Two days had passed since the discovery of Brenda’s body, and the crime scene had finally been released. Rumor had it that a relative from out of town would soon arrive to take care of Brenda’s affairs. Time was short. This was my opportunity to break into the house, search for the recipe book, and get out fast.
I checked my reflection in the mirror over my dressing table. I wore black pants, a black cardigan, and a pair of leather gloves. “What do you think?”
Cocoa Puff lay at the end of my bed, his two front paws tucked beneath his furry chest. He cracked an eye and let out a mini-meow.
“Do you think I should take my gun along? Just in case?” It wasn’t a serious question. This was a recon mission. I wasn’t about to attack somebody if they found me. I would be as silent as a shadow thanks to my grandmother’s advanced spy gear.
I walked over to Cocoa, gave him a kiss on the furry forehead, then exited into the silent halls of the inn.
It was past midnight, and the guests were asleep. The perfect time had arrived for conducting illicit business, and I had a meeting with my favorite contact in the armory underneath the inn.
After two days of sheer irritation at the lack of leads in my case—I’d been unable to find and question either of the other suspects—I was finally on my feet again, moving toward a goal.
No way will I let Goode solve this before I do. A ridiculous thought.
I slipped out of the kitchen door and into the night. It was a new moon, the darkness complete apart from the distant glimmer of porch lights around the front of the inn. My feet crunched lightly on the gravel.
The doors to the basement were shut, but unlocked, the luminous mushrooms Lauren had painted on them bright despite the gloom. I bent to open the doors and a rustling in the bushes at my back stopped me.
I spun around but all was quiet.
Werewolf? Very funny, Charlie. Get real.
I descended into the basement quicker than usual and made for the armory door. Inside, my grandmother sat at her touchscreen desk at the front of the armory, dressed in black and already wearing her form-fitting armor—breathable fiber that deflected bullets and was easy to move in. Gamma had contacts in the spy world who owed her plenty of favors.
“Charlotte,” she said. “I have good news.”
“I could use some after the past couple of days.” I smiled at the sight of the rows of shelves containing ammunition, and the three armor-bearing mannequins near the wall that contained a hidden compartment of weapons, legal and illegal.
I loved this place. It always put me in a good mood. There were plenty of hidden compartments containing high-tech gear too.
“Come take a look at this.”
I joined Gamma at her state-of-the-art touchscreen desk. She tapped it and opened up an image of the first of the two suspects that had evaded us this week. “This,” she said, “is Colton Harrison. He’s one of the entrants for the baking competition and has spent the last week flitting around town collecting supplies. No one, and I mean none of my grapes on the vine, could tell me where he’s been living for the past month. He’s been moving around in town and out of it, a lot.”
“Out of it?”
“Living on smallholdings, in trailer parks. It’s odd,” Gamma said. “Apparently, he’s a paranoid individual. Usually works at the local coffee shop as a barista, but the owner cuts him a lot of slack because he has mental health issues. I contacted a friend who hacked some of the cameras in the businesses along Main Street and found this.”
Gamma brought up a video feed on the screen, and a blurry image of a man matching Colton’s height and hair color—blond—walked down the sidewalk, carrying a bag from a local boutique.
“Ah,” I said. “You found him.”
“I contacted the owner of the Butterscotch Boutique, and she gave me his information. He’s currently living in the Happy Camper trailer park just outside of town. I’ll send the information to your mobile phone.”
“You’re amazing, Georgina.”
“Pah.” Gamma tried not to show her pleasure at the compliment and failed spectacularly. “And next on the list is Kayla Wren. She’s not from Gossip but her family lives here. Interestingly enough, she’s opted to stay at Belle-Blue’s establishment. It took me a while to find her because none of Belle-Blue’s women would talk to me. Idiots. But she’s there.”
“That presents a problem.”
“Agreed,” Gamma said. “But at least we know where they are.”
“Anything on Glendaree or our victim, Brenda?”
“Yes, most definitely,” Gamma replied. “Brenda Tippett is our local librarian, as you know.”
The last time a librarian had died in Gossip we’d nearly gotten in trouble with the law. Hopefully, history wouldn’t repeat itself.
“By all accounts, Brenda was a darling. Sweet to everyone she met. As I mentioned previously, unmarried, kept a lot of friends, that kind of thing.”
“Right.” Would a librarian steal a book? Even a recipe book?
“And then there’s Bijon,” my grandmother said, her tone souring. “What a piece of work. The woman has a legacy of winning competitions, stepping on her friend’s toes to get there, and giving interviews that are… quite frankly, a masterclass in how not to make friends.”
“Dale Carnegie rolling in his grave?”
“Precisely.” Gamma sighed. “But there’s no criminal record.”
“So, we don’t have much on her.”
“No, we don’t. I can’t confirm her alibi about an appointment without more information either, and she was unwilling to talk to me.” Gamma raised a finger and tapped it on the screen, dulling it. “But after hours of research and deductive reasoning, I believe I’ve figured out the murder weapon.”
Excitement built in my chest. “You have?”
“Poisoning by cyanide,” Gamma said. “The flushed cheeks are a common symptom, and the fact that there was only one bite of key lime pie…”
“You think there was so much cyanide in the pie that it killed her instantly?”
“Actually, no,” Gamma replied. “Here’s the thing, a high dose of sugar can actually save someone from cyanide poisoning.”
“Then, how?”
Gamma gave me a sneaky grin. “The bottle of water. She likely took a bite of the normal key lime pie, but the water was poisoned. Someone must’ve stopped by and given it to her. She had a lot of friends, so suspects abound, including those who might be after the recipe book.”
“Which makes finding the recipe book even more important.” Technically, that was my goal, even if I did not-so-secretly want to figure out who had killed Brenda.
“Exactly. But I can’t confirm that it was cyanide poisoning for sure. Not without a sample of the water. Unlikely now as it’s in police custody. We’ll have to wait for them to release that information before we use it. We wouldn’t want to follow a false lead.” Gamma rose from her seat. “You’d better put on your armor just in case, Charlotte. Join me at the back of the room when you’re done.”
I did as I’d been told, ensuring that the body armor was firmly secure.
Gamma stood in front of one the glass boxes that populated the center and back of the armory, a grin parting her lips. This was her favorite part of our operations—impressing me with her gadgets.
“Tonight, I’ve prepared two special items for our entry into the Tippett house,” she said, then tapped out a rhythm on the side of the box. A pneumatic hiss sounded and a pedestal rose from within, parting the glass and sliding into place in front of us.
Two plastic containers, identical in size, and small enough to fit in my palm, sat atop the pedestal.
“That’s it? Our secret weapon this time is plastic?”
“These,” Gamma said, lifting one of the containers and popping it open, “are night vision contact lenses. One set for you and for me. Pop them in. They adjust to the lack of light. We’ve used them before, remember?”
“Right, of course.” We’d used them over a year ago to help bring down my rogue spy ex-husband.
“And the second item…” Gamma moved to a second glass box and tapped out another pattern. Again, a pneumatic hiss and the rising of the pedestal within. On this one sat what looked like a simple remote. “Remote scrambler. Disables house alarms from a distance and it can send out a small scale electromagnetic pulse that will shut down cellphones and electronics. Just in case we run into trouble.” Gamma winked and handed it to me. “First button is the scrambler. The big red one is for the EMP. Try not to hit it accidentally. You’ll fry your phone.”
“I’ll be leaving my phone at home then.” I smiled at my grandmother. “Very impressive as usual.”
“Indeed,” she said. “We should take the SUV tonight to avoid attention.”
“Meet you out front! I’m going to drop off my phone upstairs.” I exited the armory, enjoying how green light filtered into my vision and clarified details the darker it became, and started up the steps to the basement doors.
A mournful howl rent the night. It had come from outside the inn! I burst from the basement, searching for the source of the noise, but was greeted by nothing but silence. The inn’s grounds were crystal clear thanks to the night vision contact lenses, but there was nothing. No wolf. No… anything.
Then what had made the noise? It had to be a dog, right? But how had it gotten away so quickly? The howl had sounded close. Too close for comfort.
I set off around the side of the inn. There was no use worrying about supernatural creatures when there was a real “monster” hiding in Gossip. Brenda’s murderer.