“You watch that tongue, young lady,” Bee said, jabbing her finger at Francescan. “You watch who you’re calling old.”
“Yeah?” Francescan threw her phone onto her armchair and rolled up the sleeves of her fluffy pink sweater. “You want to, like, throw down?”
“I’m ready to teach you a lesson.” Bee reached up to take off her hoop earrings.
“Stop,” I said. “That’s enough. There’s no need for violence. Bee and I will leave.”
“Ruby, she needs to be taught a lesson.”
“Not like this,” I said, placing a hand on Bee’s arm.
She sighed. “Fine. But you can thank your lucky stars she’s here to stop me.” She directed that at Francescan. “I’ll teach you the meaning of old and beat you with it.”
“That, like, doesn’t even make any sense.”
“Time for you to leave,” Petey said. “You’ve got ten minutes to get your stuff and get out of here.”
Bee and I retreated, me having to guide my friend to the exit, while she growled under her breath about Francescan. Out in the snow, she turned toward me.
“Well, that went perfectly,” she said.
“We’d better hurry. Petey sounded serious.”
“Seriously idiotic,” Bee replied.
But we returned to our cabin and packed our bags at lightning speed. We took them out to the food truck and loaded them up while Petey watched from in front of the hall, his lips still thin, and his muscular arms folded.
I started the engine once Bee had her seatbelt on and waited for the food truck to warm up. Five minutes later, we were on the road that led down the mountain.
“I’m sorry I lost my temper,” Bee said.
“I understand. You’ve never liked her, and she was being rude, even if we were in the wrong.”
“At least we’re going back to Prattlebark Village.”
Bee was right. That was a positive. That and I’d soon see Jamie again. But what about Madeline’s murder? Would the case ever be solved?
11
The next morning…
Being back in Prattlebark Village the next day was a blessing. We parked in our favorite spot in the town square, opened the side window of the truck, and served our customers who were clad in coats and sweaters. It was warmer in town than it had been up in the mountains, with no snow on the ground.
And the s’more pots, that had been basically ignored by the guests at the event, were a hit with the locals.
“Here you go,” I said. “Be careful, it’s hot. Here, take this napkin.” I handed a customer a s’more hot pot with a napkin folded around the plastic tub.
“Thank you, dear,” the customer replied, fluffing her curly gray hair. “This smells amazing. The perfect treat for such a cold day.”
Bee served customers next to me, her smile back even after Francescan’s meanness and our failure to solve Madeline’s case.
When we’d first arrived in Prattlebark Village, we’d felt the place was full of paranoid people. Now, it was like a second home. Or was it a third? Every small town we’d been to had become a place we’d loved. From Carmel Springs to Muffin to Prattlebark Village—we’d met amazing people.
And terrible ones.
The double line snaked back toward the stores that flanked the square, many of them with cutesy hearts paint in their windows. People in town loved celebrating every holiday. They’d even created a few of their own to pass the time between the main ones.
A tall, dark, and seriously handsome dude stepped up to the counter, and I held in a gasp.
“Stony! What are you doing here?”
The most eligible bachelor in town, who had been at the Valentine’s Ball yesterday, ignoring everyone and eating food, offered me a smile. “Oh hey, yeah, you’re one of the caterers from the resort.”
“We don’t work at the resort,” I said. “We just, uh, helped out.” Or caused a lot more trouble than we needed to.
“Cool, cool. Can I get one of those s’more hot pots?”
“Sure.” I turned to the tray that contained our delicious, melted marshmallows and chocolate and scooped some into one of the plastic containers. I garnished it with graham crackers for dipping and scooping then handed it over. “That will be fifteen dollars, please.”
“Ah cool.” Stony fished out a twenty and handed it over. “Keep the change.” He strolled off, cool as a cucumber.
“Bee, can you take over for a sec?”
“Sure. As long as you promise it’s not so you can chase down Santa Claus again.”
“I wasn’t chasing him down. I just ran into—uh, it doesn’t matter.” I left the truck and followed Stony, my curiosity, as always, getting the better of me.
Technically, Francescan’s Valentine’s Day events weren’t over yet. Just because we had been kicked out didn’t mean they had ended. As the hostess had said, even after Madeline’s murder, the show had to go on. So why on earth was Stony back in Prattlebark Village?
And how come Detective Spasinski had let him go? Granted, Stony hadn’t shown that much interest in Madeline, other than staring over at her on the night of her murder, but…
“Hey, are you following me?” Stony had spotted me and stood with a graham cracker dripping marshmallow and chocolate halfway to his mouth.
“Yes,” I said. “Sorry.” Honesty was the best policy, right?
“Why?”
“I wanted to talk to you.”
“Look,” Stony said, abandoning his cracker and brushing fingers through his thick brown hair. “I get it. And I’m flattered. But I don’t date women who are twenty years older than me.”
“Excuse me. I’m thirty-seven,” I said, indignant.
“And I’m Santa Claus.”
Well, that came full circle. “And I’m not interested in dating you,” I continued, “I have a boyfriend, thank you very much. A handsome boyfriend.”
“Oh yeah? I bet he’s a millionaire too. Drives a Porsche.” He rolled his eyes.
I opened my mouth to tell him that he was spot-on but thought better of it. “Anyway, I wanted to talk to you about what happened up there. At the Green Mountain Resort.”
Stony frowned and crunched on his graham cracker. “What happened?” he asked, smearing chocolate on his lips.
“Madeline was shot and you’re back in Prattlebark Village. I thought the detective was going to keep everyone the guests up there until he figured it out.”
“Oh yeah, right,” he nodded, and took another bite of his treat. He shrugged. “Didn’t happen.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know the details, but that detective dude basically said that he had the evidence he needed, and he’d call anyone if he wanted something else. He handed out his card and left.”
“He left?” My eyes were so wide they hurt a little. “He just left?”
“Yeah. Weird dude. But he was friends with Francescan, so it was whatever. Who cares?”
Friends with Francescan. Oh man, that wasn’t good. “Can I get his card?” I asked. “The one he gave you, please?”
“Yeah, uh, I guess.” Stony fished his wallet out of his pocket and handed me a grubby card. The ink was smudged with a fingerprint.
“Thanks,” I said, slipping it into my apron’s front pocket.
“No problem.”
“Say, Stony,” I said, rolling the question around in my brain, wondering if it was even worth asking. “Were you close to Madeline?”
“Nah,” he replied. “She was hot, but I’m not into being tied down to one chick. And she was the type who liked to play with a guy’s emotions.”
“What do you mean?”
Stony chewed thoughtfully. “She had a whole bunch of guys after her. They had crushes on her and thought she was the best thing since rutabaga bake, but I saw right through the act. She wanted attention, and when she got it, she got bored. But I got the feeling that if I gave her any, she would fall for me, and I don’t want a ball and chain so, yeah. N
o thank you.”
“So Madeline was seeing a whole bunch of guys?” I asked.
“Not seeing them,” Stony said. “She was leading them on. I know she kissed Frank Porter, that carpenter dude who thinks he’s better than everyone else. But Phillip? Redhead guy, kind of a nerd? He asked her to the Valentine’s Day Ball, and she turned him down.”
We’d heard that from Francescan too, on the day Phillip had tried asking her out on the food truck in front of us.
Could Phillip, the redhead, be the one who’d done it? What if he’d been angry that Madeline hadn’t returned his attention and had decided if he couldn’t have her, nobody could?
“Did you think Phillip seemed like a nice guy?” I asked.
“Weird question. He was a dude. I don’t know. Just kind of nerdy. Look, I’ve got a date with someone my age, now, so… bye.” Stony loped off, shaking his head at my questions.
Stony was back in town. The detective had let them go. And Phillip Rorke, the redheaded bachelor, had been interested in Madeline.
This case wasn’t going to solve itself.
12
“I found it,” I said, and stopped on the email in question.
Bee and I opted for breakfast at one of the local diners instead of eating a delicious meal at the Oaken Branch Guesthouse. It was nice to get a change of scenery, both for the eyes and the tastebuds. Besides, we needed privacy to plan our next steps in solving the case.
And it didn’t hurt that this place served great breakfast muffins and fresh-brewed coffee.
I tapped on the screen and opened the email then scrolled until I found the relevant section.
Phillip Rorke—With fiery red hair, muscles and a lot of height, Phillip Rorke is another eligible young man attending the ball. It’s rumored that he’s seeking a woman to take home to his parents…
“This is what Francescan’s assistant wrote down about Phillip. It’s directly from the information pamphlet we received before we went to the Valentine’s event.”
“Let me have a look.” Bee took the phone and read it while I picked raisins out of my muffin.
I collected the dried fruit on the side of my plate, then popped them into my mouth one at a time, enjoying the sweet bursts of flavor. I ate what was left of my muffin with my fork.
“Interesting. All right,” Bee said. “I think I know who you’re talking about. He’s the one that tried to ask out Francescan, right?”
“Correct. And held a flame for Madeline.” I took a sip of my coffee. “If only we could ask Francescan where he stayed.”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure she’s never talking to us again.”
I had to agree with Bee. Whether Francescan’s attitude would change now she was back in Prattlebark Village remained to be seen. I wouldn’t be holding out any hope.
The entire party from the Green Mountain Resort had arrived back in town this morning, and the gossip that had been held at bay by their absence had resurged. Everyone wanted to know what had happened to Madeline. Who had done it? Where were her parents? Why wasn’t there a funeral being held for her in Prattlebark Village? That was where she was from and where she ought to be buried. Rumor had it, the Sweete family lived out in the Caribbean now and would be taking her remains there.
Would Katrina move to the Caribbean too?
That was the question I was most fascinated by. We had to stop that from happening until we’d discovered whether she had done it.
“There’s got to be another way to find him,” I said. “He’s worth checking out. A lover scorned… a good motivation. I mean, Katrina didn’t like her sister, but she didn’t have a financial motivation, did she?”
“We don’t know for sure, unfortunately.” Bee tapped her chin. “I wonder… this says, Phillip was seeking a woman to take home to his parents. Does that mean he lives with his parents? If they’re well-off, it might be easier to find them.”
“How so?”
The server arrived with a pot of coffee to refill our cups. She wore a tired expression and a little too much makeup. “Refill?”
“Yes, please,” I said.
“None for me.” Bee placed a hand over her mug. “Irma, do you know where the Rorkes stay?”
“Those snobs?” Irma sucked her front teeth. “Sure. They’re up on Brewery Lane, right against the creek. Think they’re the best thing to walk the earth, and their son’s no better. Heard he spends a lot of time chasing after women who don’t want him. You two need anything else?”
“I’m good, thank you.”
Irma shuffled off.
“Wow,” I said, “that was easy.”
“See? Francescan’s not the only gossip in town. She’s probably not even the best at it.” Bee ate her muffin and finished her coffee. “What do you say we head out to Brewery Lane and have a little talk with Phillip Rorke?”
“I’m in.”
The house—no, the mansion—on Brewery Lane, sat at the end of a long-paved road. Strangely, there were no front gates, maybe because crime was relatively low in Prattlebark Village.
Bee and I parked the food truck along the side of the street leading up to the private property, then got out of the truck into the sparkling morning light.
“Ready?” I asked.
“Ready,” Bee said, settling her gloves around her fingertips. “Let’s hope this Phillip let’s something slip.”
We walked down the long road that led to the mansion together, arm-in-arm, and our eyes wide open in case we encountered anything suspicious. The mansion itself had a beautiful garden, though the trees themselves had lost their leaves. A decorative statue hid among empty rosebushes—a little boy playing a harp.
“Kind of looks like cupid.”
Bee opened her mouth to respond, but a door slammed nearby, and she pulled me behind a tree.
“What are you doing?” I whispered. “I thought we wanted to talk to Phillip.”
“Let’s see who it is first. Never know. Might be one of the other suspects.”
We peered around the tree trunk.
Phillip trudged down the front steps of the mansion, wearing a pair of gloves and a coat. It looked as if were heading out, but instead of walking toward the double doors of his garage, he circled the side of the house.
Bee and I watched in silence, waiting.
A door slammed. A few minutes passed. Another door slammed.
Phillip reappeared carrying a wilted bouquet of flowers. He stomped up the front steps of the mansion and disappeared inside.
“Well,” Bee said. “That was weird.”
“I’ll say.”
“We have two options,” Bee whispered. “We can knock on the door and talk to him or…”
“Find out what he was doing around the corner.”
“Exactly. What do you want to do?”
“I think you know,” I said, pointing toward the side of the house.
And so, Bee and I crept out from behind our tree and headed along the path that encircled the mansion.
“Look,” Bee said. “That must be where he went.” She pointed out a small wood shack that sat among the leafless trees. “He must be keeping someone in there.”
“Maybe he’s just growing flowers?” But that didn’t make sense either. If he’d been growing flowers, why had he brought them out wilted and in a bouquet? I checked that no one had spotted us from the vast windows along the side of the house then hurried to the door of the shack.
Bee placed a gloved hand against the rough wood and pressed it open. Light spewed into the small room, illuminating multiple objects.
“Oh my heavens.”
The room brimmed with vases of flowers, pictures in ornate frames—each one of none other than Madeline Sweete. A love letter lay on a silver tray on a bench in front of a massive portrait of the victim.
“Bee… Bee, what is this?” I couldn’t even fathom how much time it must’ve taken to put this together. There were crystals scattered around the room, along with unlit candles.<
br />
Bee picked up the letter and scanned it before folding it and tucking it into the pocket of her coat. “It’s a shrine, Ruby. A shrine to the woman he may or may not have killed.”
13
Back at the Oaken Branch Guesthouse, Bee made us two cups of hot chocolate while I asked Jules for a midday snack we could enjoy in our rooms. It was time to go over the clues and figure out what we had.
Starting with the letter we’d found in Phillip Rorke’s shrine to Madeline.
Jules brought us a platter of cheeses, crackers, and fruit to enjoy, and we set everything on the coffee table in my bedroom. I had a view of the creek that ran past the guesthouse and the bare trees outside, their branches spindly and arcing toward the gray sky.
Bee plopped into an armchair and opened the letter she’d taken from Phillip’s shrine. She read it, while I snacked on a cheesy cracker and watched, my nerves roiling.
I couldn’t figure out why I was so nervous about this case. Every murder investigation came with its troubles, but this time… ugh. Maybe it was the way we’d left things with Francescan. I didn’t enjoy conflict, but I also didn’t want to be a pushover. And I had to admit, Bee was right about ‘the most popular woman in Prattlebark Village.’
While she had been a great resource and had helped me a few times when it came to gossip, that didn’t equate to her being our friend. I didn’t like the idea of people gossiping about us, or me, or the fact that she didn’t like me anymore.
Silly. You’re not a high school girl for heaven’s sakes. Get over it.
“Well, well, well.” Bee looked at me over the top of the letter.
“What?”
“Read it for yourself.”
I dusted my fingers off on a napkin then accepted the letter from Bee.
Madeline,
Five letters in and I still can’t work up the courage to send this to you. I know that you view me as just a friend, but I need you to know that it’s not like that for me. I love you. Truly and deeply. I love your beautiful blonde hair and the way you smile. I love everything about you.
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