There was no way this was a coincidence.
It had a few cardboard boxes on top of it, so she hadn’t seen it right away when she stood up. Setting down her deck, she eagerly started moving boxes. In a matter of seconds, she had the chest uncovered. She rubbed her sweaty, eager palms together, wondering just what she might find inside.
Lifting the latch on the front, she pulled up on the lid. It easily opened and Sonja peered inside.
“What?” she groaned.
The chest was completely empty except for some old dust in the bottom.
“I was right. This is a waste of time,” she told herself, preparing to close the chest.
Then she stopped, something else catching her eye. “What’s that?” she whispered, reaching down and picking up the strange and tiny object from the corner between her index finger and thumb.
Holding it up to the light, she examined it.
It was small and round, had a few micro sized feathers on one side and a needle on the other. Then she realized, it was a dart—maybe like a blow dart.
She gasped loudly, suddenly having a realization. “Oh my gosh.” Making sure to keep the needle of the dart away from her skin, she turned and headed back downstairs.
There was something in the library she wanted to see.
CHAPTER 15
* * *
Still in her jeans and black t-shirt she’d been wearing all day long, Sonja walked across to the main house in her bare feet. The cool garden grass was dewy and cool, and the night around her brought a sense of unusual peace.
All the windows in the manor were dark, a clear indication to Sonja that the servants had gone to bed. It was all the better. After some of the odd conversations that night, she preferred to not have to answer questions about what she was doing.
Mounting the building’s back steps, she entered through the large door, attempting to not make any noise. Tiptoeing down the hall, she slipped into the library, shut the door, and turned on the light. The room and all its books were just as she had left them earlier that night.
Her late coffee buzz was beginning to send small tremors through her body, an indication that she needed to sleep. However, her will to satiate her curiosity won out, and she slowly approached the large brick fireplace.
Glancing at the display of old relics hung on the wall, she examined the item that she had earlier mistaken for a flute. Reaching up, she delicately brought it down and examined it closely. There were no holes in the side of the pipe to indicate it was any sort of instrument. It was simply a thin tube crafted of reed-like wood.
Sonja’s heart beat faster as she cautiously removed the dart she had found in the attic from her pocket, careful not to prick herself on the needle. Inserting it into one end of the little pipe, it slid in perfectly—as if the two were made for each other.
“I knew it,” she whispered. It wasn’t a flute at all. It was a blow dart gun. Lifting it to her lips, she shot out a breath. The dart zoomed out across the room and stuck into the spine of one of the books. “Wow.”
Then she noticed which book she had managed to hit. It was the same one she’d put away earlier. Aboriginal Tribes from Around the World.
There was no way it was a coincidence. Just as some invisible entity had guided her cards to find the dart, she knew that they had marked that book. There must have been a reason it was sitting out earlier—and Sonja wasn’t liking the possible conclusions that it led to.
Walking quietly over to the shelf, she pulled the dart out and set it aside. Taking the book down, she opened to the page marked with a ribbon, the one about hunting techniques. She hadn’t noticed it earlier, but one of the entries on the page was all about poison blow darts.
As she read, Sonja’s jaw dropped open.
Some tribes living in tropical zones often used a poison derived from the sea creatures’ native to the area—in particular, pufferfish.
Pufferfish! Sonja thought as her hands became clammy with sweat.
Glancing over her shoulder at the P section of the library, she could only guess which book was missing from the shelf.
Slowly, she began piecing everything together. She had already deduced that the wound on the back of Kara’s neck was from the blow dart. Now she was positive that the blow dart used had likely come from this very house.
But why?
Sonja’s mouth suddenly went dry with fear. The killing hadn’t been random at all. Kara Bran had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. The victim had red hair pulled back into a ponytail and was wearing a generic pair of jeans and a t-shirt.
It wasn’t Kara who was supposed to die, it was Sonja.
She needed to get out of the house. It was clear that one of the staff members was behind all of this—and Sonja had a good guess which one. Pulling out her phone, she dialed Frank.
It started ringing while she moved to put the book back where she found it.
The phone went to voicemail. “Come on, no,” she whispered. “Frank, it’s me. There is something seriously wrong up here at the Smith Estate. I’m leaving now. Meet me at the station if you’re not already there.”
She hung up the phone and shoved the book back into place. The moment she did, there was the same clicking noise from before, only louder this time. Suddenly, the whole section of shelf moved.
“What the—?” Sonja reached out and touched the shelf. It swung slightly, as if on hinges. Pulling on it, the whole thing turned open like a door, revealing a stone passageway with a stairway leading down.
She couldn’t believe it. A secret passage into the basement.
Was this how the killer came into the library to sneakily do their murderous studies?
Sonja’s curiosity tempted her to head down into the dark passage. However, in her experience with both murderers and ghosts, she knew it wouldn’t be the smartest decision. She needed to find Frank.
Heading back to the door of the library, she grabbed the doorknob to leave.
It didn’t budge.
“What’s going on?” Sonja wondered, twisting it again. Still, it didn’t move.
Someone had locked her inside.
Looking around, she desperately ran to one of the gothic archway windows. There was no sign of any kind of latch or hinge. The glass was set directly into the stone. She couldn’t get through that way.
She was a mouse caught in a clever trap.
Turning slowly back to face the open passageway, Sonja knew that was her only way out.
CHAPTER 16
* * *
Sonja pulled out her phone again and double checked that Frank hadn’t called her back. There were no new messages or missed calls. “Dang,” she grunted, dialing him again.
This time, the line went straight to voicemail. “Frank, darn you. You said you’d be on call all night. I’m locked in at the library at the Smith Manor. Get down here as fast as you can.”
Hanging up, she stared at the dark secret passageway, not wanting to go down there. Cobwebs clung to the corners and ceilings, running in between the stone walls. There didn’t appear to be any light coming from below.
In the end, Sonja figured she’d find out where it led and try to get out rather than sit there in the library waiting to die.
Turning on her phone’s flashlight function, she started down the steps, wishing there was some sort of railing for her to hold onto. The stone stairs were uneven and even loose in spots.
The farther down she descended, the darker it seemed to be until she finally reached what appeared to be a wall.
Sonja knew that it had to open somehow.
Feeling all along the wall’s edges, there didn’t seem to be a latch, button, or lever anywhere. She finally just decided to give it a push and see what happened. Leaning her weight into it, there was a click and the wall opened a crack.
Cold air spilled out like an open window on a winter day.
Pushing it farther, the cold air became stronger.
Stepping through, So
nja lifted her light and realized she was inside a walk-in freezer. She knew she must be near the kitchen in the basement. Scanning the room for any sign of a door to get out, her light rested on a lumpy looking shape in the corner.
She realized it was the duffle bag she’d seen Grendel carrying earlier and became curious. Walking across the room, she set down her phone and unzipped the bag. Pulling back the fabric, she let out a startled cry, stumbling back.
Inside was a skull, along with other bones—perhaps an entire human skeleton.
“Why didn’t you just eat your chocolate and go to bed?” a voice demanded from the passageway.
Sonja spun around to face Grendel, standing there in her usual maid uniform, a butcher’s knife in one hand.
“Grendel, you did this? You killed that poor innocent woman at my diner?”
“Who did you expect? Gram?”
Sonja resisted her urge to say, “Yeah,” and decided it was better to keep quiet. Her original conclusion was that it had to have been the butler. He was the one who didn’t want her going up in the attic. Additionally, the stories about his travels around the world, about how he had studied various indigenous cultures, led her to believe he had the knowledge to make poison darts.
“That fool couldn’t hurt a fly,” Grendel continued.
Sonja glanced at the skeleton again. “And you killed whoever this is as well?”
Her eyes concentrated on the skull. “Henry Farjeon,” she confessed.
Sonja suddenly remembered Gram’s story from earlier. “Is that the young man who the family assumed ran off with one of the staff?”
“You always were too smart for your own good, figuring out all those murders in town for that Sheriff of yours. That’s why I knew you had to die. You were moving onto the Estate and were probably going to figure out what happened all those years ago. I couldn’t very well have that, now could I?”
“Why not just move the body?”
“It was in a perfect hiding spot, in that trunk in the servant’s attic, among a ton of other boxes and junk. Who was seriously going to go poking through all of that?”
Sonja was silent.
“I thought if I could just kill you before you even moved into the cottage, then I wouldn’t have to worry about it.”
“Then when I showed up this afternoon, you were angry you had got the wrong person,” Sonja asserted.
“I was sure you were dead,” she sneered. “I suppose that’s my fault for not checking the body.”
“That explains why you were so grumpy when I arrived, but so sweet later.”
“Last night, I decided to wait out across the street from the diner. I had no idea what horrible early hour you got up to prepare everything to open. I know a lot of my favorite bakery’s back in Boston would start prep work as early as one or two a.m.”
“I don’t usually show up until five,” Sonja admitted.
“I didn’t know that and assumed whoever had shown up was you. I shot her with the dart I’d made. I’m telling you, mixing up a batch of that poison isn’t easy. I even had to go back to the library to freshen up on how to do it.”
“Then I’m right. You killed Henry Farjeon with a poison dart, too? That’s why I found it in the trunk. It was the only thing you left behind.”
“I did. He and I had been seeing each other secretly. His family wouldn’t approve, you know, the snobs.”
“But when you wanted to run away together, get married, he refused?”
Grendel’s face twisted with a lifetime’s worth of hatred. “He chose his money, his estate, over me. Little did he know; his parents didn’t have any money for him to inherit. I’d been doing a little leisure reading in the library when no one was looking. I had learned about this poison. Did you know that it’s the same books that have been there all these years? Lord Farjeon was a man of many interests, especially hunting and warfare. When Mr. Smith bought and restored the manor, much of the original items were left behind.”
“I didn’t know that,” Sonja admitted. She was cautiously looking for a chance, any chance, to get that knife away from Grendel.
“When the Farjeon family ordered pufferfish from the coast for me to cook up, I saw my chance to use my newfound knowledge.”
“And you made the poison and killed the son.”
“That’s right,” she snapped, waving the knife.
“Earlier tonight, you were afraid I was going to check out the attic before bed, so you made a last-minute trip to remove the old bones. It was all that was left of him.”
“And just to seal the deal, I gave you a chocolate for your pillow.”
Sonja realized the chocolate, too, had to have been poisoned.
“Luckily, my dear, I have an extra right here,” she opened her free hand and revealed a small, delicate chocolate. It was perfectly square and embellished with swirls, sitting in a little paper serving cup. If it weren’t for the fact that it was full of a deadly toxin, it would look delicious.
“You can’t make me eat that.”
“It’s either eat this and die, or get hacked up,” she waved the butcher knife in the air. “Make your choice.”
Suddenly, Sonja’s phone which she left on the floor started buzzing.
Grendel looked over at it, distracted for just long enough.
Sonja took the open chance and leapt at the woman, hitting her wrist and knocking the butcher knife to the ground.
“No!” the old woman screamed.
Sonja quickly had the maid pinned to the ground with her arm behind her back. She knocked the deadly chocolate away.
“No, no, no. I got away with it my whole life. If Belinda had only given us the estate this never would have happened.”
Keeping one hand on the woman to hold her down, Sonja reached out and grabbed the phone.
“Frank?”
“Sonja, are you okay?”
“Yeah, get your butt down to the kitchen freezer in the basement, ASAP.”
CHAPTER 17
* * *
“So, you got a look at Belinda’s will?” Sonja asked Frank as she set a freshly cooked plate of buttery waffles in front of him. He was sitting in his usual corner booth where he ate every morning.
On the days when she had time, Sonja sat and shared breakfast with him. She slipped in on the other side of the booth with her cup of coffee in hand.
“Yep, I got permission to take a peek.”
“And?”
“Originally, just like we thought, she was leaving the estate to her butler, maid, and assistant. Of course, there was a clause that if ever they quit or were fired they forfeited their share.
“But that isn’t what it is now, is it?”
He shook his head. “I was right. Hanratty filled the official paperwork yesterday. She leaves everything to you if she ever happens to die.”
Sonja nodded, sipping her coffee. “I’m not surprised.”
“None of us are, Sonj’. The woman basically handed over her manor house and cottage to you. Seriously, you must be her only friend in the world.”
“You may be right about that, Frank. I just wish I had a way to contact her, to talk to her, but she wanted her new life to be a secret, I guess.”
“Oh, there is one more thing. If you happen to die before her, the old will takes effect again.”
“So, Grendel had a double motive for wanting me dead.”
“It seems so.” Picking up his fork, he dug into the Belgian waffle and ate a bite. He moaned as he tasted it.
“That good, huh?”
“Nobody does waffles like you, and this new recipe is divine.”
“All I did was up the butter ratio,” she admitted.
“It’s perfect, that’s what it is.” He cut into it again, the melted pat of butter running off onto the plate.
“You’re cute when you eat, you know,” Sonja laughed, picking up a second fork and taking a bite for herself. “But you’re right. It is good.”
“Hey, Sonja,” Al
ison called, stepping out from the back of the diner.
“What’s up? Do you need me back in the kitchen?”
“No, but this was in our pile of mail in the office. I think it’s from your friend, Belinda.” She waved an envelope in the air.
“It is?” Sonja exclaimed, snatching it and turning it over in her hand.
“I’ll be back in the kitchen if you need me,” Ally said, heading off.
Ripping it open, Sonja pulled out the letter inside and began to read.
“What does she say?”
Sonja paused, taking in the comments. “She apologized for everything that happened with Grendel and said she’s also sorry for sending Kara Bran to her death.”
“Does she say why she sent her?”
Sonja read on. “Yeah. I guess the poor woman was living in a haunted apartment and was looking for some answers. Belinda met her and sent her to me to talk about her ghost problems.”
Frank scowled. “Hey, I thought we were all done with that ghost stuff,” he shot back.
Sonja looked up at him with a concerned gaze and sighed. “Frank, I don’t think we’ll ever be completely done with the ghost stuff. It’s in my blood.”
Frank twisted his upper lip irritably. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
Reaching out across the table, she grabbed his hand. “I know it makes you worried and uncomfortable, but if you love me and want to stay with me, you’re going to have to accept the occasional ghost in our lives.”
Frank hesitated, looking into her deep green eyes, but nodded. “You’re right. I must really love you. Otherwise, I would never put up with all these spooks.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” She leaned in and kissed his cheek.
“Does she say anything else?” he asked, cutting off another bite.
“She included an envelope so I can send something back to her.”
“It has her address on it?”
Sonja shook her head. “Just a PO box. She says this will be how I can stay in touch. Each time she sends a letter, she’ll send an envelope with a new box number.”
Hot Buttered Murder (Wicked Waffle Paranormal Cozy Mysteries Book 1) Page 7