Ellen swung the glasses for a moment before answering. “Yes. But perhaps not quite in the way that you imagine.”
“In what way, then?”
“It was business.” Ellen dropped the glasses on the side table and rose to her feet. “She was involved in some projects I supervised.”
“I don’t understand.” I placed the suspicious document on the side table next to the other letter before standing.
“No, and I can’t explain. Not now. I would need to …” Ellen cleared her throat and snatched up Damian’s letter. “Here, take this too. I’ll make that call to the owner as soon as I can. If he confirms that it was Lincoln Delamont who suggested that he reject Damian’s job application, then perhaps you should share it with the police. But otherwise I would simply discard it.”
I stepped close enough to take the letter from her extended fingers. “I take it you aren’t going to explain your previous connection to my great-aunt?”
“Not today. Maybe another time.” Ellen’s gaze swept from my head to my feet and back again. “For now, I’d suggest not digging any deeper. At least not where Isabella’s past is concerned.”
I turned away to grab the third letter. “Because I might find out information you don’t want me to know?”
“No, because you might discover certain facts you’ll later wish you hadn’t.”
I faced her, steeling myself to make my stare as stern as hers. “All right, I’ll show myself out. Just let me know when you hear something from that restaurant owner.”
“I will.” Ellen trailed me, staying close behind me as I strode into the front hall, where we discovered Shandy asleep on a rug in front of the door. He lifted his head and yawned.
“Sorry, fella,” I said, “but you need to move so I can exit.”
Ellen leaned down and hoisted the sleepy dog up in her arms. “Trust me, Charlotte, I will tell you the truth, if I can.” Her voice was so soft that I could barely hear it over the squeak of old wood as I yanked open the door.
I cast her a questioning look. “Good-bye, Ellen. When, or if, you can talk more, just let me know. Although, to be honest, I think I may have an inkling of what you’re hiding.”
Ellen flashed me a smile that was as brittle as it was brilliant. “I think you may have missed your true calling.”
“Unfortunately?” I paused, one foot over the threshold.
“No, I would say you are actually quite fortunate in that regard.” Ellen grabbed the edge of the wooden door and held it ajar as I allowed the screen door to slam behind me. “Trust me,” she called out as I crossed the porch, “in this case, missing your calling makes you the lucky one.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
When I returned to Chapters, I slipped the three letters into my sock drawer before changing into older clothes and spending the rest of the day helping Alicia clean. We usually did some cleaning every day, but except for taking care of the occupied guest rooms, we’d let things slide a bit this week. It was past time to catch up.
The physical work was just what I needed to keep my mind occupied and quell some of my anxiety, but I was definitely tired by dinnertime. Both Scott and the Delamonts were out for the evening, so after a light supper, I retreated to my room.
I considered reading one of the many books on my “to be read” list, but decided I couldn’t give any of them the attention they deserved. Instead, I climbed onto my bed and opened my laptop. After checking emails, I conducted a few random searches on my great-aunt’s name. Finding nothing other than mentions related to the bed-and-breakfast business, I switched to looking for information on some of my recent guests.
Of course, there were mentions of Scott in connection to his books, but what caught my attention was an article about theRowleys. Even thought it was a puff piece in a lifestyle magazine, my curiosity drove me to read the entire thing.
There wasn’t that much of interest—just descriptions of their homes and their yacht, along with a few paragraphs chronicling Todd Rowley’s meteoric rise as a leader in the world of high-tech entrepreneurship. But one element from Kelly’s past made me pause to read more closely. While most of the coverage focused on her running career, there was a mention of her family that surprised me. I’d assumed Kelly had married into her money, but apparently her parents had been quite wealthy in their own right. Reading on, I realized that my first impression of Kelly as someone who’d not always lived a life of wealth was actually correct—after her parents died when she was only eleven, the entirety of their estate had passed to her older brother, who was twenty-one at the time. The article went on to congratulate Kelly for rising above this trauma, and financial setback, to carve out a career as a celebrated athlete.
I leaned back into the pillows I’d piled against my headboard. The subtext of the article indicated that Kelly’s brother had not taken care of his sister. At least, not financially. That was odd, but then, where money was concerned, sometimes familial feeling went out the window.
There was a lot more information on Todd, as well as on Kelly’s track-star days, but nothing that would suggest that either one of them would stab a stranger to death.
Not that I expected the Internet to spell out that sort of connection. But sometimes, I’d found, it was possible to read between the lines and develop a picture of someone from the footprint they’d left on the Web. Researching a few of my students’parents in order to get a better sense of their homelife, I’d correctly identified a few as emotionally absent, or overly strict law-and-order types, or …reckless, I thought, remembering Ellen’s statement about Isabella.
That thought spurred me to look up references to Ellen Montgomery. These were numerous, but most were false hits, unconnected to the woman I knew. Of course, Ellen had retired from her career as a film-location expert rather young. I frowned as I ran some calculations in my head. Unusually young, actually, which raised another red flag. I’d never really thought about it before, but given her current age, she’d only have been about forty when she moved to Beaufort. That was extremely early to retire, even if someone had made a fortune, and I doubted that a film-location expert, no matter how good, made that much.
I slid my forefinger over the bottom edge of my laptop. It was funny how Ellen’s age when she moved to Beaufort hadn’t seemed odd to me until now. But when we met, she’d already been in her seventies. I supposed I hadn’t really thought it through, since it had seemed reasonable that she’d been retired for some time. I’d never bothered to run the numbers and consider the oddity of her moving to Beaufort, supposedly retired, when she was barely forty.
Setting the laptop on my nightstand, I climbed off the bed and wandered over to the bedroom window overlooking the backyard.
There were no tiny lights sparkling in the vines covering the pergola that evening, but the automatic spotlights still illuminated the patio with crisscrossing ovals of light. I allowed my gaze to slide over to the darker area near the carriage house. Hopefully, the building would be turned back over to me in a day or two. I wanted to thoroughly clean the space.Scrub it downwith bleach, if necessary, I thought, my lips tightening as I contemplated trying to remove any remaining bloodstains from the weathered wood floors.
