“Looks like we’re going to see Cinderella, son,” Dennis deadpanned.

  “Looks like it, Dad.”

  “Boys,” Sylvia admonished, eyeballing the pair of them. “Behave. It’ll be nice to go out. Dennis, we’re going to Etoile first, your favorite restaurant, so you can quit your grumbling and plaster a smile on your face and at least pretend to enjoy yourself. That goes for you too, Kade.”

  “Hey,” Kade protested, raising his hands as if to fend her off. “I didn’t say anything.”

  “You didn’t have to. Your face did all the speaking for you.”

  As we finished our lunch, my thoughts turned to Joyce and who killed her. I’d yet to find any trace of Visine, which was puzzling because I thought almost everyone on the planet had a bottle of it tucked away in their medicine cabinet. I kept glancing at my watch, eager for two o’clock to roll around so I could go snoop in the kitchen, for I’d convinced myself that was where Joyce had been poisoned and where I’d find the evidence I was seeking.

  “What’s wrong?” Kade whispered in my ear.

  I jumped, a guilty flush heating my cheeks. “What? Nothing!”

  “You keep checking the time. Got a date?” he teased. I laughed and leaned into him.

  “No, but I don’t think you want to know what I have planned.”

  “Audrey.” There it was again. So much emotion and meaning loaded into one word. A warning—whatever you’re thinking of doing, don’t. Resignation—you’re going to do it despite what I think, aren’t you? Acceptance—for the love of God, don’t get caught. Do I need bail money?

  “Babe.” I patted his cheek. “It’s fine. Why don’t you spend some quality time with your parents? I won’t be long.”

  After Kade and his parents left, I had time to kill, so I took a wander around the gardens, taking a moment to enjoy the beautiful surroundings and peace and quiet. I was sitting on a bench seat under a tree when I spied Joyce, walking alongside a younger woman. From the family resemblance, I assumed it was her daughter, Anne.

  Joyce saw me and waved, and I automatically raised my arm to return the gesture when I caught Anne’s puzzled look.

  “Sorry,” she said as she approached. “Do I know you?”

  “Um, no, sorry. I thought you were someone else.” Anne’s eyes were bloodshot and puffy and the tip of her nose red, as if she’d been crying. Which no doubt she had because her mother had recently died, I reminded myself. Of course, she was upset.

  “Is everything all right?” I asked, then patted the bench next to me. “Would you like to sit?”

  To my utter surprise, she did.

  “Thank you. I’m Anne.”

  “Audrey.”

  A couple of seconds of silence ticked by. “My mother died.”

  “Oh, that’s tough. I’m so sorry for your loss.” It was such a trite thing to say, but really, what can you say in situations like that? I couldn’t very well blurt out that her dead mother’s ghost was there with us, currently admiring the flowers in a nearby garden bed and watching the butterflies as they danced in the air.

  “Do your parents live here?” Anne asked, pulling out a tissue and blowing her nose.

  “My in-laws recently moved into one of the independent living apartments. We’re here to visit for a few days.”

  “Your in-laws are lovely,” Joyce piped up.

  “That’s nice. So, you’re not from Chicago?”

  I shook my head. “A little town called Firefly Bay.”

  “That sounds familiar.”

  “Oh? You’ve been to Firefly Bay?”

  “No… wasn’t it on the news? Something about a corrupt police department. Some investigation and a bunch of cops were arrested?”

  “Oh, yeah. That.” Not exactly what we’d like Firefly Bay to be remembered for, but if outing the officers who’d forced my best friend Ben out of his career was the result, I was all for it. “Things are much better now.”

  Anne looked at me, her pale face intrigued. “Did you know them?”

  Pursing my lips, I nodded. “Sadly, yes. My fiancé is a detective—not one of the corrupt ones,” I hastened to add. “But he was part of the investigation, and my best friend was one of the officers on the receiving end of the corrupt cops. He got forced out of a job he loved.”

  “That’s awful!” Joyce cried, straightening from where she’d been trying to touch a flower to look at me.

  “That’s awful,” Anne echoed. “I’m so sorry that happened to your friend. What kind of world are we living in?”

  “I know, right?” I sighed. But things had turned out okay for Ben. He’d started Delaney Investigations. He had a gorgeous home, fancy car, and was sitting pretty financially. Until he’d died and left it all to me. I absently watched the butterflies and listened to the birds chirping and couldn’t fathom that we were in Chicago, the sounds of traffic and general noise somehow excluded from the enclosed garden. It was a little slice of paradise, and I thought the architects were brilliant with their placement, the way the towering buildings surrounding the garden blocked the noise, yet allowed light.

  “I don’t know how I’m going to pay for it,” Anne whispered, her hands twisting the tissue until it tore.

  “Pay for what?” I kept my voice low, sensing that Anne was on the verge of a breakdown. She seemed fragile, as if the slightest breeze would shatter her into a million pieces. My heart hurt for her. I couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to lose my mom. To say I’d be devastated wouldn’t begin to cover it.

  A single tear overflowed and trickled down her cheek.

  “I can’t pay for my mother’s funeral,” Anne whispered, closing her eyes and silently sobbing.

  “What?” Joyce sat down on the other side of her daughter. “You don’t have to worry about that, Anne. I had insurance. It’s all paid for.”

  “You know”—I placed a soothing hand on Anne’s shoulder—“sometimes people take out insurance to cover funeral costs. Is there any chance your mom maybe did something like that?”

  Anne lifted her head and looked at me. “Insurance?” She sniffed. “She never said.”

  “In my closet, top shelf, is a folder with all my documents. Will and so forth. It’s all there,” Joyce said.

  “If she had, I’ll bet it’s with her will.” I smiled, doing my best to be reassuring. “Maybe take a look?”

  Anne sniffed again. “Thank you. I will.” She turned to me, eyes awash with tears. “This is going to sound terrible, and I don’t even know you, but I don’t know what I’m going to do without my mom.”

  “I never knew your mom, but from what I hear, she was a great lady.”

  Anne gulped, wiped her fingers beneath her eyes, and cocked her head. “Wait. How do you know that? How do you know who my mom is?”

  Oh, crap. Plastering what I hoped was a comforting smile on my face, I explained, “I’m assuming your mom is Joyce Harrison? She died the day we arrived. Actually, it was us—me, my fiancé, and his parents—who found her.”

  “Oh, my God, that was you?”

  I nodded. “Her friends, Sally and Hazel, told me a little about you.”

  “They said some lady visiting was investigating her death. They said you thought it was murder!”

  “Haven’t the police talked to you?”

  “I got a call, but I guess I was too distraught to really take in what they said.”

  Scooping up her hand in mine, I explained. “They found high levels of a drug called tetrahydrozoline in her system. It’s typically found in eye drops and nasal sprays.”

  Anne frowned. “Are you saying someone overdosed my mother with eye drops? How did they administer them? I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t have sat there and let someone put drops in her eyes without her permission. And especially not enough to kill her.”

  “No, no. Tetrahydrozoline is toxic when ingested. Someone put it in her food.”

  Anne snatched her hand out of mine and looked at me, aghast at the suggestion someone had killed her mother.

  “Do you think I did it?”

  What? How did she jump to that conclusion? We’d gone from explaining her mother hadn’t died from natural causes to accusing her of murder in under three seconds.

  “Did you?” May as well play devil’s advocate. After all, she was the one who brought it up. Although, to be honest, I didn’t think Anne had killed her mom. She was genuinely distraught at her passing. Unless that grief was because she’d murdered her own mother? Now I was second guessing myself, never a good sign.

  “Audrey!” Joyce admonished. “My daughter didn’t kill me.”

  “I didn’t kill my mom,” Anne cried. “I loved her. I don’t know how I’m going to live without her. She was my best friend and now? Now she’s just… gone.” The tears were back in full force.

  “It’s all right, love,” Joyce soothed. “I’m still here.”

  “And it wasn’t just the money, though God knows it was embarrassing having to rely on your mother to send you money every week because you couldn’t manage on your own.” Anne’s voice rose, an edge of hysteria creeping in. “But we couldn’t pay the bills, you know. They cut off our electricity. If it hadn’t been for Mom bailing us out, we’d be sitting in the dark eating cold beans out of a can.”

  I looked at Joyce, who was trying to comfort her distraught daughter. She glanced over and caught me looking. “What?” she snapped. “Do something. Can’t you see she’s upset?”

  “You sent her money?” I mouthed silently.

  “Do I have any honey? Why on earth would I have any honey?”

  I shook my head and tried again. “You. Sent. Her. Money?”

  “Poo me dentist lorry? You’re not making any sense. Are you having a stroke?”

  Sighing, I patted Anne’s back and said out loud, “Sally told me you’re a schoolteacher… aren’t you working at the moment?”

  Anne sobbed. “I am. And my husband’s a paramedic. And you’d think we’d be managing just fine, wouldn’t you? Two incomes. Although my salary is a pittance, and if I didn’t love the kids so much, I’d give it away and go waitress or something… I’d probably earn more.”

  “I know what it’s like to struggle to make ends meet,” I said. It wasn’t a lie. I’d lived from paycheck to paycheck for longer than I cared to admit, and if it wasn’t for Ben’s inheritance, I wouldn’t be where I was today. I’d probably be stumbling from one temp job to another with home ownership and tropical vacations a far-off dream.

  Anne surged to her feet, wiping her hands across her face. “I’ve got to go.” She took off before I could say anything more, Joyce rushing after her, leaving me to ponder the fact that it appeared Joyce was subsidizing her daughter and son-in-law financially. Motive for murder? Hardly. You wouldn’t kill the cash cow, would you?

  Chapter Seventeen

  At two fifteen, I sidled into the café. Liam saw me and promptly picked up a tray and a cloth and headed out to the terrace to clear tables. Inside, the café was empty, the lunch rush over. Two men sat outside, lingering over their drinks, maybe reliving their morning of golf, blow by blow. Or was that putt by putt? Either way, the coast was clear, and I darted behind the counter, crouching low in case someone unexpectedly came in.

  The kitchen was tiny. Immaculate but tiny. A quick perusal of the shelves turned up nothing, but then you’d hardly leave your eye drops out in full view in a commercial kitchen. I scoured that room for a solid hour, top to bottom, and turned up absolutely nothing. Even the trash cans were empty.

  Liam appeared in the doorway. “Find anything?”

  I shook my head. “Nope.”

  He noticed I had the trash can lid in my hand. “We empty bins twice a day into the dumpster out back.”

  “When does the dumpster get collected?”

  “Every Saturday morning. Look”—Liam checked the time on the wall clock—“maybe you should go? Sometimes Chef comes back early.” I knew he was nervous about getting in trouble for letting me back here, so I put the lid back on the bin, dusted my hands on the seat of my jeans, and smiled.

  “Thanks for all your help, Liam. You’ve been a champ. I’ll get out of your hair.”

  He nodded, shifted his weight from one foot to the other, then said, “Will you keep me posted on what you find out? You know, who killed her and all that? I feel invested now.”

  “Sure.” I brushed past him, checked the café was clear, then hurried back to the Galloways’ apartment, a plan forming in my head with each step. If what I suspected was true and the eye drops were administered in the café, the killer would have probably ditched the bottle as soon as possible, not wanting to be caught with potential evidence. Meaning they’d likely tossed them in one of the trash cans at the café. Therefore, the empty bottle of eye drops could be languishing in the dumpster as we spoke.

  But there wasn’t time to search the dumpster right now. Plus, it was daylight. Dumpster diving was definitely an after dark activity if you didn’t want to get caught.

  “Dare I ask?” Kade greeted as he opened the door and let me in.

  “Everything’s fine!” I beamed, the muscles pulling tight in my face, sending aftershocks of pain across my cheekbones. “How’s my face?” I put a hand to my nose and veered into the bathroom rather than the living room where I’d originally been heading.

  “It looks better today,” Kade said, watching me from the doorway.

  I snorted, copping an eyeful of myself. I looked horrific. I was amazed Anne had even said hello to me, given I looked like I’d been beaten up and dragged through a hedge backward.

  “What time is dinner?”

  “Six. Mom got us an early reservation.”

  “And the play?”

  “Eight.”

  Which meant the play wouldn’t be finished until around ten thirty. By the time we got back home, it would probably be eleven, which left me planning a clandestine dumpster diving adventure for midnight.

  “Audrey Fitzgerald.” Kade sighed. “What are you plotting now? And don’t bother trying to deny it. I can see the cogs turning from here.”

  I tilted my head and fluttered my eyelashes at him, making him laugh.

  “I’m not going to like it, am I?” He chuckled.

  “Probably not,” I agreed. “How do you feel about dumpster diving?”

  “As a recreational pastime? Not a fan. Don’t see the appeal.”

  “Right? Gross. But…”

  “Is that what you were doing this afternoon?” Kade backed up a step.

  “No! Geez, no need to back away. I don’t stink of trash.” As if to prove it, I sidled up to him and wrapped my arms around his neck. “But I have plans to indulge later tonight. Care to join?”

  Settling his hands on my hips, Kade sighed. “If it means keeping you out of trouble, why not?”

  I jerked my head back in surprise. I hadn’t expected him to say yes. “Really?” My voice came out more hopeful than I would have liked.

  “Yes, really.” He pressed his forehead against mine. “I realize I’ve been a bit neglectful of you this trip, leaving you to your own devices maybe a little too long.”

  “That’s okay. This trip was for you to visit with your parents. Anyway, I’ve been investigating Joyce’s murder. It’s fine.”

  “This trip was for both of us to visit with my parents, for them to get to know you and you to get to know them.”

  My heart skipped a beat, then took off at double time. “Don’t they like me?” I whispered, horrified I’d scared them off with my ghost talking abilities and passion for solving mysteries. I wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I’d thought Sylvia, Dennis, and I were getting along fine. Had I read the whole situation wrong?

  “They love you,” Kade assured me. “Almost as much as I do, I suspect.”

  “Oh, thank God, cos I love them too. I think they’re great!” I gushed.

  “What I’m saying, Audrey, is I’d like to spend a bit of alone time with you, and if the only way to do that is to go dumpster diving, then that’s what I’ll do.”

  Wrapping my arms around his waist, I rested my cheek on his chest and marveled at how lucky I was to land the most incredibly handsome, supportive, emotionally intelligent, sexy man on earth. Who else would go dumpster diving with you just so they could spend time with you?

  “I’m so glad I’m marrying you,” I whispered.

  “Ditto.” His lips grazed my ear, sending shivers down my spine. “We have a couple of hours before we need to get ready.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  His hands blazed a trail down my back, cupping my butt. “How about we take a nap?”

  I smiled, pressing closer. “I could really use a nap.”

  I stepped into Etoile, my arm linked through Kade’s, grateful I’d had the foresight to pack a little black dress. It helped that I’d googled the restaurant, and I don’t know what made me think we’d end up dining there—women’s intuition maybe—but whatever it was, I was extremely grateful for it. I doubt they’d have let me in if I’d turned up in my customary jeans and T-shirt.

  Etoile had an elegant ambiance. Soft lighting and classical music set the mood, and while we waited to be seated, I took in the beautiful décor and the attention to detail that had gone into every aspect of the restaurant. Tables were set with crisp linens and sparkling silverware, with a small vase of fresh flowers sitting in the center.

  “It’s so lovely,” I whispered to Sylvia, who’d dressed for the occasion in a stunning silver sequin number that draped her curves and fell to the floor in soft waves. She’d kept her makeup simple but gone with a bold red lip that I confess I was envious of. For a woman in her early sixties, she looked amazing—and younger than her actual years.

  “We like it. Obviously not somewhere we dine every night, but when you want something special, Etoile is it.”

  We were seated at a table near the back, and I was relieved by the dark lighting that would hopefully hide any mishaps. Given my clumsy gene, fancy restaurants made me very nervous. Hence the black dress, the perfect color should I spill anything on it.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17