Bourbon Creme Killer: Book 9 in The INNcredibly Sweet Series Read online

  “Why don’t you go then? Joyce can watch the store, right?”

  “Of course she could. That girl runs a tight ship,” Echo smiled. “But I’m honestly not feeling up to traveling, and I can’t just leave Scott here by himself.”

  “Oh, that’s right,” Missy nodded, remembering that the boy had stayed behind. “Why didn’t Kel take him back to Illinois?”

  “Because he figured that if something bad has happened to his mother, Scott might be in danger, so he’s safe and sound housesitting while Kel is away.”

  “I sure hope his mama is okay,” Missy said, taking a sip of her coffee.

  “Me, too.”

  “I wonder if Kel needs any help…”

  “I never thought of that,” Echo exclaimed. “I can’t go to Illinois to help Kel, but you could.”

  “That’s a great idea. Things are a bit slow right now, so I could have Spencer watch the shop and Maggie can handle the inn,” she nodded.

  “When does Spencer leave for his new assignment?” Echo asked sadly.

  Spencer Bengal, a young, handsome Marine veteran who served as the inn’s handyman, had been secretly working undercover, having been hired by Chas’s family to protect the eldest heir to the Beckett estate. The Marine had saved them from several dangerous situations and had become like a member of the family. When Echo started making her custom candles, he’d jumped right in to help her pump up her inventory, and he often presided over the cupcake counter in Missy’s shop when she had to run errands.

  When Chas and Missy had made the decision to sell the inn and cupcake shop a few short weeks ago, so that they could move to New York, enabling Chas to take over Beckett Holdings, Spencer had informed them that he’d been reassigned, a fact which broke their hearts. No one knew the details as yet, including Spencer, and they were all dreading the day that his smile no longer warmed their lives.

  “We still don’t know,” Missy said softly. “I’m hoping that something changes… I don’t know what we’ll do without him.”

  “You should go to Champaign and see if Kel needs help,” Echo changed the subject abruptly, before tears threatened. She was having a hard time dealing with the emotional highs and lows brought on by pregnancy.

  “Should I call and ask him if he even wants my help?” Missy worried.

  “Heck, no,” Echo shook her head and grinned. “He’ll just tell you that everything is fine and progressing nicely, you know how he is. The man wouldn’t ask for help if you paid him to,” she sighed, missing her fiancé.

  “There’s that. Are you sure that you’re not just sending me out there to keep an eye on him for you?” she teased.

  “No, but I’m hoping that with two of you working to find Jeanette, she’ll turn up quicker and he can come home and rub my feet,” Echo giggled. “I really miss him.”

  “I’m sure you do, sugar. Well, let me talk to Chas. I can probably catch a flight tomorrow.”

  “You’re the best,” Echo hugged her fearless friend.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Missy stared out the window of the airplane, brooding a bit. Chas hadn’t approved that the police hadn’t been contacted about Kel’s missing ex-girlfriend, but had relented a bit when Missy said she’d be going up there to convince him to do just that. It wasn’t a lie—she planned to encourage him to go to the police, but she would be by his side investigating in the meantime.

  Per Echo’s request, she hadn’t notified Kel that she was coming, but was nearly certain that he wouldn’t have a problem with her being there. She knew which hotel he was in, and which room, and had booked a suite across the hall from him. It was kind of thrilling to think that soon she’d be in a totally unfamiliar place trying to solve what might be a kidnapping. She hoped that Scott’s mother had simply needed time for herself and had just been careless in communicating, but a sense of dread overcame her every time she thought about it. What mother would leave her teenaged son for weeks without a word?

  She checked into the brand-new downtown hotel and freshened up a bit before going across the hall and knocking on Kel’s door. When the artist didn’t answer immediately, she decided to take a walk around the downtown area and explore a bit. The city was so uncrowded and laid-back that she felt immediately at home, and decided to stop at a quaint little hipster coffee shop for a snack before heading back. Across the street was a bustling bar and grill that had the most amazing smell of grilled burgers emanating from beneath its awnings. She felt a bit guilty admitting it, but this time away from the inn and the cupcake shop and all of her various daily activities felt like a little vacation, so she took her time, finishing every last drop of her latte and curried egg salad sandwich before heading back to the hotel.

  ***

  “Hi Stanton, it’s Kel— vin Phillips,” Kel stuttered, forgetting for a moment that he was undercover. “I got your message. You said you remembered something about Jeanie?”

  “Oh, yeah, hey Kelvin, how ya doin? Yeah, I remembered that she was having car troubles before I stopped hearing from her, and she said that when she dropped off the car, the mechanic was hitting on her. I mean, stuff like that happens to her all the time, she’s a doll, ya know… but, this guy weirded her out. Might be worth checking out,” Vincenzo explained.

  “At this point, I’m thinking that she probably just took a trip to the Bahamas to forget about it all for a while, but my ma really wants me to try to find her,” Kel did his best to sound nonchalant. “You got any idea who the mechanic is?” His pen was poised over a notepad, and he was having a bit of fun mirroring Stanton Vincenzo’s speech patterns.

  “Nah, she didn’t say. She felt silly making a big deal over it. But I’m sure if your ma has a key to her house, you can get in there and maybe find a receipt or something,” Stanton suggested.

  Kel had been trying to stay away from invading Jeanette’s private space, but what her boyfriend said made sense. There might be clues there that would lead him to her.

  “That’s a thought,” he played it cool, not wanting to let Stanton know that he’d definitely be going to Jeanie’s place. “Maybe ma can go over and look. I feel kinda weird about it. Like we’re all going to be embarrassed when she comes back tanned and relaxed and we were all worried for nothing.”

  “I hear ya, man. Let’s hope that’s all it is. Lemme know if you find anything.”

  “Sure will. And thanks for the tip—I appreciate it.”

  “You betcha, anything to help.”

  After pressing the End button on his phone, Kel jotted down some notes and looked in his wallet for the piece of paper that Scott had given him with Jeanette’s address on it. He felt caught up in some kind of weird dream. Just a few days ago, he’d been a single, childless man, and now he was about to be married and had one son and a child on the way. The artist nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard a soft knock on his hotel room door, and made his way soundlessly to the peephole, shocked at who was standing on the other side.

  “Hey darlin,” Missy greeted him with a warm hug.

  “Is my lovely bride-to-be in the habit of sending chaperones these days?” he joked, genuinely glad to see a familiar face.

  “Nope, I’m just too darn nosy to stay put.”

  “You realize that we might both be in danger now?” Kel raised his eyebrows.

  “Do you have any idea how often I’ve heard that line?” Missy replied wryly.

  “Come on in. I have a fully-stocked mini-bar, so you can hydrate while I bring you up to speed,” he invited, closing the door behind his fiancée’s best friend.

  While Missy drank two bottles of water and munched on a handful of trail mix, he told her about his conversations with Rhonda the realtor and Stanton Vincenzo. She nodded, taking it all in.

  “Sounds like we need to find the mechanic. That seems to be the common thread in both conversations so far,” she mused.

  “That was my thought as well,” Kel agreed. “And you being here might actually make my story about being
Jeanette’s cousin more plausible.”

  “I hardly look like your mother, Kel,” Missy grumbled.

  “Clearly,” he rolled his eyes. “But if anyone is watching her place and see a man and a woman go in, it makes it look like we could be relatives of hers, rather than just me going in as a single, stalking male,” he pointed out.

  “Oh. Good point.”

  “Does Chas know you’re here?” Kel raised an eyebrow.

  “He absolutely does. And if he should happen to call, I’m trying my very best to talk you into going to the police with your concerns,” she gave him a pointed look, which made him chuckle.

  “Why is it that all the women in my life are adventurous, headstrong types?” he teased.

  “Because you’re a lucky man,” Missy shot back, not missing a beat. “Now, how are we going to get into Jeanette’s house?”

  “Through the back door. Scott gave me a key.”

  “Should we wait until it’s dark, so no one will see us?”

  “Do you want to face potentially dangerous people who might show up in the dark or in broad daylight?”

  “You do have a point… so we’re going now?”

  “I think it’s best. The sooner we get this over with, the sooner we can get back home. Do you have a hotel yet?”

  “I’m right across the hall.”

  “Of course you are,” Kel chuckled. “Let’s go see what we can find.”

  ***

  Jeanette and Scott lived in a modest home that was close enough to a golf course to have all the amenities of an area with manicured lawns and beautifully kept homes, but not so close that the structures were gated and imposing. This, unfortunately, was the type of neighborhood where neighbors knew each other and knew who belonged and who didn’t.

  “Oh boy, people are going to know that we’re strangers around here,” Missy remarked, as a man watering his flowers raised a hand in greeting. She smiled and waved back. “So, we’re supposed to be Jeanette’s cousins?”

  “Yup. Since I… knew her, just let me do the talking and we should be fine if we encounter anyone,” Kel advised.

  “Roger wilco,” Missy nodded, taking in the lush green lawns and colorful flowers around her. They’d driven past acres upon acres of cornfields to get to the neighborhood, and the place was decidedly different from Florida, but had its own down-home charm.

  Kel turned to look at her, blinking once before returning his eyes to the road.

  “What? I saw it in a police show once,” she grinned.

  “Ah, here we are, 3311 Pond’s Edge,” he pulled into the long driveway of the well-kept ranch-style home.

  “How is her yard so perfect if she’s been gone for a couple of weeks?” Missy wondered, admiring the landscaping.

  “She must have a lawn service or something,” Kel guessed, turning off the engine.

  “Since you’re parked in the driveway, we might as well go in the front door.”

  “That’s the plan,” he said quietly, staring at the house with an unfathomable look on his face.

  “Well, come on then,” Missy said, itching to get inside so that they could find clues.

  The couple held their breath as Kel jiggled the key in the lock until it finally clicked open.

  “No alarm system?” Missy wondered.

  “Apparently, Jeanette feels very safe here.”

  “Well, let’s hope that she was correct in that assumption. Should we split up to make this go faster?”

  “Absolutely,” Kel nodded. “Scott mentioned an office, I’ll start there. You should check the kitchen and Jeanette’s room.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Missy agreed, turning right to head into the kitchen.

  There was a corkboard over the small kitchen desk. Missy assessed the board, its calendar, and the plethora of sticky notes on it. She lightly ran her finger over them to see if any of them contained information that might be relevant. There was one that said “pick up car” that was tacked to a Saturday, a little over two weeks ago. Missy took a picture of it with her phone, holding up the edge of it so that the date showed. The drawer of the little desk held pens, pencils, notepads and not much else, so after looking through the rest of the kitchen drawers, she headed to Jeanette’s bedroom.

  She first went to the nightstand by the bed and found that apparently Jeanette suffered from seasonal allergies and possibly asthma, as the drawer contained an inhaler, along with a couple of paperback novels, a half-eaten bag of gummi bears, and a jar of chewable vitamins. A further search of the room turned up nothing, until Missy went into the long, narrow walk-in closet. Just inside the door on a small chest of drawers was a purse. There were several purses tucked neatly into slots near the top shelf of the custom closet, but this one looked as though it had been placed there recently. Feeling a bit guilty, Missy peeked inside and found all of the things typically found in an everyday purse. Keys, wallet with credit cards and money, various receipts and odds and ends that would typically be present in a woman’s purse were all there, causing Missy’s heart to drop to her stomach. No woman would leave home for an extended amount of time without her purse. Jeanette Hammond wasn’t on vacation, she was missing.

  “Kel,” she called softly, turning around and letting out a startled scream when she bumped into him as he entered the closet. “Oh my gosh, I…” she started to say, when he put a finger to his lips, his eyes darting to the window, where Missy saw a car that had just pulled up.

  Her eyes went wide and she looked about frantically, searching for a place to hide.

  “Follow me,” he whispered, moving quickly from the closet.

  He made his way swiftly through the kitchen, and practically dragged Missy down the basement stairs, just as they heard the doorbell ring. The basement was finished in a style that suggested it hadn’t been updated since the house was built. It was tasteful, and well maintained, but true to the period with olive, mustard, and blaze-orange décor, but Missy couldn’t focus on the room because Kel was busy trying to locate a suitable hiding place as they heard the front door creak open above them.

  “Hello?” Rhonda the realtor called out tentatively. “Jeanie… are you home?”

  Missy and Kel ducked into a dark niche between the utility closet and the washer and dryer, in an unfinished part of the basement. They heard the click-click of the realtor’s heels in the foyer.

  “Who is that, and why does she have a key?” Missy whispered, trying to control her breathing.

  Kel placed a finger to his lips and shook his head, shushing her. They heard footsteps as Rhonda wandered around the house, occasionally calling out Jeanette’s name. Missy thought her heart would pound right out of her chest when the clickety-clacking heels stopped right in front of the basement door.

  “Jeanie? You doing laundry?” she called out.

  Missy gave Kel a wide-eyed panicked look, and he squeezed her shoulder, putting a finger to his lips again. There was a pregnant pause, during which Missy thought that surely Rhonda could hear her heartbeat all the way upstairs, but then the basement door shut and she made her way out of the house. They waited until they heard her car start up and pull away before breathing a sigh of relief.

  “Well, it looks like I have to turn the rental car in today,” Kel sighed, shaking his head.

  “Why?”

  “Because it was sitting in the driveway when Rhonda the realtor drove up. If she’s any kind of friend, she’s probably calling the police about it right now and reporting the license plate number.”

  “Oh, right,” Missy frowned. “Well, I rented a car too, so we can turn yours in and use mine.”

  “Now we’re under the gun to figure out where Jeanette is and what’s going on before the police figure out that I’m here pretending to be someone else while I investigate a disappearance. That was a careless mistake, I should’ve parked blocks away.”

  Missy put a hand on his arm. “It is what it is. Did you find anything?”

  They hurried up the
steps and Kel spoke over his shoulder.

  “Yes, fortunately I found the name and number of the man who may be the mechanic that was supposed to be fixing her car. Did you find anything?” he asked, looking carefully into the street before carefully closing the door behind them, using the sleeve of his button-down as a glove.

  They got into the car and pulled out cautiously, making certain that Rhonda’s car was nowhere to be seen.

  “Yes, I did. This,” she held up Jeanette’s purse, which she’d been carrying since Kel found her in the closet.

  “Let’s hope it helps. I’m going to drive straight to the airport to drop off the car, then we should take separate cabs back to the hotel,” he said, strategizing. “Once we get there, you go through the purse, and I’ll try to track down what info I can on the mechanic. With any luck, we’ll be able to send you over there to pose as Jeanie’s cousin, so that you can try to flirt with him and make him talk.”

  Missy’s eyes widened. “Me?”

  “Yes, I’ve already talked to her boyfriend and Rhonda, and they both mentioned the mechanic. I don’t want them catching on to the fact that someone is looking into Jeanette’s disappearance.”

  “Yeah, that makes sense,” she nodded pensively. “All right, let’s do this. We have to find out what happened to your son’s mom.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Spencer Bengal vigorously polished the already sparkling countertop at Cupcakes in Paradise, deep in thought. He’d dedicated the last few years of his life to serving the Beckett family as a private security guard for Detective Chas Beckett, the eldest son and heir to the family empire and fortune. Chas hadn’t known that the handsome young man who was hired to be the handyman at the Beach House Bed and Breakfast was actually sent there by Chalmers, Chas’s father’s former valet who now ran Beckett Holdings since Chas had refused the position. He’d discovered most of Spencer’s true identity only recently, and was a bit put out to discover that he’d been secretly watched and protected for years.

  Now, however, Spencer’s situation had changed dramatically. Part of his training for the Beckett private security force had been with a special unit in the Marines which had performed covert and top-secret missions, in conjunction with a civilian dark ops organization. The understanding with the dark ops organization had been that they would provide training for Spencer, as well as a handful of other young men, in exchange for the right to call them into service for matters of national security. Spencer and one of his brothers-in-arms, a now-scarred young man named Janssen, had been successful in evading the dark ops organization. Both had changed their names and adopted new identities in order to stay out of the clutches of the often dangerous organization, and now both worked to protect Chas and Missy.