“You don’t trust me, do you?”
“Not from here to the door,” he agreed.
“That’s insulting.”
“That’s the honest-to-goodness truth. If I left here ahead of you, you’d slip right back in and go poking around in that computer all by yourself, wouldn’t you, especially without Etta Mae here to put a stop to it?”
Gracie sighed at the accuracy of his guesswork. “Come on, then. This barbeque had better be very good.”
“It’ll make your mouth water,” he promised.
Gracie was less concerned about the tastiness of the barbeque than she was about how soon she could shake Kevin and get back to the courthouse and give old Etta Mae Wilkes a piece of her mind. Maybe she could point out the error of her ways in conspiring with a lowdown sneak like Kevin.
“She won’t change her mind, you know,” Kevin commented as he drove through Warsaw, crossed the Rappahannock River and headed into Tappahannock.
“Who won’t?” Gracie asked, feigning innocence.
“Etta Mae.”
“Who said anything about trying to change her mind?”
“You didn’t have to. I know how you think.”
“You do not.”
“You were going to plague her with some song and dance about sisterhood and women sticking together and all that hogwash. It won’t work. Etta Mae’s very liberated. She makes up her own mind about things.”
“I don’t know about that. She fell for whatever story you fed her, didn’t she?”
“Nope. She was just doing her job.”
“Reporting my presence to you is her job?”
“Doing what a county supervisor asked,” he corrected.
“You’re on the board of county supervisors?”
“Yep.”
“Well, hell.” She frowned at him. “Etta Mae’s not the only one in that courthouse on the lookout for me, is she?”
“Not by a longshot. Hers was just the first call I got. Not the last.”
It was definitely a complication she hadn’t counted on. But, in the long run, it would just make things more interesting. She smiled at him, clearly disconcerting him.
“What’s that gleam in your eye all about?” he asked suspiciously as they walked into Lowery’s.
“Nothing,” she insisted in a way that suggested exactly the opposite, that she had all sorts of devious things in mind.
“Nothing, my patootie,” he retorted. “You’re up to something. What?”
“Just you wait and see,” she said cheerfully and proceeded to concentrate on the biggest, juiciest minced barbeque sandwich she’d ever had in her life. That and the bemused, worried expression on Kevin’s face almost made up for the morning’s failure.
11
As she was finishing up her walk the next day, Gracie spotted an old woman sweeping her porch next door to what she’d come to think of as her Victorian. Mrs. Johnson, no doubt, the woman who’d called her about that supposed intruder.
Gracie saw an opportunity to get a little information about exactly how that turn of events had come about. She waved. “Good morning.”
The woman’s gaze shot up and something that might have been worry creased her brow. “Morning, miss.”
“Are you Mrs. Johnson?”
“Who’s asking?” The woman’s expression was suspicious.
“Gracie MacDougal. I believe you called me the other day when you thought someone had broken in next door.”
She nodded then, but her expression was no more welcoming. “You’re that gal who wants to buy the place and turn it into some sort of fancy hotel.”
“A bed-and-breakfast, actually.”
“I’m not sure I like the idea of a lot of strangers coming and going next door. Always been a quiet neighborhood. I’d like to keep it that way.”
This wasn’t a reaction she’d expected. Gracie opened the gate and stepped inside. “Do you have a minute? I could explain what I have in mind. I don’t think you’ll find it half so troubling once you understand.”
Mrs. Johnson seemed to be debating the wisdom of letting her set foot on the porch. Finally she nodded. “Okay, come on up and sit a spell. I’ll get us some iced tea.”
“That’s not necessary. I don’t want to put you to any trouble.”
“No trouble,” she said, and disappeared inside.
She was gone so long, Gracie anticipated seeing Kevin turn up any second, just as he had the day before at the courthouse. Eventually, though, Mrs. Johnson returned with two glasses of tea and a plate of cookies on a silver serving tray. She put it onto the table between two rockers.
“Help yourself. Baked the cookies this morning. Doctor doesn’t like me eating sugar, so I’m taking most of them over to the church later. You turning up gives me a chance to sample one.” She chuckled. “Have to prove to my guest they’re not poisoned, don’t I?”
Gracie grinned at her, relieved that the old woman’s attitude seemed to be mellowing. “Absolutely.”
“Okay, then, tell me about this bed-and-breakfast thing. Never been to one myself.”
“Basically, you’re right about it being a hotel, just a very small one,” Gracie explained. “In this case, probably four rooms, by the time I enlarge a couple of the bedrooms and add private bathrooms.”
“You ever run one of these before?”
“No, but I’ve run several hotels in Europe.”
“In Europe? You don’t say. Which ones?”
“Most recently, the Worldwide Hotel in Cannes, the Maison de Sol.”
“Lovely place. I was there once, years ago, of course, before your time. Any others?”
“Before that, I was at the one in Baden-Baden, and before that in Geneva.”
“And Worldwide, that’s the chain that prides itself on luxurious surroundings, isn’t it?”
“It did,” she said, unable to hide the trace of bitterness.
Mrs. Johnson regarded her intently. “That why you left? Were they paying too much attention to the bottom line and not enough to the comfort of the guests?”
“Exactly.”
“That’s the way the world’s going these days,” Mrs. Johnson lamented. “Fast food, inexpensive motels, economy cars, fake copies of great art. Nobody cares about the finer things in life the way they used to. In my day, it was better to have a few nice things than to load up on cheap knock-offs. My Charles, rest his soul, always wanted the best for me.”
She reached out and rubbed her gnarled fingers over the silver tray. “You see this? He gave
