Apples, Actors and Axes

by Paula Lester

  She didn’t want to be the nosy little sister, squeezing her detective brother for info on a breaking case. But she also didn’t really want to wait around and let Jordan infiltrate her life more if he was the murderer. It could put her in danger.

  She stood up and tossed a few dollars on the table for Marco. As she watched the bills float through the air and land, she realized she just might have a way to figure out the truth about Jordan’s guilt or innocence on her own.

  Chapter 8

  Paige woke up and stretched every muscle starting at her toes and moving up. Casper gave her a disgruntled look when her maneuvers nudged him off the edge of the bed. “What?” she asked him. “It’s morning. Time to stop being a lazybones.”

  Paige crossed the room and peeked out the window toward the beach. She didn’t expect to see a repeat of the previous morning’s scene but still felt drawn to check on what was happening.

  There were no police, but a few people were down there digging holes and using metal detectors. The surf was pretty active, and Paige thought about how the waves would come in and push sand back into all the holes the treasure seekers made. The beach would heal.

  A small smile appeared on her lips as she thought about that. The ebb and flow of the water was a metaphor for life—she’d been through so much in recent days. Her dream of living in Italy and writing a novel had been interrupted, her aunt was gone, and she’d become a business owner overnight. But she didn’t feel lost or adrift. It was like the ebb and flow of the water—some things had gone and others had come to her. She’d made new friends, was reconnecting with her brother and sister-in-law, and even had people in her life she could talk to freely about her special powers. They could also help her figure out things—like whether or not Jordan Rake was playing it straight with her.

  Casper yowled mournfully, and Paige grinned at him. “And I have you too.” She leaned over to pet him. “Okay, okay. I’ll get dressed and we’ll go down and give you some breakfast.”

  As soon as the kibble was in Casper’s bowl, Paige went out the back door and directly over to Just Baked. Lucy glanced over her shoulder and smiled when she saw Paige. “Good morning, dear. Help yourself to coffee and whatever else you want.”

  “Thanks.” Paige pulled a mug out of the cupboard Lucy kept her own dishes in and poured some coffee out of the industrial-size pot. “Hey, I don’t have much time, but I wanted to ask you a favor.”

  Lucy raised her eyebrows questioningly.

  “Could you come over this morning and give Jordan the sniff test? I can’t get a good handle on his aura. I really need to know if he’s lying about whether he had anything to do with Cash Conway’s death or where he was the night of the murder. I don’t want to fire him, but if he’s dangerous, I need to know.”

  Lucy nodded, wiping flour off her hands onto her apron, which was green with red apples printed on it. “Sure. I’ll see what I can sniff out. When do you want me to come over?”

  Paige glanced at the clock on the wall. “Just after opening would be great. In about ten minutes?” She plucked a chocolate muffin off a tray and took a bite.

  “That’s fine. It will give me time to finish getting things organized for the morning rush here, and Betsy can handle things. I’ll see you in a few minutes.” Lucy swept the tray of muffins off the counter and headed to the front of the bakery with it.

  Paige scooted out the back door and over to her own shop, thankful the books didn’t need to be baked at four in the morning like Lucy’s goods.

  Scott stood waiting by Beachside Books’ back door when she arrived. Paige gave him a quizzical look. “What’s up?”

  “I want to talk to Jordan. Is he working today?”

  Paige nodded, mentally cursing. This could mess up her plan to have Lucy evaluate Jordan.

  She and her brother made small talk while Paige turned lights on, straightened a few things around the shop, and then unlocked the front door. She caught a glimpse of Jordan crossing the street toward the bookshop. Hurrying around the checkout counter, Paige snatched up her phone from where it sat on the counter and texted Lucy.

  Jordan smiled at Paige as he entered. The door almost didn’t get a chance to close behind him before Lucy breezed in. “Good morning!” She fluffed the top of her black hair where the hairnet had flattened it again. “Paige, dear, do you have a Daily Eats magazine? Oh, Jordan! Good morning. Did you like your apple pie?”

  Scott was moving forward, but Lucy deftly intercepted the police officer, standing directly in front of Jordan. Paige noticed an irritated look cross over her brother’s face.

  Jordan nodded. “It was deli . . .”

  But Lucy interrupted him. “That’s nice, dear. Did you kill Cash Conway?”

  The brief silence that enveloped the room was broken only by Lucy’s sniffing noise. Scott moved to step around Lucy, and Paige thought he might order the young man not to answer, but before her brother could speak, Jordan, his voice frosty, said, “No.” Lucy stared intently at him, sniffing again.

  “Would you mind leaving the questioning to us?” Scott sounded really irritated with Lucy.

  The baker held her hands up and dipped her head, backing away to allow Jordan to walk past her. Scott motioned the actor toward the small sitting area near the back of the shop. Lucy made a beeline for Paige, who made a show of ringing up the Daily Eats magazine.

  As she handed Paige a couple of dollars, Lucy leaned in and whispered, “He was truthful.”

  Paige nodded, handed Lucy the magazine, and watched her leave. She turned her attention toward Scott and Jordan. She couldn’t hear anything they were saying but was determined to listen in. Grabbing a few books and trying to look nonchalant, Paige crossed the store, keeping an eye on the men until she was able to dart behind one of the bookshelves that lined the reading nook. As she scooted along its length, trying to be silent, she almost stepped on Casper. The cat was curled up on the floor. “Shoo!” she whispered, but he just gave her an irritated look. She waved the books in her hand at the white cat until he finally stood up, as slowly as was possible for a cat to rise from the floor, stretched, and inched away. Paige bit her lip to keep from scolding him and moved further down the bookshelf until she got to a spot where she could hear Scott and Jordan talking.

  “Did you know Cash Conway?” Scott was asking.

  “Yeah.” Jordan sounded hesitant, like he wanted to be sure to answer each question as carefully as possible.

  “Did you see him on Thursday evening?”

  “No.”

  Scott hesitated before he asked the next question, and Paige imagined him scratching his questions and Jordan’s answers into his little notebook. Then he continued, “Where were you on Thursday night between midnight and five in the morning?”

  “In my room at the Dry Dock Motel.”

  Another pause, and then, “Is there anyone who can corroborate that? Were you with someone, or did you go out and come back in and talk to anybody while you were out?”

  There was no pause before Jordan answered. “No. I was in all night, and I didn’t talk to anyone.”

  “Did you have anything to do with Conway’s death?”

  “No.”

  Paige heard rustling. Scott must be putting his notebook away and standing up. “Don’t leave town. You’ll probably need to answer more questions as the investigation continues.”

  Paige heard her brother’s footfalls as he walked across the floor, and she hurried to the end of the shelf, busying herself putting the books she’d grabbed onto it. As Scott passed her on his way toward the back door, he waved and told her to have a nice day. Then Jordan passed her, heading toward the storeroom. His aura was much clearer than usual, and Paige could clearly tell from it that he was hiding something.

  He might not have killed Cash, but he knew something he wasn’t saying.

  The bells on the front door jingled, and Paige stuck her head around the shelf. A woman who looked to be in her mid-forties stood by the reg
ister. She had slightly faded red hair pulled up in a messy bun, wore a black business casual suit, and carried a black leather satchel. “Hi! Is there something I can help you find?” Paige called.

  “I’m looking for Jordan Rake. Is he here?” She looked around. Paige wished she had the woman’s figure—they were about the same height, which was short, but the visitor had a tighter, more athletic-looking body. She obviously spent more time working out and less time eating chocolate and drinking wine than Paige.

  “I’m here.” Jordan spoke from the storeroom doorway.

  The woman crossed the room, and Jordan met her halfway. They shook hands, and Paige wandered past them toward the register.

  “I’m Didi Lambert,” the red-haired woman was saying. “I was Cash Conway’s agent.” She pouted a tiny bit and her brow wrinkled. “Such a sad thing.”

  Jordan nodded, but Didi already seemed to be over it. She was smiling radiantly at him. “I’ve been following your career and have wanted to approach you for a few years. Cash wouldn’t hear of it, and out of professional courtesy, I honored his wishes. But now I’m free to represent you.”

  Jordan shook his head. “I have an agent. My mother.”

  Didi smirked. “Ah, yes. I’ve heard that.” She paused and leaned toward him a fraction of an inch, speaking in a lower tone. “How’s that going for you?” Then she straightened up and looked around. “Not too well, it would seem. You’re working in a bookstore in Comfort Cove, Texas, instead of starring in major motion pictures in Hollywood. I can change that for you.” She gave him a look that made it clear she expected him to see the error of his ways immediately and drop his mom like a hot potato in favor of her.

  But he shook his head again. “I can give it some thought, but . . .”

  Didi whipped a business card out of her satchel and handed it to Jordan with a flourish. “You give it some thought. I’ll buy you dinner tonight and we can talk more. How about seven o’clock at Jasper’s? I’m staying at the Devine Hotel.”

  Jordan stammered, “Okay. I guess.”

  Didi smiled, patted his hand, and then left the store as a cloud of flowery perfume wafted behind her.

  Jordan stood staring at the card in his hand. Paige approached him slowly. He glanced up at her. “Do you think I should do this? What will I tell my mother?”

  Paige shrugged. “Is Didi a lawyer?” She didn’t know much about Hollywood agents, but she thought many of them were attorneys.

  Jordan nodded, waving the card in the air. “According to this, yes.”

  “Well, it seems to me like you may need one of those in the near future.”

  Jordan looked up sharply, a question evident on his face.

  “I mean, if you’re going to keep lying about what you know about Cash, a lawyer will be a necessity.”

  Jordan looked at his feet, shuffling them back and forth. Paige decided to press him a little while she had the chance. “Is it true you were jealous of him?”

  The actor shook his head, still looking down. He stuffed his right hand, along with Didi’s card, into the front pocket of his shorts.

  “What about when he stole that movie role from you? The one about the cars and money?”

  “He didn’t steal my role.”

  Paige had to strain to understand because Jordan was mumbling, his tone miserable. “What do you mean?”

  “I got fired.” He shuffled again and then looked up and spoke more clearly. “I don’t feel so good. My stomach’s a mess. Are you cool if I head home for the day?”

  They hadn’t had a single person in the shop that morning who wasn’t trying to get face-time with Jordan, so Paige grudgingly agreed, sighing as he shuffled out the front door.

  “I’ll see you Monday,” he said over his shoulder.

  Paige moved behind the counter and sat on a stool. She watched Jordan cross the road, get into his Jeep, and drive away. Close behind him was the white Subaru she’d seen Audrey driving before.

  The plumbing clanked as though reminding her of all the business Jordan had brought in before the murder, and then a thought plinked in Paige’s mind. Jordan was telling the truth about not having killed Cash, but he was definitely hiding something.

  Maybe he was protecting the real killer.

  Chapter 9

  The shop wasn’t too busy, even for a Saturday. Paige considered that a double-edged sword. On the one hand, she could handle things alone. On the other hand, the money wasn’t exactly flowing in. The beach was crowded with treasure hunters again, but people seemed to have lost interest in visiting Beachside Books to look for Jordan Rake.

  Paige tried to call and text Scott multiple times throughout the day. She wanted to do a little crafty digging around to see what the department might have on Jordan. Not that she truly thought her brother would let anything important slip—he had a poker face like no one else she’d ever met. Still, a little sister could sometimes get further with her big brother than other folks could. But Scott didn’t answer any of her calls or texts. He was probably just too busy with the investigation.

  Paige couldn’t help but mull over Cash’s murder mystery herself while she tidied, shelved books, helped the occasional customer, and played with Casper throughout the day. A connection between Oz Wilder’s treasure hunt and Cash Conway’s murder in Comfort Cove seemed more likely to her as she considered the clues. Of course, it was possible the two had been unrelated and it was just bad luck that Cash had come to the small ocean-side town to look for the twenty-five thousand dollars and been killed by someone not related to the hunt. But Paige felt that it was probably wiser to assume that the two huge events having occurred concurrently meant they had some common thread.

  She had a sudden thought. Who knew more about both treasure hunts and dead people than her very own resident ghost, Captain McDougall?

  She closed the shop fifteen minutes early, as soon as the place was clear of customers, eager to get upstairs. “Come on, cat!” she called. “Let’s go talk to the captain.” Casper came running out of the storeroom, licking his kitty lips, and followed her up the attic stairs.

  The captain’s logbook sat on Paige’s end table, and she opened it as soon as she reached her room and closed the door. Jumping back to avoid the horrible stench and cloying, cold green mist, Paige grabbed a soda out of the mini fridge. She sat at her tiny table and smiled when the mist cleared and the pirate ghost peered at her.

  “Ah, hello, lass,” he said, grinning. He leaned forward, trying to see the can in her hand better. “Are we drinking tonight? Did you bring the rum?”

  Paige chuckled and held the soda up. “It’s nonalcoholic,” she said. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about something going on out here.” Paige began to fill him in on the treasure hunt and Cash’s murder with as many details as she could think of.

  When she got to the part about all the movie stars in town, he interrupted. “What’s a movie star?”

  Of course, he wouldn’t know that. There hadn’t been movies, let alone celebrities, when he was alive. She considered the best way to explain it. “They’re actors. Did you ever see a play?”

  “Aye. They had them in ports when we stopped for respite. Many a beautiful dancer would make her way to my room and—”

  “Yeah, I get it. So, now we have plays that are recorded . . . um . . . we have devices that can . . .” Paige stumbled to a halt. She had no idea how to describe video recordings to someone who was only familiar with painted portraits and live-action theater.

  Casper sat up on his haunches and placed a paw gently in the area of her pocket. “Oh! Good idea.” Paige pulled her phone out of the pocket and tapped the camera. She took a brief video of Casper and then crossed the room so the pirate ghost could see the screen when she played it back.

  He recoiled, leaning his ethereal body back until he was almost parallel with the floor. “What devilry is that?” he cried.

  “It’s a recording. A video.” Paige slipped the phone back in her pocket an
d sat down, taking a sip of soda.

  McDougall watched her through narrowed eyes. “It feels like witchcraft.” He straightened his leather jacket and seemed to gather himself, though he still eyed her suspiciously. He nodded toward her, his eyes narrowed. “Go on.”

  “So, we can record actors while they do their plays. The recording is played back on special devices, and then it’s called a movie. Movie stars are people who have been in those movies and become popular for their acting skills and sometimes just because they’re attractive.”

  The captain was nodding thoughtfully, rubbing his beard with a forefinger and thumb. “I see. So, the people who have descended upon your Comfort Cove now are players in these movies.”

  “Yes. And a famous director has hid a big treasure for them to find.”

  McDougall’s face lit up, and he straightened his spine so he looked taller as he floated above the old logbook. “A treasure,” he breathed.

  “And one of the movie stars who came to town to look for it was murdered.”

  The ghost was nodding. “Aye. High-flying emotions surround treasures. There was murder and mayhem everywhere I turned when I was a treasure thief. I mean hunter.”

  Paige had to let that slip in one ear and out the other in order to continue. She didn’t want to think too closely about how the captain might have been involved in murders of his own centuries ago. She was starting to think of him as a friend, and it required her to ignore certain aspects of what his career had truly been like when he was alive.

  She told him about Jordan’s strange behavior surrounding Cash’s murder and how she believed that he hadn’t killed the man but did know something about it.

  The pirate’s head bobbed up and down as she spoke and then he said, “Aye. He’s a scalawag, I do believe.”

  “Is there any way you can help me figure out what happened to the murdered guy?” She paused and eyed him and then asked, more quietly, as though someone might hear and think she was crazy for even having such a thought, “Can you talk to Cash Conway?”