Evil by the Sea. Kathleen Bridge

      Chapter 4

      Friday night when dinner rolled around, Liz had no problem filling in as server for the Indialantic’s housekeeper Greta. Aunt Amelia was at rehearsals for Melbourne Beach Theatre’s production of The Sea Witch, where she had the leading role. Liz had promised to make sure everything went smoothly and was thrilled she wasn’t invited to dine with the motley crew, who, as she glanced around, looked more like a group of mourners than wedding celebrants. Glancing to the other side of the dining room, she saw Dorian and Julian seated at a table for two near French doors opening to a moonlit ocean view.

      The hotel’s original dining room had been double what it was now, but it was still big enough to seat sixty people. There were fifteen square tables topped with white Irish linen tablecloths dating from the hotel’s opening, personally ironed by Aunt Amelia, who thought ironing was a therapeutic activity when rehearsing lines for her latest play. Liz had helped prep the meal after finding the menu on Pierre’s desk in the butler’s pantry. The dish was one of Liz’s favorites, lemony salmon and spiced chickpeas with arugula. The lemon came from one of the Indialantic’s trees and the arugula and herbs from Pierre’s kitchen garden. Greta had stayed in the kitchen with Pierre assisting him with the cleanup. Even though the chef’s memory was improving with his new medication, Greta and Liz tended to hover over him.

      Minutes before dinner, Susannah, Aunt Amelia’s sometime assistant manager, depending of the workload, had conveniently gotten one of her migraines. Her myriad of ailments appeared whenever grunt work was involved or there wasn’t anyone around important enough to praise her expertise and poise. However, she was always on the ready to give her “expert” advice on any situation. After what had happened last January, she and Susannah had grown closer. But that didn’t mean Susannah had changed when it came to her sense of entitlement. Liz was happy that after the scene in the lobby and Susannah’s cryptic need to see her, she’d immediately sought her out.

      What Susannah had told her still echoed in her head. The only thing was, Liz didn’t know what to do about it. Susannah was sure she’d seen some unidentified figure in dark clothing and a baseball hat creeping around the grounds. More specifically, in Aunt Amelia’s cutting garden, the future site of the Rhodes-Starwood wedding, lurking near the altar that Julian Rhodes had brought from his Wiccan society.

      “Are you sure it wasn’t a gardener?” Liz had asked her.

      She had put both hands on her hips. “Do you know who you’re talking to? Every person who works on the Indialantic’s grounds has to come through me. I deliver their checks. But only after I’m sure they did an exceptional job.” Susannah hadn’t known if it was a man or a woman that she’d seen, but she knew one thing, they didn’t belong on the grounds bordering the south side of the hotel. Liz decided to store the information away. Likely, it was just someone from the emporium who wanted to view the Indialantic’s gardens; a stop every year on the barrier island’s garden and orchid tour.

      Glancing toward Dorian and Julian’s table, Liz was happy to see that their water glasses needed filling. It would be the perfect opportunity for a little eavesdropping, as she was curious as to why the pair were sitting so solemnly with nary a grin on their faces. She tucked an errant section of long, wavy strawberry-blonde hair behind her ear, then went to the sideboard where she grabbed a Baccarat crystal pitcher filled with water and floating lemon slices. She advanced toward Dorian and Julian’s table, thinking by the looks on their faces, they might as well have been sitting next to the dumpster in the hotel’s back parking lot instead of a million-dollar view. Could it be a case of cold tootsies on Dorian’s part? Had she found out that Wren wasn’t Julian’s cousin?

      Halfway to their table, Liz heard Julian say under his breath in a throaty growl, “What’s the meaning of this!” He looked straight at her. “First the hotel staff brings out seafood, after I specifically said on our preference sheet that I am seafood allergic, then they come to serve bacteria filled tap water, when I said we specifically only drink the bottled artisanal water from SWS.”

      Liz knew there was no such thing as a preference sheet. Unless Chef Pierre had received it and forgotten to tell anyone. Dorian seemed mortified by his outburst and Liz’s hand shook, causing water to spill on the Spanish tile. There was something commanding about Julian Rhodes. For his small stature, he sure could get your attention with just a few words and his piercing stare. She wondered if his hypnotic ice-blue eyes ever warmed. She didn’t fancy getting on his bad side.

      When she reached their table, she said, “I overheard you say you’re seafood allergic. Let me whip up something for you in the kitchen.” Julian seemed mollified after she asked how he liked his steak prepared. She left the dining room before he could demand anything else.

      In the kitchen, she found Pierre with his feet up on a chair, his chef’s toque askew as usual, and the new e-reader Liz had bought him on his lap. At first, he’d protested at the thought of an e-reader, not wanting to give up his beloved books, but after she’d set the type to a large font and told him he could even read in the sun, along with the amount of trees he’d be saving—he was off to the races, finishing a book, usually a mystery, in two days tops.

      “Grand-Pierre, did anyone give you a paper saying that Mr. Rhodes was allergic to seafood?”

      He twirled one end of his Hercule Poirot mustache and looked pensively toward his desk in the butler’s pantry. “I don’t believe so, ma cherie.”

      Liz went into the pantry. There was nothing on Pierre’s desk. Under the window in the corner of the room were stacked cases of bottled water. She opened the top case and pulled out a cobalt-blue bottle. Pictured on the label was a sun in front of a pentagram with “SWS Artisanal Water” printed beneath, and in even smaller print, “sweetened with organic orange juice, bottled at the source and consecrated.” Dorian had explained to Liz and Aunt Amelia that each bottle was filled with water from a bubbling mineral spring on Julian’s Jacksonville property, then infused with juice from his own trees. She’d also explained, that after the bottling process, some kind of pagan ritual was performed where the entire Sunshine Wiccan Society blessed the bottles at the exact moment the sun rose up from the Atlantic. Dorian had gone on about the water’s numerous benefits, which must have been the reason why there were five cases of the stuff.

      She took a bottle with her and stepped out of the pantry at the same time Greta came into the kitchen from the back hallway that led to her father’s law office and apartment. “Hey, Greta.” She put the bottle in the fridge, then asked Greta about the supposed preference sheet.

      “Never saw anything of the kind.” Greta was tall and thin, in her late seventies with long white hair she wore in a French braid. When Liz had first met Greta, she’d looked fifteen years older than the woman who stood before her now. “Ms. Starwood is the only one who’s come into the kitchen and she never mentioned anything, only talked about the wedding cake. Right, Chef?” Greta went and stood next to Pierre.

      “Yes, Uhm, sounds familiar.”

      “I’m going to make Mr. Rhodes a filet. Not the end of the world,” Liz said, wanting to banish the confused look in Pierre’s eyes. She grabbed