Worst Laid Plans (A Maddox Storm Mystery Book 1) (8 page)

In my defense, though, who installed a sprinkler system in the kitchen? What was wrong with a nice old-fashioned smoke detector and emergency fire blanket?

Burns stepped from the pantry, hands full with boxes of cereal. “Morning, Ms Storm.”

I felt a stab of disappointment at the formality. I thought he’d softened toward me over Mom’s lasagna last night.

“Can I help with anything?” I asked, gesturing at the cereal boxes.

“The table’s set in the dining room,” he said, walking past me. “The coffee maker’s turned on in the lounge.”

I couldn’t tell if that was a rebuke or an invitation, but I was officially impressed. For someone who napped from one room to the next, Burns sure got a whole lot done.

With one last cringing look around the kitchen, I followed him out into the hallway. “Mr Hollow is insured, right?”

“We have an appointment with the assessor on Friday afternoon.”

“Well, that’s a relief.”

If Burns agreed, he kept it to himself.

The curtains hadn’t been drawn open in the dining room and the dimmer light was turned all the way down, casting gloom rather than glow over the narrow room. While Burns deposited the cereal boxes on the sideboard, I slipped between him and the table and reached for the curtains.

“Stop!”

I froze, heart pounding as I eyeballed the floor around my boots. “What? What is it?”

Burns moved faster than I thought him capable of, coming up behind me and pinching closed the slither I’d cracked down the curtain halves.

“The portraits,” he explained, his voice back to normal, understated levels. “Sunlight is death to the portraits.”

“I see.” I turned to take a look at these vampire portraits on the wall across the table from us. More Hollow ancestors, presumably, all dressed in their Sunday best and watching me with unamused expressions.

Personally, I thought they’d be happier in the alcove beneath the stairs, but it wasn’t my place to suggest improvements.

Breakfast was a healthy affair, not a Pop Tart in sight. It was just as well, I supposed as I helped myself to a bowl of Raisin Bran. If I carried on as I’d started out yesterday, I’d be on a slippery road to debauchery by the end of the week.

“So,” I said to Burns when he sat down across from me. “What’s the story on Ms Daggon?”

“She’s dead,” he said flatly.

My brows shot up. Had Burns just made a joke? In poor taste, and not very funny, but he didn’t come across as a man with much experience in humor.

Burns put a spoonful of cereal in his mouth and crunched. His eyes were on the bowl, not watching for my reaction.

Maybe not a joke.

I changed tactics. “I must say, I was surprised to find Ms Daggon in the kitchen.”

“Where else would she be?” He glanced at me, then back down at his bowl. “She
was
the cook.”

He was messing with me.

I finished my breakfast, watching Burns, waiting him out.

Burns stood, smoothing his jacket where it had ruched up his belly.

“I’m getting a coffee for myself.” He stretched over the table to collect my empty bowl and stacked it on his. “Would you like one?”

I stared at him, dumbfounded. That was really it? Not another peep about what Ms Daggon was doing at Hollow House? “You’re not easy to talk to, are you?”

Unfazed, he gathered his used napkin and the stacked bowls into one hand. “You’re the one answering a question with another question.”

“I’m just trying to find out how Ms Daggon ended up as the cook here,” I mumbled.

“Then why didn’t you ask?”

“Ask what?” Mr Hollow appeared in the doorway, dressed as always in a cream linen suit. His hair was neater than I’d ever seen it, combed over and long enough in the front to flirt with the thick black rim of his eyeglasses.

Burns pushed his chair in. “Black or white, Ms Storm?”

Remembering the fancy coffee maker in the lounge, I ventured, “Cappuccino?”

“If you insist,” Burns murmured on his way out.

Mr Hollow busied himself at the sideboard and came back with a bowl of something wheat and crunchy.

“Ask what?” he repeated as he settled into the chair at the head of the table.

I started to plonk my elbows on the table before my manners kicked in. Folding my arms instead, I tilted my head at Mr Hollow. “Why does Burns persist in calling me Ms Storm?”

“If you don’t like your name,” Mr Hollow said, “you missed an excellent opportunity to change it when you married last year.”

“What does it take to get a linear conversation in this house?” I huffed.

His lips twitched. “Try me.”

I straightened, leaning in an inch. “Okay, then, why was Ms Daggon working here and how on earth have I not heard about her removal from Silver Firs High?”

“Ah.” Mr Hollow placed his spoon beside his untouched bowl and gave me his full attention. “Ms Daggon hadn’t left the school, not technically. You know the school board has been offering her early retirement for years?”

I laughed at the gentleman euphemism for trying to axe her. “I’ve also heard of several attempts to have her outright fired, but Principal Limly always opposed the motion rather vehemently.”

“Ms Daggon passed retirement age in February. The last letter she received from the board wasn’t a voluntary offer. It was an official notification. She wouldn’t be returning to school after the summer.”

“Principal Limly didn’t do anything about it?”

“I’m sure he tried.” Mr Hollow shrugged. “Ms Daggon was forced to rent her house out for additional income.”

Crap, now I felt terrible about every miserable thought I’d had about the woman. The economy was on the road to recovery, but pension plans had been hit hard and would take a lot longer. This was the worst time to retire.

My face crumpled in dismay. “Was her pension wiped out completely?”

“Not that I would know,” Mr Hollow said. “She needed the extra funds to pay her exorbitant lawyer fees. She was suing the board of education.”

“For what?” I exclaimed in disbelief. “Unfair dismissal?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Mr Hollow said and picked up his spoon again. “Mind you…” He pointed that spoon at me. “This is all on the hush hush, so keep it to yourself.”

“Would it matter now?”

“I gave my word,” he said, his watery blue eyes sharpening on me. “A man’s honor doesn’t die with the dead. I’m only telling you on account that you found her, and I figure you deserve to know why she was here.”

“Don’t worry, Mr Hollow,” I promised. “I won’t say anything.”

I sat back, swallowing the indignant lump that had formed in my throat. Unfair dismissal? I couldn’t believe it.

Actually, I could.

This was so typical of Ms Daggon. And the reason I usually never bothered about sparing her a nice thought.

If you think I’m being harsh here, let me tell you about Junior year and the time we were learning to make a blouse in Home Ed. I accidentally sewed closed the armholes of mine, and Ms Daggon made me wear that blouse in her class for the rest of the semester, my arms plastered inside the bodice, unable to do a thing except sit in the back of the class and glare at her.

Now that was unfair. Being asked to retire quietly after decades of disservice to the community was not.

“Did you agree with Ms Daggon suing the board?” I said to Mr Hollow. “Is that why you took her in?”

Mr Hollow shifted in his chair. “I felt sorry for the woman.”

“She cooks—cooked—a darn side better than me and she was happy to work in exchange for a roof over her head,” Burns refuted in a barely audible murmur as he came in and set a tray of mugs down on the table.

I looked at Burns. “You’ve been doing the cooking since, um…”

“Chef Pierre left?” Burns supplied. He handed me a mug of frothed coffee and nodded.

My jaw dropped.

Butler, receptionist, housemaid and cook?

I was beginning to appreciate why he needed all those extended naps.

∞∞∞

The Seafood Grille & Bar, unofficially known as Seeffies to us locals, hugged the corner of Birch Road and the boardwalk down the South Pier end. It had a canopied deck on the boardwalk with a stunning view over the lake, closed this evening due to the blustery wind and threatening squall.

I was meeting Jenna and Jack for dinner, and found them in the courtyard garden that opened onto the green beneath a trellised shade. The heating lamps were on, casting a soft glow over the tables.

Jack was in jeans and a stone-gray ribbed long-sleeve tee that shrugged the lean muscle of his biceps and chest. I still couldn’t get over it, that this copper-curled gorgeous hunk was Jack Spinner.

I grinned at him as I draped my coat over the back of a chair and sat. “How’s the cop business?”

“Jack was just telling me about the autopsy,” said Jenna.

“What autopsy?”

Jack threw an arm around Jenna’s shoulder. “The one she promised not to breathe a word about.”

“And I won’t.” Jenna snuggled up to him, making a face at me that assured full disclosure as soon as we were alone.

Jack sighed heavily. “You’re going to drag her off to the restroom in about two seconds and tell her everything, right?”

“Ooh,” I cooed to Jenna, impressed. “He’s good.”

Jenna un-snuggled and pecked him on the cheek. “Maddie and I share the same breath, so technically…?”

The look he gave her was so adorably indulgent, my heart tingled on Jenna’s account.

“This doesn’t leave the table until Detective Bishop decides to go public, okay?” Jack said.

Jenna and I both crossed our hearts and prayed not to die young. I leaned in to hear better.

“We got the preliminary reports on Ms Daggon’s autopsy back today,” Jack divulged in a hushed tone. “Cause of death was determined as cardiac arrest.”

“I knew it!” I whisper-shouted.

“Bet you didn’t know this,” Jenna said. “Her heart was apparently healthy, no reason for it to just stop.”

I pulled back, frowning at Jack. “But it does happen, doesn’t it?”

“Sometimes.” He shrugged. “We’ll know more when the forensic report comes in. They’ve already run some basic toxicology tests and found nothing, but Detective Bishop has requested the full spectrum.”

“What does
that
mean?”

“It means they’re testing for poisons,” Jenna piped in.

My stomach pulled tight. “Detective Bishop thinks Ms Daggon was murdered?”

“Don’t let’s jump the gun, now,” Jack said. “Detective Bishop is just being thorough.”

The waitress’s arrival cut our conversation short.

I grabbed a menu, grateful to push Ms Daggon aside for the moment. I hated the idea of her being murdered, of course. But I hated the idea of someone I might know being a murderer more.

My phone went off in my coat pocket while we placed our orders, the quiet swoosh of an arrow slicing air.

Jenna waited until the waitress had flashed her toothy smile and sauntered off before quizzing, “You still have Joe’s ring tone set to Cupid’s bow?”

I held onto my menu, picking at the laminated edge. “It’s unobtrusive and easy to ignore.”

Which was important, as I had no intention of blocking or declining Joe’s calls. I wanted him to feel as if they were being swallowed into a black abyss, kind of how he’d made me feel.

“I’m sorry you’re going through all that,” Jack said, offering me his goofy smile. “Jenna told me.”

“I left out the pertinent details,” Jenna alerted me.

Jack didn’t seem bothered by her admission, but I thought of that look he’d given Jenna earlier and made a quick decision.

“Since this table has a one-night moratorium on gabbing, I don’t mind sharing,” I said, and went on to give him the abbreviated version of what my no-good soon-to-be-ex cheating husband had done.

SIX

Some days just start out right. Maybe it was all the bran instead of my customary almond croissant for breakfast. Dressed in sweats, a fleece hoodie and running shoes, and all filled up on good intentions, I jogged in place to loosen my muscles. The squall last night had blown out and the lake was smooth as glass, reflecting the morning sunlight that shone down from a cloudless powdery blue sky.

I took off at a sprint down the lake trail, breathing in the scent of pine from the woods that flanked my left. Ponytail flapping, arms and legs pumping, I was an eco-friendly machine.

Two minutes later, I was bent double, gasping for oxygen and clutching the pain in my side. Maybe not a machine quite yet, but I’d get there. I strolled the rest of the way into town, consoling myself with catch-phrases like
Baby steps
and
Rome wasn’t built in a day.

I had nothing on my agenda, except to grab a coffee and maybe swing by The Vine.