Poisoned Pin: A Cozy Mystery (Brenna Battle Book 2) (16 page)

“Okay. We’ll see you in the morning. French toast with local strawberries.”

Oh, no. I couldn’t have her wasting French toast on me. There was no way I could make it through a breakfast with the Feldmans and the other guests after this. My nerves were so frazzled, if I were a cartoon, my hair would be standing on end. I caught a look at myself in the mirror above the dresser across from the bed. Actually, I did look sort of like one of those cartoons.

“No breakfast for me, please.” Oh, it was hard to say those words. And I failed miserably at hiding my wistfulness. Wow, I’d really love some homemade french toast with strawberries—and whipped cream and—
Focus, Brenna. Focus on Sammi
. That little runt. She was ruining my plans, and now my breakfast, too.
A breakfast that very well might be poisoned
, I reminded myself.

“Well, okay, Miss Young. I’ll have some coffee out for you in case you’d like to take some along with you.”

While I talked to Mrs. Feldman, I texted Sammi, and prayed for a response. “R U OK?”

A text came in from Sammi. “Ow.”

Great. Did that mean okay, or not?

I texted back, “?”

“Thanks,” I said to Mrs. Feldman, though I probably shouldn’t be drinking her coffee either.

I waited for what seemed like forever for an answer to my “?” from Sammi. Maybe I should’ve been more specific. “R U horribly injured?” I texted.

No response. Great. There was no other option. I was going to have to go out there, looking for her. With the Feldmans now wide awake from my lamp-breaking. I had to get back into disguise, and quick. Blythe planned to video chat with me in the morning, to walk me through the makeup regime. I could text her now and get her to help me, but did I really want to explain all this to Blythe? Nope. She’d get cold feet about the whole thing. I considered asking Blythe to come look for Sammi, but again, I didn’t want her to know just how far things had gone awry. There was no way she’d let me break into the residence, either to snoop for poison, or to get Sammi’s walkie talkie. I was on my own.

Thanks to Sammi’s oversight and her mom’s labeling, I couldn’t just forget the walkie talkie and dismiss it as Sammi’s problem. The Feldmans would find it sooner or later—probably sooner—and contact Sammi’s mother. Chances were, if she was pressed, something about me and what I was doing at the Blackberry Inn would come out.

I unzipped the makeup bag Blythe had given me and poured its contents onto the bed. There was a light clatter, and bits of powdery color scattered across the quilt.
Brilliant idea, Brenna. Just brilliant.
I turned my head away from the dust cloud of powder, fighting to quiet my cough. Who knew the stuff was so fragile? Blythe was going to kill me. Makeup was expensive; I knew that much. It was one of the reasons I’d never really taken to it. That and the fact that I’d spent nearly every moment training or on the mat. And you just can’t wear makeup on the mat, especially lipstick, foundation, or anything powder or glittery. It gets everywhere. Your partner’s gi ends up looking like a Shroud of Turin-style imprint of your face. I know. It happened to me more than once when I was trying to be welcoming to a new, makeup-wearing woman who wanted to try judo.

I surveyed the mess, picking up containers in turn, trying to figure out what was what. Underneath the flesh-toned powdery coating on one jar, the word
mask
stuck out at me. A mask! That’s exactly what I needed. I grabbed a washcloth from the adjoining bathroom and cleaned off the jar. Instructions were printed on the side, but I didn’t need those. I just needed to cover my face. To not look like Brenna Battle. Inside the jar, I discovered an awful, green concoction. It was thick and goopy. Perfect! I could slop this stuff on my face and go sleepwalking through the residence—assuming I could find a way in.

But Sammi was still out there, somewhere, and she wasn’t responding to my texts. There was no going down the trellis. There
was
no more trellis, thanks to Sammi. It would be quite a leap from the window to the ground. Especially with a broken trellis at the bottom. And who knows what else, hidden in the shadows. Bricks? A decorative but deadly boulder? There was just no way to turn that landing into a good one. And what if I landed right on Sammi and caused further damage?

It seemed I had no choice but to do some sleepwalking outside. I tied the complimentary fluffy white robe tightly around the silky pink nightie Blythe had insisted I take. Not a single stitch of my own, comfy clothes had made it into that suitcase. And believe me, I’d tried. But Blythe had not only packed it herself, she’d unzipped it in the rental car parking lot and taken out the sweats I’d snuck in. Sometimes it’s really sickening that she knows me so well. She insisted I needed to stay in character the whole time I was there. To “be in the right mindset.” Okay, so she was right. Maybe not about the mindset thing, but I was glad I had this flimsy nightie, now that I was wandering around in the middle of the night, pretending to be a sleepwalking beauty queen.

I slathered the mask on. It smelled nasty. It felt pretty nasty, too. Worse than the makeup. Kind of tingly. I’m not big on my face tingling. Especially these painful little pin-prick tingles. Wasn’t that a sign of nerve damage? I shrugged it off. I was an Olympian, for crying out loud. If frou-frou girls could handle this stuff, so could I.

I slipped out and locked my door behind me—after all, the Feldmans might actually be murderers. Not that thaey had any motive to kill me. Unless they found out I was snooping.
Oh. No. Don’t go there.
Anyway, the thought of them possibly entering the room I was staying in gave me the heebie-jeebies.

I tiptoed downstairs, thankful I didn’t have to get past any of the other guest rooms to do so. I moved carefully, but as swiftly as I could, running my hand down the stair railing to keep my bearings in the dark. I kept going back and forth between worrying that Sammi had slipped into unconsciousness and had been lying below my window for a dangerously long time, and thinking the kid’s phone had simply died.

The deadbolt on the front door sounded so loud in the still of the night. After I slid it open, I stood there for a moment, holding my breath and listening for signs of life from the rest of the house. When I heard nothing, I cautiously turned the antique glass knob and let myself out. The street was just as quiet as the house. All I could hear were the distant ocean sounds—the murmur of waves that tends to fade into the background and go unnoticed during the day, especially during good weather, but which never truly goes away.

I made my way to the area beneath my window. It wasn’t hard to find the right spot, even in the dark. The total destruction of the trellis was a dead giveaway. I hurried to the pile of debris and ivy.

“Sammi?” I whispered, pawing through the vines.

My phone vibrated, and I stopped. I had a text message—from Sammi. Great. I was standing out here, in the middle of the night, with stinging goop stuck to my face, frantically picking through a tangle of ivy and splintered trellis, risking total humiliation and possible arrest, and Sammi was texting me now?

“IM OK,” her text said.

“Go home, Sammi!”

“No way!”

“Going 2 kill U!”

“LOL.”

“LOL?” This was not funny! Was this today’s tween equivalent of nanny-nanny boo-boo?

“I’m in,” she texted.

“In what?”

“The house! Bathrm wndw opn. Going 2 get wkie tkie”

“No!” I texted back furiously. “Get out!”

“Going 2 C wht else can find.”

I couldn’t let Sammi get caught breaking in. Surely encouraging a kid to engage in criminal activity would be an even greater crime than breaking in myself. I slinked along the side of the house, hoping and praying all the other guests were asleep, and not, right at this moment, dialing 9-1-1 to report a prowler. Maybe I’d get lucky and they’d just think I was a ghost.

I soon spotted the tiny bathroom window, still open. The window was pretty high up, but an old wheelbarrow rested right under neath it. I shined my phone’s light on it. It was filled with potting soil and planted with purple wave petunias and pink geraniums. At least, I think they were geraniums before someone stepped on them. Not only had the flowers in the wheelbarrow been trampled, I could clearly see the wheelbarrow tracks and footprints that had taken their toll on the white impatiens that filled the flower bed against this side of the house. Sammi had dragged the wheelbarrow from its home several yards away so she could use it as a step stool. I sighed. I had no choice but to do the same.

25

I hoisted my top half through the window, then hesitated. I couldn’t exactly plunge headfirst to the bathroom floor. I reached over and down, hanging with my belly on the window sill, and grabbed the towel rack, then swung myself around and lowered my legs inside. There was a splash, and a cool, wet sensation enveloped my foot. I’d stepped right into the toilet bowl. I teetered for a moment with one foot on the toilet seat, then hopped down, holding one soaked, fuzzy-slippered foot over the open bowl.

Aargh! Now what? I hopped, grabbed the hand towel from the ring above the sink, and used it to remove the horrid slipper. I swaddled the soppy slipper in the towel and took the other one off my foot. I debated throwing them both out the window, but I was afraid something might go wrong—didn’t something always go wrong?—and I wouldn’t be able to retrieve them. Not that I cared about Blythe’s slippers that much, but I didn’t need to leave any more incriminating evidence behind.

As soon as I crept into the hall, I spotted Sammi, with her back to me, hesitating in front of a closed door, as though deciding whether or not to open it. I inched behind her, undetected, then clamped my hand over her mouth. She clawed my arm and tried to hurl me forward, over her shoulder, with a judo throw. I have to say, my heart swelled with pride even as her sharp little nails found their way under the loose sleeves of my fuzzy robe. The defensive reactions against this common judo throw were so ingrained in me, the attempt got her nowhere, but I was certain any other adult, taken by surprise, would’ve been unbalanced by it, at least for a moment.

“Sammi,” I whispered right in her ear. “It’s Brenna. Stop gouging my arm.” She let go, and I lowered my hand from her face and wiped it on my robe. It was slobbery from her attempts get her teeth in position to bite me. She was quite the self-defense multitasker.

Sammi wiped her own hand on her jeans. In her effort to fight me, she’d come in contact with the soggy, slipper-containing portion of my robe. “Ew! What the heck is in your pocket?”

“
Never. Mind.
Just go back out the way you came. I’ll be out in a few minutes.” While I was in here, I might as well have a look around, right?

“You don’t know where the walkie talkie is,” Sammi said.

“You’re going to tell me where it is, right now.”

Sammi smiled that smug little smile and shook her head. I clenched my teeth. Sammi had the upper hand, and she knew it. All she had to do was make a little noise, and I was done for.

“Fine,” I hissed. “Get the walkie talkie. I’ll meet you outside the bathroom window.”

There was nothing I could do to force her to leave. I’d just have to hope she’d satisfied her need for snooping and that she’d be there waiting for me when I was done.

I tiptoed up the stairs, ignoring the warning voice inside. This could be all for nothing. I had to get some bit of information out of this. I’d just see if I could confirm that the Feldmans were fast asleep. Then I could try to find their office and do some poking around. As soon as I reached the top of the stairs, I knew I was going to get no such reassurance. A dim light glowed underneath a door. That must be their bedroom. I flattened myself to the wall and slid closer, glad now, for my bare feet.

I heard hushed voices, and froze, breath held.

“I just don’t think I want Jacinda staying here anymore,” Mrs. Feldman said.

Jacinda, staying here? Why hadn’t I thought of that? It made perfect sense. There weren’t very many places to stay in Bonney Bay, after all.

“I know she’s a little weird, but—” A male voice began.

“A little weird? She’s a nut. We’ve tried to make the best of her ghost story hype, but it’s getting to be too much. I’m afraid she’s going to go too far and scare the guests away. Besides, I just don’t feel right about it, now that someone’s died.”

The man, no doubt the mysterious Mr. Feldman, said, “His death has nothing to do with this ghost business. They’re going to charge Harvey any day now, I hear.”

“It has to do with it when Jacinda goes online and says it does! Now we look like we’re taking advantage of a man’s death too, because we linked to her stories from our site and added all that malarkey to the inn’s history. I knew it was a bad idea. Remember when we used to only have normal guests?”

“Yeah, I remember when we used to have half as many guests! Look, it’s not our fault Derek Thompson died.”

“I just don’t want her staying here anymore. And I want that stuff off our website.”

“She’s checking out tomorrow. But how do you suggest we turn her away next time?”

“I don’t know. I’d hoped Reiner House would be open for business soon, and she’d prefer staying there. But now … ”

“Don’t worry, honey. It will work out.”

I listened carefully to Mr. Feldman’s voice, trying to get a good read on him. Could he have been involved in Derek’s death without his wife’s knowledge? I wished I could stick around and find out more. Search their office, maybe. But they were wide awake, and then there was Sammi. The only way to really get her out of here and out of danger of getting both of us into a heap of trouble, was to meet her outside like I’d said I would.

And now that I knew Jacinda was here, staying at the inn, there was really no way I could stick around for breakfast, and give my creep-o-meter a chance to check Mr. Feldman out face-to-face. Someone who’d never spent time with me in person might not recognize me under all that makeup, but someone who’d talked to me at length … that was a different story. Not to mention the fact that I did not want to stick around for the discovery of the broken trellis, the tell-tale trampled flowers under the bathroom window …