by Kylie Logan
But my heart was happy.
Happier than it had been since the day I revealed my secret, Levi confessed his, and I reacted with knee-jerk anger that I’d worn like a suit of armor ever since.
It would be nice to lower my defenses. It would take a load off my mind and lift my spirits.
All I had to do was find a way for Levi and me to make our peace.
I’m not sure where the idea came from. Maybe my bruised brain made it possible for me to think a little outside the box. I drew in a breath for courage, and gave it a try.
“There’s something else Jeremy mentioned,” I said. “He said that one of the symptoms of concussion is memory loss.”
Levi nodded. “He did, but don’t worry about it. For one thing, you remembered that you’ve got guests checking in this afternoon, so that’s obviously not a problem. And even if it was, the memory loss from a concussion doesn’t last. I mean, not permanently. It usually clears up in just a couple days.”
“Then maybe . . .” I fingered the satin edge of the blanket. “Maybe before a couple days is over . . . What I mean is . . . Say that I had a terrible concussion. It’s possible, right? I did get whacked over the head pretty hard. And say I wasn’t thinking straight, that I did have memory loss. I mean it would be like I didn’t even know you, right? Like we’ve never met.”
I knew he was trying to work his way through to what I was up to, because he went perfectly still, every muscle tensed as if he was afraid that if he moved, the moment and the place we found ourselves in might dissolve. “You mean like—”
“I mean like . . .” I grabbed his hand and shook it. “I’m Bea Cartwright. It’s really nice to meet you. I used to live in New York City and I’m an author. I write under the name of FX O’Grady. You may have heard of me. I’m kind of famous.”
A smile played around his lips. “More than kind of famous, as it happens, and for very good reason. You write some crazy, whacked-out stuff.”
“But I’m not a crazy, whacked-out person. I’m just sort of . . .” I shrugged. “Just looking to get by, day by day. Looking for some peace and quiet. That’s why I came to the island. That’s why I bought this place. I’d just like to be a regular person and to make a success of my business. And you . . ?”
For a heartbeat, I thought he might not play along. Maybe he just wasn’t sure this was heading where I hoped it was heading. “I’m Levi Kozlov, a private investigator, and I’ll admit, I never read your stuff. Saw a couple of the movies,” he added quickly, as if he was afraid I might be offended. “But I never read the books until I got a call from your attorney about taking a job to keep an eye on you here on the island. He told me about the stalker back in New York and yeah, the guy’s in jail, but your attorney, he just wanted to make sure you got settled, that you were safe. That’s what he wanted me to take care of. That’s when I read your books, and I’ll tell you what, I was blown away. Then I saw you and . . .” I didn’t even realize we were still holding hands until his fingers closed over mine. “Then I saw you and I lost my head and my heart,” he said. “And I guess my common sense, too, or I would have told you who I was right from the start.”
I wrinkled my nose and pretended to be confused. “Start? What are you talking about? Isn’t this where we start?”
Levi smiled. “You mean, me telling you the truth and you telling me the truth?”
Sure, I have an overactive imagination. I mean, that’s what being a writer is all about, right? Still, it didn’t take a bestselling novelist to conjure up the images that popped into my head. They were the same ones that had been plaguing my brain and heating my blood ever since I’d read through Levi’s file back in Vivien’s office.
I gave him a probing look that might have been more effective if my eyes weren’t so blurry that I saw two of him.
“Are you telling me the truth?” I asked. “The whole truth and nothing but?”
“You mean the PI thing? Absolutely!”
“And there’s nothing else? Nothing else in your past that I should know about?”
He scratched a finger behind his ear. “Like . . ?”
I was tempted to put him on the spot, to tell him I knew his secret and suggest that a demonstration of his moves might actually be the perfect cure for my concussion, but at the last second, I swallowed the words. I was too woozy to appreciate a demonstration, and anyway, something told me that playing this card close to my chest might have more benefits in the long run.
“You’re not still worried about the Vivien thing?” Levi groaned, and I was glad I had kept my mouth shut. “I told you, Bea, it was nothing. And if you’re looking for the truth, there it is. She was pushy, and I was happy to get away from her. But not nearly as happy as I am”—he leaned nearer—“to get close to you again. And that is the truth.”
“And the truth is important. Right from the beginning.” I looped my arms around his neck. “You know, so it doesn’t get in the way later. What do you say?”
As it turned out, he didn’t say anything at all. But then, he was pretty busy kissing me.
“Hey, you two! Break it up! We heard what happened. Bea’s not supposed to have any physical exertion!”
The voice was Luella’s, and Levi and I came up for air and found her and Kate at the bottom of the stairs, both of them grinning ear to ear.
Kate spoke up first. “The way we heard it, you’re supposed to be taking it easy, Bea.” She shot a withering look in Levi’s direction, and sure, she was only kidding, but Kate’s withering looks can drop a grown man at ten paces. “That’s not taking it easy, mister!”
He sat back, his hands in the air. “Just comforting the patient.”
“Yeah, well . . .” Kate bounded up the stairs and Luella followed. Kate took the chair where Levi had eaten his lunch and Luella stood, her hands tucked into the bib of her Carhartt overalls.
“We know you’re not supposed to get upset or anything, too,” Kate said, her cheeks as pink as the T-shirt she was wearing with black shorts. “But we’ve got to talk to you, Bea.”
“And you’re not going to like it,” Luella added.
My heart started up a clatter. “I already don’t like it. What’s wrong?” Automatically, my gaze shot next door. “It’s not Chandra, is it?”
“No, no. Nothing like that.” Luella stepped forward and she and Kate exchanged looks. “We were just in town. I had a charter today and I just finished up and—”
“And I met Luella at the boat and told her what happened to you. It’s all over town. The news, I mean. About how you got attacked and knocked out.” Kate’s ginger brows puckered. “You’re all right, aren’t you, Bea? You look all right, but it must have been really scary. If there’s anything you need—”
“I need you two to stop beating around the bush.” I looked from one of them to the other. Slowly and carefully, so my head didn’t spin. “What am I not going to like?”
Luella is as tough as the lake where she makes her living as a fishing charter captain—a seventy-something grandmother with the personality of a lion and the heart of a lamb. She made a face. “There’s something else they’re talking about in town today, too. I mean, something other than you getting waylaid. We figured it’s better if you hear it from us.”
“It would be. If I heard it from you. Either one of you.”
Kate cleared her throat. “There’s a rumor around town, Bea. And we know it’s not true and I bet just about everybody who hears it knows it’s not true, but something got it started and people are talking and . . .” A rush of bright red colored her cheeks.
Luella pulled in a breath. “Word is, you’ve got bedbugs.”
I was up out of my seat and on my feet before Levi could stop me. “What?”
“We shouldn’t have told you.” Kate wrung her hands. “I knew it was going to upset you. We shouldn’t have said a word.”
“And let me hear it somewhere on my own?” I plunked back down on the couch, but only because Levi had ahold of my arm and tugged. “I can’t believe this. How . . . ? Who . . . ?”
“We’ll get to the bottom of it,” he promised me. “For now, the best thing you can do is just ignore it. You heard what Kate said—nobody believes it.”
“But they’re saying it. They’re talking about it.” Outrage blocked my throat and pounded through my bloodstream. “What’s going to happen to my business?”
“Not one single thing.” Levi patted my hand. “You’ll see. Your guests will check in this afternoon, they’ll see how wonderful your place is, and they’ll tell everyone they know. If you ignore a rumor this crazy, I guarantee you, it will just fade away.”
“Fade away. Sure.” I didn’t bother to add, “Just like my business,” because that seemed a bit overdramatic. Even if it was what I feared. I pressed a hand to my heart. “You’re right. We’ll let these new people check in and—”
“And we’ll help.” Kate jumped out of her chair. “Whatever you need, Bea, you know we’ll help. We’ll make sure they know this is the finest B and B on the island.”
“And pretty soon, everyone will know it.” Luella’s face is as wrinkled as an old blanket, and it split in a smile. “It’s going to be fine, Bea. You’ll see. Everything’s going to be all right.”
I wanted to believe them. I would believe them, I told myself, because if I didn’t, my splitting headache and queasy stomach would be the least of my worries.
The phone rang inside the house and Levi went to answer it, and I looked at my friends. “You had to tell me. Don’t feel bad about it.”
“I don’t feel bad about telling you.” Kate’s hands curled into fists. “I do feel plenty bad for whoever started that stupid rumor if I ever get ahold of them.”
It was as much as I could ask. I settled back. “You’re right, when my guests get here this afternoon—”
Levi came back outside, his face a thundercloud. “That was them,” he growled. “The people who were checking in today. They heard about the bedbugs. They just canceled.”
12
Just for the record, Levi claimed he’d be fine sleeping on the couch in the parlor that night but I was having none of it. Hey, it wasn’t like the place was packed and there was no room at the inn! I insisted he stay upstairs in Suite 4, where I knew he’d be comfortable, and he made the trip downstairs three times during the night. In theory, he was supposed to wake me to be sure I wasn’t unconscious due to the concussion, but really, he shouldn’t have bothered.
“There’s no way I can sleep,” I told him on his third visit. The clock out in the hallway had just chimed five and he found me sitting with my elbows propped against my desk, my head in my hands. “I can’t believe it, Levi. Bedbugs!”
“I haven’t met one in my room yet.” He tried to coax a smile out of me with one of his own, but there was no way that was going to work. I was too worried. Too angry.
“Who starts that kind of rumor?” Yeah, I know, rhetorical question, but I’m a fiction writer, remember. In the back of my mind, there’s always hope that the answers to all my questions will come to me in some mystical, magical way, and if they don’t (because let’s face it, they hardly ever do), just hearing my own voice speak the words will shake loose some bit of logic from my brain and give me the answer.
This time it didn’t work, and I sighed. “Why would anybody do something like that?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if somebody just heard something wrong and made some bad assumptions.”
“You heard what Kate and Luella said. People were talking specifics. Specifically my place. I need to find out what’s going on.”
I guess he thought I was going to pop up right then and there and head out on my quest, because he put a hand on my arm. “Can we at least wait until the sun comes up?”
He got his way. I realized how silly I sounded and smiled. “It’s just so—”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Then what are we going to do?”
“Coffee?” he suggested.
I had to admit, it was the best idea I’d heard all night.
By the time we’d finished a pot of coffee and I had taken a shower and gotten dressed, I felt a little more human. The fact that I walked into the kitchen and found the table laid with my china dishes decorated with bright red cherries helped. Cheery dishes, the sun skimming the horizon, and omelets done to perfection just finishing on the stove.
I looked them over, sniffed, and smiled my approval. “Maybe you’re the one who should be running a bed-and-breakfast,” I suggested to Levi.
He dismissed the thought with a shake of his head and put the omelets on our plates. “Too refined and genteel for me. The bar, pool tables, beer on tap. That’s more my speed.”
“Well, you should start offering Sunday brunch at the bar.” I took a bite and sat back, content, and when we were finished, he grabbed the dishes and took them over to the sink.
I wasn’t nearly as woozy as I had been the day before, and when I stood, the room didn’t tip. To me, this was a sign that I was good to go. “I’m heading into town.”
“You are, but not for the reason you think you are. You’ve got a doctor’s appointment.”
I glanced at the time on the microwave. “But how—”
“Don’t worry about it. Hank’s got an in with a doc who’s got a summer house over near Kate’s winery and he agreed to see you first thing.”
“But I’m fine.”
“We’ll wait for him to tell us that.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “And if he doesn’t?”
“Then you’re coming home and going right back to bed. Agreed?”
I puffed out a breath of annoyance and hoped Levi didn’t notice when I crossed my fingers. “Agreed.”
• • •
The doctor was a young guy with a wife and three little boys who were already up and running through the house like madmen when we got there. He checked me out and said I was fine but suggested I take it easy for a few days.
I promised I would, but by the time I got back into the car, I already had a plan in mind.
“Downtown,” I said.
From behind the wheel, Levi slid me a look. “Why?”
“Because we have to find out who’s behind the bedbug story.”
“And you’re going to do that . . . how?”
“The same way I investigate murders,” I told him. “I’m going to talk to people. I’m going to ask questions. Talking to people isn’t exactly strenuous so I’ll still be taking it easy, but I’m going to get to the bottom of this.”
“I’ll tell you what”—he backed out of the doc’s driveway—“if you go home and promise to rest, I’ll go into town and ask questions.”
“But—”
“But nothing. You heard what the doctor said. Getting in and out of the car, talking to people, getting annoyed and upset . . . that’s not taking it easy. Going home and sitting down is.”
He was right, and I promised I would. But sitting down isn’t the same as doing nothing, is it? Once Levi settled me on the couch on the front porch with a blanket, a pot of tea, and a stack of magazines I had no intention of reading, I called both Kate and Luella and got each of their detailed versions of the bedbug story. That gave me a place to start, and I called the person they’d heard the rumor from, who said she’d heard it from someone else, who, when I called, swore he’d heard it from some tourist he’d never seen before.
I am smart enough to realize I could have gone on like that all morning, making calls and getting more frustrated by the moment, but a couple things happened:
My phone rang and the nice lady named Dara who handles the admin work at the Chamber of Commerce informed me that the meeting at Tara that was supp
osed to take place the next day had to be canceled. The Twins, it seems, were getting a visit from the producer who was making their harrowing kidnaping story into a major motion picture, and Dara could barely contain her excitement at the thought.
That was all I needed to hear.
Not about the movie or the producer or Dara’s utter conviction that she would be chosen as an extra for the film, but the part about the meeting being canceled.
In a flash, I had a plan.
By the time Levi arrived just before noon with corned beef sandwiches and the bad news that he’d learned nothing that could help us determine who’d started the bedbug rumor, I was knee-deep in preparations.
He glanced at the handwritten list I had out on the couch next to my phone, ducked inside for plates, and set a sandwich down on the table in front of me. “What’s up?” he asked.
I checked the time. “An inspector from the health department will be on the two o’clock ferry,” I told him. “If you could pick him up, it would save him renting a golf cart. The Chamber of Commerce will be here tomorrow. Seven sharp.”
He had just sat down and was about to bite into a dill pickle, and he froze, the pickle at his mouth. “I had a message at the bar. The Twins canceled the meeting at Tara. Something about their producer being in town. How did you—”
“Don’t you see? This is perfect! The inspector will give my place a clean bill of health today, and I’ll host the meeting tomorrow. I’m thinking we’ll offer tours of the inn after the business part of the meeting is over. You know, sort of the icing on the cake. Some of the Chamber members have been here for one thing or another, but not all of them. This way, they can look over the place and see that there’s nothing wrong with it, and that will be an end of the bad rumors.”
“You were supposed to be taking it easy.”