Mystic Mischief Read online

  "Mind? Of course I don't mind. How can you even think that? I spent most of the day in my office trying to avoid…well, just working. Sure. Come on over." His voice softened. "Please. I need to see your face."

  Not any more than I needed to see him, but I couldn't bring myself to say it. I pulled the phone from my ear and checked the time, five forty-five. Was an hour enough time to whip myself into a girly state so mouthwatering and desirable the man I loved wouldn't be able to even think about another woman? Make it work, Mel. You don't want to keep him waiting. "I'll be there at seven."

  Back in my room, I steamed, I powdered, I lotioned, I fussed over my hair and just the perfect amount of makeup. I went to my suitcase (still packed and sitting in a corner as if it were expecting to be carried back to Jack's place) and pulled out my favorite teal sweater and best black jeans—the ones I had to lie on the bed to zip. With only a dab or two of the Pirate's Gold perfume Jack had given me behind my ears and between my breasts, I ensured he'd want to sit close to me (and maybe even let me model it for him).

  I really did intend to watch whatever Roger Goodwin films we could find on Netflix, but surely it wouldn't hurt to look nice and smell great while I was at it.

  Jack answered the door before I even knocked, and we stood there staring at each other for one breathless moment before he yanked me into his arms and laid a kiss on me that I swore lifted me a foot off the ground.

  I had almost forgotten I was supposed to be upset with him, but it inconveniently popped back into my brain, and I somehow found the wherewithal to reluctantly pull away.

  He was breathing hard, and his eyes had grown so dark, I couldn't help but think of Edward Cullen when he needed to feed. Oh, baby, bite my neck. It was only the drive to maintain at least some semblance of dignity that kept me from jumping his bones right there in the doorway. I really had missed him. What had I been thinking to avoid him?

  "Come in," said the wolf to the lamb. His voice was husky.

  The lamb couldn't help but think the wolf was so delish she might convert to carnivore or even predator. Jack. But that wasn't why I'd come tonight.

  "I need to familiarize myself with Roger Goodwin's work so I'll have a conversation starter tomorrow morning when I talk to him about his clients, the Powells."

  He cleared his throat then asked, "You have reason to believe it was one of the Powells who killed Elroy Villars?"

  I lifted a shoulder. "I haven't ruled it out."

  "Well"—he sounded resigned—"I looked up a couple of movies already, so I guess we better get to it."

  He led me into the main room where the flat screen was already turned on and displaying the Netflix logo page. On the sleek glass and stainless steel coffee table in front of the leather sofa, a veritable junk food feast had been set up: cheddar cheese popcorn, Reese's Pieces, Milk Duds, an ice bucket, and several cans of Diet Dr. Pepper. All my favorites.

  My stone-cold heart melted, and I turned to him. "Aw, Jack. You remembered."

  He smiled. "Haven't you figured that part out yet, Mel? I remember everything about you. Every. Little. Thing."

  My heart turned over, and I couldn't find my voice. How could I resist this man? How could I stay mad at him, especially when I didn't even want to. I forced my traitorous mind to focus on everything good about him, about us, about the way we were together. I didn't want to ruin this evening.

  I moved to the sofa, fluffed up the throw pillow, sat down, and patted the empty spot beside me.

  In no time at all, we were cuddled up and watching Goodwin's first big-money Indiana Jones-style flop, Pharaoh's Ghost (really awful) then when it was over (thank God), a better but somewhat type B sci-fi adventure he'd directed in the mid-80s, Milky Way Mission (which sent me diving for the Milk Duds). It felt so good, so normal to be next to Jack—it felt like home.

  We were only about halfway through the second one—just as the crew at mission control lost contact with the spaceship—when someone knocked at Jack's front door.

  I sat up, feeling the physical isolation of leaving the warm spot where I'd been leaning against his side. "Are you expecting someone?"

  He stood. "No. I'm not."

  When he opened the door and I heard the high-pitched, "Hey, sugar man, look what I brought," my reaction was so visceral it made me queasy—or maybe it was all the junk food, but I didn't think so.

  Jack stepped into the open doorway, and it looked as if he might be trying to keep her from coming in, but it didn't work.

  Sydney Baxter exploded into the main room like a tiny blonde Tasmanian devil, in one hand a bottle of wine and in the other a clear box of what appeared to be chocolate-covered strawberries from the resort sweet shop. "We can get drunk, feed these to each other, and see if maybe all our clothes don't just mysteriously fall off. I have something brand new to show you." She laughed but stopped cold when she saw me sitting on the couch. "Well, what the hell's she doing here?"

  Good old Sydney. If someone ever needed to know how to spoil a perfectly nice evening, she'd be the person to ask. I wished she'd just leave, and as if Jack had read my mind…

  Jack began. "Sydney, you should go back to the resort." Resort? I'd been thinking someplace farther, maybe Siberia. He went on. "Mel and I are in the middle of something here."

  "Oh, sure. Work, I suppose. Well, that's all right if it's work." There was shrill hope in her voice.

  "No. Not work," he said. Then more slowly, "Well, not exactly. We were just—"

  "No problemo, sugar pants." She flounced over to the sofa and sat down next to me in the spot still warm from Jack. "I'll be quiet as a mouse so you can get your work done. You won't even know I'm here."

  I just sat there a few beats, looking at her. Was it possible anyone could be that dense? I finally understood what Jack was dealing with—someone as dumb as a box of rocks who didn't get the message. Short of picking her up and throwing her out, he wasn't going to get rid of her. I stood. "I think I'll call it a night, Jack. Let me know when the two of you work this out." I picked up the box of Milk Duds and then, as an afterthought, the Reese's Pieces.

  "I'll just let myself out."

  As the door closed behind me, I could have sworn I heard Sydney squeal, "Oh goodness gracious, Jack. Is that Milky Way Mission? I just love, love, love that movie!"

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Jack had come to the door and called after me. "Mel? Don't go." But the tone of his voice told me he really meant, "Don't leave me alone here with her." He'd sounded so frustrated that for a moment I thought about going back. But Miss Sydney was his problem to deal with. It was only fair he solve it.

  And besides, I had felt like if I didn't get the heck outta Dodge, I'd wind up being sorry for one of two things: either saying something so cruel to her that I'd regret it the instant the words were out or maybe even socking Miss Sydney Baxter square in the nose.

  I really couldn't blame the woman for giving it her best shot. Who wouldn't want that man back? Served her right for letting him go to begin with.

  The walk from Jack's cottage to the main resort normally took twelve minutes. With adrenaline fueling my engine, I turned it into nine. It was almost ten o'clock.

  Just as it was getting ready to close, I stopped by the Abracadabra coffee kiosk at the entry to the auxiliary wing, picked up a cafe au lait with double sugar, and carried it upstairs to my room. There were a few things I wanted to accomplish before I crashed (and what with the day I'd had, there was no doubt I would), so caffeine and sugar seemed like a good idea.

  I'd been too tired to put things away when they'd brought them over from Jack's the night before, and now, standing in the middle of the lovely little junior suite and seeing my two bags just sitting there made me lonely for Jack. I had to wonder if Sydney would ever leave.

  Ever, Mel? She's only been here two days. But it seemed like a millennium since I'd slept in Jack's warm arms.

  I had to ask myself if there was a way to help Jack with the fluffy little
piece of baggage and send her packing—a way to do it without breaking the law. Granddaddy Joe's old Remington shotgun stood waiting in my closet at Cat's and my apartment. But I was pretty sure kind-hearted Jack would rather Sydney be dealt with in a less violent manner.

  Both Grandmama Ida and my mama, Della, were strong women who'd run their own lives and dealt with their own problems. From watching them, I'd learned that the hard part of being strong is standing back and trusting the ones they loved to sort things out for themselves—all the while, of course, propping them up with bushels of love and encouragement. Jack and I were meant to be equals in life. He wasn't my child or my prodigy. And as hard as this was, I had confidence if there was any way to let Sydney down easy, he'd find it.

  I took a hot shower which cleared my head and calmed my impatience some. My thoughts were back on the case as I slipped on my sleep shirt and climbed up into the tall four-poster bed. With my laptop propped against my knees, I lay back on the pillow stack.

  I'd talked to just about everyone I thought might be involved in the murder and still didn't have a real feeling for any of them, so my idea was to get to know them better. How? By stalking them on Facebook and Twitter, of course.

  First I had a look at the Powells. They were practically omnipresent with both Theresa and Archie having their own personal pages, a couples page, and a professional page for their antiquity parlor in Boston. And that was just Facebook. They had similar coverage on Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Even Wikipedia and a full-blown, ten-page website. By the time I was done checking them out, my head was spinning.

  Theresa Powell, née Theresa Jackson, was a small-town girl with big-town ambitions. She listed her hometown as Macomb, Illinois, and it looked like once she was done with high school she'd left there and never looked back. Apparently having made a beeline to Chicago, she worked in an archeological museum as a tour guide. It was where she'd met Archie. He'd already been a semifamous adventurer with a "degree in archeology and a passion for adventure," which was a tagline I was pretty sure he'd pilfered from a TV adventure star. Theresa married him, and the two went back to Boston where she seemed to be the driving force behind their expansion and mutual quest to become a real-life Indiana Jones and Lara Croft.

  I scrolled through dozens of photos of Theresa—in tight tank tops, cargo short-shorts, and climbing boots, her hair pulled back in one long braid and swung around over one breast, sexy smudges of dirt on her cheeks and nose—hard at work at some remote dig, I supposed.

  After I finished checking out Theresa, I looked through an equally massive amount of posts and photos from Archie. Where her pages had been a narcissistic "look at me" log, his were mostly boasts of "look at her" tributes to his beautiful wife.

  As I'd originally thought, Theresa was mostly after fame and fortune. But at second glance, I felt as if I'd misjudged Archie. While he postured for the cameras and said all the right things about seeking historical truths, thus expanding his and his wife's outreach and influence in the world of archeology, his true motivation seemed to be keeping the little woman happy. Happy wife—happy life? Based on their TV appearances and prolific media coverage promoting their various expeditions to the farthest reaches of the globe, all with Theresa Powell being the main focus, Archie apparently adored his younger, more ambitious wife and seemed set on doing everything in his power to make her the media star she longed to be.

  Nancy Villars didn't have Pinterest or Twitter or Instagram, but I did find her on Facebook. Even though Cat's tarot card reading had revealed a great deal about her love life lost, her Facebook was a dead giveaway as to how devastating it had been when her lover left her.

  Before she became the dumpee, Nancy had almost been a FB fanatic. Hanging out online, posting photos and videos day and night. She and the man went to the movies, to dinner, and on long (and what appeared to be expensive) weekend getaways. Unfortunately by looking at her social media page, a person could almost name the place, day, and hour the man had walked away. A professional photo of the couple at a dinner cruise on Lake Michigan revealed a dressed-up Nancy clinging to the arm of the bored-looking younger stud who happened to be checking his watch when the shutter snapped.

  That had been a little over eight months ago, and Nancy hadn't posted a single word, photo, or video on her page since then. It was as if, at least according to Facebook, she'd stopped living. I thought of Belle Villars and her desperate expectations that Lafitte's letter of pardon would bring her lover back to her. Nancy Villars had pinned her hopes on the same fragile theory.

  Percy and Elroy Villars had maintained separate pages. Both were quite active on both Facebook and Twitter, posting excited updates about their recent discovery of Belle's journal and how the secrets within it would take them on the greatest adventure of their lives.

  Percy had entered his status as "in a relationship," although posts and other indications, as well as what his sister had told Cat, looked as if he'd broken off a formal engagement from his longtime girlfriend just weeks before the twins had come to Louisiana. Maybe he just hadn't gotten around to changing his status yet. Besides the stiff photos of Percy and his lady, a few carefully posed shots of him and Nancy and their parents, and the frequent news about the Lafitte connection, there was little content on his page.

  Elroy, on the other hand, seemed to have been a more gregarious creature. His page was loaded with group pictures of Elroy and friends raising a few at sporting events and bars, pictures of Elroy and different good-looking women at night clubs, even pictures of Elroy, Percy, and Percy's pleasant-looking girlfriend at different places. There were no photos of Nancy or their parents on Elroy's page.

  Percy's fiancée was listed as Juliette Johnson. She was a "friend" of each twin. I went to her page and clicked through her photos. I stopped at one of her and Percy that had obviously been taken before the two of them broke up. They were in a booth at a restaurant, and the light wasn't great. Percy and his ladylove leaned into each other, lips locked—heck, I thought there might be tongues involved, her hands in his red hair, his on the back of her neck. He had his eyes open. Hers were closed. And there they sat, tagged and everything: Percy Villars and Juliette Johnson. It was different than the photos I'd seen on Percy's page, less posed and more like a slice of life. It was lovely. They made a nice couple. Too bad it hadn't worked out for them.

  What would it be like to be a twin, or to be in love with a twin? Bizarre, that's what I thought. Kind of like having your identity all mixed up with someone else's and not really being an individual. I didn't think I'd like it either way. I wouldn't want to be a twin—I didn't feel as if I'd ever know if the things I did were because of who I was or because of who we were. And if Jack was a twin, heck, how would I ever know if the man I was cuddling with was Jack or his twin brother? Yikes.

  My eyes had begun to droop, and I caught myself nodding off. I closed the laptop, too tired to do more than just lay it off to the side.

  In the end, neither the caffeine nor the sugar helped. I dropped off to sleep with the lights still on and thoughts of multiple Jack Stocktons and my complete and utter confusion about which one was the real Cap'n Jack filling my head.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  It was early when I woke. Five thirty a.m. After what I put together about my key suspects the night before, it seemed important to meet with Fabrizio before my day began and find out what he'd learned about the gift shop receipt he'd discovered at la petite maison.

  He was gonna hate me, but I typed a text, held my breath, and hit send: U up?

  It took at least a full minute before the response came. I could practically hear the irritation: It would appear that I am now.

  I typed in the reply: Meet me in the employee lounge for coffee at seven thirty?

  He answered: If you like. But you couldn't have let me indulge in another hour's sleep?

  I texted back: Sorry. It's just that I'm gonna be busy later today, and I wanted to make sure you could meet.
/>   No reply came right away, so I took five minutes to rinse off in the luxurious dual-headed massaging shower. I'd really wanted to stand around for twenty or thirty minutes and let the water beat down on me—the thing was more like a spa treatment than anything else. Harry had spared no expense in outfitting the suites when The Mansion had been remodeled into the eclectic-yet-deluxe-themed retreat for eccentric travelers.

  The bath products from the Hidden Passage spa downstairs were beautifully laid out on the bathroom counter in white bowls with a colony of bats taking flight. They were the signature soaps, shampoos, and lotions used by the spa and were imported from a hot mineral springs spa in Baden-Baden, Germany. I loved using them and hadn't had all that many chances to do so up until the last couple of weeks when I'd been staying with Jack. His bathroom held those same rich and creamy items that smelled like honey and almonds, and when I stepped out of the shower that morning and wrapped the fluffy resort robe around me, the amazing scents had saturated the steamed air. And Jack was all I could think about.

  It was still only a little after six a.m., so I crawled back under the covers, opened my laptop, and Googled Roger Goodwin.

  Goodwin's Hollywood heyday had peaked decades ago, after which he seemed to have slid down the power ladder rung by rung until he was flat on level ground with the majority of folks in La-La Land.

  The photo on his Facebook page was of a twentysomething, virile, intense man whose dark and penetrating stare was kind of sexy. His IMDb page, however, displayed a Roger Goodwin thirty-some years later who was softer and more tired looking. Goodwin was credited with over thirty films, most of them made in the 80s and 90s. After that, he had one box office flop after another until his list of credits finally stopped about eight years ago.

  I found a years-old interview in People Magazine just before his Waterloo movie, Pharaoh's Ghost, was released. When the interviewer had asked him to sum up his contribution to the film industry, Goodwin had answered, "Contribution? Try: staggering. Almost single-handedly, I've rejuvenated box office ticket sales. Hell, I guess you could call me the Second Coming."