Toxic Attack: Spirit of the Soul Wine Shop Mystery (A Rysen Morris Mystery Book 2) (3 page)

When Rysen woke up the next morning, she had a pounding headache, and the memory of Josh in that jail still haunted her.  She wanted nothing more than to curl up under the sheets and stay there all day, or at least until the world stopped being so upside down and could make sense again.

It was only just Tuesday now and already the week felt like it had been a month long.  Stretching, she threw off her covers and sat there waiting in her pajama bottoms and cami, the ones with the pink hearts with wings.  When no one popped into her bedroom to tell her the whole thing had been some kind of sick joke she grumbled under her breath about how the universe must hate her and forced herself out of bed. 

She decided to get breakfast before her shower.  Then she'd have to get to the wine shop and help her sister out.  Brandon was supposed to be coming today to help her with the vanishing money.  Another mystery waiting to be solved.  Could someone be stealing from Christina even now?  Shuffling down the hallway and then down the stairs she thought about it.  Maybe whoever had hired the man to steal wine from Christina was still after her.  But, why?  What would it gain anyone to put one small wine shop out of business in an area where there were so many of them?

Those questions had her so wrapped up that she didn't see him sitting there.  She was at the coffee pot when he spoke.

"Hello, Rysen."

His soft Australian accent was the first thing she noticed.  Then her brain caught onto the fact that here he was, sitting right there at the table, smiling in that way he had that always made her blush.

Brandon Dennicort was in her kitchen.

And she was in her PJs.

Something that sounded a whole lot like "meep" came out of her open mouth before she ran for the stairs.  Up in her room, she tugged off pajama bottoms and her top and grabbed the first things from her drawers she could throw on.  Jeans.  Good.  Socks.  Good.  Pink Iggy Azalea shirt…well.  It would do.

She tried brushing her unruly hair into a semblance of order before giving up and putting it back in a ponytail with a hair band.  Her reflection stared back at her in the mirror.  Not anything to write poetry about, that was for sure.  She wasn't exactly a beauty queen in the mornings.

Wait.  Why was she caring about how she looked?  This was Brandon Dennicort, the security consultant.  The guy who had teased her with an admittedly wonderful kiss and then forgotten all about her.  Not someone she was trying to impress.

Lifting her chin, throwing back her shoulders, she stuck her tongue out at the mirror and marched herself back downstairs to the kitchen.  This was who she was and he could accept it or not.  Brandon was still there, still with one arm tossed over the back of the chair, his foot tapping out a rhythm on the floor.  His dark hair fell across his forehead like a male model in a magazine.

"Hi," he said to her, like none of that had even happened.

"Hi yourself," she said back to him, crossing her arms under her chest.  "What are you doing here?"

"I'm helping your sister.  She thinks someone is still stealing from her.  Turns out, you need my help more."

"No, I mean here.  Why are you here, in my house?"  Frustration was starting to creep in on her.  Why was he sitting there, all cute and smug, like he suddenly belonged in her life?  She'd already decided she only needed him for one thing.

Her face burned.  His security training.  That's what she needed from him.  Just that.

"Oh.  In your house," he said.  "I see.  No worries.  Miss Christina let me in.  Said to tell you she was off to that shop of hers and you could take the morning with me."

Of course she did.  Rysen made a mental note to have a long talk with her sister about how she could handle her own love life, thank you very much.

He was waiting for her to say something.  When she didn't, he cleared his throat.  "So.  Tell me about Josh."

That caught Rysen off guard.  Biting her lip, she shifted from foot to foot.  It was hard to look directly at Brandon.  "Uh.  What do you want to know?"

He laughed, a soft sound that made his eyes spark.  "Ry, I know you two are dating.  That's not what I meant.  I mean, tell me about the trouble he's got himself into, and let's see if we can't dig him back out again, all right?"

Feeling foolish, she rolled her eyes just to show him she didn't care what he thought.  Then she sat down across from him and told him everything.

When she was done, Brandon had her tell it to him again.  He asked a few questions as she talked but really there wasn't much to ask.  The dead woman had been stabbed to death in Beatrice's flower shop, and whoever did it had managed to unlock the door and disable the security system.

He nodded and tapped at his chin thoughtfully.  "Not that bloody hard to disable an alarm, really.  Even amateur thieves can manage that.  Well.  Not much to go on.  Guess I'd best get to work."

She blinked at him as he got up from the table and she quickly pushed out of her chair to stand with him.  "Work?  What do you mean?"

"You do want my help, don't you?"

"Well, uh, sure I guess, I just wasn't expecting…"

The touch of his hand on her arm startled her.  It was warm, and strong.  "I've missed you, Ry.  Listen.  I had good reasons for not calling.  I want you to know that.  Still, a woman like you can't stand still for a man like me.  I get it.  You're with Josh now and I won't do anything to get in the way of that.  No worries, 'kay?"

"Okay.  Um.  Right.  Glad we had this talk."

Turning away, she very nearly ran face first into a wall that she knew was there.  He caught hold of her just before she tripped over her own two feet to launch face first at the floor.  It felt like she couldn't get her footing, like the world was spinning faster, and she knew it had everything to do with Brandon's being back in town.

"Careful," he said to her, taking his arm back, an infuriating little smile curling the corner of his mouth.  "I'm going down to the County Sheriff's to see if they'll tell me anything.  I've a few contacts here and there.  Might be I can find someone with the right ear to the ground."

Her hand felt up to where he had been touching her.  The skin was still warm.  "Uh.  Okay.  If you see Josh tell him I'm not giving up.  I'll catch up with you later today, I guess."

"At your sister's shop.  It's a…deal."

He covered it quickly, but she knew he'd been about to say "it's a date."  She was grateful to him for that little change.  Maybe this wouldn't be quite so awkward between them after all.

He walked away, down the hall that would lead to the front door, but then he stopped, and turned back.  "I missed you, Ry."

Before she could answer he was gone.

On the other hand, maybe awkward was all she and Brandon would ever have.
***

Rysen spent the rest of the morning working alongside her sister in town, doing steady sales to tourists who had been drawn to Cambria after news of the murder was spread in the papers.  Some even asked Rysen and Christina if they had known the killer.

Just before noon she told Christina she was going for lunch.  She didn't go back.  Biting her tongue to keep from screaming at people, "Josh isn't a killer!" wasn't working anymore.  People were dumb.  All of them.

She was scowling over a chicken sandwich with a side of crinkle-cut fries at the Full Cup Diner down the street for the next hour.  The waitress came over three times to ask her if she needed anything else.  The fourth time, Rysen snapped that she just wanted to be left alone and eat her sandwich and forget that stupid people still roamed the earth despite Mother Nature's best efforts to weed them out of the gene pool.

Or at least that's what she would have said, if she hadn't looked up to find Brandon standing over her.

"Uh.  Hi," was what came out instead.

"Hi," he said back.  "You mind if I sit?  I've got news."

Her ears perked up and she forgot all about sandwiches and stupid people.  "Yes!  I mean, yes, sit.  Please."

"Aces.  What's good here?" he asked her, waving a hand to grab the attention of the waitress.

"Nothing," Rysen said quickly.  "Everything.  I don't know.  I don't care.  Tell me what you found out."

But the waitress was already there and Brandon was already asking for a cup of coffee.  Rysen waited, tapping a finger against the red checkered vinyl tablecloth.  After his coffee was poured into a cup and they were once again alone she leaned forward with her hands fisted.  "Did you see Josh?  Is he all right?"

Brandon sipped at his coffee and shrugged.  "He's doing all right, for a guy accused of a murder he didn't commit."

"That…wait.  You believe him?  He's innocent?"

"I don't think he's the kind of man to kill someone.  Especially someone he doesn't know.  Plus, there's a lot of other little things about this that don't add up?"

"Like how did the killer get into the flower shop, you mean."

He nodded, something like approval in his eyes.  "Yes.  There's that, but there's more.  The real question is why was she killed in the shop?  Why not out on the street, or in this café, or in the library with the candlestick."

She snickered at his reference to the murder mystery game but then forced herself to be serious.  This was serious.  "I've thought about that, too.  I think the victim was in the flower shop for a reason.  Or the killer was there for a reason and lured the victim there.  I just can't figure out why."

"Two solid theories.  You really do have a knack for this.  So, let's see if we can fill in the blanks with some other information."

Pleased at the way he was looking at her, hoping she wasn't blushing as hard as it felt she was, Rysen leaned in further.  He leaned in with her.

Their hands touched.

She pulled away immediately as if she'd touched a hot stove.  If she wasn't mistaken, he looked disappointed.  "Uh, sorry.  What, um, what else did you find out?"

"What I found out," he said, "is that the police know a little bit more than they're letting on.  The woman's pockets had been picked clean.  No wallet.  No ID.  No scrap of anything."

"Well how does that help us?"

Lifting his coffee cup he held it smugly.  "That doesn't help us.  But there was a hidden pocket sewn into the inside of her waistband."

Rysen blinked at that.  Hidden pouches?  This just kept getting better and better.  "What was in it?"

"A foil packet of arsenic."

"Arsenic?"  She racked her brain to remember.  "That's a poison, isn't it?"

"Too right, it is.  One of the more deadly poisons that people can easily get their hands on.  And what's the only reason someone would be carrying hidden stashes of poison?"

The answer was obvious.  It just didn't seem possible.  "She was here to poison someone."

"Safe bet.  Something else she had in that pouch, too.  Piece of paper with a string of numbers on it.  No one is sure what those mean yet.  Handwritten, I'm told.  Not in Josh's handwriting either."

"Well, that should be enough to get Josh released, shouldn't it?  I mean, at least put enough doubt in everyone's mind where they can't hold him anymore, right?"

"Just what my police officer friend said."  Brandon nodded over his cup.  "You should give some more thought to opening up that private detective business."

"How do you know about that?"

"Josh told me.  Oh, sorry.  Was that supposed to be secret?"

Not exactly a secret, no, but for some reason she felt strange talking to Brandon about it.  Almost embarrassed.  She chewed the inside of her lip and looked down at the table.

"Hey, it's nothing to be ashamed of.  You think I was a security consultant all my life?  No way.  I used to be a dock laborer."

"Really?"  Rysen tried to picture the handsome, intelligent Brandon Dennicort working to move cargo, sweating in the sun in a t-shirt that clung to his muscular arms and chest…

Rysen blushed again, for totally different reasons.

"Sure," he said, apparently missing the thoughts she was sure were written all over her face.  "I took a chance to become what I am today.  You should, too."

He stared into her eyes for a long moment, and she stared back into his, and then he told her he'd be back in touch when he knew more and excused himself.

It wasn't until he had walked out of the restaurant that she realized he'd been holding her hand after all.

After talking to Brandon she felt much better.  Josh would be released soon.  People believed he wasn't the killer.  Plus, they had some clues now that might help them find out who really did kill that woman.  Whoever she was.  A packet of arsenic and a page of numbers.  Not much to go on, she had to admit, but it was more than she had this morning.

She really should have thanked Brandon for what he'd done for Josh but she had been so caught up in the way his crystal blue eyes held her in place that she had lost the power of speech altogether.  It was safe to say she was still very attracted to the man.

Well, why not?  He was very attractive.  He was good looking and strong and smart, and kind.  What woman wouldn't be attracted to him?  The point was, she wasn't going to act on it.  He'd had her chance.  Now, she was with Josh.

Rysen gave half a thought to going back to the wine shop and helping Christina out like she'd promised, but she found herself down at Beatrice's flower shop instead.  The place still smelled of the mixed perfumes from the fresh blooms arrayed around the wide open space of the front room.  It was a pleasant, soft smell that seemed totally out of place now that there had been a murder here.

Now, under the sweet smell of the flowers she imagined she could smell the coppery tang of blood.  There was no way she could be smelling it, but try as she might she couldn't convince her mind it wasn't there.

Behind the counter, Beatrice was on a phonecall.  She walked back and forth, pacing almost, as she wrote down someone's order in a yellow notepad.

"Yes.  Tomorrow.  Three hundred dollars.  At three o'clock."  As she spoke she looked up and saw Rysen.  Breaking into a wide smile, Beatrice waved for her to come in, and put the notepad away in a pocket of her apron.  "I can do that.  Yes.  I'll expect delivery by closing.  Same to you."

She pushed the off button and set the phone down on the counter, sighing out a heavy breath.  "I have to keep working to keep my mind off it, you know?"

"It must be hard."  Rysen felt sorry for her friend.  Such a horrible thing to have happen to her.  She sounded busy, though.  Whatever that three hundred dollar order at three o'clock tomorrow was, it had made Bea sound even more stressed.  "How has everyone in town been?"

"Oh, they've been fine.  No one is holding it against me that this happened in my shop.  Which is nice.  In fact, I've had a few more customers than usual.  Tourists looking to get a glimpse at where the murder happened."  She twisted her lip in distaste.  "When I came into the shop this morning I was so scared.  I was worried I'd see another body.  Is that crazy?"

"I don't think so," Rysen told her, trying to sound supportive.  "I think it's normal to be upset by something like this.  Oh, hey, I have good news.  Josh should be out of jail today."

A funny expression came over Beatrice's face.  Rysen couldn't guess why.  She thought Bea would be happy to hear that Josh wasn't going to be charged with this horrible crime.  "What's the matter, Bea?"

"Hm?  Oh.  Well, to tell you the truth I just made the decision not to have Josh come back to work here.  That's all.  I know he didn't do anything wrong, but with what happened, and then with me and him breaking up…you know?  It's just so awkward."

"Uh, sure.  I understand."  She did understand, too, but she was heartbroken.  The last thing she wanted was for there to be trouble between her friends.  Beatrice was just doing what she thought was best for her shop, and for her.  She had to support her Beatrice for that.  No matter what.  "Bea, if there's anything I can do…"

"No.  You're kind to offer, but there's nothing to be done for it.  I've actually got to get back to work now.  Lots to do, so little time to do it in."

The two laughed together at that but it sounded strained to Rysen.  Beatrice used to always be so open with her.  Well, back when they were little girls.  Back before Rysen had left town with the intention of never coming back to Cambria, ever.  A lot could change in a person in a few short years.  Maybe she didn't know Beatrice as well as she used to.  Maybe Beatrice wasn't over the whole thing with Josh after all.

"I know you're busy," Rysen said, hoping to at least ask some of the questions she had come here with.  "I wanted to ask you if you knew the victim?  Now that you've had time to think about it is she maybe someone who came into the store before or a friend of a friend?"

Beatrice pressed her lips together as she shook her head.  "I told you, Ry.  I have no idea who that woman was."

"Was there anything taken from your store?"

"You mean like a bunch of roses and gardenias?"  Bea laughed at the idea.  "Don't be silly.  How would I even know without doing a full inventory?  They didn't take any money or anything valuable that I can tell.  Now, Rysen, please.  I really need to get to work."

So much for that.  There was one more thing she had to ask before she was rushed out the front door.  "What about cameras in your store?  Do you have video surveillance?"

"No, I don't.  The police already asked all this.  You know that, right?"

"I know, I know.  Sorry.  I was just trying to help."

"I heard all about how you and Josh were thinking of opening a detective agency."  Beatrice picked up a wrapped bunch of flowers and held them under her arm, already turning away from Rysen.  "Don't be silly, Ry.  You're just a girl from a small town like the rest of us.  There's nothing that special about you."

Then she was gone, through the door to the storehouse out back, leaving Rysen to find her own way out.

***

Rysen still felt the sting of Beatrice's words after she got home a few hours later.  She had been out driving around to clear her head.  The purified air of California's wine country had always been good for that.  Sea air, vineyards dotting the landscape, good West Coast atmosphere.  She inhaled deeply, keeping the windows of her little car down and the radio turned up.  It helped, a little.  She still couldn't shake what Bea had said, though.

Just a small town girl.  Nothing special.

As much as she didn't want those words to hurt, they did.  She had tried everything she could to get herself out of this small town life and yet here she was, back in it.  Now that she was once again trying to do something better with her life, those seemingly simple words had taken all of the wind out of her sails.

Christina's car was already in the driveway at home.  That was odd, she thought.  Usually Christina was at the shop until at least five o'clock.  Some nights even later.  She must have closed up early.

"Christina?" she called when she got inside.  "Where are you?"

"On the couch."

Rysen found her there, wrapped in a blanket and holding a steaming cup of tea.  "You not feeling well?"

"Sorry, sis.  I started getting a bit of a headache.  I tried drinking some wine to make it better but it didn't help.  So I closed the shop up and came home.  I thought you'd be here already."

"Um.  I went for lunch.  And, um, met Brandon."

Her sister sat up straighter with a sneaky little smile.  "Ooh.  Brandon?  Did you two have a nice lunch?"

"Stop it," Rysen told her, crossing her arms.

"Hey, you're the one who had a nice lunch with him."

"I never said I had a nice…oh, nevermind.  He was telling me what he found out about the murder at Bea's shop."  She told Christina everything Brandon had told her.  It didn't take nearly as long as she thought it would.  There wasn't that much to tell.  "I guess the best news of all is that Josh will be released soon.  He'll get to come home."

"That is good news, sis."  She slumped back against the couch, more tired than Rysen could ever remember seeing her.  "I'm just going to take a little nap now.  Wake me up for the television later, okay?"

Rysen frowned.  That was an odd thing to say.  For a few minutes after Christina closed her eyes she stood there, watching.  Her sister's face was pale.  There was a little hitch to her breathing.  She really looked sick.

For the next hour Rysen managed to keep herself busy with tidying up the kitchen and her bedroom and whatever other quiet work she could find.  When she checked on Christina again her sister was still fast asleep.  Maybe making some dinner would be best.  She could wake Christina up after that.

The water was just starting to boil and she had the box of spaghetti out when there was a knock on the front door.

"Rysen?" Christina called out weakly from the couch.  "The mailman has a package for us."

What was she talking about, Rysen wondered.  The mail came to their street around nine each morning.  This wasn’t the mailman.  Setting the pot of water aside she peeked out the window and saw Brandon standing there on the front porch.  Of course.  He was supposed to meet with Christina to look over the financial records for the wine shop.

"Chris, it's just Brandon.  Stay there on the couch.  I'll let him in."

"Okay, okay.  I'll tell the mail to be quiet."

Rysen stopped in her tracks, turning back toward the living room.  Her sister was speaking gibberish.  Now she was even more worried.  Was it the flu?  A fever?  It looked like Christina was back asleep again.  Hopefully some rest would do her good.

Another knock on the door.  Rysen hurried to open it for him.  "Hi.  I didn't expect to see you here.  Do you have some news?"

"I do, actually.  I was going to meet your sister at her shop but she wasn't there."

"She's in on the couch.  She's…well she's sick.  Maybe the flu.  I don't know."

The stress in her voice was enough to worry Brandon.  He looked past her down the hallway to the living room.  "Do you mind if I take a look at her?"

Rysen folded her arms and shifted her weight to her other foot.  "Do you have some medical training that I don't know about?"

"Well, I'm not a doctor like your boyfriend is, but I have my skills."

"Josh isn't a doctor," she started to argue, then realized it didn't matter.  She was being foolish.  "Forget it.  Didn't you have news for me?"

"Right.  Well, the police have the name of the woman.  Evelynn Whipple."

She racked her brain.  There was no one in town with that last name.  "Who was she?  How did they find out who she was?"

"They ran her fingerprints through the state database.  Turns out Miss Whipple had a criminal history."

"She'd been arrested before?"  Rysen didn't know much about police procedures but she'd watched enough shows on television to know what they could do with fingerprints.  "The murder victim was a criminal?"

"That's right.  Convictions for assault and extortion.  It's worse than that.  She was suspected of being a gun for hire.  A contract killer."

The words he was saying didn't make any sense.  A killer for hire.  A professional murderer, killed in her friend's shop.  "Why?  What was she doing there?"

"Police suspect she was here to kill someone.  Seems to make sense to me."

"Who would she be here to kill?"

"There's only one person who she might expect to find there, don't you think?"

Beatrice.  He meant Beatrice.

But…

"Two people," Rysen corrected him. "There were two people who would be there.  Beatrice, sure, but remember Josh was there too.  Not every morning, but if this woman had his work schedule then she could have been there waiting for him."

Her throat closed off.  Someone could have been trying to kill Josh.  Her Josh.  It could have been him lying there dead on the floor of the shop.  She chewed the inside of her lip and forced herself not to picture that.

"Rysen, I'm sorry," Brandon said to her.  "It's all conjecture, after all.  Maybe we're wrong.  Maybe Miss Whipple was planning on killing someone else entirely."

"But you think Bea or Josh were the most likely targets."

When he hesitated, the world narrowed through her tears.

He put his hands on her shoulders, and she let him, and when he pulled her up tight against his chest to hold her in a gentle embrace she didn't stop him.

There in his arms, her mind picked at details like loose threads in a sweater.

It could have been Josh.

But…

"There's still two things that bother me," she said, resting her head against his shoulder, blinking away the tears and grateful to have someone to hold her when she needed it.  "Arsenic isn't a fast acting poison, is it?"

This close to him, his voice thrummed in his chest.  "If someone ingests a large quantity of it they'll die relatively quickly, but not immediately, no."

"Then how does it make sense that a killer broke into Beatrice's shop to kill someone with a slow acting poison?  Wouldn't a gun or a knife or even a frying pan have made more sense?"

"I suppose you're right."  He pushed her gently back until he could see her.  "Not to mention how she would have had to practically force feed Beatrice or Josh the arsenic.  Good point.  What was the other thing that bothered you?"

She wanted to snuggle herself back into his arms.  Instead, she made herself step away from him, reminding herself she was with Josh.  "The big question to this whole thing.  That's what bothers me.  Who killed Evelynn Whipple?  If it wasn't Josh—and it wasn't—then who did?  Was it her intended target?  Was it an accomplice?  Who?  When we know that, maybe we can figure out the why."