The Azalea Assault (18 page)

Neil Patrick rushed his wife and the sick dog out toward the car. People muttered uncomfortably for some minutes after their hosts left, and then Joseph stumbled back in from the balcony. Cam thought he’d gone down the balcony steps to the covered porch below and then come in from through the lower level. He was soaked and looked very ill.

“You!” Joseph accused Annie. “You made me sick!”

“No, Joseph, wait!” Cam stepped between the two. “I think Ian has been trying to frame Annie from the beginning.”

Joseph blanched. “Ian?”

Everyone turned and stared. Cam hadn’t meant to blurt it, but she couldn’t stand another person blaming Annie for yet another thing she didn’t do.

“Maybe he put something on them once the brownies got here so she’d look guilty.”

“How would he know she made them?” Joseph didn’t like to be contradicted and it showed.

“Tom and Hannah were there when I asked her to make them. Is it possible you mentioned it?” she looked at them hopefully.

Tom shook his head, but Hannah answered, “Maybe,” which was enough to create doubt. Cam smiled at her gratefully.

“Maybe we should talk to Ian,” Samantha suggested.

“Or maybe we should call Officer Moreno. We can let the police sort this out,” Joseph suggested. “I’m going to call.”

He left again, cell phone in hand.

Annie had made a noise when Joseph spoke, but Cam pinched her. Protesting about the police would look bad. No
one other than she and Rob knew about the romantic debacle between Annie and Jake. Cam only now remembered Annie didn’t know what she’d learned from Rob. She edged closer to Annie.

“She’s his sister,” she said to her friend.

“Who’s whose sister?”

“The woman. Jake’s sister.”

“What?”

“The woman and boy you saw with Jake. Sister. Nephew. Should I spell that?”

“But…”

“N-E-P-H…”

“But Cam!”

“I know. You dumped garbage on his porch. He’ll get over it.”

Annie still looked distraught, and then Cam was brought back to their other reality—poisoned brownies—by an exclamation from Madeline Leclerc.

“I wonder if maybe she caught who did it on film.”

It took a minute for Cam to realize Madeline meant the pictures Annie had taken.

“Madeline, you’re a lifesaver! But… the brownies were in the kitchen.”

“We could at least see who left and when.” She looked pleased with herself, but then her face fell and she seemed to change her mind. “No… I’m sure everyone was gone at some point.”

“That’s true. You know, though… Ian left,” Cam said, grasping at straws.

“He did!” Madeline said.

“While I agree about Ian leaving and possibly having a motive to do this, this was hardly premeditated. What kind of lunatic carries poison around?” Samantha asked.

Cam frowned. She wished more people would buy into the solution that was best for all of them.

“It’s a good idea, though. Annie, let’s look at pictures,” Samantha said.

Annie ran down the stairs to get her camera from the study where she’d left it earlier, and returned moments later, a stunned expression on her face. “It’s gone!”

“What?” Cam asked.

“The camera I was using! Gone!”

“Well, it can’t have gone too far!”

“Unless the poisoner took it!” Annie said.

“You just had it, didn’t you?”

“I traded! The digital one I used earlier was downstairs!” Annie’s voice squeaked in frustration.

Cam wondered why there was no sound of a siren yet, or at least a knock downstairs.

She stepped out onto the second-floor landing to call Jake and tell him that in addition to the alleged poisoning, Annie’s camera had gone missing.

“What alleged poisoning?” Jake asked when she called.

“Didn’t Joseph call you?”

“Maybe. I’m not at the station. I’m on my way over.”

That made sense; she’d called his cell number, because she happened to have it, but the station was the first number on his card and was therefore the one Joseph must have called, though she did think the police dispatcher might have sent another car, one that could have arrived a bit more quickly.

A
s they waited, Cam and a servant cleared plates. Cam worried the treasurer would fuss over paying Annie for the brownies, in spite of the fact Cam
knew
the brownies had arrived
sans
poison. She couldn’t grasp, though, who would have messed with them besides Ian. It was a puzzle.

Annie continued to search frantically for her camera, but Cam suspected the guilty party had hidden it well, and without the Patricks at home, they could hardly begin turning the house inside out—though the idea that the camera had been squirreled away within the Patricks’ sprawling mansion suggested the culprit was someone familiar with the house. Unfortunately, that included all the Garden Society
board and household staff, as well as the Patricks themselves. At least, it eliminated Annie. Unfortunately, it also probably eliminated Ian, unless he’d come back in through the downstairs door and took it with him.

When Jake arrived, he began to organize people for questioning about the poisoning and the missing camera, but he’d barely gotten started when Hannah and Tom ran into the drawing room, Hannah crying. She gasped for breath and sputtered rain out of her face, trying to speak and mostly failing. They dripped all over the Persian rug, which didn’t help.

“Ian. Dead.” Tom didn’t appear to be breathing much easier than Hannah. Cam suspected Hannah was more used to exercise, but at least he wasn’t sobbing, so he could get his point across.

“Show me,” Jake said. When others started to follow, he held out a hand to stop them. “Just me.”

Cam sat, dumbfounded, and then looked at Annie, whose brows were knit together in confusion or annoyance.

“Now we really need evidence of who left,” Annie muttered.

Cam nodded, but it was reflex.

“Otherwise these buzzards will pin it on me.”

“What?” That startled Cam out of her haze.

“When I downloaded the memory card—I was gone about ten minutes. Somebody will have noticed.”

Cam sighed, knowing Annie was right. How could they prove where Annie really was?

“You
did
download the memory card?”

“Yes.”

“So we show them what you were doing. The computer has a time stamp.”

Annie looked around. “I think it’s better—in the long run—if nobody knows those pictures got saved.”

“But—”

“Cam, someone stole my camera, probably to get rid of evidence. Those pictures might have it, and your laptop has a short life if we go public.”

Cam’s first selfish thought was of all the work she had saved on her laptop.

“What about just the police?” Cam suggested.

“Oh, yeah, because Jake is now my biggest advocate.”

Cam frowned at Annie’s sarcasm. “He’s honest, at least.”

“Says his sister.”

“It
is
his sister!”

“Look—share tomorrow if you have to. But back it up tonight. A little paranoia never hurt anybody!”

Cam snorted but saw the sense in Annie’s proposal. “Deal.”

S
irens approached as the Garden Society sat growing more depressed. They knew the routine this time. Nobody got to leave until they were excused. For a while Cam tried to act cheerful, but Annie told her soundly to just shut up or not only would she lose her eyebrows, but she’d also be sporting a Mohawk. It was a relief, actually, as nobody had believed her cheerful tone or words, anyway.

About ten minutes after the arrival of his siren-blaring backup, Jake returned to the house.

“Nobody left?”

Everyone just stared blankly in response.

“No. We’ve done this dance before,” Cam said.

At the word “dance,” Annie and Jake glared at each other, and Cam regretted her word choice.

“I’ll need to interview all of you. I wish I hadn’t left you alone, but it was urgent. Any minute now, though, a sergeant will join me and we can get started.”

He was a lot less friendly this time around. Cam felt guilty for some reason, as if they’d shattered Jake’s innocence. It was ridiculous, of course, as a cop could hardly be all that innocent, and the Garden Society as a whole hadn’t done anything wrong, but she felt it anyway. Then she remembered the other place she was supposed to be.

“Shoot!”

“What?” Annie asked.

“My dad was meeting us at my place.”

“Us? Like you and me?” Annie asked.

“Yes, us. He thinks of you like his third daughter, you know.”

Annie looked uncomfortable. “I’ve asked too much of him.”

Cam was caught off guard. “Like what?”

Annie shook her head. “I’ll tell you later. It’s not a good time. But it’s his fault—for being the cool dad and all.”

Annie’s eyes were glassy. Cam wondered if Annie was on the verge of revealing the big secret her dad had hinted at—the one Ian had so badly misrepresented. Or had he? Cam studied Annie more closely and realized how devastated she looked. Was it possible she had killed Ian? She knew Annie wouldn’t poison everyone to get one person, but…

She bit the inside of her cheek to stop this train of thought. The wine and stress were combining badly. The last thing she needed was to question her friends that way, especially her best friend. Annie wouldn’t harm anyone.

But then Ian had provoked her badly.

“Yoo-hoo! Cam? Where are you?”

Cam jerked herself to attention. Annie’s face was inches from hers.

“Maybe we should put some coffee on?” Annie suggested.

Cam looked over at where the majority of the Garden Society sat, still drinking wine, some of them to poor effect. It definitely seemed like a bad idea to keep the alcohol flowing at this point.

“Right. Good idea. Be right back.”

“Oh, no you don’t. I’m not going to be left alone with those nuts! One of them’s a murderer!”

Annie’s melodrama made Cam snicker, so she grabbed Annie’s hand to pull her downstairs to the kitchen. Rob eyed them longingly, but Cam had avoided him since their argument earlier. She wasn’t going to start talking now.

“You’re terrible!” she admonished Annie.

“Me? It’s true!” Annie feigned innocence, and Cam hugged her.

“We’ll be okay,” Cam said.

Annie sniffed, but Cam ignored it because when they pulled apart, Annie turned away, embarrassed.

The kitchen was empty, but the coffeemaker was on the counter and there was coffee in the freezer. While it brewed, Cam found thermoses and Annie found cream and sugar containers. They filled everything and put it on a tray with mugs.

“Better?” Cam asked when they were ready to return.

“Well, I’d rather keep drinking, but it’s probably not such a hot idea.”

“No sign of your camera yet?”

“I wish! Man, I hope I don’t have to replace that. It’s insured, but I have a two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar deductible.”

They had just reentered the drawing room, coffee service in hand, when Cam heard a whistle behind her. It was Rob.

“Are we talking?” she snapped as she set down the laden tray she was carrying. “I don’t think we’re talking.”

“Why aren’t you talking?” Annie asked.

“He insists on clinging to Nick as the suspect. He won’t listen to me.”

“Listen? What else have you said? You won’t let anybody be a suspect!” Rob said.

Cam remembered that the suspect she’d tried to sell to Rob and Jake was now dead, so unlikely to be the guilty party.

“Shoot!” Cam looked at Rob. “I
know
Nick is innocent. But the person I thought had done it is dead.”

Rob started to choke, and only then did Cam recognize he’d taken a bite of one of the brownies.

Joseph rushed over. “Those are poisoned!”

Rob snatched the glass Cam had been clearing back from her hand and took a drink of his merlot. After a large sip, he ate the rest of the brownie in one bite.

“No,” Rob said confidently. “They’ve been sitting out for
an hour, so a dry crumb got caught in my throat. I helped make these, and I had two earlier. They’re fine.”

“But,” sputtered Joseph, “because of those brownies, Ian’s dead! And the dog got rushed to the vet!”

“Ian died of a brownie overdose? Was he even still here when dessert was brought out?” Rob asked, his eyebrow raised.

“Well… we assumed…”

“For your information, dogs are allergic to chocolate, so it wouldn’t be a surprise for a dog to be poisoned if some moron gave him a brownie. But brownies aren’t poisonous to people.” He grabbed the last brownie from a nearby tray and took a large bite, grinning with chocolate crumbs in his teeth.

Cam stared, wide-eyed, unsure whether to cringe or cheer, though she did feel her annoyance dissipating. Just then, the Patricks returned.

“It was just a reaction to the chocolate. Dogs shouldn’t eat it,” Evangeline announced cheerfully, cuddling Barney, who was wrapped in a baby blanket and licking her face. When Evangeline saw the room of dejected guests, she handed Barney off to her husband.

The people in the room looked at her but offered no information, so she asked, “Well… what happened?”

“Ian’s dead,” Cam said.

Evangeline fainted, and Rob had to help Cam catch her. Joseph stared at the dog Neil thrust in his arms. He tried to pass it back, but Neil was too concerned about his wife. Finally, Joseph convinced Samantha to take Barney. Cam sank into a chair and put her head in her hands. She was beginning to think the photo shoot was jinxed.

I
t was the longest night in history, as Cam perceived it, but finally, around three in the morning, the police at the scene told them they could go home.

Cam told Annie and the magazine staff they could wait until ten to show up for work the next morning, but begged Rob, in spite of still lingering annoyance, to take her to the Patricks’ at eight. There was too much unknown for her comfort.

When she arrived, she began by assaulting Giselle with questions.

“I know you left last night before all the guests arrived, but some things went missing. I was hoping you could keep an eye out.”

“Of course.”

“Primarily, a good digital camera, though there was some film from a thirty-five-millimeter camera, too.”