Harlequin Love Inspired Suspense March 2021--Box Set 2 of 2 by Dana Mentink (novels to improve english txt) 📗

Time to do some fixing.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Laney tried to relax into the conversation as she sipped the soup with Aunt Kitty. It was still warm in the early evening, but the air conditioner kept pace. Something niggled at her, a suspicious gleam in Beckett’s eye as he looked at the screw Aunt Kitty found.

“You know what, Aunt Kitty?” she said abruptly. “I really need to walk around for a few minutes. I forgot to light the tiki torches. Would you like to have a stroll?”

“Pregnant ladies always get what they want,” she said with a smile. “But I might not make it too far since my foot is yammering at me. Silly plantar fasciitis. We can put a man on the moon, but no doctor in the universe can make a shoe insert to ease these old feet.”

Laney smiled. “How about just across the courtyard?”

Aunt Kitty offered her elbow. “Milady?”

Admiral waddled along after them as they traveled the flagstone path. The temperature was slipping down into the seventies, a perfect fall evening. She took the lighter she’d rescued from her sweater pocket and set it to the wick of the two tiki torches on either side of the lodge’s rear entrance. The grounds were empty, and so was the pool. It pained her to see it. Fall should be their busiest season, with plenty of tourists sitting by the firepits, swimming and riding bikes. Across the fence Levi waved as he tended the horses. The lack of guests at the Hotsprings Hotel was no doubt affecting Levi’s business, as well. She hoped he could pick up some other tour groups to make up the slack.

Aunt Kitty walked fairly smoothly until they passed between the lodge and the west wing. Then she winced in pain. Laney regretted encouraging her to walk.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Sit here and rest.”

Kitty lowered herself into one of the Adirondack chairs. “Just for a while. Let’s enjoy the breeze.”

Laney peered along the walkway that edged the west rooms and noticed Beckett knocking on Rita’s door.

“I’ll just be a minute, okay?”

Kitty smiled. “You know where to find me and my aged feet.”

Laney reached Beckett as he knuckled the door of Room 205.

He cocked his head, ready to scold her. “Wave to Aunt Kitty,” Laney said. “She’s keeping a watchful eye on both of us.”

Beckett offered a wave. “Go back and sit with her.”

She smiled sweetly. “I think you meant, Laney, my dear. It’s such a pleasant night. Wouldn’t you be more comfortable sitting in the company of Aunt Kitty?”

Before he could reply, Rita’s door swung open.

She looked a bit rough, Laney thought. Her normally braided hair was loose and hung about her face in limp waves. She had on the same clothes she’d been wearing at the Death Valley outing.

Rita’s look darted from Beckett to Laney. “Are you all right? I felt terrible about what happened.”

Beckett started to answer, but Laney spoke first. “I’m all right. Thank you. I’m sorry the tour ended with such drama.”

“But you got away from Kenny. That’s the important thing. He’s dangerous.”

“That’s an understatement,” Beckett said. Rita did not meet his eye.

Laney noticed her tote bag on the floor, bulging with contents. “Are you leaving?”

She looked at the bag as if she hadn’t seen it. “Yeah.Tomorrow.”

“I’m sorry to hear it.”

She shrugged. “It’s…a little more dangerous than I imagined. I’ve…changed my plans.”

“Did you find what you were looking for?” Beckett asked.

Her eyes widened. “What do you mean?”

He held up the screw. “I bolted all the wardrobe cabinets into the wall myself, in case of earthquakes. This one is from your room. I checked all the other rooms already.”

“Well, I guess it fell out of the wall. Feel free to screw it back in, if it makes you feel better.”

“It didn’t fall out of the wall of its own accord.” He looked over her shoulder. “You were tugging on it, searching for something behind it, weren’t you? Maybe something you thought Pauline hid in the room before she was killed?”

Laney could not hide her own surprise. Pauline had hidden something? For one wild moment, her heart leaped. Could it have been evidence that might shed some light on who really murdered her? “Did you find something?”

Rita went still. “No.”

“Quit lying,” Beckett snarled. “I’ve got a guy hunting my wife because he thinks I killed his sister.”

“I know what kind of man he is.” Rita’s throat convulsed as she swallowed. “I talked to him.”

“What?” she and Beckett cried at once.

“When I first came here, I left a note on his uncle’s doorstep with my number. He called me a couple of days ago.”

Beckett’s body went taut as wire. She could feel the heat emanating off him in angry waves. “Why didn’t you tell us? Or a cop? Anyone?”

“I decided I didn’t want to be involved with him.”

Beckett seemed to be speechless, so Laney stepped in. “What did you say to Kenny?”

“I tried to ask him if he knew who Pauline came here to meet.”

“How did you know she’d come here to meet someone?” Beckett said.

Rita appeared not to have heard the question. She chewed her lower lip for a moment. “At first Kenny thought I was working for the cops, and then he accused me of being a friend of yours. He wouldn’t listen to anything I had to say. In fact, he was getting around to threatening me when my phone went dead. When I heard what happened to you while we were on a photo tour, how he tracked you to the borax works…” She shivered. “This is all getting out of hand. I thought I wanted to be a big-shot reporter, but I’ve changed my mind. I’m going back to town meetings and flower shows. I’ve learned my lesson.”

She tried to close the door.

Beckett stopped it with his palm. “You have to tell us, please. What do you know about Pauline? What did you find that made you come here in the first place?”

Rita’s