Sweet Magic Read online

  “Watch your heads there,” he cautioned, tipping his chin upward.

  A couple of warning placards said the same thing. Parts of the hallway clearly had been built before modern man began to grow quite so tall.

  Sanjay was already well ahead again, passing in front of a trio of guest rooms where the wooden hallway floor groaned loudly. Traversing a hall with windows on both sides showed that they were crossing what must have been a carriageway in the old days. Below, the street was to their left, a courtyard on the right. Kelly could imagine horses and carriages halting there, ladies in finery being helped down to the cobblestoned surface.

  Down two steps, a curve to the left, up one step, and Sanjay stopped in front of a cream-colored door. “Your key, sir?”

  Scott handed it over and the man unlocked the door.

  “The Pickwick Room,” he announced. He preceded them, warned them to watch for the step down, and set their bags in front of a tall cherry armoire.

  “It’s huge!” Kelly marveled, remembering the tales she’d heard of hotel rooms in Britain and Europe being on the small side.

  Indeed, the spacious room looked very comfortable, with its smooth green carpeting, tasteful wallpaper and drapes over the two large windows facing the Abbey. There was a small fireplace, which showed evidence of use in a previous era, a beautiful canopied bed, small TV set, desk, and a tea service complete with a variety of teas and cookies. The ensuite bath featured a large tub, a complex-looking shower head, along with thick towels on a warming rack and a variety of shampoos and bath gels.

  Scott offered Sanjay a tip, which the porter politely refused as being unnecessary. When they were alone, he grabbed Kelly’s hand, pulled her close, and danced her around the open space until they landed—by design—on the bed.

  “Happy honeymoon, Mrs. Porter,” he said with a leer as he began to slide his hands beneath her shirt.

  “Mmm … yes.” Her lips found his, and articles of clothing began to drop to the floor.

  * * *

  The light had changed subtly in the room when Kelly awoke, the bedcovers tangled around her legs. Scott murmured in his sleep and tightened his embrace around her waist. She rolled to face him and started planting little kisses around his ear.

  “What time is it?” he murmured.

  She reached past him to pick up her phone from the nightstand. “Twelve o’clock. That can’t be right. This must not have changed over to UK time.”

  He shifted and glanced at his wristwatch. “Seven. We slept more than four hours!”

  “Well, we weren’t asleep all that time,” she teased.

  “True.” He grinned again. “But now I think I’m hungry—for food.”

  “We didn’t make any dinner plan. Maybe we should just get out and walk a bit and see what’s what. If nothing else, we can surely come back to the hotel and eat here.”

  They showered (leisurely) and dressed (quickly), and were out the door thirty minutes later.

  “I’m so sorry, sir, all our dinner bookings are taken tonight. Shall I set up something for tomorrow evening?” The hostess at the Angel certainly knew how to deliver a pleasant rejection.

  They hit the street and began walking. It was evident that the road behind the hotel, where Graham had recommended shopping, was not the direction to go. Storefronts were in night mode and the few pedestrians were hurrying elsewhere. They set out along the busier street and within a couple of blocks came to a place called The Fox.

  “I do happen to have one cancellation,” said the host. “Right this way.”

  Kelly opted for the most English thing she spotted on the menu, steak and kidney pie, while Scott ordered a lamb dish. An hour later, they were satisfied and impressed, deciding they would definitely be back.

  “I should call Mom,” Kelly said on the walk back to the Angel. “I told her I’d let her know we arrived safely and find out how things are going at home.”

  Chapter 7

  The phone rang a little after three o’clock. Sam turned from staring out the back windows and absently picked it up. Beau and Rico were only now hiking back across the pasture, a few evidence bags in hand.

  “Mom, hi! We’re in the UK and it’s fantastic here!” Kelly’s voice conveyed all the excitement and happiness that had been missing from Sam’s day.

  “How was the flight? Are you best friends now with your favorite pop singer?”

  “Oh, them. They weren’t friendly at all, didn’t even talk to us. There was a little private bedroom section on the plane and they disappeared in there right after takeoff. I thought they felt too important to talk to us but Mr. Bookman said she had a concert in London tonight, so I suppose that explains it. Anyway, you should see this hotel. It’s got that whole shabby, historic thing going on. The floors creak like crazy, but our room is really nice and we have an incredible view toward the Abbey and gardens. And Mr. Bookman’s house is really nice, where we’ll stay after Tuesday …”

  Sam laughed. “ I bet it’s amazing. I’m glad you’re having a wonderful time.”

  “We are. How are things going at home? Does everyone miss me?”

  Sam paused. “Fine. Things are … Well, Beau’s working a murder case.” No way she would spoil Kelly’s honeymoon by going into all the gruesome details, nor the reasons behind the killing.

  “Mom? You okay?”

  “Absolutely. It’s been a very busy couple of weeks, but I stayed home today.” Her gaze traveled to the dining table where the Book It Travel contract lay, untouched since early morning. “I’m going over Bookman’s contract right now, in fact.”

  “Great—he seems like such a nice man, doesn’t he? And what he’s done for your business—wow.”

  Sam’s memory flashed back to a time, not that many years ago, when she was scrounging to make a living, breaking into houses and cleaning up messes just to pay the bills. Things had certainly changed, very profitably, since Bookman came along.

  Kelly chatted a few more minutes before they hung up.

  Beau walked in, but not before slipping his boots off outside. “Rico’s heading back to the office. I’m getting a quick shower. I stumbled and landed in some horse—well, anyway. Soon as I’m cleaned up I’ll go in too. It could be a late night.” He said this last bit as he leaned over to kiss the top of her head. “You doing okay?”

  Sam nodded and put on a smile. “That was Kelly on the phone. They arrived and are having a great time already.”

  He sent her a compassionate look. “It’s been a tough week for you, darlin’—take a couple days off.”

  He squeezed her hand and headed upstairs. Sam’s attention wandered back to the contract. There was no way she could concentrate well enough to read the entire document now. The day had been far too crazy. Aside from the terms with the cruise line, most of what she’d covered in the first few pages was standard Book It Travel lingo. They’d worked well together so far. She flipped through the pages, scanning the clauses, then to the end where Bookman had already signed. She dashed off her own signature, jammed the document into the large envelope he’d left with her, and sealed it. She ignored the flutter of nerves in her gut. It was a done deal.

  Beau came down the stairs at a trot, smelling of Irish Spring soap and his favorite shampoo. His hair was damp, with comb marks running through, and he was still buttoning the clean uniform shirt he’d found in the closet.

  “You gonna be home or at the bakery?” he asked, barely glancing up as he looked for his keys.

  “I should probably run to the bakery and see how things are going. It’s still wedding season and Becky may need me. Or the Victorian—the crew making the chocolates doesn’t yet know about this big contract I just signed.”

  She looked at the brown envelope. It had postage already on it; all she needed to do was drop it at the post office, which was on her way.

  “Beau … when you questioned her, did Isobel St. Clair mention the name Marcus Fitch?”

  Now he looked up. “Yeah, act
ually, she did. She seemed pretty certain he’s involved. I’ve got Evan already checking on him.”

  “Apparently he lives in the Washington, DC, area. Did she tell you why she thinks he might have come around here?”

  He shook his head. By now, he’d loaded his pockets with wallet and personal things and had strapped on the weighty leather belt with his pistol, Taser, handcuffs, pepper spray, and extra loaded magazines. His movements were quick and impatient. Sam decided not to drag him into a theoretical conversation about Fitch and his motives. It could wait.

  He gave her a quick kiss and picked up his straw Stetson. “Not sure when I’ll be home, so don’t plan on me for dinner.”

  She nodded with a small sigh and watched him walk out. His SUV sat slightly skewed in the driveway, where he had roared to a stop hours ago when she’d called about the shooting. He maneuvered neatly back toward the road and drove away.

  Sam moved around the great room, picking up tea cups, a stray napkin, a couple of the paper plates she’d taken outside earlier for the deputies’ lunch. Cups went into the dishwasher, paper in the trash, pillows and throws rearranged where people had moved them to sit down. Upstairs, she wiped steam from the mirror and hung up Beau’s towel.

  The carved box sat on the bedroom dresser, blatantly ignoring all of Isobel’s concerns for its safety. Sam had to admit she’d become lax again. After the last time Fitch had made a move to get the box she’d been diligent about locking it in Beau’s hidden gun safe and keeping it there. Except in cases of emergency need of its help. But in the past few months, it had sat here in plain sight.

  She chided herself, picked it up, and carried it downstairs. The box might have been given to her on a whim—she really didn’t know. She’d certainly treated it as a convenient gadget, something to make her day easier.

  Now, things had gotten serious. A man had died.

  She pushed aside the coats in the downstairs closet and entered the code on the safe’s keypad. Isobel might be right—was the box secure enough here in the house? Should she take it to the bank and get a safe deposit box? The alternative would be to destroy it, get it out of her life forever, but something told her to reconsider. Don’t make any changes yet, she told herself.

  She swung the safe door open and placed the box inside, then locked it and arranged the closet contents to conceal the secret.

  Ten minutes later she was on the road toward town. As the miles slipped away, she realized how tense she’d been at home. Getting out was the right thing to do. She dropped the large brown envelope in the mailbox at the post office, circled the block and headed toward the old Victorian house she’d purchased as the location for her chocolate factory.

  She’d first seen the building as a fixer-upper, fairly easy to renovate for her purposes, and the project had been a lot of fun. The rental turned into a purchase, and the old building appeared on the company logo for Sweet’s Traditional Handmade Chocolates. The chocolatiers, consisting of herself and two helpers, had quickly grown to a larger crew with the expansion of Book It Travel and Stan Bookman’s numerous ideas for his exclusive—and wealthy—clientele.

  Now, another major change was coming, and Sam realized she needed to give it serious thought. She parked her pickup truck under the portico and walked through the kitchen door, greeting the chocolatiers at the marble-topped work table, stopping to admire the exquisitely delicate pieces Benjie Lucero was turning out these days. Then she checked in at the packing and shipping rooms to be sure there were no obvious crises. All seemed under control.

  Upstairs, the floors squeaked as she walked to her office in the rounded tower section. She chuckled as she remembered Kelly’s description of their hotel; old buildings had their similarities. On her desk, everything waited just as she’d left it. Not exactly pristine, but neat enough not to drive her crazy for a few more days. She turned on her computer and opened a spreadsheet.

  Nothing she’d spotted in the new contract specified how many pieces of chocolate Sweet’s would need to turn out per day, or even per cruise. Stan had told her this was a boutique cruise line, small ships that made longer journeys. The food was always chef quality, and the desserts and little amenities were expected to be the same. It was how he had sold the line on the idea of handmade chocolates—well, that and the fact that Sam herself had made the samples for their inspection and tasting. Samples that included a little extra of her ‘magic touch.’

  In her browser she went to the cruise line’s website and began taking figures from the sales pitch. ‘Small ship’ meant only about ninety passengers. Compared to the mega ships with two and three thousand, these truly were exclusive. But—the cruise was thirty days long, sailing from New York, through the Panama Canal, and circling the entire length of South America before returning.

  Assuming two pieces of chocolate per passenger each day of the cruise, an estimate she thought conservative, they would need to produce more than five thousand chocolates and send them before the cruise ever left port. Otherwise, she would be faced with shipping a delicate commodity into foreign ports where heat, delays, and bureaucratic red tape could cause any number of serious issues and create horrendous costs.

  Making matters worse, as she continued through the various cruise itineraries, she realized the ninety-passenger ship was the smallest in the line. Others—still ‘exclusive’—carried as many as five hundred. She plugged numbers into her spreadsheet, including her costs and markups. Her chocolates didn’t come cheap, and Stan Bookman was well aware of her charges and so were the cruise people.

  The problem wasn’t so much that she wouldn’t make money at this venture. It was down to logistics—could she and her small company produce true handmade chocolates in the quantities she’d just agreed to do?

  A flutter of nerves went through her gut.

  Chapter 8

  The angle of the sun drew a sharper, longer swath across his desk as Beau stared at the stack of evidence bags piled there. Considering the murder had taken place in broad daylight in front of witnesses, there was precious little to go on.

  He and Rico had combed the area around the copse of trees, based on Lisa’s estimated trajectory of the bullet. The forensic tech was good—he had to admire her. They’d found tire tracks showing that a vehicle had come to a stop nearby and had turned around, the shooter most likely positioning the car for a quick getaway. He may have even left the engine running, since the prevailing wind would have carried the sound away from the house. Or, he may have hidden himself in the trees much earlier and waited for the ideal moment. Beau realized he would likely never know exactly how it went.

  All he had to go on was the scanty evidence. They’d taken molds of the tire prints and Rico was running the pictures through some databases.

  The dry, dusty road hadn’t preserved footprints well, but they’d found some at the point where it appeared someone had stepped between strands of the barbed wire fencing. Most prints were smeared from movement, but one was clear enough to take a mold. That, too, was going to the law enforcement knowledge banks to find out the brand. If they got lucky and it was an unusual one, they might have something to go on.

  Moving into the stand of trees, the footprints became lost in the ground cover of leaves. It had been impossible to tell which of the dozen or more trees their guy stood behind. No sign of where he’d braced his shoulder to be certain his shot was straight and steady. Based on the distance and accuracy—the fact that it had taken only one shot to hit his target—the shooter most likely had training or lots of experience. And that meant he probably wasn’t the man Sam and her friend named.

  Generic tire tracks, generic shoe print, no snags or scraps of fabric on anything, and no spent brass casing from the bullet. Could possibly be a hired assassin.

  He pushed the evidence bags aside. Until he had more information, there was no point in speculating. A good law enforcement man never made guesses until he had all the facts. He sighed and walked into the squad room. Rico sat at
a computer where the photo he’d taken of the tire print filled half the screen; the other half had a dozen other pictures.

  “Any luck on the footprint or those tire tracks yet?”

  “Not yet … still going through these …” Rico didn’t take his eyes off the screen.

  For the hundredth time Beau wished his department had the budget for a separate forensics section with the most up-to-date software and resources. It was crazy to have a deputy sit here for hours staring at tire prints. But unless he wanted to send these things to the state crime lab in Santa Fe and wait weeks for results, this was his immediate choice. He was lucky to have Lisa. At least she was close by and was great at gathering evidence at the crime scene.

  “Any chance of ordering in some dinner?” Rico asked. “Assuming we’re going to be here late?”

  Evan Richards was on the phone at his desk, and Deputy Waters had just walked in the back door. If he planned to keep them into a second shift, he’d better feed everyone.

  “Waters, why don’t you run out and get a bag of tacos from Rosarita’s? Couple dozen should do it, even if the patrol guys come back in.” Beau handed the senior deputy some cash.

  Evan hung up the phone and turned to the boss. “That was the OMI’s office. They’ve retrieved the bullet from the body and will be sending it to ballistics at the crime lab for testing. I’m going to call them next, try to nudge them to give us quick results.”

  “Good luck with that,” Beau said with a wry grin.

  “I’ve got one buddy there in Santa Fe, so I’ll try him. We were in the same criminal justice class at Colorado State.”