Streusel Creme Killer: Book 5 in The INNcredibly Sweet Series Page 6

  She dressed in an elegant but simple black cocktail dress, feeling better after putting in pearl earrings and dabbing on the lightest touch of makeup, Missy figured that she would look good enough not to embarrass Echo, but not so overdressed that she’d make their guest feel uncomfortable. Echo had complained about not having anything to wear to the stuffy upper-crust club, so Missy set aside a dress in a shade of green that would make her friend’s eyes stand out beautifully. She and Echo were about the same size, though she was more curvy and petite, whereas Echo was quite slender and tall. The cut of the dress would be more flattering on the tall redhead than it was on Missy, so she told her that once she’d worn it to the club, she could keep it.

  Echo took the bus to the Inn, and she and Missy chatted while they got ready for their “date” with Carlotta, then waited for the driver, that Kel had reserved, to come pick them up.

  “Is she meeting us downstairs?” Echo asked, making a face.

  “You really dislike this woman, don’t you?” Missy chuckled.

  “I dislike the fact that she’s been taking up all of my fiance’s available time recently,” she pouted.

  “Well, maybe once we get to know her a little bit tonight, you’ll feel a lot better.”

  “Mmmhmm…” the only reason Echo didn’t roll her eyes is because it would make putting on the mascara too difficult.

  “Ready?” Missy asked, when her friend had recapped the mascara.

  “Ready as I’ll ever be,” Echo grumbled, picking up her evening bag and heading down the stairs after her friend.

  When they reached the bottom of the stairs, Carlotta could be seen standing out on the front porch, smoking a clove cigarette in a long black holder.

  “Oh boy,” Echo muttered, instinctively reaching up to touch her hair.

  “Be nice, she’s lonely,” Missy giggled.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Come on, let’s go,” she linked arms with her reluctant friend, ever the optimist.

  “Hi Carlotta,” she sang out after opening the door.

  The sloe-eyed Latin beauty turned and surveyed the duo with an amused look.

  “Well, don’t you two look cute,” she purred.

  The woman was decked out in a tight-fitting designer original dress that probably cost more than the Rolls Royce that had just pulled up to take them to the club. Sensing a snide remark rising up within Echo, Missy took charge.

  “Why thank you, you look lovely as well,” she said, her smile oozing southern charm that was sweeter than her mama’s sweet tea had been. “Shall we?”

  The driver was out of the car in a flash, and helped the ladies into the plush interior. Echo and Missy sat side by side, and Carlotta sat facing them, handing her cigarette to the driver to put out. He stubbed it out and handed her back the holder, which she placed in her handbag.

  “So, have you seen any of Kel’s art that you particularly like?” Missy asked, determined to have a polite conversation.

  Carlotta looked bored.

  “Well, you know…I’ve seen art from all over the world. At some point, it all begins to look the same. That’s why I have to make multiple trips to the gallery. I want each piece that I buy to be special. It has to stand out.”

  “Just like your outfit,” Echo observed cattily, before Missy could think of a response.

  “Precisely,” Carlotta drawled, raising an eyebrow as she allowed her gaze to travel from Echo’s flame-red hair, to the tips of her “last season” shoes.

  “I particularly like his piece called Phoenix, but he says he’ll never sell that one,” Missy threw in, before Echo could come up with a suitably nasty retort.

  Carlotta shrugged.

  “I suppose it’s fine…if you like that sort of overt expressionism,” she commented, looking out the window.

  Missy put her hand on Echo’s knee, giving it a light squeeze, along with a warning look, so that she’d keep her mouth shut. They’d discussed earlier in the evening that Echo would have to make some sacrifices because Carlotta was a very important client for Kel. The three women spent the rest of the ride to the Club in relative silence. It was a relief to have menus on which to focus their attention, rather than suffering in awkward silence.

  Kel had made arrangements for the bill to be added to his account, so the women could order what they wished and not have to worry about splitting up the check. Missy ordered a pasta primavera dish, Echo ordered the Garden of Delights salad, and Carlotta ordered the surf and turf, taking about three bites each of the steak and lobster before pushing away her nearly full plate, then ordering dessert with coffee and a cocktail. Missy and Echo exchanged a glance, but didn’t comment.

  “So, is New York home for you?” Missy again attempted to make conversation with their difficult guest.

  “New York, Milan, Paris…home is wherever my whims take me.”

  “So, which city is your favorite?” Echo asked, getting into the spirit of things.

  “It’s like comparing apples and oranges,” Carlotta shrugged, her eyes darting about the club as though she were looking for someone.

  “But you don’t have a place in Florida?” she tried again, a polite smile pasted onto her face.

  “Why on earth would I? Besides, all of the good pieces of land down here are already claimed by developers,” she waved a hand dismissively.

  “Well that’s not true. I have some land here that’s entirely undeveloped, and it happens to be for sale,” Echo replied smugly, ignoring the fact that Missy was nudging her under the table with the toe of her shoe.

  “Really?” Carlotta raised an eyebrow and focused her full attention for the first time on her dinner companions.

  “Yes, really,” Echo replied, encouraged by her reaction. “It’s a lovely plot of waterfront land with no buildings whatsoever on it.”

  “Here? In Calgon?” the socialite sounded skeptical. “And where might such a thing exist in this backwater county?” she examined her nails, while keeping an eye on Echo.

  “Actually it borders the land surrounding the…” Echo’s sentence was interrupted by Missy “accidentally” knocking over her glass of iced water, with most of it landing in Echo’s lap.

  “Oh!” Echo exclaimed, shooting to her feet, as an attentive waiter hurried over with a towel. “That’s so cold!” she dabbed at her dress ineffectively with a napkin.

  “Oh my goodness, how clumsy of me,” Missy said, standing as well. “Here, honey, let’s get you to the ladies room to take care of this,” she suggested.

  “You can dress them up, but you can’t take them out,” Carlotta commented dryly, tapping her immaculately manicured talons on the table. “I’ll wait for you at the bar while Henri cleans this mess up,” she sniffed, tossing her napkin on top of the sodden tabletop.

  “You did that on purpose, didn’t you?” Echo hissed when they entered the plush confines of the ladies room.

  Missy looked to make certain that no one else was in the bathroom before answering.

  “You’re darn right I did,” she frowned. “The whole town is in an uproar about what’s going to happen with that property, we found bottles there that may have contained the salmonella that made nearly the entire population sick, and you’re about to announce to a woman that we don’t know from Adam that you own it? What are you thinking?” she grabbed her friend by the shoulders, making her look at her.

  “She’s just so damn smug,” Echo replied, her eyes welling with tears. “And she’s been spending all of this time with Kel and she’s beautiful and successful and wealthy and younger…”

  “Oh goodness gracious, is that what this is about? Honey, you need to pull it together. Kel loves you – you have nothing to worry about from Carlotta,” Missy dried her tears with a tissue snatched from a sterling silver box on the long marble vanity.

  “Now, let’s get you dried off, and get back out there to the most bored woman in the world,” she chuckled.

  “You mean most boring woman in the worl
d,” Echo muttered, cracking a smile.

  “Be nice.”

  An attendant came in with a stack of towels, and between those and a hair dryer, Echo’s dress looked almost as good as new when they emerged a few minutes later. They went straight to the bar to find Carlotta, only to be chased down by the concierge who informed them that “your lady friend has departed, along with your car.” Missy and Echo looked at each other, open-mouthed at the audacity of the woman, then began to laugh.

  “Want dessert?” Missy suggested, still grinning.

  “Might as well,” Echo agreed. “Should we call Spencer for a ride?”

  “Great idea, I’ll tell him to come get us in about an hour.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Timothy Eckels had spent some late nights pondering the Diane Fellman case. It looked as though the cause of death had been a great deal of contaminated water that was injected into her veins, after being sedated, but the parasites that had been feasting on her innards had been introduced after her death. The Medical Examiner sat staring at the photos that he’d taken at the scene, and wondered what he’d been missing.

  The book that was found under the Vice Mayor’s body had been about nuclear accidents in recent history, and the pages of the book that it had been opened to, detailed the seepage of toxic waste into the ground waters at various sites. Perplexed, Tim did a search on the book’s title, and found it under “Environmental Disasters.” There was a listing that was literally titled The World’s Top Ten Environmental Disasters, and he clicked on the link, curious. He’d read through the first seven, when something occurred to him and a missing piece of the puzzle fell into place – the dates on the pennies!

  The pennies covering Diane Fellmans eyes were dated 1976 and 1984. Those dates stood out to him because, when he read through the list of the top ten environmental disasters, there were two major events that had taken place in those years. The Seveso disaster took place in July of 1976, just north of Milan, Italy, where an explosion rocked a chemical manufacturing plant, releasing Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) into the atmosphere. Thousands of animals died and scores had to be euthanized in order to prevent the spread of contamination. The effects on humans were less lethal, but still terribly unpleasant. Tim would bet his last dollar that Diane Fellman’s tissue samples would show traces of TCDD.

  The disaster in 1984 was probably even more important, given what had just happened in Calgon. The M.E. picked up his phone and dialed Chas Beckett.

  **

  Dylan McClary sat quite uncomfortably in the cold metal chair across the interrogation table from Detective Chas Beckett and a pair of stone-faced federal agents. The agents were allowing Chas to conduct the interview with the known eco-terrorist because his wife had discovered the evidence that may have been their biggest break in the case yet.

  “What brings you to Calgon, Mr. McClary?” Chas asked casually.

  “I’m on vacation,” the young man crossed his arms, his defensive posture belying his nonchalant tone.

  “Vacation? I see. And are you traveling alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “We have video footage of you at the Calgon Galleria mall, accompanied by a Miss Chelsea Nichols, and there are several citizens who have had visits from you and Miss Nichols.”

  “It’s just coincidence. I happened to be vacationing here and so does she,” Dylan shrugged, picking nervously at the cuticle of his thumb.

  “I see,” Chas nodded. “And is it also coincidental that you and Miss Nichols are both members of an organization called Safe-A?”

  “I guess so. Small world,” he shrugged again, drawing blood from the jagged hangnail beside his thumb.

  “What were you and Chelsea Nichols doing at the mall?”

  “Shopping.”

  “What did you buy?”

  “Socks.”

  “Where is Chelsea Nichols right now?” the detective asked, leaning forward.

  “How should I know?” McClary refused to look at him.

  “Mr. McClary, we have substantial evidence linking you and Miss Nichols to multiple counts of murder and attempted murder, as well as domestic terrorism. Now you can go down alone for this, or you can help your own situation by telling us where to find Chelsea Nichols,” Chas said in a menacing tone.

  Dylan McClary’s eyes grew wide for a moment, then he recovered his disengaged affect.

  “I didn’t kill anyone, and I have no idea where Chelsea is.”

  **

  Echo was utterly drained after having to put up with Carlotta, but she and Missy had enjoyed their desserts at the Club before Spencer came to pick them up. She’d been thinking about the containers that they’d found on her parcel of land all evening, and hadn’t been able to get any word from Chas as to whether or not they meant anything, because he’d been tied up with federal investigators all day.

  Hoping that she hadn’t sent them all on a ridiculous wild goose chase, she powered up her laptop and searched for information on BioZyme. What she found chilled her to the bone. BioZyme was a lab that studied toxins, bacteria, other potential biohazards, and there were several articles which implied that a secret branch of the organization that was actively researching how to most effectively use bio agents in warfare. Anything that came from BioZyme was potentially dangerous, and she was terrified of the implications of having found empty containers from the facility.

  Worried, Echo picked up her cell phone to call Missy so that she could tell her what she’d found, when she heard a sound that startled her. Putting down the phone, she glanced at her kitchen window. She’d been sitting at the table, with the blinds drawn, and it had sounded like something tapped on the window. Fervently hoping that she’d locked all of the doors and windows, she followed a hunch and typed in the search terms, “Diane Fellman BioZyme.”

  No results.

  She then typed in the terms “Diane Fellman GenetiCorp.” There were only three hits that came up, and she clicked on the first one, finding the minutes of a Calgon city council meeting, at which the Vice Mayor had passionately argued against allowing GenetiCorp to develop the land that Carmen Feeney owned, should the sale go through. Diane cited several studies, and lawsuits, and as Echo clicked quickly through them, it became obvious that GenetiCorp had been sued by several small towns, and kept the suits out of the public eye by offering huge settlements and moving on, leaving the towns to deal with the mess that they left behind.

  Eyes wide, Echo began to put the pieces together. Diane Fellman argued against GenetiCorp and was murdered. Carmen Feeney had been dragging her feet and hadn’t signed the paperwork for the sale to GenetiCorp…did she really die from salmonella? The elderly woman’s home had been torn to pieces by someone who was clearly looking for something…what were they looking for? A will? A deed? If they were searching for Carmen’s will, they may have been trying to find out to whom the property in question now belonged. Which meant, if they did something as simple as checking the city records for transference of property deeds, she could be in danger.

  A chill went up Echo’s spine, and she heard another sound, this time coming from her back door. She looked over and saw the knob slowly move back and forth, as whoever was on the other side twisted it, trying to get in. Heart in her throat, Echo texted Chas.

  911!!!! Someone is trying to get into my house, and I’m here alone! Please help!!!

  CHAPTER 12

  Dylan McClary remained steadfast in his resolve to admit nothing. He blatantly lied, and refused to budge from his story, despite the overwhelming evidence against him. The tell-tale signs that gave him away were his nervous tics. He picked at his nails, he shook his right knee up and down constantly, and his eyes darted around the room, looking anywhere but into the eyes of his accusers. He was a professional activist, and had managed to keep his cool in the face of police interrogations many times over, but the tics indicated that, this time, he might be beginning to waver.

  Chas Beckett was frustrated by his seeming inabil
ity to crack the young eco-terrorist, and, when two 911 texts in a row came into his phone, he rose from his chair in an instant, excusing himself and leaving Dylan in the capable hands of the feds. Barking an order to the dispatcher on duty, along with Echo’s address, he dialed Timothy Eckels’ number on his way to the car. Setting his phone on speaker, he talked with the Medical Examiner during the short drive to Echo’s neighborhood, hoping that he wasn’t too late.

  **

  Echo stayed rooted to her chair at the kitchen table, too scared to move, and hoping that Chas would come to the rescue sooner, rather than later. She held her breath, waiting, listening, and watchng in horror, as whomever had tried the back door knob, now tried the front. Eyes riveted on the door, Echo remained motionless, hoping that the would-be intruder would be deterred by the locks on her windows and doors and would just go away. She nearly jumped out of her skin when the doorbell rang.

  Thanking her lucky stars and thinking that she’d find Chas and a whole host of policemen on her doorstep, she flung open her front door gratefully, only to find Carlotta, dressed in black jeans and a hooded sweatshirt smiling up at her.

  “Carlotta?”

  Echo’s head swam with relief and confusion. She stared at the younger woman, befuddled for a moment, unable to even form a coherent question.

  “I’ve come to visit,” she announced, looking past Echo, into the cottage. “Aren’t you going to let me in?”

  Echo blinked at the socialite for a moment, then recovered a bit.

  “Umm…actually, this really isn’t a good time…” she began, shocked when the bold-as-brass woman brushed by her, and, seeing the open laptop on the kitchen table, made a beeline for it.

  “Well, I’m leaving tomorrow, so we have to visit now,” Carlotta called over her shoulder on her way to the kitchen.