by Lena Gregory
He pushed the chair back and stood then, knowing Cass’s need for order, pushed the chair back in. “I’m starved. Where do you want to go? The diner?”
“May as well.” Her stomach growled. She glanced at the driftwood clock over the front door. “Actually, I didn’t realize how hungry I was. A breakfast skillet sounds good. Do you want to give Stephanie a call and see if she wants to meet us, while I set up Beast’s food dishes so he can eat as soon as I pick him up and get back?”
Bee fished his phone out of his pocket while Cass headed for the back room, curtained off at the side of the shop.
Before he dialed, the wind chimes over the front door signaled a customer. Darn. If she’d have realized how much activity there was on Bay Island in the early morning hours, she’d have locked the doors. Lesson learned. Next time she decided to drift off into a vision, she wouldn’t leave the door open so just anyone could walk in. A chill raced up her back.
“Oh, hey, Levi,” Bee said. “What are you doing here?”
Cass filled Beast’s food and water dishes and set them on the floor, washed her hands, then hurried out front. “Hi, Levi.”
“Good morning, Cass.” He reached to tip his mariner’s cap, then realized he was holding it in his hand and grinned. “How are you doing?”
“I’m doing okay, how about you?”
“To be honest, I don’t right know.” He clutched his hat and a Bay Island Lighthouse souvenir bag tighter.
“Over Fred’s death?” Bee laid a hand on his shoulder.
Levi looked up at him. “Heck of a thing, that. Ain’t it?”
“It certainly is.” Bee ushered him toward the table.
So much for breakfast.
“And now people are saying it might not have been an accident.”
Rumors sure were soaring this morning, and she had to wonder if anyone on Bay Island had slept last night. And what, if any, Bee’s role had been in churning the waters.
“I’ve heard that too.” Pulling out a chair, Bee gestured for Levi to sit and, when he did, took the seat next to him. “But who would want to kill Fred?”
“Would you like some coffee?” Cass checked the pot. Enough to get started, but she’d have to make another pot when she returned with Beast.
Bee scowled at her. She’d interrupted him working his mojo.
Too bad. The least she could do was offer the man a cup of coffee before Bee started grilling him.
“No, thank you, though.”
Cass sat across from them. Though she wanted to start her opening preparations, she didn’t want to be rude to Levi, even though it seemed he’d really stopped in to see Bee.
Bee resumed where he’d left off. “I’ve heard the same rumors, but no one seems to have any indication who would have wanted to kill him . . .”
“Oh, I don’t know about killing him, but Fred had pissed off a lot of people lately.”
“Really?” Bee stopped just short of drooling. “Like whom?”
Levi sighed, rolling and unrolling the top of the paper bag with the Bay Island Lighthouse logo on the front. “Even before all of this happened, rumors had started to spread that Fred was having affairs with some of the tour guides, had been for a while.”
“Really?” Bee feigned surprise.
That wasn’t news, since Levi and Amelia had both hinted at it before Fred had died.
“Supposedly, he was foolin’ around with that Piper girl, the one who was dating that beefy lifeguard last year. I really don’t know what everyone sees in that one. Nothin’ but snotty if you ask me.” He shrugged. “To each his own, I guess.”
Bee nodded in encouragement.
“So, the lifeguard found out about it—”
“Quincy Yates?” Bee asked.
“Yeah, that’s the one. I don’t know how he found out, but he confronted Fred the day before he was killed, right in the middle of the gift shop. In front of Amelia. Said Fred got away with it last year, because he didn’t give a rat’s . . .” His gaze shot to Cass and his blush shot clear over his head. “Uh, well, you know. Anyhow, said he had no real feelings for Piper, she weren’t nothing more than a fling. But Fred had his sights set on Francesca Harding this time, who Quince had hooked up with a few months ago when they came to Bay Island for orientation, had already made more than one pass at her according to Quince.”
“What was Quince doing here for orientation?”
“Apparently, he’d developed a yearning to become a tour guide. Ask me, I think he just wanted to stay close enough to keep an eye on Francesca, what with Fred sniffin’ around and all. He might not have cared about Piper, but Francesca, he did have feelings for her. Told Fred to stay away from her, or else. And let me tell you, that man looks all easygoing and laid-back, but not so when he’s angry. Scared me, and I wasn’t even on the receiving end of his temper.”
Cass’s mind whirled. Could it have been Quincy Yates who’d shoved Fred out the window? Would he have had time to reach the body and start CPR if that had been the case? “When I reached Fred, Quincy Yates was already trying to save him.”
Levi shrugged. “Just tellin’ it like I saw it.”
“You were there when they argued?” If she wasn’t mistaken, Bee’s tone held a note of envy.
“Yes, indeed. Saw it with my own eyes, and heard it with my own ears. And, let me tell you, Francesca, she stood there with her head down, looking embarrassed, but Piper had on a grin from ear to ear, just eatin’ up the attention, that one.”
That didn’t surprise Cass.
“But the one I really felt bad for was Amelia.” His jaw clenched. “She turned and ran out, left the gift shop with no one working in it, and had herself a good hard cry out on the jetty.”
An ache formed in Cass’s chest. She knew all too well what it felt like to suffer the pain of a cheating husband.
“Ah, well, I gotta run.” Levi stood, leaving the paper bag on the table.
Bee and Cass stood as well.
“I was actually on my way up to the lighthouse and saw your car out front, Bee.” He grinned. “And a beauty she is.”
Bee grinned from ear to ear. That black Trans Am was his baby.
“Anyway, so I just stopped in to bring you this.” He slid the bag across the table to Bee. “You seemed so interested the last time we spoke, and with Fred gone and the lighthouse closed I wasn’t sure when you’d get to see it again. Who knows? Now that Fred’s gone and Amelia’s selling the tour company, they may even remove the display.”
“What is it?” Bee opened the bag and peeked in, then pulled out a thick folder.
“The transcript of Kitty Garrison’s journal. Fred had Amelia transcribe it because he was too impatient to spend time trying to make out the faded writing. I asked Amelia if she had it and if she’d mind lending it to you. She didn’t. Said she hoped it might shed some light on the treasure he was searching for on the jetty all the time. Find out if it had anything to do with him winding up dead.”
“Why didn’t she give it to the police if she thought it might pertain to Fred’s murder?” Cass looked over Bee’s shoulder as he leafed through page after page.
“That’s easy.” Levi fitted his cap back on. “The police can’t talk to ghosts.”
Chapter Ten
Afraid she might never get out of Mystical Musings in time to eat breakfast and pick Beast up, Cass locked the doors the instant Levi walked out, and she and Bee headed for the diner.
Stephanie was already seated and waiting, and she waved when they walked in.
Good thing, too. If Cass had to linger next to the dessert case for longer than two seconds, she’d probably be having Linzer tarts for breakfast. Raspberry jam, powdered sugar. Saliva pooled in her mouth, and her stomach growled again.
No amount of walking down the beach would make up for that lapse of judgment. Of course, she could go back to the lighthouse and climb the stairs to the top a few dozen times.
Pressing a hand against her stomach to ease the
traitorous hunger pangs, Cass ignored the case and strode toward Stephanie’s booth.
She slid into the booth next to Stephanie and set her menu aside, trying, and failing, to think of anything other than the taste of a cookie melting on her tongue. “So, anything new and exciting?”
“Nah, just work, work, and more work.” Stephanie groaned, then she brightened. “But, hey, I hear you had a chat with Fred.”
Cass shot Bee, who was sitting across from her and suddenly engrossed in a menu he’d probably memorized, the evil eye.
Stephanie laughed. “It wasn’t only him. Rumors abound this morning.”
“Yeah, well.” Cass pinned a sugar packet to the table with her finger and used her free hand to spin it around and around. Sooner or later those rumors would reach Luke and Tank. That was two complications she didn’t need. Although, in all fairness, Luke had asked for her help. But he’d also asked her not to let anyone know she’d seen anything that would paint a target on her back. Of course, those would be the first rumors to spread. She raised her voice enough to be overheard but not enough to be obvious. “Rumors are wrong. I absolutely did not speak to Fred.”
Not for lack of trying.
Bee peeked at her over the menu. When she didn’t say anything, he closed the menu and set it aside, then folded his arms on the table. “You’ll never guess who came into Cass’s shop this morning.”
Stephanie looked at her watch and frowned. “Already?”
“I had an early reading scheduled.” Cass lowered her voice. No need to give the gossipmongers any more than she already had. “The woman who’s buying the tour company came in for a reading. Turns out she has some psychic ability of her own, and she’s definitely interested in adding Mystical Musings as a tour stop.”
Stephanie’s big brown eyes shone with anticipation. “That’s awesome, Cass. That could mean a good bump in business for you, not only when tour groups come in, but if they generate repeat customers. Word of mouth is the best form of advertising. And it’s free.”
“Very true.” The thought lifted her spirits. “Hey, I wonder if I could get her to agree to a group reading as part of the tour. I could add one, say, once a month or so, just for the tour group.”
“You’d have to get her to add a night tour if you wanted to do that, so they could come in after you closed,” Stephanie said.
“Or you could hire someone to man the counter while you take the tour group upstairs to do the group reading.” Bee waggled his eyebrows.
He’d been advocating for her to hire help for a while now, ever since he’d hired his intern, Tim, for the summer, so he wouldn’t have to get up early and go in to Dreamweaver Designs. Tim opened in the morning, made appointments for Bee with any clients who came in looking for custom work, and manned the shop until Bee got there. It gave Bee more time to work on designs and Tim valuable experience, plus a generous paycheck.
Cass suspected Bee’s relentless suggestions for her to hire help had something to do with him wanting a friend to hang out with for the summer, since Cass opened the shop seven days a week through tourist season. “We’ll see, Bee. If the tours generate enough of an income, maybe I could hire someone one day a week or something.”
Stephanie fished a pen out of her bag and grabbed a napkin from the holder. “Yeah, but without hiring someone, you have no way to do an additional group reading. You can’t be upstairs while the shop is open.”
True. She couldn’t leave the doors unlocked, even if she did empty the register, with no one to keep an eye on things. “Maybe it would be worth closing for an hour or two to accommodate the group?”
“Hmm . . .” Stephanie caught her bottom lip between her teeth and scribbled numbers on the napkin.
Since Cass had no clue what she was writing, she turned to Bee. “Do you think I could talk Simone into adding a late evening tour?”
He ran a finger slowly around the rim of his water cup. “I don’t know. If you think about it from her standpoint, it doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
“Why not?”
“Well.” He turned his paper place mat to face her and pointed to the two biggest local ads. “While the haunted aspect of the tour is intriguing, and would undoubtedly be even more so at night, especially after dark, the two lighthouses and the lighthouse museum that draw most people to a tour would already be closed.”
“Hmm . . . I hadn’t thought of that.” Especially when one of the stories Fred had been trying to feature took place at the Bay Island Lighthouse.
Stephanie spun the napkin toward Cass and tapped a number she’d circled at the bottom with her pen. “If my calculations are accurate, which they should be since I handle your bookkeeping, that’s what you’d need for the group reading to make it worth closing for an hour or two, assuming no one who tries to come in during the time you’re closed comes back once you reopen.”
Bee popped up and leaned over Cass’s shoulder to look over the numbers with her. “And, really, you’d have to assume some people would come back. First off, you wouldn’t schedule appointments for private readings during that time, so you wouldn’t lose anything there.”
“True.” A spark of hope flared. This might be doable.
“And second, most people who come to see you know what they’re coming for, and if you stick to a schedule, where you close at the same time every month for the readings, people will work around it.” He returned to his seat. “So, all you’d really lose would be the people browsing the shops along the boardwalk.”
“And once tourist season is over, I can open for the readings on Mondays or Wednesdays when I could close the shop for the day anyway. This could work.” Her excitement grew. Simone’s email address had been printed on the business card she’d given Cass. “Maybe I’ll shoot Simone an email outlining my plan and see if she’s interested.”
“You might also suggest she talk to someone at the old Madison Estate.” Bee sat back as the waitress approached. “Fred had a deal to have the guests stay there, and let me tell you, that is one creepy place, especially at night.”
Bee shivered, and goose bumps popped up on his arms.
Cass didn’t need the reminder. One weekend trapped in that place was enough for her.
“Good morning.” A waitress Cass didn’t recognize offered a bright smile. It seemed all of the businesses on Bay Island had already started using seasonal employees in anticipation of the heightened tourist influx once the schools let out. “What can I get for you this morning?”
Cass and Stephanie ordered breakfast skillets, while Bee ordered a hot roast beef sandwich, mashed potatoes, and coleslaw, since it was technically his dinnertime.
Once the waitress walked away, Bee looked around and leaned in closer.
Cass and Stephanie automatically did the same. “The other thing you haven’t taken into consideration in your master plan with Simone is the possibility of her having some involvement in Fred’s death.”
Stephanie gasped and jerked upright, then looked around, leaned back in, and lowered her voice to a harsh whisper. “What are you talking about, Bee?”
Cass and Bee brought her up to speed on what he’d dug up during the night.
“And you really went into the police station and talked to Tank about it?” Of everything, that fact seemed to surprise—and please—Stephanie the most.
Bee sat back. “I really did.”
The waitress hurried toward them with a tray of drinks. After depositing them on the table, she rushed off to take care of another table.
Cass looked around. “Actually, it’s really crowded in here this morning.”
Every table and booth was full; only three stools, not together, sat empty at the counter, and a small crowd had gathered in the vestibule, waiting for someone to leave.
Stephanie started to turn and bumped her elbow into Cass’s arm. “Oh, sorry, Cass.”
“Four.”
“What?”
Stephanie and Bee both looked at her and frowned.<
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“Four.”
With her friends staring right at her, it was obvious neither of them had spoken. “Oh, sorry. I thought one of you said something.”
“I said I was sorry for bumping into you.” Stephanie laid a hand on her arm. “Are you all right?”
“Four.”
What in the world? The voice seemed feminine but deep, a woman, perhaps, though Cass didn’t know what made her believe so, since the sound had come to her on the softest of breaths, no more than a wisp of smoke floating by and dissipating an instant later.
“Four.”
Cass tried to grab hold of the sound, tried to follow when she couldn’t grasp it. Four what?
Bee reached across the table and laid a hand on hers. “Hey. You okay?”
No use. Whatever had tried to reach out had disappeared.
“Uh . . . yeah . . . sorry.”
“Really, Quince!” Piper Bonavich stood beside a booth a few seats from Cass, saving Cass from having to further elaborate on whatever that had been. Piper pointed an accusatory finger at the woman sitting next to Quince.
The young woman slid farther down in her seat, looking like she wanted to melt into the booth bench and disappear, though Cass couldn’t see her expression, since she was sitting with her back to them.
She had a great view of Piper’s face, though, and her cheeks were so red they bordered on purple, making her bright blue eyes stand out like lasers aimed at the poor young lifeguard.
Bee turned his back to the side of the booth so he could see what was going on, making no effort to disguise his interest. Instead, he settled more comfortably, resting his arm along the seatback to gawk at the scene unfolding.
“You stood me up to hang out with her!” Piper demanded.
“That’s Francesca Harding, Quince’s seasonal conquest,” Bee whispered to them.
Obviously forgetting the need to be invisible, Francesca sat up and whirled on Quince. “What does she mean, stood her up? You told me things with her were over.”
Quince tilted his head back and massaged his neck, ignoring Piper in favor of Francesca. “It’s not what you think, babe.”