“Where’s your partner?”
“He’s in the hallway. Watching the door.”
Malichai shook his head. The dumbass was probably standing right where the security cameras could get a good photograph of him for the cops if Burnell made a move on Malichai. “So, conspiracy charges if you managed to kill me and you both get caught,” he observed. “Are you armed with a gun?”
“No.”
“What about your partner?”
“Jay? No, he’s not either.”
“Just tell me why you’ve been following me.” He sounded as exasperated as he felt.
“We want to hire you,” Burnell confided.
It was the last thing Malichai expected. Keeping his bad leg stretched out on the mattress, he lowered his good one to the floor. “Keep talking.”
“There’s this man.”
“I don’t want to hear ‘this man.’ Give me a name.”
“Craig Williams.”
“The one here at the B and B?”
“Yes, he followed us here. At least we think he may have, we don’t know that for certain. We think he’s going to try to kill us.”
Malichai couldn’t decide if it was bullshit or not. It was possible Burnell was good at spinning tales whenever he was caught in someone’s room. “Why would he want to kill you?”
“I don’t know. We don’t know him.” Burnell’s voice rose to a dramatic pitch and he made an effort to get it under control. “We decided to get the biggest, toughest man at the B and B to persuade him to leave.”
“You aren’t making any sense, Burnell. Zero sense. Every time we meet in the hallway, you deliberately try to pick a fight with me. If you’re so worried about this man, pick a fight with him and get him thrown out.”
“I’ve never actually been in a fight, Malichai. I was always the biggest in the classroom and everyone was afraid of me. I wanted to know if you could defend yourself. Jay said not to worry, that you could, but I didn’t want to take chances that you were like me.”
Malichai didn’t like Burnell sounding ashamed because he wasn’t a fighter. “First, it’s a good thing not to fight, Burnell. On the other hand, it isn’t smart to try to deliberately pick a fight with a stranger, someone you know nothing about. And you don’t break into their room. Those are the kinds of things that can quickly escalate out of control and someone ends up dead. When I put someone down, it’s usually in a permanent way.” He figured that was safe enough to tell him since he was a soldier. Soldiers often had to kill.
Burnell shuddered. “I don’t know this man, but he’s been following us since he saw us at the beach and we’re both certain he intends to kill us.”
“You must have some idea of a reason this man would want to kill you.” At first, Malichai thought Burnell was lying. Then he began to think he was just paranoid. Now, a little bit of uneasiness was beginning to creep in.
Burnell shook his head. “We don’t know him.”
Malichai sighed. “Call in your partner.”
“What if Craig is creeping around out there and sets fire to your room or something?”
“Call your partner in, Burnell. And just so we’re on the same page, the man you’re talking about is about five-ten, light brown hair, brown eyes, dresses in sport jacket and jeans? That’s the one you’re calling Craig Williams?”
Burnell nodded several times. “That’s him.” He got up, opened Malichai’s door and beckoned to his partner.
While he whispered to Jay, Malichai texted his brother, asking for all the information they had already gathered on Burnell, Jay and the third man, Craig Williams. Malichai had gotten his name from Marie. She’d told him he came from Georgia. Craig had been there nearly as long as Burnell and Jay, arriving the day after they’d checked in. Malichai was beginning to feel as if he were playing a hypothetical Clue game.
Jay seated himself next to Burnell. “Thanks for listening to us. I told Burnell breaking into your room in the dead of night wasn’t the best approach, but he insisted it was the safest.”
“It wasn’t,” Malichai said. “You’re lucky I didn’t call the cops or slit your throat. Either could have happened. Speaking of cops, why haven’t you called them?”
The two men looked at each other and both shook their heads. “We’re life partners,” Jay explained. “That means a lot of time no one takes what we say seriously. We own a very respectable art gallery in Los Angeles, but we still get those looks, as if we’re not quite bright. Or something is wrong with us. We don’t have any proof against this man.”
Jay was easier to deal with. He spoke directly and logically to Malichai, without Burnell’s drama.
“I didn’t agree with Burnell’s plan to enlist your aid, but at least you’re listening to us and not dismissing what we have to say because of who we are.”
“Jay”—Malichai leaned toward them—“no one would dismiss this because of who you are. It just doesn’t make a lot of sense. You’ve never met this man in your life?”
Both men shook their heads.
“Have you had threats? Against you? Against the gallery?”
More head shakes. Malichai drummed his fingers on his thigh, searching his brain for anything that could tie Williams, from Georgia, to Jay and Burnell from Southern California. “When did you first notice him?”
“We were with Anna and Bryon Cooper, at the beach. We’d spent a good portion of the day together and were walking back to the B and B together,” Jay said. “Anna spotted this little shop, a magic shop. It looked very old chic. Nostalgic. Very cool. We all went in together. We wandered around the shop and found so many cool magic tricks from other eras, but no one ever came out from behind the curtain to take our money. We could have robbed the place.”
Burnell nodded. “The store is set back from the street in this little alley between the building next door and a stamp shop. Have you seen the alley?”
Malichai had. Artists often set up their wares there and sold to tourists. Many of them seemed to be making a lot of money. He’d seen the outside of the magic shop, but he’d never gone in.
“We went behind the counter where this curtain was hung in the doorway,” Burnell took up the story. “Anna started to call out because we could hear a bunch of people talking. It sounded like some kind of meeting, so we decided to leave. I figured they’d just forgotten to put the closed sign on the door. It was late. But then we heard something about killing the maximum amount of people. That’s what the man was saying. The maximum amount of people.” He said the last almost defiantly, looking at Jay. “He repeated those words and they were very clear.”
A chill went down Malichai’s spine. “Who said that?”
“I don’t know,” Burnell admitted. “I didn’t see anyone. We were afraid to pull the curtain aside. It was scary.”
“They didn’t say that,” Jay objected. “Anna and Burnell thought that was said, but Bryon and I didn’t hear that at all. It was more like, we have to make a clean sweep across the board. I thought they were playing a game of some kind. You know, a board game.”
“It isn’t like there are that many murder board games where they have to kill the maximum amount of people, Jay.”
Malichai held up his hand to stop any arguments. “Where does Craig Williams come into all of this?”
“We left the shop fast,” Jay said. “Anna was very upset and wanted to go to the cops. Bryon told her no, that she didn’t hear what she thought she’d heard. We hurried out to the main street and Craig was standing there, just watching us. There was something very scary about him. He just stared at us like someone out of one of those horror films.”
“He followed us back to the B and B,” Burnell added.
“He didn’t follow us back,” Jay objected. “Burnell, you can’t exaggerate. We didn’t see him again until we met him in the hall. He just stares a
t us.”
Malichai had encountered Craig’s stare. There was nothing against the law about staring. “When was that, the day and time?” It was easy enough to have Amaryllis double-check when Craig had arrived.
“A week earlier,” Burnell answered vaguely.
Malichai knew it had been the day before he had fixed Marie’s dishwasher.
“You didn’t go back to the magic shop, did you?” he asked the two men.
Jay shook his head. “Of course not. Bryon and I made it very clear it wouldn’t be a smart move. We wanted to just drop it.”
Burnell hung his head. Malichai waited. The other man remained stubbornly silent. Malichai sighed. “Just tell me. If I’m going to help, I need all the facts.”
Burnell shot a quick glance at his partner. “Anna and I did go back to the shop. Just a quick visit. We wanted to see who worked there. An older man, with darker skin and a few wrinkles, like he’d been in the sun a lot, was there. He was very fit though. He kept pointing things out to us, and seemed very grateful when we purchased a few items.”
“Burnell.” Jay sounded horrified. “What were you thinking?”
“We didn’t like the way you and Bryon acted like we couldn’t have heard what we know we heard,” Burnell said defiantly. “They were going to kill the maximum amount of people. I heard that. Anna heard it. Then creeper man showed up and he just stared at us.”
“For all you know, he could have some sort of staring disability,” Jay said.
Malichai nearly choked. “It isn’t going to do any good to argue amongst ourselves. Burnell, don’t break into anyone’s room. I’ll look into this, but you have to just go about your business and forget Craig no matter how much he stares. Don’t let him get to you.”
“He could be a serial killer,” Burnell pointed out. “He might plan to murder every single person in this B and B.” He shuddered at the thought and then glared at Jay. “It could happen.”
“It could,” Jay conceded. “But it’s unlikely.”
“Give me a couple of days to do some investigating,” Malichai said. “I’ll get back to you as soon as I know anything.”
“We’re leaving in another week,” Burnell said.
“I’ll get back to you before that.” Because on the off chance that they’d really overhead something, whether or not Williams was involved, he wanted to make certain he investigated every possibility. Or he really was that lost on what vacations were supposed to be.
The two men thanked him and left his room. Malichai padded barefoot across the room in order to inspect the lock. It was a really bad lock, easily picked, but in this case, he hadn’t locked it. Just in case Amaryllis decided to visit him. That would teach him to be so careless.
He fired off more data to Ezekiel. The name of the magic shop. He needed to know who owned it. What they looked like. How long they’d owned it.
Ezekiel came back with a thumbs-up and a question of his own. Malichai had sent him a picture of a woman. So far no one had identified her. Was she still at the bed-and-breakfast? How long had she been there? What was her name? Could he lift a fingerprint?
His heart thudded once very hard in protest. He had known. Amaryllis had to be one of Whitney’s escaped girls. What was he going to do about her?
His first week of vacation was over. It had gone by fast when Malichai had been certain it would drag on forever. Now, he was contemplating extending his leave. He could. He certainly had it coming, and his leg wasn’t healing as rapidly as everyone had anticipated. He could always use that as an excuse, although Joe Spagnola, his team leader, would more than likely insist he come home to have the doctors check him out if he admitted how much the damn thing hurt. Still, he looked forward to waking up every morning. He couldn’t wait to start his day—all because of Amaryllis.
He got up at five and went “walking” every morning. For him, that meant, running-jogging-walking. He’d been running nearly every day for the last ten years or more, and just stopping seemed impossible. Then he went swimming, the best part of his protocol. That was the only thing that felt halfway decent. The leg felt great in the water, with no weight on it.
He liked San Diego, although the weather was far different than in his beloved swamp. He couldn’t help but wonder if Amaryllis would be comfortable in the swamp. Some people had a lot of trouble with the humid heat.
In the mornings, when he went through the house—and it was always quiet—he detoured into the kitchen, where she was continuously cooking. Today she had the day off and Marie insisted Amaryllis actually take the time off, which she hadn’t since Malichai had been there.
He dressed and went down the long hallway, his footsteps whispering on the tiled floor. He liked when it was so peaceful and still, before all the guests rose and he could hear the sounds of conversations coming from every direction, sometimes making it difficult to block out the noise.
He paused for a moment, thinking about the times he’d woken with that feeling of conspiracy so strong in him. Was he as paranoid as Burnell? Had he dreamt the whispers? Was he finally losing his mind? He knew it happened to soldiers, especially ones like him.
“Good morning, Malichai,” Marie greeted cheerfully when he stood in the doorway, draping himself against the doorjamb. “You’re up early.”
“I’m used to getting up at the crack of dawn,” he admitted. “I like the peace of it. The colors in the sky as the sun comes up. It’s especially beautiful in the swamp,” he added.
“I’d like to see that someday.” Marie whisked the eggs to pour over the other ingredients for her egg casseroles. She made several of them for the guests.
“You say the word and we’ll have you and Jacy for a visit. You’d love Nonny, and the girls would love to meet Jacy. We can show you all the most beautiful spots and feed you good Cajun food.”
“I’d like that. You’ve been such a joy around here, Malichai. Amaryllis and I will miss you when you’re gone.”
“Amaryllis,” he repeated, grateful for the opening. “How long have you known her now?”
“Just a little over a year. I met her in a grocery store. It was the best day ever. I was desperate for someone to work with me. I’d hired person after person, but they never actually wanted to work. She just pitches in and does everything. She learns fast too. Jacy began to get sick and I couldn’t manage the B and B and her illness. I thought I’d have to close and then I found Amaryllis. She’s been such a help to me as well as being a real friend.”
“She’s beautiful,” Malichai said.
Marie nodded. “That she is.”
“Someday, I’m going to take her away with me,” he warned, shocking himself.
She turned slowly to look at him. “I was afraid of that, but I want her happy, Malichai. You’ve only known her a week. You need to give it more time.”
He nodded. “I’ve been thinking about that. I know the place is always booked up, but I can sleep anywhere. If you don’t have room, I can find another place. I’ve got quite a bit of leave racked up and since my leg isn’t healing as fast as they’d like . . .” Deliberately, he played the sympathy card.
“Wait. Your leg?”
He didn’t smirk, although she’d bought right into it. He knew she would. Marie was a very compassionate lady. “I’m pararescue. My last mission was to bring some boys home and we ran into a little trouble. Got my leg shot up. Nothing too serious.”
“Malichai, you should have told me. You’ve been in my kitchen, doing dishes every night, standing. I feel terrible.”
“My choice, Marie. I wanted to help out. I’d feel useless sitting on the beach. I just don’t know how to do that kind of thing. I’ve enjoyed helping out, not to mention, I was able to spend time with Amaryllis.”
“She’s really wonderful.”
“Has she mentioned her parents to you? She never talks about them.�
�
Marie shook her head. “No, she doesn’t talk about her past at all, and I respect that. I hope you do too. When she wants you to know, she’ll tell you.”
He didn’t think that was true. He thought Amaryllis would run before she’d admit she was one of Dr. Whitney’s experiments.
“What can you tell me about that little magic shop in the alley? Do you know the owner?”
Marie’s eyes lit up. “I know most of the shop owners around me. We all try to help one another out. I have all the brochures and advertisements for each of the shops close to me, both sides of that alley and down the block. Miss Crystal owns the store. She’s about eighty, but very spry, you’d never know that was her age. She has a little apartment in the back of the store. We have tea sometimes after the season’s over.”
“What do you know about her?”
“Her husband was a magician, a very popular one for a time. Unfortunately, she lost him some years ago to cancer. They both loved the business and amassed all kinds of magic collections through the years. They never had children and she often lamented to me about not having anyone to take over the store. She said she was afraid the memories would die out with the memorabilia. I suggested selling but she said she just couldn’t. She wouldn’t have anything to live for if she did that. Is there a reason you’re asking?”
He shook his head. “It just seems like a very interesting shop. I wondered if it was at all popular with tourists.”
“Miss Crystal says it is, but she just might want it to be. She loves that store and all the memories she has of her days with her husband.” Sorrow crept into Marie’s voice.
Malichai felt guilty asking her questions about the magic shop. Burnell was most likely mistaken about what he’d heard. Anna too. They’d probably talked back and forth, convincing each other that someone wanted to kill the maximum number of people. Now, he was harassing Marie and making her sad.
“I’d better go for my jog and swim. That’s my therapy. I’m supposed to meet Amaryllis for breakfast this morning and then she’s taking me to the beach to teach me how to enjoy the ocean properly.”