Elementary, My Dear Watkins (44 page)

“Probably ’cause she talks to him a lot.”

Danny tried not to react too strongly to that statement. What on earth was Bradford doing hanging out with Alexa’s mother?

“Oh, yeah? Why is that? Are they dating?”

Alexa laughed, shaking her head.

“Eww! My mom with a hunk like Bradford? Yeah, right.”

“What, then?”

“Well, I don’t know a whole lot,” Alexa hedged, looking as though she was sorry she’d said anything, “and I learned a long time ago not to ask too many questions around my house…”

“Yeah?”

“But I think they’re in some kind of business together. I’ve heard them on the phone, talking about profits and sales and things.”

Danny blinked, looking at Alexa.

“Business together? What are they selling?”

Alexa shrugged and looked at Danny, her expression earnest.

“I don’t know, Danny. I try not to listen, because I don’t want to know.”

It was nearly three o’clock in the morning before the final policeman left, along with the extra security personnel. Though Jo would have loved to send the bodyguard packing as well, she suggested he finish out his shift until morning and then they could wrap things up for good.

Jo walked Alexa to her bedroom in order to retrieve Chewie, hanging around just long enough to tuck the girl into bed.

“You’re a real hero, sweetie,” Jo told her, pulling the covers up and tucking them in along the side. “I’m so proud of you for telling the truth tonight and saving my grandmother.”

Alexa just smiled and closed her eyes, looking peaceful but exhausted.

Out in the hall, Jo asked the bodyguard if he would mind taking Chewie outside for a quick potty stop before bed. While man and dog were gone, Jo and Danny took advantage of the privacy to say goodnight.

Jo didn’t want to part with him at all, and she was tempted to suggest that they simply cuddle together on the couch downstairs until morning. But she knew they both needed sleep—not to mention that on this almost wedding night, after having been apart for so long, they wouldn’t exactly be bubbling over with self-control if they did.

Instead, they kissed goodnight in the hall and then simply hugged, holding onto each other for a long moment before parting.

“You do forgive me for stopping the wedding?” Jo whispered.

“As long as you don’t stop the engagement,” he replied, giving her one more kiss. “I completely understand.”

It wasn’t until Jo was in bed, under the covers, that she realized there was still one matter left unresolved.

If Winnie was the one who had been trying to kill her, then who was it who had been trying to warn her? Who was Toaster Man?

Hoping to prod him into action, Jo got up, went to her computer, and wrote another e-mail to him. As she shut down the computer, put it away, and got back in bed, Jo knew one thing for sure. There were still more questions to be answered.

D
anny awoke, for a moment unsure about where he was. Paris? Zurich?

Neither, he realized. He was in America, at the home of Eleanor Bosworth.

Sitting up, he glanced at the clock, shocked to see that he had slept until nearly noon. Between jet lag, the mixed-up body clock, and the late hour that they had gone to bed, it made sense. He ran a hand over his face, feeling more rested than he had in days.

In the course of a week, Danny had slept in a grungy flat, a rattling train car, a cheap hotel, an airplane—and now the lap of luxury. He wasn’t one for material possessions, but this sure beat the rest. Vaguely, he wondered what the thread count was on the sheets. Eight hundred? A thousand? Whatever it was, they probably cost more than his last month’s car payment.

But as he looked around the elegant guest room with its deep leather headboard and ornate carved furniture, as beautiful as it was, he knew he’d rather live in a cardboard box with Jo than a palace without her.

Good thing, too, he thought as he sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed, because last night they’d essentially signed away her future fortune with the lawyer. Upon Jo’s inheritance, they would still get the interest from the shares, whatever that came to, but the actual shares themselves would belong to the Bosworth Charitable Trust. Considering how heavily that money weighed on Jo, Danny thought it was a pretty good solution. Not that he would have minded marrying rich, but some things were worth a lot more than dollars, and Jo’s peace of mind was one of them.

If only Danny could find peace of mind of his own and shake the cloud of uncertainty that had been enveloping him since the cops drove away with Jo’s Aunt Winnie last night.

So many things simply didn’t add up.

Danny was no crime expert, but he did know that matricide was extremely rare, especially without strange and horrifying extenuating circumstances. Eleanor Bosworth would never have won Mother of the Year, but she wasn’t a monster, either. The thought of her own daughter attempting to murder her was astonishing indeed.

Beyond that, Danny still wasn’t very happy with the whole Bradford element, especially after talking to Alexa last night. He had learned just enough to get some ideas about what might be going on, but not so much that he could be sure if his ideas were correct. With Bradford in the hospital and refusing to speak to anyone except family—refusing particularly Jo—the situation was difficult indeed. What was Bradford trying to hide? And what had made him go from his tell-all intentions at the train station to the closed-mouth stance he was taking now? At least after speaking with Alexa, Danny had some leverage with which to get information.

He just had to figure out a way to get to Bradford in order to use that leverage.

Putting it out of his mind for now, Danny walked to the window and pulled open the curtains, thrilled that it was such a gorgeous spring day. There was something about being home in the States after spending time in Europe that felt so relaxing, so normal. His stomach growling, Danny realized that the one thing he wanted most, right now, was a real American breakfast, even though he’d slept so late that it was nearly lunchtime. He thought he could smell bacon cooking somewhere in the house, so he decided to get ready for the day as quickly as possible and head out to the kitchen.

Danny’s hope was that he and Jo could talk about their engagement over bacon and eggs. Now that they had almost tied the knot the night before, he was impatient to see that through.

He wanted Jo Tulip as his wife, soon, and nothing was going to stop him until he made that happen.

Jo was scooping eggs onto a plate when Danny appeared in the doorway. He looked adorable, freshly shaven and no longer road weary, with the sparkling blue eyes that made her fall in love with him, all over again, every time she saw him. He came straight over to her, wrapped his arms around her from behind, and whispered in her ear.

“Good morning, Almost-Mrs.-Watkins.”

“Good afternoon, Very-Much-Engaged-Mr.-Watkins.”

Somehow, now that they had almost married, Jo could think of little else. She wanted it to happen for real. She wanted to be Danny’s wife.

“Is that amazing plate of food by any chance for me?” Danny asked, pulling away to look at it hungrily.

“In your e-mails,” Jo replied, grinning, “all you’ve talked about for five weeks is how much you missed a normal American breakfast. So I made you one. Eggs, hash browns, bacon, fruit, toast, freshly squeezed orange juice, and coffee. May your cholesterol recover somehow.”

“How did you know I was awake?”

“I didn’t. It was getting so late, I decided to cook it and then wake you up and serve you breakfast in bed.”

She turned to face him, and he put his arms around her again. He was still looking hungry, but now his hunger seemed to be more for her than for the food. As he moved in for a kiss, she put a hand to his lips and said that maybe it was better that she hadn’t delivered that breakfast in bed after all.

Smiling, he just groaned and pulled her into a tight hug. Grinning to herself, Jo hugged him back and then moved away and said that his meal was getting cold.

They sat together at the kitchen table. As Danny dug in, Jo brought him up to speed on all that had been happening while he was catching up on his sleep.

Consuela and Fernando were still at the hospital with Eleanor, where they would probably remain for the rest of the day. Jo’s grandmother was a little better, hooked up to an IV and ordering around the hospital staff as though they were her own personal minions. Consuela was afraid that if they left Eleanor’s side she might actually start hiring and firing hospital personnel.

“Yep,” Danny said after swallowing a sip of juice. “That sounds like your grandmother all right.”

Jo said that the bodyguard service had been terminated this morning and that Alexa was outside playing with Chewie, waiting for her mother and the mother’s boyfriend to pick her up for their visitation day.

“She’s been dressed and ready to go since ten. I guess they’re running late.”

“Poor kid.”

Jo said that once Alexa was gone, things around there should be quiet, at least until the police returned. Since taking Winnie into custody, the cops had managed to get a partial confession from her. Winnie was claiming that she hadn’t been trying to kill her mother by tampering with her thyroid medication, but merely make her seem confused. According to the stipulations of the trust, Eleanor’s shares would be distributed upon her death or incapacitation, and Winnie was insisting that that was all she had been going for—trying to get her mother declared incapacitated so the shares could be distributed.

Winnie denied having anything to do with any attempted murder on Jo. Doubtful of her claims, however, the police had obtained a warrant and were coming back out to do a more thorough search of the guest house where she’d been living, to try and find some sort of evidence to the contrary. Winnie had no alibi for Wednesday around the time Jo was pushed. She said she’d simply gone out driving around for a few hours to look at some of the local gardens, and had never interacted with anyone who could corroborate.

As for the tampered-with toaster, though Winnie denied doing that as well, the cops weren’t taking it very seriously anyway. Just as Jo had suspected, they said the setup wouldn’t have done much harm, and it certainly wouldn’t have been deadly.

“Still, what does that have to do with it?” Jo asked Danny as she made herself some tea. “Attempted murder is still attempted murder, even if the person doesn’t know what they’re doing.”

“I agree.”

“I’ll just be glad when this whole thing is over. All I’ve been thinking about all day is Toaster Man.”

“Toaster Man?”

“That’s my nickname for the person who’s been sending me the anonymous e-mails—though of course in the end it might turn out to be Toaster Girl. I just don’t know.”

“If Winnie’s the attempted killer,” Danny said, “then who do you think your anonymous e-mailer is?”

Jo shook her head, frustrated that she had no good answer for that.

“I would have to say Neil or Ian, or maybe even Muck.”

“Muck?”

“The gardener. Winnie comes and helps him out every year with the spring planting. Maybe they’re close.”