Miss Frost Solves A Cold Case: A Nocturne Falls Mystery (Jayne Frost Book 1) (28 page)

“A black Mercedes.”

For a woman who’d had money troubles, she didn’t seem like a woman who’d had money troubles. “That car wasn’t there either.”

He thought a moment. “Maybe all the guests were out when you went by.”

“Maybe. But it was a rainy day. This morning, actually. And it was early enough that you’d think someone would have been there.”

His gaze shifted to me. “Were you snooping?”

“Why does everyone think I snoop? I was just checking into things.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Hey, somebody’s got to figure this out.” And technically, that was the whole reason I was here. “The sheriff wasn’t interested, so that leaves me.”

“Well, it’s not exactly a crime to quit your job, and leaving town without notice doesn’t point to foul play.”

I put my elbows on the table. “No, but don’t you think it’s weird that they’ve all quit and left everything behind? And that all the notes were written on the same paper? And that none of these employees can be found? It’s like they’ve all disappeared. Well, I think at least two of them are still living in town. They just don’t look like elves anymore.”

Cooper’s brows were stuck in an upward position for about ten seconds. “How do you know all this?”

I stuffed a couple fries in my mouth to buy some time, then settled on the answer least likely to arouse suspicion. “I snooped. Happy?”

He laughed. “Okay, what else do you know?”

“Toly’s not the easiest boss. Besides skimping on breaks and loading us up with work, he also seems to regularly turn over the responsibility for handling the shimmer on Snowy Saturdays.”

“Oh, yeah, I’ve been in the store on one of those days. It’s pretty cool. Does that take a lot of magic?”

I nodded. “Yes. And frankly if he can’t handle it himself, he shouldn’t be making us do it. If something were to get damaged in the store because of the snow, or if a customer was to slip on some and fall, you can bet the employee on duty would be the one who got into trouble.”

As Cooper scrawled, I huffed out a breath. “Corporate wouldn’t like it much either, which is probably why Snowy Saturday isn’t a companywide policy.”

He glanced up. “Anything else? The only picture I’m seeing right now is that Toly’s a hard boss, but nothing that really points to anything besides employees quitting and not wanting to be found, which is weird, but not criminal.”

I turned sideways and put my feet on the chair next to mine. “There is the whole elevator thing…”

“Nope. Not taking you down there. Already told you that.”

The way he shut that topic down made me instantly decide to keep the rest of it to myself. I would have loved to get back to the Basement and look around, especially since I was sure that’s the last place Owen had been, but Cooper wasn’t about to help me get there. And Greyson might, but he was already working the underweb angle for me.

“Hey, I have to get back to the station.” Cooper stood, putting me eye level with his utility belt. And the keycard dangling from it.

Bad thoughts started to form in my head. Good bad thoughts. I stood up and did my best to look seductive, which wasn’t as easy as it sounds, considering I’d just downed about three thousand calories worth of protein and carbs. “Thanks for the lunch date.”

He tucked his pen away. “You’re welcome.”

I sidled closer, fluttering my lashes. “You want to come back tonight and we can finish the cobbler?”

He smiled. “That would be nice. Except I won’t have another evening free for four nights.”

I trailed my finger down his chest. “You get a dinner break, don’t you?”

His hands went to my hips. “I’m sure I can work something out.”

And then, right on plan, he leaned in and kissed me.

I put my hands on his waist and kissed him back with everything that was in me. I even moaned a little, which wasn’t that hard to do. I might have mentioned Cooper was a good kisser. But I laid it on heavy, pressing myself against him and running my hands over him to be as distracting as possible.

Mission accomplished, I finally broke the kiss. I tucked my hands behind my back and stepped away from him. “You’d better go now, or I might not let you.”

He was heavy-lidded and drunk with pleasure. A look I remembered. And a state of being I’d been counting on. “Yeah. See you tonight.”

“Tonight.” I walked him to the door, keeping his gaze locked on mine until he was out in the hall. “Bye, Coop.”

“Bye, Lilibeth.”

I shut the door and leaned against it, my smile unstoppable. I reached into the back pocket of my jeans and pulled out the prize that kiss had earned me.

Cooper’s keycard.

I waited until I was sure he was out of the building, then I went downstairs. Toly’s office was dark. He was probably in the shop. Or wherever. Right now, I didn’t care.

With nerves racing through me, I stood in the vestibule facing the elevator. I was about to swipe Cooper’s card through the reader when my phone rang. I jumped, then caught my breath and checked the screen.

Greyson. I answered. “Hey.”

“You all right? You sound funny.”

“I’m fine. The ringer scared me. What’s up? You find out anything about—”

“Not over the phone. I have something else I need to do, but I can be there in the next hour or so.”

That was more than enough time for me to investigate and get back to my apartment. “Sounds good. And since you’re now on the approved list, you can come on up.”

“See you soon, princess.”

“Hah-ha. Bye.” I tucked my phone away and ran the card through the reader. It worked like a charm.

Thirty seconds later, I was standing in the alcove of the Basement. On my own. I grinned, unable to be anything but tickled at my own sly ingenuity. I stuck Cooper’s keycard in my back pocket with my phone for safe keeping.

Then I said a little prayer he wouldn’t miss it anytime soon.

I tiptoed forward to where the alcove met the main hall and looked down both directions of the corridor. No one. I took a big sniff. No trace of Owen’s aftershave either, although I wondered if Greyson would have been able to pick something up. His senses were definitely keener than mine.

I turned back to look at the two locked rooms on either side of the elevator. Greyson said those rooms were above his paygrade, but Cooper was a fireman. A first responder. Surely they had access to everything.

And if they didn’t, I’d do what I did best and slip under the door.

I took the keycard out again. My instincts said try the door on the right first, so I did.

As the keycard went through, the red light on the pad changed to green. Nice as ice. I turned the handle and pushed the door open. The room beyond was dark, and very little light filtered in from the dim alcove.

I didn’t see a light switch so I swapped the keycard for my phone and fired up my flashlight.

The room was disappointingly empty except for a wire rack holding what looked like rolled-up vinyl banners and a wheeled cart with some folding chairs. I sighed. Greyson had been right. These rooms were storage.

I decided to check the one on the left anyway. When the light went green, I opened the door a crack and was about to stick my lit-up phone inside when a faint blue glow registered. A security light maybe. I took a step in, expecting to see more stuff that had been mothballed.

Instead, I saw where the faint blue glow emanated from. A good-sized crystal sat on top of some sort of cage-like structure. The light coming from it pulsed as if it was growing stronger. My eyes adjusted a little more and I realized there was a person inside the cage.

Owen.

I slipped inside and let the door close behind me. I blinked, trying to get my eyes to adjust further to the darkness. “Owen, can you hear me?”

No response. He was clearly unconscious and strapped into a seat in the center of an odd contraption that looked like a cross between a giant erector set and a birdcage. I stepped closer. Magic energy danced through the room. Elven magic.

The glowing blue crystal at the top was about the size of my fist. It crackled with energy and every so often, a soft moan escaped Owen.

As my eyes adjusted further, I took a closer look at him. Strands of silver wire wrapped his wrists, ankles and forehead. The strands snaked out to the cage, then wound up through the apparatus to meet at the base of the crystal.

I glanced back at Owen. The points of his ears were gone, rounded off like a humans, and he was pale. As if the life force was being drained out of him. The pieces of the puzzle I’d been trying to solve started clicking into place.

“Hang on, Owen. I’ll get you out of here.”

I reached for the lock on the front of the cage.

Something cracked me on the back of the head. Pain exploded through my body, and my vision filled with sparks. My hands slipped off the bars of the cage, and I fell, only catching a glimpse of a person who seemed vaguely familiar before everything went black.

I woke up with my head throbbing so hard I could barely see. I had no idea who’d hit me or how long I’d been out. I reached to brush my hair off my face and couldn’t move.

I tugged at my arms. Restraints at my wrists and elbows kept me from moving anything more than my fingers. As my vision slowly returned, the bars of a cage came into focus around me. I’d been confined to the cell where Owen had been. I looked around and found him at the edge of the glow’s soft circle. He was lying near the wall, facing away from me.

My heart sank at the thought that he was dead. I had to get out of here. Besides the restraints, the strands of silver were connected to me now.

“You’re a busybody.”

I turned my head, trying to see who’d spoken, and succeeded in making my head ache even more. The voice was as vaguely familiar as the person I’d seen before blanking out. It took a moment for my eyes to focus and another second for my aching head to make sense of who was standing in front of me. “You?”

“Yes, me.” Cookie Featherstone shook her head. “Who did you think was doing all this? My grandfather?” She laughed.

“He must be involved somehow.”

“Not in a major way. All he does is help out by bringing an exceptionally gifted employee to dinner once in a while.”

So that’s the “date” Owen had been going on. “So when Toly checks all the employees to see how skilled they are, he’s doing that for you?”

She scoffed. “Not entirely. He’s also doing that so he doesn’t have to concentrate so hard on running the shimmer. He’d rather spend time building his toys.”

There was no point in keeping my visit to the B&B a secret now. “Then why does he have an office at your B&B?”

“He doesn’t. That’s my office.”

“And your toy designs?”

She put her hand on one of the cage’s metal bars. “Those weren’t toys. Those were prototypes of more magic-gathering devices. My prototypes. I am the granddaughter of a tinker, you know.”

“You’re an embarrassment is what you are.”

Her lip curled. “You couldn’t leave it alone, could you? Nice of you to make your way down here on your own, though. Saved me the effort of getting you here.” She leaned in. “And I already knew you’d been at the Gingerbread. I saw you on the security cameras. You would have been next anyway.”

She straightened and glanced over at Owen. “He was just about done, so it worked out.” Then she smiled. “Now I’ll have extra crystals to sell this month. Bonus! And you’re a strong one.”

She had no idea. As my wits returned, I understood exactly what she was doing. Those puzzle pieces? All together now. And the picture was clear. Cookie was stripping the magic out of the workers with this contraption, and she was selling the crystals on the underweb. I scowled right back at her. “Stronger than you are smart.”

She ignored my dig to watch a spark of blue travel up one of the silver threads and into the crystal above me. “Really strong.”

Actually, she was smart enough to access the Basement. I had to know how she’d done that. “How did you get down here? Only Nocturne Falls employees have access.”

She batted her lashes at me. “Date the right people, and you can lift a keycard pretty easily.”