Miss Frost Solves A Cold Case: A Nocturne Falls Mystery (Jayne Frost Book 1) (19 page)

“Let’s hope.” He shook his head. “What did you find?”

“An invoice for a different cleaning service. Thrifty Maids.”

We stared at each other for a second. Then my dad spoke. “He must have fired this one and hired Thrifty Maids.”

“Or he’s covering something up. I told you, the cleaning service seemed to have completely emptied Bertie’s apartment.”

“I wish you had some proof.”

Spider flopped down on my feet and started rolling around, showing me his tummy. “Maybe I do.” I reached down and checked Spider’s name tag. Bertie’s address and phone number were on the back.

I scooped Spider into my lap so my dad could see him. “Remember how I said I have his cat?”

“Yes.”

I held Spider up so his tag was visible. “Bertie’s name, address and phone number are on the back of Spider’s name tag. So that’s proof that his cat was left behind. And the other workers know about Bertie having Spider. At least Buttercup and Juniper do, the two women who also live on this floor.”

“But Toly lives upstairs.” My dad was catching on.

“Right. If Bertie got Spider after he moved in, maybe Toly didn’t know about him.” I grimaced. “Or maybe Toly did know about Spider and didn’t care. Maybe he was going to pay the cleaning service to get rid of Spider too.”

I hugged my little baby closer. I couldn’t imagine what might have happened to my boy if I hadn’t rescued him. Because make no mistake, he was mine now.

“That makes it seem like Toly’s involved in this.”

I nodded. “It does.”

“Might be time for this to become an official investigation.”

“And if Toly finds out and takes off? Or worse? No, Dad, not yet. Let me talk to Juniper tomorrow. See if she knows anything about the cleaning service. There could be a logical explanation. Like you said maybe he recently hired the Thrifty Maids service and fired the other one. Maybe that’s why you don’t have any invoices from them yet.” Except the Thrifty Maids file I’d seen in Toly’s office had held more than one invoice. Still, I wasn’t ready to jump to conclusions.

“I guess. But that doesn’t explain what happened to everything in Bertie’s apartment.” His gaze shifted to Spider. “I’m willing to give it a few more days, but get that cat a new tag and put the old one in a safe place. We may need it as evidence of just how much Bertie left behind.”

“Will do.”

“And you be safe too.”

I nodded. “I’m not doing anything you wouldn’t do.”

He snorted out two streams of ice vapor. “That’s what I’m worried about. Love you.”

“Love you.”

My dad’s image disappeared and the snow in the globe settled. I gave Spider another hug, then slipped his collar off and pried the tag free before putting his collar back on. “I’m getting you a new tag as soon as I can. This time with my info on it. You cool with that? Being my cat, I mean?”

He rolled over and put his feet on the back couch cushions so he could stare at me upside down.

“I’ll take that as a yes. Dinner?”

His ears quivered. Oh, he knew that word.

I got up, tucked his name tag into the zipper pocket of my purse (the only safe place I could think of), then fed him a can of Chunky Chicken Deluxe.

While he snarfed that down, I fixed myself a plate of the last remaining goodies from Delaney’s, grabbed a Dr Pepper, and went to the couch to do a little more research. The conversation I’d had with Juniper and Buttercup earlier in the day about magic skills had made me curious, as had the possibility that Cooper had raised about employees having more than one job.

I put my snacks and drink on the coffee table, fired up the TV for company, and retrieved the files I’d brought with me.

Chocolate in one hand, I spread the files out on the coffee table with the other, opening them so I could see each employee’s data sheet.

While a rosemary-scented s’more cookie melted over my tongue, I studied the info about the six employees who’d disappeared.

Not a single secondary job that I could see but maybe that wouldn’t be listed. I’d have to ask the girls about that.

I read on. The six all had different qualifications. Some had skills in customer service, some had high marks in organization. Bertie had been an exceptional tinker. Not on Toly’s level, but very good. Maybe with more time, just as good.

Hmm. Had Toly seen him as competition? If Toly was losing his magic, wouldn’t another elf with similar qualifications and strong skills be a threat?

I ran with that idea. But not very far. If my hypothesis was true, and Toly had gotten rid of Bertie, I still had no reason for him to get rid of the other five employees.

Surely they weren’t
all
threats.

I popped a coconut bonbon in my mouth, grabbed the first two files and sat back to study them. I reread the employee assessments, finishing up with the magic-skills evaluation. Both were close enough to consider them on the same level.

Repeating the process, I found all six employees to be on par with each other. Which was to say, they were on the higher end of the magic spectrum. And in that respect, on par with the file my father had set up for Lilibeth.

From what I knew about Juniper, having skills that strong wasn’t a requirement, but having some magic was. Buttercup was loaded with magic based on her hair color, no matter what she’d told Toly. I had no clue about Owen, but if Toly had talked to him about handling the shimmer, clearly he had strong skills too.

The company definitely preferred a certain skill level in those it hired for their stores. That explained why the process of getting chosen was so rigorous. Toly had to know that. He had access to these files just like I did. Which meant he had to know Buttercup and Juniper had lied to him about not being able to handle the shimmer.

Unless Juniper really was telling the truth. Her hair color seemed to imply she was, but all elves had
some
magic.

I let out a frustrated sigh. Once again, I was getting nowhere and figuring out nothing. I power walked a couple laps around the living room in an attempt to shed some of the tension building in my muscles.

When I sat down again, I placed the employee assessment sheets next to each other in two rows of three so I could see them all at the same time. I stared at them without really knowing what I was looking for, just letting my mind wander and my eyes glaze over.

Then they focused of their own accord on the picture of the third employee to quit. Franny Isler.

I picked up her sheet and studied it. There was something about her picture. Maybe because her wavy silver locks reminded me of Lark a little bit.

I brought the picture closer. My mouth fell open. Could it be? The realization hit me like a blast of arctic air.

Franny Isler was the woman I’d seen tonight at the firehouse. The woman I’d seen jogging at the park. Sure, that woman had short blonde hair and her ears weren’t pointed, but the face was the same. I’d known that woman seemed familiar but hadn’t been able to figure out why.

Until now. I’d been looking at her picture for days in her employee file.

It had to be her. It
was
her. Or a version of her.

But what on earth did that mean?

The only thing that stopped me from getting to work earlier than I did was a round of texting with Greyson to finalize our evening plans. As it was, I beat Juniper to the store by seven minutes and, I think, impressed Toly just a little bit.

Even so, his shaggy white brows pinched together as he stared at me. We were ten minutes from opening, and he was clearly wound up about the day. “You sure you’re all ready for Snowy Saturday?” he asked.

Juniper nodded unconvincingly so I chimed in with a loud, “Positive.”

Toly studied me. “You really think you’re going to be able to handle it? I’d like very much to get these reports done, but if you can’t say so now. I can’t risk having anything go wrong.”

Juniper moved slowly away.

“It’s no big deal.” I wiggled my fingers. I could do this in my sleep. “This sort of shimmer is right up my alley. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

Juniper looked up from straightening a display by the front window to shoot me a look that said she wasn’t sure why I was being so up front about my skills.

“I don’t usually leave such an important job in the hands of an employee I haven’t personally vetted—”

“You’ve read my file. I can do it.”

At last, he smiled. “All right, all right. But you call me if you need help. Owen will take over when he gets in so it’s not like you have to run the shimmer all day.”

“Got it.” The guy was seriously concerned about this.

“I’ll be in my office doing paperwork if you need me.” He started for the back, then stopped and turned around. “When I say no problems, I mean I expect things to go smoothly. No accumulated snow. No puddles. No damage to the—”

“Toys. I know. It’ll be perfect. Promise.” I channeled my magic and started the snowfall to show him. Big fat flakes floated down from the ceiling to disappear right before they touched the floor.

He watched for a moment then nodded approvingly and left. That was about the right response. There was nothing negative he could say. Outside of my family, no one could touch the quality of my magic.

Juniper joined me at the register. “You were awfully eager to prove you could handle the shimmer. Mark my words, you’re going to be in charge of it every Snowy Saturday now.” She shook her head. “Buttercup and I warned you.”

“I was trying to get rid of him.”

“Well, good job.” She reached out and caught a flake. “Nice snow, by the way. These are gorgeous. And fluffy. Oh yeah, he’s definitely putting you on the schedule for every Snowy Saturday.”

I shrugged. Toly could put me on the schedule for whatever he wanted. I only was here until I figured this thing out. Which reminded me of why I’d been trying to get rid of him in the first place. “Hey, before the madness begins. What do you know about the cleaning service Toly uses?”

She raised her brows. “Um…like what?”

“How long have they been the cleaners here?”

She squinted. “They started not long after I arrived.”

So way more than a month. “How do you know?”

She tipped her head like she was thinking. “I’m not sure I would have known except the smell was different. With the first company, my apartment always smelled like lavender on cleaning day. Now it always smells like lemon.”

I nodded. I’d noticed the lemon scent. “Does this company clean better than the other one? Could that be why he changed companies?”

“Not sure. They seem the same to me. I’m not really a messy person, though. And no one else has been here long enough to have had the other cleaning service except me. Why the interest?”

I really wanted to confide in Juniper, but I also didn’t want to put her in a position that might require her to cover for me should Toly figure anything out. “I just…I can’t stop thinking about all the employees that have quit.”

Her mouth bent in an incredulous grin. “And you think the cleaning service might have something to do with it? Like they might have accidentally sucked our workers into their industrial vacuums?”

It did sound unlikely when she put it that way. “Not to that extreme, but maybe they’re in on it somehow. They did clear out Bertie’s apartment.”

“Sure, but Toly probably had them do that so the apartment is ready for the next new hire. Bertie’s stuff is most likely in storage.”

Huh. I hadn’t thought of that. Suddenly all my conjecture seemed silly. I was making mountains out of molehills, all in the name of solving this thing.

Didn’t explain the change in cleaning services, but it didn’t implicate the new service either. Maybe the new cleaning service was cheaper. Maybe Toly was pocketing the difference. I had no idea. My head hurt from how much I didn’t know.

Fortunately, we were swamped with customers coming in to gawk at the snow. Very few of them left without buying something, which meant Juniper and I were hopping. When Buttercup came in at noon for the overlap shift, we needed the help. Neither one of us took lunch until after two.

By five, I was wiped out. Handling the shimmer while also taking care of customers and keeping the shop in order was more work than I’d been used to in a long time. Frankly, I could see why Toly needed the break.