Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
I arranged the first meeting with Miss Lissy on that Saturday. Might as well face the demon and get it over with. The sooner I saw her, the sooner she might spill something useful, and the sooner I could forget all about her and get the hell out of here.
“I’m off. Unless you want to switch faces and go for me?” I said to Breeze, who was restacking the cutlery tray.
“As delightfully gory as that sounds, I don’t give off the same go-fuck-yourself vibe as you do. And God knows what that woman does with imposters.”
“I think she keeps them in tiny jars,” I replied.
“I’m claustrophobic, so that’s me out,” Breeze said.
“Fine,” I sighed, pulling on my denim jacket. The café bell jingled, and Breeze followed me out from the back.
“I’ll make an apple pie,” she called as I walked out the door. “Everything is better after apple pie and ice cream.”
I smiled at her through the window as I made my way to Thirsk Street.
There wasn’t far to go. I was learning that everything in a small town was five minutes away.
There had to be some perks to small-town living.
If I could just stop the constant chit-chat from strangers who seemed to think we were long-lost friends, I might even stay longer.
Miss Lissy’s house was nothing like I expected.
A Gothic castle of blackness would have been more fitting.
Instead, I stood in front of a Victorian-style home built in warm red brick, with a bay window looking out onto the vast garden, and a small white patio that was enveloped in a cocoon of colourful flowers.
It looked like a place for the magical. Monarchs and Holly Blues flittered from flower to flower while a smiling scarecrow dressed in rainbow-striped pants held up several wrens who didn’t seem at all bothered by his existence.
It reminded me of a scene from a children’s book, and I swallowed hard, feeling a flame of anger lick from my chest at the deception of it.
Just like the entrance to Bellamy House.
This woman was dangerous. No doubt about it. But her yard screamed ‘welcome!’.
“Welcome,” Miss Lissy called from the stained-glass front door. She held a tray of iced tea. Creepy.
“Hi,” I replied, far less enthusiastic, as the latch of the waist-high wrought-iron gate clicked shut behind me.
The garden smelled incredible. Honeysuckle climbed the patio pillars, and lavender lined both sides of the steps, prolonging the illusion.
Because it was a witch, not a good fairy, waiting at the top.
I still wasn’t sure how I’d let myself get roped into this.
Temporary insanity? Lingering authority?
A sick need to walk myself back into the lion’s den over and over again?
Almost certainly the last one. I just didn’t know why.
“Have a seat,” she said, nodding to the rocking chair beside hers as she stirred fresh lemon into the tea.
I leaned against the balustrade in front of her instead. I’d take my free will where I pleased.
Miss Lissy half rolled her eyes. “Suit yourself.”
I let my gaze wander around the garden again.
Snapdragons, hydrangeas, geraniums, and aster flowers all grew prolifically, and something about it made my insides warm.
I longed to touch them. I’d always had an affinity for gardening, right since I was a child, although I couldn’t say where it came from.
Dad was handy with a lawnmower and a pair of hedge clippers, but he used to joke that I was born with a trowel in one hand and a packet of seeds in the other.
Maybe it came from Mum; I remembered little about her.
Dad never talked about her, and we'd learned to follow his lead.
But I made a mental note that wherever I next ended up, I was going to have a garden like this.
Even if I had to plant it in containers on a balcony.
“What am I here for?” I asked, turning my gaze back to the black-haired woman, who today wore a white polka-dot shirt and brown capris.
She didn’t look up from arranging the drinks. Probably trying to distract me from the poison she’d added.
“I thought we could hang,” she said.
I pulled a pink honeysuckle flower toward my nose. “We don’t hang.”
I wasn’t one of her town lackeys, and I didn’t wear false niceties well.
Her mouth twitched. “You could start by telling me how you’re finding the town so far. It’s always nice to hear an outsider’s perspective.”
“I’ll pretend I believe that for a minute.” I paced the patio, taking in her garden of Eden. “How am I finding the town? Let’s see... It’s a bit small. You lot could use a meal delivery service. And it’d be great if people stopped trying to be my best friend. I’d give it a five out of ten.”
Actually, because of Steamy Sips, I’d give it an eight. But she didn’t need to know that.
Her chin crinkled in amusement. “And how are things over at Steamy Sips?”
For a second, I wondered if she was a mind reader. I felt off balance. “What do you mean?”
She handed me a glass of iced tea, which I waved away.
“You’re staying there, aren’t you?”
“How do yo—”
“I have my ways,” she said, interrupting me. The sun on her glasses masked her eyes, but I could almost see fire dancing behind them.
I did know that. Coaxing false confessions out of children, leading to punishments they did not deserve, had been her speciality at the children’s home.
I had a feeling she had fewer physical tactics to inflict her horror these days, though.
She probably just crushed their souls instead.
Miss Lissy was making a point. I just didn’t know what it was yet.
I shrugged as I watched her relaxed gaze appraise me from her rocking chair. “I enjoy a coffee and club sammy as much as the next person.”
Her eyes didn’t change, but her mouth curved. She was like a snake in the grass, enjoying the dance with its prey but ready to pounce whenever she felt she had the advantage.
“I heard the young owners not doing well financially. Such a shame about her parents. The place hasn’t been the same without them,” she said, circling the rim of her glass with one finger.
Heat exploded through my chest. I felt instantly protective of Breeze. She was twenty-four and had lost her parents far too young. What did people expect of her?
“Do you know if she’s thinking about selling?” she asked, her voice casual.
There it was. The real reason I was here.
I turned my back, pretending to admire a patch of asters while hiding the fury on my face. Reactions were Miss Lissy’s currency. I wasn’t giving her more than was necessary.
“Not to my knowledge,” I said. “But I’ve only been here a week. I’m not exactly part of any business decisions.”
Another item for the to-do list: get serious with Breeze about turning Steamy Sips into a profitable business.
I groaned internally. Every additional problem extended my stay.
But this one was personal. There was no way Miss Lissy was getting her claws on the place Breeze had grown up in.
It was her last connection to her parents. Besides the lovely Taco.
“Perhaps you could let her know I’d be happy to take it off her hands. At the right price, of course. The renovation costs would have to be factored in.”
I was glad I was still facing away as I gripped the balustrade tightly.
“Sure,” I said, turning back with a neutral expression. “Like I said, I doubt she’d share that sort of thing with me. I’m just staff.”
She waved a hand as if my role didn’t matter. I was clearly expected to pass the message on. Then a thought hit me.
“Aren’t you a daily regular at Bean There? What would Big Boss Betty say about your wanting to buy the only competing café in town?”
A flicker of a smile passed across her lips.
“How do you know I’m a daily regular?”
I shrugged. “In a small town like this, one hears things. Even newcomers.”
Her gaze raked over my face, trying to read more than was being said before she answered. “In business, you have to recognise opportunity. Being open to seeing it where others don’t is what gets you ahead. Loyalty is weakness.”
“Sounds like a great way to make friends, maybe you should make a bumper sticker.” The woman made my insides shudder.
“What do you know about making friends?” She flashed her tea-stained grin at me.
I wasn’t sure if she was guessing I was terrible at it or if she really did know more than I thought she did.
“A bouquet of orchids goes down a treat on a birthday.”
Her expression didn’t change. “You’ve been given a great opportunity. You’d do well to recognise it.”
The subject of Bean There made me think of Olivia, the woman I’d seen working there. The one who probably now thought I fancied her, given how much I’d stared. I’d meant to go back and talk to her, but between cleaning and avoidance, I hadn’t found the time.
“What do you know about Olivia? The one working for Big Boss Betty?”
Miss Lissy sighed, irritated by the topic change. “You’d do well not to call her that. She wouldn’t like it.”
“Olivia? What does she prefer then? Liv?”
“Ignorance doesn’t suit you. You know who I mean,” she snapped. “Why do you care about Olivia? She’s a local single mum who works in a café.”
“Is there something wrong with being a single parent working in a café?”
“Children need two parents,” she scoffed. “It’s impossible for one person to do both jobs.”
Geez, talk about old-fashioned.
“I was raised by one parent,” I replied, tight-lipped.
Miss Lissy leaned back in her chair. “And look where that got you.”
Ouch.
I didn’t know whether to ask my question now, but at this point in my investigation, Miss Lissy was still my best bet at identifying Olivia.
From memory, she was a ‘life-timer’—one of the children who had no parents to collect her and likely stayed until she turned eighteen. I shuddered at the thought.
“Is she the same Olivia from the children’s home?”