“Good morning,” she said, stifling a yawn as she grabbed her apron and put it on. “How are you this morning, Georgina, Charlie?”
“Fine,” I grumbled. “Did you hear about Jordan?”
“Did I ever!” Lauren said, a slight twang in her accent. I liked it. “The poor man. I wonder what he was thinking. Why on earth would he do something like that? It just goes to show, you can never tell how people really feel. If only he’d spoken to someone before…” Lauren hung her head, shaking it. “It just makes me so sad to think how alone he must’ve felt.”
“It wasn’t suicide,” Gamma said.
Lauren’s fingers fumbled on her apron strings. “What?”
“Murder.” She rose from the table and went to the coffee machine to fix Lauren a cup of coffee. “You mark my words, dear, it was murder.”
“But that’s terrible. I mean, either way is terrible. Murder.” Lauren accepted the cup of coffee with trembling fingers. “Who would want to hurt Jordan? He was a sweetheart.”
“No idea,” I said.
“That’s terrible.” Lauren drank her coffee, leaning against the kitchen counter. “And this isn’t good for the inn, either, is it?”
“Don’t worry about it, Lauren,” Gamma said. “We’ll get through this, just like we’ve gotten through everything else.”
“But it’s twice in the same place. Remember what happened to Darling?”
Darling Gould, one of my grandmother’s good friends, had died in that library as well.
“How could I forget?” Gamma asked.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Georgina. I didn’t mean to be insensitive. It’s just, people are going to think that library is cursed at this point. And definitely haunted.”
“Lauren,” I said, before my grandmother dwelled too much on her friend’s death. “When last did you see Jordan yesterday?”
The inn’s chef swayed her hips from side-to-side while she considered the question. “Probably just before I left for the evening? Let me think. Yeah, yeah, I saw him in the dining area. He waved as I walked by on my way out the front doors. I think he was talking to someone.”
“What gave you that impression?”
“He kept nodding and glancing off to someone seated in the corner. I think. I can’t be sure because I couldn’t see, and, well, I didn’t think anything of it. Jordan’s been pretty nice to most of the guests. I assumed it was one of you two or that he’d met a guest who was interested in adopting a kitten.”
“Ah, that makes sense.”
“You didn’t see him after that?” Gamma asked.
“No, Georgina. Not after that. And I don’t know who he was talking to. Oh, this is just awful. Y’all don’t think he was talking to the person who… did it, do you?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
Lauren picked up the end of her apron and wrung it between her palms. “This is terrible. I can’t deal with it. I just can’t—”
Gamma clapped her hands together. “There’s no use dwelling on this. Let’s get the breakfast sorted out. We still have living guests to feed.”
Lauren responded well to a stern tone. She grabbed her recipe book and flipped through the pages. “Those chocolate cupcakes went down well, yesterday, don’t you think, Charlie? We ought to make them again.”
“Sounds good to me. Just tell me what you need me to do.”
And she did.
Lauren chose a breakfast of grits, chicken fried steak with gravy and a side of eggs over easy, with the cupcakes for a sweet treat afterward. Gamma, Lauren, and I worked tirelessly for the next two hours to ensure everything was ready for the most important meal of the day.
I brought the cupcakes out on platters and placed them on the long tables at the front of the room, then began serving the guests the set meal by asking them their preference.
All of the inn’s guests knew, by now, that trying a little—or a lot—of everything Lauren had cooked up was a good idea.
Halfway through the breakfast service, Kayla Wart, the twin with her blonde hair piled atop her head, took a seat at a table in front of the dining room window. Her severe sister was nowhere to be seen.
I approached with a coffee pot and a smile. “Morning, Miss Wart.”
“Kayla,” she said. “You can call me Kayla.” Her cheeks were red, her eyes puffy.
Why?
“Kayla,” I corrected myself. “Can I get you anything to eat? We’ve cooked up a great breakfast for everybody.” Man, I was getting good at this communicating with people thing, if I said so myself. Well, it wasn’t so much the communicating as it was the small talk that I didn’t enjoy.
Gossip changed a person.
I was that person.
“Yes, that’s fine,” she whispered.
“What would you like?” I rattled off the list of food we’d made.
“Uh, some grits, please, with maple syrup.”
“Sure! Coffee?” I gestured with the pot.
She nodded and slid her mug forward to accept it black.
I poured, trying not to be obvious about my scrutiny of her. She wouldn’t have noticed if I’d done a tap dance—she stared at her lap, twisting her fingers together.
“Are you all right, Kayla?”
“Fine.”
“OK…” That wasn’t the truth. “Will your sister be joining you for breakfast this morning?”
“No!” Kayla snapped.
I raised an eyebrow but resumed my simpering expression right afterward. “All right. Well, just call me if you need anything, OK?”
Kayla didn’t answer, and I drifted off, puzzling over her appearance and behavior. Both the Wart sisters had been acting strangely last night. Could they be involved in the murder? Surely not. They were guests. Unconnected with Jordan. They’d been here a few days, right?
The slamming of doors broke through my thoughts, and a figure charged into the dining room.
Jessie Belle-Blue, my grandmother’s mortal enemy, stopped just inside the room, holding a newspaper aloft, her tartan pashmina so bright it made the eyes water.
“Georgina!” she cried, triumph in her tone.
The kitchen doors, with their porthole windows, swung open and my grandmother emerged, her cheeks already flushed. “Belle-Blue! What have I told you about coming around here?”
The guests’ heads swiveled, though they didn’t seem upset by the interruption in their breakfast.
