“Well? Anything you have to say for yourself?” Jay peered through the bars of the cell. It was empty except for his grandmother. An identical cell next to it held Mabel Forsythe.
Both women sat on the hard benches that lined the perimeter of each cell. They had their backs to one another and their arms folded across their chests.
At his grandmother’s stoic silence, he sighed and rubbed his fingers through his hair. “If Mom finds out about this—”
“She’d better not,” his grandmother warned. “I keep your secrets, you better be prepared to keep mine.” She suddenly looked over her shoulder at the woman sitting behind her. “And if I hear you’ve been spreading tales, Mabel Forsythe, I’ll hunt you down and finish what we started.”
Mabel looked fit to spit.
“She didn’t mean that, Mrs. Forsythe,” Jay soothed.
“The hell I didn’t!”
He eyed her. “Threats aren’t going to help the situation here, Granny. If you want me to post bail—” he’d already done it, but she didn’t need to know that “—then you’re going to have to explain yourself.”
She harrumphed and folded her arms again, looking prepared to sit there until kingdom came.
If his grandmother wouldn’t talk, then maybe Mabel would.
He moved past his grandmother’s cell—just thinking those words made something inside his head clang painfully—and stopped in front of Mabel. “What about you, Mrs. Forsythe? Do you want to explain what went on over at Provisions tonight?” Teas had already told him that Mabel’s daughter-in-law was driving in from Dallas to post bail, but she would be hours getting there yet. “I might be willing to look at paying your bail if—”
“You’d damn well better not,” Louella said furiously. “You’ll have your grandpa rolling over in his grave if you spend one red cent on that woman.”
That woman had risen to her feet, too, wrapping her arthritic fingers around the cell bars as if she were prepared to push them apart Samson-style. “Herb would still be alive if he’d married me instead of you.”
“You miserable—” Louella reached through the bars and yanked on Mabel’s hair, pulling the glossy brown coif askew to reveal the sparse white hair beneath.
“Ladies!” Detective Teas strode into the holding area and his bark echoed around the cement walls. “And believe me. Right now I’m using that term generously.” He glared at the women. “Keep it up and I’ll keep you both here all night. Is that what you want?”
“What I want is for her to admit she stole my strawberry jam recipe fifty years ago!” Mabel tugged her wig into place with a sharp jerk. “Just like she stole Herbert twenty years before that.”
“Herb never gave you the time of day and you know it, Mabel. And that recipe was my mother’s before it was mine. I have it written down in her handwriting in my recipe card box.”
“Lies.”
“And you can’t cook your way out of a pot of stone soup! That’s why your Donny, God rest his poor soul, kept coming over to eat dinner with Herb and me!”
Teas sent Jay a weary look. “They’ve been at it like this since we brought them in.” He unlocked Louella’s cell and pulled open the door. “Sooner you get her out of here, the sooner we’ll all have a little peace and quiet.” He beckoned. “Come on now, Mrs. O’Brien.”
His grandmother gave Mabel a goading smirk as she sauntered out of her cell. “I’m sure your daughter-in-law will be here soon. We all know how fond she is of you.” She glanced up at Jay as they followed the detective out of the holding area. “Only reason Donny Jr. moved to Dallas was because Charlene refused to live in the same town as his mama.” She didn’t bother keeping her voice down and Mabel obviously heard, because her shrieks followed them until the heavy door to the holding area clanged shut behind them.
“Here.” Teas handed Jay a sheaf of papers. “Judge has ordered your grandma and Mrs. Forsythe to keep one hundred yards away from each other until their hearing’s scheduled.” He focused on Louella. “Ma’am, you understand that if either one of you breaks that order, you’re both gonna end up in a cell for a mite longer than a couple hours?”
“Might be worth it,” Louella grumbled, “just to make her suffer.”
“You’d suffer, too,” Jay pointed out. He gestured toward Arabella, where she sat on a bench looking worried. “Now go over there and say hello to Arabella. She’s the one who drove me here.”
“I don’t appreciate being spoken to as if I’m five,” his grandmother said thinly.
“Then don’t act as if you’re five,” he returned.
Her lips compressed and she turned away from him, marching across the room to Arabella.
Jay blew out a breath and looked back at the detective. Even though he’d spent the last few weeks loathing the other man, he knew that Teas could’ve made this situation a lot more difficult. He extended his hand. “Thank you for your help tonight.”
Teas looked resigned. He shook Jay’s hand. Firmly. But briefly. “First time I’ve ever arrested two women of their...ah...”
“Maturity?”
“Afraid maturity wasn’t one of the things on display.” He tucked his hands in the pockets of his jacket. “Do your best to make sure she follows the judge’s order,” he advised.
“I will.” Jay started to turn away, but looked back at the detective. “How did you know where I was tonight, anyway?” He hadn’t seen his grandmother since morning. She hadn’t known where he’d be, any more than he’d known she was going to have dinner at Provisions with her supposed friend Mabel Forsythe.
“You’re not going to like the answer.” Teas glanced past him.
Arabella and Jay’s grandmother were sitting together now. Jay wasn’t sure if the fact that they looked deep in discussion worried him more or less than whatever Teas was going to answer. “Regardless. I still want the answer.”
Teas capitulated with a small shrug. “We’ve had you under surveillance since the day I brought you in for questioning.”
Of all the things Teas could have said, that was the last thing Jay expected.
His jaw tightened until it ached. “Surveillance,” he said through his teeth when he could finally form a word that didn’t involve the furious outrage bubbling inside him. “You’re wasting a helluva lot of time and taxpayer dollars.”
Teas pursed his lips. “Not so sure ’bout that. You’re hiding something, Mr. Cross. There’re just too many gaps in your timeline for my taste. And I’m the kind of detective who tends to follow up on that sort of thing.”
Jay pinched the bridge of his nose. “My private business has nothing to do with Hotel Fortune’s misfortunes.”
The detective was unswayed. “Sounds like the name of a bad song, Mr. Cross.”
Jay returned the man’s stare. If the cop was looking for a reaction, he’d wait a long while.
And then he felt Arabella touch his arm. “Jay.”
He finally looked away from Teas.
“It’s really late,” she murmured softly. “I think your grandmother’s exhausted.”
He exhaled sharply. Of course she was exhausted. Once Jay and Arabella had arrived at the station, it had taken a few more hours before the bail had been processed. And now, it was nearly 3:00 a.m.
He didn’t exchange another word with Teas as he went to collect his grandmother from the bench. Exhausted she might be, but the only evidence of it was in her eyes. He still took her arm as they left the municipal building.
Arabella led the way, glancing over her shoulder periodically as if she were nervous.
Police stations probably had that effect on most law-abiding citizens.
She’d changed out of her swimsuit into a swingy yellow sundress before they’d driven to the station. Jay, on the other hand, was wearing the wrinkled shirt she’d pulled from her canvas purse and a pair of old cowboy boots he’d fortunately had stored in his truck.
God only knew where he’d managed to drop his tennis shoes during their escape from the fitness center.
The end result, though, was that Arabella looked like a ray of sunshine and he looked like an advertisement for Menswear Don’t.
At least the only ones following him around these days were the cops who didn’t care what he looked like so long as they kept trying to link him to the balcony collapse.
“I didn’t tell Detective Teas to find you,” his grandmother said as they left the building through the front doors. “So don’t blame me that you had to come to my rescue.”
“And what were you planning to do if I hadn’t shown up?”
“I have friends. I could have arranged the bail and you’d have never been the wiser.”
Jay snorted. “Worked out well for you, didn’t it, then?” And it meant he needed to thank the detective for yet one more thing, he thought blackly.
“Don’t take that tone with me,” Louella said.
He scrubbed his hand down his face as they stopped next to Arabella’s sedan.
His grandmother looked confused. “Where’s your truck?”
Jay’s eyes met Arabella’s over the roof of the car as she unlocked the driver’s-side door. And despite everything—the frustration of not being able to kiss her as long as he’d wanted, the shock of his grandmother’s arrest and the fury of knowing the cops had been following him and he hadn’t even noticed—he couldn’t help smiling.
“Dead battery,” he said.
“Well?” Brady tossed a towel patterned with a distinctively ugly pink crest on his desk and gave Arabella a look. “Anything you have to say for yourself?”
She rubbed the pain in her temple and held back a yawn with no small amount of effort.
After getting Jay and his grandmother out to their place and driving back into Rambling Rose, it had been nearly four in the morning when she’d finally crept into her twin-size bed at Brady’s house. She’d been so tired, she hadn’t even spent her usual hour writing. “Like what?”
Brady had made no secret that he was annoyed with her. That had been plainly obvious when he’d summoned her to his office in the middle of her cleaning shift.
“Like the fact that this—” Brady shook the towel in her face “—was found next to the ice machine on the first floor last night by the night crew.”
“It’s just a towel, Brady.”
“It’s a towel from my own damn linen closet, Bella. And I sure didn’t leave it there.”
“Actually, it’s a towel from Mom’s linen closet. Do you remember when she ordered them? How appalled Dad was that she’d spent hard-earned money on a set of towels just because they had a royal crest on them?”
His expression told her plainly that he appreciated neither her irony nor the little trip down memory lane.
“Okay, fine,” she huffed. “I was using the hot tub after hours last night, okay?”
“Alone?”
“Of course I was alone,” she bluffed. “Every muscle in my body hurt after cleaning all day and—”
He thumped a pair of men’s tennis shoes on his desk. “These were with the towel. Your feet suddenly grow about four sizes?”
Arabella pressed her lips together.
“How’d you get into the fitness center?”
“Does it matter?”
Brady grimaced. He sat back in his chair and tugged at his tie as though it was suddenly choking him. “Yes, it matters.”
“Why? Look, we weren’t doing anything terrible.” Not entirely. “Jay just—”
Brady swore. “Jay Cross?”
She shoved out of her chair because sitting in front of Brady’s desk the way she was felt a little too similar to being called in front of the principal. And those elementary school days were long past. “So what if it was?”
“You snuck in the house at four this morning!”
She jabbed her finger in his direction. “Stop acting like Dad.”
“Stop acting like an irresponsible teenager, then!”
She gaped at him, feeling stung. “I’m a grown woman, Brady. If I choose to stay out all night with a guy it is my business. Not yours.”
He rose and planted his hands flat on his desk. “It’s my business when it’s under my roof.”
She slapped her hands on the desk, too, going practically nose to nose. “Well, we know the solution to that, don’t we?”
“Ahem.”
They both looked over to see Grace Williams standing in the doorway to Brady’s office.
As furious as Brady was with Arabella, she was somewhat surprised to see amusement in the other woman’s eyes.
“Brady, the camera crew is here to get started on filming the new commercial. Would you mind getting them set up? I’m afraid I have to deal with that other matter.” Her eyebrows rose slightly as if she were speaking in code meant only for Arabella’s brother.
Brady looked at Arabella. “We’re not finished with this discussion,” he warned.
“Damn straight we’re not,” she muttered under her breath after he and Grace had left the office again.
Arabella plucked Jay’s tennis shoes from the desk and left, too.
She knew that he wasn’t on duty that day. A happy coincidence for him since he needed to deal with getting his truck battery changed. Unlike hers, his hadn’t responded to charging, which was why she’d ended up driving him to the police station the night before.
On one hand, she was grateful that Jay had seemed glad to accept her help. On the other hand, she was left with more questions about him than ever before.
What had Teas said when he’d appeared at the pool?
I’m not here to question you again. Not yet, anyway.
Question Jay about what?
Even if there’d been an opportunity to ask him what the police detective had meant, Arabella hadn’t been brave enough to voice it.
She could go toe to toe with Brady all day long and twice on Sundays if she had to. But ask Jay one simple question?
I think you should know that...
...I’m wanted by the police.
She shook her head sharply. “Ridiculous,” she muttered and reached out to wave her badge over the service elevator call button.
“The first sign of genius is talking to yourself.”
Startled, Arabella dropped the shoes as she whirled to see Mariana walking toward her.
“I’m sorry, hon.” Mariana’s brows pulled together as she bent over to pick up the shoes. “Didn’t mean to scare you all to bits and pieces.” She handed her the tennis shoes.
“Thanks.” Arabella hugged them to the front of her black T-shirt. “And you didn’t. I was just, uh, just preoccupied.”
Mariana tilted her head slightly as if listening for sounds of the elevator’s movement. “These days, everyone here seems preoccupied.”
“Why is that?” Arabella flushed at the urgency in her tone.
“Oh.” Mariana waved a dismissive hand. “Nothing seriously bad has happened here in the last few months. Instead, we just have these little annoyances that keep happening.” She obviously read Arabella’s obliviousness. “You know. The elevators breaking down so often. The glitches in the reservation system and the security system that’s registering doors as locked when they’re not and vice versa.”
Arabella wondered if the security system was Grace’s “other matter” that needed her attending.
“Leaves a person waiting for the other shoe to fall.” Mariana’s gaze drifted to the tennis shoes Arabella was clutching. “No pun intended.”
The service elevator rumbled softly and a moment later the door opened. Arabella gestured for Mariana to go first.
“Thank you, dear.” Mariana waited until Arabella was inside the car, too, and pushed the button for the second floor. “Now, tell me how you and the Jet-pack are doing.”
“Jet-pack?”
“Jay,” Mariana said, as if it were obvious. “That’s what his grandpa always called Jay when he was visiting. Boy had so much energy it was like he was pumped up on jet fuel. Lord, the way he’d run around out at the market. Mischievous as hell. Always wanting to sweep up inside my food truck just so he could snitch a lemon tart when I wasn’t looking.” She grinned. “Used to figure he’d end up flying jets. Instead, he heads off to California when he was just a young pup and was gone for so long—” The doors opened again and she stepped out. “Goes to show you never can tell,” she said just before the doors started sliding closed.
Arabella hurriedly blocked them with her shoulder. “Mariana—”
The older woman paused midstep. Beyond her, Arabella could see servers loading carts in preparation for the latest event being held in the banquet room.
Aware that she was holding up Mariana from her duties, Arabella just shoved out the words. “Do you let Jay into the fitness center often?”
“You’re the only one he’s ever brought with him.” Mariana answered the question that Arabella hadn’t asked. “That’s how I can tell you’re someone special.”
The tight little fist inside Arabella’s stomach that she’d almost forgotten suddenly eased. “Really?”
Mariana’s eyes softened. She dashed her fingers in a cross over her chest. “Promise.” Then she winked and hurried away, her big bright bun bouncing on the top of her head.
Arabella shifted and the doors finished closing.
She didn’t have time to go up to the fourth floor to store Jay’s shoes in her locker there, so she just tucked them in a bag on her cart after she’d pulled it from the floor pantry. With her headphones tucked in her ears, she pulled the assignment chart she’d gotten from Beulah that morning out of her back pocket.
I think you should know that...
...you’re someone really special.
Hallie shook her head for the third time in as many rooms. “Sorry.” She dashed her finger along the wooden cabinet that housed the flat-screen television. “This needs a better polish.”
That entire afternoon—ever since she’d left Brady’s office with Jay’s shoes—Hallie had been critical of Arabella’s work.
“I’ll polish it again,” she said and pulled out a fresh cloth. “Hallie—”
The other girl’s lips were pursed as she raised an eyebrow.
“Did I do something to upset you? Besides my subpar cleaning, I mean?” She tried a wry smile but it was met with a stony stare.
“What could possibly upset me?”
She waved her dust cloth a little helplessly. “I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking. I thought...well, yesterday, I thought you and I might become friends.”
“I don’t need friends who hide the truth about themselves from me.” Hallie looked back at the clipboard she used to mark off her inspections before releasing a room back to the front desk. “You’d better pick up the pace. You’re an hour behind.” She walked out of the room, leaving Arabella gaping.
She hurriedly applied the cloth to the offending wood, then darted out of the room after Hallie. There were only two rooms rented on this end of the floor so far, and Arabella knew the occupants were down at the pool where the marketing people were still working on filming. “It’s done,” she yelled, “and what truth am I supposed to have hidden?”
Hallie turned on her heel and marched back along the carpeted corridor. “Acting like you’re one of us when you’re really one of them!”
Arabella frowned. “I have no idea what you are even talking about.”
“Really? And here I thought you Fortunes were all supposed to be so brilliant.”
Fortunes.
It dawned on Arabella then. She’d completely forgotten about her last name. “Hallie, I’m not one of those Fortunes.” Hearing it, she couldn’t help but cringe. “I mean, I’m no different than you! I have to work for a living. Criminy, I can’t even afford to move out of the twin bedroom I’m living in at my brother’s yet because I’m so broke!”
But Hallie was obviously unconvinced. “I’d say whatever,” she drawled, “except I wouldn’t want to lose my job for being disrespectful.”
Arabella let out an impatient snort. “I’m not—”
“I’ll check back in an hour.” Hallie cut her off. “Front desk needs these rooms available. They’ve all been blocked for a wedding tomorrow.” Then she spun on her heel again and walked away.
Arabella flopped her arms at her sides. “What’s a name matter, anyway?”
But Hallie wasn’t listening and with a sigh, Arabella reentered the room. She stuffed her squishy headphones into her ears.
“...all up and gonna be someone new...”
The familiar words snuck into her head and she cursed. “I’d like to be someone new, too, buddy,” she told the deep voice singing in her ear. “Someone without the last name of Fortune!”
Then she attacked the dusting with renewed vengeance.
She was finally pushing her cart back into the floor pantry nearly an hour later when an alarm suddenly sounded and she nearly jumped out of her skin.
She’d never heard that specific noise at the hotel before, but that didn’t mean she didn’t recognize a fire alarm when she heard one.
She slammed the pantry door closed on the cart and darted around the corner to the service elevator, only to remember that the elevators automatically shut down and returned to the first floor when the fire alarms activated. She’d polished the signs affixed to the backs of the room doors that explained that very point often enough by now to be able to quote the entire list of safety rules.
She hit the stairwell, where footsteps were already echoing throughout the cement tower and started down, hurrying even faster to help the woman ahead of her who was trying to manage a toddler and a baby and not get trampled by the people coming down behind them.
“Let me help,” she said and swept the wailing toddler up in her arms.
The mother’s eyes were wide and tearful and they took in Arabella’s T-shirt with the hotel logo. “There’s not really a fire is there?”
“Even if there is, it’s all going to be fine.” She spoke with a calmness she didn’t really feel. “I’m Arabella.” Her voice vibrated from the impact of her shoes hitting the steps. “What’s your name?”
“Sierra.” The mother clasped her baby closer as they reached the second-floor landing and started down the last stretch. “That’s Mia you’re carrying.”
At the sound of her name, Mia wailed even harder, and knocked her elbow hard into Arabella’s face as she strained to reach her mommy.
Pain exploded in her face and Arabella yanked her head back.
Blinking hard, she slowed only slightly, using the railing to help guide her while she blinked the stars from her vision.
In seconds, they’d reached the bottom of the stairs and they darted out into the corridor where Brady stood. His tie was loosened and it was only because Arabella knew him so well that she could see the agitation in his eyes despite the calm way he was directing people toward the exits.
“There’s no need to run,” he said in a loud voice. “Please proceed calmly to the exit—” He broke off for a moment, his expression tightening when he spotted Arabella carrying the little girl past him.
But she didn’t slow. Her face was throbbing from the impact of Mia’s elbow and she nearly ran right into Petunia in the lobby. The florist was carting a box of bouquets as if her life depended on it. An older man with gray hair was with her, carrying a second box.
“Leave the flowers,” Arabella said sharply and pushed them both to the front door.
As soon as they were through, Arabella chased after Mia’s mother. The young woman had broken into a trot right along with the dozens of other guests who were also more than a little anxious to get away from the building.
Finally, Sierra stopped, though, and sank down onto the grass and Arabella caught up to her. She gratefully surrendered the wailing toddler to her mama’s arms and gingerly cupped her hand over her aching face.
Sierra was looking at her oddly. “Are you all right?”
She nodded. “I’ll come back and check on you as soon as I can.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I want to.” She cleared her throat and channeling Mariana a bit, gave Mia a quick wink before she turned to work her way back to the front entrance.
It felt oddly similar to the day the balcony collapsed, only this time Arabella didn’t have her dad dragging her away. This time there was no ominous cloud of debris wafting through the air. Her nose was stuffy but not from the smell of smoke. She knew better than to trust that meant there wasn’t any fire somewhere.
Alarms didn’t go off all on their own, did they?
Not unless it was another one of those glitches that Mariana mentioned.
Gingerly pressing her fingertips against the pain beneath both of her eyes, Arabella looked around, wondering how best she could help. She spotted Grace Williams talking to Sybil and Beulah. They were obviously taking count of guests.
Hallie and a few of the other room attendants were pacing around with servers from Roja. They were handing out water bottles to guests and staff alike.
The three-person film crew who’d been taking footage all over the hotel were panning their cameras over the melee as three fire engines turned in to the property.
If this was all just a glitch, it was turning out to be a whopper of one.
“There you are.” Jay suddenly appeared next to her. He was breathing hard, as if he’d just run a half-marathon. “I’ve been looking every—” He broke off with an oath and caught her face between his hands. “You’re hurt!”
Before she had time to blink, he lifted her right off her feet.