Avery sighed and looked at her empty bowl. “That was delicious.” She looked at Beck. “Thank you. For the mac and cheese and the cookies. I guess I’ll need you to show me the bakery at some point too.”
Beck smiled. “We can go tomorrow morning if you’re up for it.”
An irrational flash of jealousy surged through my chest as I realized Beck was into her too.
At least we didn’t have to worry about Dane, who was drinking his beer and looking past Avery, out the terrace doors where the grounds were lit by the landscape lighting I’d installed shortly after I’d taken the job as groundskeeper.
“You plan to sell it?” Dane asked without looking at Avery.
“The bakery?” Avery asked.
“The bakery… the house…”
I didn’t know Dane much better now than I had when I’d moved into the house two years earlier, but I sensed he’d be as bummed as Beck and I if Avery sold.
Avery hesitated. “Yeah. I kind of have to, I think. I have a life in the city, a job… This time off is unpaid. Although…”
Dane raised his dark eyebrows in question.
“Sheriff Crowe told me not to leave town without talking to her, so I guess I’m stuck here for at least a little while,” Avery said.
“She told me the same thing,” I said. “Not that I’d leave.”
I’d never lived anywhere but here, first on the family farm, and then, after my mom died, in town.
“Same.” Beck looked at Dane, the question unspoken but obvious.
Dane hesitated, then nodded. “Said she needed me here in case she had more questions.”
I was starting to get the picture. “Does that mean…?”
“We’re suspects,” Avery said. “All of us.”
6
AVERY
I followedBeck up the stairs after dinner. I’d offered to do the dishes, but he’d explained that he was paid both to manage the bakery and to clean the house. Dane, apparently, dealt with the other stuff — accounting, bill paying, and fielding repairs — while Noah managed the grounds.
The mac and cheese together with the oatmeal chocolate chip cookies had hit my system like a nuclear carb bomb, and exhaustion had dropped over me all at once. In the last twelve hours I’d picked up my rental car, left the city, driven to Blackwell Hollow, found a dead body, been questioned by the police, and met my three (hot) new roommates.
I was ready to tap out.
“All the bedrooms are on the second floor,” Beck explained as we stepped off the sweeping staircase that started in the high-ceilinged foyer. It was a double staircase, one of those that had stairs coming down in two directions in gentle, gracious curves, the banister gleaming mahogany that had been polished to a shine (by Beck?).
Like the parlor, it was all surprisingly modern and fresh, the floor in the foyer made of black and white marble rather thanthe wood that made up the floors in the rest of the house. The paneled walls were painted a crisp white and covered with an assortment of real art, and a blue-and-white runner covered the stairs on both sides of the staircase.
We’d entered a spacious landing with a large open seating area in the center. A comfy-looking sofa and four chairs sat around a coffee table. Two table lamps glowed from the end tables. A series of closed doors were arranged around the sitting area like spokes and a short hall between two of the rooms led to the back of the house where two more closed doors flanked a utilitarian staircase.
“There’s a third floor?” I asked.
The top of the staircase was obscured by the walls of the house, but it had to lead somewhere.
“The attic.” Beck paused to fold his big arms over his chest. I had to force myself not to stare. “Although ‘attic’ makes it sound small. It used to be the servants’ quarters back in the day.”
“What’s it used for now?”
“Storage mostly.” Oh joy, I’d inherited a creepy attic along with the dead body in the gazebo. Beck continued. “We weren’t sure how you’d feel about taking Evelyn’s rooms at the end of the hall, so we put you in the biggest guest room, but you’re welcome to move into her suite anytime.”