Dead Girl in a Green Dress (12 page)

Byrony
tried, she honestly did. But after a few bites, she had to give in and take a pain pill. Ten minutes later, her arm no longer hurt, but she was also well on her way to la-la land. "I think we better go while I’m still upright."

He paused in the middle of mopping up syrup with his last chunk of waffle. "Are you trying to tell me you want to go to bed? Why Sunshine, this is so sudden."

"Very funny, but you won’t be laughing when you have to carry me across the street." She tried to give him a stern look, but failed miserably.

By the time Tate finished off his last bite, paid the bill, and helped her out the door,
Byrony
felt woozy. She had to lean heavily on his proffered arm, and once they reached Tate’s room, she crashed unceremoniously onto the closest bed.

Slowly,
Byrony
resurfaced to consciousness. When she first opened her eyes, she didn’t know where she was, but then she saw a tall figure pacing with an uneven gait – Tate. The distant recollection of his lips pressed firmly against hers flashed through her
groggy
mind.
A tingling
warmth spread across her chest and into her belly. This sudden desire caught her by surprise, but not unpleasantly. In order to see him more clearly, she shifted to her side, and immediately regretted it. The sudden pain in her arm tore a moan from deep in her throat.

"
Byrony
?
You all right?"
His voice sounded oddly raspy and strained. "Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you."

"I’m
okay,
I don’t think you woke me." She struggled to sit up. Leaning against the headboard, she watched him sit on the corner of the opposite bed. "Is something wrong?"

"Prince had an alibi." He refused to meet her gaze, studying his interlaced fingers instead. "And it checked out. Shaffer had to let him walk."

"W-what?"
Byrony’s
still muzzy brain refused to process this unwanted information. "But he – they – You know."

Tate glanced up at her for a moment, but immediately dropped his gaze again. "He admitted to the affair. Shaffer said he blubbered like a baby, claiming he loved her and would never hurt her."

"Then why is she dead?"
Byrony
exploded.
"That lying sack of shit!"

Her voice caught on a sob and she covered her eyes with her uninjured hand. She felt the mattress shift as Tate sat beside her. Then his arm glided around her shoulders, and she turned her face against his broad chest. She was so tired of fighting to find the truth and hitting dead ends, tired of fighting her out-of-control emotions, tired.

"Don’t worry, Sunshine." He stroked her hair with one hand while his other arm tightened around her. "If he did it, we’ll get him. If he didn’t, we’ll find who did."

Byrony
felt his deep voice vibrating under her ear, and the sound soothed her over-wrought nerves. But as much as she wanted to believe him, she couldn’t. After the shock of learning about her sister and Prince, she’d been so sure he was guilty, that the nightmare was ending. Twin urges to cry and scream warred within her.
 

"Now what do we do?" Her wavering voice was barely louder than a whisper. Obviously the scream lost the battle.

Tate pulled back and brushed her hair away from her face. "You are going to stay right where you are. Your twenty-four hours aren’t up yet." Brushing his lips across her forehead, he stood.
"You hungry?"
She shook her head, but he pulled an apple out of the mini-fridge and handed it to her. "Eat this anyway, an apple a day and all that."

Taking a deep breath,
Byrony
reined in her feelings and gazed from the apple to Tate. "What are you going to do?"

"Thought I’d do some more nosing around at the Grand Hotel."
When she started to protest, he raised his hand in a silencing gesture. "But first, you have to promise you’ll double lock this door behind me and not try to go anywhere or let anybody in."

Even though she knew she didn’t have the strength to go with him,
Byrony
narrowed her eyes in annoyance. "Do I have any choice here?"

His dimples flashed, causing a new burst of heat in her belly.
"Nope.
But I figured you wouldn’t argue as much if you thought you did."

"Very funny, Cowboy.
Don’t have too much fun without me."

"Things are always more fun with you around, Sunshine." His tone caused flames to sear across all of
Byrony’s
nerve endings as he added, "Mind if I borrow that cute little tablet of yours?"

***

Tate munched his ham on rye and used the deli’s free
wifi
to do some research on Mrs. Cristina
Woodleigh
-Prince. Spouses were almost always a person of interest, and snooty Mrs. Prince was no exception as far as he was concerned. Had she found out about her husband and Jessica? Was she capable of murder? Tate wasn’t ruling out anything at the moment. He figured Detective Shaffer would question the woman, but he hoped if he got to her first, he might catch her off-guard.

When his online searching turned up nothing interesting in her available personal or financial information, he emailed Tommy and asked him to do some extra digging. Then he called for a cab, and soon found himself sharing a buggy ride with a middle-aged couple from California, who talked non-stop. At least their chatter kept him from worrying about
Byrony
.

As difficult as it had been for him to leave her alone, he felt an urgency to solve this case. The
perp
had tried twice to harm
Byrony
, and a sick certainty in Tate’s gut told him it would happen again. He didn’t bother trying to rationalize to himself that he’d have the same concern for any other client. No point in denying, the little bean-counter had gotten under his skin.

The driver turned into the wide circular roadway and stopped at the front steps of the Grand Hotel. Tate said good-bye to the California couple, who were going past the hotel to the butterfly exhibit, and made his way up to the fancy front doors. Unfortunately, the dragon lady guarding the inner sanctum to Prince’s office was not happy to see Tate.

 
"Haven’t you caused enough trouble for Mr. Prince?" she spat as soon as Tate approached her.

"Wouldn’t be any trouble as long as Mr. Prince had nothing to hide," Tate replied, keeping his tone congenial. "Besides, I wanted to talk to Mrs. Prince. Is she around?"

Dragon-Lady glared at him over the top of her half-glasses. "Because of the recent upsetting events, Mrs.
Woodleigh
-Prince is not seeing anyone, and most especially not you, Mr. Madison."

Fine, no mercy
, Tate decided as he squinted at her name plate. "No need to be insulting, Ms. Hutchinson. A young lady was killed and I intend to find her killer. Don’t you want to see justice done?"

The woman continued to give him the evil eye.
"Justice?
That gives you the right to pry into Mr. and Mrs. Prince’s private life?"

"Yes ma’am, I think it does, and if Jessica Long was your sister or daughter, I’ll bet you’d think so too."

Ms. Hutchinson sputtered like a teakettle on full boil. "But that – that girl was a home-wrecker!"

"Was she?" Tate demanded, banging his hand down flat on the top of the desk and causing the Dragon-Lady to jump half out of her chair. "It takes two to tango, Ms. Hutchinson, and I’ve seen your boss in action with a pretty girl. You can’t tell me Jessica Long was his first transgression." He leaned in close until he was almost nose-to-nose with the woman. "Was she?"

"I don’t –" She pulled back and refused to meet his gaze. "—know."

Tate stepped back with a contentious snort. "Good thing you’re not under oath. Now you can tell me where Mrs.
Woodleigh
-Prince is, or I can go room to room and find her for myself."

The woman’s eyes bulged. "No, please don’t. I mean, she’s not here."

"You’re a very unconvincing liar," he scoffed.

"No, she really isn’t," the woman insisted. "She goes off on her own when she’s upset."

"Off the island?"

Dragon-lady shrugged.
"Probably not.
I mean, she never stays over-night, and she doesn’t have any relatives except her mother, who’s in a nursing facility. "

"Save us both the time and aggravation, Ms. Hutchinson. Where does she go?"

Pursing her lips, the woman exhaled noisily before she spoke. "She’s been sketching and painting over by Arch Rock. I’d go there first."

"Now that didn’t hurt much at all." Tate didn’t wait for a reply, but when he reached the door, he turned. "And when you call Mrs.
Woodleigh
-Prince to tell her I’m on my way, let her know I
will
catch up with her, so she might as well wait."

With an expression sour enough to curdle fresh
milk,
dragon-lady laid her phone back down.

As he walked out the front doors to hail another cab, Tate wondered if the old biddy had an alibi for the night Jessica was murdered. Once he had his talk with Mrs.
Woodleigh
-Prince, he’d call Shaffer and let him have the pleasure of questioning dragon-lady.

Arch Rock turned out to be on the opposite side of the island from the Grand Hotel, and the road was steep most of the way so the buggy ride was slow and uncomfortable. Tate hoped like hell he’d be able to get a ride back to the Harbor Inn once his little
tete-a-tete
was finished. His misgivings grew when the driver dropped him off in the large dusty parking area. As the buggy rolled away, he didn’t see another soul anywhere.

But the views of Lake Huron were spectacular through the eroded rock formation. Tate walked over to the metal railing for a closer look. The spot certainly seemed perfect for photos, painting, whatever artistic endeavor the viewer practiced. So why wasn’t Mrs.
Woodleigh
-Prince around? Just his luck, she listened to dragon-lady. Now he’d have to drag his ass back to the Grand Hotel.

A noise made him turn around as Mrs.
Woodleigh
-Prince emerged from the concrete block restroom. He could hardly believe she would lower herself to use a public facility. She looked ridiculously out of place in her tan riding jodhpurs and tweed jacket with leather elbow patches.

"Afternoon, Mrs.
Woodleigh
-Prince." Tate called out, and ambled in her direction.

A look of consternation, not surprise, flashed across the woman’s face before she schooled her expression into bland disinterest. "Mr. Madison."

Yep, Ms. Hutchinson had called her all right. No point in beating around the bush
. "I’d like to talk to you about Jessica Long." Tate paused within an arm’s length of her.

She flinched a little when he said the name, but lifted her chin and looked down her long, patrician nose at him. "I’ve already spoken to the police."

Lifting one brow, he returned her snooty glare. "I appreciate that ma’am, but a girl is dead, a girl who was having an affair with your husband."

Unmistakable anger flared in her pale blue eyes. "As I told Detective Shaffer, my husband was at a business meeting in Chicago when the girl was killed."

The girl.
Like she couldn’t say her name
.
"But where were you, Mrs. Prince?" he demanded, getting into her personal space.

"Me?" She looked completely taken aback. "I… I was here at home."

"Where exactly?
And doing what?"

"I had dinner in the hotel restaurant." Her perfectly manicured hand fluttered up to the base of her throat, the huge diamond glinting in the sunlight. Her voice
rose
several notes higher. "Mr. Madison, are you implying
I
was involved in this?"

"No, Mrs. Prince, I’m not implying anything. Your husband was having an affair with one of his employees. You
are
involved."

Cristina
Woodleigh
-Prince’s mouth hung open soundlessly and quite unattractively for a long moment before she snapped it shut. Then, as she spun on the heel of her expensive riding boot, she declared, "Speak to my lawyer, Mr. Madison. I have nothing else to say to you."

Tate watched her stride toward a group of young trees. When she reached them, she untied a horse that he hadn’t noticed earlier, a large black horse with white stockings on its front legs. With practiced skill, Mrs.
Woodleigh
-Prince swung into the saddle and galloped away.

Well, shit!
He’d screwed that one up, but Mrs. Cristina
Woodleigh
-Prince had jumped right to the top of his suspect list. Now he had to find out how she was involved with Jessica’s murder, because he felt certain she was. He just had to prove it.

But first, he had to find a way to get back to town. Predictably, when he pulled out his phone, it had no service.

Two hours later, Tate sat in the front seat next to the driver of the wagonload of tourists. He’d managed to talk the middle-aged driver into letting him join the tour of the island, and he’d actually found the slow moving wagon and the monotonous tone of the driver conducive to sorting out his thoughts. So rather than getting off at the first stop, he’d stayed on board.