by London James
An idea strikes me as she settles a tray of tea and cookies on the table, gently moving the pictures out of the way.
“They’re wonderful,” I tell her. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Of course,” she says.
She hands each of us a napkin, then pours peppermint tea into two bone china cups. I pull up a picture of Mr. Mercer I surreptitiously took while he was at Hometown Bed And Breakfast.
“This is a friend of mine. He stayed here a little while back. It was his recommendation that actually inspired us to come here. Do you recognize him?”
Hannah tucks her hand behind mine to support the phone as she leans a little closer to examine the screen. After a few seconds, she shakes her head.
“I can't say for sure,” she says. “You say he was here just recently?”
“Yes,” I tell her. “In the last couple of months. Maybe July or August.”
“Everything from the first day in July through the middle of October tends to be my busy season. It's slow this week for some reason, but I was at absolute capacity and turning people away for the last few months. I want to say he looks familiar, but as much as it embarrasses me to say, I don't definitely remember.”
She sounds genuinely regretful for not immediately recognizing the picture, which means she feels bad for not knowing who Mr. Mercer is. Or was.
“Thank you for the tea,” I tell her.
She nods. “You take your time. When you're ready, I'll bring you up to your room.”
She walks out of the parlor, and I look at Owen, who is struggling with everything in him not to laugh, his mouth perched at the edge of the teacup, but his hands shaking with the restrained laughter so hard he can't seem to get a sip in.
“Fine,” I say. “So, you were right. Hannah isn't the Vidalia Isle Prowler.”
“The Vidalia Isle Prowler?” he asks.
“Just a name I came up with. All the killers get names.”
“But we don't know if he actually prowls,” Owen says. “From what I saw, he pretty much got in and got out and did what he needed to do.”
We finish our tea and each grab a cookie before going off to find Hannah. We pick up our luggage from where we left in the office and bring it up to the room she indicates for us. After a few seconds of friendly innkeeper banter, Hannah reminds us to relax and enjoy ourselves, promises brownies at nine, and disappears behind the closed door.
“Well, this is a total waste,” I lament and toss myself onto the bed.
Suddenly Owen is hovering over me, a mischievous look on his face. “I wouldn't say a total waste,” he says.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Owen
Before she can complain any more about Hannah not being a stone-cold killer, I lock her lips with mine, and she sinks down into the bed. I can feel her relax as I move to her neck, making my way to the middle of her chest as slowly as I feel like. I had hungered for her for hours on the way here and then sitting in that parlor, and now I was going to get my taste of her.
I reach up and slowly pull the straps of her sundress down, my lips moving with the neckline until I’m buried between her soft breasts. I swirl one nipple with my tongue before moving to the other and repeating the motion, enjoying the sensation of feeling them harden under my touch. I blow a gentle breath on one of them, and I can hear her breath catch.
She reaches for the bottom of my shirt, but I place my hands on hers, and she locks eyes with me. I shake my head as I grin and place her arms down at her sides. She smiles back at me and lays her head back again, her silky black hair spilling out over the old-fashioned comforter.
I kneel in front of her now, my knees on the floor as her legs open to give me access to her core. I pull her by her waist to the edge of the bed, draping her long, smooth legs over my shoulders. I pull the dress up, exposing the lacy white panties underneath, and a growl escapes my chest.
My mouth waters at the thought of tasting her, and I pull the undergarments down as Avery lifts her ass in the air to help me get them off faster. I toss them to the side of the room and sit back to take in her glory.
I turn my head and kiss her thigh, moving slowly down to her core. Her hands reach for my hair and grab handfuls as I sweep my tongue along the lips of her sweet pussy. I trace the opening, savoring the heat and the taste of her before unfolding my tongue fully to lift up through her folds.
A sound of pleasure greets me as I swirl my tongue through her center, finally resting on her clit. I gently nudge it, until I feel her start to writhe below me, and I pull her legs around my head, so they cross.
One hand leaves her thigh and rises up from below, the middle finger finding her opening as I lavish her clit with attention. I plunge my finger inside her, and I feel her gasp, and her grip on my hair tightens, and her thigh muscles tense up.
I increase the speed of my tongue as I begin to lightly brush the top of her wall with the pad of my finger and then begin to draw it out slowly. I push it back in and repeat the motion as I sweep her with my tongue, and I can feel her body beginning to vibrate as a powerful orgasm begins to build up inside her.
One hand leaves my hair and grasps at my shirt near the collar and pulls at me, and I increase the intensity of my tongue. Soon, I hear her begin to moan, and she shoves her own hand over her mouth to stop the sound from being too loud. This only encourages me, and I begin to rapidly move inside her while I swirl her clit with my tongue.
In just moments, Avery tenses up completely, her hand barely holding in a scream as she bucks up toward me, then shakes violently as the orgasm rolls through her. I hold her there, my hand under her ass and my mouth clamped over her, gently sucking on her, as she rides the wave completely and then collapses back onto the bed, spent.
The next day we’re back in the summer palace, and Avery is back to trying to come up with her next move. She’s been in the library for hours, and when I bring her a cup of coffee, she’s standing in a slice of afternoon sunlight, bent over something spread across the table.
“What’s all this?” I ask.
The names beside stick figure drawings scattered over two large, taped-together pieces of paper look familiar, but the pattern means nothing, as do the haphazard lines drawn from them to a blob in the center.
“My visual aid,” she says. “I’ve been trying to get it all straight in my head, but it’s too confusing. While you were on the phone, I found that room we used to hang out in. Remember the corner with all the art supplies?”
“Yeah,” I tell her. “My parents keep that room stocked so when their friends come to visit with kids, there’s something for them to do while the adults are adulting.”
“Good thing, because I raided it for the paper and markers,” she says.
“Ever the resourceful one.”
She takes the coffee from me and sucks it down. “I’m never going to get used to decaf,” she says, cringing.
“It’s better for you,” I tell her. “Especially when you’re guzzling down three or four cups a day.”
“I’m drinking that much because my brain can’t figure out where the caffeine is. The taste is just enough to trick it a little, but this whole ‘no caffeine at the summer palace’ thing is not my favorite feature.”
“At least it’s pumpkin spice,” I point out.
“Yeah, in celebration of the Halloween that will never be. Speaking of which, did you find out anything?”
“Both Ellery Harris and Ron Benito are confirmed as having been in their bed-and-breakfasts the whole week of the murder,” I tell her.
“Great,” she says.
She picks up a red marker and makes big ‘X’ marks under the stick figures with those names.
“Again, what is all this?” I ask.
“It’s a map of all the bed-and-breakfasts Mercer reviewed over the last year and their proximity to Vidalia Isle,” she explains. “That’s the blob.”
“And all the ‘X’ marks?” I ask.
“Those are the
ones with verified alibis for the time when he was killed.”
“Looks like you’re making good progress eliminating them,” I tell her.
“Well, now that word has gotten out about Mr. Mercer being GPS, innkeepers are crawling out of the woodwork to clear their names. It’s become a social media phenomenon. Hashtag ‘I didn’t break the GPS’.”
“That’s pretty harsh.”
“Right up there with hashtag ‘GPS is recalculating’,” she says.
“Damn.”
“Yeah. But at least it means I can trim some of the names off the suspect lists. These people”—she clicks the end of the marker against a few of the stick figures—“posted pictures of themselves at events or activities that mean they couldn’t have been in Vidalia Isle. These”—she clicks again—“didn’t post any pictures but explained where they were and got comments from guests that confirm it.”
“What about these?” I ask, indicating figures out at the edge of the paper.
“They haven’t given an alibi, but they live really far away from Vidalia Isle. It’s possible they could have flown in, but chances are the rumors about where he was traveling are pretty centralized. There’s no reason for owners out near California or in Oregon to be talking about him traveling around Georgia and Virginia, so most likely they wouldn’t know.”
“But there’s no guarantee,” I say.
“Exactly, which is why I’m keeping my eye on them and trying to get some comment out of them.”
“I’m sure the police are looking into all the possible leads, including other bed-and-breakfast owners who have been burned by the reviews.”
“I don’t trust that much,” she says. “According to Sebastian and Skylar, they are still gunning for me and haven’t even talked about any other possible leads.”
“Maybe you should go talk to them,” I suggest. “Just sit down with them and clear things up.”
She looks at me incredulously. “I’m not going to go let myself get arrested,” she says. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Which is exactly why it would be fine,” I tell her, reaching out to rub her back. “You know you didn’t poison anybody, that you had nothing to do with him dying. So, you have nothing to be afraid of. You just go in, tell them you didn’t do it, and it will be done.”
Her expression is unmoved. “Yes, because that always works out just like that. No one has ever gotten anything wrong in a murder case ever.”
“The police at least need to know about the apples and the note,” I insist. “That’s evidence, and you can’t just hide it.”
“You have a really high opinion of me, don’t you?” she asks sarcastically. “You think I’d just flagrantly obstruct justice by not telling them about the apples? Of course, they know.”
“You called them?”
Her eyes dart away from me and back to her diagram. “Sebastian left an anonymous letter taped to the front door of the police department,” she tells me in a slightly mumbled tone.
“An anonymous letter?” I ask in disbelief.
Avery groans and rolls her eyes back in my direction.
“They figured out who he was by lunch that day. He’s not exactly subtle,” she tells me. “They already brought him in for questioning. He told them everything he knew about the apples I made, the apples they found, and the note.”
“What did the police say?”
“They all but told him he was an accessory to the murder and not to think about leaving Vidalia Isle anytime soon,” she says.
“Well, that’s unfortunate,” I agree.
“So now you understand why I can’t just go back and invite them out to tea and a chat. For some reason, the Sheriff and his posse have it out for me, and I’m not terribly keen on sitting around in the Vidalia Isle jail while they sift through the facts to figure out the truth. Not only does that sound really uncomfortable, but what if they don’t figure it out? Even if they do, what’s it going to do to my business? How many people are going to want to stay at a bed-and-breakfast owned by someone accused of murdering someone who stayed there?”
“I don’t know about murdering someone who stayed there, but I’ve heard the Lizzie Borden house isn’t hurting for people wanting to stay there,” I offer.
“That is not helpful.” She looks at her diagram, then back at me. “You know about Lizzie Borden?”
“I’m a prince, not an alien,” I point out. “She’s a bit of a name. We actually studied her in school.”
“Why would you study Lizzie Borden?” Avery asks.
“It was a psychology class, and we were studying how people see others and how that can make it more difficult to suspect someone of doing something horrible. People accused Lizzie of murdering her step-mother and her father because she was a lonely spinster woman stuck in their oppressive household. The same people then acquitted her of the crime because they saw her as the quiet Sunday school teacher who couldn’t possibly be capable of something like that.”
“I’m not sure I’m loving the use of the word ‘spinster,’ but I’m following you. So, you’re saying the people of Vidalia Isle see me as capable of murder because I am alone running the business after my grandparents died, and that made me bitter and hateful?” she asks.
“Actually, I was just drawing a link between the whole staying in a bed-and-breakfast a murderer lived in situation. I don’t think there are many people in the village who honestly believe you killed him. They know you better than that. They just want to cling to an explanation because that will mean they don’t have to be afraid of some nameless killer. It also doesn’t help that we’re so close to Halloween. This time of year stirs up the spooky in people,” I tell her.
“Which, again, is why I need to be able to do this. People can have their spooky all they want. I need to figure out the truth. If that doesn’t happen, I’ll try it your way and hand myself over to the posse so they can take over. Just give me that time.”
Her eyes are pleading, and even though I know it is against my better judgment, I nod.
“Fine,” I tell her. “Two weeks. You can have two more weeks, but if you still haven’t made any progress, we’re going back to Vidalia Isle and doing this the right way,” I tell her.
She smiles at me. “I like it when you’re so forceful,” she purrs.
“Oh, really?” I ask.
She nods, and I scoop her off her feet, tossing her over my shoulder so I can carry her upstairs into the bedroom for some distraction.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Avery
“Please tell me you have some good news for me,” I say as I answer the phone when Sebastian calls the next day.
“I think that depends on what you consider good news,” he says.
“Anything that starts with that sort of disclaimer isn't it,” I tell him. “What is it? What's going on?”
“A couple things, really. How do you want me to arrange them? In order of interest? In order of brevity? In order of potential badness?”
This just keeps getting better.
“Hit me with your brevity,” I say.
“The police came by with a search warrant and need to be able to get into the room Mr. Mercer was staying in, but they can't. In the interest of brevity, I'll combine this with the news that we had to turn away a potential new customer because all the rooms are full, since his stuff is still in that room.”
I let out an exasperated sigh.
“What's wrong?” Owen asks.
I'm already on the floor digging around in my purse.
“The police want to go through Mercer's room, but they can't get in. Also, somebody else wanted to come and stay at Hometown Bed And Breakfast but wasn't able to because that room is still full of Mercer's stuff and can't be rented. The man is dead, and he's still ruining my business.” I cringe. “Maybe I should be a little bit more careful about throwing phrases like that around.”
“Maybe a little,” Owen says. “Why can't they get into the room
?”
“It's locked,” I say.
“Shouldn't he have the key with him if he locked his door, before he left the festival?”
“Yeah, Sebastian, shouldn't he have the key with him if he locked his door, before he left for the festival?”
Owen laughs and continues getting dressed.
“Apparently he didn't,” Sebastian says. “According to Leo, who was there when the police went to the bed-and-breakfast, they told him nobody could find the key to the room. They searched his pockets, but there was no key. Just his small, leather, GPS embossed notebook with notes about his blog posts and a pen.”
I relay the message to Owen.
“That's really strange,” he says. “Why don't you just tell them to use your keys out of the drawer in the foyer?”
I pick up the key ring from my duffel bag and hold it up for him to see. “Because I have them,” I say.
“Why do you have your keys?” he asks with a distinct hint of frustration.
“I always have my keys,” I tell him. “You know that. You're the one who made fun of me for taking them out of the drawer and attempting to lock Mr. Mercer into the bed-and-breakfast.”
“But why did you bring them with you to come here?”
“Force of habit. I always grab them out of the drawer when I'm leaving,” I say.
“Does that mean there aren't any other keys sitting around?” Sebastian asks.
“No. There are only two for each room. One goes to the guests, and I keep one. I guess you're just going to have to tell the police to break in.”
“Will do,” he says. “Next up, the police have officially cleared all the bed-and-breakfast owners who had their places ravaged by the GPS blog over the last year, and are quickly on their way to eliminating all the ones who got particularly bad reviews or have closed down their businesses in the last three years. So far, everyone has been able to prove there was no way they were in Vidalia Isle anytime leading up to Mr. Mercer dying, or any time after.”