Inside Out: A Heather's Forge Cozy Mystery, Book 5

by N. L. Cameron

  “Do we know anything about his wife’s origins?” I asked. “They met after he founded the town, didn’t they?”

  “Abigail Calliwell? They didn’t meet until her family moved out here during the settlement days. I don’t see any reason he wouldn’t have had romances before that, but none of them have been recorded.”

  “How big a sensation would it make if you found out he had a romance before Abigail?” I asked. “He might even have been married to someone else first.”

  Samuel spun around to stare at me. “What are you talking about? He couldn’t have been married to someone else first.”

  “Yeah, I know. I’m just saying. This town might harbor all kinds of secrets nobody knows about. The Calliwells probably aren’t what most people think they are.”

  He dunked his cookie in his coffee. “I’m sure they aren’t, but someone would have to come up with some pretty compelling evidence to get us to change our history of the whole town.”

  I left it at that. Someone would indeed have to come up with some pretty compelling evidence to convince anybody Bea Garrett had anything to do with the Calliwells, and I didn’t even have that. I had a smudged couple of words in a faded old Bible along with a few old photographs. Not exactly convincing evidence, and I’d put the Bible back. I would probably never see it again.

  The whole conundrum sparked my curiosity all over again. Too many questions hung over my head. I had to find out what it was all about, even if it just meant learning the truth about Bea.

  After a tea break, we went back to our easels and fresh canvases. Samuel directed us to paint the gardens and even still lifes of the library. We worked steadily into the afternoon.

  When the Paint-and-Sip ended, the participants mingled around the inn for a long time. I chatted with everybody about everything related to the inn. When Mr. Jenkins and the other participants dispersed to return to town, I found Eliza on the porch. She gazed across the lake at the view she painted. “It’s so nice here, Allie. You’re so lucky to own this inn.”

  “You should paint more, Eliza,” I told her. “It’s really a shame you don’t use your talents. You’re good. You should pick it up again.”

  She smiled at me. “Do you think so?”

  “Of course. You shouldn’t turn your back on your passion, just because you have a business to run and a living to make. You could set up an easel in the back of your salon. You could work on your painting during down times when you don’t have any appointments.”

  “You’re right!” she exclaimed. “I never thought of that before. I do have a lot of free time at the salon. I spend so much time sitting around not doing anything. I read magazines and eat crappy food. I could be painting instead.”

  “Will you really do it?”

  “Sure, why not?” she asked. “That’s a great idea, Allie. Man, I’m always glad when I hang out with you. You’re full of great ideas.”

  Eliza headed back to town, and I went to my apartment. I checked my notes. I did indeed have way too many projects going at once. Now that I looked at my notebooks overflowing with scribbles, I saw my life the way Levi and Camille must have been seeing it all these months.

  I sat down on the couch and laid out my notes in front of me. I put the notebooks with my sketches of the tunnels to one side. Those tunnels were a major distraction from the important things in life.

  I turned to a fresh page in my latest notebook and made a list, numbered one through ten. I prioritized all the projects and jobs I planned to do. I had to focus. I had to do the most important job before I got distracted by another one.

  The murder mystery weekend idea wound up way down at the bottom of the page. I could scribble and plan and shoot out great ideas all day long. At the end of the day, I had to do the first project on my list and follow it through to the very end. That was the only way I could stay sane.

  Once I did that, I let myself sit back and relax. I was finally getting on top of this crazy life of mine. Now if I could only get the case of Freddy’s murder solved, I would be home free.

  Chapter 12

  I got so busy with the inn I didn’t think twice about the several mysteries hanging around. I’d let the place go so long I had a bunch of catch-up work to do. I did all my paperwork. Then I headed to the kitchen.

  Camille found me going through her desk. “I was wondering when I would see you in here. I’ve been waiting to go over the invoices for supplies and food stock for the dining room.”

  “We don’t have to go over it. I trust you.”

  “It’s not that,” she replied. “I want to discuss something with you.”

  “Oh? What’s that?” I asked.

  “It’s about the orders for your parties. You’ve been paying me extra to cater them, and you’ve been including food supplies on top of my fee.”

  “What’s wrong with that?” I asked.

  “Nothing’s wrong with it,” she replied. “I really appreciate you helping me get my own business going, but I think we should change it now. I want to start including food in the overall cost of my catering work.”

  “You don’t have to do that, Camille,” I told her. “I want these events to be the best. I’m paying you for your expertise. I don’t expect you to spring for the food, too.”

  She shook her head. “I’m doing more gigs outside the inn. People in town and even as far as Hereford want to hire me. They won’t include the food cost. They’ll expect me to cover that in my fee. It will throw my whole booking system off if I’m doing things differently at the inn, and besides, it’s not sound business practice. I talked to an accountant about it. He said I should use the same system for everybody, and that I could get audited by the IRS if I got such a big break from you.”

  I wilted. “All right. If that’s the way you want to do it, I won’t argue.”

  She laid her two hands on my shoulders. “I really am grateful for everything you’ve done for me. I could never have gotten this business off the ground without your encouragement and support. You really blew me away with your generosity, but it’s time to evolve to the next level of our business relationship. From now on, you’ll pay me a flat fee to cater your parties and events. That will include the food.”

  “What about wine, beer, champagne, and liquor?” I asked. “Is that included, or do you provide all that? We could be talking about a huge sum.”

  “No, those things you will provide in a separate ticket from my catering fee. You’ll purchase all of it and arrange how to place them at the event and all that. You also have to provide the glasses and all the serving stuff.”

  “Are the servers supposed to be separate, too?” I asked. “This is all really complicated.”

  “You’re already providing the servers and paying them, so they can serve drinks and food without any crossover into my territory. I just handle the food itself.”

  “Okay. I guess we’ll just have to try it.”

  “Don’t worry,” she told me. “We’ll work it out as we go along.”

  After going over Camille’s domain, I went over Lexi Baker’s new landscape designs for the gardens. I even worked on plans for the scavenger hunt.

  About eleven o’clock in the morning, I walked around the inn with a duster, just to check the old place over. Everything was working. Everything was in order. All of a sudden, I came to the library. There was the lake, spread out clear and blue and flat to the mountains beyond, just the way it was yesterday, just the way it appeared in our paintings.

  There was no tiny house in the distance, though. There never had been—not in my lifetime—and there never would be again.

  I made up my mind then and there. I wanted to see the site. I put my duster away, logged off my computer, and headed out. I hiked around the lake in search of the old ruins.

  I had no idea where to look, but I figured I could find the spot by gauging the position from the inn. I spent over an hour circling the lake. It wasn’t as easy as I thought. I got caught in a patch of bram
bles and even startled a raccoon washing his hands in a stream before I got into clear territory on the other side.

  I worked my way down to the gravel shore and checked the position of the inn in the distance. It looked a lot smaller from here. It looked like the tiny house Eliza painted in her picture yesterday. It didn’t look big enough to house all my problems.

  Samuel Jenkins knew more about Heather’s Forge history than anybody, and he seemed to think you could see the house from the inn. It couldn’t be far away. I hunted around. I found some old walking trails, but none of them led to anything like an old house site or an old stone foundation.

  I started to give up. Maybe there was no house or any stone foundation. Maybe Samuel made the whole thing up. No, he wouldn’t do that. He was a stickler for historical fact. He wouldn’t tell us that story if it wasn’t true. The foundation must be here somewhere.

  I searched high and low, but I didn’t find anything. I turned back when I heard footsteps in the undergrowth. I hid behind the bushes and a familiar tall figure appeared out of nowhere. It was Artie Gordon.

  I stared in shock. He walked down one of the paths and passed right in front of me. He hiked on by and around the next bend out of sight. I darted out to follow him. He moved along at an easy pace, not concerned about anything.

  The next time he turned a corner, he entered a large clearing. There in the center of a ring of tall spruce trees sat the foundation. A clear square of stone walls no higher than my knee poked up out of the ground. A pile of other stones sat embedded in the grass by one wall. That must have been the remains of the chimney.

  Artie paid the ruin no attention. He kept on walking across the clearing and down the path on the other side. I couldn’t believe my eyes. When I knew he couldn’t see me, I darted after him, but he was gone. He vanished into nothing.

  I returned to the foundation to take a closer look. Black smudges discolored the stone walls. A few charred beams rotted into the ground. Yes, the little house definitely burned down, whatever it was.

  I measured the site with my eyes. It would have been a tiny little house, just the sort of house the frontiersmen lived in when they settled this part of the country. For the thousandth time, I went over all the old questions. What did Bea have to do with the Calliwells? What did Artie have to do with Bea?

  Thinking about Artie made me want to find out more about him, too. I tiptoed down the path to find out where he went.

  Chapter 13

  I trekked down the path a long way without seeing any sign of Artie Gordon. I returned to the building site and hunted around until I found an old shed in the trees. It must have belonged to the house, but it survived the fire. I looked inside. A single cow stall sat against one wall. That was the whole shed.

  I went back and forth over the whole site several times with no sign of anything that could answer my questions. I took one last look in the shed before heading back to the inn for the night. I went inside and stood in the stall. There was nothing to see here. It was just an old ruin nobody cared about anymore.

  Just before I walked out for the last time, my eye fell on a loose board against the opposite wall. It hung at an odd angle to the rest of the structure. A single nail held it in place at one corner. None of the other corners showed any sign of nail holes. That’s what caught my attention.

  I squatted down next to it and took a closer look. It swiveled freely on its one nail. It slotted back up into its place. The slightest flick of a finger brought it down to reveal a space behind it. Someone obviously constructed it to slide back and forth with no effort.

  I peered into the space behind the wall. A large rock sat against the shed’s back wall, and the opening led into a cavern underneath. I’d seen too many caverns in the last few weeks to miss what it really was. It was another opening into the tunnels. I moved the board back and weaseled my way inside. I pulled the board into place to hide where I’d been.

  The tunnel looked exactly like the ones under the inn. No one could mistake them. The same indentations marked the walls. Even the same chisel marks scored the walls to show how the tunnels were constructed.

  I walked a ways down the tunnel, but before long, I faced the unmistakable fact. This wasn’t the same tunnel system I’d found under the inn. This one led away from the lake, away from town. How was that possible?

  No doors marked the walls, either. This definitely wasn’t the same labyrinth under the town. It didn’t fork and wind like the other one did. It ran in a straight course—or relatively straight—into the mountain.

  I followed it a long way, much farther than I ever expected. I kept telling myself to turn around and go back. I had work to do at the inn. Camille would wonder where I was. Maybe Levi would come around and get worried like he usually did. He would be doubly worried when he looked in the tunnels under the town and didn’t find me there.

  I kicked myself for the thousandth time for not telling anybody where I was going. I’d promised Levi I wouldn’t take any unnecessary risks, and here I was, doing exactly that. What was I going to do—tell him about this tunnel, too? I would have to tell him all about the cabin and the shed and the Bible and everything else. He would be furious that I’d kept it from him all this time.

  For some reason, I didn’t turn back, though. I just kept walking, and walking, and walking. I must have walked for hours. My legs got tired, but I didn’t turn back. I just kept going. How long did I really intend to keep doing this?

  I began to question my own sanity when the tunnel started climbing. I recognized that climb. The tunnel climbed the same way when it came to that gate into the shed where I found the Bible.

  This one came out behind a sliding wall in an old stable. A few battens held up a section of dusty old planks. The whole wall moved aside, and I stepped into piles of hay between rail fences. The place smelled of animals, but I didn’t see any when I emerged from the tunnel.

  I stepped into the stable. I didn’t have to go anywhere to see where I was. Outside the open door, the little shed sat among the trees. The cabin stood off to one side, but it looked so different in daylight.

  For one thing, it was a lot bigger than I first realized. That was no crude shack. Bright windows glistened from every wall. A wind chime hung from the front porch, and a satellite dish perched on top of the roof. A shiny red truck sat in front of the cabin. Whoever lived there had money.

  What did it all mean? Whose house was this? While I stood there thinking about it, something bumped inside that house. I didn’t want to get caught standing out here in plain view, so I ducked back into the tunnel. I would have liked to investigate further, but nothing would be worse than getting caught out here by the wrong person.

  I pulled the sliding panel into place and made my way back to the ruins of Ashfield Calliwell’s house. I put the board back where I found it. I’m sure Samuel Jenkins didn’t know about that—or maybe he did. Maybe he was one of the few people in this town who knew about the tunnels.

  I took one last look at the foundation, but that spot held no secrets for me. The only secret worth finding was in the cow stall, and I already found that. I headed back the way I came. The inn shone in the sun across the lake. It called me back to my life. That’s where I really belonged.

  I started to thaw out from my long hibernation. Life was too good to obsess about tunnels and mysteries and murders and family secrets long dead. I had the whole glorious future to look forward to. I had a slew of exciting events to plan, with the rest of the town just waiting for their invitations. What was I doing putting that on hold to hunt around ruins and tunnels and long-forgotten horrors?

  I made sure to skirt the brambles this time. I stuck to the sunny paths where I could see the inn approaching out of the trees. It glimmered like a beacon. I should never have thought ill of the old place. I’d let myself get distracted by the murders and crimes that happened there. I should have been paying attention to all the good the place did, not only for me, but for the rest of the
town.

  I turned my face up into the sunshine. Life was good. The inn was good, and I was a part of that. I was part of spreading the inn’s goodness to the world, and I felt good, really good—better than I had felt in a long time.

  Chapter 14

  I turned a bend in the path and almost collided with Levi coming the other way. He jumped back. “Where have you been? No, wait. Don’t tell me.” He picked a cobweb out of my hair. “You’ve been in the tunnels again.”

  “You’re right, but I haven’t been in the tunnels under the town.” I pointed back toward the ruins. “Did you know about the old house site over there where Ashfield Calliwell used to live?”

  “Everybody knows about that.”

  “I didn’t,” I replied. “I found another entrance to the tunnels, but it doesn’t lead to town. I’ve just been following it.”

  “You should be more careful, Allie,” he told me. “The killer could be using those tunnels. If he caught you down there, no one would be able to help you. He could get rid of your body and never get caught.”

  “I was thinking about that, too,” I replied. “I was thinking someone might have used the tunnels to get into the sheriff’s station to kill Freddy.”

  He nodded, and we headed down the path toward the inn. “It certainly seems possible, though I haven’t seen any secret opening in the jail where someone could get through. Those cells get searched on a regular basis for anything like that.”

  “They get searched by law enforcement officers,” I pointed out. “If one of those officers knew about an opening somewhere other than the cells, they could make use of it.”

  Levi stopped to raise an eyebrow at me. “Are you telling me Sheriff Mills or Deputy Leonard knew about a secret opening into the jail and used it to commit a crime? I don’t think so.”