Without A Clue. Trish Jensen
off the kitchen,” he answered her, getting a little irritated she was grilling him. More irritated he didn’t know the answers. After all, this was a big house. “How about killing him off in the dining room?”
She shook her head. “The script calls for him being found dead in his bed. In the master bedroom bed.”
“Meg,” a woman said, striding into the study, a look of complete consternation on her face. “We have a problem.”
Matt recognized her from the foyer. She was tall and skinny with a face that might be pretty if she smiled once in a while. Great, he had a smiler and a frowner on his hands. Both female. It almost felt as if he was caught in a cosmic estrogen tornado.
“Tina, this is Mr. Rossi, owner of this property,” Ms. Renshaw said. “Mr. Rossi, Tina Brown.”
“Hiya,” Ms. Brown said, with a perfunctory smile, which vanished instantly. “Meg, Mr. Brogan isn’t going to be delivering any speeches anytime soon. He’s really whacked out on those drugs.”
“You have drugs in my house?” Matt said.
“Prescription,” the Renshaw woman said quickly. She tapped her jaw. “Root canal.” She looked from him to Tina. “We’ll have to improvise. Maybe he can play the silent but sinister butler. This isn’t a problem.”
“Meg, we need a corpse. One that can read his lines.”
Matt couldn’t figure out how a corpse would need lines, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
Megan Renshaw began tapping her lips with one finger. Then her head swiveled in his direction. “Are you as quick at memorizing as you are at reading?”
Uh-oh. “Well, technically, I guess. But—”
“And you want to sleep in your own bed in the master suite, right?”
“Since I own the place, I think I have the—”
She thrust out her hand. “Hello, Mr. De Wynter.”
“We’re dead,” Tina Brown muttered.
“No, but he will be. Eventually.”
Matt stared at the woman who was turning the most dazzling smile he’d ever seen on him. “I hope you mean that figuratively.”
She grabbed his hand and pumped it. “You’re hired.”
3
MATT HAD LANDED in the Twilight Zone. He’d come to his house with all intentions of enjoying the serenity it had to offer, only to be greeted with Bizarro World. Worse, he was now apparently employed by a woman who by all rights should be locked in a padded cell.
Or maybe he should be for even considering the idea. But for some reason letting this woman down held no appeal. And heck, he was on vacation, and his favorite reading had always been mysteries. It might not be so bad. Maybe even fun, though even playing dead was a little disconcerting.
The hand she stuck out to him was soft as a flower petal against his much more callous one. And was completely swallowed by it. Although she was fairly tall for a woman, she was slender and apparently small-boned. It gave him a sense of her vulnerability.
And she was on his property. It seemed to him it was his duty to make certain he’d be there to watch out for her. Because by the looks of everything so far, she wasn’t exactly organized.
Reluctantly he dropped her hand. “How soon after the guests arrive do I die?” he asked.
“The first night.”
“And then what?”
“And then we cart you off on a gurney, and you don’t return until the mystery’s been solved.”
Matt shook his head. “Unacceptable. I want to be free to keep an eye on the house and grounds during the entire time.”
Out of the corner of his eye he saw the Tina woman roll her eyes and throw up her hands. “I’m telling you, Meg, we’re in deep trouble.”
“Nonsense,” Meg said. “Just give me a minute to think.”
She strolled back to the desk and sat down, and he could practically see her wheels chugging along.
“Meg’s thinking?” Tina asked. “I’m out of here.” She practically sprinted from the room.
Suddenly Meg glanced up at him and said, “Okay, I have two possibilities. Tell me what you think of these.”
Oh, he couldn’t wait.
“One, we already have a chief inspector, so that’s out. But we could add you as his assistant. Of course, you’d have to be heavily disguised.”
Matt didn’t like that option for two reasons. He’d been in charge of his own company for so long that the thought of playing second fiddle and actually having to take orders really rankled. And second, although he wouldn’t object to wearing certain clothing to play a part, disguises conjured images of fake mustaches and Coke-bottle glasses. “What’s the other option?”
“You can come back as yourself.”
His brows drew together. “Wouldn’t that kind of ruin the mystery of who killed me?”
“Not if you come back as your spirit.”
“Spirit? You mean…a ghost?”
She beamed at him as if he were five and had just conquered the concept of the alphabet. “Exactly.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Not at all.”
“I don’t believe in all that ghost or spirit nonsense.”
Her brows lifted and he once again noticed what a beautiful shade of gray her eyes were. And how huge, especially when she was looking at him as though he was an idiot. “You do realize the history of this mansion, don’t you?”
Matt bristled. “I bought the property, didn’t I?”
“Then you know it’s purported to be haunted.”
No, somehow he hadn’t heard that. “Bull.”
She nodded. “It’s the lore, and there have been documented cases from previous owners.”
“It’s an old house, they were just hearing the creaks and groans.”
She shrugged. “I’m sure that’s part of it. But a lot stranger stuff has happened around here.”
“Probably made up,” he interjected.
She went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “The story is that in the late 1800s, the house was bought by an ex-Confederate soldier named Jamie Foster, and it had been badly damaged in the war. He refurbished it, then brought his wife from Savannah to live here. Apparently Jamie was suffering from what today we’d call post-traumatic stress disorder, and became more and more irrational and abusive toward his wife. When he subjected her to a fairly bad beating while she was pregnant, she decided she wasn’t going to allow him to have any part in the raising of her child.”
She paused until Matt finally said, “And?”
“She poisoned his black-eyed peas.”
“Ouch.”
“So legend has it that he refused to leave the home he’d built, and still haunts it to this day.”
“Not that I believe any of this bull, but even if there’s a hint of truth, why would anyone pay to come here?”
“Are you kidding? We played up the haunted mansion part when advertising the weekend. It’s why we filled up so fast.”
Matt made an involuntary grunting sound. “Some people are so gullible.”
“I