Amber Reed Mysteries Volume One: Romantic Comedy Mystery Series Box Set (Amber Reed Celebrity Crimes Investigation Agency Mystery Box Set Book 1)

by Zanna Mackenzie

  “Oh, drama! What was all that about?” Esme asks eagerly as I join her at the table. “We’re not going to get thrown out, are we?”

  I slump into a chair. “No. Everything is fine.”

  “If you say so. What do you want to drink anyway? Shall we go up to the bar and start our interrogation of the barman?”

  “Michael,” I say, as I push to my feet.

  Esme frowns.

  “That’s the barman’s name,” I explain. “It says so on his nametag.”

  She nods. “Oh, right. So let’s go quiz Michael and see if we can find out anything useful.”

  “Good evening, ladies. What can I get you to drink?” the barman asks, quickly returning to his post as we approach. “Champagne perhaps?”

  “Yes, please,” Esme says, obviously forgetting her earlier order of cider.

  “Er, maybe we should stick to something non-alcoholic,” I lower my voice and say to her. “And something cheaper. We can’t put this on expenses and I can’t afford champagne, especially not in a place like this, where it’s probably Dom Perignon or something.”

  The barman clears his throat. “Er, I believe the drinks are on the gentleman,” he says smoothly.

  I lean forward. “Which gentleman?”

  “The one from room number two,” he replies with just a hint of a smirk.

  He knows Charlie isn’t actually staying in room two. I can hardly confirm that I know he isn’t staying in room two as well, so I don’t pursue the line of questioning. It must have been Charlie who offered to pay anyway. James wouldn’t have felt it to be appropriate in the circumstances. When did Charlie have the chance to organise drinks before he left?

  “Now that we’ve established who is paying, let’s establish what they’re paying for, shall we?” Esme says enthusiastically. “If lover boy is footing the bill then I’ll go for champagne please.”

  I reach out, placing a hand on the barman’s arm. “I’m not sure.”

  “We have several different champagnes, madam. I’m sure we can find one to suit…”

  I shake my head. “No, sorry, I didn’t mean I wasn’t sure about which drink. I meant…” I tug at Esme’s hand. “Can we have a quick word?”

  She throws me a curious look, shrugs and follows me away from the bar. “What’s up?”

  “I don’t think we should accept Charlie’s offer to buy our drinks.”

  “Why not?” she asks, tilting her head questioningly.

  “It just doesn’t seem right. We’re here to work and…” I stop, not wanting to share my worry that Charlie might be here for a reason other than a kiss and catch-up session. That he might be here to fix my case success. “Let’s just get our own drinks, OK?”

  “If you insist,” she says, heading back towards the bar.

  “We’ll pay for our own drinks, thanks anyway,” I say to the barman who looks confused, as well he might.

  Michael nods. “As you wish, madam.”

  I clamber onto a barstool. “I’ll have an apple juice please. Esme, what do you want to drink?”

  “Champagne is what I want to drink,” she says. “Can’t I accept Charlie’s offer to pay for my drinks even if you, for some reason, don’t want him buying yours?”

  I shake my head and she sighs, turning to the barman. “Can I have a mineral water please? Ice and a slice.”

  Michael nods and heads off to get our drinks.

  “So, what’s with you and lover boy? Did you have a tiff or something?” she asks, resting an elbow on the bar and watching Taylor and the others over my shoulder.

  “No, nothing like that. I’m just worried that he might…”

  The barman returns with our drinks in record time and sets them in front of us on small, gold mats featuring the hotel’s name and logo.

  “Anything else I can help you with this evening?” he asks.

  “Yes, actually there is,” I reply. “The wedding that should have taken place at the hotel earlier today, were you involved with it?”

  He nods. “I was due to work in the marquee today serving drinks.”

  “The wedding party arrived a day or so ago, didn’t they? Did you speak to the bride at all?”

  He nods. “Yes, I did. The day they arrived she came into the bar alone in the afternoon. I think the groom was meeting with the hotel manager to finalise some details. The rest of the wedding party hadn’t arrived at that point.”

  I fidget in my seat. “And how did she seem to you? What did she say?”

  “Are you friends of the bride?” he asks warily.

  Esme nods. “Yes. Friends. That’s right. We were all at school together.”

  “I see. Well, she did seem a bit…” He pauses, clearly searching for the right adjective to describe the bride-to-be’s behaviour.

  “Yes?” Esme and I lean forward in rapt attention.

  “Well, I’d say she seemed as though she had a lot on her mind,” the barman eventually replies. “She looked anxious and worried.”

  “Did she say much to you?” I ask.

  “No, but she did take a call on her mobile phone whilst she was in the bar, and as it was quiet at the time,” he blushes slightly, “well, I did overhear a few snippets of what she was saying.”

  “And?” Esme prompts.

  The barman straightens up to his full height. “I must assure you that the privacy of our guests is of utmost importance here at the Roseby.”

  Esme waves a hand in dismissal. “Yes. Yes. We know all that stuff. Tell us what you heard.”

  He clears his throat. “Well, I seem to recall she said something about, not long now.”

  “Not long now for what?” I ask, shooting a querying look at Esme, who shrugs and turns back to the barman.

  “I’m afraid I don’t know,” he says, now polishing an already pristine glass with a cloth as he speaks. “Knowing when to be discreet is all part of a bartender’s job, especially in an establishment like this where we have a good proportion of celebrities as guests.”

  Now is so not the time for our barman to go all coy on us. I wonder if he’s angling for money in exchange for information. Are we allowed to offer an incentive for this man to tell us exactly what Poppy said when she was in this bar? What would Charlie or James do in this situation? Would they discreetly tuck a few ten pound notes under a drinks mat and slide it across to the barman? Would they go down the route of being all imposing and threatening? Well, whichever of those they might do, neither option is realistically open to me. I can’t be imposing or threatening. Based on her earlier performance with Mitch, Esme probably could, though I don’t particularly want the poor barman to become another victim of her wrestling moves. And I don’t have anything more than a solitary five pound note in my purse which, let’s face it, is not going to go very far in the bribery stakes.

  “Did she say anything else?” Esme persists.

  “I hate that,” he eventually replies.

  “Sorry? Hate what?” I say, glancing around for something the barman might have taken offence to - besides our persistent questioning of him.

  He places the polished glass on the bar. “That’s what the bride said when she was on the phone that day in the bar. She said, I hate that.”

  He takes a step back and nods his head slightly. “Sorry, I don’t think I can be of any further help to you this evening on this matter. Normally we would put drinks onto the bill for a guest’s suite but, as you ladies are not staying at the Roseby, I’m afraid I’m going to have to trouble you for payment.” He coughs and pushes a piece of paper across the bar towards us, looking a little embarrassed.

  I reach into the pocket of my jeans for my one and only money, my five pound note. As I was whisked away on this case with just ten minutes to pack, I didn’t have time to visit a cash machine. Not that there is one within a fifty mile radius of the agency training camp anyway. I reach for the bar bill and turn the piece of paper over, nearly choking. That much for two non-alcoholic drinks? Seriously?

>   I turn to Esme and whisper, “Have you got any money on you?”

  She nods and pulls a ten pound note from her pocket, placing it on top of the bill and pushing it across towards our friendly bartender. He hesitates, then pushes it back, looking at me. I add my own five pound note to Esme’s ten pounds. She gasps and flashes me a look of incredulity. Clearly she can’t believe the prices in this place either.

  As we sip our drinks, the only other guests in the bar get up to leave. Lottie links her arm through Taylor’s in a friendly gesture as they walk out.

  “Do you think they’re calling it a night and all heading back to their rooms, or are they going to go off somewhere else to drown their pretend sorrows?”

  “No idea,” Esme says, then drains her drink. “Why?”

  “I was just wondering if we could go and knock on the door of Dorothea’s suite and ask her what things Poppy hated.” I glance at the clock above the bar. “But it’s getting late in the evening as it is.”

  “Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” she replies, sliding off the bar stool. “And time is not on our side. Let’s go and see if Dorothea’s in her room, shall we?”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Time now: 22:30

  Time to deadline: 19 hours and 30 minutes

  Esme knocks on the door to Dorothea’s suite and we wait, listening for any sounds she might have retired for the evening.

  I want to get my teeth into this investigation and find out who kidnapped the bride and why. Not to mention that the clock is ticking more and more loudly on our deadline. Ideally I’d like to catch this kidnapper before we run out of our allotted time - which is dwindling fast. I can’t believe Mitch isn’t here with us, trying to solve this case as well. Instead, he’s off in search of food. My stomach rumbles loudly. This investigating business is hungry work.

  The door opens and Dorothea stands before us, dressed in a bathrobe. “Yes?”

  “Sorry to bother you so late in the day,” Esme says. “But some additional information about Poppy has just come to light and we wondered if you could spare us five minutes to answer some questions?”

  Dorothea nods and steps back to let us into her room. “Of course, I’ll do anything I can to help you to find my daughter.”

  “What did she hate?” Esme blurts out.

  Dorothea frowns. “Hate? How do you mean?”

  “We have reports of an overheard telephone conversation in which Poppy said, I hate that. We need to know what that thing could have been,” I chip in. “It might be relevant to the case or it might not. Anything you can think of which could help us would be much appreciated though.”

  “Shouldn’t Agent Hargreaves be here with you? Isn’t he leading this case?” she asks, perching on the edge of the four poster bed in her room.

  “He’s, er, indisposed at the moment,” Esme replies hastily. “He’s busy investigating another angle on the case.”

  Dorothea nods but looks sceptical.

  “So, what kind of things would Poppy tell somebody she hates?” I prompt.

  “There’s a few things,” Dorothea replies, looking thoughtful and smoothing a hand over the silk throw on the bed as she speaks. “Whisky. She hates whisky. I remember Taylor wanted a whisky coffee for the end of the meal at the wedding reception but she was dead against it.”

  I nod, open my notebook and start writing everything down. Whisky. “Anything else? You mentioned there were a few things she hated.”

  “Salmon,” Dorothea adds. “Of course, the hotel offered us several menu choices for the wedding meal and salmon was amongst them. Poppy insisted there would be no salmon at this wedding.”

  “What else did she hate?” Esme asks, pacing the room.

  “A perfume. It’s called La Isla Del Mar. She can’t stand the smell of it. In fact, her friend Lottie… You know her, don’t you? She’s one of the bridesmaids. Well, Lottie bought a bottle of it for her birthday last year and it set Poppy off in a terrible sneezing fit. I think she might have some sort of allergy to it.”

  “La Isla Del Mar, that sounds like Spanish,” I check, raising a questioning eyebrow.

  “That’s right,” Esme beams at me and nods enthusiastically. “It means island of the sea, I know Spanish pretty well. I lived in Barcelona for a while.”

  “You did? Wow! OK, great.” Turning to Dorothea I add, “Is there anything else Poppy hated? Maybe there’s something you’ve remembered about Poppy and her relationships with Taylor or with David and you want to tell us about it? Anything you can think of which could help us to catch who kidnapped her?”

  “Not at the moment,” Dorothea says, tightening her robe around herself.

  I watch as she walks over to the window and stares out into the dark night. There are no other properties around the hotel. It stands, all alone, amongst the woodland, hills and lakes. Other than the lights which are artistically illuminating the trees in the Roseby’s acres and acres of grounds, there is no sign of life out there. The lake is dark. The surrounding hills are dark. A shiver runs through me and I gulp back a mix of scary thoughts and anxiety about passing this assignment.

  “I can’t stand the idea of her being out there, taken by somebody, held against her will. I just want her here with me and safe.” Dorothea reaches for a box of tissues on the dressing table and sniffs back tears. “You will find her soon, won’t you?”

  Esme walks over and rests an arm around Dorothea’s shoulders. “You can count on it.”

  We leave Dorothea to get some sleep and head back to the staff quarters. In the kitchen I start to make us both mugs of hot chocolate. Esme gets to work on the internet as I spoon cocoa powder into two mugs. After making the drinks I place them on the dining table and sit beside Esme as we trawl through all of the search results popping up on the computer.

  “Nothing,” she says about twenty minutes later before flopping back in her chair. “There’s nothing in this area relating to salmon or whisky. The perfume isn’t made in England either. We’ve got zilch.”

  “So, what now? We’ve checked on the internet for any local whisky distillers or distributors and there aren’t any. There are no fishmongers or salmon farms around here. No leads on the perfume either.” I sigh. “Even so, I suppose we really should share what we’ve found out from the barman and from Dorothea, with Mitch. Shouldn’t we?”

  Esme shrugs and looks irritated. “He’s not exactly playing fair with us though, is he? He’s not shared what agency HQ has told him from the background search he requested for David Smith, has he?”

  “True.” I chew on my bottom lip. “Even so, I think we should probably try to get him back on side, don’t you? This thing with him being difficult, well, it could be a part of the assignment. A test to see how we cope with a challenging agent working on a case. It could just be the way he is though, I suppose.”

  “It could well be, but how do the assessors want us to react if it is a part of the test? Do they want us to play nice and make friends with him? Are we supposed to try to win him round? Or do they want to see if we can break away, stand up for ourselves, and solve the case without his help?” Esme ponders.

  I pick up our empty mugs and head for the sink to wash them. “I don’t know what they want us to do.”

  The kitchen door opens and we both turn to see Mitch. He’s wearing jeans and a coat damp with rain. All this time he’s been out somewhere? But he didn’t have any transport.

  “Evening, girls,” he says, walking towards us. “Making a drink? I could use a coffee if you’re offering.”

  “We’re not,” Esme immediately replies.

  So much for playing nice then.

  “Been out?” I ask, reaching for a mug to actually make him a coffee. I’m prepared to be the one to offer the olive branch to try and get our working relationship back on track.

  He nods. “Yeah, into town.”

  “You found transport then,” I say, tipping coffee granules into a mug. Across the room Esme glowers at him.
r />   “Got the hotel to order me a taxi. Had a nice meal in an Indian restaurant and a few beers.”

  “Right, well, that sounds good.” I hand him the mug. “One coffee.”

  He surprises me by smiling. “Thank you, Amber. That’s very kind of you.”

  Whoa. Where did that come from? Has he decided to be polite to us or does he turn into Mr. Nice Guy when he’s had a bit of something alcoholic to drink? I still struggle to believe, especially when we’ve got such a tight deadline for this assignment, that he’s off filling his face with food and drinking.

  “Why didn’t you tell us what you’ve found out about David Smith?” Esme demands, getting to her feet, one hand gripping the back of her chair so tightly her knuckles are white. “Amber and I are supposed to be a part of this investigation and nothing you can do or say will stop us from helping to solve this case and catch the kidnapper. You do realise that, don’t you?”

  Mitch sips his coffee then sits at the kitchen table, a smirk on his face. “Determined, aren’t we?”

  “You bet we are,” Esme says, resting both hands on the table now and leaning towards him. “And don’t you forget it.”

  He smirks again. “OK. I’ll share, but I get the feeling you’ll have something to trade with me if you’re both so determined to solve this case and get a job offer from the agency. Deal?”

  I step forward and offer Mitch a hand to shake. “Deal.”

  “OK then. I doubt it was David Smith who kidnapped our wannabe bride.”

  “And why is that?” Esme demands, glowering at him.

  “Because agency support checked with passport control when they ran the expedited background check I requested, and David Smith isn’t even in the UK at the moment. He flew from Heathrow to Spain three days before Poppy was kidnapped. He checked into the Hotel City in Madrid and has been staying there ever since.”

  “Oh,” I say, feeling deflated. So David isn’t our man then. Which begs the question, who is? It looks as though we’re back at square one.

  “So, come on then,” Mitch says, stretching long legs out in front of him. “What did you two find out? It’s time to share, don’t forget.”