Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 96641 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 483(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96641 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 483(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
“What do you mean when you attended keggers?”
I flushed. “It’s a little too late to get mad at me for drinking beer in my teens, Sheriff.”
“That’s what you think,” he muttered. He pulled out another piece of paper. “I have the forensic report from Elk County. The victims weren’t killed in that room.”
I paused. That was exactly the opposite of what I’d expected. “You mean they were killed somewhere else and then dumped in that room in the middle of summer?” How did that make any sense?
“Yeah,” he said somberly, “which indicates somebody involved was likely young, partying there, and knew of the place.”
Oh, great. More evidence against Nick or his brothers. “I don’t remember that room.”
“There was a cave-in of sorts from the surrounding beams. Even some of the earth from the side of the mountain covered that entire area of the basement—at least by the time you were out there doing what you shouldn’t have been doing.”
“It was a beer or two and a nice bonfire on the beach.” I rolled my eyes. “It sounds like whoever put the bodies in the cement room…what? Caused the cave-in?”
“I would’ve,” the sheriff said. “Obviously, the bodies had to be covered.”
“But why that room? Wouldn’t it have been easier to just bury them?”
The sheriff shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. Maybe time was an issue, and frankly, it worked. Once the bodies were in that cement room, nobody found them. I mean, back then, did you ever imagine the property values around the lake would explode like they have? That somebody would buy that old place, tear it down, and build something new?”
“No. I would’ve thought it’d be there forever or burn down at some point.”
“Exactly,” the sheriff said.
That led to more questions. “But they were dropped into a cement room. If the haunted mansion had burned down, the bodies would’ve been found then.”
“Somebody hadn’t been thinking all that clearly. Murder does that to a person.”
“Most likely,” I agreed. The sugar settled into a lump in my gut. Especially if the murderer was young, angry, and unprepared. Damn it.
Chapter 15
Nick Basanelli was nervous. It took me several moments to recognize the expression he wore because I had never seen it before. The guy was usually uber-confident and smooth as glass. At the moment, he was sweating.
“Dude, relax,” I said, pushing inside his condo with my arms full of bags.
He took a couple of them, his eyebrows rising. “I asked for champagne and maybe some roses.”
“Huh.” I strode inside his luxurious place and noted the wide windows facing sweet little Tamarack Lake.
Per usual in February, the lake looked anything but sweet. Whitecaps rose due to the blistering wind, somehow darkening the grayness of the water even more. I shivered and glanced toward the table where Nick had placed a tablecloth.
I narrowed my gaze. “That’s a red-checked tablecloth.”
He took the bags to the counter. “It’s the only one I had. Somebody left it here after a picnic last year.”
Somebody meaning another woman? I wanted to smack my hand against my head—or rather his. “You can’t use a red-checked tablecloth that another woman left here for your proposal.”
He pulled out two bottles of champagne—the good stuff. “Why not? It’s just a tablecloth.”
“Nick. You can’t.”
He looked at the pricy bottles. “Albertini? I’m proposing, not sailing off for three years hunting a dragon likely to kill me.”
“Tessa likes that champagne.”
Grumbling, he reached into another bag and pulled out the Luminaria Lux crystal goblets I’d found. They were cut crystal with gorgeous copper vines extending from the base to the rim.
“Where did you get these?” He gingerly placed them on the counter.
“My Aunt Yara’s antique store,” I said happily. “I popped by to talk to her about Violet, but she was swamped. Apparently, everyone’s looking for Valentine’s gifts. But I saw these and checked out with them. The receipt’s in the bag.” I tried to sound chipper while yanking off the tablecloth.
His eyebrows drew down as he watched my movements. “Are you serious?”
“Yes, I’m serious. Geez. Tessa knows you wouldn’t have a red-checked tablecloth, and she’ll figure out that some woman left it here.”
“So what? She’s not the jealous type,” Nick retorted, pulling the dozen roses out of the box where I’d secured them. “She won’t care.”
Sometimes, the cluelessness of really intelligent men surprised me. “Yeah, but you don’t want her thinking about another woman during your proposal. It has to be perfect.”
He sighed. “Okay. What do we do?”
I looked around. “You don’t have a nice white sheet or anything, do you?”
“My sheets are all gray or black.”
The man was going to kill me with this nonsense. “All right. Think. Which neighbor might have a nice white tablecloth? A linen one. The good kind.”
He looked toward the storm outside. “Mrs. Mattila lives two doors over. She’s a retired banker. I don’t know her all that well, but I feel like she’d have a tablecloth.”