I shook my head. “No one in law enforcement thinks Joe was murdered. If that’s the case, my poking around shouldn’t matter at all.”
“It shouldn’t.” He walked away from me and then abruptly spun back around. “It shouldn’t matter, but there’s that.” He pointed to the shop. “The treasure hunters are out in full force. And they think Joe knew where the gold is. I’ve seen this before back in the eighties. Someone thought they’d found the location of the gold and silver coins Confederate soldiers had stolen from the Union payroll. The treasure was purportedly worth more than $100,000 back during Civil War and believed to have been buried along the banks of the Santee River. There were multiple gunfights and a few suspicious deaths as well. The archeologist who claimed to have located the treasure died in a tragic car accident before she could begin an official excavation.”
“This is Camellia Beach,” I said. “And Joe has been talking nonstop about the treasure for eight years now.”
“He’d only talked about treasure. He’d never found a gold coin before the hurricane hit.”
“He was still clutching the coin when we uncovered him,” I said. “If a treasure hunter killed him, the hunter would have ripped the coin from Joe’s hand.”
“If he was murdered, which we know he wasn’t. The storm surge overtook him. And now that word is out about that coin, you’re overrun with treasure hunters.”
“Okay. Consider me suitably warned,” I said with a smile. “You’re not the first one to warn me. Not more than ten minutes ago, one of the ghost hunters told me practically the same thing.”
“Really?” Gibbons drew out the one word as he stroked his chin. “A ghost hunter warned you about treasure hunters? That seems…odd. And troubling. Did you get his name?”
“I did. But, hey, I thought you weren’t investigating anything that had to do with Joe’s death.”
“I’m not.” He shook his head. “I’m not here on official business. I’m here as a friend. And as a friend, I’d kind of like to know who threatened you so I can check him out.”
Even though he sounded angry, I was touched. Gibbons had fussed at me more times than I liked. But he had always done it with love.
“He told me his name is Brett Handleson. He was irked that I didn’t believe in ghosts.”
“Never heard of him,” Gibbons said. “Is he from around here?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask.”
“I’ll check him out when I get a chance to make sure he’s not dangerous.”
I brushed a kiss on his cheek. “Thank you. That’ll make me feel much safer as I move forward.”
“That wasn’t my intent. I’m not here to encourage you to take risks.”
“I know. I know. You’re worried about my safety, and I appreciate it. I truly do. If I promise to keep you in the loop as well as Harley, Bertie, and Bubba, will that make you sleep better at night?”
“No,” he grumbled. “You need to promise me that you’ll stay away from paranoid treasure hunters. Actually, what you need to do is accept that the hurricane killed Joe. Can you do that? For me?”
“Sorry, Gibbons. I’ve promised Joe’s daughter that I’d help her find out what happened to him. I can’t go back on my word. If her father was murdered, she deserves to know the truth. It’s not like the police are doing anything about it.”
“That’s because his death was an accident! It was—” He was about to say something else but stopped abruptly and looked up. “What’s going on? Why do you keep glancing at the upstairs porch with that guilty look on your face?”
“Guilty? Me?” I struggled to keep my gaze on him when it kept trying to float back up to the underside of the porch.
“It’s all over your face, Penn. I’m a professional. I’ve been trained to read body language. And right now, you’re telling me quite a tale with those glances up to the second floor. So tell me—what’s going on?”
“Oh. Nothing. I’m only wondering if Bertie is home yet.” Not exactly a lie. I had wondered more than once when I could expect Bertie. “We’re having a devil of a time sourcing the necessary ingredients for our chocolates. The suppliers are all backed up thanks to the storm. And without ingredients, we can’t make chocolates to sell.” Again, not a lie.
He narrowed his eyes and leaned in closer to me. My cheeks burned with guilt. I worried he could read my face as easily as if my secrets were printed in big, bold lettering across my searing hot forehead.
“For one thing, we’re all out of pumpkin seeds,” I said before I cracked under the pressure and blurted out that Big Dog was hiding out upstairs. I liked and respected Gibbons. And it was killing me to keep this secret from him. He had suffered through a golf game and I was sure plenty of admonishments to get the job done. “Do you know where I could buy some? Pumpkin seeds, that is? I want to make an extra-large batch of the pumpkin butter bonbons this afternoon.”
He relaxed. I suspected he was remembering how much he’d enjoyed eating the bonbon I’d given him. They were really very tasty and—thankfully for me—easy to make. “Text me if you manage to get the ingredients, and I’ll be on your doorstep when you open tomorrow morning to buy the lot of them.”
“There won’t be any new batches until I can find a way to restock my pumpkin seeds and honey, which has been proving close to impossible right now.”
“Well, then, I’ll ask around for you. Contrary to what some people think, I do happen to be pretty good at finding hidden things.” He began to walk away.
I slumped against the wall of the building and breathed out a sigh of relief that he hadn’t suspected there was another reason why I kept looking up toward Harley’s apartment.
The ruse had paid off. That was, until he turned around abruptly. “Don’t think you distracted me with your pumpkin seed siren song, Penn. I want you to come clean about what’s going on up there.” He pointed toward Harley’s apartment. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning. I hope you’ll have those bonbons for me. And even if you don’t, I’ll expect you to give me the answers you’ve kept dodging today.”
Chapter 17
At the end of the day, I flipped the open sign over to closed and went straight to the chocolate stash I kept hidden in a small drawer underneath the cash register and found a bar of pure Amar chocolate. After eating the chocolate bar bursting with the fruity flavors of the rain forest, I texted Harley and told him about my visit from Gibbons. Harley was busy filing papers for insurance claims. He returned my text, saying that he was still in downtown Charleston. We made plans to discuss everything that evening.
With that handled, I spent the rest of the day on the phone with suppliers from all over the region, desperate to get someone to deliver the ingredients we needed in order to run a chocolate business.
“Sorry. Really, sorry, ma’am. But there’s nothing I can do.” The man I had on the phone did sound rather distraught. He was a representative from the thirteenth company I’d called…and the last one on my list. “We won’t be able to get any deliveries out to your area for at least another week. We lost nearly our entire stock when Avery took off our warehouse’s roof. It’ll take time to restock. We’re having to ship in supplies from sources around the country.”
“I see.” I bit my bottom lip. The pantry’s shelving in front of me was empty. No ingredients meant we couldn’t rebuild our inventory of truffles and bonbons. We were even out of coffee, which meant unless Bertie had had better success on her shopping run we wouldn’t be able to open tomorrow. Or the day after that. Or the day after that.
After hanging up with the supply company, I mumbled several inventive curses (most involving fudge).
“What’s that?” Bertie asked as she came into the kitchen. She had a paper grocery bag in each hand. Neither looked terribly full.
“There won’t be any deliveries of goods to our area for at least another week. Please tell me you had better luck than I did.”
She placed the shopping bags on the counter. “Unfortunat
ely, no. The shelves are awfully bare in the grocery stores. I suppose they’re dealing with many of the same suppliers you’ve been talking to.” She pulled out two vacuum sealed bags of coffee. “Since I paid retail prices for all of this, we might not make any money on anything we sell.”
I nodded as I helped unload the bags. In addition to the coffee, Bertie had purchased organic peanut butter, a couple of jars of maraschino cherries, even more jars of condensed milk, a few quarts of heavy cream, a bag of powdered sugar, a bag of brown sugar, and a bag of organic crispy rice cereal. It gave us enough ingredients to make some of our more popular chocolates.
“It’s a good thing we didn’t need bread or plain milk,” Bertie said as she handed me several receipts. “All three grocery stores I visited are plum out of essentials.”
I looked at the receipts and my eyes bugged out. She hadn’t been kidding about us not making money on anything we sold. But the good news was that if we made chocolate candies from the supplies Bertie had found, we’d be able to stay open for a few days. After that, well, I wasn’t sure what would happen.
I was going to have to talk with Bubba about one of those emergency business loans he’d mentioned when we’d first returned from the storm. Without considering my own situation, I’d loaned out nearly all the inheritance money I’d set aside for building repairs and unexpected business costs. The bulk of the money had gone to residents who’d needed ready cash to pay for repairs while waiting for the insurance company to send out checks. As a result, both the business and my personal bank accounts were looking rather slim. And I’d already exceeded the quarterly amount of money I could withdraw from my trust fund. Grandmother Cristobel, from my father’s side of the family, guarded it like a fierce bulldog.
“I’m not sure I’m going to be able to pay for more ingredients at this price,” I said. “The Chocolate Box doesn’t have the reserves in the bank for it.”
Bertie nodded. She knew about and had approved of the loans I’d made over the past week. “If supplies can’t get into our region, doesn’t that also mean farmers around the area might be having trouble getting their goods out?” She already had her cell phone in hand. “I know a few people who might be able to get us enough substitutes at wholesale prices. That’ll help us stock at least a partial inventory.”
“You can do that? You’re a gem.” I kissed Bertie on the cheek. “While you’re making those calls, I’ll call a few of the contractors I had make repairs on the Chocolate Box and I’ll call my painter, Johnny Pane, too. I’m sure they’ll all be glad to get to work on rebuilding Althea’s shop and Harley’s office right away.”
“No!” Bertie barked so loud that I jumped back and knocked over one of the chocolate grinding mélangers.
Fletcher ran into the kitchen wielding an umbrella like a sword. “Is-is everything o-okay in here? I-I h-heard a c-crash.”
“Just me being clumsy,” I admitted. “What are you doing here? We’re closed.”
“I-I c-c-came in to help clean up,” he said, his gaze avoiding mine.
“Huh…” I bit my lower lip. My gaze went back to the umbrella he still held at the ready. “Fletcher, what if there was a killer back here with us? What did you plan to do? Whack him over the head with that thing?”
“It-it g-g-gets bigger when you o-o-open it,” he said as he waved the tiny accessory around with a flourish.
“But it’s not open.” I worried about the young man. If he charged into a truly dangerous situation armed like that, he was liable to get himself killed.
“Of course it’s not open.” Joe’s estranged wife, Delilah waltzed into my kitchen. She came into my space as if it were the most natural thing in the world to do. “Everyone knows it’s bad luck to open an umbrella inside a building.”
Not everyone believes in stupid superstitions.
I locked my teeth together to keep myself from saying that aloud. I still couldn’t decide what it was about Delilah that made me want to crawl out of my skin, so I tried not to let my feelings toward her affect how I acted toward her. Instead of saying something childish, I let the kitchen’s calming aroma of the Amar dark chocolate fill my senses.
Today, Delilah was dressed in a pale lavender pantsuit. Her silky blonde hair was perfectly styled. Everything about her—from her highly polished pumps to the way she tilted her chin up in the air just so—screamed sophistication. Perhaps that was what bothered me about her. She was too much like my father’s side of the family—the judgmental ones who lived in Chicago.
“Can I help you, Delilah?” I asked, proud of how calm I sounded. “I’d offer you some chocolates, but unfortunately, we had to close early.”
“That’s all right,” she said with a chilly smile. “I don’t eat sweets. I only eat healthy, whole foods.” Her lips thinned as she looked me up and down. “You might not know this, but sugar is not good for your complexion. Prematurely ages your face.”
It wasn’t her, I reminded myself, but my irrational reaction to her that made my nerves prickle whenever she opened her mouth. I was hearing echoes of my family in her voice, tainting my opinion against her. I doubted she made puppies into winter coats. And with that thought, I forced myself to smile. Being nice to her wasn’t simply the decent thing to do. Earning her trust could save lives.
Delilah knew all about Joe and his life in Cedar’s Hill—likely better than anyone else, including his daughter. She could very well be the key to helping me figure out why Joe had created a new fake life here on Camellia Beach and if that double life of his had gotten him killed. Hopefully, we’d be able to figure it all out before anyone else on Camellia Beach got hurt.
“Perhaps we could help each other,” I said to Delilah. “I have a few questions about Joe’s—I mean—John’s life before he moved to Camellia Beach.”
“I…um…” Her gaze flew over to Fletcher. “Thank you, but your assistant is already helping me sort things out. He’s quite the detective. I’ve been impressed with his ability to see what’s at the heart of these horrible goings on.”
“And what’s at the heart of it?” I asked. I wasn’t too proud to pool our resources.
Fletcher cleared his throat several times before answering, “Clearly, Joe told some of his friends back in Virginia about how close he was getting to finding Blackbeard’s treasure. One of his friends may have spoken out of turn and caused a killer to come looking to steal the treasure from Joe. Or maybe one of his friends is a greedy killer himself. We haven’t been able to decide yet.”
Delilah clutched her hands to her chest and sighed with delight. “Doesn’t he have the loveliest speaking voice? It’s so musical.”
“Um…yes,” I said.
“I’ve been trying to convince him to join my church choir,” Bertie said with great enthusiasm. “He’s got a rare, strong voice that any church would be proud to feature.”
Fletcher adjusted his deer hunter hat and blushed.
“Did your husband know a man by the name of Sammy Duncan?” I asked her. She’d hooked her arm with Fletcher’s and had moved toward the door.
She froze. Her shoulders stiffened. “Sammy Duncan.” Her voice was almost a whisper, but the way she said the name it sounded like a threat.
Not willing to be cowed—even though she still intimidated me terribly—I persisted, “Cedar’s Hill isn’t that big of a town. Did your husband know him?”
She shook her head slowly. “That’s the man who went to jail for stealing quite a fortune from the Consolidated Bank. John wouldn’t get involved someone like that. He might have sold cars—and that can sometimes give a man a bad reputation—but he was honest when it came to money. He liked to tell me, ‘Delilah, if you do business with a slick businessman, you deserve what you get when he takes all your money.’ He didn’t just say it, he lived by that rule. Always careful with his money.”
“Are you saying your husband didn’t know him?” I asked again.
“Of course he didn’t know him. I just said that.”
She tugged at Fletcher’s arm, as if anxious to get away from me.
“Then why do you think Sammy Duncan came into the Chocolate Box a few hours before the hurricane hit desperately searching for your husband?” I asked.
Fletcher sucked in a sharp breath. “The-the m-m-man with the tweed h-h-hat?” His head whipped around to watch Delilah’s reaction.
Oddly enough, she didn’t react. Not really. She drew a few slow breaths before saying, quite calmly, “I assure you I have no idea.”
And that was all she would say about that.
Chapter 18
“It’s louder than the county fair in here,” Bertie complained later that evening as she picked up the ringing phone. “Don’t mind me. I’ll take this in my bedroom.” Her hairless kitty darted into the room ahead of her.
Contestants on the Wheel of Fortune were shouting out letters on the TV, making it hard for anyone in the living room to hear. We’d all gathered at my apartment to decompress after a long day.
It was half-past seven. Harley was sitting on one of the armchairs. Since Trixie and Barbie were taking up most of the sofa, I perched on the chair’s overstuffed arm. Althea had picked the twin to the armchair I was sharing with Harley and sat there smirking at us. She’d been describing how repairs were going at the shop. Bertie, after refusing my help, had finally been able to hire a few workmen. They’d begun work on rebuilding the damaged back wall that afternoon. Althea had read their auras and seeing that they were pleasant shades of blue had deemed them trustworthy.
“If their auras had been a cloudy green”—she shook her head—“I would have been forced to fire them on the spot. I’m so glad I didn’t have to do that.”
Thinking she was making a joke, I laughed.
“You can never be too careful with hiring construction workers you haven’t dealt with before,” she admonished.
“You could—oh, I don’t know—ask to see their business license and bond,” I said.
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