Secrets of Harmony Grove (19 page)

I reached up and smoothed the curtains, the trembling gone, certain that I would do whatever it took to protect myself, protect my inn, clear my name, and find the answers to all the questions that had suddenly appeared.

I wouldn’t do it just for me but also for Troy. Yes, he had had his issues, and yes, in many ways I wished he and I had never met. But he had still been a friend to me. He didn’t deserve to die this way. Most of all, if foul play was involved, he surely didn’t deserve to go to his grave at the hands of someone else before his time.

I knew what it felt like to be someone’s victim. That might have happened to me in the past, but not anymore. Not for me. Not for Troy.

Not on my watch.

When I woke, it took a moment to get my bearings. Where was I? Watching sunbeams dance across the mahogany armoire in the corner, for a blessed moment I realized I was in my favorite room at Harmony Grove Bed & Breakfast and all was right with the world. Then memories came rushing back: the scene at Buzz, the visit with Liz, the call from Troy, the bodies at the pool, the endless questions. I was at Harmony Grove Bed & Breakfast all right, but all was definitely not right with the world. Not with this world, anyway.

I could have done with a few more hours of sleep—the clock on the bedside table said 8:02 a.m.—but there was much to do and I was awake, so I swung my legs over the side of the bed and sat up. Thinking of my middle of the night panic attack, I felt much better now and in a way almost relieved that it had happened. I was glad to know I had been able to push through it. Today I felt stronger and more determined than ever to get this entire situation straightened out.

My stomach rumbled, and I realized that except for that piece of corn bread my father had insisted I take for last night’s drive out here, I hadn’t eaten since breakfast the morning before—not even a bag of pretzels on the plane. I dug out a protein bar from my suitcase and ate it quickly, hoping I could get something more substantial later.

But before I dressed for the day, I needed to call my father and Heath
to let them both know what was going on. I also had to give Liz the whole truth, which wasn’t going to be easy. I wasn’t eager for any of these calls, but they needed to be made. As it turned out, no one answered, so I left messages for all that didn’t include details but just a simple request to call me back as soon as they could.

My cell phone rang as I finished getting dressed. It was Heath.

For some reason, the sound of his voice brought tears to my eyes. If he were here with me now, I would simply lean into his arms and hold on for a while. He must have been able to hear some of that longing in my voice, because before I could even tell him what was going on, he asked me what was wrong and if my trip to Boston hadn’t gone as well as I had expected.

“No, things in Boston went beautifully.”

“What is it, then? You don’t sound like yourself.”

Trying not to cry, I began by making the bed as I spoke.

“You’re right. Things aren’t good, Heath. In fact, I’m in the midst of a major crisis. Several, actually. I would have called and told you about everything last night, but I was tied up with the police until well after midnight.”

“Police? Sienna, what’s going on?”

Tucking in the sheets, I explained everything that had happened from the moment I arrived at Buzz to the moment I went to bed. He listened intently, his outrage growing as I spoke. Unlike Troy, whose reaction to the news that I had been suspended was “What did you do?” Heath’s immediate response was, “Are you kidding? What could those idiots be thinking?”

That vote of confidence was sorely needed and caused fresh tears to spring into my eyes. Smoothing the bedspread, I continued my tale, though when I got to the part where I left my parents’ house to come to Lancaster County, I was afraid Heath might not be so generous. But again he surprised me, saying simply that he hoped that weasel Troy ’fessed up once I was able to confront him face-to-face.

“Well, no. That’s where things took a major turn for the worse.”

Propping the pillows against the headboard, I took him step-by-step through my entire horrific night. When I was done, I held my breath, waiting for his response.

“I’m on my way.”

“Heath, no. Wait. You can’t just come out here. That’s not fair to you.”

“I certainly can and I will. Do you want me to run over to your place and get anything for you first? Some clothes or whatever?”

“No, but thank you. I’m fine. You can come this weekend if I’m still here, but don’t take time off work for this.”

Even as I tried to convince him not to come, I wasn’t sure if my motivation was purely selfless (I knew how hard it was to get time off from the hospital, and I hated him having to do that for my sake) or not (that small part of me that wanted to be free to defend myself however I saw fit). Perhaps it was an equal mix of both. We debated back and forth for a few minutes, and in the end I convinced him to finish out the workweek and come tomorrow night. As we talked, I made my way to the office downstairs, turned on the computer, and sat down at the desk.

“If you want to help, there is something you could do from there,” I told him. “You’re good with money and with math. Would you be willing to look at the books from the B and B to see if you spot anything fishy?”

“Of course,” he answered, sounding almost disappointed that I hadn’t asked for more than that.

“I hate to sound callous and self-centered, but what happens if Floyd doesn’t get better, Heath?” I asked as I waited for the machine to boot up. “He’s the inn’s sole employee. What about the day-to-day mechanics of running this place? I don’t know how to do that, not to mention I don’t have the time or desire. I’ll have to cancel pending reservations and eventually hire someone else.” The more concerns I voiced, the more new ones that popped into my mind. “And that’s not even thinking about the PR ramifications of all of this. Can the B and B recover from the taint of death? What am I going to do? And what about my job? I’ve only been there a few weeks. They don’t know me or my character. After all I’ve done to get this far, if I end up losing my position at Buzz I’ll lose my home, my car—”

“Shhh, Sienna. Shhh. Calm down. Take one step at a time. Things might be much better today. The police could have made all sorts of progress last night.”

“That’s true.”

The computer was ready, so I went online, attached the B and B’s financial records to an e-mail, and sent it off to Heath for his perusal.

“First things first,” he continued. “Do you know if Floyd kept good insurance on the inn, just in case? There could be ramifications.”

“I hadn’t even thought of that. I actually have no idea. I’ll look around as soon as we hang up.”

Heath waited until the file came through but then he had to go, so I promised I would keep him up to date with things via text, and he said he’d call on his very next break. “I love you,” he added before hanging up.

Slightly overwhelmed by a wave of emotion and needing an immediate distraction, I went to the files and began looking for some perfectly labeled, color-coded folder for insurance. There wasn’t one, at least not that I could find, so I returned to the computer and tried to take a look there. Though I doubted it, perhaps Floyd had ordered the policy online.

I was feeling antsy, wishing Mike would get here and tell me if they indeed had made any progress last night, as Heath had said. With one eye on the window and the long driveway out front, I continued to click around on Floyd’s computer. Unable to locate any files on his hard drive regarding insurance, I went into his web browser, hoping to find some activity that involved insurance companies there.

Scanning the brief history, I wasn’t surprised to see that the cache had never been emptied. The man used his computer so little that, even after two years, there wasn’t much there. Movie times. Weather. TV schedules. Mapquest. Google Earth. Baby names. Phone lookups.

Wait a minute, baby names? I looked closer at the history to see that the site had been accessed often. Did Floyd have a baby, or maybe a pregnant girlfriend? Scanning the dates, I could see that he had been looking at baby names about once a month for two years. How strange, especially given that he had no children of his own, at least not as far as I knew. Clicking on the site itself, the link brought me to the results of his most recent name search: Nadeem, Vortimer, Anselmo. Those were unusual names, for sure, and I clicked on each one in turn to learn that the first was Arabic, the next Arthurian, whatever that was, and the third was Spanish.

Had Floyd been helping people of various ethnicities name their babies?
Was he writing a novel and trying to come up with character names? Maybe he just liked learning about name origins the same way some people studied etymology. All I could hope was that Floyd wasn’t doing nefarious deeds, such as baby selling or illegal adoption, and using this site to name real stolen babies. Surely that wasn’t it.

Though I didn’t plan on sharing this odd finding with Mike just yet, I would certainly tell Liz about it and see if it raised red flags for her or if she could come up with a reasonable explanation.

Running through the browser history one last time, I noticed the addresses for some sites that had been visited early on, when the computer was new. I had made those searches myself, and they were for several different online hotel and bed-and-breakfast customer review sites. I had written up and posted the listings, but I had never thought to go back and see how our ensuing customers had rated us.

Going to each of those sites now, I located the listings for Harmony Grove Bed & Breakfast, but I didn’t see any reviews of the place at all. I tried even more sites, but no matter where I looked, I couldn’t find one single opinion or customer review for my inn, not even on Trip Advisor, which seemed to have every other bed-and-breakfast in the world picked apart by virtually everyone who had ever stayed there.

In a sense, this lack of feedback was even stranger than Floyd’s monthly obsession with baby names. Everybody had an opinion these days. Even the nightly news solicited opinions. We lived in a world where people weighed in on everything, everywhere—especially online in matters of travel.

So why wasn’t anyone reviewing Harmony Grove Bed & Breakfast?

Feeling strangely unsettled, I kept looking but couldn’t find a single review. Beyond that, I realized that the inn offered no online booking capability, and it had never even been listed anywhere other than those first few original postings I had done. Even if Floyd wasn’t computer savvy, his job as manager included getting the word out about the inn. Instead of providing me with answers, my research had created new questions. Who were the inn’s guests? Where were they coming from? And why didn’t they review the place once they had been here?

Again, I feared that these were answers I could only get from Floyd
himself. Glancing at the clock, I wondered if he was still out of his head or if he might now be awake and coherent and able to explain things to me. I tried calling the hospital where I assumed he had been taken, but they didn’t show him as currently registered, and I didn’t feel like calling other hospitals in the region to track him down. Hanging up the phone, I sat back in the chair, closed my eyes, and thought back to when I had first hired Floyd.

Our interview had been recommended and facilitated by Troy, who had met Floyd Underhill through his work with one of the big hotels in downtown Philly. In their dealings since then, Troy said, he had come to respect everything about the way Floyd did business. Originally from Camden, Floyd might seem a bit rough around the edges sometimes, but he had been working in Philly’s hospitality industry for years and knew how to run a place like this better than anyone.