“She said he was obsessed?” Gamma asked.
“Yes. Obsessed.” She’d heard it herself, but she wanted confirmation. It had been loud in the bar.
“And he does fit the profile of a stalker, doesn’t he? Keeping strange hours, in every photo with her, clearly following her around.” Gamma patted her chin with her fingers. “What do you think he wanted?”
“I didn’t get close enough to hear. Whatever it was, it upset her enough to tell him to get lost.”
Gamma wriggled her nose, frowning. “Lots of players in this. And two crimes. Do you think they might be interconnected somehow?”
“Maybe. Maybe. It seems like too much of a coincidence that there would be two fires and a murder in Gossip within days of each other.”
“I agree.”
“But until we have evidence,” I said, “there’s no connection we can make that will solve the case.” And that had to be our main priority. Solving the case, not tracking the arsonist. Unless they were one and the same.
The sooner Gamma’s name was erased from suspicion, the better. It was bad enough the tabloids had printed information about her and the inn. Thankfully, they hadn’t released pictures online. If they did, well, things would go from bad to worse.
It was only a matter of time. If Crowley arrested her, that would be it. News articles, online information, pictures and more. Everything Kyle Graden would need to track me down.
“Take a breath, Charlotte,” Gamma said. “You haven’t inhaled in nearly a minute.”
I filled my lungs. “Sorry, I was deep in thought.”
“You’re worried.”
“Of course, I’m worried. This is your life,” I said. “And mine. And Smulder’s. The inn’s.”
“Relax, Charlie,” Gamma said. “We’re going to work this out. I’ve been in worse situations that this in my career.”
“But it’s still not fair on you. You’re retired. You put that life behind you and, now…”
“Shush. He’s coming out.”
The front door to the house had opened, and Matthew appeared, skulking in a hoodie. He’d tightened the drawstrings, but his glasses poked out of the hood. He scanned the street then hurried to the garage door, apparently unalarmed by the presence of the SUV.
“Do you have a cloaking device on this car or something?” I asked.
“This isn’t Star Trek, dear.”
“Did they have cloaking devices in Star Trek?”
“No idea. I never watched it.” Gamma frowned at the suspicious Matthew. “What on earth is he doing?”
He crouched over in front of his garage and fiddled with something. Finally, he rose and brought the garage door up with him. He walked inside and clicked on a single bulb. The glow illuminated an empty space, kept meticulously neat, with tools along one wall, a wooden bench with a vice grip underneath them. A boat was stored inside. No car.
“Interesting.” I leaned forward, safe in the knowledge that the tint on the windows would hide me from view.
Matthew shuffled from the bench over to the boat and threw the tarp back. He reached inside and removed a gas canister. Then another. And another.
“Would you look at that,” Gamma said.
“Didn’t the inspector say that the fire at the inn was started with gasoline?”
“Why yes, he did.”
Matthew grabbed the empty canisters—empty judging by the way he could handle them with that skinny frame—then marched out of the garage. He shut the door and walked down the sidewalk, finally disappearing around the corner.
“What do you want to bet that he’s filling those gas canisters?” I asked.
“Oh, he’s filling them all right.”
“Follow him?”
“Let’s,” Gamma said, and winked.
FOLLOWING Matthew had provided no extra information for us—he’d simply gone to get gas, come back home, and gone to bed from what we could see. We were stumped again.
If only we had some information linking Matthew to the fires. Something more concrete than just gas canisters.
Gas without a car. And that boat wasn’t powered. It had paddles for heaven’s sake.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t tail him day and night.
I walked around the back of the inn, shaking my head at the damage in the bright sunshine. Gamma and I had gotten two hotel rooms, and I’d had a terrible night on a lumpy mattress. The Gossip Inn was definitely the best place to stay in town.
Thankfully, we were allowed back at the inn, now. Gamma was inside checking on the rooms upstairs, as well as talking to contractors who had come to fix up the museum portion of the inn. The structural integrity of the building as a whole was fine.
I walked past the basement’s colorfully painted doors, my thoughts turning to Smulder. He’d come back with us too. Lauren had gone to sleep at her home now that her husband had returned from his business trip.
“Why does nothing make sense?” I murmured, rounding the corner and coming up to the side door that let into the inn’s kitchen.
The ring surely hadn’t belonged to Matthew, as it had been Grayson’s. But Grayson had an alibi for the murder, and it seemed counterintuitive for him to set his own restaurant on fire. Unless he needed insurance money?
But my research had proved that Grayson was as loaded with cash as ever.
I lowered myself onto the kitchen’s back step, crossing my arms around the pair of jeans I’d picked out at a local store. It was one of the only pieces of clothing that didn’t look as if a Barbie doll had thrown up all over it.
The longer I stayed in Gossip, the more I acclimated. The more I cared. And I couldn’t afford to. I’d sworn I would trust nobody and get out of here as soon as possible.
A plangent meow broke the quiet. Cocoa Puff came around the front of the inn and padded through the grass toward me.
“Hello there, sweetheart.” I lifted a hand, and the kitty rammed his furry head into it, purring frantically. “Are you happy to be home?” Poor Cocoa had had to adjust to the move to the hotel and then back again. Cats were creatures of habit—it wasn’t fair that someone had upset him as well as us.
I scratched behind Cocoa’s ears, and he lifted his head, leaning into my touch.
“How are you feeling?” I asked. “Glad to be home?”
He meowed at me.
“I really thought we’d have a whole bunch of extra cat friends for you this week, but it looks like that’s not going to happen.”
Another meow. He wound around my legs then hooked a claw into my jeans and tugged.
“Don’t do that, Cocoa.” I unhooked him. “You’ll hurt yourself. And put holes in the only item of clothing I actually like.”
But Cocoa meowed and hooked in again. He tugged on me then let go and butted against my leg.
“What on earth are you doing?” The last time Cocoa had acted like this… I’d found a clue that had helped me solve a murder! “Do you have something to show me, Cocoa?”
He meowed and pitter-pattered off down the pathway and into the grass. Cocoa paused and looked back at me, sat down and whipped his tail over the lawn.
“All right, I’m coming.” I pushed up from the kitchen step. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re mighty weird?” I asked as I reached him. “In the best way possible, of course.”
Cocoa led the way through the grass toward the greenhouse. The footprints in the mud were gone, but Cocoa didn’t scratch at the front door of the building, with all its veggie goodness locked inside. He circled it, and I tailed him, pun intended.
He wound past the greenhouse and between the trees, to the tiny stream that bordered part of Gamma’s property. There he brought me to the tree, and under the tree…
I scrambled my cellphone out of my pocket and tapped on the flashlight app. Light spread across the ground. A collection of footprints trailed from the river and to it, disappearing in the grass that bordered the inn’s grounds.
“Holy wow. Cocoa, how did yo
u know?” But the cat had already hurried off to the greenhouse again. “Thank you,” I called after him. A part of me was sure he was secretly a human in cat body.
I directed my flashlight at the base of the tree again, and a glint of plastic caught my eye. I bent and wormed my fingers around a square object coated in mud. I dislodged it and stumbled back.
“What’s this?” I wiped mud off the object and found a cracked screen underneath. And a button on its side. “A phone. Someone’s phone.”
But whose?
24
Gamma snapped on her gloves and twiddled her fingers above the cracked phone, still caked in mud.
“It won’t switch on,” I said.
“Of course, it won’t switch on, Charlotte. It’s clearly broken. But the memory card should still work.”
“Let’s hope he had one.” I had Gamma’s laptop open, and my SD card adaptor out and at the ready. Hopefully, we’d get something out of this. Either way, it was clear that someone had been snooping on the property. Likely, the person who had set the fire.
Could it have been that Matthew dude? Or was it Abigail? Sebastian? Perhaps Grayson himself, embroiled in an insurance scandal and looking to cover his tracks?
And how did this phone connect to the murder? Gosh, it probably didn’t.
Unless the fires had been lit to distract from the murder itself.
“Are you ready?” The bedroom door was locked, and Smulder was downstairs overseeing the contractors on my grandmother’s instruction. He wouldn’t bother us, but we still had to be careful. I’d gotten the feeling that things in my room had been moved around. And I wouldn’t put it past Smulder to snoop in the name of protecting me from my ex. And protecting his own butt because he didn’t want to get in trouble with Special Agent In Charge Grant.
Gamma gave a severe nod. “I’m ready.” She brought the phone onto a silver tray in her lap and turned it over. She removed the back with a clatter of plastic and a squelch of mud. The battery came out next, and then Gamma searched around with gloved fingers for the SD card. She found it and hit a button to release it.
“Bingo,” she said.
“Is it clean?”
Gamma lifted it. “Tissue required.”
I swept a Kleenex out of the pack next to me and handed it over. Gamma cleaned off the SD card with gentle sweeps of her fingers then placed it in the adaptor. I inserted it into the laptop.
“Here’s the moment of truth,” I said.
A box opened on the screen and we were granted access to the phone’s inner workings. It wasn’t labeled anything other than ‘Phone 1,’ but I started opening folders immediately. One of them contained picture after picture of the Hungry Steer, the other of the Gossip Inn, and another of the Little Cake Shop.
“It’s the arsonist,” Gamma whispered, setting the tray aside and scooching closer. “It has to be. He’s the only one who would need pictures like this.”
“He or she. We aren’t decided yet.” But I scrolled to the next picture and recoiled from the screen. Gamma hissed and did the same.
It was a close-up selfie of Matthew Davis, posing in front of the Little Cake Shop, a broad grin on his face and a thumbs-up held to the camera.
“So, it was him. It has to be,” I said. “But why?”
“What’s that folder?” Gamma asked, pointing.
I opened one labeled ‘Notes.’ It was packed with snippets or memos that the owner of the phone, Matthew, had taken. One of them was labeled, ‘VDAY LETTER.’
“When’s Valentine’s Day again?” I asked.
“In two days. We’ll have to work extra hard to make sure we have everything we need for the dinner at the inn. And hope that our guests come back.”
I opened the letter and we read it together, hunched over the keyboard.
Hey Pretty Mama,
Ha! Remember when I called you that the first time? And you slapped me? That was cute. That was like… that’s like our thing, isn’t it? You telling me to go and me staying. I know what you really want, Abigail, and you deserve what I have to offer. You know, I’m not giving up on us yet. Just forget about those other guys. They can’t give you what you deserve.
And that Sebastian? He’s a walking piece of… well, shoot, you know. I’ve told you that before.
So, listen, I know we’ve been having some trouble lately, and I wanted you to know that I do really love you, and that’s why I’m going to do this! You’re going to love it.
I’m making a pattern in the shape of a heart for you, baby. I’ve already gotten the Hungry Steer and the Gossip Inn. Valentine’s Day I’ll do the next target on the list, and after that, it’s just five more houses or places to burn.
Then we can go up in your dad’s chopper and look at it from above, and you’ll see how much I love you.
Loads.
Love you forever, gorgeous.
Matthew.
“This is so sad,” I said.
“No it’s not. The man is clearly psychotic. We need to report this to the police, immediately.”
“No, not that. It’s just sad. The bushy-haired, spectacle wearing IT guy is the psycho stalker? How cliché.”
“You’d swear you had some say in the matter,” Gamma replied.
I snorted. “I have to speak to Abigail about this before I give this to the cops. I just know they’ll be all over her the minute I give it to ‘em, and that won’t work for me. She might know something more.”
“It seems like he’s doing this independently,” Gamma said.
“Sure. But let’s just say he loved her so much he desperately wanted to prove himself, which he clearly does. Do you think he might go so far as to murder Abigail’s sister?”
“There’s a harrowing thought.” Gamma snapped off her gloves and placed them in the wastepaper basket.
“It’s a possibility. I need to find out if Abigail said anything to him about her sister. Permission to take the morning off and shoot over there? I’ll help clean up afterward?”
“Permission granted, Charlotte.”
Finally, I had a real lead. Gamma would keep Smulder busy with menial tasks, and I would shoot off to Abigail’s house and hopefully find enough evidence to take down creepy IT stalker as the murderer.
A girl could dream.
25
I rolled up to the silver gates at Abigail’s house in Gamma’s Mini, excitement thrumming through my veins. I only needed a few more pieces of the puzzle to prove that it had been Matthew who had killed Hannah, thus clearing Gamma’s name.
I put the car in park, rolled down the window and hit the button on the intercom.
Nothing happened.
I hit the button two more times.
“Yeah, what?” Abigail’s voice came through crystal clear. “What do you want?”
“Abigail?”
“No, it’s Santa Claus.”
“I’m here to talk to you about your friend, Matthew Davis.”
A lengthy pause came next, and I held my breath. It would be a piece of cake to break into this ‘high guarded’ mansion, but that likely wouldn’t endear me to the owner, or to the police, for that matter. How irritating.
“Matthew’s not my friend,” she said.
“You seem to hang around with him an awful lot.”
“So what? What business it of yours who I hang around with?” she snapped. “Get lost.”
“I won’t be getting lost. I have reason to believe that Matthew has been lighting the fires around town. One of them being Sebastian’s father’s restaurant. I’d like to come in and talk to you about it. I figure you can help me.”
“Are you a cop or something?”
“No, but I’m helping them,” I said.
Kind of true. Bending the truth was necessary in this industry.
“Helping them.”
“Yes. I’ll be delivering the evidence I have against Matthew to them this afternoon, after I’ve spoken to you. I’d like to get a full picture of what’s going
on, and your cooperation would be greatly appreciated.”
Abigail didn’t reply.
The gates swung inward. I grinned and drove up the driveway and to the front of the house. This one had columns out front too. Maybe that was a requirement for being super wealthy. You had to have columns on your front porch? Go figure.
I walked up the front steps and knocked on the door. It opened, and it wasn’t a butler, but Abigail herself. She was harried, her blonde hair a mess, and her bright eyes watery. Someone had been crying? Or not getting enough sleep.
That made sense if she actually missed her sister and cared about her passing.
“What are you waiting for?” she asked.
I entered the house and she slammed the heavy wooden door shut. Her entry hall was carpeted in rich burgundy with bronze chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. Gifts had been gathered on a central table, along with bouquets of flowers, cards hidden between the blossoms.
“This way.” She led me up the stairs and into a study area. There were no tea or cookies set out, but a computer hummed away in the corner on a desk. She took a seat at the center table then gestured for me to do the same.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Let’s make this quick. I have appointments to get to.”
“Is it your birthday or something?”
“What? No. Why?”
“Just all the gifts out there on the hall table?”
“They’re from admirers.” Abigail’s lips curled upward at the corners. “I’m popular, you know. Sought after. I wouldn’t expect you to understand that.”
I ignored the comment. Rich and popular people didn’t threaten me. Mean folks didn’t either. They were face-value people. They wore their smirks and their intents on their sleeves, along with their insecurities, and that was easy to manipulate.
“I came to talk about your friend, Matthew.”
“He’s not my friend,” Abigail said. “I told you that. He’s just some guy who follows me around everywhere. Like a stalker or whatever. I don’t even know him that well.”
Mission Inn-possible 02 - Strawberry Sin Page 10