“All right, let’s broaden the scope of this thing,” Cashel announced. He headed straight for me, then posed at my side.
“Whoa. Nope! I’m not part of the photo shoot,” I protested.
I tried to step aside. Cashel’s grasp around my waist stopped me. It wasn’t as firm as Danny’s had been while saving me from the marauding killer Santa Claus, but it was close.
I felt his hair tickle my earlobe. Then he came even nearer. “Just a few snaps,” he coaxed. “For Ophelia. Okay?”
I relented. Cashel misunderstood my initial reticence and seemed to think I wanted to be cajoled into participating. That meant he did his utmost to persuade me. He laughed and sweet-talked, posed and hammed it up. Eventually, I enjoyed myself.
Not a single suggestion of Ophelia’s went unfollowed. Uniquely among the Sullivans, Cashel actually seemed to fit his depiction in Albany’s memoir. Under the right circumstances (that is, while not being denied lodging), Cashel really was an easygoing guy. Nothing fazed him—not slipping downhill, not falling off the sled we shared, and not even spilling (tepid) hot cocoa all over his puffer coat when I accidentally jostled his elbow during a break in the action.
“Oh! I’m so sorry.” I grabbed a napkin and tried to sop up the mess. Marshmallows and milk foam smeared over his puffer coat’s shiny surface. “Ugh. This is only making things worse.”
Cashel grabbed my wrist. “It’s okay. Seriously.”
I felt something odd pass between us. Momentarily stymied by that, I peered into his face, then withdrew my hand. I was aware that this was the first time he’d touched me while not posing for the photo shoot. I didn’t know what to think of it.
He chuckled. “You can just buy me a new coat. How’s that?”
“Cash!” Ophelia groaned. “Wow. Obvious much?”
I glanced from one to the other of them, bewildered.
Ophelia noticed. “Cash got wind of your donut bonanza,” she explained dryly. “Now he thinks you’re some kind of big-city billionaire.” She rolled her eyes, then gave her brother a nudge. “He thinks he can cash in if he charms you hard enough.”
Aha. “That explains the Mr. Nice Guy routine. I get it.”
“No!” Cashel protested immediately. “That’s really me!”
I looked at Ophelia for confirmation. She shrugged, but her face was alight with mischief. I didn’t know whom to believe.
I sensed there was a longtime complex camaraderie between these two. It wouldn’t be me who cracked their sibling code.
“Let me prove it to you,” Cashel urged. We all leaned on the fence again, having nearly wrapped up our photo shoot. “I’ll take you to dinner. I’ll make you dinner! Whatever you want.”
I hesitated. I didn’t want to be unkind, but I also felt keenly aware of my (unfair) racy new reputation in town.
In the meantime, Ophelia cracked up. “You’re going to cook a multicourse meal on the hot plate in your room at the Sproutes Motor Lodge?” she guessed. “Nice try, Romeo, but I doubt it.”
“Shut up, pip-squeak,” Cashel shot back. “I might.”
“I’m afraid I’m booked solid with work,” I refused gently, not mentioning that my “work” wasn’t chocolate making but amateur sleuthing. “Sorry, Cashel. Today has been fun, though.”
“I’m not giving up,” he warned with a grin. “Not ever.”
That made me smile. “My friend Travis would say that makes you sound exactly like my kind of guy,” I joked. “Danny too.”
“Danny?” He blinked. “You mean that jacked-up dude who’s working as Tansy Park’s bodyguard? You know him? Small world!”
It wasn’t such a stretch that Cashel made that connection. Travis, Danny, and I were all conspicuously new in town—and it turned out that Danny and Cashel had met at the Sproutes Motor Lodge. Apparently, their assigned rooms weren’t far apart. Plus, I imagined that being with Tansy made a person extra noticeable.
Cashel swore, looking impressed. “We’ve only nodded at each other, mostly, but that guy looks like he’d be just as happy to break your arm as shake your hand. Is he always like that?”
Danny? Not with me, he wasn’t. He memorably wasn’t.
Forcibly, I shook off those memories. “When he’s working, he is. When he’s not . . .” I considered it. “Yeah, he still is.”
We all laughed. I was surprised to have shared even that much personal information with Cashel and Ophelia. Here in Sproutes, I’d almost felt undercover. I still felt guarded, but I guessed that our productive afternoon together had relaxed me.
I’d been sledding once before in Switzerland. The memory made me think about my parents, who were busy working on a site. Later, I promised myself, I’d fire up a video chat with them.
We would miss each other at Christmas this year, but it was comforting having Danny and Travis nearby. My mom and dad still didn’t know all the ins and outs of my sleuthing activities.
If I had my way, it would stay that way. Permanently.
“Well, I think I’ve got all I need for today,” Ophelia announced. She looked up from her ever-present phone. “Hayden, can you drop me off at the theater? If I’m lucky, no one will even notice I’ve been gone. I’m pulling a paycheck, after all.”
Her casual mention of deliberately sneaking in instead of earning that paycheck surprised me. But, apparently, not Cashel.
He only smiled. “And maybe a lift to the motor lodge?”
I’d become the Sproutes chauffeur. “Sure.” I gestured to my rental car, then gave Cashel a teasing glance. “I’m guessing none of the Sullivans have licenses, then? Is it family policy?”
“Not officially,” he replied with a grin. “But you know we’re all a little unusual. You’ve read Albany’s memoir, right?”
When I nodded, Cashel seemed pleased.
“Then you can’t be surprised by anything about us,” he kidded. “Now, can you?”
Then we all piled into my waiting car, and I drove us away.
Prudently, slowly, and with all possible caution, too.
Fifteen
I was still pondering Cashel’s remarks when I met Danny and Travis that night for mulled cider and Christmas bowling.
That’s right. We’d descended on the Sproutes Star Lanes, along with Tansy and a starstruck Josh Levitt, who seemed less bummed than ever about losing the Sproutes Sentinel Bake-Off. Every moment spent in the actress’s golden company seemed to make him glow just a little bit brighter.
I was happy for him on a personal level. Even more so on a semiprofessional level. Having Josh nearby helped take the load off of Danny and his bodyguard services. That meant we could talk freely, my two best friends and I, about Melissa’s murder.
It wasn’t the subject I would have chosen to discuss there, amid the bowling alley’s multicolored lighted decorations, holiday music, and individual lane tables wreathed with garland and tinsel. Ahead of us, down the lanes, the pins were painted to look like reindeer, with center pins resembling Santa Claus.
It was kitschy, sure. I liked it, though. Of a differing opinion was Albany, who’d skipped out on tonight’s gathering owing to a headache. I had my doubts about her supposed ailment. Privately, I believed she was simply too snobby to participate in something as lowbrow as Christmastime-themed bowling.
On the other hand, I reflected, Linda Sullivan had clearly been in pain earlier. If her absence from the Sproutes Sentinel was due to migraines, for instance, then maybe Albany was prone to headaches herself. After dropping off Ophelia at the theater, I’d agreed to Cashel’s last-minute request to stop at the local drugstore. He’d forgotten about his mother’s pain medication.
“I was so psyched about the photo shoot with you that I totally spaced,” he’d said with a regretful expression. “I feel like the worst kind of loser—the kind that lets down his mom.”
Seeing his downcast face, I would have been churlish to refuse. I didn’t ask why Cashel’s truck-driving friend hadn’t helped him pick up his mother
’s prescription. There was no point in berating him. I had the sense that forgetfulness was a long-standing issue for Cashel. I commiserated. I’m often sorry about my procrastinating, too, but no one understands.
Unfortunately, after Cashel made it to the drugstore, he emerged with a crestfallen look. “Albany picked it up. Again.”
“Oh.” I felt sorry for him—and partly responsible for having distracted him earlier, too. “Maybe next time, right?”
“Maybe.” Cashel sent me a mopey glance. Then he grinned. “You’re so optimistic. It’s obvious you don’t know me yet.”
“It’s obvious you don’t know me, or you’d know that about me already. My friends can’t stop giving me a hard time about it.” I grinned back, then dropped him off at the Sproutes Motor Lodge, not altogether sorry the day hadn’t included another hostile encounter with Linda Sullivan. I couldn’t shake the weird memory of her glaring at me from her living room window.
Now, surrounded by bowling Sproutesians and sipping spiced cider from a Christmas-printed paper cup, I tried to perk up.
Travis was late—a rarity for him—so I turned to Danny.
Not surprisingly, my bodyguard pal watched alertly while Josh helped Tansy improve her bowling form. I was pretty sure hurling an eight-pound ball didn’t require that much hip swing.
“That’s a gutter ball for sure,” Danny predicted drily.
“I don’t think they care,” I offered as a rejoinder.
“You’re probably right.” He swung his dark-eyed gaze to mine. “You look like you want to dish about Travis. So spill.”
“Me?” I blinked in pretend innocence. It went over about as well as I expected, which is to say, not at all. “Okay, fine.”
I’d actually been dying to discuss Travis’s unforeseen upbringing in Sproutes, along with the comforting cookies and spaghetti and meatballs he’d found at the Sullivans’ household.
I got as far as “He was a free-lunch kid! Poor Travis!”
Danny’s opaque gaze darkened. “Having a tough childhood doesn’t make someone a pity case,” he said in a hard voice.
“I know that! That’s not what I mean.” I struggled to explain my reaction to learning that Travis’s family had been—must have been—fairly destitute. They’d had to accept public assistance. That couldn’t have been easy. I said as much.
Danny wasn’t having it. Irritably, he crossed his muscular arms. “You can still be happy even if you don’t have much.”
“Of course you can.” I knew that’s what he’d done, as a child and beyond. “The thing is, between poverty and divorce—”
“Mmm-hmm?” His expression sharpened dangerously.
I had to tread carefully or risk stepping on Danny’s (understandably sensitive) toes. “It can be difficult, that’s all,” I wound up saying. “I’d always imagined Travis growing up in, if not the lap of luxury, then comfortable circumstances. I didn’t know he’d gone to Harvard on a scholarship! You know how secretive he can be about . . . everything. Then, to find out he was raised here in Sproutes by a struggling single mom—”
Danny cleared his throat. “Again, not necessarily a problem.” His posture became even more defensive. “For anyone.”
No way. I was not about to inadvertently dis Mrs. Jamieson and the rest of Danny’s extended family. I loved all of them.
“I just hate thinking of anyone struggling, that’s all.”
He looked away, his expression impervious as he watched Josh and Tansy give a heartfelt “Oh no!” Their latest attempt at bowling didn’t so much as teeter Rudolph or his brethren. The ball rolled harmlessly and unbearably slowly down the gutter.
A moment later, Danny grinned at me. “I’m just messing with you, Hayden. I was surprised about Travis, too.”
I could have smacked him. “You were ‘messing’ with me?”
A shrug. “It’s hard not to when you’re in crusader mode.” He stretched his neck. “Plus, I’m still waiting for that donut.”
Argh. He wasn’t the type to bear a grudge. Like me, Danny fell into the live-and-let-live category. Most of the time.
“You don’t even like sweets,” I objected reasonably. “Unless the donut shop has some kind of superhot habanero-filled, bacon-topped, salted cruller, you won’t be satisfied.”
“Sounds tasty. And it’s the principle of the thing.”
“I’m sorry I left you out. Okay? Are we square now?”
His lighthearted glance said we were. “Let’s go back to Melissa B.,” Danny suggested. “That night at the B and B, who do you think she was getting high with after hours by the punch bowl?”
I frowned. “You make drugs sound like an inevitability.”
“They’re not not an inevitability. Maybe she was using.”
“Maybe she wasn’t.”
“Now you’re just being contrary.” He gave me an indulgent look, then got up for his turn at bowling. A strike. “I’m back.” Danny settled into his allotted plastic chair, one arm spread along the back of mine. “If Melissa was on something that night, it would explain a lot. Maybe not why she died, but how.”
At the touch of his arm on the back of my neck, I balked. I left our conversation hanging while I took my turn (not a strike, but I did knock down a few reindeer and one Santa). Afterward, I argued, “I don’t see how Melissa possibly could have done her work as a producer if she were using drugs.”
“Then you haven’t known very many addicts,” Danny said. “Plenty of them find ways to use while earning money to buy. This isn’t an after-school special, Hayden. It’s real life.”
“Maybe Roger destroyed Melissa. Got his wife addicted?”
“It’s not an afternoon soap opera, either.” Danny gave me a grin with that quip. Then his expression changed as he nodded toward Star Lanes’ shoe-rental zone. “Now I’ve seen everything. Harvard’s here. He brought his own ball and shoes. It figures a brainbox like him would have had all his stuff custom made.”
A few seconds later, Travis arrived. He set down his bowling bag, then surveyed the scene. His gaze lingered on Tansy and Josh, then returned to Danny and me. “Sorry to be late,” my financial advisor said as he hooked his thumb toward the scoreboard. “But I see there’s still time to beat both of you.”
Danny guffawed. He took a swig of cider. “You’re on.”
I wasn’t so confident. “You barely glanced at the board.”
“There are only so many probable outcomes.” Travis took a seat and got ready. His shoes came out. I thought I saw him look at them with near fondness. “These were at the Sullivans’ house. I left all my bowling gear there when I went off to college.”
“You did? Why’s that?” I asked while he put them on.
“Didn’t think I’d need them. I was aiming for the dean’s list, not the bowling club. Anyway, the whole setup was a gift from the Sullivans one Christmas.” Travis unzipped his bag, then carried his ball to its place. “I’ll jump into the next game.”
“Best two out of three?” Danny suggested confidently.
“As long as you feel like losing,” Travis agreed.
Uh-oh. It appeared their rivalry wasn’t over.
Nor was I off the hook in any way, as it turned out. Because while Danny left the seating area to bowl another strike amid the jolly Christmas music, the decorations, and Josh and Tansy’s increasingly frisky flirtation, Travis turned to me.
“I scrolled through Ophelia’s social-media accounts this afternoon at rehearsal,” my financial advisor told me in his gravelly voice. “I was looking for anyone who seemed threatening or unstable enough to want to strike out against Ophelia.”
“Good idea. Were there any likely candidates?”
“Thousands. The comments section of almost any Internet site is a cesspool,” Travis said mildly. “But you know how it is. As I was scrolling, new content was constantly coming in.”
“That’s how social media works, Trav,” I joked. “I know you’re new at this stuff, though.” I rec
ognized my moment and took it. “Speaking of which, why don’t you have any profiles?”
Travis wasn’t biting. Instead, he went on. “Imagine my surprise when these lovey-dovey photos of you and Cashel Sullivan appeared at the top of the feed. Care to explain?”
Damningly, he held up his phone. There we were, the eldest Sullivan sibling and I, caught in what looked like a clinch. I held a package of chocolate-peppermint bark in a carefully posed position; Cashel nuzzled my ear while making goo-goo eyes.
Travis’s censorious gaze suggested he did not approve.
“I have to admit, that looks pretty real, doesn’t it?” I joked. “But it’s all acting. You already knew about my approach to meeting Ophelia. That’s not news. This is the next step.”
“The ‘next step’ is making out with Cashel Sullivan?” Travis put away his phone and devoted his attention to giving me an intelligent, super-serious look. Those were his specialty. “He’s bad news. There’s a history there that you don’t know about.”
I already knew he wouldn’t share that history. So I didn’t ask him to. Instead, I felt my innate contrariness kick in.
“People change, Travis. It happens all the time.”
If anything, his serious expression deepened. “Not in Sproutes.”
I was flummoxed. “Really? Is this town that bad?” I waved at the earnest, fun-loving bowlers around us. “It looks okay.”
“Looks can be deceiving,” Travis said as Danny returned.
The three of us exchanged glances while Danny tried to decipher what had gone on in his absence. Nearby, Tansy giggled.
I sighed. “This is not the Friendsmas I was hoping for.”
I didn’t enjoy feeling at odds with either of them. Even if our occasional argumentativeness hadn’t upset me, there was also its impact on our investigating to consider. Just then, I felt too annoyed to follow up properly on the issue of Ophelia’s nasty social-media commenters. Had she known any of them in real life? Had any of them known her? Had any of them lived nearby?
Just then, I didn’t care. Leaving my “Friendsmas” comment dangling, I got up to take my turn. I hurled my bowling ball with extra force . . . and threw my first strike of the evening.
The Peppermint Mocha Murder Page 18