CHAPTER NINETEEN
The Inn at Bluebird Hill, a stone manor house tucked among rolling hills and trees kissed with spring color, is a romantic ivy-draped dream.
I hate it so fucking much.
In addition to our murder-thwarting plan, I have developed one of my own: to resist the romance at every turn. I’m not falling for Anna’s tricks. Even if I have to play along for the sake of crime-fighting, I’ll keep my emotions out of it. I have to.
We check in under our assigned identities: Rebecca Vaughn and Nathan Baker, an event planner and a doctor vacationing from their busy New York life.
The names were assigned, anyway. I invented the rest to distract myself from carsickness on the two-hour wrong-side-of-the-road drive here.
Whether it failed or I’m nauseous for other reasons, I couldn’t say.
“All right, then! You’ll be in the Bumblebee Room,” says Wendy, one of the inn’s cheerful owners, handing over our keys at the reception desk.
She recently opened the place with her husband, Paul, and cannot stop gushing about the inn and how much we’re going to love it.
“Last one reserved for this weekend, but one of the best, if I may say so!”
“And we’re sure there’s only one bed?” I ask. Grant clears his throat pointedly at me.
“Indeed! A beautiful antique queen bed. Quite cozy.” She winks. If one more person does that to me, I’m going to poke them in the eye and really give them something to wink about.
I smile instead. “It’s just that … as much as we totally love each other, we actually prefer to sleep separately. You know, absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that. Is there maybe a sofa in the room, or a cot we could bring in for him?”
“Or for her?” Grant says, patting my shoulder a little harder than strictly necessary.
Wendy is still sunny as a summer morning, if slightly taken aback. “How modern! No sofa, but actually, in preparation for our upcoming Family Reunion Weekend, we’ve ordered loads of cots.”
I relax a little. Maybe I’m overreacting.
“They’re not here yet, though.”
Never mind.
Grant assures Wendy that we’ll be fine and thanks her, then reaches for my hand as we walk away. I stick it in my pocket.
“Roxie,” he warns under his breath.
“Rebecca,” I hiss back.
“You have to play the part.”
I grudgingly pull my hand out and try to hold his lightly, but his grip is warm and solid. He has very good hands—dignified yet strong, with fingers that would look right at home waltzing over piano keys or ink-smudged and grasping a pen. They also look dangerously comfortable wrapped around mine.
Our room is, unsurprisingly, bumblebee-themed.
Very bumblebee-themed. It’s tasteful and charming, of course, but I don’t think there’s a single piece of decor that doesn’t have bumblebees engraved, painted, cross-stitched, carved, or otherwise affixed to it.
The only variation is the bed, whose wooden headboard is etched with not only bees but also birds. Subtle.
We dump our bags and review our strategy, which is basically just a list of irritating coupley things. Pet names, feeding each other, overusing the word we … I recount them as I pace around the room. “Anything else? What’s really annoying?”
“Other than trying to have a conversation with someone who’s bopping around like a human pinball?”
I stop and glare at him.
“When in doubt, I guess we can just try to one-up everyone else,” he says, then pauses. “Where do we stand on kissing?”
“No. What?” My ears are ringing and I feel like I’ve swallowed a softball. “I don’t think that will be necessary.”
Grant narrows his eyes. “Why are you being weird?”
“I’m not being weird.” I’m being so weird.
“Yes, you are. Look, I can’t believe I’m the one saying this, but you need to get it together. If we don’t sell the happy-couple thing, this guy’s going to kill someone else. So whatever your deal is, get over it, okay?”
I’m taken aback, even a little irked. Which might work in my favor here; things can’t get too romantic if I focus on being irritable.
“Fine,” I say.
He nods sharply. “Fine.”
I blow out an exasperated breath and charge toward the door, grabbing his hand on the way.
· · ·
AFTER OUR GOLDEN-HOUR stroll, we’ve tallied up ten loved-up guests, one pond with six paddleboats, one hot tub in a rose garden, two barns—one full of horses, the other of bicycles—and zero loners with murderous vibes.
For a second, I thought we had a lead with a woman sitting alone on a bench. Then a man carrying two hot chocolates swooped in beside her, handing her one. She gasped in delight.
“Thank yooou!” she crooned. “Wait, go away and come back so I can get it on camera.” She whipped up her phone as he hopped out of frame and reenacted the scene, and then they kissed about it in selfie mode for a good minute and a half. So it would seem they’re the ones to beat.
Recon continues at cocktail hour on the patio, all aglow with tabletop firepits and swaths of twinkle lights. As we subtly scope out every newcomer, two glasses of cabernet between us, Grant reaches over the café table and covers my hand in his. I throw back a large mouthful of wine in response.
“What are you doing?” Grant hisses through a smile. “No drinking. We have to be alert.” Jesus. I really do need to get it together. I lower the glass, delicately spitting the wine back into it, and he pats my hand. “Classy.”
I’m about to retort when someone catches my eye—a middle-aged man wearing glasses and a pleasant expression, alone. He strolls to an empty table with a cocktail and a paperback in hand.
“Hey,” I mutter to Grant. “Three o’clock.” He looks in the opposite direction. “Other three o’clock.”
Grant looks in every possible direction before landing on the solo guest. “That’s my nine o’clock,” he murmurs. “Clock positions don’t work when you’re facing opposite—”
“Whatever. Could that be our guy?”
We stare sideways at the man as he settles in to read and sip his drink. “I don’t know,” says Grant. “He seems too happy.”
I know what he means. Crinkle-eyed and plump as Santa Claus, this man exudes a bone-deep satisfaction with life. He seems impervious to the fact that he’s alone in a sea of cutesy couples whispering sweet nothings.
Which, when I think about it, does make him seem like a psychopath.
“Maybe it’s all part of the act?” I suggest.
“Maybe,” Grant says, his voice low. “What’s he reading? Something a killer would read?”
“What exactly would a killer read, Grant?”
He heaves an exasperated sigh. “I don’t know, Roxie. I just mean does it raise any alarms.”
“Now that you mention it, it does look like Murder for Dummies. Oh, wait, no—The Idiot’s Guide to Stabbing People Until They Die.”
“All right, excuse me for thinking we should pay attention to the details here. We are in a crime novel, you know. There could be clues anywhere. There could be hidden messages. There could be—okay, he’s looking at us.”
In fairness, we were staring first—he simply caught us. Grant and I simultaneously shoot him big toothy smiles and raise our glasses. He glances behind him to see who we’re toasting and, seeing no one, offers a cheerful grin and a raised glass back.
“Okay,” I say. “I think he’s the one to watch.”
Grant wastes no time, making a show of interlacing our fingers, and a jolt runs through me. He caught me by surprise, that’s all.
“Loosen up,” he says, giving my hand a little shake. He smiles, though there’s a hint of warning in his eyes. “Maybe you could look at me like we’ve actually met before.”
“Maybe you could not tell me what to do,” I say sweetly, walking my fingers up his arm to poke him in the shoulder.
But Grant, for once in his life, is unflappable. He catches my hand in his own and leans slowly over the table, the fairy lights lending flecks of gold to his eyes.
My out-of-control heartbeat only gets wilder as Grant draws nearer, his gaze dropping to my lips.
He tucks a finger under my chin, tilting my face up toward his.
I’m terrified that he’s forgotten our no-kissing rule, and even so, I can’t stop my eyes from falling closed in anticipation. Then his mouth detours to my ear.
“Is he watching?” he whispers, his warm breath sending an involuntary shiver through me.
Is who—?
Oh. Right. I glance over to the man’s table.
“Shit,” I say, a bit winded. “He’s gone.”
“Damn.” Grant plops back in his chair. “Maybe we annoyed him too much.”
I survey the patio, but there’s no sign of him. The hot chocolate couple from earlier are behind us, though, sharing yet another series of sloppy kisses in front of a propped-up phone. “Maybe it wasn’t us.”
Grant follows my eyeline and grimaces. “We might have to up our game,” he says, and my heart gives a traitorous thump.
With the patio clearing out, I suggest we try to track Mr. Loner down, because I’m diligent about my job and not because I’m trying to postpone going back to our one-bed room.
But he’s nowhere to be found. We cover the whole place until our steps drag and I’ve run out of places to check, and we have no choice but to turn in for the night.
The extra pillows I requested have been delivered by the time we arrive, and I set about arranging them in the middle of the bed as a divider. Grant gives me a bemused look.
“What?” I say, fluffing the pillows. “I like a little personal space when I sleep, Grant. Sue me.”
“Whatever you say,” he replies.
After that, we don’t say much of anything. We take silent turns changing and brushing our teeth, then retire to our separate sides of the bed. Grant reaches up to turn off the light.
“Good night,” he says.
“Night.”
And when I wake in the morning and the pillows are intact, and I’m on my side of the bed and Grant is on his, I think, Good. As it should be.