The Inn at Dead Man's Point (13 page)

While Sophia browned the garlic bread, Phillip put the food on the table and their conversation drifted to politics.

“Sophia, I’ve been asked to run for mayor next year. What do you think?”

“I think you’d make a fine mayor.”

He made a fine friend, too.

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Jenna picked up her daughter at seven, and Katie wheezed so hard, Jenna drove her straight to Urgent Care. She was furious with Bruce Baxter for smoking around her little girl, and angry with herself for allowing it to happen again.

The doctor lectured her about letting a kid with a breathing problem be around smoke.

“She doesn’t have a breathing problem unless she’s with her grandparents, and I can’t convince her grandfather to stop smoking those damn cigars around her.”

“Then don’t take her there again.”

“I don’t intend to.”

While the doctor was treating Katie, Jenna called the Baxter house and spoke with Bruce. “I have Katie at Urgent Care. Since you didn’t pay any child support this month, I don’t have the money to pay the bill.”

“Tough.”

“Yeah, it’s tough, because it’s your fault we’re here. Do you want to come down here and pay this bill, or do you not want to see your granddaughter again?” She hung up before he could speak, knowing he’d come if for no other reason than to bitch at her.

The nurse helped Katie with the nebulizer while Jenna sat beside the exam table. Minutes later, she heard Bruce’s loud voice outside. She walked out to the front desk and motioned him to come in where Katie was breathing in the treated oxygen. “See what you’ve done? Get a good look at her now, because it’s the last time she’s ever coming to your house. The next time could kill her.”

For once, Bruce was speechless. After a stern lecture from the doctor about smoking around kids, he paid the bill.

Jenna was tired to the bone from the stress in her life. She thought things would be better with Mattie gone, and they were, but she was staying up until the wee hours of the morning every night, looking for answers to what happened around the time her parents died. If she didn’t find a source of money by the end of the month, she had to find a job. Leaving Alessandro wouldn’t be easy, but if she couldn’t find a job in the Gig Harbor area, she’d have to move back to her apartment in Seattle. She had a better chance of finding a decent job there.

She wanted to go through the tiny office in the inn and look through the old ledgers while she was here. There had to be a record somewhere. That much money couldn’t just disappear.

Al met them at the door. “Everything all right?”

“It is now.” She told him where she’d been and what happened to Katie. “Katie is not going to that house again until she’s old enough to drive. Mr. I’ll-do-what-I-damn-well-please is finished smoking around my little girl.”

Al lifted Katie into his arms. She was too big to be carried around, but she needed a hug right now. “What did you have for dinner tonight, Katie?”

“Chicken, but I throwed up ’cause I couldn’t breathe.”

Jenna’s mouth dropped open. “Nobody told me that.”

“Grandma said she wouldn’t make me chicken again, but I like chicken.”

Al set her on the kitchen island. “How about a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?”

“Okay. Can I have ice cream, too?”

“What kind?”

“Chocklick.”

He chuckled. “I like chocklick, too.”

Even though he was an intimidating man, Jenna had stood up to Brian’s father. Al respected her for fighting back, like Ma had when Tony got beat up that time. They were living in California then, but seeing Tony all bloody and battered from defending Gina from a bunch of gang bangers, Ma announced that nobody was hurting her kids again. Two weeks later, they moved to Washington.

Al was in the third grade at the time. The first day in his new school, the class bully called him ‘Alice.’ Everyone laughed and Al decked him. He was suspended for fighting, but no one called him Alice again. From then on, he was Al. Now he used his full name, especially for business. He liked it that Jenna had begun calling him Alessandro, and he liked the way it sounded when she said it.

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The phone call from the nursing home came in just before Jenna put Katie to bed. Aunt Mattie had bumped her sore arm on the bed rail. Her fingers were swollen and red, and she was crying with pain, so they sent her by ambulance to the hospital. She was asking for Jenna.

Alessandro galloped down the stairs. “Was that call for me?”

“No, it was for me. Aunt Mattie hurt her arm and they took her to the hospital. She’s asking for me.”

“I’ll go with you. We’ll drop Katie off at Grandma’s house on the way.”

“Can Callie go, too?” Katie asked.

“Sure.” Alessandro made a quick phone call to clear it with his mother, and after a stop at his mother’s house, he drove Jenna to the hospital.

The cast was off the old woman’s arm and she was muttering to herself in her sleep. They had her on something stronger than those pain pills Jenna had been feeding her at the inn.

“Charlie,” Jenna heard her say.

She leaned over the bed and asked, “What about Charlie?”

“I pushed him over.”

Stunned at hearing Mattie’s confession, Jenna said, “You pushed him over onto the rocks?
You
killed him?”

“Yes. He wanted to give
my
inn to his bastard.”

Alessandro put a steadying hand on Jenna’s shoulder. “She doesn’t know what she’s saying.”

“Oh, yes she does, but she probably doesn’t know she said it out loud. She killed her own husband because he wanted
me
to have
her
precious inn.” She swallowed hard and stared at Mattie lying in the bed, her right arm propped up and wrapped in an elastic bandage. “That damn inn isn’t worth killing over.”

“Does that mean you don’t want it?”

“Of course I want it, but I wouldn’t kill for it.”

The nurse came in and pushed a form at Jenna. “She needs a pin in her arm. She should have had it put in when she broke her arm, but she’s a little—”

“Obstinate,” said Jenna. “I don’t have her power of attorney.”

“She gave her verbal okay, but she’s not able to sign anything. As next of kin, we’d like your signature for the records.”

“So she knows she’s going to have surgery?”

“Yes, she knows. She’s not happy about it, but she wants the pain to go away.”

Jenna signed the form. Mattie should have had the surgery before, instead of having the cast put on. If she had, her arm might have healed by now.

How many broken bones did Uncle Charlie have from his fall and how long did it take him to die? Should she contact the police? Would it make any difference at this point? A ninety-year-old woman wouldn’t go on trial for anything. They’d say she was out of her mind. But Mattie Worthington wasn’t crazy.

She was old and filled with hate.

They stayed at the hospital until Mattie was out of surgery and stable, and then Al drove Jenna home. He knew they should report this to the police, and if they did, Jenna could go to court and convince the judge that Mattie Worthington wasn’t of sound mind when she sold the property. It would cause a legal nightmare that could cost them both a whole lot of money. Would she do that to him now? Did she care more about the inn than about him?

He’d been foolish to buy the inn under Mattie’s conditions, but how was he to know that the old woman was a killer? She was too weak to hurt anyone now, but if she killed her husband, he wouldn’t put it past her to try to kill Jenna.

It was after midnight, too late to get Katie from his mother. She always went to bed around ten. The kid would be all right there. Ma had his cell phone number, so if she had any problems, she’d call him. Tonight, he and Jenna had to talk about the inn. He didn’t want any surprises down the road. If she planned to fight him for ownership, he wanted to know now, before he put any more money into it.

This could kill their relationship.

Jenna was so engrossed in her thoughts that she didn’t notice they were at the inn until Alessandro opened the car door. She felt drained and empty inside. Uncle Charlie had been pushed over the hill and left to die on the jagged rocks below. He deserved so much better. Why had he stayed with Aunt Mattie for so many years? He should have left her decades ago. If he had, he might still be alive.

“Come on inside, Jenna. We need to talk.”

Yes, they did, but she wasn’t sure she was up to it tonight.

She put the kettle on for tea and walked into the tiny office between the kitchen and laundry room. Uncle Charlie had always kept this room neat and tidy, but now the desk was a disaster, and there was a black and white cat sleeping in the middle of the mess. Jenna plucked Bandit off and set him on the floor.

The kettle sang and she made the tea. Alessandro sat at the kitchen bar looking pensive. She put a cup in front of him and sat beside him. “The office has been torn apart, so I assume she was looking for the money.”

He sipped his tea. “She committed a crime, and we should report it.”

She rubbed her temples. A headache was building. “Is it really necessary?”

He stared into his cup. “I’ll call Gerry in the morning. We’ll let him handle it.”

“Okay, fine. You do that. In the meantime, I need to look through the inn’s financial records.”

He stood and pushed his cup back. “I’ll be upstairs if you want to talk.”

Watching him walk toward the stairs, she asked, “Are you angry with me?”

“No, but if you’re looking for something to prove that you owned the inn when Mattie sold it, you’ll have a fight on your hands. I bought this place in good faith, and Mattie’s name was the only one on the deed. This is my home now, and I’m not giving it up. If you want money, you’ll have to go after Mattie, because I don’t have any left.”

“I don’t want your damn money,” she yelled at his back, and he walked on upstairs.

She felt like crawling into bed and crying herself to sleep, but she had work to do before she slept.

If she was looking for a few hundred, or even a few thousand dollars, she might quit searching, but the amount was closer to a million, and she couldn’t give that up without exhausting every possibility.

There had to be a clue around here somewhere.

Chapter Eight

A
l rose early the next morning. He peeked in Jenna’s room, but her bedroom door stood open and her bed hadn’t been slept in. She must have spent the whole night in the inn’s tiny office. Knowing how Charlie really died had lent urgency to her search for the missing money.

He found her in the office, poring over ledgers. “Find anything?”

“A fifty-thousand-dollar deposit made the year before my parents died. Uncle Charlie used it to patch the roof, build the garage, and replace some of the bedding.” She stood and stretched. “If my parents gave Uncle Charlie more money for the inn, it isn’t shown in the ledgers.”

“What about after your parents died?”

She yawned and shook her head. After stacking the ledgers on the shelf and tidying up the desk, she said, “It must have hurt like hell for Mattie to sell this place. I don’t think she’s ever lived anywhere else.” She yawned again. “I need a nap.”

“Breakfast first, and then you can sleep. I’ll get Katie after lunch.”

Charlie probably knew Mattie better than anyone else, since they’d been married for so many years. Al wondered if Charlie hid the money from his wife to keep it safe for Jenna. He sure as hell didn’t invest it in the inn or this place would be in better shape.

He felt relieved that she hadn’t found other big deposits. If her parents didn’t make a significant investment in the inn, Jenna wouldn’t have a reason to fight him for it.

After they ate breakfast, Al sent Jenna up to bed, then he called his mother. “I’ll be over this morning to take the cat to the vet. Her cast comes off today. Can you keep Katie until this afternoon?”

“Of course. How is Mattie?”

“I don’t know,” he said on a sigh. “They put a pin in her arm last night and I know she made it through surgery. We didn’t get home until late, and then Jenna was up all night going over the inn’s financial records. I just sent her up to bed.”

“Then why don’t you leave Katie with me for another day? I’ll take her over to Nicky and Cara’s house to play with Sophie.”

“I’ll check with Jenna when she wakes up.” Katie wasn’t his kid, and he couldn’t make decisions for her.

This situation ate at him like mice chewing at his soul. He’d ruined things between them. He’d told her where he stood, and she backed away. She said the inn wasn’t worth killing for, and he agreed, but it was definitely worth fighting for. He had a lot of money invested in this old inn, and he wouldn’t give it up.