Suspicions with Murder (A Rilynne Evans Mystery, Book Four) (9 page)

He chuckled as the elevator dinged again. “You caught me. I’m actually expecting a case file, but didn’t have time to pick it up before going to the fundraiser tonight. I just wanted to grab it before heading home. I figured since you’ll be tied up on your case for a while, I might as well spend my off time trying to get as much work done as I can.”

“Like you really need an excuse to work,” she laughed. “You’re the only person I know who likes to work as much as I do.”

“I don’t know if I’d go that far,” he stated as she heard the elevator doors open yet again. “I just like to occupy my time.”

“Well, I think I’m going to turn in. I have a long day of after party cleanup ahead of me tomorrow. If I don’t get enough sleep, I might just consider killing someone myself.”

“We can’t have that, now can we,” he chuckled. “Sleep well.”

After hanging up, Rilynne reached over and turned off the lamp, plunging the room into darkness. She had barely closed her eyes before the room changed in front of her.

She was standing on a stage lit up by hundreds of flashing lights. She could hear clapping and cheering from the audience, but the lights were shining too brightly for her to see anything past the edge of the platform.

“Our next contestant is Detective Rilynne Evans,” she heard from just behind her. She turned to find two large podiums at the center of the stage with a large wheel placed between them. Standing behind the podium on the left was Ben, wearing the same tuxedo he wore to the fundraiser.

“Detective Evans is a member of our very own Addison Valley homicide unit,” he continued in a cheesy, dramatic voice. “Her hobbies include solving murders, getting kidnapped, and eating cheeseburgers.”

“Hey,” she said defensively. Before she could say anything else, she was shuffled by a stagehand to the second podium. When she stepped up onto it, the room was once again filled with cheers.

She turned back to Ben, hoping for an explanation. The moment the chatter died down, though, he started speaking again. “For those of you who are new to the game, here’s how it’s played. The case will be laid out in
its entirety, and Detective Evans will be given thirty seconds to solve it,” he explained. With his hair slicked back and the phony grin on his face, he reminded her of nearly every game show host she had ever seen. “So let’s solve…that…case!”

He pulled out a large stack of note cards and flashed the audience his smile. “Let’s begin,” he said as he glanced down at the top card. “Brittney Price was a maid,” he said before flipping to the next. “She was murdered and thrown into the lake. So, Detective Evans, solve…that…case!”

“That’s all of the information you have?” she asked as a panic swept over her. “Where’s the evidence? Who had a motive to kill her?”

“Fifteen seconds,” Ben replied, again flashing his cheesy grin.

She looked around for any assistance, but before she could even begin to come up with a reasonable suspect, a loud buzzer sounded in her ear.

“I’m afraid time’s up,” Ben said, though the smile didn’t leave his face. “You can choose to keep what you’ve won so far but leave the case unsolved, or risk it all and spin the wheel.”

Rilynne looked closer at the wheel placed between them. The large wheel was divided into ten equal slats. Each had the face of a member of the Lewis household, along with one holding only a question mark. “So I’m supposed to just spin the wheel?” she asked. “I spin the wheel and it’ll tell me who murdered Brittney Price?”

“Why, of course,” he replied, his goofy smile faltering as if unsure why she was questioning the game.

“Well, then I guess I’ll spin,” she said, reaching for the wheel. She grabbed a notch on it and spun it as hard as she could. After taking a step back, she watched it spin around and around. Her heart began to race at the idea of the answer being just moments away. She quickly lost hope, though, when she realized the wheel wasn’t slowing.

She sat and watched it spin for what felt like hours before looking back toward Ben. If he was at all perturbed by its failure to stop, he didn’t show it. She was just about to give up and walk off of the stage when the clicking from the wheel started to slow. As she turned back around to face it, she saw it finally coming to a halt.

This was going to be it; she was going to have an answer at last. To her dismay, the wheel stopped on the one slat she had hoped it wouldn’t.

It landed on the question mark.

B
efore heading out the door the next morning, Rilynne stopped by the kitchen.

“The eggs and bacon will be finished in just a moment,” Lisa said when she saw her walk in.

“I’ll just take some toast for now,” she replied. “I’m going to go for a run, and don’t want a full stomach.”

Lisa pointed with her spatula to the plate sitting in the middle of the large island, which had a stack of toast already sitting on it. Rilynne still wasn’t entirely comfortable with someone else preparing all of her meals. In a way, it made her feel lazy. Lisa didn’t seem to mind it, though. She actually reminded her a bit of her mother, being both the same age and roughly the same height. Their hair was even a similar shade of auburn, though Lisa’s was much shorter. Lisa was also a few pounds heavier, though that didn’t say much being that Amber was maybe one-ten soaking wet. “Help yourself,” she said. “There’ll probably be extras when you’re done if you’re still hungry.”

“Thanks, Lisa,” Rilynne said as she grabbed two slices and walked back toward the door. After quickly finishing them, she pushed the door open and stepped outside.

It felt good to get out of the house and away from curious eyes. She wasn’t sure if everyone was so interested in her because she was a new arrival, or if it was just fallout from the murder. Either way, it made her uncomfortable.

She walked out the north wing door and headed straight for the tree line like Lisa had instructed. As soon as she stepped into the woods, she found the trail. Because she had never been on the path, she carried herself more cautiously than she normally would. The last thing she needed to do was to fall and injure herself on her third day. If she did, she was positive that neither the household staff nor her fellow homicide detectives would let it go without significant ridicule.

The plants that brushed against her bare arms were wet with morning dew. As the cool breeze blew against her damp skin, it sent a chill through her that shook off the last of her drowsiness. She took in a deep breath and let her mind drift away as she listened to her feet slapping against the dirt path. She was so relaxed that she didn’t see the large man on the path in front of her until she was nearly on top of him.

“What are you doing out here?” he asked abruptly. Though he still maintained his intimidating demeanor, he was visibly shaken by her presence.

Rilynne’s heart was racing as he stared down at her. “I wanted to get a run in before I started working,” she said calmly. She fought off the urge to return the question when she noticed he was still in his security uniform. She tried to glance casually around to see what he could be up to, but he took a step toward her and drew her attention back to him.

“Mrs. Lewis will expect all evidence of the party last night gone before lunch,” Olsen stated. “If I were you, I would get started on it instead of playing around in the woods.”

Rilynne nodded quickly as she stepped around him and continued down the path. As soon as she was out of sight, she turned around to try and get a look at what he was up to. When she did, though, she found that he was gone. Not wanting to risk her cover, she turned back around and continued her run. With any luck, she would be able to sneak away later and go back for a better look.

She walked back into her room twenty minutes before she was due to start working. Luckily, the female staff bathroom was empty, so she was able to quickly rinse off before getting dressed.

When she looked down at her schedule for the day, she found that instead of joining Nancy in the ballroom, she was spending the entire morning in the trophy room. She didn’t have time to read over the room instructions, so she grabbed the binder and made her way to the north wing.

The trophy room she had pictured was nothing like the one she walked into. In lieu of ribbons or trophies, the room was filled with what looked like nothing more than knick-knacks. There were small figurines, decorative plates, and countless other small items covering the walls from floor to ceiling.

After taking a few moments to get over the bewilderment she was feeling, she opened the binder and looked over the instructions for each item. Cyndi Lewis seemed to favor this room above the rest, because details for each item were nearly three times as long as those in any other room. She understood as she looked around why she was given a full morning to dust the one room.

While easy work, it was still tedious. Upon examining each item as she cleaned it, she discovered that the majority of them were quite valuable. The plates appeared to all be collectables, and the figurines were crystal instead glass like she had originally assumed. Cyndi Lewis was a collector and these items were her pride and joy.

She handled each piece carefully, admiring them as she polished away every piece of dust that had settled since their last cleaning.
She was so lost in thought as she worked her way around the room, that she hadn’t realized she was done until she made it back around to the first items she had cleaned.

Rilynne stepped down off of the ladder and admired the spotless shelves. The collection really was quite impressive.

“Looks like you finished with your morning work,” Danny said as he walked up next to her. “Not bad, either. Nancy has always had trouble with this room. I’m sure Mrs. Lewis will be pleased to have someone who can clean it without breaking anything.”

With a shocked look, she turned toward him and asked, “She broke something?”

He chuckled and nodded. “Two different occasions, actually. That’s part of the reason it was as dusty as it was in here. Mrs. Lewis refused to allow her to clean it after Brittney disappeared. I thought she was going to have a conniption after Mrs. Lewis told her. She was so furious; she didn’t talk to any of us for the rest of the day.”

“Yeah, I got the impression she didn’t like Brittney very much,” Rilynne casually mentioned. He shrugged, but his expression said it was true. “She did mention that Mrs. Lewis was even more high strung than normal right after Brittney disappeared. I honestly don’t think I could even picture her being worse than she is now.”

Rilynne hoped he would take the bait, and was pleased when he quickly did. “I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t seen if for myself,” he stated with a shocked sort of grin. “Even Mr. Lewis didn’t try to push her buttons during those first few days. Brittney was the first maid in a while that she actually trusted to get things done to her standards.”

“I heard on the news that it took them a few days to find her,” Rilynne stated. “I wouldn’t blame her for being angry at first. It must have looked like she just took off.”

“That’s exactly what it looked like. When she didn’t come to breakfast, Cole and I went looking for her. We checked the areas she was scheduled to clean that day, but nothing had been touched. Then we went to her room, thinking she might have overslept. Everything was gone. At first we thought she might have been let go, but Mrs. Lewis came looking for her a few hours later,” he explained.

Rilynne grabbed the supplies and walked out into the hall, Danny closely following her. “If she did such a great job, why would Mrs. Lewis have fired her?” she asked when they reached the supply closet. Danny shrugged again as he helped her put everything back in before they started down the west wing hall.

“I have a few hours before I’m needed,” he said as they approached the back entrance. “Care to take a walk? I can give you the official tour of the property.”

She glanced down at her watch before answering. Rilynne knew she was due to check in with Matthews, but she was finally getting someone to openly talk about Brittney. She also wasn’t entirely comfortable being alone with him. She hadn’t ruled him out as a suspect and she was unarmed. “Sure,” she responded a few moments later. She forced a smile on her face, though her insides were being unpleasantly twisted.

The warm sun struck her face as they stepped out onto the gravel driveway. Although it hadn’t rained in several months, the grass stretching out in front of them was bright green. She was just about to ask how they were able to maintain it so well, when they stepped out onto it. She knew immediately something was off. It felt strange under her feet, almost as if it was being pushed down to the ground by her weight, instead of growing out of it.

Rilynne stopped and looked down. “Is this fake?” she asked, though it appeared very real.

“Good eye,” he said as he took a few more steps forward. Rilynne quickly followed. “Mrs. Lewis had it installed two years ago. You have to look very closely to actually be able to tell.”

“It feels different,” she stated. “Not the texture of the grass, but the way it sits on the land.”

He looked impressed. “This is one of my favorite places to go,” he said as they came up to the tree line. Rilynne hesitated, but followed him in. To her relief, they didn’t go far before entering a small clearing. “It’s as close as you can get to leaving the manor without actually leaving.”

“What’s with that?” she asked as she walked around the clearing. “I’ve been doing this for years, and I’ve never actually worked somewhere that insisted all of the staff live on the property.”

He chuckled. “It’s a little strange, but it’s not a bad set up. We can come and go when we need to, and it’s not like I have a manor of my own to live in. I like to think of it as living with a bunch of roommates and no morning commute.”

“Why do you suppose they want the staff to live here instead of just coming in everyday?”

“We have several theories-most pretty fantastic-but if I had to guess, I would say Mr. Lewis is just a little nuts, and Mrs. Lewis is paranoid,” he stated as he walked back to the tree line. “We should probably get back, though. Lunch should be ready soon, and you won’t want to miss Lisa’s macaroni salad. Besides, you didn’t eat much this morning, so we better get something in you before that little uniform starts falling off.” He gave her a mischievous grin before turning and walking out of the clearing.

Rilynne paused as her cheeks began burning. She shook it off and started after him, but only made it a few feet before something stopped her: a rustling sound coming from over her shoulder. She turned slowly-wishing she had her gun-but let out a quick laugh at what she found.

“What is it?” Danny said as he rushed back toward her.

“A purple dog,” she chuckled.