by Dana Dratch
“I thought you were meeting us at the station?” I asked.
“I overslept,” Trip said. “I think your friend Marilyn spiked the punch.”
“Yeah, that was some party.”
“Is Annie coming with us?” my best friend asked.
“Got it!” Nick yelled, holding up a little blue bootie. “She hid it under the sofa. Hey, is this your T-shirt? And what are the Doggles doing under here?”
Lucy looked up innocently at Gabby, who rubbed the pup’s velvety red flanks. “I know, sweetie, it’s a stress thing. You’re absolutely fine.”
Annie walked into the living room, and I detected a decided absence of luggage. But then, with homes all over the globe, she tended to travel light.
“Are you ready?” I asked.
She smiled broadly. “I think I’m going to follow along in a couple of days. I have a couple of things to catch up on here.”
“Is one of them named Logan Alvarez?” I teased.
“Maybe,” she said lightly. “It’s kind of scary, but I like him. Really like him.”
“I know the feeling,” I said. “Sort of like you’re at the top of a roller coaster, looking straight down.”
“Exactly,” she agreed.
Baba, standing next to us, nodded seriously. She reached up, took Annie’s face in her two strong hands, and kissed her on the tip of the nose. “You are good girl,” she proclaimed. “So good.”
Annie wrapped her in a hug, and I piled on.
“I hate to break up the love, girls, but that train won’t wait,” Trip said. “By the way, who’s driving to the station?”
“I hope I am,” a deep voice behind us said politely.
I turned, and Logan Alvarez was standing in the doorway.
This time, instead of the suit, he was wearing jeans and a dark blue dress shirt. “I might be able to hit the speed limit, but I can’t use the siren.”
He looked at Annie, and she looked at him. The rest of us might as well have been invisible.
I turned to say goodbye to Gabby, but she’d vanished. I noticed she tended to do that whenever the police showed up.
Hopefully, I’d see her again soon.
* * *
A few minutes later, we were packed into Logan’s sedan, making haste for the train station. And the guy wasn’t kidding about his driving skills. He hit the top of the speed limit for every stretch of road, without ever going over. But, presented with the opportunity of finally getting some time alone with Annie, I’m guessing he was pretty motivated, too.
“That’s Lucy’s favorite dog beach,” I said, frantically pointing to a turn-off sign ahead. “I need a quick photo for my travel story.”
“Ten-four,” Logan said. “But it’s gonna have to be fast. I haven’t got the juice to flag down a train.”
He made a neat turn, cruised straight through the parking lot, and stopped just short of the sand.
Everybody piled out of the car and ran toward the water.
“OK, line up and squeeze together,” I said, holding up my phone.
“Hang on,” Nick said, as he pulled the Doggles out of his pocket and put them on Lucy. He moved her out front and knelt beside her. She cocked her head and grinned.
“May I?” Logan asked, pointing to my phone.
“That would be great,” I said, handing it off.
I crouched down on the other side of Lucy. Trip stood behind me. Beside him, Baba had one hand on her hat, as she stared up at Annie in wonder. And my sister was incandescent, beaming into the camera. Or, more accurately, the guy behind it.
Wouldn’t you know, that was the photo that made the front page of the travel section a week later. Under the headline “Lucy’s Summer Vacation.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A very big thank you to my editor, Alicia Condon. You truly “get” the Vlodnacheks. I also need to thank the rest of the wonderful team at Kensington Books. A big thank you to editorial assistant Elizabeth Trout, and special shout-outs to copy editor Victoria Groshong, production editor Rebecca Cremonese, and art director Lou Malcangi. You guys made this into a real book! Also, a grateful thank you to cover artist Michelle Grant—you always make Alex look good! Many thanks to publicist Larissa Ackerman. Last, but definitely not least: a big hug to my agent, Erin Niumata, of Folio Literary Management, who first noticed, read, and believed in Confessions of a Red Herring. You helped unleash the Vlodnacheks on the world!
Read on for a preview of
FLAME RED
the next Alex Vlodnachek adventure.
Alex Vlodnachek is in the hot seat again. This time, she has a century-old mystery, a reclusive billionaire, a secret tunnel, and a dead body to thank. But when a photojournalist flame hits town—and checks in to the neighborhood B&B—that really turns up the heat . . .
I was fine until they discovered the body.
After a couple of months of icy silence, Ian Sterling and I had recently reached a neighborly detente. By phone.
Fresh off a Miami vacation—that turned out to be anything but relaxing—I hadn’t yet visited his B&B. To be fair, he hadn’t shown up at my house either.
Frankly, I think each of us was waiting for the other to make the first move. So neither one of us did.
Nick thought we were both nuts. But my brother wasn’t the one who found a bug planted in his bedroom. Long story.
Imagine my surprise when I heard a gentle knock on the door one afternoon, glanced through the peephole, and spotted Ian on the front porch.
I looked down at Lucy. The pup looked up at me. “What do you think?” I whispered.
She appeared perplexed.
I debated not answering the door. But my car was in the driveway. And, more important, my brother was baking peach pies in Ian’s kitchen. If something had happened to Nick, I needed to know.
On the bright side, my sunburn was pretty much gone, and my face had stopped peeling. So at least I looked fairly normal.
I opened the door a sliver. Lucy stuck her snout through the crack and sniffed the air.
“Hullo,” he said, in his clipped British accent. Spotting Lucy, his face relaxed into a smile. “I was wondering if I might speak with you a moment. It’s a bit of a ticklish situation.”
“Is Nick all right?”
Ian looked puzzled. Clearly, whatever it was didn’t involve my brother. “He’s fine. No worries there.”
He hesitated.
I pulled Lucy back by the collar. The house was a wreck. And no, I still hadn’t quite forgiven him for planting that bug.
Call me crazy, but I’d pictured our first outing taking place on neutral ground. Somewhere with nice lighting. And me wearing something besides worn jeans and my last semi-clean T-shirt. A restaurant. A coffee shop. The post office.
My own home? Especially when it looked like an army had just marched through? No dice.
But Lucy had her own plans. She wanted to go out and play.
“Could we sit on the porch?” he asked. “I have to tell you something, and there’s no good way to say it.”
“Is everyone OK? Alistair? Daisy? Harkins?” I loved Ian’s family like my own. And my tiff with him didn’t involve the rest of the clan. Even at the height of our cold war, I’d watched baby Alistair when Daisy and Harkins needed a sitter.
“Everyone’s very well, thank you. Shipshape, in fact.”
I gestured at the plastic lawn chairs and stepped outside, as Lucy trampled my feet racing ahead. Then I closed the door firmly behind me. If Ian was expecting a tea party today, he’d come to the wrong house.
Lucy tore around the lamppost at top speed, like a young filly. Now in her canine adolescence, her legs were growing longer and stronger. And she was getting faster. She raced around the side of the house.
I expected she’d be gone for a few minutes. The pup liked her privacy.
Ian settled into one of the faded yellow chairs. “As you may or may not know, I’m having some renovations done at the inn. Nothing that imp
acts the guests or the kitchen. But I’d wanted to finish out some of the basement areas, so that we could make use of the space for storage.”
Nick had told me as much. But I wasn’t going to sell him out to Ian. I said nothing.
“While they were examining one of the walls, the workmen discovered a tunnel.”
My eyebrows shot up, and Ian paused. Nick had said nothing about a tunnel.
“We found it just this morning, in fact,” Ian added. “We were exploring it, to see how far and where it went. And, I’m afraid, that’s when we found it.” He stopped.
“It?” I asked.
“A body,” he said. “Almost at the end of the tunnel. Very near a door of some kind.”
“Ian, that’s awful!” I blurted. “Is it . . . ?”
He shook his head quickly.
What neither of us said aloud: Three particularly nasty characters had disappeared from the B&B about two months ago. None had ever been seen again. I knew at least two of them were dead. I’d found their bodies. Before they disappeared again.
Ian had sworn he didn’t know their final resting place. But I had my doubts.
It was part of the reason I still didn’t quite trust him. Out in the yard, Lucy reappeared, refreshed. She bounded up the steps and threw herself at Ian’s feet. He grinned and scratched her left ear. She thumped her tail in bliss and rolled over, exposing her fluffy white belly.
I struggled not to smile.
Ian looked at me. Willing my face blank, I waited for him to continue.
He folded his hands in his lap. “This appears to be a woman,” he said slowly. “From the clothing. The rest is . . . well, bones.”
This news would ricochet around our small-town-slash-D.C.-bedroom-community like a bullet. I wondered what kind of reaction he’d get from our patrician, pain-in-the-association neighbor, Lydia Stewart. She had at least ten years on (and a serious case of the hots for) Mr. Ian Sterling. As head of the neighborhood homeowners group, she was also a stickler for community rules and regs. And a dead body probably wouldn’t help property values.
Still, when love-sick Lydia heard about the corpse, my money was on her showing up with a shovel and a can-do attitude.
“The builders actually stumbled upon it,” Ian continued. “Almost literally. I’ll alert the proper authorities, of course. But I felt it was only cricket to tell you first. A bit of a heads-up, so to speak.”
That phone call would bring a swarm of cop cars, a crime scene van or two, and—last but not least—a hearse from the coroner’s office. Along with a few news crews. And every neighbor within walking distance. The town gossip mill would ratchet into overdrive.
Not exactly a good ad for his pricey B&B.
Still, with Nick operating—temporarily—out of the inn’s kitchen, it was genuinely kind of the guy to let me know. At least I wouldn’t see the ruckus and assume the worst.
“Well, thanks for cluing me in,” I said, standing. “I’d love to hear what the police discover.”
Oddly, Ian didn’t budge from his seat. “You need to sit down,” he said softly.
I started to protest. The look on his face stopped me. His blue eyes were dark. But his expression wasn’t anger. It was concern. I sank back into the chair, tendrils of dread wrapping around my stomach.
“The tunnel?” Ian started. “It leads to your house. Living room or kitchen would be my best guess. The body is on your property.”