Amelia could never drive through Sarkis Estates and not gasp and sigh at the beautiful homes. Some were just big and made her jaw drop. But others were made to really reflect the owners who lived in them. Not everyone had a giant copper sunflower or a bright-red vintage tractor in their yard. Some people had water fountains. Others had waterfalls that Amelia bet there were koi swimming around in along with a couple dozen copper pennies thrown in for fun.
But the Jameson home was not in the main area of Sarkis Estates. It was just close enough to the border of Brightway that there may have been a significant tax break. Amelia couldn’t be sure. Brightway was an old neighborhood of people who were living out their golden years in ranch-style homes that were paid in full two decades earlier. They were middle class, plain and simple.
A natural divide of about an acre of wooded area and pine trees separated Sarkis Estates from the smaller, more conservative homes in Brightway.
Luann Jameson’s house was a huge manor with four pillars across the front of the house. The yard was pristinely kept. Not a stray leaf or brazen weed creeping up on the lawn. The flowers were perfectly maintained and bloomed happily even on this day that was anything but happy for the people living in the house.
Amelia slowed the hot-pink truck down as she approached the house and saw what had to be Bud Fetzer’s place. In contrast, his house was a beautifully rustic-looking home that almost blended in completely with the wooded landscape to the right and behind the house.
“That would be a breathtaking house if all the cameras and satellite dishes were removed and maybe the walkway was swept,” Amelia said to herself. It looked as if curtains covered the windows on the first and second floor. But the third-floor windows were wide open, and three of those windows faced the Jameson home. Amelia shivered.
She pulled into the driveway at the Jameson house by a young man in skinny jeans and a plaid shirt buttoned all the way up his neck, who pointed down the extended driveway.
“Please pull around to the back to the service entrance,” he chirped.
Amelia nodded and followed the driveway around to the back of the house. There were two other trucks there. One looked as if it was providing beverages. The other was the caterer for the lunch—Katie Pix Catering. Amelia had heard of her. She was the caterer for every political event in the city. Hopefully, she’d get to snag a plate of Katie’s goodies for herself.
Another woman was waiting back there to assist Amelia.
“Just park over there, and we’ll get the boys to bring in the cupcakes.”
“Okay” was all Amelia could think to say.
Two large men in black pants and white shirts came up to the truck. Without anything more than a grin, Amelia handed them each a box of cupcakes. Grabbing one herself, she followed them inside.
They wove their way through what Amelia guessed was a mudroom of sorts. It was an absolutely sparkling, sweet-smelling mudroom for only the cleanest muddy boots. There were thick cream-colored towels stacked on shelves along with several umbrellas hanging from pegs. There wasn’t a single scuff or smudge on the brown tiled floor.
The super-fancy mudroom opened up into a kitchen that would make Wolfgang Puck green with envy. As Amelia looked at all the steel appliances and marble countertops, she was once again struck by how sterile everything looked. It was beautiful. On her best day, Amelia couldn’t get her kitchen to look this clean. She wondered if Luann or even a hired chef ever used this kitchen. If they did, they must have had a maid that had a real violent hatred of filth.
“Are those the desserts?” a third person asked Amelia. She was a blond-haired girl in a black skirt and a peach-colored blouse, carrying a clipboard and with a Bluetooth in her ear.
“Yes,” she replied. “One hundred double-chocolate raspberry cupcakes from The Pink Cupcake.”
“One hundred?” the woman snapped. “There were supposed to be one hundred and ten.” She tapped her Bluetooth.
“No. Luann told me one hundred. I’ve got it written down. The price I quoted was for one hundred. It was all explained to her,” I replied calmly.
Without looking at her, the woman indicated for Amelia to follow her into a room where the food was already being displayed. Amelia almost fainted. There was prime rib, lobster tails, and a vegetarian lasagna that was at least seven layers high. It smelled wonderful.
There was a small table where Amelia began to assemble the cupcakes. She went back to the truck to get the displays to stack the cupcakes on, making them look more like an artistic sculpture than just a bunch of cupcakes.
Bluetooth Woman had left, and Amelia decided to take this opportunity to have a look around. According to her watch, she had about ten minutes before the mourners were expected to arrive. This was one heck of a sendoff for Greg. Amelia looked around, hoping to see maybe a wedding picture of him and Colleen or maybe a picture at a family get-together. Strangely, there was nothing. In fact, there wasn’t really anything to indicate that this was for a funeral. It looked like a fundraiser or perhaps a wedding brunch.
“Rich people are weird,” Amelia grumbled before asking someone where the bathroom was.
Amelia made her way through the dining room, past a sitting room, to a lovely winding staircase. Once upstairs, she slowly walked down the hallway. There were lovely paintings on the walls and a couple of pictures of Colleen. High school graduation. College graduation. Luann and Colleen with the late Mr. Jameson, who was at least two decades older than Luann.
He wasn’t the most handsome man Amelia had ever laid eyes on. Every man looked handsome in a suit and tie, but he did have a smile that even Amelia, as she looked at the picture, couldn’t help but return. It was contagious.
Inching down the hallway, Amelia was careful to listen for anyone coming up behind her. She found the bathroom. But before slipping inside, she took a few more steps to peek into the bedrooms.
“This is crazy. You are going to get busted. Just go back downstairs. What could be up here?” she muttered. But that was when she saw that the first room on the right side of the hall looked like the room of a young woman.
“This must be Colleen’s room. But if she was married, where did Greg sleep?” she asked the single bed with four posts. Another step inside the room, and Amelia saw an impeccably neat dresser and a desk with stationery on the blotter.
Out the window, through the lacy curtains, was a view of Bud Fetzer’s place.
Even with the thin curtain distorting the view, Amelia still shuddered, thinking Bud was watching the place.
Just as she turned to leave the room, she saw the only thing that looked out of place—a packet of papers that were stapled together, sloppily bent and rolled as if someone had been worrying the corners. It was on the nightstand next to a facedown picture frame.
Quickly, Amelia tiptoed over to the nightstand and flipped over the photo. It was Colleen and Greg on their wedding day. Bright smiles were on their faces as they looked at each other. Colleen was a beautiful bride, and Greg really did clean up nicely. They looked like they fit together.
“That poor girl.” Amelia put the frame back the way she found it. She picked up the documents, but what she saw caused her breath to hitch in her throat.
It was an insurance policy. On various pages were little red Post-it tabs with the words Sign Here on them.
Flipping through the pages, Amelia saw Gregory Timber Scottson was worth six million dollars dead.
“This is interesting.”
But before she could set the paper down, she heard voices on the steps. One she was sure was Luann. Thinking fast, she dropped to the floor and rolled underneath the bed. Thankfully, Colleen had a neat room and nothing under her bed.
Amelia held her breath as Luann and Colleen walked into the room.
“Have you signed the papers yet?” Luann asked.
The papers? The papers! The papers that were still in Amelia’s hand!
Brilliant, she scolded herself.
“Mom, he hasn’t even been gone a week,” Colleen whined. “I can’t think about that stuff right now.”
“Well, honey, you need to think about it. Where are they?”
Amelia watched her mother’s fancy pumps walk over to the desk. Colleen’s remained still by the dresser. With lightning speed, Amelia thrust the papers out from under the bed, leaving them on the floor by the nightstand.
“They’re over here.” Colleen walked over and without comment picked the insurance policy up from the ground.
“You haven’t signed a single page,” Luann snapped. “Look, I know you are mourning, and I know this hurts, but the sooner you can get this over with, the sooner we will be able to move on with our lives.”
“Mom, the house is filling up with guests. I’m not going to look at this right now.”
Colleen’s flat ballet-slipper shoes turned and walked out the door. Luann’s stood there. Amelia was sure the woman could see through the mattress and box spring and was watching her underneath the bed. Any second, she was going to drop down to her knees and yank up the bed sham and scream, “A-ha!”
But that didn’t happen.
Luann dropped the papers back on the nightstand and left. Amelia let out the breath she hadn’t known she was holding. Now she really and truly had to go to the bathroom. Giving Luann enough time to go back downstairs, Amelia shimmied out from underneath the bed like a crab escaping a seagull and darted on tiptoe across the hallway to the bathroom.
That made her gasp as well. The tiles on the floor looked like smooth stones from a Zen garden, and they climbed the walls in the shower and along the backsplash of the double sink. A sunk-in tub with eight different jets in it sat beneath a small stained-glass window that allowed the light in but obstructed any view in or out.
The soaps were little lavender balls, and the mirrors were beveled, with elaborate scrolling around the edges. The towel rack was heated.
“For heaven’s sake.” Amelia shook her head as she washed her hands and darted back downstairs.
Colleen was right. As she tried to maneuver her way back the way she had come, Amelia was forced to take a couple of weird turns and pass through unfamiliar rooms where people were talking and hugging and visiting. She swore it took an additional ten minutes to get her bearings and arrive back at her table in the dining room.
After letting out a deep breath, she pulled a couple of business cards from her pocket and set them in front of her lovely cupcake display and stood back while the guests helped themselves.