Savannah looked at Brynn, who said, ‘I can stand it if you can.’
They both smiled for all they were worth and moved toward Tessa’s table. ‘Hi!’ they blurted at the same time. Brynn added, ‘We thought we were out of luck.’
Tessa smiled back, her long, shiny face almost pretty. Her pale blue eyes traveled up and down Brynn, taking in her torn blue jeans and faded Rolling Stones T-shirt. ‘My goodness, Brynn, you’re looking … casual today.’
‘It’s a casual kind of day,’ Brynn returned easily.
‘I think she looks cool,’ Savannah piped up.
Tessa frowned slightly. ‘Well, I’ve never understood wearing torn clothes, but then I’m set in my ways.’
Ray made an attempt at a smile. ‘Hi, Brynn.’ He looked at Savannah. ‘Sorry. I’ve forgotten your name.’
‘It’s Savannah,’ she said.
‘Ray O’Hara. I’m a writer, like Brynn.’
‘I’ve never read your books. Are they like Brynn’s?’
‘No,’ Ray snapped before Tessa flew into sudden action, rising, moving to the chair next to Ray and motioning to the other two empty chairs. ‘Please sit down. We’re so glad you could join us.’
Ray doesn’t look like he shares your sentiment, Brynn thought, trying to hide her smirk. Savannah looked at him tentatively, sensing he didn’t really want them at the table. ‘We’ve just about finished,’ Tessa said. ‘The food here is so good.’
‘I thought you always ate lunch in the park,’ Brynn said.
‘I do when I’m working at the library, but I’m on vacation. My first vacation in years.’ Her cheeks looked pink and she wore a bright blue short-sleeved blouse. ‘Ray invited me to lunch.’
After spending the night with Rhonda, Brynn thought, unable to look at him. She felt as if Ray knew that she knew about Rhonda. Brynn wondered if he’d seen her at the motel this morning.
Mindy whizzed up to them, today’s paprika-colored lip gloss gleaming over white teeth. ‘Miss Wilder! Savannah! And Henry! What can I get you?’ The dog held up his paw. ‘Oh, sweetie, I’m not allowed to shake hands with dogs when I’m on duty.’
Savannah giggled.
‘It’s Brynn, Mindy, not Miss Wilder,’ Brynn said, smiling.
‘I’d like a Cloud Nineburger, please.’ Savannah started fishing in her pocket for money until Brynn covered her hand.
‘Luncheon is on me, mademoiselle and monsieur. I’ll also have a Cloud Nineburger, please, Mindy.’ Brynn looked at Savannah. ‘And how about the Chocolate Dream?’
‘Oh, wow!’ Savannah uttered in ecstasy.
‘Two Cloud Nineburgers and two Chocolate Dreams,’ Brynn told Mindy, then looked at Tessa. ‘So, what are you and Ray up to today?’
They glanced at each other, then Tessa shrugged. ‘I’m not sure. Maybe a walk.’
‘What about you two?’ Ray asked.
‘I’m in the mood to see a movie,’ Brynn said, as if the idea had just popped into her mind. ‘I think there’s an early matinee showing of the new Transformers movie downtown.’ She turned to Savannah. ‘Do you like Transformers?’
‘Gosh, yeah!’ Her smile faded. ‘But I have to go back to work.’
Ray pulled out his wallet and put two tens on the table. ‘Time for us to go,’ he said brusquely, pulling a jacket off the back of his chair.
Tessa stood clumsily, pulling at a white, blue-pinstriped skirt at least four inches shorter than she usually wore. Her bony knees showed and she frowned. ‘Clothes these days,’ she said with one last tug. ‘They’re so skimpy.’
‘I like your outfit,’ Savannah said shyly. ‘You look … cute.’
Tessa’s eyes widened. ‘Cute? Me?’ She blushed. ‘Well … uh, thank you, dear. Nathan bought me this outfit.’
The poor thing’s not used to getting compliments, Brynn thought with an unexpected twinge of sympathy. Tessa had always lived in Nathan’s shadow. Then she’d retreated even farther after the attack in the woods and begun dressing as plain and dowdy as possible.
Brynn realized she was staring. ‘The bright colors are flattering.’
Tessa looked at Brynn suspiciously for a moment, as if she thought Brynn was making fun of her. Finally she smiled. ‘I’ll tell Nathan you liked the outfit.’
‘OK, let’s break up this love-fest.’ Ray stood. He looked tired and grouchy.
‘Tessa, Ray, have a nice day.’ Brynn gave them a small smile before Ray grasped Tessa’s arm and guided her away. He acts as if he really likes her, Brynn thought. But she knew better. Tessa wasn’t Ray’s type. Now, Rhonda …
‘Do you really want to see the movie?’ Savannah asked meekly.
‘I sure do. And I’m sure I can talk your dad into letting you go.’ Brynn pulled her cell phone from her tote bag. ‘No one can resist my charm.’
Their food arrived just as Brynn said goodbye to Garrett on the phone. Brynn grinned at Savannah. ‘The afternoon is all ours, kid.’
At three-thirty, Brynn waved to the policeman assigned to surveillance in front of Cassie’s house and unlocked the front door. The new locks and keys still worked stiffly, but after some jiggling, the door swung open to Cassie’s cool, bright living room.
She was tired but in a good way. She’d actually enjoyed the movie with Savannah as well as the dog that the manager had allowed them to sneak in through the side door. It’s good to have contacts, Brynn had thought as Henry entered quietly, almost stealthily, and slipped into an aisle not far from the movie screen. This was obviously not his first time at the theater – perk for being the well-behaved dog of the city’s well-liked sheriff.
Brynn tossed her tote bag on a nearby chair, headed for the stairs and suddenly stopped. She took a deep breath, her eyes darting around. She saw nothing, smelled nothing, heard nothing unusual.
But she was not alone. ‘Cassie?’ she called, although she’d called Cassie on her way home. Cassie said she’d be at the store for another hour. Besides, Brynn had always been able to sense when her best friend was near.
She’d also always been able to sense when danger was near.
She couldn’t explain it. Her parents had always smiled at her indulgently when she used to talk about it. Mark had told her she was nuts. But Cassie had believed her. Cassie always believed her.
‘Cassie?’ she called again as the hair on her arms raised. It was just the change in temperature, she thought. It had been hot and humid outside. It was cool and dry inside.
Too cool. The air conditioner must be set on sixty degrees, she thought.
Brynn’s rationality told her to go outside and talk to the policeman on surveillance. Ask him if anyone had come into the house. Even if he said no, she’d ask him to come inside and search the house with her because she had a sense that someone had been here. She started to turn around and go out the front door, then stopped abruptly. No one was allowed in the house except Cassie and Brynn. The cop would think she was a fool. After all, Brynn Wilder wrote supernatural fiction for a living. Now she couldn’t tell the difference besides her stories and reality. That’s the tale that would go around town. She could hear people laughing at her, even now, and she couldn’t stand not to be taken seriously. She had to be taken seriously. Mark’s life might depend on it.
Brynn looked to her left. The kitchen – the perfect place to find a weapon. If no one was in there … She took small, quiet steps to the doorway, standing sideways, and peeped around the doorframe at all four corners of the bright room. She saw no one and hurried to the drawer where Cassie kept the kitchen cutlery. She chose an eight-inch carving knife.
I’m being ridiculous, Brynn thought. There’s something wrong with the air conditioner thermostat, I’ve got a case of the creeps because of the call last night, I should just go outside and get the cop …
She walked slowly out of the kitchen, holding the knife, and stood in the living room. She breathed deeply. A smell. Faint. Lingering in the cold air. Musk. So light as to be almost imperceptible. Could it be
Cassie’s Vanilla Musk cologne? Not unless it was still drifting around since this morning and Cassie had been wearing more than usual or had spilled some in her room.
Brynn made a quick search of the first floor. A bathroom. A bedroom that Cassie’s parents once shared. Another room that now held a few shelves of books, and an antique desk bearing an old Remington typewriter Brynn knew had belonged to Cassie’s grandfather. After his wife died and he’d broken his hip on the morning Brynn’s father had been killed, he’d moved in with his son and this had become his bedroom until he, too, died ten years ago. The only sign of him now was the typewriter and an 8 × 10 double picture frame holding old photos of Mr Hutton and his wife, looking young and happy.
As she climbed the stairs slowly, holding the knife in front of her, the smell of musk grew stronger. She stood on the landing for a moment, then went into Cassie’s bedroom. The bed was made. Only her robe lay across a chair near a window. The dresser was neat but a cloudy film obscured the mirror. Brynn touched it then smelled her finger. Dried Vanilla Musk cologne. She looked at the few items Cassie kept on a mirror tray on the dresser top, including her cologne. The bottle was missing.
She glanced in the bathroom, which looked exactly as it had this morning. Next she entered the room Cassie used as an office and upstairs den. Against one beige wall stretched a long, ginger-colored couch. Across from it sat a long cabinet with a thirty-two-inch HD television – smaller than the television downstairs – on top along with a Bose music system. Still feeling tense, Brynn looked around the office one last time, then moved down the hall. She took one step into her bedroom and froze.
After being awakened to see her old dragonfly necklace dangling on Cassie’s porch, she’d gone back to her room and, out of habit, made her bed. She remembered trying to occupy her mind with being particularly careful to pull the sheets and the light green bedspread tight, smoothing out any wrinkles. Now the top sheet and bedspread had been tossed to one side, as if someone intended to go to bed. Instinctively, Brynn raised her knife and moved closer to the bed. The bottom sheet was slightly wrinkled and the down-filled pillow showed a dent the shape of a head. On the snowy white pillowcase lay three long, light auburn hairs.
FOURTEEN
When Cassie got home a little after five o’clock, she found three patrolmen and Garrett in her house. ‘What’s wrong?’ she cried, dropping her heavy tote bag. ‘Another necklace?’
‘An intruder,’ Garrett said calmly before a still shaken Brynn could blurt out something frightening. ‘Nothing’s been damaged. I don’t think anything was taken.’
‘But how could anyone get in when we have surveillance?’ Cassie asked in disbelief.
‘You have surveillance at the front of the house. Not at the back or the side,’ Garrett said. ‘You also have that six-foot fence covered with ivy. We’re sure someone just slipped through the gate and then they were hidden. The lock on your back door has been picked. It wasn’t an expert job, but it was good enough to get the lock open.’
Cassie still looked stunned before she asked, ‘You said there was no damage. How did you know someone had been in here?’
‘I came home around three-thirty and felt …’ Brynn paused. She could tell Cassie she’d simply sensed someone had recently left the house and Cassie would understand. She didn’t want to say it in front of the police, though. ‘It was cold in here. It wasn’t cold when I left. Then I smelled your cologne. It was fairly strong. Someone sprayed it all over your dresser mirror.’
Cassie wanted to see. Brynn and Garrett went upstairs with her. She looked at the clouded mirror. ‘Guess I’ll need to buy more cologne tomorrow,’ she said, as if trying to rally from her shock. ‘Is this all you found?’
Brynn said, ‘Well, the air conditioning had been turned down to about sixty and whoever it was decided to take a nap in my room.’ She told Cassie about the turned-back bedspread, the wrinkled sheets, the head imprint and the three long auburn hairs on her pillow. ‘The forensics people have taken the bedding for evidence. The creepiest thing to me was the hair. It’s sort of like that story by Faulkner, “A Rose for Emily” that you and I read over and over when we were twelve,’ Brynn said. ‘Remember it?’
Cassie said nothing, her gaze unfocused. Then she closed her eyes and sighed. ‘I know who was here,’ she said without opening her eyes. ‘Rhonda. I fired her this morning.’
Garrett’s attention seemed to sharpen. ‘You fired her? Why?’
Cassie looked at him. ‘Her work has been slipping for a couple of months. I’ve had complaints from customers about her. I wondered if she’d started drinking. This morning she turned up over an hour late. She was a mess, wearing the clothes she had on yesterday, no makeup, either drunk or flying high on something. Fifteen minutes after she arrived, I sent her out the door.’
Brynn said nothing about seeing Rhonda leaving Ray’s motel room that morning. Later she would tell Cassie and Garrett individually, but she didn’t think telling them together was a good idea, especially since Garrett had been involved with Rhonda up until a couple of months earlier. She didn’t want to embarrass him. Instead she asked Cassie, ‘How did she take being fired?’
‘Like she thought I was joking. She laughed and told me to lighten up. I told her again that she was fired and that I meant it. She just stared at me. I told her a third time and she started yelling that I was making a mistake and that I’d pay. I guess breaking into my house was my payment.’
‘I guess,’ Brynn said, frowning.
‘You don’t think so?’ Cassie asked.
‘It seems if she was furious, she would have done more than spray cologne on your mirror and lie on my bed. And what does turning down the air conditioner have to do anything?’
‘She always said I kept the store too cold,’ Cassie said absently. ‘I asked all the other salespeople. They said it was fine.’ She looked at her blurry mirror. ‘That’s going to be hell to clean.’
‘I think you’ll only need soap and water,’ Brynn said.
‘And I just bought the large bottle of Vanilla Musk last week.’
Finally, Brynn’s mouth twitched as she tried to hold back a smile. ‘I think that’ll set you back less than twenty dollars, Cass. It won’t break the bank.’
‘I guess not,’ Cassie said disconsolately. ‘But so much for our plans to go to the carnival tonight.’
Brynn’s gaze met Garrett’s. ‘We don’t have to stay here this evening, do we, Sheriff?’ Brynn asked.
‘No. I’m going to put a second surveillance car on the house – one parked with a view of the back gate. You can leave every light in the place on when you’re gone if that’ll make you feel safer.’
Cassie stood with her shoulders slumped, mute.
‘Cass, I think it would be good for us to get out of here this evening – have some fun instead of just sitting here talking about my necklace appearing this morning and Rhonda breaking in.’ She paused. ‘Besides, Savannah asked me if you and I would meet her dad and her at the carnival tonight. It would be the four of us.’
Cassie said nothing for a moment. Then Brynn saw the gleam slowly returning to her eyes. She was a die-hard romantic and a poorly disguised tryst didn’t stand a chance of getting past her. ‘I guess it would be a downer to just sit here and watch TV. We planned on going to the carnival. I was really looking forward to it. And if Garrett and Savannah will be there …’ Cassie looked at Garrett. ‘I’d really like to meet Savannah. Brynn thinks she’s wonderful.’ She gave Brynn a wink which Brynn prayed Garrett hadn’t seen, then said, ‘I think going to the carnival with the three of you is exactly what I need tonight!’
‘Rhonda’s been acting strange, but this is crazy,’ Cassie said as they drove to the fairgrounds just south of Genessa Point where the traveling carnival had been set up. ‘I fired her. What’s she got against you?’
‘Mark. She thinks he helped Dad murder her cousin.’
‘Yeah, or so she claims. I think she just wanted t
o cause trouble, get attention. Garrett’s romantic attention, and that’s directed elsewhere.’
‘Oh? Where?’
‘Come on, Brynn. It’s hard not to see how you two look at each other.’
‘We hardly ever look at each other!’
‘That’s the telling sign,’ Cassie said sagely. ‘You two avoid eye contact. Maybe some people don’t notice it. Rhonda would.’
‘Rhonda’s never seen me with Garrett.’
‘She knew you were at his house last night. Garrett’s house is on my way home from the city building where I had the meeting last night. As I drove by, I saw her car parked at the curb a couple of houses down. She was sitting in it, looking in the rearview mirror. She’d probably been out of the car and looking in Garrett’s windows earlier. Or later. When I got home, you weren’t back yet. Deputy Carder said he hadn’t picked you up yet.’
‘You should sell the store and become a detective.’
‘I thought about it when I was about sixteen,’ Cassie said nonchalantly. ‘I think that’s part of why Lavinia left the store to me – she was afraid I’d go through with it and get killed my first day on the streets.’
‘You never told me in any of your letters.’
‘Well, you weren’t too fond of the cops at that time.’ Cassie glanced at her and grinned. ‘I think you’re over that phase.’
‘Cass, you’ll never win any awards for subtlety.’
‘Oh, look! We’re at the fairground!’ Cassie burst out. ‘Gosh, I didn’t know the travelling carnival was going to be so big!’
Night had begun to fall and against the darkening sky burst a maze of vivid color. As soon as Brynn opened her door, she heard the blare of carnival sounds – calliopes, cymbals, drums, trombones and the carousel organ. To her surprise, she felt excited.
‘You look like a wide-eyed kid,’ Cassie teased.
‘I guess that’s what I feel like,’ Brynn answered, then became aware of Cassie’s close scrutiny. ‘It sounds like fun. And I didn’t expect so many people to be here so early.’
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