Читать книгу Grave Risk - Hannah Alexander - Страница 9

Fawn Morrison sat behind the counter in the lobby of the Lakeside Bed and Breakfast, entering numbers from a ledger sheet onto the computer program Blaze Farmer had set up. She loved this part of the job. It was mindless yet engaging enough to keep her from worrying about her plans for the upcoming wedding, her adjustments to college, her preparations for the pig races at the festival.

She was racing her very own pig this year. Why had she agreed to do that, with everything else going on? She was practically the sole planner for Karah Lee’s wedding, and she wasn’t getting a whole lot of help from Karah Lee.

Fawn loved her foster mother, but the woman had no fashion sense, no concept of the amount of time it would take to complete their plans. Furthermore, those plans kept changing.

The front door squeaked open and the old-fashioned bell rang above it. She glanced over her shoulder to see a tall man with broad shoulders and thick, gray-streaked auburn hair step into the lobby. He looked awkward, nervous.

He wasn’t bad-looking, for someone in his forties, at least. Bertie or Edith might threaten to stick him out in the garden to scare away the crows because he was a little on the skinny side. He had a turkey wattle beneath his chin and dark circles under his eyes.

Okay, so he wasn’t that good-looking. He just looked like maybe he had been, once upon a time.

“Be there in a minute,” Bertie called from the dining room at the far side of the lobby.

Fawn started to get up to help the man.

“Why, Bertie Meyer,” the man drawled, his voice deep as the growl of a big dog, “you’re just the person I was hoping to run into. What a welcome sight you are.”

Fawn sat back down.

Eighty-something-year-old Bertie stopped midstride in the broad entryway between the dining room and the lobby. She held an empty waffle plate, and her white apron was stained with strawberry syrup and bacon grease. Her white hair tufted down over her forehead, and her eyes looked like those of a cat caught in headlights.

“Austin?” Bertie’s voice suddenly sounded her age, which didn’t happen often.

“I bet you thought I was gone for good, huh?”

Bertie set her waffle plate on a nearby table and entered the lobby, absently wiping her hands on her apron. “I heard you and your mom had moved to California.”

Fawn frowned. Austin. Where had she heard that name before?

“Mom’s living with Aunt Esther down in Eureka Springs now,” the man said. “I went to California for a few weeks to visit my cousin, but the traffic’s a mess out there. A fella can’t even make a trip to the grocery store without risking his life.”

“Seems to me a real estate agent could make some good money in LA,” Bertie said.

There was a short pause. “Money doesn’t mean as much as I used to think it did.”

Fawn realized she was partially shielded by the greenery that Edith loved to keep on the counter. And she realized she was indulging in one of her worst habits—eavesdropping.

Her best friend Blaze and her foster mother Karah Lee had nagged her so much about it that she’d almost broken the habit. Until now. Right now she couldn’t leave without drawing attention to herself.

Bertie’s passion for hospitality drew more customers here than to any hotel or lodge in a twenty-five-mile radius, but the tone of her voice did not sound welcoming. It sounded wary.

The man walked across the lobby to her. “I’m not here to cause trouble for anyone, Bertie.” His voice softened until Fawn could barely hear what he was saying.

Austin…wasn’t his last name Barlow? Was he the guy who used to be mayor of Hideaway?

“I didn’t think you were,” Bertie said. “I’m just curious, is all.”

“Got a cottage I could rent for a couple of weeks?”

Fawn nearly snorted out loud. This place had been booked solid since early April.

She listened to the murmur of quiet voices for a moment, too low for her to hear and yet just loud enough to frustrate her when she heard a word or two now and then.

Ashamed, but unable to stop herself, Fawn finally scooted her chair back so she could hear a little better.

“Have you heard from Ramsay lately?” Bertie asked.

“Just yesterday. You might not believe this, but he’s living at a boys’ ranch up in northern Missouri. How’s that for payback after all the griping I did about Dane Gideon’s ranch for so many years?”

There was a long silence. Fawn peeked over the counter and saw Bertie’s expression. Fawn knew that look. Bertie had such a tender heart.

Ramsay. Fawn remembered Blaze telling her about him. They’d been friends, or so Blaze had thought. Then it turned out Ramsay was vandalizing the town and allowing his father—Austin—to place the blame on Blaze. Finally Ramsay had flipped out completely and tried to kill Cheyenne because she had done something that made his father mad.

And what was the kid doing at a boys’ ranch? Shouldn’t he be in a place that took psych cases?

“Bertie, I came to apologize,” Austin said in a rush, as if he couldn’t be sure he’d have the nerve to get all the words out. “I thought I’d start with you. I know I have a lot to answer for, and it’s time. Way past time.”

Fawn couldn’t make out Bertie’s response, but she knew that Austin Barlow was forgiven.

Rex Fairfield shoved the heels of his hands against the yielding flesh of Edith Potts’s chest, taking his turn at the grueling task of CPR. He felt the sweat of desperation on his own forehead and heard the despair in Cheyenne’s voice as she continued to call orders to them.

“Where’s that airlift?” Jill asked. “It should be here by now. It’s been—”

“Too long,” Cheyenne said, her voice brittle from the force of tight control. Grief drew lines of tension around her mouth and eyes.

It had been twenty minutes. Rex knew this would be a tough one for all of them. He also knew they had done more than was normal for a code such as this.

“Sheena,” Cheyenne said, “go ahead and—” She frowned, and Rex glanced at Sheena Marshall crouched in the far corner of the room, arms wrapped tightly around herself, eyes glassy as she stared at the floor in front of her.

“Noelle,” Cheyenne said, “call the airlift and cancel—”

“No!” Jill’s usually mellow voice broke, ragged with pain. “Please, Chey, just a little longer.”

Rex continued to pump rhythmically.

“It’s been taken out of our hands.” Cheyenne spoke with tender sadness.

Jill shook her head, short jerks of denial as she reached once more for the crash cart. “Atropine is next, isn’t it?”

“We’ve already maxed out the Atropine.” Karah Lee placed a hand on Jill’s shoulder and squeezed, her voice husky with sorrow.

“There’s some left, though. Can’t we just try one more—”

“Honey, it’s time,” Karah Lee said.

“Epi again, then.” Jill’s movements had taken on the frantic tightness of extreme anxiety. “One more dose, Chey. Please, just one…”

“Jill.” Cheyenne caught Jill by the hands. “She’s gone. We knew it was a reach when we saw the rhythm in the first place. We’ve carried this much longer than was warranted already.” She nodded to Karah Lee, who had taken over the recording from Rex. “Time of death, 2:30 p.m., September third.”

“Oh, Edith, no!” Jill’s cry filled the room.