The first one I ventured into was decorated with elk antlers and tartan plaid upholstery and other over-the-top masculine motifs, as if this part of the house mistakenly believed it was a log cabin. This had to be Fred’s space.
His suite was full of everything I’d expect from a dementia patient. Tons of bright lighting in the sitting room that looked like they’d been added recently. Covered mirrors in the bathroom. Drawers and cupboards were labeled with the contents. Most tellingly of all, his bedroom locked from the outside. Proving that he couldn’t be trusted to safely navigate his own house alone.
No amount of money, sadly, can shield you from growing old.
The only good news for Fred was that he’d just been scratched right off my suspect list. If he couldn’t leave his bedroom unsupervised, it was unlikely he’d masterminded a murder.
Which only shifted my suspicion back to his son. Drew didn’t seem like a bad guy, really, but he also sure didn’t seem too broken up over his wife’s violent death. He also didn’t seem to take an abundance of caution when it came to safely biting his employee, Marina. Then again, he was clearly a very young vampire and just learning how to survive—he probably didn’t have the energy to focus on much except quenching his hunger. Especially with his main blood doll gone.
Was it possible Drew had miscalculated the last time he fed from Ashlee, and accidentally killed her by taking too much blood?
After watching him with Marina, it seemed very possible indeed.
I paused at the top of the stairs to check out the second fourth floor sitting area, more out of curiosity about the décor if nothing else. To my delight the furniture in here was as big and bold as a 1980s hairstyle. Dynasty and Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous came to mind. The elegant powder room was done in polished black, with a spideresque crystal chandelier that covered the whole ceiling. Then a hallway with a locked door. The keyhole was modern but stylized, with a heart-shaped lock pad, the aperture just large enough to let one steal a peek inside.
That had to be the door to Estelle’s bedroom.
I hesitated.
Sure, I’d snooped in Drew and Fred’s bedrooms, but Estelle felt different. I respected her. Plus, I had no practical reason to enter the woman’s inner sanctum. The only thing I suspected her of was possibly helping to cover for her son, going on the theory that he’d accidentally drained Ashlee during a routine biting. She seemed like a good mom and I could see her doing something that was wrong if it was to protect her son. Not to mention her family’s reputation.
But honestly? The retro fancy decor in here was so cool I kinda had to check it out, just from a gawker’s perspective.
Through the keyhole, I could make out a luxurious bed with cream colored satin sheets. But I didn’t have time to speculate about their thread count or astronomical cost. Because there was a man lying on that bed.
It was a naked man, and the naked man was definitely David.
Chapter 15
Monday morning, I felt like I had a hangover from trying to process all the crazy things I’d heard and seen in the Kensington home the evening before.
Unfortunately, Gran wasn’t on board with making it easy for me to get through the day. I’d barely handed her her morning cup of Earl Grey when she began pestering me about Bryson’s whacky demon DNA.
As if it mattered. I wanted to tell her that compared to the Kensingtons, Bryson and I would be the most average, drama-free, picket fence couple that ever lived in Blue Moon Bay.
The woman was driving me so batty that I forgot to pick up an oven mitt and stupidly grabbed for a hot tray, searing my fingertips and scattering a batch of tahini-pepita-chocolate-chip cookies on the kitchen floor. I’d been so pleased with myself for trying a new, experimental recipe using trendier ingredients, since going all in on our “homegrown, traditional” branding ones wasn’t exactly yielding great results.
Sucking on my poor burned thumb, I trudged to the supply closet to fetch the broom and mop.
Gran hadn’t even noticed my accident. “And another thing,” she called from the till, where distressingly absolutely no one was waiting in line to buy anything. “Have you considered the effects of marrying a demon, on your magical legacy?”
“Excuse me?” So she’d escalated her insults, from demon’s spawn to demon? “Come on, Gran. At least you can grant that he’s human, more or less.”
“Is he?”
“One ancestor—”
“One that you know of,” she corrected with a shake of her head. “As I was saying, when a witch marries a demon, their offspring may well turn up with demonic magic running through their veins instead of witch magic. You’d have no apprentice at the bakery. No magical heir.”
I threw up my hands. “And why is that, Gran? Do demons make bitter-tasting cookies or something?”
“Oh Hazel dear, you can be so naive at times. Demons don’t bake. Demons don’t cook at all, though they may claim they ‘love to cook’ and own a kitchen full of fancy gadgets. That’s one of the standard ways you can test to see if a man is actually a demon. They foist all the cooking onto others.”
“That’s ridiculous.” Though, all of a sudden, I remembered the Sandman demon telling me she’d email me the cookie recipe. Would it have killed her to bake the darn things herself? Then I thought about Bryson’s glibly offering my house up for Thanksgiving. Surely he’d help me cook, though . . . wouldn’t he? “What are the other standard ways?” I asked, fearing I’d regret it.
“Well, there’s the tongue test. They can glamor the rest of their form to look human, but the tongue never lies.”
I swallowed. “Do I want to know what that means?”
“Only if you care about your future children being indistinguishable from iguanas,” she said with a wild chortle that made me honestly wonder if she was on the same path to senility as Fred Kensington.
Learning that Fred wasn’t the monster I’d thought he was—let’s face it, hoped he was—had shifted my suspicions to the rest of his family. Especially his vampire son. The sight of Marina’s head slumping over in the bathtub would stick with me forever, as would Drew’s lazy, fanged grin after he fed off her. He clearly wasn’t grieving his dead bride. Had he even loved her to begin with or simply used compulsion to win her over, just so he’d have a dedicated blood doll? And maybe some arm candy too to make him seem more distinguished in a business setting?
The only trouble was, though I could easily see Drew’s motives for marrying someone like Ashlee, I couldn’t understand his motives for killing her. It had to have been an accident. A careless overenthusiasm in feeding.
The savage way Drew had chomped Marina’s neck disturbed me. But seeing David’s hot, naked body in Estelle’s private suite had messed with me the most.
The two of them being involved had me reeling with shock. Not just because she was so much older (ok, that was part of it). Or even because she was his employer. No, it was the fact that I’d been observing them, investigating them, and still I’d had no idea of their affair till yesterday.
They were sneaky, I’d give them that much. I’d never even seen them interact.
And yet, knowing what I did bout Estelle’s husband—that he wasn’t really there anymore—could I begrudge her an affair with a hot younger guy like David? Besides, there could be other stuff in her life causing her extreme stress lately. For instance, her own son was a vampire. And possibly a blood doll killer. Did she know either or both of these things? And if she didn’t, how badly would it break her heart to find out?
The more I thought about it, she would have to be aware of everything going on in her house at all times to be able to hide her affair with David so smoothly. She had to know about Drew’s fangs, and any messes he made while feeding. But how far would she go to clean up those messes?
I was in the midst of gloomily sweeping up a mess of my own—the expensive, ruined cookies into the dustpan—when the bell rang to announce a new customer.
For the
first time ever, Deputy Elliot James walked into my bakery.
At the sight of his sharp profile—jet-black hair buzzed short, tan uniform with gun holstered, Gran and our other patrons—a pair of older women, out-of-towners from Seattle, and a young mommy with sticky toddlers in tow—looked up with intense interest. Which wasn’t surprising, since Elliot was undeniably hot these days, in that “strong, silent type” way that so many women were still into, despite the recent liberation of men to be chatty monsters. Tourists joked that there had to be something in our water, as Blue Moon Bay was blessed with more than its share of drop-dead gorgeous male specimens. But what was particularly arresting about Elliot was how comically out of place he looked in my bakery. Surrounded by puffy, round pastries and my rustic pink flower arrangements only made him look more angular. More stark. More serious.
“Deputy James?” Gran smiled. “I don’t suppose I can interest you in a butterscotch blondie?”
Elliot’s blank, stoical face betrayed a moment of pain. “No, thank you ma’am.”
Figured. His stomach probably lived a monk’s life, just protein-packed salads and water with fizzy electrolyte tablets.
His next words didn’t surprise me either, though they did make my palms sweat. “Ma’am, I’d like to speak with your granddaughter for a moment.”
Gran’s smile faded. “Oh, I see. Go on and take your break early, Hazel.”
My clammy hands now turning to ice from nerves, I led Elliot into the kitchen and closed the door to the bakery dining room.
His nostrils twitched. “What’s that in the oven?”
“Almond-cherry muffins. I was originally hoping to try açaí berries, but Gert’s Groceries didn’t have any.” Plus I figured no one in town would know what they are.
“Smells really good, wow,” he said, almost despite himself.
“Thanks.” I tried to give him a friendly smile but couldn’t manage small talk over my anxiety. Especially not when he was so bad at it himself. “Have there been any updates? About Ashlee’s case?”
“If there were, they’d be classified,” Elliot said with a sudden hardness to his tone that surprised me.
Oh right. He didn’t know I was working with Max. “Oops, my bad, should have mentioned that I’m good friends with Max de Klaw. Again.”
Elliot tilted his head in confusion.
“Or maybe you didn’t know we had a falling out, right after high school?” I went on, aware that I was getting a wee bit rambly from nerves. “Well we did. But, erm, now it’s fixed.” Or at least papered over. “So, you know, anything you’d tell her, you might as well tell—”
“I’m not comparing notes with you, Hazel,” Elliot cut in, his dark eyes meeting mine directly, the way he’d been too bashful to do in high school. “And I’m no longer sharing info about this case with Maxine either.”
Whoa. Was Deputy James no longer sweet on Max? “Erm, has something changed?” I asked, feeling oddly flustered. How could Elliot simply abandon his record-length, unrequited, hopeless crush on Max?
Was nothing sacred?
Elliot hesitated. “Look, you know her as well as I do, you know that she’s a . . . very special person. I’ll always feel protective of that girl.”
I took that to be his old-fashioned, law enforcement guy speak for “I’m still way into her” and breathed a sigh. Good old Elliot. Some things never changed.
“But in this case, I can no longer trust that she’ll choose what’s right over her own blood.”
Kade. With all my focus on the Kensingtons, I’d almost forgotten about how he’d admitted to Max that he made Ashlee a fake ID. Or how she’d spirited him out of town, which Elliot probably hadn’t appreciated. “But you don’t really think her brother is the killer, do you?”
“I’m not telling you what I think, but I’ll tell you what I know.” He gave me a significant look. “We human beings are built to be swayed by our emotions. By love.”
“Oh.” I suddenly got his meaning. “So you think I’m biased to believe in Bryson’s innocence, too.”
“Well, you are wearing his ring.” From the hard way he set his jaw, I wondered if he secretly agreed with his boss that Bryson and I got engaged too fast. But Elliot didn’t seem the type to meddle in other folks’ business like Gantry. Perhaps he just didn’t think much of marriage? Or alternately, maybe he was thinking of how much he’d like to buy Max a diamond ring, but he knew she’d reject him? To be honest, I’d never had much of a clear idea what went on in Elliot James’s head. He was so reserved, it made him a touch inscrutable. Maybe that’s why I always found myself curious about his life. Something told me he was full of interesting surprises.
His next words shocked me for sure. “Hazel, I came here to demand that you stop sniffing around the Ashlee Kensington case.”
“Whoa. You can’t tell us what to do. It’s a free country.”
“Yeah, it’s free because there are laws.” Elliot crossed his sinewy arms across his tan uniform shirt. “Against interfering with police procedure, for example.” His tone was neutral to cool, not what I was used to from our casual, pleasant hellos. I realized that though we’d known each other over a decade, this was our longest conversation. It was also the first one that you might call adversarial. And I wasn’t finding it to be very pleasant.
“It was good talking to you, Hazel.” Elliot was already standing in the doorway. “Thanks for staying away from the case until further notice. Also, your muffins are done.”
“Aaah!” I’d been so engrossed in our battle of wits, I hadn’t even heard the oven beep. I ran to get my oven mitts. We weren’t operating at such a cushy margin I could afford to ruin a second batch of baked goods.
After he’d slipped out the back door—wise choice, given his adoring female fans in the dining room—I angrily devoured a butterscotch blondie, washing it down with honey-vanilla tea.
Elliot had assumed I would fold on his orders, because I was gentle, anxious, sweet Hazel Greenwood. But that was the old me.
Actually, the new me was still all those things. Especially anxious.
But she was also determined. There was one more suspect I needed to investigate further, much as I dreaded trying to stuff a sinfully delicious dream cookie into her mouth.
Jenna.
Drew and Marina were not having an affair, but Drew and Jenna might well be. They had history. They had chemistry. We had evidence that Drew was habitually snacking on her veins. Plus, Sophie said Drew was giving her money, and that Ash had wanted it to stop. That suggested a relationship.
I didn’t want Jenna to be guilty because she had a ten-year-old daughter.
But I’d gotten too far into this truth-discovering business to abandon a lead.
I pulled up the group text I had going with Britt and Max. Ladies, ready to get in hot water together? Tonight we do the dream spell on Jenna.
Britt, being a vampire, was no doubt still snoozing. Max was probably working on her computer, earbuds in.
After another moment passed without comment from either of them, I couldn’t stop myself from adding, Get it, hot water? Because of how the cauldron is boiling and bubbling?
In case they hadn’t gotten it.
That night at midnight, I was waiting in front of the boiling cauldron with Max when Britt zoomed in, looking dejected.
“Welp, I tried, girls,” she said with finality. “I went to Swole Jim’s Gym and chatted Jenna up, no dice. She absolutely would not eat the dream cookie.”
“But did you tell her it was full of chemicals and thus calorie free?” Max said.
“Yes,” Britt said impatiently. “I did what you said. But she clearly views any appealing food as toxic. If I’d compelled her to eat it, she probably would have made herself puke it up. Also, this?” Britt held up a silky brown thread, looking doubtful. “Doesn’t seem to be real hair, it’s all synthetic extensions. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.”
“So then, we’re screwed? Dead end on Jenna?�
�� I wanted to cry.
“Absolutely not, here’s the plan.” Max steepled her hands like the mastermind she clearly dreamed of becoming. “We pile into one car and go spy on Jenna, old-school. I go flying, witch goes invisible.”
Britt nodded thoughtfully. “Ok, what about me?”
“Since you have no skills to contribute, you drive the getaway car.”
“Did you have to phrase it that way?” Britt muttered. “Your leadership skills really suck, Maxy.”
Things started to look up for us when Jenna’s SUV was parked in the first place we thought to look: in front of her house.
And so was another car, a royal blue Ferrari that I was betting belonged to Drew Kensington.
Britt sat waiting across the street in the idling car while I snuck into Jenna’s small backyard, which contained a swing set for Sofie and a couple of neglected flowerboxes. Max buzzed annoyingly in my ear, and I had to bite my tongue to keep from crying out with a curse when she occasionally crashed into my invisible body, because, ew, fly. The moment I spoke aloud, I’d turn visible, and I didn’t have that many mints left.
Like a moth drawn to light, I wandered toward the back window, lured by the blue glow of a TV screen. As I got closer to the slightly open window, I could hear people talking inside the room. The sound on the TV was down almost all the way.
A sudden squeal from inside the room made me jump.
Max flew into the room, disappearing into the dark woodwork. As I leaned over the flowerbox to peek through the screen, a man’s voice said, “Jen, you’re so tight in here . . . ”
“I know, but this feels good . . . ” Jenna moaned. “Harder, please.”
When my eyes adjusted to the dim light, Jenna was lying facedown on the carpeted floor of her own den, squealing and moaning. Drew sat over her, his big hands digging deep into her hamstrings and glute muscles.
What was with this guy? He could be having flaming hot affairs with tons of women but instead he chose to have close, supportive friendships with them?
Though it’s not that there was a dearth of romantic tension between Jenna and Drew. It’s just that the tension seemed remarkably. . . stable.
Fangs and Frenemies Page 17