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8
SADIE
“Thank you, but I couldn’t possibly.” I refused the third offer of a lavender plant from the proprietor of Stitch ’N Thyme, the hybrid sewing-notions-slash-herb-store.
“Maybe some essential oil, then,” she said. “Your aura definitely needs some zhuzhing up.”
I couldn’t afford any luxuries at the moment, but Miss Marie was bound to be insulted if I tried to explain that her oil was not, in fact, essential. And I’d already struck out at all the other touristy shops surrounding the main square.
After finishing my breakfast at Maisie’s, I’d spent a few hours wandering what I guess would be considered the downtown area. Not that Kelly Bay really had an uptown. The main square had a certain charm about it with the huge limestone courthouse in the middle and all the cute shops that dotted the surrounding streets.
A lot of them kept nontraditional hours, open only in the evenings and on weekends unless there was a current tourist event going on, likely to bring in more foot traffic. I’d spent all day chatting with shop owners about the upcoming Bay Days Festival and asked about whether they ever got any famous visitors to any of their events.
I’d gotten nowhere so far. And Miss Marie was nothing if not an unrelenting saleslady. There was no way she’d give me any dirt if I walked out of here empty-handed.
“Do you have a sample size?” I asked.
She beamed. “Of course.” She dug around under the counter. “Let me find one of the lavender ones. You definitely need lavender, good for finding undying love. You single? My nephew, Paul, he’s single. Quite the catch even though he doesn’t seem to want to be caught. I could set you up.”
“I’m fine, thanks.”
She stood back up from behind the counter and produced a tiny gray vial then squinted at me. “Your aura disagrees. You need a man.”
This was as good an opening as I was going to get. “You know…” I leaned in. “I am actually looking for a man. A specific man.” I looked around the store to make sure no one else was within earshot. “I heard a rumor Axel Everett has a vacation home in Kelly Bay.”
After a nearly imperceptible eye narrowing, she laughed at me. “Now child, where on earth did you hear a rumor like that?” She didn’t give me a chance to answer. “You wanna talk about celebrities? Kate Upton graced this very store once. Perfectly clear aura that girl had.”
Ah yes, I’d heard this story at least a dozen times today. Justin Verlander and Kate Upton had made an appearance at the Bay Days Festival once about ten years ago, and that was all anyone had to talk about when it came to famous people. Every single person I spoke with clammed up when I mentioned I’d heard a rumor Axel Everett grew up not far from here. Or they launched into a story about their own Verlander-Upton sighting.
It was kind of refreshing. Most of the time people in towns like this were willing to whisper all kinds of dark secrets about their celebrity part-time transplants.
Oh yes, not only does so-and-so have a mountain cabin here, but we’re all quite sure he’s sleeping with the Brazilian nanny.
If Axel and Veronica Everett did have a place in Kelly Bay, the locals were doing their best to protect their privacy. While that restored a little of my faith in humanity, it made my job difficult. But I’d figure it out. I had to.
I left Stitch ’N Thyme with my tiny, overpriced bottle of oil. It was late enough that I could check into my room at the motel, so I headed that way.
When I pulled into the parking lot for the second time in twenty-four hours, it was just as empty as last night. Hopefully I’d have better luck this time around. I checked the text from Lauren with my confirmation number, said a small prayer, and headed into the office.
The same girl was behind the desk again, except now the tips of her long brown waves were hot pink ombre. Her name tag read Jessica. “New look, huh?”
“Rough night. Called for some salon-in-a-box therapy when I got home this morning.”
“And you’re back again so soon?”
“I came in early. Mr. Mercer’s son usually does the day shift, but he got food poisoning.”
“Yikes.” I glanced back at the mostly empty parking lot. There was only one other car in it and I had a feeling it belonged to Jessica. The fact that I was the only prospective guest again tonight didn’t bode well. “So…I have a reservation this time. But I’m starting to wonder if that’s a good thing or not.”
She grimaced. “Well, like I said last night. Pete recommended we not rent out any rooms for seventy-two hours, but technically the state law says we only have to wait twenty-four hours. And provide a waiver when you reserve. And again when you check in.” Clicking away at the keyboard in front of her, she scrunched her eyebrows together. “Wow. You must have been desperate. Did you even read this thing when you made the reservation?” An ancient printer whirred to life on the counter behind her.
“My company booked it. Not me. How bad is it?”
“Uh…not bad?” She thrust a piece of paper at me. “Here, you can decide for yourself. I’m required to give you a copy to sign before I can give you the keys. Initial here, here, here, here, and here.” She slashed X’s with a blue highlighter next to every paragraph of the two-page, tiny-font printout. “Sign and date at the bottom.”
“Fucking Lauren,” I muttered to myself as I scanned the form and tried to ignore phrases like potential lung irritant and indeterminate carcinogenicity status.
What other choice did I have? I was already on thin ice with Eirin. If I called her complaining about Lauren again today, she’d probably give me the axe right now. Out of curiosity, I’d done some hotel room hunting earlier today and every (non-insane) booking site I tried came up empty-handed for anything within about a sixty-mile radius.
