Cufflinks in the Cappuccino: Coffee House Clairvoyant: Book 4 Page 14

  But for the life of me, I can’t think of anything to help me prove my case.

  “I know you don’t believe me, and that’s fine, but you need to get Millie down here. Ask her about that night. She’ll tell you what I can’t.”

  Sheriff Addams leans back. She taps one short-nailed fingertip against the table top. Finally, she says, “I’ll look into it. You two stay here.”

  Right.

  As if we could do anything else.

  More than an hour passes, during which time, Cole and I stay in the small, cramped room. The evidence and case file have both been removed, and now, we’re just left waiting for something to happen. It’s a long wait, unfortunately.

  Finally, the door opens.

  Paul walks in, and this time, he’s alone.

  “Did you find her?” I ask, sitting up, hopeful.

  “No. Her house is empty. Looks like she cleared out sometimes this evening.”

  Oh, goody. I kind of want to scream, I told you so! Probably that’s not the best way to approach this, though. “She’s gone?”

  “As far as we can tell, yeah. She hasn’t been to work for a few days, and it sounds like she left town a couple hours ago.”

  Wow. That would mean she left about when I saw her this evening, before coming down to the station.

  My eyebrows knit together. “That’s . . . not a good look.”

  “No, it’s definitely not. Sheriff Addams has agreed to open the case up again, but we need to talk with her and get her side of things.”

  Obviously. “What about Alice?”

  “We have a car outside her house right now, but so far, it looks like she’s gone, too.”

  “Ash might know where she is,” Cole says. “They were, uh . . . close. So . . . yeah.” He rubs the back of his neck, wincing.

  “How close?” Paul asks.

  “Real close.”

  I catch the implication of his words, my eyes widening. That explains why they were always talking! Why I kept seeing them around town! Now it makes sense! Maybe Millie wasn’t getting information about me from her niece. Maybe Alice was just . . . spending time with her partner.

  “What now?” I ask, turning to Paul.

  “Well, for now, I guess you two are free to leave.” He frowns. “We’ve got an APB out on Millie and her vehicle. If anything new comes up, we’ll be in touch.”

  “That’s it? That’s all you have?”

  He shrugs. “Until we find her, there’s not much we can do about it. Just . . . don’t take Angus outside Mooring Cove for the time being. He’s the only person we can confirm being there that night, and we’re gonna have some questions for him.”

  My heart sinks. That’s exactly what I’ve been trying to avoid. “You’re not gonna arrest him, right?”

  “No, no. Nothing like that. But . . . well, he’s got some explaining to do. I want to hear his side of things, and not from an old statement. I want it from him, in person.”

  Okay. At least he’s not going to prison.

  Maybe it’s not exactly a win, but I’ll take it.

  “So, Millie done it, then.”

  I nod, leaning forward to rest my elbows on my knees. It’s the night before Christmas Eve, and I’m back at my parents’ house, sitting on the back porch with Uncle Angus after a hearty meal and some much-needed family time. “Yeah. I didn’t realize it until I caught her voice on Leon’s shirt. The cufflinks . . . the green and gold ones . . . they were hers all along. They had to have been.”

  He settles back, resting his hands on his stomach. His corncob pipe sticks out from between his teeth, a steady wisp of smoke curling up from the glowing char inside. “Can’t says I’m all that shocked.”

  “You didn’t see her that night?”

  “Nope. Didn’t see no one. Just Pa and Leon.” He turns away, emptying the ashes so he can add fresh tobacco.

  Some part of me wonders if he’s being entirely honest with me. “Do you know anything about her family? If they have powers?” It’s the only thing I can think of asking. Cole and I weren’t exactly loud about our investigation, and while I wanted to speak with Millie—or avoid doing so, if possible—she somehow figured out that we were onto her. The only way I see her figuring it out is if she has psychic powers, too.

  “Can’t says I do, no.” He taps in some new tobacco, using his thumb to pack it down as far as he can. “But . . . guess I don’t know as much as I thought.”

  I cross my arms over my stomach. The sky overhead is gray, and it’s been raining off and on all morning. Water drips from the firs and bare skeletons of leafy trees and bushes. My breath comes and goes in soft puffs of steam. “I think that’s the case for all of us.”

  Uncle Angus bobs his head slowly as he lights his new tobacco and sits back to continue with his pipe.

  With that, we sit in silence, just watching the yard. The sky opens again, a light, freezing drizzle starting up. Rain patters against the roof above. Water drips down next to my sneakers from the eaves.

  “Paul said they might bring you in to ask you about that night,” I whisper. “I’m sorry. I wanted to keep you out of it as much as possible.”

  “Figured they’d ax me about it again at some point.”

  I turn away, more upset that I failed him than anything.

  For the first time, even though I solved a case, I can’t prove who the murderer is. And it hurts. A hollow ache digs into my chest. All I want is to have things go back to normal, but as I stare down at the flagstone patio, I realize that normal isn’t at all what it used to be.

  Normal for me now is this.

  And, even though I couldn’t prove that Millie killed Leon, I’m not ready to give up. Time will catch up with her. And so will I.

  She’s not going to get away with this. Not if I have anything to say about it.

  Keep Reading!

  My boss is missing, and the only evidence I have is gold—and lots of it.

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  What's Next?

  My boss is never late to work. Trust me. Nothing in the world is going to keep him from his job. Restoring old manuscripts and running Elea’s Restoration & Readery is his passion, so when Dr. Elea doesn’t show up for work one morning, I know something’s wrong. Very wrong.

  Luckily, I’m not the only one who has noticed his sudden absence.

  The owner of Mocha Amore, Cole Vankroft, hasn’t seen him around town either. Thankfully, he’s willing to help me figure out what happened. Hopefully with his help, the two of us will be able to track Dr. Elea down and make sure he’s safe.

  Sounds easy enough, right?

  Well, it would be if a murderer wasn’t on the loose. Yup. You read that right. Not only do we have to try and find my boss, but we have to attempt to catch the fiend who murdered Cole’s grandfather almost forty years ago before she hurts someone else.

  There’s no telling what she’ll do now that she’s on the run.

  I just hope we’re not too late.

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  Sneak Peek of Faberge in the Frappuccino

  Mooring Cove hasn’t been the same since finding out that I’m not the only one with psychic powers living in town. Now that I know Cole has psychic abilities, too, things have gotten more than a little interesting. But maybe I should rewind a bit and explain things. See, his powers allow him to transfer objects from one point to another. The only catch is that he has to know where they actually are first.

  Still, it’s a pretty darn cool power.

  It’s also been extremely useful in helping me solve a slew of murders in our sleepy Oregon town. Mooring Cove seems unassuming on th
e surface, but I know better now. Those murders that I’ve solved? Yeah, they’ve been happening for a reason.

  It’s just not the reason you’d think.

  Brit, Nathan, Alex—their deaths all have something in common. No, it’s not me. And it’s definitely not Cole.

  It’s the fact that they’re an echo of sorts, a result of vengeful spirits trying to find peace. I don’t fully understand the logistics behind it myself. I’m still just getting used to the idea that spirits can have such a negative impact on the physical world.

  Cole, though . . . he’s convinced that’s what’s going on. Him and Uncle Angus both, actually.

  Yeah, sounds crazy to me, too.

  The whole thing reminds me of a bad episode of Scooby Doo, but this is my reality. People are being killed around town, and it has to stop. No more innocent people need to die. Not now that I know why it’s been happening. To save lives and keep the locals safe, Cole and I are banning together to right past wrongs while taking on the mysteries of our present.

  All with full-time careers.

  Guess it’s safe to say neither of us has much of a social life these days.

  The best way for us to do our job is to team up and use our powers together.

  But Cole . . .

  Well, here’s the thing.

  It was rough enough getting Cole to open up about having powers, let alone getting him to admit that he’s the one who has been spiking my drinks with objects formerly owned by dead people. So maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised that he’s currently giving me an unimpressed glare while I try and pitch him my newest plan.

  The plan’s simple: We have a murderer on the loose, and I want to catch her. Doing so requires a little bit of finesse, though, and maybe asking a big favor from one of his baristas.

  “Just think about it. Asking Ash for help could fix everything!”

  “I don’t think so,” he says, shaking his head and leaning back.

  We’re at my house, talking over some beer and a stone-cold pizza. As the only two resident psychics—well, that I know of, anyway—in Mooring Cove, it’s up to us to get this stuff figured out. No one else is gonna do it, after all. So the town’s safety—and the safety of the people living here—falls on our shoulders.

  It’s not a burden I want to bear, but the choice was taken from me the second Cole got me involved in Brit Fuller’s murder. Now my sense of justice won’t let me back down. I have to do this. We both do.

  All that’s left is convincing him to ask for help.

  “Oh, come on,” I reply, taking a quick swig of my IPA. “We need to find out where Millie went, and Alice is the only person who’s gonna know. There’s no way Ash isn’t still in touch with her.”

  Ash is one of the baristas at Mocha Amore. She works with Cole in the mornings, making coffee for our sleepy town. She can whip up just about anything, and it’ll taste better than any coffee you’ve ever had in these United States. Even Cole’s coffees aren’t as rich and smooth as the ones Ash brews up. Somehow, she knows the trick to getting rid of the bitter, acidic aftertaste. Nothing gets burnt on her watch.

  Alice is her girlfriend. At least, I think they’re together. Cole sort of hinted at it, but he’s never out-right said anything, so it’s hard to know for sure. At the very least, they’re good friends, and that can’t be ignored—especially since Alice’s aunt, Millie L. Fraude, is currently on the lamb.

  On the lamb.

  Man, I have always wanted to use that sentence.

  Anyway, apparently Millie murdered Cole’s grandfather, Leon Vankroft, and tried to kill my great granddad, one Edmund MacUispeag, but failed before Uncle Angus got onto the scene.

  I’m still not entirely sure why she didn’t do him in, too, but I’m not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth, you know? I’m just glad he’s alive and well.

  Millie, though, left town shortly before the police tried to bring her to the station for a little chat. The sheriff and her deputies are still trying to track her down. It’s only been a few weeks. Unfortunately, the longer she’s missing, the more worried I become. There’s a good chance she’s going to vanish entirely, and then . . .

  Well, Leon’s spirit won’t be put to rest. That spells disaster for Mooring Cove. Apparently, we’re a gateway of sorts. Like I said, it’s all a bit Scooby Doo to me. Maybe someday I’ll understand the how and why of it all.

  For now, though, our focus is on trying to track Millie down so she can face justice for what she did—and so I can prove once and for all that my family had nothing to do with Leon’s death.

  I still can’t figure out how Millie knew to run, though.

  Cole seems to think she might have some sort of psychic ability like us. After all, there’s no other explanation for how she got away so quickly. We didn’t exactly broadcast what we were working on, and we moved pretty quickly. Unlike my past cases, information about the cufflinks wasn’t released to the public. After all, no one had been killed recently, so there was no need to cover any sort of crime.

  If she really did kill Leon, then we’re looking at someone very dangerous being on the loose. Worse yet, if she knows that she’s a suspect in Leon Vankroft’s murder, she might be smart enough to put the pieces together. She might know that Cole and I are onto her.

  Considering she followed me around town in the days leading up to her vanishing, I’m betting she knows.

  Despite me reporting her SUV to the cops, no one has found it—or her.

  Alice is missing, too.

  Well, maybe missing isn’t the right word. More like she has voluntarily vanished. Ash, luckily, is still around. Heck, she was at Mocha Amore just this morning! Hence my conviction that we need to ask her where Alice is and what’s going on with Millie. Ash knows something. She has to. At this point, she’s literally our only lead.

  But Cole . . . well, he has other feelings about asking her.

  Cole sips his beer as he considers my argument. He’s drinking Heineken rather than something more substantial. To be fair, he does have to get home. He lives about a mile away, still in the Vics, but closer to downtown. “I don’t wanna bring Ash into this.”

  “She’s already involved,” I point out. “Sheriff Addams has questioned her half a dozen times. Plus, with Brit’s death and everything, she—”

  He sits up, cutting me off swiftly. “She’s not involved. Not in that. That was all Jacob. It had nothing to do with her. Got that?”

  Yikes. “Yeah. Okay, I’ve got it.”

  Talk about being overprotective. Then again, she is his employee. To some extent, he’s responsible for her safety.

  Despite that, I shiver at the mention of Jacob’s name. That man still scares me. As far as I know, he’s still being held without bail, awaiting his trial. Thank goodness for that. I’m not sure I could stomach staying in Mooring Cove if he was out and about.

  “Yeah, I know. But . . . you have to admit there’s kind of a coincidence there. She, Brit, and Kady were really good friends, right? And after everything that happened to Brit and Kady . . .” I trail off, hoping he’ll pick up on the connection.

  Cole shakes his head, sinking back onto the chair. “Look. It’s not that I think you’re wrong. Obviously, there’s something to it. She’s involved with Alice, at the very least, but . . .” He runs a hand through his dark auburn hair. “I don’t want her to get into trouble. Pressing her for Alice’s whereabouts or for information on Millie isn’t going to help keep her out of harm’s way. It could just make things worse, for all we know.”

  I blow air between my lips.

  Kiwi, my chunky gray Scottish fold, jumps up onto the couch beside me, and I reach over to give her some light pets while I think through all of this. “Okay. Fair. For now, we can leave her out of it.”

  The agreement isn’t the best choice. I don’t want to ignore the fact that we have a connection to Alice—and thus probably Millie—right in front of us, but considering everything that has happened, the people who hav
e all died . . .

  He’s right.

  If we draw Ash into this, Millie might see her as a threat, and . . .

  And, well . . .

  I really don’t want another murder on my hands. I can’t just ignore that Ash’s life could be in danger if we go about this the wrong way.

  “Okay, fine. So what now?”

  He shrugs. “Now we need to find a way to reach out to the spirits in Mooring Cove, the ones who have been wronged. If we’re lucky, we might be able to find some way to help them. Heck, one of them might even be able to take us to Millie.”

  Great.

  That means having a séance.

  I shudder at the mere thought. The last—and only—séance I ever had didn’t go poorly, so to speak, but it isn’t an experience I’m keen on repeating again.

  “There’s just one problem with that. The only medium I know is down in Portland.”

  His eyebrows almost jump to his hairline. He leans forward in his chair. “Wait. You know a medium?”

  “Uh . . .” Oops. “I’m not gonna out them,” I say quickly, holding my hands up. “But yeah, I do.”

  “Can you ask if they’re willing to come out here?”

  “Isn’t there, like . . . someone local? Maybe?” It’s not that I don’t love Shannon. I do. It would honestly be really nice to see them again, too, but the thought of having another séance gives me the heebie jeebies. I’m happy to call them—as long as I don’t have to talk to the dead through them.

  Cole shakes his head. “No. There haven’t been any mediums out this way in a long time.”

  “Let me guess. Forty years or so?” I’m glad to change the subject. Calling Shannon can wait. It’s already really late; there’s a good chance they aren’t even awake right now.

  “Thereabouts.”

  “Why do I get the feeling that Leon’s murder is the reason so many people left?” I mumble.

  He settles back into the chair. “I mean . . . you’re not wrong.”