Chapter Twenty
Finally, the elevator doors slid closed, and we stepped on and rose quickly to the fourth floor. Jason shot off the thing as soon as the elevator doors started opening. I was not small enough to squeeze through behind him, and neither was Max, so we waited for the doors to open fully, then exited. I had no idea where he had gone. We stopped at the reception desk to ask for directions.
“Oh yeah,” the woman sitting behind the desk said. “I just saw Jason shoot by. I have never seen a more devoted boyfriend in my whole life. He’s around the corner. Room five-fourteen.”
“Let’s be careful. I don’t know if I believe his story,” I said quietly to Max as we walked down the hall and turned right.
“I do. I’ve seen that look before, and I have felt that concern myself when you were in trouble. I think he’s okay, and he checked out fine as far as any sinister things in his past.”
“I’ll take that under advisement, but I’m still going to reserve judgment.”
“Fair enough.”
After rounding the corner, we arrived at the correct room and found Bethany sitting up in bed, hugging Jason, with her hand clasped around her other wrist, which had turned white, despite her tan, from her own grip.
“Someone’s here to see you,” I heard Jason say into Bethany’s hair.
The girl looked up and squealed, then winced. “Maybe not my best idea.”
“Maybe not,” I said, smiling. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t even know you were here. Are you going to be okay now?”
She nodded and winced again. “Not a good idea, either.”
“Take it easy.” Max stood behind my shoulder, with his hand on my hip. “Tallie’s here when you’re ready.”
“Oh, I am so ready.”
“So what happened?” I couldn’t help but ask, just to get the conversation rolling.
“I was taking pictures. I remember it so vividly. The place was ghastly, and I really hoped we were going to be able to handle it. Between the pictures, I almost texted you that it wasn’t worth it. Did you get them? My phone was acting wonky that night.”
“I did. The last one I have is of a room with some kind of weird wall that doesn’t seem to exist.”
“Oh my God. So it did go through when I sent it. I wasn’t sure, and the staff here just told me they don’t have my phone. I have no idea where it might be, but whoever hit me must have taken it with them. Jerks.”
“Wait. I thought you were poisoned or drugged?” Jason said.
“ ‘Hit me,’ as in ‘drugged me,’ sweetie.” She patted his hand. “I was taking those pictures, and then this smell hit me that I couldn’t identify, and then a white cloth came over my face, and I don’t remember anything, until I came to in this bed. I must have hit SEND on my phone just as I was falling to the floor. Go me!”
I smiled, because what else was I supposed to do when really I wanted to go rip someone’s head off? “Go you. So you didn’t see anyone?”
“Nope, not at all, but they smelled like the ocean, or the beach at least. It was the last thing I got a whiff of before I inhaled whatever was in that cloth.”
Jason put his arm around her shoulders, and she snuggled into him.
It couldn’t have been him. The look in his eyes and the way he treated her? I just couldn’t believe he would do something like that. And I couldn’t come up with any good reason as to why he would. I put him lower on my list of suspects . . . at the bottom, to be precise. I’d come back to him if I didn’t find anyone else, but for the moment, he was looking lovingly at the woman, who was staring back the exact same way, and I just couldn’t picture him harming her in any way.
“So the extra wall is probably the cloth they used to knock you out?” I asked.
“It has to be. I don’t remember any extra walls.”
“One more question and then we’ll leave.” I didn’t want to do this here, but I had to know. “Jason, did you still have anything to do with Audra before her death? There are stories going around that you might have still wanted her after your breakup.” I wasn’t going to mention the ring unless he did.
“God, no,” Bethany said fiercely.
Jason patted her hand this time. “No, and I’ve already been questioned. I promise I wanted nothing to do with that vicious woman. I don’t know why I never saw her for what she was until we broke up. I guarantee you I had nothing to do with her or her death.”
“Okay. We’ll go. Thanks for letting us see you,” I said. “Just in case, I wanted to check up on you when you didn’t come back to work. I’m glad we found you, and I’m sorry this happened. Whenever you’re ready to come back, just give me a holler, and we’ll get you on the schedule, but no rush. And, hey, from now on, maybe have someone call to let me know if you’re hurt. I would have come a lot sooner.”
“Oh, Tallie, I’m so sorry. I’ve been in such pain, and Jason’s been by my side, and I didn’t even think of it. But your offer means the world to me. I really like working with those women and with you. As soon as I get the okay to leave the hospital, I’ll get a new phone and call you.”
“I’ll be waiting to hear from you. And let Jason take care of you. Don’t get going too soon if the docs want you to stay.”
She saluted me as Max and I took our leave. We waved to the woman at the receptionist desk, then got on the elevator.
“Thoughts?” I asked as he hit the button for the lobby.
“He didn’t do it. I have extensive training in spotting a liar, and he was not lying. No dipping of the eyes, no slow blinking. He showed the appropriate emotions, and there was anger under that concern, not guilt. He wasn’t lying about Audra, either.”
“You know how to spot liars?” Dang. I would have to make extra sure I didn’t ever tell even a white lie. How was I going to hide Christmas presents from him if he asked what I had bought him?
“I can, Ms. Tallie Graver, so don’t forget it.”
I hugged his arm to me as the elevator door opened to the lobby. We stepped off and came face-to-face with Letty.
“Oh my God, I tried to call you after you texted about Bethany being in the hospital. I hustled over to see her. I got her flowers.” She held them out, as if I couldn’t see them. “I’m a horrible manager.”
“Knock it off, Letty. I didn’t get her anything, and I pretty much interrogated her while she lay in bed. I also warned her to let us know what happens from now on. Flowers are going to make her day. You’re a wonderful manager.”
Her shoulders fell from her ears a little. “Really?”
“Yes, really, and it’s not your job to keep track of everyone. This is a special circumstance. I’ve been trying to call her since yesterday. When I couldn’t find her, I decided to go to the one person who might know. You’ve been super busy, and you are the best manager ever. Don’t doubt that. Plus, you came right over with presents when you got my text.”
“Okay. I’m better. I didn’t do anything wrong. I’m good.”
“You are amazing. Now go take those flowers to her, and let me reimburse you from the company. I’d like them to be from all of us, if you don’t mind.”
“I already signed the card that way.” She grinned. “Good management material.”
“The best, and you deserve a raise as soon as Max figures out what our profit is. Make sure you turn in that receipt, or I’ll dock your pay.”
Now she laughed. “Thanks, Tallie. No matter what you think about yourself, you are the best boss ever.”
Max held the elevator door open until Letty had got on. We waved as the door closed, and then headed back to the car.
“You know she’s right and wasn’t lying at all,” Max told me. “You are good at what you do. Any more thought given to what you want to be when you grow up?”
“Honestly, I just want to solve this whole mansion thing, and then maybe I’ll give it some more thought. I really wanted to own a restaurant or a tea shop, but I get more pleasure out of driving the hearse and running this cleaning crew than I thought I would.” Oh crap. I had never told Max about the hearse-jacking.
“Something you’re not telling me?” he asked, pulling me aside as people streamed by to get to their various destinations.
“Um, no.”
“Yeah, lying. See right there? That twitch in your eye right there is a telltale sign that you’re not being honest with me. So spill. I’m not taking you home until you do.”
I sighed. This whole “telling lies” thing was going to be a problem. “Can we at least get something to drink while I tell you?”
“Café’s right through here.” He gestured to the door behind him, and the place was more of a cafeteria than a café, but it would suffice. And honestly, if we were going to talk about this, it was probably better done away from the funeral home, where my mom could accidentally hear something. And I didn’t want to talk about it in his truck, as he might swerve off the road.
We sat after getting to-go cups of coffee, and I told him about Preston and his soft-drink shenanigans.
“That doesn’t sound like a shenanigan to me. That sounds like something I want to beat the snot out of him for,” Max said when I was done.
“Oh, he’s not going to get away with it. Even if we find a different killer, he’s still going to get smacked with a charge for kidnapping. I’ll see to it.”
“Either you do or I will.”
“Down, boy. I’ve got this.”
He massaged my fingers and looked into my eyes. “I have never, nor will I ever, doubt that, but you’re going to have to put up with me wanting to protect you. Not in one of those ‘I am man’ ways, but more in the way that I care about you and don’t want anything ever to hurt you again.”
I laughed nervously. “Maybe the next time I have a hangnail, I’ll call you in DC, so you can come cut it off and yell at it for making me cry.”
“Or maybe I should just move up here, and then it won’t be an issue of a three-hour drive.”
God, was I ready to do this now, in a hospital cafeteria? Of course I was. If I could face down murderers and can-wielding idiots, then I could do this. “I would love that.”
“Really? No eye twitching.”
“No eye twitching, and really. I would love for you to move up here. I’ve been trying to think up a way to ask you, but I didn’t want to have to move down to DC just yet. And it felt wrong to ask you to uproot your life when, in the scheme of things, it would probably be easier for me to uproot mine.” I raised my shoulders and spread out my hands.
He grabbed my right hand back and kissed my knuckles. “Absolutely not. DC is just not ready for you. I don’t know if they’ll ever be, but here would be a perfect fit for me. I loved living here when I was younger, and it will be even better now with you.”
“We might want to think about getting a different place if you’re going to be here all the time. Cozy is one thing. Cramped is something altogether different.”
“Do you mind if I handle that? I have a few ideas. I’ll run it by you before it’s final, but I think I know the perfect place.”
The perfect place? That would be wherever he was, no matter how schmaltzy that sounded. However, the prospect of getting out of the funeral home and living with Max somewhere in town, but not that close to my parents, sounded divine.
“Surprise me,” I said, knowing I could trust him but hoping he knew what he was doing.
* * *
We made it back to the apartment and then split up to do some things. Max wanted to look into the properties again and see what old Mrs. P had up her sleeve with all these house sales, and I wanted to check in with Caleb. Instead of going back to the apartment complex, I decided to call him. He answered right away.
“I was hoping you might call,” he said.
That was not the usual response I got from people I was trying to get to trip themselves up, but I’d take it on this weird and wacky day of everything seeming to be different than I had originally thought. “What’s up?”
“I heard they took Preston Prescott into custody, and I just wanted to thank you for getting me out of the spotlight. I had a feeling he was the one who had proposed to her, because she kept crowing about some kind of yuppie guy. I kept thinking that maybe we could fix things and try again. That’s why I was frantic when I couldn’t find her. But I realized eventually that it wasn’t going to happen. She wanted to string him along until she got what she wanted. Mainly, to take over all your jobs and any new ones, and then she was going to drop him, and she wanted me to stay around until everything happened the way she wanted it to.”
“Is he the one who gave her the ring?”
“No. I think she gave that to herself, but I could never confirm it. She chuckled a few times about how his aunt was livid about him even considering marrying someone beneath him, but she got such a kick out of him squirming to keep dear old auntie happy while also trying to keep Audra happy.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?” I asked, baffled. This could have helped me so much.
He shrugged. “I felt like an idiot and just wanted to get her killer found so I could get out of the spotlight. It felt like that information would just make you look harder at me.”
I shook my head at him. “I don’t think it would have, but that leaves another question. Why on earth did you stay, Caleb? You sound like a pretty smart boy, and you’re related to Letty, so you must actually be brilliant. Why on earth wouldn’t you have left her earlier?”
“She was a manipulator, and I didn’t see that until the end. I think she was actually more of a narcissist, and it seemed fine, before she started gloating.”
“Do you think that was why she was killed? Because she was trying to manipulate people?” I had to ask.
“I don’t know, and before you ask, I swear it wasn’t me. I was trying to leave her and just wanted out. Not enough that I would have harmed her. I just wanted to walk away, and I was doing that. She was the one who couldn’t handle being walked away from.”
We signed off, because I really didn’t know what else to ask. I believed him, too, even though I didn’t have Max’s superpower of liar detection. But this also left me completely without any other clue and with nowhere else to go with all of this. Man, this sucked. I wanted to be able to find this killer and have him or her nailed to the floorboards.
But why couldn’t it be Preston? He was in the right place at the right time. He wouldn’t tell me what he had gone back to the mansion for, and he wouldn’t tell me when he’d gone back. So had he gone back and told Audra that with this housecleaning job having been given to her, they should now wed, and had she laughed at him? Told him that he had served his purpose and she was moving on?
“I have to go see Burton with all this,” I told Max. He sat on the floor, with Mr. Fleefers wrapped around his neck and Peanut trying desperately to fit herself into his lap. What an incredible life I had with those three. Yes, even Mr. Fleefers was wonderful, the darn cat.
“We’ll be here when you get back, and maybe we could do dinner. After that coffee, I realized how hungry I am. Is it okay if we order in instead of cooking?”
“Always. You don’t have to cook, though I love when you do, but ordering in is totally fine with me. Maybe we can discuss that kind of thing when I get back.”
“I’ll look forward to it.”
Smiling, I headed out the door. My life was marching in a direction that I would never have guessed it would eighteen months ago, and I found myself extremely pleased with the twists and turns, which I had not realized I could love.
I even kept my smile as my mom tried to waylay me at the door, and I continued to smile as I decided to walk to the police station instead of get my car out from around the hearse, which had blocked me in again.
Walking along the sidewalk, I composed what I was going to say to Burton, and I gave careful thought as to how I would word my questions. I still didn’t have the murderer, but that would come soon enough. I was eliminating people left and right. I didn’t have anyone to fill in the gaps, but that would come. Some piece of evidence would snag me, and I would know exactly what to say and how to get the confession. I just knew it.
Not really, but that was what I was telling myself when a white cloth landed over my face and I passed out without another thought but Yikes.