“Are you going to give it to Detective Crowley?” Lauren asked.
I shrugged. “Sure.”
“At some point in the future. But first, we wanted to get your opinion on this. You know, the police seem to believe that I’m the one who killed Hannah, but this ring isn’t mine and it was at the crime scene. If you can positively identify it for me as either a man’s or a woman’s, well, that would be a great help.”
“I need a glass of water.”
“I’ll get it.” I scooched out of my chair, spraying crumbs everywhere. What a waste. And just extra work for me to clean up. I poured Lauren a glass of ice-cold water.
Lauren down the water and set the glass aside. She picked up the plastic bag and held it in shaking fingers. “It looks like a man’s ring. See? The thickness of the band. It has a jewel in it, though, a garnet.”
“Garnet? That’s not a very expensive stone, is it?”
“No. People usually wear them if it’s their birthstone.”
I whipped out my phone and looked up the month that coincided with garnet as a birthstone. “January,” I said. “Someone born in January.”
“Wonderful,” Gamma said. “Now, all we have to do is find out every Gossip resident’s birthday.”
“Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit,” I said.
“I wasn’t feeling particularly witty, Charlotte. What else do you see, Lauren? Anything important?”
Lauren turned the ring over and pressed the plastic flat to better make out its details. “Here, look at this,” she said, holding it out. She gestured along the inner ridge of the ring with her pinkie finger. “There’s an engraving. It looks like initials, but the mental is too tarnished to make out what they are.”
“Shoot,” I muttered.
“But that does tell you that whoever wore this ring, wore it a lot. Maybe every day.” Lauren put the plastic bag down and wiped her hands on her apron, grimacing. “That’s all.”
“Thank you,” Gamma said.
I got Lauren one of her cupcakes and snagged another one for myself. We both ate, but Lauren picked at hers rather than taking whole bites. Very unlike her. She loved baking and she loved eating.
“Are you all right?” I asked. “Did the ring freak you out that much?” Gamma had already taken it off the table and into her pocket. I struggled to be in a bad mood about what we’d found. It definitely linked someone to the crime scene. We just had to figure out who.
“I’m… well, it’s not the ring. It’s just—Jason is out of town again, and I don’t really want to stay at my house alone. I was wondering if I could live at the inn for the next week or two.” Lauren’s gaze lifted to meet my grandmother’s. “Would that be OK, Georgie?”
“Of course. No problem at all.”
“Thank you.” Lauren lowered her head and started picking at the food again.
I opened my mouth to question Lauren about her strange mood, but Gamma raised a finger at me, just above the line of the table.
“It will be great to have you here,” I said. “We can have late night slumber parties.” A phrase I’d never uttered in my life before, but it certainly fit my cover as the innocent maid and assistant chef. “That would be fun, right?”
Lauren pushed herself up. “I should get back to baking. The festival’s tomorrow.”
16
“This is the last one,” I said, plopping down the box of Valentine’s Day cupcakes on the trestle table we’d set up under the trees in the park. The trees were, of course, decorated in fairy lights that flashed pink and white.
It was early evening, and the Valentine’s Festival was due to start in about an hour. The local bakeries, restaurants, and stores had turned out en masse to ply the innocent groups of lovers and Gossipers with their wares.
And Gamma had forced me into my pink-heart emoji dress with red pantyhose. It looked as if cupid had thrown up all over me. This wasn’t my idea of a good time. This was my idea of what hades might look like.
“Perfect,” Gamma said. “We don’t need to stack them out of the boxes. But we do need to put up the sign.”
“The sign?” I asked.
“Yes, Brian’s fetching it right now.” Gamma pointed to the entrance of the park. Out in the parking lot, Smulder stood behind the Mini-Cooper and warred with a sign that kept unfolding and flopping everywhere.
“Where are we going to put that?” I asked.
“Between those two trees.” Gamma pointed.
Lauren bustled over, wearing a pink blouse and a pair of jeans. She put down another batch of cupcakes and started opening and arranging the others.
“I’ll get the cash box,” Gamma said, and was off again.
“Is there anything you need my help with?” I asked, eying Smulder. He dropped the banner a third time and muttered something. Knowing how strong Smulder was, that had to be one heavy banner.
“I don’t need anything from you.” Lauren wiped the back of her hand over her forehead. She still wasn’t the same, and she’d been sleeping in late now that she was staying at the inn with us. I’d had to wake her this morning. There was a first time for everything, but my concern had grown.
You’re not supposed to trust anyone or to care too much.
But how could I not? I worked with her every day, and she’d become somewhat of a friend. Albeit one I could never tell the truth to.
Gamma and Smulder wrestled the banner toward the table, and I dipped out of sight before I got roped into helping them set it up. I’d spent all morning layering frosting on the cupcakes. I needed a break, and despite my disdain for the concept of the festival, there were some pretty cool stalls setting up around here.
Joe’s Barbecue Spot was already functioning, the scent of mouthwatering barbecued meats drifting from it. There were several other cake stalls, a florist’s stand, and a stall put up by the local psychic, announcing tarot readings, palmistry and selling love potions. A central pit had been erected for the bonfire and men had already gathered around it discussing the best ways to start a fire.
Me man, me make fire.
Ha, some things never changed.
I wandered past the quaint pond, where a few women wearing scarves pushed miniature boats, tea light candles on their decks, out onto the water. The park looked amazing. It was the type of event that I’d never been to and that wouldn’t happen in the big city.
The path led me past a grove of trees and people who’d set up picnic blankets and brought baskets for their purchases. A few of them had champagne glasses out already. They were early for the festivities, likely so they could get a good spot. I didn’t blame them—my only retail or grand scale experience in Gossip had been at the local store when there’d been a two-for-one special on detergent, and Gamma had made me go. I’d nearly lost a finger to an old woman in a wheelchair.
Folks in Gossip took their deals seriously.
I neared the entrance to the park and our stall. Smulder stood on a step ladder, shifting the banner this way and that under my grandmother’s direction.
My gaze moved away from them and to the wrought-iron archway that was the park’s entrance. A group of people wearing aprons from the Little Cake Shop entered, and behind them a skinny guy wearing regular clothes—a coat and jeans. His hair was big, fuzzy and blond, and his glasses sat on the tip of his nose.
I froze.
It’s the guy!
It was the dude who’d been in every one of Abigail Rhodes’ pictures. What was he doing here? And alone?
I craned my neck. Not alone! Not at all. Abigail’s car, a sleek silver Jaguar was parked out in the street. She was nowhere in sight. Had he come with her? Or was he here stalking her?
Quickly, I walked over to him, putting up my best attempt at a welcoming smile. “Hello,” I said, “how are you?” I was in my apron from the inn. Hopefully, he’d mistake me for the help.
The guy stopped moving, his eyes wide, magnified by his thick glasses. The ‘deer in headlights’ look.
“I just wanted to talk to you for a second about—”
He spun on his heel and sprinted for the exit.
“Well, that’s unexpected,” I muttered, and took off after him. I blew past the stall, Lauren crying out as I blurred by, and followed the dude out into the parking area. He ran across the road. “Hey!” I called out. “Hey, I just wanted to ask you something. Dude! Stop. Why are you running?”
The blond guy let out a strange noise—halfway between a grunt and a squeal—and dipped into an alleyway. He was now the panicked deer about to be eaten by a… bear? A lion? What was a deer’s natural predator? It felt like that was really something I should’ve known.
I jogged into the alley behind him.
He’d already started climbing the chain-link fence that separated one half of the alley from the other. I walked up, grabbed the back of his jeans and tugged. He fell free with an effeminate squeal and crashed onto the concrete.
“Hi,” I said. “I’m Charlotte. What’s your name?”
He blinked up at me.
“Come on, now, you must have a name. And a reason for running away from me. But we’ll get to that later.”
He stammered something inaudible.
I put out my hand to help him up. Gosh, how many people had seen me sprinting after the guy? It would be the talk of the town. I’d have to come up with some excuse for what had happened. I’d been chasing him because he’d… stolen a cupcake? Or he’d paid for one and not taken it. That was better.
The bushy-haired dude took my hand, and I helped him up.
“Who are you?” I asked. “And why have you been hanging around Abigail Rhodes so much?”
He stiffened and tried to pull his arm free of my grasp. “I’m nobody, OK?” He had a squeaky voice. “It doesn’t matter who I am.”
“Oh, but it does. Abigail’s sister just died. I’m sure the cops would be interested in the dude who’s in every single photo that’s been taken of Abigail in recent months.”
“No, please! No cops, all right? I’m just… My name is Matthew. Matthew Davis. I work at the IT Guy.”
The IT Guy was the only IT company in Gossip—they handled everyone’s technology woes from Mr. Gonzales soda-keyboard accident to the Wi-Fi going down at the inn.
“So, what, you’ve been helping her with her computer?” I asked.
“I’m her boyfriend,” he squeaked.
“You’re her boyfriend.” I couldn’t keep the skepticism from my tone.
“Yes.” He drew himself up straight and finally managed to wrangle his skinny arm away. “Yes, I am. I’m her boyfriend.”
“You’re her boyfriend.”
“You know, repeating it over and over again isn’t going to change it.”
“It’s helping my process.” I waved a hand next to my ear. “Why did you run away from me?”
“I don’t know. You had this weird look on your face. It freaked me out.”
“That’s it?” Either this guy was the jumpiest dude in history, or he was lying. Straight up lying through his teeth.
“I have to go,” Matthew said, and pushed past me. He strode out of the alleyway and into the increasingly busy street.
I lingered, shaking my head.
There was no chance this Matthew dude had tried to climb over a chain-link fence to get away from me, a woman, just because he thought I’d had a funny look on my face. What was he really up to?
I’d have to ask the question later. Gamma and Lauren would need my help at the festival, and I’d have to spend the night ignoring Gamma’s obvious hints about Smulder and Valentine’s Day. I hurried back to the park, my thoughts whirring.
17
“I’m telling you, he shoved two in his mouth. Two! I don’t understand how the man did it,” Gamma said.
“One of Ned’s many talents.” I hadn’t been around to see the cupcake debauchery because I’d been questioning Abigail’s apparent boyfriend in an alley. I didn’t buy that Matthew was her boyfriend. It just didn’t fit.
“Talents,” Gamma said, shuddering. “It was horrible. Poor Lauren looked as if she was about to be sick. She put all that hard work into the cupcakes only to see them devoured by a monster of a man.”
I laughed and folded up one of the empty boxes, stacking it on top of the others. Smulder had already dragged the heavy banner back to Gamma’s Mini-Cooper, and Lauren had taken the last of the cupcakes back to the inn in her Beetle. She was either sick or sad—she usually hung around after a long day at work.
“At least, it’s over now,” I sighed, folding up another box.
“Over?” Gamma joined me with the folding and packing. “Oh Charlotte, I never thought of you as naïve.”
“Naïve, how?”
“This was just the festival,” Gamma said. “There’s still the get-together at the inn, and then there’s the Valentine’s Day Dance. Everyone attends.”
“Do you?”
“Of course. I usually go with one of the older men in town. I have my pick since most of them are widowers.”
“How lovely.” I grimaced.
“You’ll see. You can go with Brian.”
“Georgina,” I said. “Stop.”
“Charlotte, you have to admit he’s a handsome man. And he clearly cares for you.”
“He’s my colleague.”
Smulder shut the Mini’s trunk and started toward us. My stomach swirled, and I turned my back on him and took a few steps away from the trestle table to catch my breath. This was ridiculous. I didn’t like Smulder, not like that, and I had other things to focus on. For heaven’s sake, we still hadn’t caught Kyle. They hadn’t. I wasn’t technically involved.
“That’s everything,”Smulder said. “Just the trash, now.”
“Thanks, Brian,” Gamma replied. “You throw those away and we’ll join you in the car in a moment.”
It was chilly, and I drew my coat around myself, turning to make sure Smulder had left. He was already halfway to the trash cans across the park.
“Gamma.”
“Georgina,” my grandmother corrected, lifting a finger. “Remember, dear.”
“Georgina,” I said, through gritted teeth. “I’m not going to discuss anything regarding Smulder from now on. This has to stop.”
“Relax.” She patted me on the arm. “It’s not as if I’m marrying you off to him.”
“As if you could.”
“Charlotte, if I wanted to marry you off, I’d marry you off. I have the power to do that,” she teased.
I wriggled spirit fingers in front of my face. “And I have the power to disappear.”
Heavy footsteps thumped on the path that wound through the park, and Gamma and I both looked up. Grayson Tombs stormed toward us, his face clouded. He wasn’t dressed in anything Valentine’s related nor did he have the Valentine’s Day Festival sticker on the lapel of his suit jacket.
“Good evening, Mr. Tombs,” Gamma said. “Did you enjoy the festival?”
He stopped in his tracks, huffing and puffing, tugging on his jacket to straighten it, even though it was perfectly fine. “Festival?”
“The Valentine’s Festival,” Gamma prompted.
“I have no interest in silly festivals, Georgina,” Tombs snapped, no longer giving off his wannabe ‘silver fox’ vibes.
“There’s no need to be rude, Tombs.”
“There’s no need to stand in my way.”
“Are you all right?” I asked.
Grayson opened his mouth to snap again but faltered. “I’m fine. Just fine. It’s not me who has to worry. It’s that idiot boy.”
“Idiot boy?”
But Grayson didn’t hear me. He marched on, muttering, “Won’t do as he’s told. I directed him to stay away from her. It was an order. If he thinks…” his diatribe trailed off.
Gamma and I exchanged a glance. Trouble with Sebastian again? And he couldn’t stay away from who? Abigail, perhaps? And why was he worried about his son or anyone else, right now, when h
e had an entire restaurant to rebuild? Gossip wouldn’t be the same without the Hungry Steer.
“Ready to go?” Smulder called from the trestle table—the decorating committee would take care of that later.
“Indeed.” Gamma looped her arm through mine can guided me toward the waiting agent.
18
The last thing I’d wanted to do was spend the morning after the Valentine’s Day Festival putting up more Valentine’s decorations at the inn. I blew my hair out of my eyes—these long locks, ugh—and kneaded the small of my back, examining my handiwork so far.
“You know, I’m not bad at decorating for someone who despises Valentine’s Day,” I said, talking to Cocoa who sat nearby, watching from an antique chair in the hall. Occasionally, he’d lick behind his ears or settle down on all fours and purr himself in and out of sleep.
I retrieved two matching golden hearts from the decorations box. Gamma had instructed me to put these in a place of prominence near the inn’s front doors. Apparently, the fear of the thief that had stolen from the inn and its guests not six months ago had lifted. Now, we bandied valuables about.
Cranky pants. I brought out the strings of red and pink paper hearts that just had to be hung along the walls and wrapped around the banister.
A woman appeared at the top of the stairs, and I paused, gripping my hearts. “Hello.”
The woman could’ve been Abigail Rhodes’ clone—blonde hair, young, and pretty. The only difference was she had a bigger, hooked nose, and her eyes were beadier.
“Hi,” she said, in a nasal whine.
“You’re the new guest?” I hadn’t seen her at breakfast this morning.
“That’s right.” She came down the stairs and paused, popping one hip and swaying her blonde hair back over one shoulder. “Who are you? Like, the maid or something?”
“Like, something like that,” I said, unable to keep my sarcasm at bay. “I’m Charlotte Smith.” I’d gotten used to my fake name, but it didn’t have the same ring to it as ‘Charlotte Mission’ or ‘Agent Mission.’ I missed that. “We missed you at breakfast this morning.” It had gotten easier to settle into the ‘maid and waitress’ role as well.
Mission Inn-possible 02 - Strawberry Sin Page 7