“Umm… okay. What is it?” Jane was caught a little off-guard. She’d never heard of the conference and didn’t do well with quick decisions.
“It’s an industry conference for owners of antique inns. I found out about it in theAntique Digestnewsletter I get for my shop. It could be a great way to make some contacts with advertisers that have leads for people that like to stay at old inns, and we can see some of the furniture that will fit in with our antiques.”
Jane looked around. She liked all their antiques but had to admit that sometimes they weren’t all that practical. “It would be nice to have a more useful place to serve coffee other than having it drip all over Great-grandma Miller’s bird’s-eye maple server.”
“And maybe see if they have any antique-style beverage coolers,” Andie said. “Plus, there could be tons of magazines we should be advertising in but just don’t know about.”
“That does sound like a good idea.” In the spring, when Jane had taken over running the inn because of their mother’s memory problems, she had been worried about getting enough guests. Her mother had let things go, and they’d lost a lot of their repeat business. But now things were picking up. Still, it did make good business sense to see if she could make some contacts that would allow her to expand her advertising.
“Liz said she’d keep an eye on things, and with only one guest, I don’t think anyone really needs to be in attendance here, do you? Maybe we could stay overnight. We could go out to a nice restaurant and spend some sister time.” Andie looked overly hopeful.
“Now you’re talking,” Jane said. “Do you really think we could leave the inn overnight?”
“I’ve already talked to Liz, and she’ll be happy to stay in one of the rooms, but I also think we don’t need to be here at night as long as no guests are checking in. Our one guest will be fine here all alone. And Brenda still comes every morning.”
“True. Okay, overnight it is.” Jane didn’t want to miss a chance to spend time with Andie. The two hadn’t been very close most of their adult lives and had just recently reconnected. Jane didn’t want to waste one minute of that.
It would be a good test of her resolve to spend less time at the inn. Mike would surely like that. But now worry about what Mike was up to snuck into her thoughts. Liz had thought Andie was with Mike this morning, and they’d both seemed a bit cagey about seeing Mr. Smith at the hardware store. Was Andie in on Mike’s plan? If so, the trip might be a good opportunity to try to wheedle it out of her. And maybe she should even ask Andie for advice, because if Mike really was planning to propose, what would her answer be?
“Great!” Andie said. “I gotta get to the antiques shop. We’re still meeting at Splash tonight for dinner, right?”
Jane glanced outside. She, Andie, Maxi, and Claire, along with their significant others, usually dined out together a couple of times a month. “It’s still warm enough, so I think so.”
“Great, see you tonight!”
CHAPTERELEVEN
Bunny mixed some warm gray with just a touch of king’s blue light paint and dabbed it onto the canvas right at the apex of the moon snail shell. Most people thought the shells were rather plain, but Bunny wasn’t most people. She saw the beauty in the shell, especially when under water and the intricate blue, gray, and purple colors became more vibrant.
Of all the snail shells on the beach, the moon snails were one of her favorites. The snail itself could live for fifteen years—most people didn’t know that. And it was one of the few that ate other snails. Their unique characteristics aside, Bunny just liked to paint them.
Glancing at the shell she’d picked up off the beach for reference, she blended the colors. Her thoughts drifted to that morning on the beach and the nefarious activity she’d seen Mr. Smith engaging in.
After he left, she’d checked out the smashed cantaloupe lying on the rocks. It was a bit disturbing, like a smashed skull. It made her wonder, though, if pushing someone off the cliff could cause a deadly accident. Maybe Mr. Smith was wondering the same thing.
She still hadn’t come up with a plan of action for further investigation. Should she just lurk outside of Tides and wait for him to go somewhere? That seemed a bit inefficient. She didn’t want anyone to see her and think she was up to something… Though now that she thought about it, she had seen that cute hound dog that had been around her car when she’d been surveilling Smith more than once in the past few days. And if she had seen him more than once, than maybe his owner had seen her. She needed to be a bit more discreet.
A knock on the slider startled her out of her thoughts. Liz was outside, having used the path between their gardens as usual. She looked anxious. Maybe she had intel on Mr. Smith.
Bunny set her paints aside and rushed to let Liz in.
“I’m not interrupting your painting, am I?” Liz glanced at the canvas.
Bunny waved her hand. “Not at all. I can paint any time. Come in the kitchen. Coffee? Tea?”
“Tea would be great.” Liz followed her into the kitchen.
Bunny put on some water and put the little basket with a variety of tea bags on the table. She grabbed two mugs and sat, putting one in front of Liz, who had a paper on the table in front of her.
“What’s that?” Bunny tilted her head to see what it was. The paper looked crumpled and stained with handwriting in black pen.
Liz grimaced. “Well, I probably shouldn’t have taken this, but I was emptying the trash, and it sort of stuck out. It came from Mr. Smith’s room. Aren’t these all poisons?”
She shoved the paper in front of Bunny. On it were four words, one on top of the other:hemlock,nightshade,death cap, anddapperling.
“These are poisons. Natural ones that can be found in the woods.”Poison?That was strange. Judging by his behavior on the beach, Bunny had assumed Mr. Smith was thinking about pushing someone off the cliff. Perhaps this was a backup plan. But she didn’t want to say that to Liz, because Liz looked worried.
“You don’t think he plans to poison someone, do you?” Liz asked.
