Читать книгу The Secrets of Bell River - Kathleen O'Brien - Страница 11

CHAPTER THREE

JUST TWO DAYS. Tess had been on the job for two days when the first crisis hit. They’d been closed on Christmas Eve and Christmas day, so she’d had only Saturday and Sunday to get her feet steady under her. She’d stayed focused, though, and made real progress. She’d begun to believe she could handle it, begun to relax enough to start enjoying herself.

Naturally. That was the kind of cockiness that made Fate itch to bring you down a peg or two.

And so, on the Monday after Christmas, both Darlene, the college kid who was the regular receptionist, and Ashley, the massage therapist, called in sick. Tess had been interviewing as fast as she could. The part-time job she had applied for still needed to be filled. But she hadn’t brought anyone on board yet.

Now, with Ashley and Darlene out, Tess would have to run the spa, do all her own appointments and pick up Ashley’s, too.

She left a voice message for Rowena—to give her a heads-up, not to ask for help. She knew Rowena was far too busy this week between Christmas and New Year’s to pitch in. Everyone was slammed.

They’d all done the best they could to get Tess up to speed. Ashley had taken on extra hours to train Tess about spa services, equipment and clients. Rowena came into the facility at dawn each day so that she could steal a couple of hours to explain bookkeeping procedures and policies. Bree stopped by now and then with supplies, maps, instruction manuals for the various electronic devices. Even the ranch manager, Barton James, visited at lunchtime with salads and sandwiches from the kitchen, and cookies for moral support.

But other than that Tess had hardly seen any of the family these past two days. It had been like jumping into a war midbattle—as a five-star general. And, if the truth were told, Tess had found it thrilling.

Until today. Today was going to be a mess.

She started calling Ashley’s clients to be sure they were all right with a substitute therapist. And wouldn’t you know it...the first name on the list was Esther Fillmore. Lucky lady got a weekly massage, and she was still so grumpy? Maybe her poor husband encouraged the expenditure, in the hopes that someday she’d chill out and be a little easier to live with.

No one answered, so Tess left a message and moved on to the next name. Everyone she reached was friendly and contented either with a new appointment, or with the idea of Tess taking over for Ashley. At eight o’clock, the nail tech showed up and went straight to work. So far, so good.

At 8:05 a.m., Esther Fillmore walked in.

She didn’t look surprised to see Tess behind the counter, wearing the official blue Bell River uniform, so the grapevine had obviously done its work well. She didn’t smile or say hello, of course—she maintained her natural sour frown that seemed to mean almost nothing.

“Good morning, Mrs. Fillmore,” Tess said, with an extra dose of sunshine in her voice, hoping that perhaps being recognized would stroke the woman’s vanity enough to smooth the moment. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t able to reach you before you made the trip over. I called your contact number, but I didn’t get an answer.”

The woman froze in the act of removing her coat. “Why were you trying to call me?”

“I wanted to let you know in advance that Ashley isn’t here today. I’m happy to fill in for her, but I know you prefer your usual therapist whenever possible.”

“I insist on it,” Mrs. Fillmore said flatly, as if, hearing that, Tess would somehow be able to produce Ashley out of thin air.

“Then perhaps you’d like to make another appointment? Ashley will be in again right after New Year’s.”

“After New Year’s?” The older woman lifted her chin. “You expect me to suffer with my sciatica until then? With my nieces and nephews at the house? With family meals to cook, and to clean up after?”

“I can understand how difficult that would be,” Tess said sympathetically. “I’d be happy to do what I can to help. I’ve worked with many clients suffering from sciatica, and—”

“Sciatica is not one-size-fits-all, like the common cold,” Mrs. Fillmore interrupted tersely, as if Tess had insulted her.

Tess took a deep breath, reminding herself that sciatica often caused profound pain. Maybe that accounted for Mrs. Fillmore’s nasty manner. Chronic pain could suck the joy out of life.

“Perhaps, if you told me in detail what procedures Ashley uses, and what you find most effective, we could bring you some relief. Although I know it wouldn’t be the same, maybe it would be better than nothing. And, of course, there would be no charge for the service today.”

As she said that, Tess had to quell a few butterflies, remembering how close to the bone Bell River was operating this first winter season. Rowena was candid about money, which Tess appreciated, because it helped her to know where she stood. Even if they all stood pretty close to the edge.

Still, surely keeping a repeat client happy— especially one who would freely broadcast her dissatisfaction to the whole town—was worth the price of a massage.

If Tess had to, she’d take it out of her own pay. Heaven knew she was making more as director than she’d ever expected to as a part-time therapist.

To her surprise, though, Esther appeared to have lost interest in the conversation. Instead, she seemed to be staring with narrowed eyes at Tess’s necklace. Or was she staring at her chest? Tess’s hand went instinctively up to cover herself, though her uniform was hardly low-cut or revealing.

“Is everything all right, Mrs. Fillmore?”

“I...” The woman dragged her gaze up to Tess’s. “Yes. I was just...I was admiring your pendant. Where did you get it?”

Her tone made Tess uncomfortable, and for a minute she didn’t want to answer. Stupid, but she felt reluctant to even speak of her mother to such a nasty woman.

Besides, surely that wasn’t really what Mrs. Fillmore had been about to say. Her pendant was pretty, but not ostentatious or, surely, unique.

Tess didn’t ordinarily wear jewelry while working, but this modest necklace was special to her, and she liked having it on. She always tucked it inside her shirt, but it must have slipped out.

“It was a gift from my mother,” she said, and tucked the pendant beneath her top.

Not the whole truth, but close enough. She’d found it among her mother’s things after her death. She wondered why her mother had never worn it. The workmanship was lovely—it was a small teardrop-shaped ruby that formed the bud of a rose, its setting designed like a slim gold stem and two curving gold petals.

Maybe, she thought, her mother had never worn it because she suspected that one day she’d have to sell it. Who knew how many other gold pieces might have been stashed away in that jewelry box, but sold off, one by one, to make ends meet?

“Your mother?” Esther frowned, obviously surprised by the answer—and not pleasantly so. “Are you sure?”

“Of course.” Tess was frowning now, too. She wondered what answer the woman had been expecting. A boyfriend, perhaps? But why would she care?

“The necklace belonged to my mother,” Tess reiterated blandly. “Now. Would you like me to take over for Ashley, or would you like to rebook?”

“Neither,” Esther said coldly. “My husband tells me the new resort at Silverdell Hills will have a spa. You people at Bell River might do well to remember that. You won’t be the only game in town anymore.”

Tess bit her lip briefly, then smiled the best she could. “I’m very sorry we can’t help you, Mrs. Fillmore, but I certainly understand your need—”

The polite words were wasted. The older woman had already turned her back and, buttoning her coat as she walked, was heading briskly toward the door.

Though she knew it was irrational, Tess felt deflated by the failure. It would have been so rewarding to overcome the woman’s strange hostility. But oh, well. Let her go home and be her unfortunate husband’s problem for a while.

Tess took a couple of moments to calm herself, then dove into making the calls. The minutes flew, and when the alarm on her phone trilled she was surprised to see it was time to get ready for her first appointment of the day.

She was also surprised to see that Craig had called. Eight times. The divorce had been final for two weeks now, and he’d promised to leave her alone. But she’d become a challenge to his pride, no doubt. He didn’t like failing. He used to be a high school–football star, and he still thought of everything in terms of wins and losses. He despised losses.

Craig was a smooth-talking, self-indulgent former jock who had made it to middle management in her mother’s insurance agency. Their six years of marriage had been a mistake from the start—a rebellion on her part against an upbringing that had been overly strict, big on rules and short on fun.

She knew now, of course, why her mother had been so stringent, so fearful that her daughter might repeat her own mistakes. But back then, her insistence on no freedom, no car, no boys in the house, no broken curfews—nothing that could encourage sex before marriage—had left Tess eager, at twenty, to marry the first man who made her laugh and gave her presents.

She sometimes wondered why he’d been willing to marry her. Probably because, otherwise, she wouldn’t have sex with him. She should have. If she had, she would have realized what an insensitive egoist he was, or else he would have checked “Conquer Tess” off his list and moved safely on. If only her mother hadn’t...

No. She stopped herself right there. Her mother had always insisted on honesty, and the truth was it wasn’t her mother’s fault she’d married Craig. It was her own. She’d fallen for him because he was handsome and a little older, which seemed glamorous, and he gave her nice things. He told her she was pretty. He told her she was smart.

Looking back, she realized she had sold herself far too cheaply. She should have held out for love. Twenty had been plenty old enough to recognize a louse, if she’d been looking hard enough.

She slid her phone into her pocket quickly as she heard Jean, the manicure technician, coming out of her room. Jean, who had been at Bell River only about two weeks longer than Tess, led out her client, made a new appointment for the woman, smiled at Tess, then started to head back to clean her area.

“Jean? You don’t recognize this client’s name, do you?” Tess pointed to the line on the computer screen for eleven-thirty. Marley Baker. “I’m not even sure whether it’s male or female.”

Jean, who was short and curvy and extremely savvy, twitched her nose, as if that might help her remember. “Nope,” she said finally. “I think I took the appointment over the phone, but I can’t really remember anything about it. It has been a little nuts around here this week.”

Tess chuckled. “A little. Oh, well, it doesn’t matter.”

“Sorry,” Jean said as she disappeared into the supply room.

Tess wasn’t too worried about the client’s gender. She never used particularly flowery scents anyhow, so most of her products would please anyone. What did worry her was that Baker was about ten minutes late. Ordinarily it wasn’t an issue, but today...

As she waited, Tess checked on the Blue Room, which was in perfect shape, opened a box of toners that had been delivered this morning, made a couple of notes in her personal client log and then did some deep breathing, to keep herself from pacing.

Fifteen minutes later, she was about to call the contact number for Baker when she heard a soft trill of chimes, and the spa door opened on a swirl of cold air and an odd smell of motor oil. A small, wiry man entered, reeking of aftershave and putting his crooked teeth on display in something he probably thought was a smile.

“Mr. Baker?”

His smile widened, the pink of his gums glistening. “In the flesh,” he said.

“Good morning,” she forced herself to say pleasantly. A frisson of distaste moved down her back as their gazes met, but she steadfastly ignored it. She had worked on unpleasant physical specimens before. Everyone, even people who weren’t as clean as they should be, even people who smiled like that, deserved to have their aches and pains soothed.

“Are you Tess?” He glanced down, and this time she was darned sure he wasn’t looking at her pendant. Either he had a slight twitch, or the man had actually wiggled his eyebrows in some kind of secret salacious joke with himself.

Was he one of those? A few men—thankfully very few—seemed to believe their therapists owed them what they lewdly referred to as a “happy ending.”

Well, if he were one of those, she knew how to make him see his mistake without embarrassing anyone.

And if he were one of the really terrible ones—the dangerous, violent ones, who were only legend for her, so far, thank God—well, she knew how to deal with that, too. Her very first mentor had taught her a couple of moves that would make it unlikely that Marley Baker would be thinking such thoughts, or going to the bathroom on his own, for at least a week.

“Yes, I’m Tess. I’ll show you to the room, if you’re ready.”

As if to compensate for thinking such thoughts based on nothing but her own bias against his type, she gave the man an extra warm smile. Immediately, when he smiled back with that strange, oddly feral curve of his thin lips, she regretted it.

“Oh, I’m always ready,” he said.

Again, she bristled at his tone. She toyed with telling him there had been an emergency. She’d have to cancel. Every instinct was warning her not to end up alone in a room with him. But how would she explain herself to the Wrights? Two days on the job, and she was turning away badly needed clients? She couldn’t. It was unprofessional, and it was unfair.

And he hadn’t actually said a single word out of line. He just wasn’t as well-to-do as most of the clients, and his tone was rough around the edges. So what? She’d been poor most of her life. She had seen her friends’ parents eyeing her cheap sneakers and secondhand clothes, assuming a low bank balance meant a poverty of morals, intelligence and breeding.

“This way.” She led him to the Blue Room and showed him where to put his clothes, made sure one more time that the towels and sheets were all folded back and ready, then left him to prepare.

She chose her lotions carefully. She wasn’t stalling. She was simply being extra careful. She’d use an herbal muscle calmer, probably. Chamomile and aloe vera, since those wiry muscles seemed to indicate he did manual labor, and probably didn’t take care to stretch or take anti-inflammatory supplements. Calm, calm, calm. That’s what she needed to be with this one. He might not be aggressive or dangerous, but he was without question oddly revved, full of some unhealthy tensions. Her instincts couldn’t be that wrong.

She decided to leave the door open and double-checked that her phone alarm was set and safely in her pocket. She added gloves to her supplies and, squaring her shoulders, headed to the Blue Room.

She knocked on the door, but just as with Jude Calhoun, she heard no response. A wriggle of discomfort made its way into her midsection. She didn’t like the unnatural quiet. Jude had been different. No way a man humming with nerves like this guy could have actually fallen asleep. She hoped to God Baker wasn’t playing games, pretending not to hear her so that he could be “caught” with his nakedness uncovered.

Suddenly, she wasn’t nervous anymore. She was annoyed. To heck with him. She wasn’t a debutante who would run shrieking at the mysterious horror of a man’s naked body. She was a professional therapist. She was also a lot tougher than she looked, and she was having a bad day. If he got cute, she’d hustle his puny self out so fast he wouldn’t know what hit him.

“Mr. Baker.” She knocked again, loudly enough to wake the dead, and then she shoved the door open, ready for anything.

To her surprise, the room appeared to be empty.

The man was nowhere in sight.

“Mr. Baker?” It was a simple room, without a lot of hidey-holes, but she checked every spot she could imagine a man’s body would fit into. Cupboards, the closet, even under the massage table, though she felt a pure fool doing so.

She straightened, her hands on her hips, and stared at the windows, which let in a soft light through their muslin shades.

Marley Baker was gone. And, now that she had a chance to think through the details, she had to wonder whether he’d ever intended to stay. The sheets on the table hadn’t been touched, hadn’t been wrinkled or shifted by a fraction of an inch.

Even more mystifying—how had he managed to leave without her realizing it? It made her skin crawl to think he might have tiptoed inches behind her as she picked out lotions and powders, and headed surreptitiously for the front door.

Her nerves prickling, she stopped by the nail tech room, where Jean was now giving a pedicure to a middle-aged woman talking volubly on her cell phone.

Tess signaled to Jean, who excused herself and came to the door.

“You didn’t happen to see a man walk by in the past few minutes, did you? Dark-haired? Kind of short and wiry?”

“No.” Jean frowned. “Is anything wrong?”

“I don’t think so.” Tess shrugged, keeping her tone light. “My client left unexpectedly. I guess he got a call or something.”

Jean’s frown deepened, but she returned to her post.

Tess did the same. The phone was ringing. Plus, she had another client coming in half an hour, and she had to change the sheets, in case Marley Baker had touched them, however briefly.

She tried not to dwell on the unpleasant morning, concentrating instead on her afternoon clients. Her massages were therapy for her, too. And, as usual, turning her attention to other people helped. By the end of the day, she was exhausted, but in a good way, and utterly relaxed.

And maybe a little proud of herself. She’d pulled off another miracle, and kept the spa humming almost single-handedly.

Marley Baker was the furthest thing from her mind. At least...until she was leaving and noticed a tiny rectangle of paper tucked inside the chic plaque that read Bell River Ranch.

Though it could have been left by anyone, for a dozen perfectly innocent reasons, she felt her hair follicles rise. With her clumsy gloved fingers, she pried the paper out and awkwardly unfolded it.

Two short words were scrawled there. Just a dozen bright red, simple block letters, more like a random shout from a passing car than a true message. But for a minute, though she stood with snow fluttering down the collar of her coat, then melting disagreeably against her neck, she couldn’t move, couldn’t take her eyes off the angry, red words.

DIRTY, it said.

And then on the next line, BITCHES.

* * *

OVER THE PAST couple of days, while Tess had been wearing blinders that prevented her from seeing anything but the spa’s most immediate needs, she’d almost forgotten about all the other holiday festivities going on elsewhere on the ranch.

The ugly note she held in her hand felt even more obscene here, as she stood at the front door of the main house, which was framed in pine-scented garland and sparkling with fairy lights. She wished she could turn around and go back to the hotel. She was extraordinarily tired, suddenly. She needed to get off her feet. She needed something to eat. She needed—

The door opened. One of the men she’d met the night they offered her the job—she thought this one was Gray, Bree’s husband—stood there, smiling.

“Hey, Tess,” he said easily, as if she’d worked there for years. If she hadn’t been paying close attention, she might have missed the subtle surprise in his eyes. “Everything okay?”

“Yes.” Too late, she wondered whether uniformed employees were supposed to use the rear entrance. “I think so,” she amended. “But there is something I should talk to Rowena about, if she’s free.”

“Well, Ro isn’t ever really free, but I think we can snag her. Come on in.” He stepped back from the door, and through the garland-swagged foyer Tess could see that the living room was in shadows. The only lights came from a twinkling Christmas tree by the windows, and a projector’s beam hitting a big screen at the front. A crowd of people perched on folding chairs, and they seemed to be watching a slide presentation.

“Oh. I’ve come at a bad time.”

“Not at all.” Gray smiled. “On Monday night, Penny shares the nature shots taken during her photography classes. Ro isn’t a part of that. She’s in the great room dealing with a totally different minicrisis. Barton has a sing-along starting in about half an hour in there, but right now we’re all trying to get Alec off the wall without breaking anything.”

Tess frowned, wondering if he was kidding. “The...the wall?”

He gave her a wry look over his shoulder. “Yeah. It’s okay, though. He can’t hold on much longer, so he’ll be down in the next couple of minutes, dead or alive.”

They had reached the entrance to the lovely great room, with its cathedral ceiling, huge fireplace trimmed in red candles and green fir, and impressive river-rock surround.

The room was full of people. In front of the fireplace, Bree, Mitch, Barton and Max, Penny’s husband, stood in a perfect square, holding the corners of a thick blanket above a layer of sofa cushions and quilts, as if they were making a safety net of sorts.

Their faces tilted toward the ceiling. Tess followed their gazes, and to her horror spotted Alec a foot or two from the upper edge of the river rock. From this distance, he looked small, skinny and awkward, his arms and legs splayed like a superhero as he tried to hold on to the lumpy rock.

Tess glanced around, wondering how everyone was maintaining such calm. Over at the end of the room near the kitchen, Dallas and a young man in a Bell River uniform were rapidly assembling an articulating ladder. An ordinary stepladder would never reach high enough.

“Where’s the damn mattress?” Dallas glanced toward the foyer doorway once, then refocused on the ladder.

“Isamar and Carrie are bringing it now,” Rowena said.

“I’ll go help.” Gray touched Tess’s arm. “Hang on. Ro will be free soon.”

Tess felt her mouth hanging open slightly. Her stupid anonymous note seemed absurdly trivial. The boy was at least twelve feet in the air. If he fell...

She shivered. He probably wouldn’t die, not with the people below, and the pillows, and the blanket. But he might miss. Even a partial miss could be catastrophic. He might well break half a dozen bones.

And he must be scared to death.

“Dang it,” the little boy said, his voice and words a touching echo of his father’s. He sounded very far away, but was full of bluster, clearly reluctant to reveal fear. “Too bad Jude’s not here. A stunt man would know what to do. My hands are getting sweaty.”

A little girl piped up from the corner. “I told you it wouldn’t be as easy to come down as it was to go up.”

Max gave the girl a hard look. “Really? You think this is the right time to say I told you so?”

She blushed and hung her head, but didn’t say another word.

Two seconds later, Gray showed up, the large, thick mattress, which must have weighed a ton, carried over his head as if it were light as a feather.

“Coming through,” he called, and plopped his burden as near the safety net as he could. Then he dropped to a squat and muscled the mattress until it lay directly under the blanket. A couple of Bell River staffers rearranged the pillows and quilts on top of the mattress with lightning speed.

“This’ll be faster than the ladder, Dallas,” Gray said, putting his hand on Dallas’s shoulder. “And just as safe. Tell him to let go.”

Dallas glanced at the pile of cushioning, the outstretched blanket and his team of helpers. He looked up at his son, then down, clearly calculating the geometry of the placement. And then he nodded.

“Keep going,” he said quietly to his assistant beside the ladder. “Just in case.”

Then he moved closer to the fireplace. “Okay, buddy. Time to give those arms a rest. We’ve got you covered. Let go, and try to fall on your rump, okay?”

The little boy was silent for a moment. He twisted his neck for one second, trying to get a look at his dad, but swiveled it back quickly, as if the motion scared him.

“Come on, Alec.” Dallas’s voice was utterly calm. “It’s all good. You’ll be fine.”

A tiny voice floated to them. “You sure?”

Tess found herself holding her breath, and the room spun a little, as if she might faint, which surprised her, because she wasn’t the fainting type.

“Yep,” Dallas said, projecting complete confidence. “I’m sure.”

“Well, then. Okay.”

As though someone had pulled a lever, the boy dropped from the wall. Tess’s knees seemed to liquefy. She touched the wall for support. As if in slow motion, the blanket dipped as his scrawny form hit it, rump first, just as his father had requested, and then bounced up.

Thank God. Alec’s smiling face emerged from over the edge of the blanket, beaming and laughing, as if it were all a grand game.

Strangers and staffers who apparently had been watching from the margins of the room broke out in scattered applause, which then tapered off as Dallas glared, obviously not wanting them to encourage the boy.

The four people who had held the blanket’s corners moved toward each other, letting their weighted cloth sag until it came to rest against the mattress. Alec bounced once on the springs, as if it were a trampoline, then rolled off and onto the carpet.

Rowena grabbed him the minute his feet hit the floor and gathered him in for a tight, half-suffocating hug.

“Idiot,” she said raggedly, burying her face in his hair. “You impossible, ridiculous, infuriating idiot.”

“Well, Ellen dared me.” He pulled free and began stuffing his shirt into his jeans. “She double-dog dared me,” he repeated, as if that were an absolute defense.

“I did not,” the little girl countered, scowling fiercely at Alec.

“Enough.” Dallas’s voice had taken on a completely different quality now, carrying the unmistakable authority of an angry dad. “Upstairs, both of you. I’ll be up later to let you know whether we’ve decided to toss you to the wolves or eat you for dinner.”

The kids scurried away. As they exited, though, they could be heard giggling, which drained the moment of its drama. A relieved chatter rose from the room’s occupants, and life seemed to resume.

Now that the commotion was over, Tess felt dizzier than ever and miserably uncomfortable. She felt out of place and conspicuous, like the interloper she was. This was obviously not the time to bring a new problem to Rowena’s door.

But to her surprise, Rowena walked calmly toward her. “Hey,” she said. “So sorry about the chaos.”

“No, no. I’m the one who is sorry, for intruding on—”

“Don’t be silly.” As Dallas walked past, Rowena squeezed his hand. “Just your average Monday night at Bell River Ranch, right, Sheriff?”

“Yep.” He shook his head, grinning. “We should have let him break something, you know. Not his neck maybe, but a finger? A toe? If he keeps escaping unscathed, he’ll never learn anything important.”

“Sure he will.” Rowena put her hand against her husband’s cheek. “He’ll learn his family is always here to catch him when he falls. What’s more important than that?”

The heat of tears stung Tess’s eyes, and, though it seemed weak, she had to look away. This moment was private, in spite of the guests and the staff and the whole circus aura of the moment. She should not be here. She should not be here.

“Anyhow, sorry to keep you waiting.” Rowena returned her attention to Tess. “Gray said you needed to talk to me?”

Suddenly drained by the whole wretched day, Tess found herself eager to get it over with. She plucked the folded note from her uniform pocket. “It’s nothing serious. I just...I found this slipped in behind the door plaque as I closed up tonight.”

Rowena frowned as soon as she saw the paper, and Tess knew instantly. This wasn’t the first anonymous note they had received.

“Oh, hell,” Rowena said under her breath. She unfolded the paper and read the red words written there. “I’m sorry. We should have warned you. We get these from time to time. There are people in Silverdell, it seems, who can’t let the past go.”

Tess wondered exactly what that meant. Who exactly were the dirty bitches? The three Wright daughters? They had told Tess the whole story the night they hired her—not realizing that, of course, she already knew it. Tess couldn’t help wondering whether they would have mentioned it, if the ghost-whisperer maid hadn’t run into Moira Wright’s ghost that night.

Maybe they would have. This didn’t seem to be a family that played things close to the vest. Perhaps years ago they’d learned that secrets were dangerous...or maybe they’d learned that it was impossible to keep secrets for long.

Either way, they’d explained the basic facts: Johnny had been convicted of deliberately pushing their mother down the staircase, and Moira had been exposed as an unfaithful wife, who had been carrying another man’s baby. But both of the principal players in the melodrama were dead now, long gone. Surely it was a little Victorian to continue to punish the daughters for the sins of the parents.

And...dirty? Odd choice of insults. Tess hadn’t met Penny yet—though she’d seen her petite, shadowy outline in the living room, standing in the projector’s beam as she pointed to something on a photo. But Rowena and Bree were about as far from dirty or bitchy as two women could get.

Rowena must have sensed Tess’s confusion. “Some people simply believe we had a bad gene pool. They keep waiting for us to turn into nymphomaniacs, or kill each other, or something.”

She laughed when she said it, but Tess heard an undercurrent of pain beneath the mirth. Rowena acted tough, but perhaps something softer lay beneath?

“Not they,” Dallas corrected gently. “It’s probably just one person. You know most of Silverdell is on our side.”

Tess could imagine how unsettling it must be to walk the streets of Silverdell, wondering whether every face might be the face of this anonymous enemy. “Do you know who it is?”

Rowena shook her head. “No. There are a few likely suspects, sourpusses and sleazeballs who haven’t gotten along with Bell River for decades. But no proof against anyone.”

Dallas put his arm around Rowena. “The department has looked into it, and continues to do so. Is it okay if I send someone to the spa tomorrow to talk to you about anything you might have seen?”

Tess nodded. She thought about mentioning the dustup with Mrs. Fillmore, and especially the odd disappearance of Marley Baker, but she was too tired to go into it now. In fact, she felt more than a little woozy. She realized she hadn’t ever stopped for a meal all day. She hadn’t eaten a single bite since last night. No wonder she felt so bad.

“Tomorrow’s fine,” she said. “I don’t think I have any clients around the lunch hour, if that would work for you.”

“Tess,” Rowena said, her voice suddenly urgent. “If you feel that...” She paused, as if searching for the right phrasing. “If it makes you so uncomfortable that you would rather not stay...I want you to know we wouldn’t hold it against you. We would provide an excellent recommendation—”

“No.” Tess appreciated the gesture, but no way was she leaving because of some snake like Marley Baker. “It doesn’t make me uncomfortable at all. This is the work of a coward who doesn’t even have the nerve to make his comments face-to-face.”

With her last ounce of energy, she turned to Dallas, trying to project the certainty he’d shown his son. “I’ll see someone from your office tomorrow, then?”

She thought she might have seen a glimmer of respect in his gaze. He nodded.

“Tess,” Rowena said, “would you like to stay to—”

Again Tess interrupted Rowena. She was giving out. Her legs had begun to feel like wobbly strings, and her stomach churned acidly. She was afraid she might pass out, or even vomit, if she didn’t get home.

Home. Well, the hotel that was passing for home right now, anyhow. The job included a cabin, but it wasn’t ready yet, though Jude Calhoun was putting the finishing touches on it. Tonight, though, where she landed didn’t matter. Anywhere with a bed and a cup of hot tea would suffice.

She mumbled something she hoped was civil and headed to the door. In an excess of courtesy, Rowena and Dallas escorted her, but if they made small talk, Tess didn’t hear it. A dull roar had started in her ears, and she couldn’t even hear herself think.

She must have said the right things, because finally the door closed behind her, and she was alone on the porch, with the lights and the scent of the garlands.

Oh, no. She put her hands against her stomach, feeling bile rise. She loved the smell of pine, and yet right now she found it the most repulsive odor in the world. Her stomach heaved, and she lost focus.

She had to get home. She pulled out her phone, but there was no one to call, was there? All she saw was the missed call log—two more from Craig, who simply would not give up. She hadn’t even felt the vibration from incoming calls. She’d been running so hard all day.