Even me. And I was an agent—I was meant to notice that type of things. “Wait, red-haired guy? Stocky?”
“That’s Nedison.”
“His name is Nedison?”
Gamma shrugged. “He’s trustworthy.”
If Gamma thought he was trustworthy, that answered any questions I might have. She hadn’t stayed alive for this long by being careless.
“I’m thinking our first task will be to interview her,” Gamma said, tapping on the computer screen.
She’d brought up what looked like… a social media profile, except it wasn’t. “What is this?”
“This is Nicole Jackson,” Gamma said, frowning at me. “Did you hit your head, Charlotte? I would’ve thought you would remember her—she was the woman who was infatuated with Brian.”
“Yeah, I know who she is.” How could I forget her? Her pouty-mouthed image stared back at me, beautiful as could be. “That’s not what I’m talking about. I mean this. What website is this?”
“It’s not a website,” Gamma said. “It’s my database of Gossip’s citizens.”
“Your… what?”
“My database. I’ve been building a database on paper for the past five years, and I felt it was time to transfer over to something online. You know, in the cloud. I’m the only one who has access to it, of course. And neither you nor I nor Brian are in the database.”
“That’s got to be some kind of privacy violation,” I said.
“You know what else is a privacy violation?” Gamma asked.
“No, but I think you’re going to tell me.”
“Murder. Kidnapping. Terrorism. If I can keep track of people who enter and leave Gossip this way, I can better ensure their safety.”
“Gamma.”
“Georgina,” she corrected. “Don’t let your guard down just because we’re in my hyper-secret basement hideout.”
I opened my mouth to tell her that it wasn’t her job to keep track of the Gossipers, and that having a database like this might compromise her cover, but it was pointless. Gamma would do what she wanted to do, and this kept her busy and happy.
Since I’d moved to Gossip, I’d already started talking to cats. The quiet life wasn’t what either of us were used to, and Gamma had found her method of coping. That method just so happened to be perfect for helping us track down a fellow agent.
“Nicole Jackson,” Gamma said, tapping on the screen and scrolling. “Pretty woman. She’s 25-years-old and Dr. Spitz hired her about a month ago. My first record of her is from Petey at the grocery store.”
“Petey?”
“Petey the packer,” she said. “He saw her on the 11th of March buying eggs, tomatoes, and bread.”
“That’s need-to-know information.”
“Behavior is always need-to-know information, Charlotte,” Gamma said. “Now, I’m not sure when her obsession with Brian began, but I am positive that she’s one of the newest additions to Gossip and that she’s our primary lead.”
“I wonder if it’s her perfume,” I said.
“Pardon?”
“Her perfume,” I repeated. “I’ve been smelling that horrible strong rose perfume around the inn at all hours of the night and day. It was the same smell that was on Brian’s love letters.”
“Interesting. When she was here with Dr. Spitz, I didn’t notice any smell.”
“Weren’t you distracted?”
Gamma sighed. “Really, Charlotte, there’s no need to be catty. My romantic interest in the veterinarian hasn’t dulled my investigative prowess.”
“Clearly.” I tapped on the screen, bringing Nicole’s face back into focus. “So, we talk to her.”
“Now. While she’s still at the vet’s offices. Which leads me to my favorite part of the whole operation.” Gamma clapped her hands together and rubbed them. “Suit up!” She swiveled on her chair, gesturing to the gathering of black leather armor and the weapons beyond the mannequins.
“We’re going to the vet,” I said. “Don’t you think Nicole would find it alarming if we turned up in full combat gear with Desert Eagles strapped to our waists?”
“I suppose.” Gamma got up and walked over to her collection of guns. She hit yet another button on the wall and a smaller compartment opened. “But we should wear these.” She lifted two pairs of earrings from a collection of jewelry. They were sparkly and long and exactly the type of jewelry I never wanted to wear.
“What are they?”
“Recording devices,” Gamma said. “Here, take a pair. I need to capture a sample of Nicole’s voice for the database, anyway, and if we discover anything while we’re talking to her, we’ll have evidence to send back to your Special.” Gamma’s nickname for Special Agent in Charge.
Reluctantly, I took the earrings from her and hooked them into my ears. Smulder had better appreciate this. He’d better explain himself when I saw him again.
He’d better be alive.
27
The Gossip Animal Clinic was a brick building with a sign out front bearing a red cross and two cartoon dogs, caught mid-bark and leap. The door bore a cheerful ‘OPEN’ sign, again with more cartoon animals for decoration, but the parking area was relatively quiet.
Gamma parked her mini-cooper in an empty space right in front of the door, and checked her reflection in the mirror. She touched her earrings—gold and ruby monstrosities—carefully. “Try not to disturb them,” she said. “These are state-of-the-art. Recording and data storage devices behind the jewels.”
“Is that why they look like a throwback to the eighties?”
“You and your cheeky mouth. I happen to like this design.”
“I stand by my original observation,” I said.
Gamma didn’t grace me with a rebuttal. She got out of the car, and I followed her. We entered the vet’s reception area and the chirps of a screeching bird greeted us. A lady sat in the corner, holding a cage in her lap, the cockatiel occasionally letting out a high-pitched tweet that was ear-rending.
Another guy held a dog in his lap, a poodle who shivered or twitched each time the bird made a noise. The lady in the far corner had a cat in a carrier on the seat next to her and winced in time to the cockatiel’s complaints, shooting glares at the woman who carried him.
The influx of sounds and smells—doggy shampoo and medicine—threatened to overwhelm the senses. Shoot, would the recording devices even pick anything up in this ruckus?
Gamma wasn’t deterred. She made for the front desk and stopped in front of it, resting her arms on the pink-specked high counter. “Good morning,” she said.
Nicole, blonde and beautiful, looked up and spotted us. Her vapid smile disappeared the minute she laid eyes on me, and her lips turned down at the corners. “Hello,” she said. “Hello, um, are you here for… an appointment?”
“Sure,” I said, “I came to get my paws checked. Blisters.”
“She’s joking,” Gamma replied. “Actually, I came to check on my appointment time with Dr. Spitz? He mentioned coming by on the 20th at 2pm when he came for sweet tea at the inn the other day. Did he ask you to note that down?”
“Let me check,” Nicole said, her gaze flickering nervously from Gamma to me and then to her computer screen. She typed on her keyboard. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, I have that down. The 20th at 2pm at the Gossip Inn. I mean, the kitten center. Right?”
“Perfect.” Gamma tapped her neatly clipped fingernails on the countertop, all while that incessant cockatiel made a mockery of sound itself. “Nicole, how have you been?”
“I’m sorry,” she wailed.
The cockatiel, sensing distress, went nuts with the chirping. Tweet-tweet-tweet! On repeat.
Heaven help my poor ears.
“You’re sorry?” Gamma asked.
“Yes, I’m so sorry,” she said, directing that at me. “Brian told me that you two are dating last night. I had no idea. I would never have given him my number if I’d known. Gosh, I feel like such an idiot.”
“Oh
.” I blushed bright red. “Oh, uh. That’s fine.” Not what I’d expected her to say. “So, you did see him last night.”
“Yes. He met me at the Hungry Steer. I thought it was for a date, but… he wanted to let me down easy. I’m so stupid.”
“You’re not stupid,” Gamma said. “You saw a man you liked and you went for it. That’s admirable.”
Was that a jab at me? I ignored it. “Yeah, that’s OK. But maybe you shouldn’t send him anymore flowers or letters.”
“Flowers? Letters?”
“Yes,” I said.
Nicole’s concern had morphed into wrinkle-browed confusion. “I didn’t send him any letters. And I definitely didn’t send him any letters.” And she didn’t smell like overly powerful roses either. “I’m a straight-forward person. If I like someone, I tell them.”
I nodded. “Oh OK, I must be mistaken then.” Did Brian have more than one admirer? Sheesh? What were they putting in the water around here?
We waved goodbye to Nicole, me promising that there were no hard feelings, then left the vet’s practice and headed for the Mini. Once inside, I massaged my ears. “Is it ringing in here? Do you hear ringing?”
“Darn bird,” Gamma grumbled. “I bet we didn’t get anything worth recording on these.” She gestured to the obscenely large earrings. “But that doesn’t matter, I suppose. We know Nicole wasn’t the one sending him love letters.”
“Or stinking up the inn with rose perfume. But who was, then?” I slumped in the front seat, my gaze unfocused as I worked it over in my mind. “What do we know?”
“That Brian is missing. That there were two murders, one at the festival and one in the inn, committed in entirely different ways.”
“What if whoever murdered Leanne did so because she saw something she shouldn’t have?” I asked. “What if it was because they were trying to get to Smulder and Leanne saw them?”
“A good theory, but there’s no proof,” Gamma said.
“Then what do we do?”
Gamma went quiet. “I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do, Charlotte. We need more information about who might’ve taken Smulder before we can act. We’ve just spoken to the last person who saw him.”
“But what about the murders? What if they’re connected to this somehow? What about Trinity Malone and Aunt Gracie and that nurse, Kieran.”
Gamma shook her head. “The connection between the disappearance and the murders is tenuous at best.”
“But—please. Please, Georgina, I can’t just sit here and do nothing while Smulder is just… missing. While he’s gone. We’ve got to do something. Anything!”
Gamma reached over and squeezed my arm. “It is highly suspicious that the disappearance and the murder happened so close together,” she said, affording me that at least. “And I suppose there’s a world in which a small-town murderer might be able to take a sleepy NSIB agent by surprise.”
I clung to her words. “Yes, exactly. OK. So what if it was one of our other suspects?” Futile. You know it can’t be them. Smulder would never get taken by a small town—
I cut myself off. Even if that was true, I still couldn’t sit here and do nothing. I had to act.
“Gracie,” Gamma said, “is probably not our woman. Unless she’s faking being in a wheelchair and is much spryer than she looks.”
“Right. OK. What about Trinity.”
“Crazy Trinity,” Gamma said. “I don’t have her in my database, but she’ll be added after she leaves as an inn guest. Let me see. What I do know is that she’s got that torrid history. A husband who died. A civil lawsuit.”
“Exactly. She might be a serial murderer lady. And she was at the inn this morning. She hasn’t left.”
“Yes,” Gamma said. “Because Detective Crowley came by and told her not to leave town last night.”
I clicked my fingers. “Perfect. So, he suspects her.”
“Perhaps.”
“Who else is there?” I chewed on the inside of my cheek. Talking about all of this helped hold back the thrum of panic that had started up after we’d run out of leads. “Kieran! The nurse. He had a conversation with Leanne before her death, remember? Talking about what they’d do with Gracie and the money.”
“Yes, but he doesn’t stand to get any money from the will, regardless of what happens. He’ll only continue being a nurse,” Gamma said.
“And there’s the rings. Whoever strangled Leanne was wearing rings, and Trinity must have lied about them. I mean, it has to be her. But what if Nicole was wearing rings? I should’ve checked, I should’ve—”
Gamma placed her hand on my arm and squeezed tighter than before. “Charlotte,” she said. “Breathe.”
I did as she’d told me, drawing in a deep breath and letting it out slowly.
“We’re going to find him,” she said. “And we’ll figure out who’s been offing people at my inn. But first, we’re going to the Hungry Steer and we’re going to get you a chocolate milkshake. You need sugar.”
“I can’t drink milkshakes while Brian is—”
“You can and you will,” Gamma said. “Now quiet yourself. I can’t think when you’re frothing next to me.” She clipped on her seatbelt and started the engine.
IT WAS early evening by the time we finished our meal at the Hungry Steer—a steak and fries for Gamma and a burger with extra cheese for me. Waves of guilt washed over me at the thought of Smulder in peril while I slurped on a milkshake, but Gamma had a point.
I couldn’t think clearly in panic mode. This had helped calm me down.
Gamma paid and we got up, brushing ourselves off. Of course, we’d had to keep the fact that Smulder was missing under wraps until such a time that the NSIB was ready to work with local law enforcement on getting him back.
And that meant Lauren thought we’d gone out with Smulder to get supplies for the inn’s garden. Apparently, that was a three-person job. Lauren had called in her sister, Josie, to help with the meal prep.
My worry for Brian had overridden the guilt I should’ve felt over not having been there to help her out with the dinner service. Then again, the sooner we got back to the inn, the better. I could case out Trinity’s room or follow Gracie wherever she went.
Whatever kept my mind off the fact that I didn’t have a lead in Smulder’s disappearance.
I opened the door for my grandmother, and she exited the merry interior of the Hungry Steer. Purple twilight embraced the outside of the barn-like building. I followed Gamma to the Mini-Cooper but hesitated before getting inside.
A rustling noise drew my attention, like the wind blowing through leaves or a plastic bag being crumpled, but there was nothing. Not a whiff of a breeze nor a—
Kieran the nurse exited the alleyway that separated the side of the Hungry Steer from the internet café next to it. He wore a hoodie and pulled it up to cover the sides of his face before hurrying past the restaurant and down the sidewalk. He turned a corner and disappeared.
I bent and peeked inside the car. “See that?”
“What are you waiting for?” Gamma asked.
I put out a hand and my grandmother reached into her handbag and brought out her box of latex gloves, sized medium. I took two out and snapped them onto my hands then walked over to the alleyway. There was nothing in it except for a big ol’ green dumpster.
So he dumped something?
But what?
I stepped deeper into the alley, scanning the floor as I did and finding only stained concrete. I lifted the lid of the dumpster and peeked inside. It was dark, but the light from the lampposts outside the internet café was just good enough for me to make out what was within.
Empty Hungry Steers boxes, a few tomato ends, and empty meat packaging—ew. I frowned, pressing items aside until plastic crinkled underneath my gloved fingertips. My hands closed around a clear plastic bag and I brought it out, holding it aloft.
It was streaked with grossness I didn’t want to identify, but inside it…
Five heavily jeweled rings were ensconced in the plastic, one ruby, one sapphire, two gold, and one emerald.
“Trinity’s rings,” I hissed, triumph swirling through me.
28
Laying the trap for Kieran McIver, our murderous nurse, was almost too easy. Gamma and I had cooked it up the minute we’d gotten back to the inn and found dinner in progress. Lauren was happy to see us but too busy to ask many questions.
All the guests, except for Kieran himself, were in the dining area, including Gracie. I entered, nodding to the many guests, though Trinity and Jerry gave me dirty looks instead of greeting, and headed for Aunt Gracie’s table.
“Hello, dear,” she said. “How are you?”
“I’m great,” I replied, smiling at her. “Are you enjoying your dinner?”
“I’ve just finished.” Gracie gestured to her empty plate, her pink hair bobbling. “It was absolutely delicious. I haven’t had a lentil bake before and that was just… sumptuous.”
A lentil bake hardly sounded like my idea of fine dining, but Lauren could make anything taste good.
“That’s wonderful. Say, Gracie,” I said, tapping my chin. “I’ve been wondering… have you had much time with the kittens?”
Gracie sat straighter, her eyes lighting up. “Oh no, I haven’t had any time with them. I thought they were strictly off-limits. I mean, I have seen that cute calico kitten running around here and there once in a while, but other than that…”
“They’re normally off-limits,” I said, “but I heard that you’re checking out in a few days and I would hate for you to leave without having had some time with them. You do like kittens, don’t you?”
“Do I like kittens?” Gracie laughed, pressing frail fingers to her mouth. “Goodness, who doesn’t like kittens?”
Trinity, who was seated at the table across from Gracie’s, shot her a look of liquefied hatred. Chrissy had been spending an increasing amount of time with the cats—Marietta and the other assistant, Susan, had allowed it and, apparently, so had Jerry.
Mission Inn-possible 03 - Cocoa Conviction Page 11