“Now, please.”
“Oh, a-all right. What’s wrong, Georgina?” Lauren swept her skirt underneath herself as she took a place at the table.
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to leave for about a week,” Gamma said.
“Leave?”
“Yes,” she continued. “You’re going to have to stop working here. But only for a week.”
“A week. Why? I don’t understand. Have I done something wrong? Georgina, I’m sure that people will come back to the inn. You can’t take what Jessie Belle-Blue said seriously. You know she’ll do just about anything to get under your skin. People love the inn. They love my cooking.”
“It’s not about that.” Even now, my grandmother held back. I doubt she’d ever broken cover in her life.
But Lauren had proved herself trustworthy. She’d had ample opportunities to tell Detective Crowley about our illegal investigations, but she hadn’t. She’d always stuck by us.
“Then what’s it about? See now, Georgina, I’ve worked here for years. I think I deserve to know why I’m being told to leave. What else am I supposed to do if I’m not coming in here to work? I need this job and you know that.” Lauren welled up.
“Don’t cry, Lauren,” I whispered. “It’s not about you.”
“It’s not?”
“It’s about me.” I glanced at my grandmother, wise and straight-backed, her hair curled perfectly even now when we’d been under such pressure. Gamma nodded to me once. “There’s something you need to know about me. About my grandmother too.”
“Your grandmother?” Lauren frowned.
“Yes. Georgina is my grandmother.”
Lauren’s eyes bugged out of her head like I’d just told her the Hungry Steer had burned down. Boy, if she thought that part was weird, wait until she heard the rest.
And so, I told her, while my grandmother fetched Lauren a soda for sugar to combat the shock. Lauren was gasping by the end, turning her head from me to Georgina and back again. Finally, she rested her head on her forearms and sat there, unmoving, for several minutes.
“Did she pass out?” I asked.
“Not sure. Lauren, can you hear me?”
“Yes, Georgina, I can hear you,” the chef replied meekly. “Why didn’t you tell me about this before?”
“There wasn’t a necessity,” Gamma said, primly. “And I didn’t want to endanger you. But that time has passed. I want you, Tyson, and Jason to leave Gossip tonight. Drive out of the town and go stay with family for the next week. We’ll contact you when it’s all over.”
“You realize how unbelievable this all sounds.” Lauren lifted her head off her arms and stared at us.
We didn’t answer her but met her gaze head-on.
“I always thought you two seemed similar,” she said, after another long silence. “And that danger seemed to follow you. All these murders… I guess it kind of makes sense. But what now? You’re both in trouble and you expect me to run away?”
“You will run away,” Gamma said, then took a breath. “If you don’t do as I’ve asked, I will fire you, Lauren. For real. Because we cannot risk you or your family. Maria hasn’t been here long, so she’ll be sent home for a week’s vacation. But you… the people who are after Charlotte already know who you are. They’ve been watching the inn for some time. They know that you two are good friends.”
Lauren favored me with a nervous smile. “We are good friends.”
“Yeah,” I said. “And that’s why you’ve got to go.”
Our chef, usually so happy, sat quiet and serious for another minute. “All right,” she said. “I’ll do it. I don’t know how I’m going to convince Jason to leave. Maybe I’ll tell him you’re sending me away on a vacation or a baking course and we all have to go. I don’t know. I’ll figure it out.”
“He owes you,” I said.
“Yeah, he does.” Lauren got up, tears shimmering in her eyes again, and came around the table toward us. She drew us both into a hug. “I’ll miss you. And when I come back, y’all had better be alive and healthy and ready to bake cupcakes. Georgina, you’re gonna tell me all about what it was like to be a spy.”
“You mustn’t tell anyway, Lauren,” Gamma whispered, unusually quiet.
“I won’t tell a soul. Your secret is safe with me.” Lauren collected her things, gave us both one last hug a piece, then left.
Hopefully, it wouldn’t be the last time I’d ever see her.
22
“The minute this is over, you’re coming back, and I’ll give you a big cuddle.” I stroked Sunlight, who had curled up in my lap, purring like crazy. It made this even more difficult.
My grandmother had called Jessie Belle-Blue to come fetch the older cats and keep them for the next week—she’d already come by this morning to retrieve the kitties from the incubator. It was a big step, but necessary, even if Belle-Blue was a massive pain in the butt.
We had to keep the kitties safe, and Jessie was the only one who had an incubator and the right equipment and help to look after the youngest kittens while we were occupied. I didn’t want to think about how my grandmother must’ve buried her pride to call Jessie Belle-Blue and ask for help. Without telling her the real reason.
The kitties played, a few of them darting around, others napping, while the smallest kittens were fast asleep in their incubator. I was monitoring them while my grandmother locked up the rooms in the inn.
We still weren’t sure how Kyle had gotten my wedding ring into the incubator room. While the window had been opened a crack, it wasn’t a given that it had been his entry point.
Brian had left to check the greenhouse for entry points, and the area around the fountain. The grounds were large, and the initial sweep by the NSIB hadn’t found anything, but I wasn’t convinced.
Something’s wrong.
I sighed and put Sunlight on the floor, then rose and walked over to the windows flanking the kitten foster center’s back door. The sun shone outside, the leaves on trees shifted gently
