I asked first one, then another gaggle of women if they’d seen a dapper fellow in his fifties walking past, maybe smoking a cigarette. I worked my way through the groups of women, and they all replied in the negative.
I looked up the boulder-lined path, then drew back as the odor of sulfur invaded my nose. Clouds of steam were drifting down from a place up the path, and with my marvelous powers of deduction, I figured that was where the hot springs pool was. I scanned the woods and what I could see of the paths again. Jack really couldn’t have gone hiking by himself, could he? Not after two heart attacks—both the results of his lawyering days, he said—plus, he smoked, and he hated exercising. But then where could he have gotten to in such a short time?
Nearby, two women were swinging contentedly.
“Maybe their smoothies really do have sugar and cream in them,” one of the women commented. “It sure tastes like it. I could just kill for another one before lunch!”
Talk about a fixation. I’d have to get the recipe for this concoction before I left the next day.
“Maybe that’s why they won’t let you have two in one day—they really are fattening.”
“We’re being weighed tomorrow morning, Sara Ann. That’s why they won’t let us have more than one at a time.”
“Well, yesterday my roommate didn’t want the mango one she ordered, so she gave it to me. I drank it right after I had my blueberry one, and I felt so mellow, I decided to sunbathe instead of exercising!”
“Uh-oh, Sara Ann! You risked the wrath of Victor by not showing up for water aerobics? Did he get in your face later?”
“Yeah. But it was worth it. And anyway, I told him I wasn’t paying for him to yell at me, so he backed off.”
At that moment, both women looked up at me expectantly.
“You still haven’t seen my godfather?” I asked lamely.
“No,” said Sara Ann. “Why don’t you check in the bushes beside the dining hall? That’s where people go to smoke sometimes. When they’re hiding out, that is.”
“Thanks.”
I got the bright idea to try Jack on my cell. But the screen said no service. I tried again, heard the characteristic chirp of Jack’s phone, then lost the service again. I glanced around once more. No Jack.
The door to the Smoothie Cabin was firmly closed, and as if that weren’t enough, a shut sign hung by a rope over the door. I moved closer to the sign, retried Jack’s cell, and heard it chirp again, but only once. Before it could go to voice mail, I lost the service again.
Well, doggone it. I tiptoed right up next to the Smoothie Cabin, where whispering voices were just audible within. If the smoothies made you want to sunbathe instead of go to water aerobics, had somebody figured they wanted to get a really good tan this afternoon? I knocked on the door, and there was sudden silence.
“Jack!” I called in a stage whisper. “It’s me, Goldy! Charlotte’s looking for you! Are you in there?”
There was still no response. By this time, I was very curious as to what was going on behind the Smoothie Cabin door. Could Jack be inside? Could he be in trouble? He didn’t seem like the getting-into-trouble type, somehow. He seemed like the causing-trouble type.
But still. I did worry about him. At least, that was what I told myself as I traipsed through mud and puddles and around two Dumpsters to get to the other side of the building. I jiggled the locked door handle, then realized the door was ever so slightly ajar. This must be the entrance that the staff used for taking out the trash, and for receiving deliveries of supplies.
I was careful not to bang the door as I entered. Yet for the second time that day I found myself tiptoeing… this time to where I judged the Smoothie Cabin wall began. There was some kind of window there.
The window looked into the Smoothie Cabin. And there I gave a start and gasped.
To my astonishment, Jack was inside the Smoothie Cabin—really just a glorified closet—and he was with Isabelle. I waved and waved to them, but they could not see me. For crying out loud, I was not looking through a window: I was gazing into a one-way mirror, the reflective side of which was facing Jack and Isabelle.
They were not doing anything untoward, but were looking through cabinets. Jack was holding what looked like a small key. I could barely hear Jack’s whispered words.
“Do you have any more keys? Does anyone?”
I could not understand Isabelle’s response. What were they looking for, protein powder? Whey whip?
My fist was poised, next to the glass, to knock and alert them to my presence. But I was frozen. I wasn’t really spying on them, I told myself, more in bewilderment than anything else; I was just trying to figure out exactly what was going on. But before I could do anything, I heard the raised voices of Craig Miller—and Billie and Charlotte Attenborough.
“Quick!” Jack whispered. “Put it all back together!” And he and Isabelle began to zip around the Smoothie Cabin interior, putting away containers and closing cabinet doors.
Suddenly the main door of the Smoothie Cabin was wrenched open, revealing Victor Lane, Craig, Billie, and Charlotte. Then—in order to cover up his real purpose for being there, I guessed, meaning, to snoop—Jack grabbed Isabelle and kissed her. Victor, surprised, jumped back.
Unfortunately, it was the Jack-Isabelle clench that Craig, Billie, and Charlotte witnessed. Charlotte, screaming an obscenity, slammed the Smoothie Cabin door on Billie’s hand. Billie shrieked and began sobbing again.
As confused as ever, I stood, openmouthed, and waited for Jack to finish kissing Isabelle. He did not. As soon as Victor firmly closed the Smoothie Cabin door, though, Jack and Isabelle unclenched and began checking that every open cabinet door was firmly closed.
At that point, I noticed the security cameras at the upper corners of the one-way mirror. One was pointing inside the Smoothie Cabin, and had recorded everything that had transpired within.
The other was pointed at me.
10
Luckily, I was able to get out of there quickly, before Victor Lane or one of his surrogates could chase me down. Maybe Victor really, really didn’t want any of his charges breaking into the Smoothie Cabin to get extra calories.
Then again, as Tom always said, I was of a somewhat paranoid nature. Jack didn’t need or want extra calories, I thought as I hurried along to his car. So what had he been looking for? And why did he have to cover up what he was doing by pulling Isabelle in for a smooch?
In any event, I was expecting a very long, very chilly ride home. But then Charlotte announced she was going with Billie. Jack began to speak to Charlotte’s turned back in low tones. Bottom line: Charlotte relented. This time, I let myself into the rear seat, only to have Jack surprise me by asking me to drive. He and Charlotte wanted to be chauffered, he said with a smile.
“What ever,” I replied happily, and took his key ring from him. “Are we going to the Attenborough place or to your house?”
“Let me see how my peacemaking mission goes,” he whispered. “Her place first, if that’s okay.”
What the heck, sure, it was fine. My stomach was growling from the lack of both breakfast and lunch; I was massively irritated at having to endure yet another temper tantrum from Billie Attenborough; and I had about a hundred details of the next day’s wedding to go over. But, drive? Be a chauffeur? No problem!
At first, Charlotte and Jack were so quiet in the backseat, I couldn’t tell how the peacemaking was going. After a while, I could tell that Charlotte was weeping softly. Even though I knew, or suspected, that Jack smooching Isabelle was fake, designed to cover up what ever he was doing in the Smoothie Cabin, if it had been Tom kissing a girl who was younger and thinner than yours truly, well, there would have been more than gentle crying.
Jack said, “Oh, my sweet girl, please don’t. C’mon, dear sweet Charlotte. Come be close to me.”
Eventually Charlotte sniffed and whispered that with Jack always off with Doc Finn, and ignoring her ideas for fixing up his place, and not wanting to spend tons of time with her, well, she didn’t know why she even kept seeing him. Clearly, she wasn’t his girlfriend, and he seemed to be making it clear he didn’t want to get married. So what was she to him? She wanted to know.
Jack said that Isabelle was supposed to be making him a smoothie, and all of a sudden, she’d grabbed him
