Read Online Keeping Mum (A Garden Society Mystery) by Alyse Carlson - Free Book Online

don’t know,” she said. “I mean, I would like to think it means she’s a flake, but I’ve never thought that was one of her faults before. She said her brother called, but didn’t say what about. I really hope it’s not something bad.”
    “What could it be?” Jake asked.
    “Getting rid of my dad!” Annie shouted. Her tears returned.
    Jake stepped in to hold her, but she pushed him back, letting Cam grab her instead.
    “She wouldn’t hurt him,” Cam said. “She’d know she’d get caught. If she had anything to do with it, he’s okay.”
    Annie sniffed into Cam’s chest. “You better be right, or I’ll have to unleash the flying monkeys.”
    “Annie,” Rob said. “It is probably just that he saw something.”
    “Freaking Derrick Windermere! Damn man probably deserved what he got. He put half this town out of business. Who’d hurt my dad over that?”
    “Maybe they’ll let him go if they know he agrees with them,” Jake said.
    “See, that’s the trouble,” Annie said. “Dad’s feeling was it was just capitalism at work. It’s the kind of thing he always shrugged his shoulders at.”
    Jake hung his head.
    “Maybe it’s somebody trying to hurt the party,” Rob suggested.
    “Or take it over,” Cam countered. “Derrick and Senator Schulz were the party’s old blood. Maybe they want to be the new power.”
    Though, strictly speaking, that wasn’t true. Derrick was just the party’s money. New or old had nothing to do with it.
    “Can we please . . .” Annie said. “I can’t think about all this tonight. Can we not speculate until we know something?”
    Cam hugged Annie again, then Annie finally let Jake hug her as well and take her upstairs.
    When they were alone, Cam and Rob could finally talk more freely.
    “You think this is politics?” Rob asked.
    “I think money is more likely,” Cam said. “Windermere was a first-class ass. He really did reverse several fortunes.”
    “So you think Annie’s dad is just a case of wrong place, wrong time?”
    “I don’t know. I wish I felt more confident about that.”
    “And this . . . Cruella?”
    “Elle Chamberlain Schulz. Gold digger. I think Annie is her dad’s primary heir, so Elle is better off with Senator Schulz alive than dead.”
    “Well, that’s helpful.”
    “I hope so. I didn’t want to bring it up with Annie, since I figured a sentence that included ‘dead’ would be a downer, regardless.”
    “I need to get this story in,” Rob said.
    “I know you do. I’m fine.” Cam was familiar with newspaper deadlines by now, and understood Rob’s compulsion to advance his career. She would do the same if she were the reporter.
    “You can do it here, yes?”
    “I could.”
    “You write and send. I’ll take a bath and try to relax.”
    “Oh, right. Like I can write when you’re wet and naked in the next room.”
    “Your incentive, hotshot, is if you finish in time, maybe we can go to sleep together. Your deadline is two?”
    He nodded.
    “Try to meet it an hour early.”
    • • •
    • • •
    T he warm water was soothing, but Cam’s brain was racing. She was trying to relive the party and all the encounters she’d seen with Derrick Windermere that implied bad blood. It was no small number. There was the man Annie said her dad couldn’t stand following around behind Derrick, and the man Derrick had sent off for offending Senator Schulz, or so it had appeared. The harem had looked rather angry, and Toni Howe had been annoyed with him, too. Cam had thought at least Toni’s situation had a reasonable solution on the horizon. Then there was what they had learned from Joel Jaimeson about him when they were planning the party—that Derrick had been milking fortunes from other people.
    Nobody had displayed obvious bad blood toward Alden Schulz other than the man who’d been sent off and the other man, Melvin, whom Annie said her dad already disliked before the night began. Then again, Senator Schulz was a party