Ring In the Year with Murder--An Otter Lake Mystery

by Auralee Wallace

  “What are you talking about?”

  I filled Grady in on as much as I could as quickly as I could and ended with, “So, I initially thought Freddie’s poisoned-drink theory was nuts, but then there was the thing with Candace in the boathouse, her prison pen pal, Joey, and now you being locked in the attic. Plus there’s all these crazy rumors.”

  “Are you sure Candace is okay? Is she safe?”

  “Rhonda’s with her.”

  Grady planted his hands on his hips. He didn’t look all that reassured. “Did you contact the sheriff’s department? Amos? Any kind of authorities?”

  “That’s kind of what I’m doing right now, big guy,” I said, punching his shoulder. Ow … yup, just as hard as I remembered. “But yeah, I tried the other things too.”

  “I can’t be lead investigator on this.” He rubbed his forehead then peeked at me from under his hand. “You realize that I’m a suspect. I’m Candace’s…”

  “Yeah, boyfriend. I am well aware of that fact. But I know you didn’t do it,” I said, resisting the urge to squeeze his arm this time. I mean, a friendly punch was one thing, but I definitely didn’t have arm-squeezing privileges. “Besides, I doubt you locked yourself in the attic.”

  “Right. Except the person who discovered me just happens to be my ex-girlfriend.”

  I threw my hands in the air. “Well, next time I could just leave you in the attic until someone less involved finds you.”

  “I didn’t mean that,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m just processing all this. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Do you know anything about this Joey? Or anyone else who might have motive for killing Candace?”

  “Not really,” he said, scratching his jaw. “I knew she was part of a pen-pal program through her church … and then there’s Bryson. He’d like his job back, I’m sure.”

  “Murder seems a bit extreme though.”

  Grady nodded. “Agreed. But, otherwise, I can’t think of anyone. Despite the fact that she’s the face of MRG, everybody loves Candace.”

  It took every micromuscle in my face not to betray any kind of emotion. Everybody loves Candace. Breakup rumors aside, I couldn’t help but wonder if he was included in that everybody.

  I guess Grady noticed my unnaturally rigid posture because he looked like he was about to say something to try to smooth it over … but didn’t. Probably because he also knew there was nothing really to say. I mean, he could say, Well, maybe not everybody. And then I would say, What about you, Grady? Do you love Candace? And then he could be all like, You know there’s only one woman I’ve ever loved, Erica. And then he could throw me to the floor for some hot attic sex … but that didn’t really seem likely.

  “Well, maybe not everybody,” Grady suddenly said.

  My eyes snapped up to his.

  He stepped toward me. “I know you were never really a fan.”

  “So not true,” I said with a loud scoff. “In fact, we are practically besties now—”

  “Just like I’m not really a fan of Matthew’s.”

  “Oh,” I said, dropping my eyes to the floor. I prodded at a raised plank of wood with the toe of my boot. “Right.”

  Grady stepped toward me again … and wow, there were not that many steps left to take. “I should probably make some calls. I mean, these still all could be bizarre accidents, but it’s worth looking into. Finding the glass is a good place to start.”

  Huh, that had almost sounded like a compliment.

  I didn’t say thank you though. Just nodded. It had been a long, long time since I had stood this close to Grady. It was like every cell in my body was waking up after having slept for way too long.

  “But before I do…”

  I swallowed hard. I needed to play this cool. With the look on Grady’s face, the way he was so carefully picking his words … something was happening right now. Something I needed to let happen. Freddie may have been a little right earlier. I didn’t always handle strong emotions well. But not anymore. I could do this. I would not screw this up.

  “I have to know something. I’ve been sitting up here thinking—”

  “About the weasels?” Frick! Weasels?

  “Not just about the weasels,” he said with a smile. “I have to know. All these months … why didn’t…” He scratched his forehead. “I kind of thought you and Matthew would get together.”

  “I…” I stopped to clear my throat. “I, uh, couldn’t do that to him.”

  Grady smiled again. It was different this time though. It held a shadow of that sexy smirk he always had back in high school. “Come on, you’re not that bad.”

  I felt myself smiling too, but I couldn’t meet his eye. Too dangerous.

  Suddenly he was even closer to me.

  Like so close, if I sneezed, I’d bonk my head on his chest. That close!

  I finally looked up at him. There was a whole lot going on behind those eyes.

  Be cool, Erica. Be cool.

  Grady picked a small twig from my hair. I could feel the warmth of his hand on my cheek.

  I swallowed hard. Oh yes, it was very difficult to talk … and yet I couldn’t seem to stop myself either. “My hair was better before the snowmobile. You would have been impressed,” I mumbled, then snorted an awkward laugh. “Before we got here, my finger waves were perfect. Freddie kept trying to drive this little toy car he had over the bumps.” Why? Why was I talking about Freddie right now? Maybe because it felt like I might die if Grady didn’t kiss me soon. I swallowed hard. “Freddie always thought he could be a hairstylist, but, you know, he doesn’t really like hair.” Gah! Yeah, no, I don’t have intimacy problems.

  Another smile touched the corner of Grady’s mouth as he stepped back from me. It felt like a cloud had moved in front of the sun. “I’ve hurt Candace. And she really is a good person.”

  I thought again about her offer to get MRG to back off the Arthurs’ property. “I know. She really is. Is that … is all this why she’s breaking up with you?”

  He did a small double take. “She’s breaking up with me?”

  I felt my eyes widen. “Oh … you didn’t…?”

  “I … I was going to break up with her.”

  “Oh.” That was good. Just oh. Like I heard you. Please go on. Very calm.

  “I’ve been so unfair.” He closed his eyes. “I’ve let so much get in the way of … everything.”

  “What do you mean by everything?”

  He shook his head. “I shouldn’t have started dating Candace so soon after we…” He let the thought trail off. “It wasn’t fair to her.”

  I nodded. Part of me wanted to blurt out everything I was feeling … everything I had been thinking for months but not saying. How I really, truly believed in the pit of my soul that if we just gave it one more chance, I knew we could make it work. But Grady was building up to something, and I needed to hear what that something was. For almost a year now, more than anything, I’d just wanted to hear what was going on in Grady’s head.

  “It wasn’t fair to you either. To either of us.”

  I couldn’t breathe. My lungs had completely shut down. My heart was doing a pretty good job at thumping though.

  “We should have talked things through. I was just so afraid that if we did talk, we’d fall back into whatever it was that we were doing and—”

  “I totally get it, Grady,” I said quickly. “You had every reason to break up with me.”

  For so long I had gone back and forth with the question of whether or not I would move home. Then last Christmas just when Grady was leaving for his flight back to New Hampshire, he had told me that he loved me. He said that I didn’t need to say anything back because he knew I needed more time. But I hadn’t. I knew I loved him then, but my stupid insecurities got in the way. That had been the moment when it all started to go wrong. He said he understood, but he had put himself out there, and I had just left him hanging.

  “Then that weekend of the storm when I found
out you nearly died, and you didn’t tell me…” He shook his head. “It felt like that was really, truly it for me. I was done. It was too hard to be with you … to wait for you. And I believed you would never be ready. Like the only way you’d ever tell me you loved me was if you knew you were going to die, and you didn’t have to live with the consequences.”

  I could see why he would take it that way. I had written a letter to Grady telling him that I loved him when I thought I might be spending my last night on earth. I couldn’t take the chance that there would be things left unsaid between us. But it had taken that do-or-die moment to get me to that point. Would I have said it otherwise? I’d like to think I would have, but I did have a remarkable ability to sabotage my own happiness. “You know that wasn’t it,” I said, trying to choose my words carefully. “That wasn’t why I wrote you that letter.”

  Grady met my eye for a second before looking away. “But it’s what I believed.”

  “Grady, listen, I get it. I understand why you’re telling me all this. But you have nothing you need to explain. Everything that happened … it was my fault. And I am so, so sorry.” He didn’t answer. We were so close. So close to getting it all back. This was it. My moment. I could feel it. I just needed to say everything I needed to say without screwing it up … without bailing at the last moment. “And do you want to know what I believe? What I know?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “That Christmas you spent with me in Chicago,” I said, gripping my hands to stop them from shaking, “those were the best five days of my life. And … I think it might have been that way for you too. We were so happy in like … our own little snow globe. I want that again. I want it all the time.”

  Grady saw my hands and took them in his. “Erica, please stop. I don’t need you to say all of this. That’s not what I need from y—”

  “Maybe, but I need to say this. I’m here, Grady. In Otter Lake. I’m not leaving. This is our chance. I—”

  Just then my phone buzzed. No. No. No!

  “You’d better take that,” Grady said, letting go of my hands. “We shouldn’t have stayed up here so long.”

  I met his eye to see if he really meant it. It certainly looked like he did.

  Seriously?

  My nerves bubbled into frustration.

  Don’t scream, Erica. Don’t scream.

  Okay, sure, fine, someone was trying to kill Candace and frame him for murder, but we were in the middle of a really productive talk! I looked down at the text on my phone.

  “What?” Grady asked.

  “It’s from Rhonda. About Candace.”

  He stepped toward me to get a look at my phone. “Is she okay? I thought she was watching her.”

  “She was, but Candace was asleep, so she took Stanley out for a bathroom break and…”

  “And what?”

  “Candace is missing.”

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Grady and I decided it would probably be best if we didn’t look for Candace together. Neither one of us wanted to hurt her any more than we already had. Not that Grady and I had actually decided on anything about us. We agreed to talk later … which was kind of brutal because we had been so close! But you know, Candace might be in mortal danger, so I guess I could let her have him for a little longer. She could have me, too, for that matter. I was serious about not letting her die on my watch.

  On our way back downstairs, Grady put a call in to Amos to get a couple of uniforms out to Hemlock Estate to start a proper investigation. He also tasked Amos with finding out everything he could about Candace’s pen pal. If he was just out of prison, there was a good chance he was on parole. And if he was on parole, there was also a good chance that he had violated some of the conditions of his parole. If that was the case, Grady could bring him in for questioning.

  Just before we made it back to the ballroom, Grady touched my elbow to get me to stop. “Does Rhonda have any idea where she might have been headed?”

  “Not really, but Candace did say earlier that she wanted to go back to the party. Freddie and Rhonda are checking outside just to be sure she didn’t decide to go to the boathouse again trying to find you. She’s pretty out of it.”

  “Okay, let’s split up and cover this room first. Tell everyone you can that we’re looking for her.”

  “But won’t that tip off the murderer? What if it makes him or her panic?”

  “It’s the best shot we have with Candace missing,” he said. “The more people looking for her the better. Maybe the murderer will run, and we’ll have time to get Candace safe.”

  “Got it.”

  I pushed my way through the crowd. The jazz band was really swinging now. It had to be getting close to midnight. The guests were louder too. There had to be a couple hundred people here now, all laughing, singing, dancing. Nobody seemed to have a clue what was going on. It didn’t help that someone had passed out noisemakers. Everything was feeling just a little bit surreal. Or maybe this is just what it was like being at a New Year’s party completely sober. Weird.

  I tried spreading the word that I was looking for Candace, but I doubted that the message was really sinking in. Everyone was having too good of a time.

  I had a bad feeling about this.

  “Erica!”

  I spun around.

  Kit Kat and Tweety were elbowing their way through the crowd like a pair of white-haired juggernauts.

  “What’s happening?”

  Tweety swallowed hard, trying to catch her breath. “We know…”

  “You know what?” I asked. “You know who started the rumors?”

  “No,” Kit Kat said, shaking her head. “But we know … someone who does.”

  “What? Who?”

  Tweety grabbed my elbow, leading me toward the far side of the room. “We followed all the trails.” She paused to swallow. “They all lead back to the same person.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Betty Johnson,” she said, still struggling with her breath. “All the trails lead back to her.”

  “But,” Kit Kat added, “she said someone else told her. And when we talked to that person—”

  “Who? Where are you taking me?”

  “To the bar,” Tweety said. She was the head of our awkward snake making its way through the crowd. “She wouldn’t tell us who started this whole mess. She said she wanted to tell you herself.”

  “What? Who? Why?”

  “Who knows?” Kit Kat said, hands on my back, pushing me forward.

  Tweety yanked on my arm. “I think she just doesn’t want to be left out of the mix.”

  When we finally got through the crowd, I spotted our destination.

  The martini bar … although it kind of felt like it should be called the Dragon’s Den.

  It was the nicest pop-up bartending station I had ever seen. I hadn’t really noticed it earlier because it was tucked far back into a corner—mainly because it needed a lot of room—but it was worth noticing.

  Blue, red, green, yellow, and orange bottles glittered on the glass shelves. There was even a purple drink in a martini glass sitting on the counter. I had never seen so many colorful types of alcohol in my life.

  Mrs. Watson was instructing a young man behind the counter on his stir-stick technique. He looked equal parts scared and confused.

  I thought about stopping to text Freddie to tell him what was going on, but there wasn’t time. Not with Candace missing.

  “Erica,” Mrs. Watson said as I approached. She gave my outfit a concerned once-over but was kind enough not to mention it. “I wanted to thank you for taking care of things earlier in the smoking room. Your mother’s fortune-telling has been a hit. Despite all obstacles.”

  “She means Freddie,” Kit Kat whispered too loudly in my ear.

  “She’s still mad he denied her grandbaby the crown,” Tweety added. Also too loudly.

  I simultaneously elbowed both of them in the sides, launching myself a few steps closer to the bar.r />
  “Can I offer you a drink?” Mrs. Watson asked. “I’m teaching Harold here how to make a beetini.”

  “A beetini?”

  “Don’t let the beets scare you. They’re wonderful for your health and very sweet.”

  The thought of a beet martini did scare me though. It scared me very much. “Um, maybe a bit later.” I thought a moment about what to ask her first. Before we tackled all the rumors, I should probably check out the details of Chloe’s story. “Mrs. Watson, I know you were with my mother earlier, but have you been keeping an eye on the martini bar tonight?”

  “Of course. I was just getting your mother settled. You know, making sure there wasn’t any trouble.” She arched a knowing eyebrow as she pinned me in her gaze. “Harold, be a dear and pass me the sweet vermouth and the agave nectar.”

  The young man hopped to attention.

  I placed my hands on the counter. “I know this is a long shot, but was there a really big, handsome man here earlier—someone from out of town—who might have ordered an apple martini or some other green drink?”

  “No, but it’s funny that you should mention that,” she answered, dragging her attention completely away from the beetini.

  “Funny how?”

  “Well, let me start by saying, I’ve only made one apple martini tonight.” She looked over to Harold. “Have you made any green drinks?”

  He shook his head quickly no.

  “And Kit Kat and Tweety here were telling me that you wanted to know who started the rumors about Grady and Candace breaking up.”

  I nodded.

  “Well, it just so happens that the apple martini I made was for the same person who told me all about Candace’s concerns over Grady.”

  I could feel my heart pulsing at my throat. “Who?”

  When she told me, I immediately said, “That … that doesn’t make any sense. Why?” But even as I asked the question, thoughts were turning in my head, pieces were fitting together. I could see … I could see the why. Maybe …

  But there were still so many things that didn’t make sense. Like how did Candace’s prison pen pal fit into this? Was he in on it? Or did he even know what he was doing when he gave her that drink?