Inn Danger

by Dixie Davis

  “How’d it go?” Adam asked, his voice a little tight with nerves.

  “High bail,” Lori said, “but he got bail.”

  “Good. Right?”

  Lori nodded slowly, almost absently. She really didn’t like not knowing the answer to that question.

  “What should we do for lunch?” Adam asked, but his grin said he already knew the answer: Brunswick stew and hush puppies from the Salty Dog.

  Of course. Food was always the answer. That was exactly what she should do. “I’m going to make him a welcome home treat first,” Lori decided.

  Adam quirked an eyebrow but didn’t question her choice out loud.

  Lori headed for her comfort zone, her kitchen, and dug the recipe out of the rack of cookbooks. She assembled the ingredients. For some strange reason, the recipe had her flour the pan with cornmeal. Effective for pizzas, perhaps, but it had worked the last time she’d made this, so she went with it. The batter was equal parts cornmeal, butter, sugar and eggs, with a little sour cream, vanilla and flour to round it out.

  Baking wasn’t really the distraction she’d hoped for, but Lori forced herself to focus only on how the butter and sugar creamed together, how the texture changed with the eggs and dry ingredients, making sure each step was perfect.

  Unlike each step of her investigation. Every time she’d found a suspect, she’d found four reasons to believe their innocence.

  And then there was the evidence against Mitch that Chip had listed off last night. The journal she already felt she understood, but the divorce papers, the ring . . .

  Wait. The ring? Lori poured the batter into the prepared pan, but her mind was fixed on the ring.

  She’d seen a ring on Debbie’s left ring finger. It was one of the first things she noticed.

  And one of Mitch’s reasons that he knew she wasn’t dead, that she’d left of her own volition: she’d left her ring.

  Of course Mitch had it. He’d had it for ten years.

  He’d told her he’d been seeing a lawyer. The papers had to be ones he’d prepared, even if he had no idea how to get them served.

  All of Chip’s “hard evidence” evaporated like steam. Lori slid the cake pan into the hot oven. With a burst of energy she whipped up — literally, by hand — the honey glaze for the top of the cake.

  Mitch hadn’t done this. Mitch was innocent.

  Lori finished the glaze in two minutes flat, and her enthusiasm instantly waned. None of that changed what Mitch had done to her, of course.

  “Hey, Mom?” Adam called, heading into the kitchen.

  “Yes?”

  “Your guest for tonight had their flight delayed. They probably won’t get to Wilmington before ten thirty.” It was another forty-five minutes to the inn from there, plus time to get baggage and a rental car. They could be arriving after midnight.

  “Do you want me to stay to greet them?” Adam offered.

  To think she’d ever believed, even for a minute, that he would have resented helping with the inn. “No, sweetie. We use a lockbox for after-hours check-ins.”

  “I don’t mind. I’d already be up.”

  He was supposed to head home tonight. “Don’t you have work tomorrow?”

  Adam shrugged. “I can take it off.”

  “And miss your big presentation? No.” She patted his shoulders. “I appreciate it, but I’ve got systems to handle this already. You’re heading back home tonight.”

  “All right. Show me how this lockbox works?”

  Lori squeezed his shoulder. They’d get the keys set up for the guest, get the cake over to Mitch, and get the housekeeping done in record time.

  No one was home when Lori stopped by Mitch’s house. Not that she knocked, but the house seemed quiet. His SUV was out front where it had been all weekend. Lori left the cake on a chair on his porch and hurried back to the inn with Brunswick stew and hush puppies from the Salty Dog for her and Adam to share.

  Adam spent most of lunch talking about marketing efforts for the inn. Half the time it almost seemed like this was a job interview. As if she could afford to hire a full-time marketer.

  Perhaps he was merely nervous about his presentation tomorrow.

  Finally, as he sopped up the last of his tomato-based stew with half a hush puppy, Adam asked a question that had clearly been on his mind the whole meal. “Did you see him?”

  Lori just shook her head.

  “And how do you feel about that?”

  She pondered the question for a moment. “Fine, I guess. It was hard to see him this morning at the courthouse, even if I didn’t have to talk to him.”

  “Because you still love him.”

  Lori turned to look out the windows. All she could see from here were the dark windows of Dusky Card and Gift.

  She wasn’t doing enough to help Ray and Katie, and she’d run out of leads. Even going over everything with Adam, who was hopefully more impartial than she was, they’d cast legitimate doubts on Ray, Chip and Mitch as the murderer.

  “The investigation isn’t about me,” she finally murmured.

  “But bringing him a welcome-home treat certainly was.”

  Lori had to acknowledge her son’s point. Leaving a treat was an easy way to say, Hey, I’m still thinking about you, even if I’m not sure that will ever be in a romantic way again, you big fat liar.

  On second thought, maybe a cake didn’t say “you big fat liar.”

  “Mom,” Adam said, drawing her attention back to him. “You’re hurting right now, but I think your heart is already trying to tell you what you should do long-term. It might take a while to rebuild trust, but you know what you want.”

  “What I want is for none of this to have ever happened.” Her laugh sounded cold and bitter to her own ears. “But I’m obviously not getting what I want. Until we figure out who did kill Debbie, everyone is going to think Mitch did it.” And honestly, until he could be ruled out definitively, she’d have her doubts, too.

  Or was that just because she was angry that he’d dated her while he’d known Debbie was alive?

  Adam offered a half-frown. “I’m sorry, Mom. I know it hurts now.”

  She patted his hand, then stood to clear his place, but Adam hopped to his feet and grabbed both of their bowls before she could.

  “I see someone taught you well.”

  “She sure did,” Adam called over his shoulder on his way to the kitchen. “Housekeeping now?”

  Lori nodded. Together, they retrieved clean sheets and towels from the dryer. Adam headed downstairs to change his own room over for her, while Lori started with the towels.

  Her sweeps of the rooms yesterday had been so fast they almost hadn’t counted, although she wouldn’t have been changing sheets or deep cleaning in a guest’s room during the middle of a weekend stay. Today, they’d have to change bedding in the Besases’ room as well as do another quick refresh of Shawn’s and Jared’s rooms.

  She changed out the towels and collected the trash from the empty guest rooms first. Leaving the bedding and cleaning for Adam to start. Jared’s room went quickly — nothing seemed unusual, so she wasn’t sure why he’d been so cagey yesterday.

  When she stopped to get the trash bag, however, she noticed the book on the table — a high school yearbook. It was open to a two-page spread of students wearing tuxes and black evening dresses. Seniors, in the second half of the alphabet. A few faces looked vaguely familiar, and then Lori saw the most familiar of all: Debra Watson. Her quote was simply “Carpe diem.” Next to it was a handwritten note: Jared, You’re a great friend! Whoever gets you is a lucky girl. Have fun in college! Your friend, Deb.

  Calling him a friend twice in a short message was interesting. It almost sounded like she was trying to send him a subtle message.

  Debbie must have been the most popular girl in school if she had three friends competing for her attention. Lori looked at her photo again, trying to ignore a twinge of jealousy
.

  “Mom?” Adam called. “What are you doing?”

  She glanced at the yearbook once more. “Nothing.” She held up the trash bag and headed out.

  Adam carried the linens downstairs, and Lori found herself facing Shawn’s door.

  Every time she spoke to the poor boy, it seemed, he got sadder. She hoped he was still out now. Who went on a vacation to just sit around a stuffy historic home the whole time?

  Lori knocked and waited, counting the seconds. After fifteen, there was no answer. Lori tried again. “Housekeeping?” she called through the door.

  Again, no answer. Lori unlocked the room door and let herself in. A hint of the acrid smell of smoke still lingered from yesterday. Lori hurried to change the towels, then she checked the trash can quickly. Underneath the take out container from last night’s dinner and a few used tissues, she found flaky ashes.

  He’d burned something after she told him not to? Lori’s brow furrowed in consternation as if her own son had disobeyed her direct order. She tried to be as accommodating as possible, but this was no way for a guest to behave. He easily could have started a fire, burning something in the trash.

  Lori snatched out the bag and took it to the cart. Shawn’s trash can was now out of bags, so she grabbed a roll of garbage liners from the linen closet. When she reached the room again, she took a deep breath.

  Something about this smoke seemed a little different than yesterday, though. It wasn’t quite the burning plastic smell that had assaulted her. This could be the smell from burning these papers today.

  Lori refilled the trash can with empty bags. As she straightened, her eye caught the small microwave. She crossed the room to the appliance and pushed the button. The door sprang open, revealing the interior of the microwave before she even had a chance to brace herself.

  The off-white enamel was as clean as the day she’d bought it.

  She slammed the microwave closed and hurried out of the room without even turning the bed down.

  It didn’t look as though anything had melted in there. She’d specifically told him not to burn things in his room — which he’d obviously ignored. Why lie to her? It wasn’t like he’d get in trouble.

  Depending on what he was burning.

  It didn’t smell like drugs, from what Lori remembered of high school. She’d found ashes that looked like paper in the trash, but it didn’t smell like that either. And that was from today’s trash, but the smell had been there yesterday.

  What about yesterday’s garbage?

  Lori headed back to the linen closet and pulled out the top trash bag. She hurried to untie the knot in the top and sifted through the trash to find the ashes again. The flakes were large and blackened and heavier than a regular sheet of paper. She pulled out the biggest one and held it at all angles, twisting it in the light and even holding it up. No text seemed to show up.

  Of course not. This was silly.

  The case was clearly getting to her. She was reading too much into everything now, desperate for someone else to blame for Debbie’s death.

  The answer shouldn’t be this complex. It should be simpler. Someone who’d known Debbie ten, twenty, thirty years ago. Not this random stranger staying in her inn.

  Despite her mental protests, Lori found herself pulling the smaller, full trash bags out of the bigger bin, digging for the bag she’d removed from Shawn’s room yesterday. Finally, she found it, with the Styrofoam takeout container stuffed inside — and something else.

  She pulled out the knot pinning the Styrofoam inside and dumped that into the larger trash bin. Underneath were another few tissues, napkins, a wet wipe and a waterlogged book.

  That was it? What had he burned yesterday, then? Lori turned back to the trash bin.

  The Styrofoam container. He’d claimed he’d scorched it in the microwave. Maybe that wouldn’t have left a mark or any melted remains. She picked up the takeout container and turned it over. Both the top and the bottom looked just fine.

  She turned it back to toss it in the trash, but something shifted inside the box, hitting the side. Lori flipped open the lid.

  Inside the box, amid the leftover rice and red sweet and sour sauce, lay a blackened and partially melted photograph. Lori turned it over to see the front.

  It was a photograph of a dark-haired woman wearing sunglasses. Lori couldn’t see quite enough of her face to recognize her, but she seemed familiar . . .

  That couldn’t be Debbie, could it? If it was, she looked more like the yearbook photo than the flyer Chip had given her. And the background certainly looked like Dusky Cove’s beach.

  “Hey!” came a man’s voice. Lori startled, dropping the photo back in the sauce and tossing it into the trash. Had Shawn seen?

  Lori whirled around toward the voice.

  “Find something good, Mom?” Adam asked, walking up behind her. “Or . . . TMI?”

  Her mind took a moment to latch onto Adam there, what he was asking. “Oh, no. It was just . . . trash.” She thought.

  He lifted an eyebrow but accepted her answer. “Are these the right ones?” He held up the clean sheets in his arms.

  “Yes.” Lori pointed at the empty guest room they needed to turn over, and Adam headed away to take care of it.

  She turned back to the trash bin. What did the photograph mean? Could it really be Debbie?

  There wasn’t enough of her face showing to really be sure, even if she showed the photo to Mitch. They certainly hadn’t found her in sunglasses, but that would be pretty strange if they had.

  On autopilot, Lori reloaded the trash bags into the bin. She grabbed her pile of dirty towels and carried them down to the laundry room, tossing them in the washer with the ones Adam had collected. The sheets would take a full load by themselves.

  This wasn’t making sense. How could Shawn have known Debbie? Why would he have a photograph of her? What did that mean for her investigation?

  Lori paced the little laundry room for a minute. If only there were some way she could find out more about Shawn without him knowing she was prying. More photos, that was all she needed. Could she take his phone and see if he had any on there?

  Unlikely. Where else might she find pictures of him and his friends?

  Of course: the answer was right under her nose. Adam had coaxed her to set up a profile on Facebook largely so she could see pictures of what he and Doug were up to. If Shawn was on the social network, she could see his pictures, too, right?

  She hurried to her office and her computer. Facebook pulled up quickly and Lori searched for Shawn Kirk. Three profiles popped up right away. Lori pulled up Shawn’s check-in records to find his hometown. Atlanta.

  Where Debbie had run away to. Coincidence?

  Too soon to say. Atlanta was a huge city. They could live their all their lives and never meet.

  Still, it wasn’t exactly clearing her suspicions.

  Lori switched back to the browser window with Facebook. One Shawn Kirk was from “Hotlanta.” The picture was too small to make out.

  She clicked on the profile, and it opened up. The main picture was of a silhouetted couple in a sunset. Could have been him and his ex-wife, or a stock photo.

  Lori puffed out a breath. This wasn’t helping. She found the Photos section on the page, but when they opened, nothing displayed. He had no photos? At all?

  Adam breezed into the office, scaring her just a little bit less this time than he had upstairs. “Need anything else?”

  Lori glanced at him — her personal Internet marketing guru. “What does it mean if somebody doesn’t have any pictures on Facebook?”

  “That they don’t like pictures?” Adam guessed, like he was trying to solve an obscure riddle. He crossed the room and leaned over her. “Isn’t this one of your guests?”

  “I think so, but I’m not sure. That’s why I wanted to see his photos.”

  Why couldn’t she tell Adam the truth?

 
Because the truth was silly and hard to believe. She’d snooped in the trash and found a mostly-burned photo that bore a tiny resemblance to a dead woman she’d seen for only a few minutes. The last time she’d stretched logic this far, it had come back to bite her. Almost literally, with a gigantic dog attached. She’d been lucky to come out of it with only a broken foot.

  “Are you friends with him yet?” Adam asked.

  “No.”

  “You should add him as a friend and invite him to like the inn’s page.”

  Lori nodded, as if she had any idea how to do that.

  When she hesitated, Adam leaned in to take over. He tugged the mouse from her fingers and navigated back to Shawn’s profile page. He clicked the button to Add Friend. “There. Now he just has to accept your request.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “Depends.” Adam shrugged. “Does he have a smartphone?”

  Lori couldn’t recall seeing Shawn’s phone. “I’m not sure.”

  “Did he bring his laptop?”

  She hadn’t searched his room or anything — should she try that now? She hadn’t seen a laptop sitting out. Really, she couldn’t be sure whether he owned one. “I don’t think so.”

  “Then it might not happen until he gets home. But he’ll get an email telling him you requested him, and he’ll accept it. I hope.” Adam held up crossed fingers, and Lori mimicked the gesture. “I really want to get our Likes up.”

  Again, Lori pretended she had some clue what this meant. If circumstances were different, she might ask him to explain, but right now she was a little preoccupied.

  “I’m going to go pack up,” Adam said, dropping a quick kiss on the top of Lori’s head. “You’re sure you don’t need me to stay?”

  “No,” Lori said, though she really couldn’t be sure of anything at this rate. “You’re good to go. Important client tomorrow,” she reminded him.

  Adam smiled, clearly touched that she’d remembered his schedule. That was all anyone really wanted, wasn’t it? To be remembered?

  Wouldn’t Debbie want to be remembered?

  Adam jogged from the office, leaving Lori to ponder the computer monitor. How long until Shawn accepted? What would she do if she found pictures of Debbie on his profile? Go to the police?