by Blythe Baker
Turning towards the giftshop, I slipped inside. The place was just the way I had left it the day of the murder. The shelves were poorly stocked, but it was all we had to offer until the new souvenirs arrived. At least I could restock the water. Slipping into the backroom, I bent down to grab a few bottles from an open case. Something caught my eye.
“What’s that?” A metal safe was tucked into a dark corner. How had I missed it before? I glanced at the combination on the front. “Great. What would she have used?”
I racked my brain to try and figure out what the combination could be. My eyes landed on a faded sticky note on the side of the safe. I peeled it off and tried the numbers written on it. The safe opened with an aged groan. Grandmother wasn’t exactly big on security. First the key on top of the doorframe outside, and now the safe combination written on a sticky note and stuck to the side of it. I folded up the note and tucked it into my pocket. Swinging the door open wide, I peered inside.
An old gun was leaned against the back of the shelf. The weapon looked ancient and, on inexpertly checking the chamber, I found it unloaded. I wasn’t even sure if the thing would fire anymore anyway. Part of me was relieved it was unloaded. The other part of me was kind of glad it was there. Making a mental note to get rid of it, I relocked the metal door. Still, having it close by made me feel a little safer. After all, an intruder wouldn’t know the old thing was useless—or that I didn’t know how to use it. With the gun safely sealed away, it was back to the task at hand. I filled my arms with water bottles and stepped back into the shop to restock the refrigerator.
A scream outside made my blood run cold. It couldn’t be another murder, could it? My feet were numb as I ran out of the shop. I quickly turned my head from side to side, trying to see where the commotion had come from. Spotting the screamer, my shoulders relaxed the tension they had been holding. A group of boys were splashing some girls with water from the waterfall. In a moment of sadness, I realized I would most likely be on edge until the murderer was found. For my own sake, I needed to put an end to it.
The whole day was filled with looky-loos snapping pictures of the gardens and the koi pond where Angela Jenkins had met her untimely demise. A few people had brought single roses and candles to lay at the scene. After the last guest left the garden, Kelly walked up the hill to me.
“What are we going to do with all of this stuff?”
I chewed the inside of my cheek. “It seems disrespectful to move it right away. Maybe we should leave it up for a bit? A week maybe? Then we can box it up and give it to her sister.”
“You’re the boss.” Kelly looked around and shivered. “I’m going to head out of here. It’s starting to get dark.”
“Go ahead. I just need to close up the souvenir shop, and I’ll be leaving, too.”
“Alright. Don’t stay too late!” Kelly waved and turned to leave.
Right. I didn’t want to be in the garden where a woman had died after dark. A shiver crawled across my arm and skittered around my neck. The place was giving me the creeps now that it was darker. Shadows extended like skeleton fingers across the paths. I locked up quickly and scampered down the hill. The front gate slammed shut behind me a little more forcefully than I anticipated. I jumped as the latch clanged noisily. Everything seemed louder at night. Maybe I should invest in better lighting outside. It would at least put me at ease if I was going to be spending my nights closing up.
Shuffling footsteps behind me made me whirl around. “Who’s there?”
A man slid out of the shadows. His hands were in his pockets. The sockets of his eyes were pitch black under his thick brows. “Easy, miss. I’m Daniel Walker.” He tilted his head up into the light. His eyes and teeth sparkled.
My keys fell into place between my fingers. It was a trick Drake had taught me when we were still married. A few well-placed keys could really do some damage if I had to punch my way out of a situation. “What do you want?” My body was tensed for anything.
He chuckled charmingly and held up his hands to show he meant no harm. “We seem to have gotten off on the wrong foot. I own the neighboring tract of land.”
Giving him a wide berth, I made my way to my car. “I thought the Jenkins sisters owned that.”
“Uh, no. I own the land on the back side of your property.” He pointed that direction.
“Oh. I thought the land on that side was abandoned.” I relaxed my grip on the keys between my fingers a little.
“No. Actually, there is a rock quarry through the trees that I own. I’m here because I have a business proposition.”
“I’m really sorry, Mr. Walker. I’m in a hurry, and I don’t have time to talk right now.”
“Alright. I understand I kind of sprung this on you. Why don’t I give you my card, and you can call me at your convenience?” He pulled out his wallet and handed me a card.
“Okay. Thank you.” I gave him a half-hearted smile and ducked into my car. I locked my doors before tucking his card in my purse.
A business proposal this late at night? All I wanted to do was get back to my well-lit house. This was possibly the first time I had actually thought of the house as mine. It was a small comfort at the end of a long day.
Even as short as it was, the distance I put between myself and the darkly shrouded garden entrance down the street eased my discomfort. I tried not to think about the fact that the garden backed the edge of my property and could probably be accessed from my grandmother’s overgrown backyard if I ever beat the undergrowth away enough to find a connecting path. It felt better to imagine the garden being a long way off, not potentially within a few minute’s walk of where I slept.
I pulled into the driveway and threw my car into park. I had gotten into the habit of leaving a few lights on. I wanted to come home to something inviting at night, and due to the recent events, I thought I could stomach a higher electric bill for the sake of safety. Climbing onto the porch, I stepped across the threshold into the empty house.
How had my grandmother done it? Living alone in a house this big? The part of my adventure that I had thought would be the most freeing had turned out to be the most uncomfortable. Maybe I was still just worked up. Relaxing before bed might do me some good. I popped upstairs and put on some pajamas. Drake never let me watch television before bed. He said that the screen time interfered with our sleep cycles. In a mild act of rebellion, I slunk my way back down to the living room and turned on the television.
A knock at the door made me knit my eyebrows. Who would be at my grandmother’s house at this time of night? I suddenly wished I had brought the antique gun home with me. Even if it was just a prop at this point, holding some sort of a weapon would make me feel better. There was another knock on the door. It was more impatient this time. My heart was in my throat as I pressed my ear to the door.
“Who is it?”
A familiar voice vibrated against the closed door. “Who do you think? Don’t keep me standing on the porch!”
I opened the front door to see my ex-mother-in-law, dressed in a hot pink shirt and leopard printed pants, standing out front. She was fanning herself with one black pleather driving glove.
Shock colored my face. “Mrs. Morgan, what are you doing here?”
“Taking your side, obviously.” She said it briskly as she shouldered past me, lugging her bags behind her. On top of one of her rolling suitcases was a golden birdcage housing her brightly colored parrot. “And just because you and my nitwit son are divorced now doesn’t mean you have to call me ‘Mrs. Morgan’, like I’m some old woman. I’m still Mamma Jackie, same as always.”
A squawk from the bird cage echoed one of her words. “Rawk! Nitwit!”
“Hush, Moonshine! Mamma is talking!” Mamma Jackie ordered.
Then, her bossy manner turned quickly from the bird to me. “Well, don’t just stand there, Maddie. Invite me to sit down. I drove half the day just to be here with you. A ridiculous idea this is, moving out of Winchester,” she added, gl
ancing around the house with open disapproval. “But if you’re determined to set yourself up in Little River, well, no ex-daughter-in-law of mine will be left to struggle on her own. Out of the goodness of my heart, I insist on staying until you get settled in.”
My heart sank. My limited interactions with Drake’s mother during our marriage were enough to make her the last houseguest I wanted to entertain. I couldn’t imagine what had really prompted her unexpected arrival, but it was hard to believe it was simple concern for my well-being. Our relationship, slight as it was, had always been prickly.
I said quickly, “Oh, I really can’t impose—”
“Nonsense!” she cut me off rudely. “After the son that put me through twelve hours of agonizing labor squandered his one chance at marriage and denied me my right to become a grandmother, I needed a change of air, a vacation. Maybe this Little River of yours will turn out to be more interesting than it looks, and maybe this house will turn out to be more than the decaying pile of timbers it seems.” Her tone said she doubted it.
I felt my hackles rise. “It’s a wonderful old house,” I said defensively.
“It’s a dump.”
“Mamma Jackie…” I warned, in no mood to be insulted in my own home.
“What? I haven’t said anything that’s not plain for all to see.” Mamma Jackie abandoned her bags in the middle of the room. “Now, where do you want to put me? I’m exhausted. We can catch up in the morning. I need to get some beauty sleep.”
I was in a quandary. Unwelcome though she was, I could hardly leave Drake’s pushy mother to sleep out on the lawn.
“Um, okay. Come with me, I guess. I have a clean bedroom where you can stay.” I led the way upstairs to a door several rooms away from the one I had claimed as my own. I remembered Mamma Jackie’s snoring from when Drake and I spent the night with his parents during Christmas one year. I could only hope that there would be enough walls between us.
“How quaint,” she said, surveying the room I ushered her into as if she had just found herself in a questionable motel room.
I forced myself to take a polite tone, although her rude behavior was grating. “Grandmother was a bit old-fashioned in her taste,” I explained.
“Old fashioned doesn’t begin to describe it,” she answered disparagingly. “Still, I suppose we endure what we have to.”
I ignored the dig. “I’m going to head to bed now. If you need anything, I’m just down the hall.” I offered her a forced smile.
She made a harrumphing noise that I decided to take as thanks.
“Goodnight,” I added, before slipping quietly down the hall and into my own room.
After the shock of a surprise visitor, I was past my desire to watch television to unwind. All I wanted to do was go to bed. Mamma Jackie choosing this inconvenient time to drive all the way from Winchester was a disaster. I couldn’t imagine what had prompted her to choose me as the unwilling host of her mini-vacation. It was typical thoughtlessness on her part. And yet, a tiny part of me couldn’t deny that for as much as our personalities grated against one another, I was glad to have a familiar face around the house. Did Drake know she was planning on staying with me? If he did, he hadn’t said anything.
With my ex’s mother down the hall, I crawled into bed and drifted off to sleep with the vague thought dancing through my head that at least the house now felt less empty and eerie.
Chapter 9
In the dead of night, a blood curdling scream woke me from a deep sleep. Cold sweat beaded on my neck. My heart jumped to a thundering start in my chest. Had I dreamed it? Maybe it was just the memory of the scream from earlier in the day haunting my nightmares. The scream shattered the air again. No. It was real. My mind reeled. Mamma Jackie!
Panicking, I raced down the hall to her room. Had the murderer gotten inside? I threw open the door, unsure of what exactly I was going to do. “Get away from her!”
A groggy, grumpy Mamma Jackie opened one eye and peered at me from a fluffed-up pillow. “Umph! Maddie, what’s wrong with you? Can’t a body get any sleep around here?”
“I heard a scream. I thought someone was hurting you.”
She snorted. “Do I look hurt to you?”
That was when a third scream sliced through the darkness. Someone was in the house with us. I couldn’t leave Mamma Jackie alone in her room. What if the murderer wanted to separate us to make it easier to pick us off? I dragged her out of bed and pulled her downstairs with me. Darkness shrouded the downstairs area. I suddenly wished I had my keys with me to put between my fingers.
Mamma Jackie tugged her wrist out of my white-fingered grasp. Moonshine screeched another heart-stopping scream. It was crazy how realistic and human he sounded.
Grabbing a water bottle, Mamma Jackie spritzed the bird through his cage. “Be quiet, you nasty old bird!”
“Rawk! Nasty old bird!”
“Not me. That’s what you are!” She hissed at him and threw a sheet over his golden cage.
“That was him?” My heart was still trying to slow down to an acceptable rate.
“Of course. He gets like that if his cage isn’t covered properly at night. The only way to shut him up is to throw a sheet over his cage.” She said it as if I had been the one to neglect this important task.
I said a bit pointedly, “Okay. Well, now that I know that, maybe this won’t happen again.”
She shrugged. “If we’re done here, I’m going back to bed.” And she lumbered back up the stairs.
I made a mental note to make sure Moonshine’s cage was covered every night. I couldn’t take another scare like this. How could such a little bird make such a big sound? Suddenly, the thought of having a pet wasn’t quite as appealing. Maybe growing up in a house with parrots like Moonshine was the reason Drake was so against having a pet.
I crept back upstairs. My feet automatically navigated around the creaky step on the staircase now. Slipping back into bed, I tried to find my way back to sleep.
The only problem was that my brain was too wired after being startled by Moonshine’s screaming. Images of Kelly and the garden flitted through my memory. There had to be some way for me to piece together what happened to Angela. Eventually, my suspicions settled me into a nightmarish slumber.
A few hours later, the sun peeked over the horizon and peered into my window. Dark circles hung drearily from under my eyes. There was no going back to sleep. At least the garden was closed. A day off due to a reason aside from police investigation was a nice change of pace. I stretched and stepped out of bed.
It occurred to me that I should go downstairs and cook breakfast for my uninvited guest. Since I was awake, I might as well. A chilly breeze brushed through my hair, as I reached the bottom of the stairs. The back door was open. Wrinkling my eyes in surprised confusion, I padded my way over to the door and peered outside. Lounging on the back veranda was Mamma Jackie. A romance novel was perched near her nose. Through her well-manicured fingers, I could see a bare-chested man on the cover. Sweat glistened on his pecks, and his hair was perfectly coiffed by the fictional wind blowing through it.
I summoned all the cheer I could into my voice. If we were going to live together awhile it was best if my guest and I could stay on polite terms. I said, “Oh, you’re already up! How did you sleep, Mamma Jackie?”
Without looking up from her book, she tutted. “Some of us get up to start our day at a decent hour.”
I glanced at my phone. “But, it’s only seven in the morning.”
“The early bird catches the worm.”
I didn’t see what worms had to do with anything, but I plastered a tattered smile on my face. “Would you like some breakfast?”
“Don’t bother. I’m already having it.”
“You are?”
“Yes. Let’s call it a liquid diet.” She chuckled as if pleased with her joke and raised a half-filled glass to her lips. The substance inside looked and smelled suspiciously like a peach julep. I seemed to remember
that was her favorite drink.
“Okay, well, in that case I have a few errands to run.”
“Good for you. Running does great things for improving the figure.”
I sighed at the unprovoked remark and shook my head. Moonshine, whose cage had been moved to the veranda, let out an audible, fake sigh to mock me. It had been less than twenty-four hours, and the two of them were already getting on my nerves. I didn’t have a set errand to run, but to get out of the house for a bit, I was sure I would be able to think of something.
I quickly dressed and grabbed my keys. Mamma Jackie was still engrossed in her undoubtedly steamy romance novel on the veranda. I decided not to interrupt her for something as menial as a goodbye. Though, if I was being honest, avoiding further conversation was more for my own benefit than out of consideration for my ex-mother-in-law. I could feel Moonshine’s beady little eyes following me from near the back door. I picked up my pace.
Since it was so early in the morning, I didn’t have many options when it came to fictional errands to run. I puttered around town until something caught my eye. A fabric store near the edge of town had a sign in the window announcing it was open. With my options so limited, I decided to give it a chance. The house was in desperate need of some new curtains that hadn’t served as an all-you-can-eat buffet for generations of moths. Maybe I could find some fabric that would work.
A tiny bell chimed overhead as I entered the store.
“Hello! How can I help you?” A cheerful older woman popped out from behind a row of shelves. Bric-a-brac and ribbons were speared on wooden dowels. Swatches of fabric were arranged by color.
“I’m actually looking for fabric to make some curtains.”
“What color were you thinking?”
“I’m not really sure yet.” Considering I just come up with my need for curtains, I hadn’t really put much thought into the colors or patterns I wanted.
“Why don’t we start with some simpler pieces, and we can go from there.”