally walking away.” I told her the gist of the conversation with Petsy. “I’m surprised she didn’t fire me right then and there. Actually it would have been a relief to get out of doing any work for her. But I’ve thought about it and I’m afraid she’s got something else in mind.”
Amanda propped her elbows on the table. “What do you mean?”
“Doesn’t she seem like the kind of person who would plot her revenge and strike when you least expect it?”
“Oh, absolutely. So what do you think she’ll do?” She took an enthusiastic sip of wine and sat back to hear more drama. I was surprised she didn’t clap her hands excitedly and I suddenly wondered if maybe I should’ve made popcorn. And really, how lucky was it that Amanda and I had hit it off so well? Bonding over a horrible woman.
Petsy. The woman made every story seem almost operatic in scope. She was the epitome of a drama queen. And rude to boot.
I knew that Petsy would be planning some kind of revenge for my wandering around her house unaccompanied. I just couldn’t figure out what it might be, probably because I wasn’t a psycho and couldn’t read her crazy mind. I grimaced. “I don’t know, but I know she’s going to come after me in some way. I’ll just have to watch my step around her and wait to find out what she does.”
“I’m not sure I would’ve been as brave as you were. You handled her so well.”
“I was brave on the outside, but my stomach still hurts when I think about it.”
“But what you said to her was the truth,” Amanda insisted. “You were just using the bathroom.”
I laughed. “Both of us know that’s not really true, but Petsy didn’t need to know that.”
“I owe you,” Amanda said, shaking her head. “If I’d known you were going to take so much heat from Petsy, I’m not sure I would’ve let you do it.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, reaching for an olive. “Anyone who comes into contact with Petsy has to know they’ll take some kind of heat. But look on the bright side. We’ll have a story to tell our grandchildren, and that’s always worth it.”
She was silent for a few seconds, then took a sip of wine. “Can I be honest?”
“Of course.”
“Whenever I have to deal with Petsy, it makes me wonder all over again whether I really want to find out the truth or not.”
“You mean, you might not want to discover that she’s your actual birth mother?”
“Would you?” she countered, shuddering for effect again.
“Oh, no. Just thinking about that woman as a mother is enough to terrify me.”
“Me, too,” she said. “I almost can’t believe what Matthew said, about how she used to be nicer, before Lindsey was born. I can’t picture it, but I guess it’s possible. Having a kid can freak some people out.”
“And if she really is your birth mother, it means that she had to give up a child at some point. Maybe the combination of giving you up and then having another baby sent her right over the edge.”
“I hadn’t thought of that.” Her shoulders slumped. “It’s kind of an icky situation, isn’t it?”
“Sorry, but yes, it’s icky,” I said. “Still, if it’s true, it’s not written in stone that you have to have a relationship with her.”
“I know. But she would know and I would know, and it would be weird. You know?”
I chuckled. “I actually followed that reasoning.”
“I’m glad someone did.” She laughed lightly, then grabbed an olive and munched absently for a moment. “It would be nice if Matthew was my father and Lindsey was my sister.”
“The three of you would make a lovely family,” I said.
“I think so, too. Of course, Lindsey and I couldn’t look like sisters if we tried.” She gave me a wry smile and a shrug.
I stared at her face and nodded. “That’s true. You two are like night and day. But at least she’s a nice girl.”
“It’s the one part of the equation that I don’t get. If the Jorgensens really are my parents, how did those two people give birth to both of us?”
I shrugged. “I have a sister who’s blond, but we still look enough alike to be part of the same family. But you and Lindsey? Not so much. Anything’s possible, though. Who knows what their parents and grandparents look like?”
“Good point.” She sighed. “You know, if I find out she really is my sister, I’d want her to stay in Lighthouse Cove.”
“You mean, not go back to San Francisco?” I thought about it. “I’m not sure you’ll get your wish there.”
“I’m not, either,” she said, frowning.
We nibbled on nuts and cheese and sipped our wine for a moment; then Amanda sighed again. “Families can be so bizarre.”
The tone of her voice made me wonder. “You’re not second-guessing yourself again, are you?”
She glanced at me. “Do you mean, questioning whether I want to find my birth parents?”
“Yeah, because I’ve got a bag of hair in my pocket that says you need to have some faith in the process.”
She laughed and then nodded resolutely. “No way am I changing my mind. I’m in this to the bitter end.” She made a face. “And if Petsy turns out to be my mother, it’ll really be bitter.”
I smiled sympathetically and sipped my wine, hoping like heck that the bitter end wouldn’t be too bitter. But knowing was better than not knowing, right?
• • •
It was almost dinnertime and I was heating up some of my homemade chicken vegetable soup when Jane called. “Shannon, you’ve got to get over here.”
Normally Jane was cool and calm and about as dependable as the sunrise. At the moment, though, she sounded frantic. “I can tell you’re upset. What’s wrong?”
“Oh God, Shannon.” Her voice dropped to a throaty whisper. “One of my guests is . . . She’s dead.”
I shook my head, unsure if I’d heard her correctly. “What? That can’t be true. Who’s dead?”
“Mrs. Samson,” Jane said, sniffling between words. “The woman you met.”
“What?” I couldn’t believe it. She had been so full of life when I met her. “Did you call the police?”
“Yes. I spoke to Eric. He said they’d be here soon, but could you come over now?”
I turned the fire off under my soup. “Are you all right?”
“Not really. You always handle these things better than I do.”
Well, of course I did, I thought. Because I had found, according to my friends, nine dead bodies. Sigh. “I’ll be right there.”
• • •
On the drive over, I considered Jane’s statement that I always handled these things better than she did. It made me wonder all over again. What did it say about me that my friends thought I was comfortable around a dead body? It wasn’t true! On the other hand, I reminded myself, my friends thought me a strong, capable woman. So that was good, right?
The fact that they kept track of the dead bodies should’ve been a clue that they might’ve been considering my proclivity for finding murder victims some kind of bizarre superpower. I knew they’d been teasing me at lunch, but still . . . I was getting a reputation. Pretty soon, nobody woul
d want to be my friend, because everybody knew I seemed to attract trouble. Who wants to hang around someone like that?
I was thoroughly depressed when I pulled to the curb in front of the Hennessey Inn. Taking a few deep breaths, I mentally slapped myself to snap out of it and jumped down from the truck. I didn’t see any black-and-white police cars around and I wondered where they were. I ran to the front door and walked inside and saw Jane immediately. I could see her fighting to maintain a calm exterior and knew it was for the sake of her other guests.
I gave her a quick hug. “What happened?”
“Oh God.” Glancing around at the half dozen guests in her front parlor, she murmured, “Not here. Let’s go to my room.” She pulled me upstairs and into her suite, where she began to pace the floor.
“And where are the police?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Eric called again. There’s a pileup out on the highway.”
“Oh, that’s terrible.” But not unexpected. Tourists flocked to this part of California all year long, and some of them were so busy looking at the scenery, they weren’t watching the road. Every local I knew drove their car so defensively, they were ready for anything.
“Tommy called after I spoke to Eric. He said they would get here as soon as they can. But meanwhile, Shannon, my guest is dead. It’s so awful.”
Okay, I had to calm Jane down enough so that I could get some information. If it was wrong of me to be a little glad that I’d beaten Eric here, well, no one else had to know that.
“Tell me what happened.”
“You know how I installed those cute little televisions in each of the bathrooms so my guests can watch their favorite shows while taking a bubble bath?”
I smiled. “Jane, I helped you install them, remember?”
“Oh, that’s right. I’m not thinking straight.” She waved her hands in the air as if to change the energy. “So, anyway, apparently Loretta was taking a bath and somehow both the hair dryer and the TV fell into the water. I don’t know how it happened. I guess she somehow yanked on the cords or they got caught on something, because both of them went tumbling in.”
A TV and a hair dryer fell into a tub? What were the chances of that kind of accident happening? I was getting a bad feeling here. “How did you find out?”
“She had asked for some recipes from my chef, so I went up to give them to her. I knocked on the door and she didn’t answer, but I hadn’t seen her go out. I just knew she was in there. So I opened the door and called her name. There was no response so I walked in.”
I winced. Now I understood why the usually unflappable Jane was, well . . . flapped. “And you found her.”
Dismayed, Jane pressed her hands to her cheeks. “Shannon, she was electrocuted in the tub.”
I had to stand up and take a few breaths myself. Hearing about it was one thing. Hearing it from my friend while looking into her teary eyes was another. I could actually feel Jane’s distress and share it. “That’s just too horrible to contemplate. I’m so sorry.”
But the more I thought about it, the more my construction site training kicked in and I realized something wasn’t right about Jane’s story.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” she said, looking exhausted as she leaned against the wall. “I just wish Eric would get here. I don’t know what to do. I hate to leave her there in the bathtub. I mean, it’s such an indignity.”
I hesitated, then asked, “Do you mind if I take a quick look around?”
She stared at me. “You mean, you want to look around her bathroom?”
I knew it sounded ghoulish, but honestly, being able to check out a potential crime scene before Eric showed up was a big deal for me. Besides, I had helped build this place and I knew it from top to bottom. Maybe I could figure out what was bothering me and help out the police at the same time. “Yes, I do. Just for a minute. I’ll be out of there before Eric shows up.”
“Um, okay, I guess. I just feel bad that . . . well, she’s dead. And, oh God. I mean, she’s naked.”
“I understand,” I said gently. “I’m not going to be looking at her. But I took extra precautions when I installed that TV and I want to see how in the world it ended up in the tub.”
And that was true. I remembered how extra careful we had been to tuck the TV into its own special place on the counter. At an early age, I had learned how potentially hazardous it was to have electrical appliances near a bathtub. But these days, things were different. Jane had actually tracked down waterproof TV sets that swiveled. I had suggested mounting them on the wall, but she thought having them on the counter would allow her guests to watch their favorite shows from wherever they happened to be in the bathroom.
“Okay, let’s hurry,” she said.
We scurried down the hall to the Ophelia suite. It spoke to Jane’s romantic nature that she had named each of her rooms after Shakespeare’s heroines. I had a grim thought that the Ophelia room was suddenly living up to its name.
Jane unlocked the door, walked in, and crossed the room. The bathroom door was open.
“Is this how you found it?” I asked, pointing toward the bathroom. “Was that door open?”
“Yes.”
It might not mean anything, I thought. Some people probably didn’t care. But if it were me, even if I were alone in my suite, I would close the bathroom door to take a bath. You never knew when housekeeping might walk right in to put a piece of chocolate on your pillow.
And then I remembered that Loretta Samson had been staying here with a man. Were they sharing this suite or did he have his own room? Either way, I had to wonder where he had gone off to.
I stepped into the luxurious bathroom and glanced around. It was impossible to avoid the sight of the dead woman in the beautifully restored claw-foot tub, but I tried, staring instead at the outlet where the television set was still plugged in. The hair dryer was plugged into a different outlet, closer to the tub.
Had she lost her balance and pulled at the cords?
Why would the hair dryer be plugged in so close to the bathtub? It wasn’t as if she were going to blow-dry her hair while she was bathing. The more logical plug to use would have been the one closer to the mirror.
Shaking my head, I wondered if she’d planned to use the hot air to keep warm while she dried off. It was something I’d seen a friend do in college. I still thought it was a little weird, but maybe I was in the minority.
Water was puddled on the floor and the bath mat was damp. Had there been a struggle of some kind? Could the police get a footprint off of the rug? With that possibility in mind, I avoided stepping on it, then braced myself and took a look inside the tub.
There had been bubbles, but most had dissipated, with just a few remnants around the edge of the tub. Finally I couldn’t help it. I looked at Loretta Samson. She lay on her back, her face just beneath the surface of the water. Her long, wavy hair floated on top of the water, creating an eerie, undulating halo effect. She was still lovely, even in death. I recalled our conversation and how much I’d liked her. There was rarely a good way to die, but this was definitely a bad way.
The hair dryer cord was wrapped loosely around her neck. Had it been used to strangle her? What an odd choice, I thought. The TV lay upside down and cockeyed by her knees.
Two electrical appliances in the water? And yet she probably died of strangulation. I stared at the unnerving scenario for a few more seconds, then murmured, “Let’s go.”
Jane breathed a sigh of relief beside me.
I followed her out of the bathroom and across the small living room, but stopped when I noticed a woman’s purse on the chair and what looked like an appointment book on the end table. “Jane, wait.”
Using the tweezers I always carried, I gingerly opened the book to today’s date. There were no afternoon or evening appointments listed. Just two big dollar signs. Was she
planning to receive a check from someone today? Was there some deal in the works? Was she buying or selling property? Was she stealing government secrets?
My imagination was flying free and I had to shake it off before I went nuts.
“We need to get out of here,” Jane whispered.
“Right.” I carefully closed the book and followed her out. “I’ll meet you back in your room,” I said. “I want to check to see if the circuit breakers were tripped.”
“I’ll make us some tea.”
“Sounds good.” I jogged downstairs and into the kitchen, where the main electrical box was kept. Even though the bathroom plugs were equipped with ground fault circuit interrupters, or GFCIs, I was still concerned that someone might have deliberately tripped a breaker in order to electrocute Loretta Samson. But everything looked hunky-dory—no breakers had been tripped—so I closed the box and ran back up to Jane’s suite.
She had made us each a cup of tea and pulled out a few cookies to snack on. My stomach growled and I realized I was hungry. I thought longingly of the pot of homemade soup sitting on my stove. Cookies would have to suffice for now.
“Tell me more about Loretta Samson,” I said.
“You saw how nice she was,” Jane said. “Very friendly. And don’t you think she’s gorgeous?”
“She’s beautiful.”
Jane sighed. “Curvy, with big blue eyes and the sort of dark, wavy hair that you just wash and wear, you know? Sort of like yours.”
“I don’t wash and wear mine,” I said ruefully. “It takes me an hour to dry it enough to barely manage it.”
“Oh, but you know what I mean. I think all those curls are so sexy. Anyway, she’s really smart, too. She might be some sort of high-powered businesswoman. She dresses beautifully.”
I knew Jane didn’t realize she was describing the woman in the present tense, but I wasn’t going to mention it. She was upset enough as it was.
“You don’t know what she does for a living?”
“No, I never asked and she never told me.”
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