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A Suspicious Event
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PIPER ROSS PAUSED IN front of the open van door, holding her floppy hat up to shade her eyes. I noticed there was a giant red poppy glued to one side. Very colorful. “Is this the van to the haunted place?” She blinked big, pretty, green eyes rimmed with thick, dark lashes. They looked fake, but I had a feeling they were real. Darn her.
The driver beamed down at her, his basset-hound face getting an instant facelift. “Sure, miss. Hop in.”
She gave him a charming smile, revealing a dimple in her left cheek, and climbed aboard without so much as a single drop of sweat marring her perfect face. Her eyes lit up when she saw Lucas, and she immediately squeezed in next to him. I held back a growl. It was silly of me to get jealous, but really it was for Cheryl’s sake. Although Cheryl seemed not to notice.
It wasn’t that I had a personal thing against Piper. It was just that she was so darn...flawless. At five foot eight and a hundred thirty pounds tops, she had the perfect figure. At least according to today’s standards. Me, I’d have been in vogue about fifty years or so ago.
With her milky-white skin, flaming-red hair, and slightly tilted green eyes, she was, in a word, perfect. No wonder Jason had tossed Natasha for her. I probably would have, too. Especially if her personality was anything like her looks. I couldn’t imagine Natasha had been an easy person to live with. Still, it didn’t justify what they’d done, to my way of thinking.
Piper buckled herself in and gave the driver another blinding smile. “Ready when you are.” Even her voice was charming and sexy, doggone it.
As the van swung out into traffic, Maggie and Lu began talking excitedly about the history of the mansion we were to visit. Well, Maggie started chatting. Lu mostly nodded her head, earrings shooting colorful sparks of light around the van.
I expected Piper to start chatting Lucas up, but instead she bent over her smart phone, stabbing rapidly at the screen with her forefinger. I tried to see what she was typing, but all I could see was that it was a text...and it was to Jason Winters. Big surprise. The two were still a couple, after all. Which was so odd. I mean Jason was not bad looking, but he was at least twenty years older than Piper, pudgy around the middle, and balding. Not to mention that since the split with Natasha, he was out of a job. Not the sort of person I expected a woman like Piper to go for. At least not in the long run. Although now Jason would probably inherit Natasha’s money and that meant he’d be a very rich man.
Unless, of course, Natasha had changed her will or something. Which was possible. Even likely. I made a mental note to find out who inherited. Whoever it was would have an excellent motive. But if it wasn’t Jason, why would Piper still be with him? Could they actually be in love? I’d need to watch them more closely to decide. Anything was possible. Love was crazy like that.
Time to dive in. I cleared my throat. “You’re Piper Ross, right?”
She glanced up from the screen, startled. A tiny frown line marred her forehead before smoothing away. “Um, yes. Why?”
I gave her a bland smile. “Viola Roberts. I’m really sorry about Natasha. I know you worked for her for a long time.”
A scowl crossed her face, quickly replaced by that dazzling smile. Aha! So, Piper Ross wasn’t so perfect and perky. Whatever she might pretend in public, she really didn’t like Natasha.
“Oh, yes. It’s very sad, isn’t it?” she said, not sounding at all sincere.
“Very. Such a shocking thing, you know.”
“Oh, yes.” She didn’t sound at all shocked.
“Jason isn’t interested in haunted mansions, I take it?”
She looked confused for a moment. “Oh, he has a meeting today. With some lawyer.” She shrugged. “I don’t really understand legal stuff, and I figured it would be boring just sitting around the hotel.”
So, Piper was playing the ditzy young thing. I didn’t buy it for a moment. The woman who helped Natasha claw her way to the top was not a stupid woman, but I figured it would behoove me to play along.
“Oh, I hear you.” A lawyer. How interesting. Could it be an estate lawyer? Or perhaps a criminal one?
“Do you know which lawyer Jason is seeing?” I blurted.
Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Why?”
“Well,” I scrambled for a reason other than the obvious, “research, you know. For my next book.”
“Don’t you write historicals?” she asked.
“Sure. Mostly. But I’m expanding into mysteries, and there’s a lawyer in my novel, you see. Only I don’t know any lawyers. I’d love to ask questions.”
She seemed to relax somewhat, the dopey expression settling over her like the perfect mask it was. She gave a little shrug. “Sorry. No idea. You’ll have to ask Jason.” She turned back to her phone screen.
I found it odd that Jason wouldn’t tell her what lawyer he was meeting or that she would care so little about it, but I didn’t want to press my luck. Lucas eyed me over the top of Piper’s head. From his expression, he knew exactly what I was up to. Well, more power to him.
I searched for something else to ask her. Not that I was lacking in questions, but it was all about the phrasing. Piper wasn’t just a pretty face, obviously. She was on high alert, and I didn’t want her to realize I was more than just another nosey writer.
Cheryl came to my rescue. “Gosh, that was awful, wasn’t it? Did you know Viola found the body? I mean, I didn’t know anything about it until I woke up the next morning.” She shuddered as she turned to me with wide eyes. “You’re just so brave.”
I almost snorted with laughter at her innocent act. “Didn’t have much choice, did I? Although I’ll think twice before walking the beach at night again, let me tell you. What if the killer was lurking in the dark?”
“You could have been killed!” Maggie boomed from the front. I hadn’t realized that she and Lu were listening.
Cheryl nodded, expression eager. “That’s what I keep saying. I’m so glad I went straight to bed. Where were you when you heard about it, Maggie?”
Light glinted off the lenses of Maggie’s glasses. “Lu and I were at breakfast. Annabelle MacDonald told us over coffee. You know Annabelle, right? She writes those Highland romances. Popular what with that show on TV now.”
I nodded. I didn’t know Annabelle personally, but I was familiar with her work. They mostly featured pictures of half-naked men in kilts on the covers. I approved most heartily.
“How about you, Piper?” Cheryl asked innocently. “How did you hear? You must have been really shocked since you used to work with her and everything.”
“Oh, of course. Very shocked,” Piper agreed pleasantly. “Of course, we didn’t know anything about it until the police came to Jason’s room to notify him.”
And question him, no doubt. He was, after all, next of kin. Plus, didn’t they always suspect the spouse first?
“We went to bed right after the party,” Piper continued. “Jason was kind of drunk.”
I wondered if she was telling the truth. And if Jason was so drunk, though from what I’d seen he hadn’t been but perhaps a little tipsy, could Piper have slipped out without him knowing and murdered Natasha? Anything was possible. And Piper had so many motives: revenge for Natasha firing her, getting her hand on Natasha’s money (if Jason was the heir), just plain old hatred. Time would tell, but I was keeping a close eye on the nearly perfect Piper.
I slanted a glance toward Lucas, who was looking particularly handsome in a heather gray t-shirt that matched his eyes. He’d changed since breakfast. I’d be keeping an eye on the Handsome Author Dude, too. Not because I suspected him of murder, but because I didn’t want him falling for Piper’s obvious charms. For Cheryl’s sake, of course.
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AS WE SPILLED OUT OF the van, we were greeted by a gray-haired gentleman dressed neatly in khaki slacks and a white button-down shirt. His nametag proclaimed him to be “George,” and he had the most enormous moustache I’d ever seen on anyone born after 1800.
“Hiya folks.” He waved us over. “Ready to see some ghosts?” He beamed at us.
I had a hard time believing we’d see anything in broad daylight—weren’t ghosts supposed to be most active at night?—but George was very enthusiastic, as were Maggie and Lu. Even Cheryl seemed excited, and Lucas already had a notebook and pen out. Very old school. Piper, oddly enough, seemed bored by the whole thing, examining her cuticles and sighing heavily like she was being put upon. Which led a person to wonder why she’d bothered to come? Surely there was plenty to do back at the resort if ghost hunting wasn’t her thing.
With the van empty, the driver promised to collect us in ninety minutes, then zipped out of the parking lot. The hot sun glared down, melting any remaining makeup from my face. No doubt I looked like a raccoon. A frizzy-haired raccoon. The humidity was turning my hair into something out of a bad ’50s sci-fi movie. One where the heroine got electrocuted.
George led us up the wide front steps and through the double doors into the hotel lobby. He was already cheerfully informing us of the details of the original owner’s death and how he was said to haunt the place. I tried really hard not to roll my eyes. I wouldn’t say I was a skeptic exactly. More that I preferred to see the evidence of something, and I’d yet to see any evidence that ghosts were real.
Everyone else seemed eager to catch all the gory details. Only Piper was as unimpressed as I was, surreptitiously sneaking glances at her phone. She wasn’t texting, so I wondered if she was waiting for a call, and if so, from whom? Maybe she was planning to meet someone at the Don CeSar.
A little bubble of excitement zinged at the thought. How clandestine! Maybe it was a secret lover. Maybe she was cheating on Jason. Scandal!
Inside, the hotel was like something out of a fairy tale. The wide entry hall was paved in ivory marble and lined on either side with matching marble pillars. Overhead, massive gold and crystal chandeliers bathed the place in sparkling light. Everything was bright, elegant, and exactly the opposite of what I expected from a haunted mansion.
George had switched to stories of a ghost in a white suit walking along the beach. Apparently also the original owner. I supposed there were worse ways to spend the afterlife.
As he led us upstairs, George launched into an account of a female ghost in a flowing gown often spotted walking the hotel halls. “A raven-haired beauty, she is.”
“Have you actually seen her?” Cheryl asked breathlessly. Her eyes were wide, and she had her cell phone out, videoing the tour.
“You bet,” George said with a grin. “It was late one night. I’d just finished a tour and was rounding this very corner.” With a dramatic flourish, he waved to the corner in question, which, frankly, looked like every other corner in the hotel. “And there she was. Staring out the window as if waiting for her true love,” he finished melodramatically.
Lu sighed at the romantic tale. Maggie strode to the corner to look out the window as if expecting the lady ghost to appear immediately.
As George droned on about other ghost sightings, I wandered a bit away from the others toward the sweeping staircase. Honestly, I was more interested in the architecture and design of the place. According to George, it had been built in the 1920s. Very Great Gatsby. A little late for my era, but perhaps I could write a story about it. Some Western cowboy, maybe from Montana, goes east for...something. Hmm... An inheritance, maybe? He would meet a rich heiress, and then...
Before I could finish my thought, I felt a hard shove from behind. I stumbled, my foot hitting the top step. Somebody screamed. And then I was falling.