Maris nodded. “I’m sure. Of course. But it’s a little troubling to hear about the reaction on the internet.”
He grimaced. “Welcome to my world.”
“Well, I haven’t heard a thing about it,” Lydia said. “I was on the water all day.”
As Ralph filled her in over wine, Maris took a seat. Pixie Point Bay depended on tourism in order to thrive. But more than that, she had gotten to know most of the people here—and they were good. Besides, if one of the magic folk had really wanted to see someone dead, it’d have been done a great deal more subtly than a spear.
She glanced out the window to the darkening waters. Now more than ever, she had to get to the bottom of this. She absently popped another piece of chocolate in her mouth.
7
As the first rays of the morning sun began to filter into Maris’s bedroom, she was just finishing in the bathroom. Done with brushing out her thick, strawberry blonde hair, all that was left was the drying. She picked up her shiny new red dryer, with its sleek, flat nozzle. When she’d trotted the globe for her job, she’d been relegated to a compact model or whatever the hotel had installed. This one was rated with twice the power of her old one and came with fancy attachments, including one that looked like a giant shower head.
She plugged it in and thumbed on the switch. The dryer roared to life—and promptly died, taking with it the lights in the bathroom and the lamp in the bedroom.
Still lying on the bed, Mojo meowed plaintively.
She looked over at him, frowning. “Agreed,” she muttered.
Although she flicked the hair dryer off, the lights in the bathroom remained dark, and nothing in the bedroom seemed to be on. She went to the nightstand. Her phone wasn’t charging.
Hair still wet, she paused at the bed to give Mojo a scratch behind the ears. “It’s probably a breaker.”
But just to be sure, she opened the bedroom door and went into the hallway. She turned on the light there without a problem, and she could hear Cookie in the kitchen. The rest of the house seemed fine. As Mojo trotted past her toward the kitchen, she turned and went back to the desk and picked up the phone. Using it like a flashlight, she went into the utility room, past the basement door, and directly to the breaker panel. She opened the gray metal door. Although nothing was labelled, one breaker in particular was out of line with the rest.
“Gotcha,” she said, reaching for it. Although she shoved it back into place, it wouldn’t stick. It immediately flipped back to the first position. She frowned at it, clicking it over again. Three more attempts resulted in the same thing.
Could something else be making it trip?
She went back into the bathroom and unplugged the hair dryer, but back in the utility room, the breaker still wouldn’t stay on. Down to her last and least favorite resort, she unplugged everything in the bedroom as well, wondering if perhaps she’d damaged one of the appliances with an electrical spike. Huffing and puffing after having to crawl under the desk as well as move the nightstand, she tried the breaker again.
Nothing.
“Great,” she muttered.
Not only would she need to have Bear take a look at the breaker box, her hair was a mess, and her new time-saving hair dryer had cost her at least half an hour. She needed to stop messing around and help with breakfast.
8
Maris hurried to the kitchen to find that Ruth “Cookie” Calderon had almost finished. Despite being late—or maybe because of it—Cookie’s smile seemed extra wide. She turned from the stove to look over her shoulder at Maris.
“Good morning,” she said. Diminutive and in her early seventies, Cookie’s straight black hair was more silver than black these days, but her dark eyes shone with the light of someone decades younger. She also had an energy that a middle-aged Maris could barely keep up with.
“Good morning,” Maris replied. “Sorry I’m late.”
Cookie’s eyes went to her hair, which Maris tried to push back into place. But the older woman made no comment on it. “That’s a pretty skirt,” she said.
Like her Aunt Glenda, who she resembled, Maris preferred skirts to slacks, and solids to patterns. Today her skirt fell just below the knee, aqua with a dark blue border. Her long-sleeved blouse was white, but with matching blue pin-stripes.
“Thanks,” she said. “My hair dryer tripped a breaker and I couldn’t get it to come back on.”
“Oh?” the chef said, glancing in that direction before returning her attention to the stove. “A job for Bear?”
“I think so,” Maris answered. She crossed the large kitchen and looked over the chef’s shoulder. “I thought I smelled cinnamon. Oh, those look wonderful.”
The last batch of cinnamon French toast was in the pan. In the warming trays to the side, the thick sliced and golden brown bread was sprinkled with both cinnamon and powdered sugar. But at the sight of the other tray, Maris clasped her hands together.
“Mini omelets?” She grinned and glanced back at Cookie. “You know these are my favorite, right?”
Cookie cast a long sideways glance at her. “Uh huh,” she said slowly.
Though the diminutive chef might doubt her sincerity, it was true. Her interpretation of the word ‘favorite’ might be a bit loose, but Maris had simply never met one of Cookie’s specialties that she didn’t positively adore.
The mini omelets looked done to perfection, and positively full of fresh ingredients that Maris recognized: a triple cream Brie from Cheeseman Village and sautéed mushrooms, sprinkled with chives and fresh ground pepper. Homemade tater tots finished off the offerings, and a generous plate of sliced heirloom tomatoes was also ready.
Maris quickly scanned the
