by Diane Noble
“Does she have much say-so in the everyday running of the business?”
“Not a lot, but when ratings are down, she gets agitated and becomes very hands-on. Newt can be a bear to work with, but she makes him look like an angel.”
Kate chuckled. “It sounds like they deserved each other.”
Susannah laughed with her. “She keeps him on a pretty tight financial leash. She figures she was a partner with him in the Taste Network start-up, and she wants every bit of the revenue it generates now.”
“Quite a divorce settlement.”
Susannah nodded. “It was before my time, but it’s still talked about when ratings start to slip.”
“Are they slipping now?”
“It’s hard to tell. They were soaring just a few months ago, but Newt’s lost some good chefs because of how he treated them. Ratings dipped as a result. He’s made no bones about the reason he chose the Hamilton Springs for an off-site show.”
“The ghost. Which makes for intrigue—and publicity.”
“Exactly.”
“What about any romantic alliance—with someone else, I mean? Is the former Mrs. Keller the jealous type?”
Susannah thought for a minute. “I wouldn’t say so, but there have been rumors...”
“Of him being romantically involved with someone?”
“No, nothing like that. Of Jacqueline stalking him.”
Kate’s eyebrow shot up. “You’re kidding.”
“Not at all. But it has more to do with how he spends his money than anything else. Seems it’s become an obsession with her. Rumor has it that she’s followed him to car dealerships, clothing stores, jewelers, that sort of thing.”
“Is it public record? I mean, he didn’t have to get a court order to stop her, did he?”
“Not that I know of. As I said, it’s a rumor. It’s possible he’s made false accusations against her. I don’t know anyone who’s actually witnessed Jacqueline stalking him.”
Kate let the new information sink in. “Do you see her as someone who might act on her annoyance, or even anger, with him?”
“The Hummer is new, and that might have caused her some grief. But honestly, though it was expensive, I can’t imagine she would try to do him in over something like that.”
Do him in? Kate thought about that for a minute. For some reason, she kept returning to the idea that he was abducted, not worse. “I saw a photograph of Newt with Nicolette. It was taken at an awards ceremony. They looked very chummy.”
“I know they’ve dated, but I don’t know if it’s anything more than that.”
Kate and Susannah hugged good-bye, then Kate watched her friend head toward the stairs to return to her room. The slope of her shoulders told the real story. The worry of what was to come with the investigation seemed to be weighing heavily on her.
And the new information about Newt and his ex-wife added complicated new dots to those Kate was already trying to connect...but getting nowhere.
She turned toward the hotel exit but sensed that someone was watching her. Before reaching for the door, she glanced toward the doorway leading to the Taste studio.
Nicolette Pascal, head tilted back slightly, gave her a slight smile and toodled a wave with her fingers.
But that wasn’t what made Kate shudder. It was the cold, calculating look in her eyes. A look of warning. And with it, the same frigid breeze she felt earlier.
She met Nicolette’s unblinking gaze for just an instant. Then the corner of Nicolette’s mouth quirked into a mysterious half smile. And with a graceful twirl of her skirt, she crossed the foyer with the confidence of a runway model, high heels tapping across the polished wood floors.
Chapter Thirteen
Pirates, that’s what!” Renee narrowed her eyes as she peered into the dark night toward the creek. “Modern-day pirates. I saw something similar on CSI. No ghosts at all; that’s why the boat is there. The question now is, what are they stealing and why?”
Renee trotted between Kate and Sybil as they headed from the hotel along the path leading to the creek. Her new army-surplus night-vision binoculars swung from a strap around her neck, and her small camera was at the ready. Kisses growled from his carrier, a backpack she wore slung over one shoulder.
Kate hadn’t expected to see Renee when she arrived to hold vigil with Sybil, but apparently Renee had overheard Kate tell Sybil she would be out to investigate the ghost that night.
Sybil stopped and gave Renee another of her annoyed looks. “A pirate wouldn’t have pushed my guest down the stairs last night. I doubt that pirates—modern or not—have anything to do with this.”
“The rowboat’s significant, believe you me,” Renee said with equal annoyance in her expression. “And you might want to see if anything in the hotel is missing. China from the Bristol, silver service—”
“Shh,” Kate whispered. “Listen!”
The faintest sound came from the direction of the hotel, and the three women turned to look.
It was the sound of a sudden wind. Shutters banged, and tree limbs bent with the force of it. It was as if the wind’s source was somewhere in the hotel...but that was impossible.
The hair on the back of Kate’s neck stood on end.
The sound whistled and whirled, then just as quickly as it started, it died down.
“Oh my,” Sybil said, her voice shaking.
“I doubt that pirates could do that,” Renee breathed, the tremor in her voice even more pronounced than Sybil’s.
Kate swallowed hard. “I’m going in—”
But before she could finish, the parking-lot lights blinked off and on, then off again. The lights in the hotel did the same. From inside his carrier, Kisses growled ominously.
“Oh dear,” breathed Renee, turning in a slow circle. “Look at that, would you? The lights in town...”
Kate followed her gaze and gasped. “...are off,” she finished. “I wonder if the whole town is without power.” She started to dial Paul on her cell but had punched in only three numbers when, behind her, Sybil uttered a little cry.
She turned back toward the hotel, almost afraid to look.
There, on the second floor, just as before, a ghostly figure seemed to float behind flickering candlelight. This time, it was clear the figure was female, and she wore a wedding gown and veil.
Kate’s heart pounded against her ribs, and she caught her breath. “I...I don’t believe in such things,” she said to the others, mustering her courage. “I’m going to march right up there this minute. Anyone who wants to can come along.”
Renee and Sybil exchanged worried glances, then Renee shrugged. “I’m in.”
“I hate to admit it, but I don’t want to stay out here in the dark alone,” Sybil said.
On their way to the entrance, Kate called Paul, who confirmed that the power had gone out at their house as well. At the same time, Renee called her mother, who said the lights had flickered and gone out at their home.
“Nothing in here,” Kate whispered several minutes later, aiming the beam of her penlight into the first of the three rooms where the ghost had appeared, the room nearest the laundry room.
Sybil and Renee then followed her to the next room.
“Nor here,” she said after giving the room a cursory scan with the light.
Then they stepped into the third room, the room with all the tables and chairs, and looked in, following the beam of Kate’s penlight. Nothing seemed to have been disturbed since the first time Kate examined the room. Renee and Sybil returned to the hallway, which still held the odd chill Sybil described earlier.
Kate reached for the door handle, then as she swung the beam around for one last look, she spotted a mark on the conference table.
She moved closer. The table was just dusty enough to show a hint of a footprint. The print was small, probably made by a woman, and the imprint was only of the toe of a shoe. She had seen the imprint before. It was made by a ballet slipper.
The ot
her women returned to the room and peered over her shoulder. They stared at the footprint for a moment, then Renee reached for her camera and snapped a picture. She sniffed when the other two gave her a quizzical look, and said, “It will come in handy for the investigation.”
“Room 213,” Kate said, looking down the hallway a moment later. “Newt Keller’s room?”
Sybil looked embarrassed and didn’t answer right away. Finally, she nodded and said, “Yes. The reporter was right. That’s his room.”
“Why did the reservations people put him here? I thought these were unused rooms.” Kate took a few steps closer to the closed door and fixed her penlight beam on the room number. “It’s the room Precious McFie died in, and this wing of the hotel is thought to be haunted by her ghost. Yet you still assigned him room 213?”
“He requested it,” Sybil said quietly.
Kate blinked. “He requested it?”
“And he asked me to keep his room number confidential. When a guest makes that kind of a request, I honor it. That’s why I didn’t tell you before.”
Renee frowned, staring at the door. “Maybe he’s into séances. I saw that once on a Law and Order episode. Turned out to be a setup. The perp just did it to get rid of—”
“Wait!” Kate held a finger to her lips. “Do you hear that?”
Kisses growled from inside his carrier, then whined and growled again as a shutter banged against a wall outside the room with the footprint.
“The wind,” Kate whispered. “It’s back.”
Just then the lights flickered, buzzed, then stayed on. Kate put her shoulders back and smiled. “A simple power outage, that’s all.” Her knees obviously didn’t get the message. They had turned to jelly again.
Chapter Fourteen
Strange about the power outage last night,” Paul said over their morning coffee. “Sam said it was out at his place too.”
“That doesn’t seem so strange,” Kate said, leaning back and holding a warm mug between both hands. “If a car hit a power pole or some such thing, the blackout would have been localized.”
“Sam said he heard the power company can’t determine the cause. It’s also odd that the entire grid wasn’t involved—which normally would be the case.”
“Grid?”
“It has to do with a big maplike board the power-company dispatchers use to route electricity through the region. Certain areas are linked together in sections called grids. This outage happened without involving the entire grid for our area.”
Kate took a sip of coffee. “I refuse to believe the lights went out because of ghost activity.”
Paul laughed. “I agree, but it is bizarre.”
“I know I keep saying this, but there’s got to be a logical explanation for these weird occurrences.” She took another sip of coffee, then put down her mug. “Plus I have the uncanny feeling that Newt Keller’s disappearance and Precious McFie’s appearance are connected somehow.” She stood to get the coffeemaker carafe and refill their mugs. “I just can’t connect the dots.”
She sat down again, and Paul put his hand over hers. “I worry about you getting so involved with this. And I worry you’re not getting the rest you need. You’re up and at it early every morning, off to the tapings or to sleuth. Sometimes both.”
“It’s Susannah,” she said. “I can’t stop until I find the real suspect.” She leaned forward. “Paul, she may be arrested...”
He frowned. “Has the investigation gone that far?”
“I don’t think so, but Sheriff Roberts did tell her not to leave town. It was quite a blow. She had intended to leave right after the shoot was done.” She studied Paul’s face, almost as if the answers might be written in his eyes. “If she’s arrested, Paul...”
“For a while you thought she might be guilty.”
“It hurts me to say this, but the jury is still out. She seems to be holding things back, which troubles me. On the other hand, I’ve been around her for a week, seen her in all kinds of interactions—both good and bad—and I can’t imagine she could have done anything to harm Newt Keller. It’s just not in her, Paul.” She paused and took another sip of coffee.
Paul grinned. “Do I see a look in your eye that says you may be onto something?”
“Not really—at least, nothing concrete. Just that smattering of unconnected dots, maybe some possible theories, some people around her who seem ready to set her up, then there’s the research I’ve done online...” She ruffled Paul’s hair, then leaned over to kiss his cheek. “All this means I’ve got to dig deeper to get to the truth. It also means I won’t rest until I find out the truth.”
Paul quirked a brow. “Ah, more cookies?”
She ruffled his hair again. “Sorry, big guy, not this time. It means I’m off to the Chronicle office to do more sleuthing.”
“The Chronicle?”
“Or, as the town paper was known many years ago, the Copper Mill Bugle.”
KATE ARRIVED AT THE NEWSPAPER OFFICE just before ten. A low, rhythmic rumble echoed across the hillside just as she exited the Honda. It was distant at first, then grew louder. Kate looked up.
A helicopter appeared from behind a bank of clouds in the west, circled the town about a thousand feet off the ground, then headed northeast along the creek. It was obviously part of a search effort for Newt Keller. The chopper whipped its way along, hovering for minutes at a time before moving forward again.
Kate watched it for a few minutes before reaching the entrance to the Chronicle building. Just as she did, her cell phone buzzed. She stepped to one side of the door and flipped her phone open.
“Kate,” breathed Renee. “Did you hear the chopper?”
Kate couldn’t help smiling. When CSI or Law and Order weren’t on, Renee probably watched MASH reruns.
“I did. It just flew over the Chronicle office.”
“Rattled the dishes here,” Renee said. “Mama almost dove under the table.” She dropped her voice. “But that’s not why I called. I just talked to my neighbor Lola...”
Renee’s personal grapevine was alive and well. Kate smiled as she waited to hear what Lola had heard from her sister, who heard it from Skip Spencer’s mother, who heard it from Deputy Spencer—the usual order of communication in Renee’s gossip circle.
“Apparently Newt Keller has an ex-wife who’s a bigwig in the network hierarchy. At least that’s what Skip Spencer’s mother said. And the chopper’s her doing. In fact, she may even be in it.”
“She’s taking part in the search?”
“More like she’s taken over the search. She insisted the investigation be revved up. Apparently, she said she was going to call the governor if Sheriff Roberts didn’t get the FBI involved. So, according to Skip Spencer, who told his mother, who told Lola’s sister...”
Kate bit her tongue and prayed for the grace not to interrupt.
“. . . the sheriff called Ms. Keller’s bluff. He said he didn’t need some hoity-toity civilian from Nashville telling him how to run his investigation. And, honestly, I don’t blame him. Anyhow, she ended up calling the governor, who, it turns out, went to high school with Ms. Keller. The governor then called in the FBI, and now Sheriff Roberts is fit to be tied. FBI agents are about to swarm into town and take over the investigation. Ms. Keller is on her way. Like I said, that might have been her in the chopper.”
Renee stopped and audibly caught her breath. Kate felt out of breath just from listening.
“Why did she wait so long?” It had been several days since Newt Keller disappeared. Kate found it odd that, if she were that concerned, she hadn’t jumped in from the beginning.
“Apparently she was touring the South of France. One of those wine and gourmet-food tasting deals. Took some time for the news to reach her, Lola said, then even longer to get a flight back to the States.”
Kate heard whining and yipping in the background.
“Must run,” Renee said. “I need to cook up a meal for Little Umpkins.”
/> Pondering what she’d just heard, and nearly frozen from standing out in the cold, Kate reached for the office door.
Her cell phone buzzed again. When she flipped it open, Renee said, “I nearly forgot to tell you. The word is Sheriff Roberts is being pressured by the governor to make an arrest.”
Kate’s heart caught. “Oh dear.”
“My words exactly. Skip’s mother couldn’t—or wouldn’t—name the prime suspect. But Skip said there definitely is one. I’ve seen many cases where the authorities arrest someone because of political pressure.”
That the cases Renee was talking about were on TV shows didn’t matter. Kate knew it was true.
The helicopter did another circle around town. “I’m sorry. I can’t hear you,” Kate shouted into the phone.
Renee obviously couldn’t hear Kate either, because after a few seconds, she hung up.
Kate watched the helicopter head northeast again, this time on a route keeping it a mile or so from Copper Mill Creek.
It disappeared over some rolling hills, and as the throbbing beat of the blades echoed across the valley, all she could think was that her dear childhood friend was about to be arrested.
Chapter Fifteen
Kate wanted nothing more than to drive to the hotel to be with Susannah. But she told herself she could do more good sleuthing around to find the real culprit in Newt Keller’s disappearance and clear Susannah’s name once and for all.
So, bracing herself for a few more minutes in the cold, she called her friend instead.
Susannah picked up on the first ring. She sounded relieved to hear from Kate, but there was also deep worry in her normally ebullient tone.
“I feel like a criminal, but I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I’m doing my best to figure all this out, Suse.” She imagined her friend’s smile at the sound of her childhood name.
“Can you tell me what you’ve found?” The hope in her voice was heartrending.
“Not yet,” Kate said. “And most of it is theory, anyway. I’m at the newspaper office to check on some old accounts of the Hamilton Springs ghost.”