Miz Scarlet and the Vanishing Visitor (A Scarlet Wilson Mystery) Read online

  Chapter Two --

  “This is about soap?” Kenny and I asked in unison.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “That makes no sense,” said the private security consultant. “In all my years as a cop, I never heard of anyone trying to kill for organic soap.”

  “Do you still have it with you?” I asked the girl. Nodding, she unzipped her fanny pack, pulled out a small rectangular packet tied with raffia, and handed it to me. Turning on the dome light, I took a closer look. It was wrapped in ordinary white tissue paper, and as I pulled away the covering, I found a dark purple, fragrant, lavender-scented bar, nothing particularly unusual, at least at first glance.

  “Kenny?” I put the soap up to the light. The opaque bar seemed like ordinary glycerin soap, save for the little tidbits suspended inside. “There are little doodads inside the bar. Looks like gold flakes and maybe some crystals.”

  “Paolo said it’s a healing soap, meant to cleanse the aura. I only took it because I wanted to change my life and purify myself.”

  “By stealing?” I set my disapproving eyes on her. It never fails to amaze me when kids miss the connections in life. Then again, I know plenty of adults who miss them, too. “What is your name, by the way?”

  “Fern.”

  “Fern?” What a crock, I thought to myself. This kid was too used to lying. “Let’s see your license, Fern.”

  “I...I don’t have it with me,” she stuttered. Not an experienced liar, perhaps. Gaining expertise, but not yet a master. There was hope for her, if only I could tap into it.

  “Cough it up,” I insisted. She extracted her wallet from the zippered case, flipped it open, and showed me. “Serena Polk. 455 Bonny Meadow Lane. Fort Laramie, Wyoming.”

  “Fake,” Kenny decided. “Must be a runaway.”

  One look at that distressed face and I tossed out my best guess. “Your stepfather took a liking to you.”

  The sudden intake of air produced a whooshing sound as the teenager swallowed hard. The eyes were fearful. That’s when I noticed the gnawed fingernails. There had to be more bad news, I thought, as I studied her. I took another shot at solving the mystery. “Your mother got sick and your stepfather turned his attention to you.”

  “Are you psychic?” It was said with some awe, as if I had some cosmic connection to her heart.

  “Sweetie, I’ve been a teacher a long time. I’ve seen some pretty rough stuff happen to my students over time. Unfortunately, you’re not the only kid who’s ever been in this boat. I wish it weren’t so, but there you have it.”

  Big, wet tears rolled down her cheeks, and she wiped them away with the back of her hand. The pain was still too raw. This was a kid on her own, cut loose from blood relatives, manipulated by those who should have protected her from harm. She had escaped one devil, only to find an even bigger demon. There had to be more.

  “My, um...mom died two months ago,” she sobbed. “Cancer. My stepfather promised her he’d take care of me, make sure I went to college, but the day of her memorial service, he tried....”

  “What about your father?” Kenny broke in. “Where is he?”

  “My mom said he died after he went back to California to visit his family, when his father had money problems and needed help with the family business.”

  “What’s your real name?” I asked. “I’m Scarlet Wilson.”

  “Jenny. Jenny Mulroney.”

  “Well, Jenny Mulroney, we’ve got to get you some help. We can’t have anyone trying to kill you, can we?”

  “Scarlet!” Kenny said my name with great emphasis, and I knew what was coming next, but I didn’t care. “Don’t even....”

  “Kenny, I’m not dumping an at-risk teenager at the local police station, not if she has no family to look out for her. I won’t do it. I’m obligated by the state, as a teacher, to report abuse and to protect children.”

  “You are not in Connecticut, Miz Scarlet,” he reminded me bluntly.

  “Be that as it may, this child is not going to get hurt on my watch.” I looked at my companion, with those tear-rimmed eyes, and I made yet another instinctive decision. “I’ll bring her back to the inn, until we get this sorted out.”

  “You cannot transport a minor across state lines, Scarlet, especially if she’s been involved in a felony of some kind!”

  “Oh, I’m not a minor,” she piped in. “I turned eighteen two weeks ago.”

  “How convenient,” Kenny cut in. “Not that it matters all that much. Now, let’s try again, Jenny Mulroney. Where were you living with your mother before she died?”

  “Pelham, New Hampshire.”

  “Mother’s name,” he demanded tersely.

  “Vivian Lorraine Mulroney.”

  “I’m going to check on that, so if there’s anything you need to correct, this is the time to do it.” There was a long silence, so I glanced over at Jenny. She was shaking her head, a detail I quickly shared with Kenny.

  “She says no.”

  “You two come and meet me in Princeton. I mean it, Scar. We do this by the book.”

  “I don’t know that we can.”

  “I don’t know that we can’t,” was his reply.

  “But, Kenny, you should have seen that guy before I lost him on Johnson. He was a complete maniac!”

  “Do tell.”

  By the time I recounted the narrow escape, Kenny, sensible man that he was, wanted to take a chunk out of my hide. Even I had to admit to myself that running the red light and zipping through the traffic was out of character for me. I was bold, but I wasn’t bananas. But striking the man with my car? That was madness. Kenny sounded like he was having serious doubts about me. Not good for such a tenuous point in our relationship. This weekend was supposed to be a chance for me to finally meet his kids, so we could move forward, to the next level -- monogamous dating.

  “Do you have a screw loose in that head of yours? You could have been killed. Or killed someone else!”

  “I didn’t have a lot of options,” I insisted. Open moon roof and a maniac with a knife? Not good odds, but Kenny didn’t care. This was a side I hadn’t seen before, the professional law enforcement guy. Despite all the jokes about him being a campus cop, he was a serious advocate of public safety, and therefore, my bad behavior earned me his scorn. I would have to work hard to get back into his good graces.

  “Get here and we’ll sort it out. Let me give you my address, Scarlet, so you can Tom-Tom it.”

  “But....” I started to protest, thinking about the fact that the inn had three guests arriving tomorrow. As innkeeper, it was my responsibility to prepare for them. My brother, Bur, was currently holding down the fort at The Four Acorns Inn, our family bed and breakfast.

  “I’ll call the colonel and warn him that you won’t be home tonight. You be careful on the road. Drive safely. And if you notice anything, anything at all, you call the New Jersey State Police first, and then me. Got it?”

  “Got it.” The moment I agreed, the call ended. Kenny’s way of letting me know he was royally ripped with me.

  “Boy, he was pretty mad,” Jenny stated the obvious. “Is your brother really a colonel?”

  “Bur? Oh, heavens,” I shook my head and snickered. “That’s his nickname. Colonel Grey Poupon, like the snooty mustard. Oh, you’re too young to know about that.”

  “I thought you were going to tell me he was a soldier. Or a cop.”

  “My brother, the troublemaker? Let me put it this way. Bur is the guy who was always pulling pranks in high school. He was a regular wise guy who always seemed to manage to sweet talk his fanny out of hot water.”

  “Kenny sounds mean. And mad.”

  “Kenny takes the law seriously. He’s a straight arrow, expects people to behave.”

  “He’s going to hate me.” That little plaintive voice suddenly seemed to care what the former campus cop thought of her. Was it daddy issues or a good kid who fell off the beaten path when her stepfather gave her too big a shove? I contemplate
d this as we got back on the road.

  “You mentioned college. What do you plan to study?”

  “I can’t go now. There’s no way Steve will pay my tuition.” Sadness. Jenny was pushed out the door and into adulthood a little too soon.

  “Oh, that can’t be right,” I told her. “If your mom made arrangements for you to be cared for by your stepfather, she must have set up a college fund for you. That would mean he’s just got control of it, but it’s your money.”

  Even as I said that, a terrible thought occurred to me. What if Steve had a motive for being a bastard to his ward?

  “How long was your mom married to him?”

  “Eight months.”

  “Oh. That’s not very long.” I calculated the chances that Steve was a cunning creep, taking care of a dying woman, not because he was a nice guy, but because he was a predator, and from where I sat, the odds were good. What if Jenny’s mother named him as executor and the teenager just assumed the money went to Steve? Maybe the wicked stepfather did what he did to chase the child away and keep all the money for himself. “Did your mom work before she got cancer?”

  “Yeah, she was a human resources specialist at a rehab center.” Probably made a decent living, I decided. If she raised Jenny by herself all those years, it was likely she put some money away for her daughter. That’s what I would have done.

  “What does Steve do?”

  “He fixes computers. He’s a real tech geek.”

  “Does he have a shop?”

  “No. People come to the house.” I absorbed that information and then changed the subject.

  “What makes you think your mom didn’t leave you anything in her will?” Might as well poke the bear while I had the opportunity.

  “Steve said so. He told me that all her money went to pay for her cancer treatments.”

  Even I had to admit it was possible. And yet, if Jenny’s mother worked in health care, she probably had pretty good insurance.

  “You know what, kiddo? I think you need to talk to a lawyer, someone who will look after your interests, someone who will check to make sure Steve’s telling the truth.”

  “I don’t understand. They were married. I thought married people had to share their money.”

  “Good heavens, no. That’s not always how it works, especially for a parent who has a dependent child. For example, if your mother owned her home before her marriage....”

  “How did you know that? Are you sure you’re not psychic?” Hardly. More skeptical than mystical. I was beginning to feel like I wanted to dig all the way through this ugly little set-up. “Steve moved in with us about a year ago, just after my mother met him.”

  Steve apparently moved fast. And no doubt, he got power of attorney when her mom got sicker. Talk about convenient.

  “What’s Pelham like?” We spent the rest of the trip talking about her life before Steve and cancer.

  By the time I pulled into Kenny’s driveway, there was a New Jersey State Police sedan and an unmarked SUV parked on the street. Not good.

  “Are they going to arrest me?” Jenny wanted to know.

  “For all we know, they’re here for me.”

  “Because you ran that red light?”

  “Yeah, something like that. Come on, kiddo. Let’s take our lumps and get it over with, once and for all.”

  “Maybe we can share a jail cell,” she suggested. I glanced over at the teenager in the seat next to me. A little smile played across her face. The unexpected sense of humor surfaced, a sure sign of a lifetime of mother-daughter moments. I could imagine Jenny confiding in the woman who raised her alone, sharing a joke or a gripe. Confidants. Conspirators. Chums. As we exchanged glances, our eyes locked for only a few seconds. As reluctant as I was to look away, it pained me to see what Jenny unintentionally revealed about herself. Those eyes were still tinged with sadness. She had lost her mother only two months ago. I was a poor substitute, I decided, a fill-in for the real deal. For the first time since I passed my thirtieth birthday so long ago, I regretted not having kids. I could have had a daughter like Jenny, someone who counted on me through the tough times. And then I remembered her mother had died. Was the girl angry about that, or did she know it wasn’t her mother’s choice to leave her?

  “What?” One word uttered by an eighteen-year-old brought me back to reality. I turned away, busying myself with my pocketbook.

  “We should go in,” I admitted lamely, not willing to acknowledge my sense of powerlessness to comfort Jenny. Whatever she was feeling now, I had no doubt it would only grow worse with time. She was on the run, cut off from whatever family she had left in this world. There’s only so far we mortals can run before our legs give way and we crash to the ground.