Nightshade on Elm Street: A Flower Shop Mystery (32 page)

“Halston?” came a voice not far behind me. “What are you doing out here?”

I turned to see Orabell step out of a thicket of pine trees, a martini glass in her hand. She peered at me curiously. “You’re not Halston.”

I removed my hat, feeling a bit foolish now that I’d been discovered.

“Oh, Aggie, it’s you!” she exclaimed loudly, then hiccuped. “Why didn’t you say so? Why are you wearing a black ski hat and jacket on such a warm evening? Are you spying on us? And where’s Mark?”

“It’s Marco, and he’ll be along soon.” I ignored her other questions as I slipped out of the jacket, rolled it, and tucked it in my purse.

“I can’t find Halston. You didn’t pass his car coming in, did you?”

“No, sorry. I haven’t seen him.” I glanced between the trees to the lake, where the sun had turned the water into liquid gold. Sunset would be in just a minute.

“Damn fool said he had some sort of meeting to go to this evening and took off.” She sighed heavily.

A tiny alarm went off in my head. “Did Halston tell you who he was meeting, Orabell?”

“That’s what’s so puzzling. He’ll usually say so if he’s meeting with a client. I don’t know what could be keeping him. It’s past sunset and he hates to miss his sunset martini.” She finished off her drink, then gazed around, a perturbed frown on her face. “I hope nothing happened to him.”

“Has Halston ever done this before?”

“Never.” She paused, a baffled look on her face. “I take that back. He did the same thing a few nights ago.”

“What night was that?”

“I don’t remember exactly. It might have been Tuesday…or Monday…or a day last week. Sometimes I get my days mixed up. Blame it on my age, I guess.”

Or on the number of martinis consumed. “This past Tuesday was the night Lily drowned.”

She flinched so subtly, if I hadn’t been watching her closely, I would have missed it. “Oh, that’s right. What was I thinking? Then it couldn’t have been Tuesday evening. Halston and I played bridge with some friends until all hours of the morning.”

“Are you sure? Because that’s not what Halston remembers.”

“Can’t say I didn’t warn you about my memory. Like Halston’s always saying, ‘Orabell, you’d lose your head if it wasn’t attached.’ I don’t know. Maybe I should listen to him and see a shrink. Couldn’t hurt, could it?”

Before she could rattle on further, I said, “Orabell, this is important. What did you do Tuesday night?”

She blinked rapidly, clearly taken aback, then said impatiently, “Whatever Halston said we did.”

“I’d like to hear it from you.”

She glanced back through the trees toward her cottage, as though she couldn’t wait to escape. “I don’t remember.”

“It’s really important, Orabell.”

“What’s so gol-danged important about it that you have to come out here and sneak around in a black hat and jacket?”

She put me on the spot and all I could do was stammer, “I—I’m trying to catch a killer.”

“Halston? Is that who you’re thinking the killer is? Is that why you keep asking about Tuesday evening? Well, let me tell you something, missy.” She shook her index finger at me. “You’re an amateur. You’re focusing on the wrong person. Why don’t you turn around and look at the house behind you? That’s where your focus should be.”

“What do you mean? That Pryce killed Lily?”

“Never mind what I mean,” she said crossly. “Get your partner out here. He’s the pro. He’ll get it.”

I knew Orabell was about to leave, but I wanted to keep her talking because it was obvious she knew a lot more than she was willing to say. “What will he get? I don’t understand what I’m supposed to tell him.”

“Just tell him what I told you. I’m going back to my house,” she announced.

“Can we come over to talk to you when my partner gets here?”

“You’re welcome to join us on the deck as long as you don’t turn the evening into a question and answer session. Jillian and Claymore are there already, with more coming—Jake, Melissa, Pryce when he gets home from work, and Halston, eventually. If you come,” she said drily, “it’ll be a party.”

With that group, it was always more like a circus, and was I really in the mood to play ringmaster? However, it
could
be an opportunity to find out who left the note on my car. First, however, I wanted to finish questioning Orabell without Halston to influence her.

“Before you go, would you do me one more favor so I can move forward with the investigation? Just think back to Tuesday night. It’s really important.”

She had turned to go, but now swung around to face me, clearly irritated. “If Halston said we weren’t playing bridge, then we watched TV, Miss Nosybody, as we do every night. Then I took a sleeping pill and went to bed. Does that answer your question?”

“Did Halston take a sleeping pill, too?”

“The old fool doesn’t need pills to sleep. Anything else you need to know, ask Halston. He’s bound to be back soon. He left a full pitcher of his cocotinis in the refrigerator. He wouldn’t make ’em and let ’em go stale, you know.”

I watched her stagger toward her house, then turned to scope out the beach. The air was redolent with the smell of fish and wet sand, a scent that reminded me of childhood summers at the dunes with my family. Tonight, however, the beach was empty. The only sounds were of waves slapping softly against the sand and gulls crying far overhead as they swooped and dived as one body.

My stakeout was a bust. If someone had wanted to lure me out to the pier, I doubted he or she would try it now, but I gave it another five minutes anyway, then heard a muffled voice coming from Pryce’s cottage, as though a TV set was on. Was he home from work? Could he have left the note for me after all?

The sun had gone to bed, making the area behind Pryce’s house very dark now. I put on my black hat and jacket, circled around the deck to the steps, then crept
up the stairs and proceeded cautiously to one side of the sliding glass door. I kept low to the ground, below the level of the windows, and, in a crouch, peered around the doorframe. To my surprise, Melissa stood at the kitchen counter in a pale blue silk bathrobe, filling a glass with wine. An empty wineglass sat beside hers.

I peered around again and saw Melissa lift the wineglass to take a drink, causing a circle of diamond-like crystals on the thin gold watch she wore to sparkle in the overhead lights. It was definitely not the rubber watch she’d had on when she talked to us at Pisces. But it was identical to the watch I’d seen in a photo just days earlier—Orabell’s Piaget.

Was it possible Orabell and Melissa had the same watch? Or had Melissa, and
not
Lily, stolen Orabell’s costly timepiece? According to what Marco had learned from Claymore, Melissa hadn’t attended that party, but what if the watch had been missing
prior
to the party and Orabell hadn’t yet realized it?

I could just hear Marco asking,
Does it have any bearing on the murder investigation? What would it prove if Melissa did have the Piaget? That she was a thief?

I raised my head just as Melissa looked in my direction. Quickly, I ducked out of sight, praying I hadn’t given myself away. Staying beneath the windows, I crawled to the far end of the deck so I’d be closer to the steps in case I needed a quick getaway. I waited a few beats and when no one came outside, I slowly lifted my head.

Melissa was standing in front of the sink on the far side of the kitchen, her back to me, washing dishes, talking to someone just outside of my range of vision. Because of the distance between us, I couldn’t hear what she was saying, only that she sounded happy.

Go home,
a voice whispered in my ear.
You’re in danger.

With a shiver, I glanced behind me, but no one was there. I scanned the deck and what I could see of the shoreline, but nothing moved.

Go home,
the voice whispered again.
Now.

I lifted my head again and saw Melissa rinse a glass and set it in the drainer. Movement on the far side of the kitchen caught my eye. A man’s bare leg came into view. I clapped a hand over my eyes, afraid I was about to see Pryce walk into the room naked.

Hearing a voice that was definitely not Pryce’s, I peered through my fingers and gasped. Jake!

He was dressed in a blue swim thong and a pair of flip-flops, reminding me that skimpy bathing suits simply weren’t meant to be worn by any male, muscular body or not. But thank goodness the windows weren’t open or my gasp would have given me away for sure.

Jake moved up behind Melissa and slipped his arms around her waist, pulling her against him. She laughed and leaned her head back against his bare chest, then turned toward him for a long kiss.

Were Melissa and Jake having an affair right under Pryce’s nose? How brazen could two people be? How despicable? How sneaky? How potentially murderous?

Was that what Orabell had meant by turning my focus on Pryce’s house?

A lively tune began to play, ending their steamy kiss. Melissa grabbed her cell phone from the counter, looked at the screen, and her eyes widened in alarm. She said something to Jake, and he grabbed his clothes lying over the back of a kitchen chair. Had Pryce texted that he was on his way?

By Jake’s reaction, I knew I was right. He pulled on his jeans and T-shirt, grabbed a set of keys off the counter, and jogged toward the sliding glass door. Yikes.

I rolled up against the siding and lay still, my face
turned down toward the deck. Thankfully, no outside lights were on, and Jake wasn’t expecting anyone to be there; otherwise, I wouldn’t have been all that hard to spot.

I heard the glass slide back, then Jake say softly, “Call you tomorrow, Melly-belly.”

Oh, ugh.

I turned my head just far enough to see Jake jog down the steps to the pool area. On my hands and knees, I scurried to the edge of the deck and watched as he disappeared among the trees, heading in the direction of the Burches’ cottage; then I crawled back to the window and peered inside.

The kitchen was empty. Melissa had no doubt left to get dressed before Pryce showed up. However, her brown and white Coach purse was on the counter, the very same purse I’d found the folded love note in.

So what did I have? Two people with motives for murder: Jake didn’t want to lose out on Lily’s money, and Melissa didn’t want to lose Pryce. Two people who might have banded together to get rid of the thorn in both of their sides—Lily.

And now Jake was gone, Melissa was upstairs, and Pryce was absent for, hopefully, the twenty minutes it took to get from his office to the cottage. I’d call that the perfect opportunity to do a little sleuthing.

I
eased open the sliding glass door just enough to squeeze through, then paused to make sure no one was in the vicinity. I tiptoed into the kitchen, unzipped Melissa’s Coach purse, and searched through the contents but found nothing that might tie her to Lily’s murder, not even Pryce’s note.

I stopped cold at the sound of a thumping, as though someone was coming down carpeted stairs. As high heels clicked against tiles, I slid the purse back into the corner and ducked down behind the island.

Footsteps came into the kitchen and stopped.

“Pryce?” Melissa called softly. “Are you home?”

Why did she think Pryce was here?

Duh! Because I’d left the sliding glass door open.

“I know someone is here,” Melissa said. “I’ve got my cell phone and I’m dialing 911.”

“No, wait!” I jumped up, causing Melissa to stagger backward with a shriek until she hit the refrigerator.

“You nearly frightened me to death,” she cried, her hand over her heart.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. The door was unlocked, so I let myself in.”

“You couldn’t ring the front doorbell like a friggin’
normal person?” she asked, tossing her phone on the counter. “What are you doing here anyway?”

Think fast, Abby.
“Actually,” I said, drawing out the word so my brain had time to regroup, “Pryce asked me to meet him.”

She narrowed her eyes as she came toward me, stopping inches away. “This evening?”

I backed up until I bumped against the granite-topped island. “That’s the plan.”

“What are you meeting about?”

“I don’t know. His note just said he wanted to talk.”

“Back up,” she said.

As if I could.

“He wrote
you
a note?”

“Yes. I’ll show you.” I stepped to one side and pulled the note out of my purse.

She snatched it from my hand and read it. “Where did you get this?”

“It was under a wiper blade on the windshield of my car.”

Her gaze cleared, as though she suddenly understood. She dangled it under my nose. “Pryce didn’t write this note to you.”

“How do you know that?”

“You told me yourself that he never wrote you notes, so why would he start now?”

A question for which I had no answer. In fact, she echoed my own doubts. Then for some reason Jillian’s words jumped into my head:
Rumor has it that Pryce still carries a torch for you.

Even if I were gullible enough to believe that, I knew Melissa wouldn’t buy it. Instinct told me to go on the offensive. “What are
you
doing here?”