The Fool Dies Last, page 2
‘Do you know if Megan is planning on stopping by today? If so, we could invite her along …’ Summer paused as she saw Hope frown. ‘What is it? Are you OK?’
‘I’m fine,’ Hope answered. ‘But I don’t think he is.’
She pointed through the window to a man crossing the street who appeared to be approaching the boutique. He was tall and lean, and walked with long, quick, purposeful strides. There was something clutched in one of his hands, while his other hand was curled into a tight fist. If it was an angry fist, it matched his face. The man’s brow was heavily furrowed. His lips were pressed together hard. And his eyes were narrow and agitated.
‘Uh-oh,’ Summer said apprehensively. ‘That looks like trouble. Do you recognize him? Is he a customer?’
‘If he is’ – Hope’s frown deepened – ‘I don’t remember him.’
Rosemarie turned to look outside as well, and when she saw the man, she clucked her tongue in admiration. ‘Well, you certainly wouldn’t forget him. He’s gorgeous.’
A moment later, the door to the boutique slammed open. The wind chimes banged instead of sang. The man stepped inside, glanced once around, and scowled.
‘Which one of you tried to kill Betsy Hughes?’ he demanded.
TWO
For a long minute, no one spoke. It was a glaringly bright and sunny day, and the inside of the shop was comparatively dim, so the man had to blink several times before his vision could adjust. It gave Hope the opportunity to take a better look at him. He was about thirty-five and well dressed, with tailored slacks and an expensive, stylish shirt. Even though his thick, sandy hair was ruffled from the wind, she could see that it was fashionably cut. He had a fancy watch and fancy shoes, and he wore it all with a natural ease. Scowl aside, it was clear that the man was confident and comfortable with himself. Too confident and comfortable, if Hope’s initial assessment was correct.
‘Oh, that chiseled jaw,’ Rosemarie crooned under her breath. ‘And those eyes. Just look at those eyes, Hope.’
The eyes in question circled slowly around the shop, scrutinizing it and its contents. When they came to Hope, they paused. They were a pale, frosty blue that reminded her of an ice-crusted lake. They surveyed her in turn, and if they liked what they saw, they didn’t show it. The man’s scowl remained.
‘It’s called a boutique,’ he said brusquely. ‘Doesn’t that mean the place should sell clothes?’
‘We have scarves,’ Hope responded with equal curtness.
The chiseled jaw twitched slightly, betraying some degree of surprise. ‘You’re the owner?’
‘I am. Along with my sister.’
Following the direction of Hope’s gesture, the man glanced at Summer. After a brief examination, he appeared even less impressed than he had with Hope. ‘You don’t look related,’ he remarked.
He wasn’t wrong. Physically, Hope and Summer shared the same glossy dark hair, but little else. Summer was considerably rounder, both in her face and body, with generous curves. Even before losing her appetite, Hope had always been the more petite of the pair, with a naturally slender, deceptively delicate shape. Summer had a peachy complexion, with hazel eyes and a wide, pouty mouth. In contrast, Hope’s skin was ivory, with emerald-green eyes and long black lashes. Neither sister had ever minded not looking like the other. Both as teens and adults, they had never attracted the same sort of men, which had helped to keep them close instead of turning them competitive.
‘If there are two of you,’ the man went on, ‘shouldn’t the name be Baileys’ plural rather than Bailey’s singular?’
Hope raised an eyebrow. He was obviously quick-witted – and a stickler for proper grammar and punctuation. He was also annoyingly critical. ‘The shop is named after our grandmother, who was the original proprietor,’ she told him, although as she said it, she wondered why she bothered with an explanation. The man was clearly not one of their customers, and so far everything about him was much too irritating to make him a potential friend.
‘What kind of shop is it anyway?’ The frosty blue eyes traveled once more around the interior before returning to Hope. ‘What do you do here – other than try to kill gullible old ladies?’
‘What on earth are you talking about?’ Hope snapped, the color rising in her cheeks. She hadn’t understood him before, and she still didn’t.
While her agitation rose, the man’s seemed to subside. His scowl faded into a calm, almost insolent expression as he leaned against the frame of the front door. Folding his arms across his chest, his shirt tightened, revealing a fit figure.
‘Oh, those muscles,’ Rosemarie murmured. ‘Sweet heaven, look at those muscles, Hope.’
This time her admiration wasn’t sufficiently under her breath, and the man responded with a rakish grin.
‘If only I were twenty years younger’ – Rosemarie heaved a wistful sigh – ‘then he could be one of my five.’
‘Consider yourself lucky that he’s not,’ Hope replied tartly. ‘I’d wager that his version of a deep and stable relationship means staying for a whole night.’
The man threw his head back and laughed. For possessing such a cool exterior, it was an unexpectedly warm laugh. ‘You must know some of my ex-girlfriends,’ he chortled.
‘I don’t need to know them,’ Hope countered. ‘I know your type.’
The blue eyes flashed in amusement. ‘Viper-tongued little thing, aren’t you?’
Hope was about to prove him right when Percy gave a heralding bark. An instant later, Megan Steele glided through the open door of the boutique, a three-quarters-full carafe of wine in one hand and a half-empty platter of cheese and crackers in the other.
‘Hello, hello, my darlings! I come bearing gifts, as usual. This afternoon’s feature is an exceptionally mediocre rosé …’
Megan’s voice trailed away as she noticed the man leaning against the frame. She stopped and gave him a long, inquisitive look. He responded in kind. Neither one blushed or turned away at the other’s thorough examination. Megan was easy to admire, and she knew it. She had the sinewy legs and wild eyes of a colt, with a bob of baby-fine blond hair and a pert nose.
Although there was no question that she was an attractive woman, it was Megan’s categorical disinterest in marriage that rather ironically drew men to her like big-game hunters to a mythical beast. In her teen years, Megan’s parents had put her and her brother through an extraordinarily nasty, nearly decade-long divorce, in which the two children and a pair of prize-winning Dalmatians had been used as negotiating pawns. Megan had often joked that the dogs were more desired than the kids, and, sadly enough, there was a good deal of truth to it. Not surprisingly perhaps, the experience had left her unwilling to commit herself to any man in any meaningful way, and with many men that gave her an irresistible appeal, as though she must somehow be conquered or tamed. So far, none had succeeded.
‘Well,’ Megan purred to the man currently garnering her attention, ‘aren’t you a delectable morsel?’
‘Right back at you, sweetheart,’ he repaid the compliment smoothly.
‘Nice choice, Hope.’ Megan turned to her with a wink and a nod. ‘I approve.’
Aside from Summer, Megan was Hope’s oldest and closest friend. They were the same age and had gone to school together. With her own family relations so strained, Megan had attached herself to the sisters and Gram in a surrogate fashion, and they saw each other on an almost daily basis.
Hope wrinkled her nose in reply. ‘You’ve had way too much of that rosé if you think he’s here because of me.’
‘Hmm.’ Megan’s brow furrowed, and she turned back to the man. ‘You’re not here for Hope? I could have sworn from the way that you were looking at her when I came in … And I’m rarely wrong about these things.’
Megan prided herself on her quick – and accurate – assessments of people, both men and women. It was a function of her job. She was the Director of Activities at Amethyst, a luxury hotel and spa also located in downtown Asheville, only a few blocks from the brownstone. The clientele was correspondingly upscale and liked to be pampered. Megan was in charge of anticipating their wants and needs, and to her credit, she did it well. As part of her duties, she organized the four o’clock wine-and-cheese. It was her custom to bring the leftovers to the boutique shortly after five when she got off work. She and Hope – and sometimes Summer, depending on Gary’s whereabouts – along with whoever else happened to be in the shop at the appointed hour, would then share a glass and their stories of the day.
‘Hmm,’ Megan repeated, gazing at the man more thoughtfully. ‘You don’t look like you’re shopping on behalf of a wife or girlfriend. And I know that you haven’t come in pursuit of dear Summer. She’s much too dedicated to that shifty husband of hers to ever consider stepping out on him—’
‘Gary is not shifty!’ Summer objected indignantly. It was the first time that she had spoken since the man had stormed into the boutique. Up until that point, she had been too perplexed by his peculiar remarks to do anything more than stare at him.
Hope and Megan exchanged a glance, but neither one commented further on Gary’s alleged shiftiness.
‘So that leaves Hope,’ Megan concluded to the man. ‘You must want something’ – her lips curled into a mischievous smile – ‘from her.’
‘You’re right,’ he answered. ‘I do want something from her.’ His face and tone were expressionless. ‘If she’s the one who made this.’
He held up the item that Hope had seen clutched in his hand as he had been approaching the shop. She recognized it instantly. It was a small, amber-colored glass bottle capped with a black eyedropper. The boutique sold dozens of them every week, except they weren’t made by her. They were made by Summer. Or more accurately, the contents of the bottles were made by Summer.
Recognizing the bottle and eyedropper also, Megan’s smile grew. ‘Ah, one of Summer’s famous tinctures. I hope that you made your selection wisely.’
‘My selection?’ the man questioned her.
‘Summer offers quite an array of choices.’ As she spoke, Megan walked over to the table where Hope and Rosemarie were sitting and deposited both the cheese-and-cracker platter and the wine carafe on it. ‘There’s one that I’m particularly fond of.’ She gave a breathy, coquettish sigh. ‘Gives a man great stamina.’
Hope couldn’t restrain a laugh. ‘If the nuns from our old school could hear you now …’
Megan laughed, too. ‘I know. I’m such a dreadful disappointment to them. C’est la vie.’ She shrugged, then started toward the rear of the shop. ‘Are you staying?’ she asked, glancing back over her shoulder at the man holding the tincture. ‘Should I bring out an extra glass?’ Before he could respond, she said, ‘Never mind. I’ll get one regardless.’
While Megan disappeared in the direction of the kitchen, the man turned to Summer. His scowl had resurfaced. ‘So this concoction is yours?’
Summer squinted at him and the bottle in his hand. ‘It might be,’ she replied haltingly. ‘I can’t really tell without taking a closer look and knowing—’
‘Knowing who you gave it to?’ He cut her off sharply. ‘You gave it to Betsy Hughes.’
The squint intensified. ‘Yes, I know Mrs Hughes, but I don’t know if—’
‘If this is what you gave her?’ he interrupted her again. ‘Well, it is. I can assure you of that. I took it from her myself this morning.’
‘You took it from her?’ Summer echoed in confusion. ‘Why would you—’
‘Because it could have killed her!’
Summer’s mouth dropped open, but not a syllable emerged.
‘Don’t be absurd,’ Hope snapped at the man, tired of his imperiousness and preposterous accusations. ‘Nothing in that bottle would kill Betsy Hughes. Or anyone else, for that matter. It’s designed to help, not to hurt.’
‘Help?’ He gave a derisive snort. ‘You’re the ones who are being absurd. You don’t help an elderly woman suffering from high blood pressure and high blood sugar with harebrained potions and salves. You send her to a doctor for medicine. Real medicine.’
With an audible clack, Summer’s mouth clenched shut. Hope rose stiffly from her chair. Even Percy gave a low growl.
‘Uh-oh,’ Rosemarie said, shaking her head. ‘Now you’ve done it.’
The man’s gaze circled around, and he found four sets of hostile eyes – canine included – glaring at him.
‘Now you’ve done it,’ Rosemarie repeated. ‘Now Hope is going to put a curse on you.’
‘Did you say a curse?’ The man snorted a second time. ‘That really is absurd.’
He looked around once more, and when none of them blinked, a small crease spread across his brow. He straightened up from the door frame. Hope concealed a smile. For all the man’s high-handedness, even he could be made a touch uneasy by the mention of a potential curse.
‘I don’t do curses,’ she remarked equably.
‘But you could,’ Rosemarie rejoined, helping herself to a large chunk of cheddar from the platter.
Hope offered an ambivalent shrug. ‘Curses can be messy. They have a habit of turning out differently than expected. Karma’s sticky.’
‘You could look at his palm,’ Summer suggested, coming over to the table for her share of the snacks, ‘and tell him about something bad you see in his future. That would serve him right.’
‘Oh, yes! Do that!’ Rosemarie agreed excitedly, clapping her hands while simultaneously stuffing another piece of cheese into her mouth. ‘Tell us about him, Hope. Tell us something bad.’
The crease in the man’s brow deepened. Hope could see that he was struggling with what they were saying. He understood the words, of course, but he didn’t fully grasp the conversation, and he wasn’t sure whether they were being serious or not. That wasn’t too surprising. The mystical world was an enigmatic and exotic territory for many, even a little frightening for some. Although she was still annoyed at his arrogant attitude, Hope decided to be generous and go easy on the man.
‘If you had let my sister finish speaking instead of continually interrupting her,’ she told him, ‘Summer would have explained to you that she had no intention of treating Betsy Hughes’s high blood pressure or blood sugar. She gave her a simple tincture of lemon balm.’
‘Lemon balm?’ the man said.
‘Lemon balm,’ Summer confirmed in between bites of cracker. ‘It’s a bushy, sweet-scented herb in the mint family. I can show you an example of the plant if you want. We grow it here ourselves’ – she gave a wave of the hand – ‘in the garden at the back.’
‘I know what lemon balm is,’ he replied. ‘But I don’t know—’
It was Summer’s turn to cut him off. ‘You don’t know why I’m sharing this information with you? Well, I don’t either. Frankly, it’s none of your business what I give – or don’t give – to Mrs Hughes. You haven’t explained to us who you are or how this is any of your concern. And furthermore, I think that you’ve been rather rude, not just to us, but particularly to poor Mrs Hughes. For some incomprehensible reason, you took away her tincture, which she needs for her stomach.’
‘Her stomach?’ A second crease appeared in the man’s brow.
‘Mrs Hughes has a nervous stomach,’ Summer responded. ‘Not that her stomach is any more your business than my tincture,’ she added with unconcealed resentment. ‘Her doctor put her on so many pills – so much real medicine, as you would call it – that it upset her stomach to the point that she couldn’t eat and she couldn’t sleep. I gave her a harebrained potion – also your words – consisting primarily of lemon balm. And guess what? Her stomach stopped hurting. Now, thanks to you, without the tincture, it’ll start hurting her again. Worse than ever, in all likelihood.’
‘You’re wrong,’ the man tossed back tersely. ‘It is my business, because I’m her doctor.’
There was a momentary silence. If he was expecting an apology or a resultant degree of deference, he was in error. Rosemarie shifted her attention to the sweating carafe of rosé and subsequently toward the kitchen in an effort to determine what was keeping Megan from returning with the promised glasses. Summer glowered at the man like an irate lioness in strident defense of her cubs. She put her heart and soul into trying to help people who couldn’t find relief for their suffering from the conventional medical establishment, and she was ill-disposed to having her efforts – or her clients’ ailments – belittled. Hope gave him a hard look. He was Betsy Hughes’s doctor? That couldn’t be right.
The boutique’s phone rang. Summer answered it, and an instant later, both Betsy Hughes’s stomach and her doctor were forgotten.
‘It’s Gram.’ Summer’s hazel eyes were wide, and her voice came out as a ragged whisper. ‘There’s been an accident.’
THREE
Hope remembered the last time there had been an accident. It had left a heavy, jagged scar that would remain etched in her memory forever. February – the winter storm that had covered the entire region with ice – the bewildering phone call and the awful words. Automobile fatality … Nothing could be done … Very sorry for your loss.
Thankfully, this accident wasn’t like the other, and Gram was all right. Or at least the fact that she had been speaking on the telephone to Summer allowed for the assumption that she was all right. She hadn’t answered any of Summer’s anxious questions. She had only said that there had been an accident and that Hope needed to come immediately. Gram didn’t drive, so it couldn’t have been a road accident. While she technically still possessed a valid license, she preferred to have someone else transport her. Gram’s eyes weren’t the best after dark or in the rain and fog. Her hearing tended to be selective. And her left hip gave her enough trouble that she walked with a cane, although Hope knew that she used it more as a stage prop than for actual support.
