The Butler Didn't Do It (A Maddox Storm Mystery Book 2) (11 page)

By the time he was done, I’d cleared every last scrap from my plate and the whiteboard looked much more respectable with the flourish of boxes and pointy arrows.

When Burns left, I decided to keep the momentum going and transferred the relevant details to my floorplan. Little by little, a picture was forming. What story it told, however, was anybody’s guess. All I saw was a quiet evening in the country, my guests pursuing gentle activities, most retiring to an early night.

Except for Lydia, of course.

And her murderer.

I crossed to the whiteboard again, scratched my brain for some new insight. But I had to say, my money was still on the artifact smuggler and hitman. I grabbed the marker and underlined Jonas Mayer. He was the odd one out, the only GRIMMS guest not on their precious Honored Masters scroll. He also had the muscle to carry out the deed. So did Mason Sash, I supposed, but he didn’t seem the type.

I underlined Jonas again, condemning him to my number one suspect. The door flung open and I startled guiltily. But it was only Nate, not an angry accountant with an axe to grind.

Nate watched me from the doorway. Hair an absolute mess, storm in his eyes, that kind of thing. I’d temporarily forgotten he was on his own warpath and his sights were lined on me.

“Nate…”

“Maddox,” he said at the same time.

I shut up and listened, since I had no idea what I’d been going to say anyway.

“I don’t usually lose my temper like that, and I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.” He stepped deeper into the room. “I’m sorry.”

The piglet in my back pocket squealed, sending an electric jolt straight to my heart.

Nate cursed and looked at me as if he’d like to take his apology back.

“Sorry, I have to take this, it’s my mother.” I scrabbled for my phone and answered the call before the next squeal. “Mom, where have you been?”

“Who is this Nate, honey?” Mom over-spoke me. “And why are you so desperate to have his babies?”

“I am not desperate…” I felt Nate’s eyes on me and waved a hand at the whiteboard, indicating he had more important things to occupy himself with. Then I stepped out into the hallway, closed the door behind me. “Why would you think that?”

“Because you kept saying you weren’t having his babies,” Mom said. “You sounded very upset about it.”

“The only thing I’m upset about is Miss Crawley, once again, getting all the facts wrong. You have to call her before tomorrow morning, Mom, and make her understand that I’m not pregnant, I’m not having an affair, I’m not doing anything except minding my own business, which is more than I can say for her!”

“It just seems a little odd, honey,” Mom said. “You know what they say. There’s no smoke without a fire.”

“There’s no fire.” I paced the hallway, frustration building up in my muscles like lactic acid. “There’s nothing except buns and ovens, I swear.”

“Very well,” Mom sighed. “I’ll have a chat with Miss Crawley when I come up to the house this evening.”

“You’re not coming up tonight,” I reminded her. “You did listen to my second message, didn’t you?”

“Not yet,” she said. “You sounded so upset in the first voicemail, I called you back immediately.”

I chewed over my words, wondering how to best approach this. “Mom, are you sitting down?”

“No, we’ve just walked in.”

“You should sit.”

“Don’t be silly, I’ve been sitting all day. Your father dragged me off to Barneys to shop for an RV and you know what he’s like. We had to test drive every single camper in the lot and he still wasn’t happy. I don’t know what more he expects to find. Barneys is the largest dealership in the county.”

“Please, just sit,” I said impatiently.

Mom went quiet, then, “Is something wrong, honey?”

“I’m fine,” I assured her. “It’s one of our guests. Do you remember Lydia Fieldman?”

“The abrupt woman with that massive beehive on her head?”

“No, that’s Julie Brown.”

“Ah, then Lydia must be the other one, the little old lady?”

“Not so old, as it turns out.” I stopped pacing and leant back against the wall. There was no other way to say this. “She’s dead.”

“Oh, dear, that’s…” Mom’s voice trailed off, then came back with a tremor of worry, “It wasn’t the mussel chowder, was it?”

“It definitely wasn’t the mussel chowder.”

“Are you sure, honey? You know, some people can go their entire life not knowing they’re allergic and then one day they eat shellfish and that’s it.”

“She was hung up by the neck, from a tree,” I quickly clarified before the conversation descended into complete chaos. “With the prop rope I bought for the weekend.”

“The rope?”

“Yeah, the murderer snatched it straight out of the wicker basket, if you can believe the nerve.”

“Oh, dear.” The tremors in Mom’s voice had worked themselves into a flutter. “Oh, dear, oh, dear…”

“Mom, it’s okay,” I said softly, trying to soothe her.

“No, it’s not, that poor woman is dead and it’s all my fault.”

I must have heard wrong. “Mom, it’s not your fault.”

“But it is,” Mom moaned. “Oh, dear—”

There was a thud.

Then nothing.

“Mom?” Panic squeezed my chest. “Mom!”

Had she dropped into a faint? I’d told her to sit. Why did she never listen to me?

“Mom!”

Dad came on the phone. “Maddox? What’s going on?”

“I heard a thud. Was that Mom?”

“The phone,” Dad said. “She dropped it and I can’t get a sensible word out of her.” His voice gentled. “Has something happened, pumpkin? It’s not Nana Rose, is it?”

“No, it isn’t,” I told him. “It’s just one of our guests, and I didn’t expect Mom to take it so hard. Is she alright?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t think so. She keeps mumbling something about a rope, and how it’s all her fault.”

That made no sense. Why would Mom think Lydia’s death was her fault? And why was she so fixated on the rope? She’d only had a glimpse of it, when I’d stored the envelopes in the wicker basket beneath the stairs.

Was it possible she’d messed around with the rope, left it lying about somewhere? Like in a tree?

Nate had said Lydia Fieldman walked herself out to the tree by the lake. My first thought was that it might have been suicide. But what if it had been an accident? What if Mom had carelessly left a noose dangling from the tree and Lydia had accidently stepped into it?

My blood ran cold, sending icy shards scraping along the veins.

“Listen, Dad, I’m on my way,” I said, suddenly out of breath. This was crazy. Mom would never do anything foolish. But why, why did she keep insisting it was her fault? “I’ll be there in five minutes. Just take care of Mom. And don’t let her talk to a soul, okay? In fact, don’t let anyone in the house. Do you hear me?”

“I hear you, pumpkin.”

I cut the call, dragged in a deep breath that did no good. My legs threatened to crumple.

If Lydia’s death was some freak accident and Mom was even remotely connected, then this was bad. This was about as bad as bad could get.

I gave myself a mental shake and started moving, tucked the phone into my back pocket as I went, was halfway down the stairs before I remembered I’d need my car keys and they were on the bedside table in my room.

Crap.

Get yourself together, Maddox!

I turned around and flew up the stairs again.

Nate spun about from the whiteboard as I burst into the room.

He took one look at me and intercepted me between the doorway and the bedside table. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” I ducked around him and snatched my keys. “I just… I have to go.”

“Maddox?” He blocked me, his palms curling over my shoulders as he searched my eyes.

The genuine concern in his gravel voice almost undid me.

Almost.

“Is it your mother?” he said. “Spinner hasn’t been able to contact her all morning.”

My nerves frayed and buckled. “What does Jack want with my mom? Why was he trying to contact her?”

“Standard procedure,” Nate said. “We just need to ask a few questions, Maddox. She might have seen or heard something.”

“That will have to wait,” I blurted out. “Mom’s not feeling well. I won’t have you or Jack upsetting her.”

“Okay.” One hand slid over my shoulder, down my arm, and the blink of an eye later, he was somehow holding my set of keys. “I’ll drive you.”

“No.” I shoved myself backward, out of reach of his warm touch.

There was no way he was getting anywhere near Mom. Not until I had a grip on the situation. Lord knew what he’d do with her confession. Actually, I knew exactly what he’d do with it. He’d haul her down to the station for questioning. And okay, he probably wouldn’t be aggressive, and he wouldn’t dare charge her, but I was not putting Mom through any of that.

“Just give me the keys, Nate.”

“Okay, I get it. You’re still mad at me,” he said. “But you’re in no condition to get behind the wheel.”

I glared so hard, my brows crossed.

He turned from me and walked out the room. With my keys.

I stomped after the infuriating man, and nearly broke a heel before I remembered I was wearing stilettos. I continued with a lighter tread, but in my heart I was still stomping. If Nate thought he could take my car hostage, well, he clearly could, but that wasn’t the point. What gave him the right to always assume control over me and my life?

Nate paused outside Joe’s door, knocked once and then walked straight in.

“Maddox needs to get home to her mother,” I heard him say. “She’s in shock, so you’ll have to drive.”

I sighed noisily. I wasn’t in shock, but Joe would be if Nate tried to put him behind the wheel of a car.

“Maddie?” Joe stepped into sight, my keys clutched in his hand. He looked at me a moment, then kept coming. “Let’s go.”

I went.

We hurried down the stairs and through the front foyer, made it all the way to my car before Joe finally said, “Detective Bishop does know I can’t drive, right?”

I held my hand out for the keys. “He never bothered to ask.”

Joe hesitated, then plopped the keys into my palms. “Okay, but I’m going with you.”

“No problem.” If there was one good thing I knew for sure about Joe, he wouldn’t rat my mom out to the cops.

The sun had been beating down since early morning and, even parked beneath the shade of the leafy beech, the inside of my Beetle was cooked. I started the engine and hit the button to roll back the soft top while Joe folded his long legs into the cramped space.

As soon as he’d snapped his belt on, I gunned us into reverse. The tires skid on the gravel driveway, shooting up loose stone and bark.

“Do you want to tell me what’s going on?”

I glanced at him, saw his gaze lift from my white-knuckled grip on the gear stick to settle into me.

I shook my head, but I did ease up on the accelerator as I navigated the driveway and took us out onto the valley road. Joe didn’t push it, left me in peace to fester in my fears. He’d find out soon enough, and so long as I didn’t voice my fears aloud, that’s all they were.

Stupid fears, the byproduct of an overactive imagination.

Because deep down I knew there had to be a reasonable explanation for why Mom thought Lydia Fieldman’s death was her fault. An explanation that didn’t involve her tampering with the prop rope, or leave it dangling from a tree.

Mom was the most safety-conscious person I knew.

I’d been almost ten before she’d removed the child-locks from the kitchen and bathrooms. The medicine cabinet still had a safety catch, in case any of us took up sleepwalking and accidently overdosed on over-the-counter painkillers.

“Did you know, my mom won’t even polish the floors when Nana Rose is staying,” I said.

“I did not.”

I nodded vigorously. “She’s afraid Nana Rose will slip and break her hip.”

Joe gave a dry laugh. “Are we talking about the same Nana Rose who performed a solo tango at our wedding and drank Uncle Markus under the table?”

“Exactly.”

There was no way my mom would leave a disaster zone lying around for just anyone to step into.

TEN

Dad opened the front door before I reached it. He must have been peeking through the parlor window, because his scowl was ready to go before Joe even stepped inside behind me.

“Joseph,” he said with unmissable hostility. There wasn’t a trace of the usual sunshine creased into his leathery face. “I heard you were staying up at the big house.”

“Only temporarily.” Joe gave a restrained smile. “How are you, Mr Storm?”

Totally ignoring him, Dad wrapped an arm around me and led me into the front parlor. “I managed to calm your mother down a little,” he said. “She told me one of your guests had been murdered.”