Without A Clue
Without A Clue
Trish Jensen
What do you mean your house?Since her aborted wedding, Meg Renshaw's thrown everything into her work. But her latest brainstorm–a mystery weekend at a Charleston plantation–hits a few bumps. For one, her "corpse" has passed out on pain pills. One guest is a cat. And the owner of the house walks in, claiming their lease is invalid.Luckily, Meg's got a persuasive bent and she sweet-talks Matt Rossi into becoming the new corpse. With that item checked off, she's ready to move on. Until she discovers the uptight, controlling corpse refuses to stay murdered and has just turned her plans for the weekend upside down.And then he starts demanding some other rights….
Dear Reader,
I’m a Court TV and crime-drama junkie. I also learned from my family that laughter is an essential ingredient in life. Call me weird, you won’t be the first. But I have this horrible problem with wanting to inject humor into everything. In fact, when I first began submitting work to publishers, they kept telling me that I made them laugh in inappropriate places.
Trust me, I took the hint, and decided murder and laughter didn’t mix. Then I got feisty. There had to be a happy medium. Thus, Without a Clue was born, where I could have a murder mystery that’s gone horribly wrong. Or wonderfully right, if you’re a lover of lovers.
So this book is a nod to all of the things that float my boat. Love, laughter, murder, mayhem and a mystery with no possible solution except to decide everyone’s guilty of something.
I wish you all plenty of love, plenty of mayhem, plenty of reading and plenty of fun!
Trish Jensen
“What now?” Matt asked, his voice a little gravelly as he turned from the open doorway in the bedroom
“We…uh, explore the secret passageway?”
He sort of liked that Meg put it in the form of a question. It left open other possibilities.
Matt checked his watch. “Probably not enough time right now. We have to get me ready to be murdered.”
Her eyes took on a wicked light. “Now the good times are starting to roll.”
“A guy could develop a complex,” he said, but he let her go.
She showed him how to close the secret passageway again, and they returned to the bedroom suite.
“Let’s check the weapon,” Meg said, reaching for the stage knife.
“Bloodthirsty little wench, aren’t you?”
She smiled. “You betcha.”
Without a Clue
Trish Jensen
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Trish Jensen once wanted to be famous. But she decided to be a writer instead.
Life is still sweet. She lives in the gorgeous mountains of central Pennsylvania with the love of her life, Ross, and the banes of her existence, dog Cassie and cat Foxy.
E-mail is welcome at trishjensen@earthlink.net. Or you are welcome to yell at her editor at the Harlequin address. Send snail mail c/o MTH, 233 Broadway, Suite 1001, New York, NY 10279.
This book is dedicated with much love to a bunch of loopy women who help me wake up with a smile every single day. Humor is such a powerful thing. Thank you, ladies (you, of course, know who you are) for empowering me constantly.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
1
“OUR CORPSE IS DRUNK.”
Megan Renshaw glanced up from the script before her. Her assistant, Tina Brown, stood at the entrance to the study of the old Charleston plantation. “Pardon me?”
Tina stomped farther into the room, hands planted on slim hips. “You heard me. Our corpse has arrived. And he’s high as a kite.”
Megan sat back and dropped her pen. “Well, he has time to sober up. The paying guests don’t arrive until Friday.”
“Acement truck could land on that man’s head and he wouldn’t feel it.”
“This isn’t a problem,” Megan said, sliding back her chair and standing. “We’ll get Glenda to pour some coffee down him.”
Tina scowled. “Drunk and drunker.”
Megan checked her watch. “Already? It’s not even three.”
“She’s been using the ‘two for you and one for me’ method while experimenting with the Marsala sauce for tomorrow night’s veal.”
Megan winced. “Do we need to buy more Marsala?”
Tina’s frown deepened. “Only if she adds it to the eggs again tomorrow morning.”
Megan laughed as she headed to the door. “So that’s what that flavor was this morning.”
Tina followed, hot on her heels. “Remind me again why we keep her?”
“You mean other than the fact that she makes a crème brûlée to die for?”
“Only after she’s cracked open the brandy.” They headed down the hall to the front foyer of the mansion. “It also doesn’t hurt she’s the boss’s cousin,” Tina said under her breath.
Grinning, Megan replied, “Doesn’t hurt a bit.”
Tina scowled at her. “This weekend hasn’t even begun and already we’ve got half the staff blitzed. I smell disaster.”
Tina always smelled disaster. “Not exactly half the staff. We’re still waiting on our butler, our chambermaid and four of our ‘invited guests.’ I’m certain at least one of them will be sober.”
“You’re inhumanly unflappable, Meg,” Tina grumbled. “Does anything ever faze you?”
Megan refrained from mentioning that she hadn’t taken being left at the altar all that well four years ago. Of course, by the next day she’d decided Mike had done her a huge favor. And right now she was frankly ecstatic. If she’d married Mike, she’d probably be a stay-at-home mother by now, instead of special events coordinator for Big Adventures Travel.
And she loved her job. Adored it. True, crises like this one arose on a regular basis, but that’s what kept the job interesting. And challenging.
This weekend was the most important event to date, career-wise, though. It was the launch of Big Adventures’s murder mystery theme package. It was also her baby. She’d presented the idea to her boss, Roy Lucas, a year ago. He’d been skeptical that she’d be able to find enough people who met the requirements necessary to make the venture profitable. By her count, the clients only needed two. A love of a good whodunit and nice, fat wallets.
“The guy isn’t going to be in any shape to walk through dress rehearsal tonight,” Tina muttered.
“What’s to rehearse? He gives one speech at the beginning of supper, then disappears until he’s found dead.”
They entered the large marbled foyer, and Meg immediately spotted their corpse slouching on a receiving couch, blowing at the fronds of a potted palm. By the slackness of his jaw and the glaze in his brown eyes, she realized Tina hadn’t been exaggerating. The man was sloshed. Meg would have to call the agency next week and request sober actors from here on out. She didn’t think that was asking too much.
She sifted through her brain trying to come up with the man’s name. He’d been hired to play Lionel De Wynter, the supposed owner of this mansion, and the host for the supper where the mystery began.
That’s right, Terence Brogan. Formerly a Shakespearean actor, lately reduced to bit TV parts and commercials. Even stoned, he exuded an imperious air that would work well in his role as the evil corporate raider, about to announce to his “guests” his nefarious scheme.
His hair was graying gracefully, and his eyebrows held a sinister bent. His Roman nose gave him the natural look of a snob. Perfect. Just as soon as he stopped drooling.
“Mr. Brogan?” Meg said, stopping before him and thrusting out her hand. “I’m Megan Renshaw.”
Although the two had talked on the phone several times—most of which were spent with him dissecting his motivation for playing a dead guy—this was Terence Brogan’s first job for Big Adventures. Possibly his last if he always had this much trouble struggling to his feet and focusing. Instead of shaking her outstretched hand, he grasped it, turned it palm down and almost plowed into her as he began to bend down, thought better of it, and instead lifted it to his lips to press a gallantly drunken—and thankfully not slobbery—kiss upon her skin.
When he finally managed to connect after a couple of aborted attempts, his foggy eyes swept over her and his palm went to his breastbone. “‘She walksh in be-beauty, like the night,’” he intoned, “‘as if all the world were his stage. Of cloudlesh climes and st-starry nights; And all that’s best of dark and night…’” He stopped, looking momentarily confused. “Wait, wait, that should be ‘bright. All that’s best of dark and bright.’“
Much as she enjoyed a good Byron poem, Meg didn’t have all day. “That’s lovely. Truly. What a very dear man you are. And that delivery! Why, I knew straight off, just from your photo and impressive résumé, that you were quite a catch.” She waved in Tina’s direction. “And this is my assistant, Tina Brown.”
“A pleasure, madam,” the actor said, without moving his head an iota in Tina’s direction.
“Tina, why don’t you take Mr. Brogan to the kitchen and offer him some of Glenda’s wonderful coffee, while Timmy takes Mr. Brogan’s suitcase—” that’s when she noticed the steamer trunk, the large suitcase and the industrial size makeup case flanking the man “—er, while Timmy and I take his luggage to his room.”
Thank goodness the mansion sported an elevator that ran to all three floors.
Brogan’s eyes widened a moment, and once again his palm dramatically covered his heart. “Why, madam, are you under the mish-mistaken impression that I am inebriated?”
Tina snorted.
“You’re not?” Meg said dubiously. If this was sober, they were in even bigger trouble.
“Sh-certainly not! I’m a professional, I’ll have you know.”
“Of course you are,” she rushed to assure him. “A recent blow to the head, perhaps?”
He looked mildly offended, but shook his head and his hand came up to cover his jaw. “Emergency root canal shurgery.”
Meg blew out a relieved breath. “Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that. The Novocain hasn’t worn off, I take it.”
“I had the shurgery Monday. However, it’sh still quite painful.”
Terrific. Pain pills. If she couldn’t talk the man into putting them away for the rest of the weekend, she might have to sneak into his room and steal them. It wouldn’t do for the first corpse of her first murder mystery weekend not to be able to say his lines clearly, although she had the feeling he’d make a believable stiff.
That was her last thought just before Terence Brogan’s eyes rolled to the back of his head, and he pitched forward, straight into her arms.
MATT ROSSI WAS RIDING OUT the biggest endorphin rush in his entire thirty-six-year life. Catching the touchdown pass that won his high school the state championship his senior year had nothing on this. Getting inside Nina Chambers’s panties in eleventh grade had nothing on this. Hell, making his first million dollars at the age of thirty-two had had nothing on this.
As he drummed his thumbs on the steering wheel of his vintage blue Mustang convertible, in beat with the music of Harry Connick, Jr. blaring from his speakers, Matt decided he was definitely the master of his fate. The keeper of his destiny. The maker of his dreams.
Yesterday he’d signed a land development deal so huge and so profitable he could never work another day in his life and he’d still have money to spare when he died at a hundred. Even with the bunch of kids he planned on having. Even with lavishing his wife with expensive gifts every day of their marriage.
His bubble burst just a tad at that. In truth, he didn’t have a wife yet. Or any kids that he knew about for that matter. But now that this deal had been successfully completed, it was time to move on down his checklist.
Graduate high school. Check.
Earn a college scholarship. Check.
Graduate college. Check.
Work hard for several years and save and scrape. Check.
Open own real estate development company. Check.
Make a fortune. Check.
Start a family. No go.
Not yet, anyway, although in truth he’d been awfully busy checking off all those other items to really begin an honest search for Ms. Right. He’d kept his eyes peeled over the years, just in case she popped into his life at any given moment. But so far, it was still a no go. He’d correct that now. He was taking time off from work to search in that systematic way he approached every challenge he tackled.
And really, his standards weren’t out in left field, either. All he was asking for was an intelligent, funny, beautiful, sexy, orderly woman who was interested in settling down and making babies. Lots and lots of babies.
He wanted a houseful of them. He’d grown up the only son of “Brick” and Maria Rossi, both of whom had worked tirelessly; his father as a bricklayer and his mother a cleaning lady. Consequently he’d been left alone much of the time. Too much of the time. What he wouldn’t have given for younger brothers and sisters to fill the void, to be companions. And his personal slaves.
No kid of his was going to grow up an only child. Therefore his wife would have to agree to a houseful of them. Of course, he also enjoyed peace and solitude, so she’d have to be good at keeping them quiet, too. Noise and chaos drove him crazy.
As he reached the outskirts of Charleston, he conjured a vision of a wife and kids filling the Charleston mansion he’d invested in at an auction three years ago. He’d originally checked it out as merely another good investment. But the first time he’d laid eyes on the Southern Georgian, he knew it was perfect for his future family. The mansion was huge, with seventeen bedrooms and two guest cottages out back. He could produce a whole passel of children without having everyone tripping over one another. It’d be big and peaceful and orderly.
Smiling, he made the left onto Magnolia Lane, the mile-long drive that led to his, only his home. No pesky neighbors to contend with. Another plus.
Whistling, he enjoyed the secluded solitude the huge live oaks dripping with Spanish moss afforded him. Yes, indeed, he’d chosen well. He certainly hoped the Realtor maintaining the place had made certain the cleaning service was doing their job. He wasn’t into dust.
His whistling stopped in mid-toot when he emerged from the tunnel of foliage and passed through the brick gates, and into the mansion’s cul de sac. There had to be ten cars parked in his driveway! What the hell?
Pulling in to the first available spot, he cut the engine and practically leapt from the car. A scowl tugged at his lips as he passed car after trespassing car. It grew even fiercer when he looked up the steps between the giant columns to find the oak double doors thrown wide open.
Racing up the stairs two at a time, all kinds of thoughts were scrambling through his head. Especially the one of how he was about to murder a Realtor.
He reached the door and stopped dead in his tracks. The sight that greeted him nearly made his eyes bug out.
Chaos reigned.
2
MEG WAVED as best she could at their new arrival. He looked a little dumbfounded, which was probably natural, considering she was using an unconscious man’s hand to deliver the greeting. But her corpse was her only tool at the moment. The rest of his sprawled self had the rest of her sprawled self plastered to the marble floor.
“I’ll be right with you,” she kind of grunted, as she heaved with all her might until Mr. Brogan rolled off her body and ended up spread-eagled on his back.
Now another dilemma presented itself. How to gracefully rise from the floor in a skirt that wasn’t constructed to give much leeway unless she hiked it up around her thighs. So thinking quickly, she rolled onto her stomach pushed to her knees, then one leg at a time got to her feet.
She ran a hand through her hair before turning around to face the newest guest. For some reason his lips were slightly parted and he was staring at her midsection. She had the feeling he’d just taken in an eyeful of her butt poked high in the air.
She jumped over Terence, her hand outstretched. “Hi, I’m Megan. Are you the butler?”
“Excuse me?”
“One of the paid guests?”
“Excuse me?!”
Meg dropped her hand, seeing as he looked too dumbfounded to shake it. He was really cute, but apparently a little dim. “Are you lost?” she suggested. That was a better option than an escapee from a mental institution. Last time she checked, they didn’t have any straitjackets on hand.
His brown eyes cleared a little and he shook his head. “No, but you must be. I’m Matt Rossi and this is my property.”
Meg took a step back, took a deep breath, then plastered a smile on her face. “Thank you so much for renting it to us.”
“I didn’t rent it to you.”
“Well, um, yes, you did.”
“I think I would know, don’t you?”
Okay, he wasn’t all that cute. Well, he was, but in a downer sort of way. “We signed a contract.”
“Who are we? I know I didn’t sign anything.”
Terence Brogan began to moan pitifully, and Meg glanced around to see all the witnesses frozen like statues, including Tina. This wasn’t good. “How about we go to my office and talk about this?”
Both of his brows lifted. “Your office?”
Nope, he wasn’t in the least bit cute. His hair was too black and his jaw was too square and his nose was crooked. Meg conceded that his mouth was sexy, but what came out of it wasn’t. “Yes, my office. At least for the duration of our…of the lease.”
“Well, then, by all means, let’s go to your office.”
MATT WAS FLOORED. It had been like walking into a Laurel and Hardy movie that was freeze-framed. Everybody who’d been in motion had gone still, and the one still person had arisen from the debris of the wreckage and taken charge.
He needed to regroup fast. Except, the woman who had risen from the carnage had a smile that could scramble eggs. And his eggs needed to stay intact. As far as he could tell, his home had been invaded without his consent. And apparently this brain scrambler was claiming they had legal permission to invade. If she was right, there was going to be one hurtin’ Realtor in Charleston.
“Follow me,” the woman said, as if he needed a guide.
Gladly, he decided after catching the view.
She led him down the maze of hallways to the study. His study. Which she had confiscated and turned into her office.
He seemed to vaguely take in that she was chatting pleasantly the entire time. But scrambling did strange things to his brain because all he was digesting were words like “murder” and “guests.” He wasn’t into murder as a rule and he most definitely wasn’t into guests. Any guests.
They reached the study and she took command of the desk as if she owned it, smiling while she offered him the guest chair.
If she hadn’t used the smile, he might have tossed her straight out the bay window. But her mouth and face were weapons he had a hard time overcoming.
She had rust-brown hair that fell in wisps to her jaw, and gray eyes that defied description. She smelled good. And that butt moved right. He’d never known there were wrongs and rights in butt-moving before, but he knew right when he saw it swaying in front of him.
Nonetheless, she was an intruder, and therefore had to be considered the enemy.
“Mr…?”
“Rossi. Matt Rossi. And this is my house, Ms…?”
“Renshaw. But call me Meg. And we’re thrilled to be able to use this spectacular house for our mystery weekend.”
“Don’t be so thrilled. You have no right to be here.”
“As I said, we’ve signed a lease,” she said, rooting through a file drawer.
“That my agent had no right to draw up.”
She pulled it out, still serene as all get-out. “He told us he has the authority to sign off on anything to do with the maintenance of this house.”
She was right, but he wasn’t willing to concede that easily. “Renting it to intruders technically is not maintenance.”
“We’re not intruders. We paid for the privilege to use it.”
That fact finally hit him. “Is this your first time here?”
“Yes, it is,” she said, smiling even brighter. “And it’s perfect.”
Matt took the lease from her hands and perused it. “You know, I could have you evicted,” he said, between clenched teeth.
She nodded. “You go right ahead and begin eviction proceedings first thing in the morning. By my calculations we’ll have been gone at least three weeks by the time they come to toss our butts out.”
Right again. As long as they’d signed the lease in good faith, it would probably take weeks before he could legally have them kicked to the curb. This wasn’t good. “Okay, the lease says that you pay for cleanup and any and all damages that might occur during your occupancy.”
Her mouth popped open and she waved at the papers. “You barely glanced at that thing. How do you know that?”
Matt shrugged. “I read fast.”
“Wow, that’s pretty impressive.”
He’d question her sincerity, but her smile actually did look genuinely impressed. And he knew she knew her rights, so she wasn’t trying to butter him up. Still, he felt a twinge of pride. “Here’s the deal, I’m not leaving. I’m staying to protect my investment.”
Ms. Renshaw nodded. “You’ll have a great time. And it only costs—”
“Don’t even try it.”
“—not a dime for you! Have fun on us.”
“And I, of course, will be staying in the master bedroom,” he added, trying to grab back some control over this untenable situation.
She pursed her lips and her brow furrowed. “I’m afraid that’s not possible. The murder victim is going to be the owner of the mansion. It wouldn’t do to have him found in a guest room.”
“Kill him off in the kitchen.”
She shook her head, and the light from the bay window showcased every single nuance of highlight in her hair. “Owners of mansions don’t generally even know where the kitchen is.”
He was about to argue until he realized that even he wasn’t exactly sure where the kitchen was. “Off the dining room?” he ventured to guess.
“Do you even know where the dining room is, Mr. Rossi?” she asked, sweet as cream pudding.
“Right 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 prefer to call them adventurous. With open minds.”
He had the feeling there was an implied insult in there, even though not a hint of it showed in her serene expression. “I don’t know. Playing a ghost? Would I have to wear a white sheet or anything?”
Meg laughed, a tinkling sound that was as soothing as soft music. If one liked soft music.
“Then what?”
She held up her hands as if framing him out behind a camera. “I see you in the same smoking jacket and silk pajama bottoms you’re found dead in. But the clothes would be much more tattered and still blood-spattered.”
“What about makeup?” he asked suspiciously.
“If anything, we’ll just make your face and hands a lot more pale. And the way we’d set it up is you’ll always show up in a dimly lit room, so you’ll look not from this world.”
“I don’t know,” he said, forcing skepticism into his voice he wasn’t exactly feeling. Oddly enough, it sounded like a challenge, and Matt thrived on challenge.
“Do you have anything better?” she asked, eyebrows raised.
“Yes. You all relocate.”
“Not an option. Try again.”
Matt felt the same exhilaration he usually received haggling over a real estate deal, and it was befuddling—and different. After all, this was puff-ball stuff. And instead of wanting to break down his adversary, he sort of wanted to see her rise to the occasion. Not to win, of course. Losing wasn’t an option for him. But to give him some fun in the process.
Then again, he’d already lost one battle to her. But that wasn’t technically his mistake. His mistake was trusting the man he’d hired to oversee this property. That would be rectified shortly.
“How about if you cast me in another part that puts me in the middle of things the entire weekend, instead of the dead guy?”
He could swear her shoulders drooped just a little, and his heart kind of pinched.
“I could do that,” she said. “But all of the other roles have been cast.”
“So, recast.”
“I can’t ask them to learn a new role on this short notice. It’s just not fair. And I’m not sure of the rules, but they might charge me extra for it. Besides, that means you relinquish your bedroom.”
This woman might be a little crafty, but he still figured she didn’t have a clue what she was doing. “You don’t have a clue what you’re doing, do you?”
The shoulders straightened and stiffened, which kind of made him want to cheer.
“Listen, things were going just fine until you came along.”
“Right, your dead guy was basically DOA.”
“I could have found a way around that without you. You just seemed…convenient, in a really inconvenient kind of way. I’m trying to accommodate your desires while still pulling off this gig. And you’re really beginning to tick me off.” She paused for a breath, but before he could retort she chimed in some more. “I have the lease. As far as I can tell, you are the one trespassing. You could be a drifter or a squatter or something for all I know. So you can choose one of the options I’ve given you, or you can come up with one of your own which I’ll approve, or you can stick it and just leave. Work with me or you’re dead weight.”
Whoa! Smiling and grinning and beaming and cajoling, she was beautiful. Pissed off she was absolutely stunning. Her eyes turned a dark, firecracker silver, her cheeks turned into flaming spots. Even her hair seemed to get mad at him, tossing and shimmering like molten lava.
Deadly if messed with.
But still funny. “A hobo who drove up in a Mustang?”
“Could have been stolen.”
“In these clothes?”
“Stolen.”
He was suddenly in the position of having to prove himself, which felt a little ludicrous. How had she turned the tables on him? “Want to see my driver’s license?”
“Could have been forged.”
“Talk to my lawyer?”
“Could be your bookie.”
“Audit my taxes?”
“You mean you’ve actually filed?”
Okay, now cheeky had morphed into insulting. He was trying to prove himself to a squatter who in the last half hour had claimed she had the right to invade his home and evict him at the same time. This was reaching critical mass on his acceptable meter. She might be pretty, but she was taking the upper hand without him ever having figured out how, and that was unacceptable. But he wasn’t quite sure what the next step would be. He’d encountered crooks and shady dealers and wretched lawyers, but he’d never had to deal with an adversary who demanded with such conviction that she was within her rights while he was a possible fraud.
He squelched all of the possible courses of action he could take to ruin her uppity attitude and her weekend, swallowed his pride and said, “I’ll play the ghost.”
Her anger seemed to melt from her eyes. She smiled. “Thank you,” she said softly. “And I’m sorry. I really almost never have a temper.”
Somehow he doubted that.
Once again she thrust out her hand. “I promise, you’ll receive industry wages.”
He almost choked. But he kept a straight face and said, “I should hope so. I don’t work for free. And since I’m pulling double duty…”
“You’ll get the same wage as everyone else. Scale. And be glad for it, seeing as I didn’t ask to hire you. Don’t push it.”
He wanted to grin so badly. “Well, technically you did hire me.”
“That was a choice of getting rid of you or putting your carcass to use.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “My carcass is at your disposal.”
“Don’t I wish,” she muttered, but then grinned. “Just teasing of course.”
He wasn’t so sure. Didn’t Ted Bundy have an engaging smile?
“All right,” she said, her voice going all practical again, “I’m going to have to do some rewrites tonight, before I can get you your script. How about if I have it delivered to your room by nine? That should give you time to memorize by—”
“Nine-fifteen.”
“Sure. Yes, well, let’s hope so.”
“I have a better idea,” Matt said, from out of nowhere that he could figure out. “How about if we meet for supper and go over the script together? I’d love to help shape my ghost character.”
Meg also looked gorgeous flustered. He wondered if she’d ever be able to play a corpse because she’d probably look too good then, too. No one would ever believe it.
“I don’t think—”
“I want a say in my ghost,” he said.
She stared at him for a moment, then nodded. “Okay, a dinner meeting. In here?”
“Let’s do it from the suite adjoined to my bedroom. I’d like to work out logistics.”
She stared at him, narrow-eyed.
Holding up his hands, Matt assured her. “Ms. Renshaw, I have no designs on you. But whatever I do, I want it to be done right. And if I’m dying up there and clues will be planted up there, I want to talk them through.” When she still continued to look skeptical, he said, “You’re welcome to bring a bodyguard. How about Tina?”
Meg stared at him and laughed. “It’s a deal, Mr….”
“De Wynter. Just call me Lionel De Wynter.”
VIOLIN STRINGS had nothing on Meg’s nerves. Her career depended on the success of this weekend, and so far everything was shaping up about as well as her wedding day to Mike.
A disaster in the making is what it was. Her dead guy was gone, and in his place she had an overbearing, angry homeowner who was trying to call his own shots on her project.
So she’d spent all day feverishly rewriting much of the script to incorporate the fact that the man didn’t look all that sinister. Sinfully sexy, maybe, but turning him into the twenty-first century Genghis Khan wasn’t going to be easy, given he wanted to play the part sans makeup.
And it was hard to conceive of anyone wanting to rid the world of this particular male specimen. Climb into bed with him, maybe. But shoot him in bed? No.
He wanted to talk over the script. He’d had to cancel the supper meeting—which gave her a vague sense of disappointment—because an important business call had come through. So she’d had to write one herself, fast. And she wasn’t a writer, she was a party planner for a travel agency.
Was it only six hours ago she’d loved her job? Right now she’d happily flip flapjacks at the local diner. At least those people would appreciate her efforts.
She blew a strand of hair off of her forehead, just as there was a knock on her door. “It’s open,” she said, with not much conviction.
Tina walked in. Just who she wanted to see. The voice of doom and gloom.
“We have a problem.”
“This is news? What now?”
“Lionel De Wynter’s personal assistant has just run off with the pool boy.”
“They’re supposed to run off together. It’s in the script. Maybe they’re rehearsing?”
“If they are, they’re really into their roles. They just called from Las Vegas.”
“Oh, boy.”
“Let’s do the same thing. Blow this pop stand and head to Vegas.”
Meg tsked. “You have no imagination. We can get through this.”
“Tell me how.”
Meg looked at Tina speculatively. “Feel like playing the part of a personal assistant?”
Tina’s hands raised defensively, and she began backing up slowly toward the door. “Not a chance, boss. I’m the behind-the-scenes person, remember?”
Sighing, Meg closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. There had to be a solution. One just wasn’t popping into her head at this very moment.
Tina squeaked, and Meg glanced up sharply. Apparently an obstacle at the threshold to the office had blocked Tina’s escape.
That obstacle had gorgeous brown eyes and dark hair and a mouth that screamed “kiss me.” Especially when he had that lazy smile tugging at his lips.
“Excuse me,” Tina managed, then ducked under Mr. Rossi’s arm and skedaddled. That was kind of a strange, skittish reaction from fairly bold and stoic Tina. And it kind of irritated Meg that this man could intimidate her assistant like no one—not even Meg—could.
Rossi glanced to his left, watching Tina make good her escape, then turned back to Meg. With a barely concealed smirk, he strolled toward the desk. Raising his eyebrows at all of the pages littering the desktop, he drawled, “Problems?”
“Nothing we can’t handle,” she said, trying to keep a defensive, hysterical tone from her voice.
“I hear my personal assistant jumped ship.”
“Are you always into eavesdropping, Mr. Rossi?”
“Only when I happen to be standing at an open door, trying to get your attention.”
Meg sighed. “Yes, we lost a couple more to the whims of passion.” She snorted. “Never have seen the merit in that, but what can you do?”
“I know what you can do.”
Meg’s heart tripped a little, because the instantaneous list of things she’d like to do were a little scandalous. And shocking to even herself.
She swallowed and tried for bland. “Really? What would that be?” She picked up her water glass and sipped.
“Why don’t you play my personal assistant?”
Water splooshed all over her desk, and she choked.
The man moved quickly around the desk and began thumping her back. “You all right?”
Meg grabbed tissues from a box and wiped her watering eyes, then mouth, then the surface of the desk. “Sure. Fine. Really.”
He stopped thumping her, but began stroking her back in what should have been a soothing manner, but was failing miserably at soothing her.
His huge hands were warm and gentle and whispered seduction, even in such an innocent act.
Meg didn’t even like this guy. Even though he’d agreed to step in and help out when he didn’t even want them here, he was just an additional monkey wrench in what was turning out to be a disastrous venture. He wasn’t the enemy—Meg didn’t believe in having enemies—but he wasn’t a friend, either.
So why was his touch so electrifying?
Meg wasn’t into being electrocuted, either.
Finally she stood to get away from the current. “You’re joking, right?”
“Why not? You have to be around all the time to oversee things anyway. If you’re not part of the action, you’re merely a distraction. Do it.”
“Mr. Rossi—”
“My name is Matt. Call me Mr. Rossi one more time, and I’m tossing all of your butts out of here.”
She’d be mad, but she couldn’t quite get there when he was smiling. “Fine. Call me Ms. Renshaw one more time and I’ll personally rewrite this so that it’s your personal secretary who gets to kill you off.”
“Does that mean you’ll do it…Meg?”
She chewed on her lower lip. “Fine. Actually, it does make some sort of sense.”
His smile grew wider, and his eyes sparkled. “Great. This should be fun.”
Meg clamped her jaw shut to keep it from dropping. He actually sounded like he meant it. “I sure hope so,” she finally managed.
He leaned toward her, and she had to drop her head back. That’s when she noticed just how tall he really was. She was not a short woman.
“So tell me, Meg, am I sleeping with my personal assistant?”
4
“SINCE WHEN is the personal assistant sleeping with De Wynter?” Tina asked Meg, reading through the player profiles.
Meg never blushed. She prided herself on that. So she was certain the heat in her cheeks was simply from the heat in the room.
“You’re blushing, Meg.”
“I, umm, just thought I’d add a twist to the, umm, dynamics.”
“Right.”
Until this moment, Meg had been happily deluding herself into believing that she’d added that element just to throw off Mr. Matthew Rossi. He’d been irritating her all last evening with lists, acting like he was organizing this event instead of she.
But if she were to be brutally honest, a niggling of a fantasy had crept in to her obviously—yet heretofore unrealized—warped mind. The thought of having an affair with the man was…
Ridiculous. This wasn’t like her at all. One time she’d read a study that most men sized up women within seconds of meeting them and classified them as “yes” or “no” in the sexual sense. She’d snorted at the time. Men. It figured. She knew it had taken one look at Christie to make Mike decide a walk down the aisle with Meg wasn’t in the plan. Well, no matter. Good riddance to Mike.
She couldn’t exactly feel that way about Christie, though, considering Christie was Meg’s sister. And Meg was long used to Christie stealing Meg’s boyfriends. It just would have helped if Christie hadn’t decided to do the stealing a day before Meg’s wedding.
Then again, after the wedding would have been worse. So Mike and Christie had done her a favor. That was her story, and she was sticking to it.
Men were basically dogs, but women sometimes helped by wagging their tails just right.
Yet, here she found herself doing almost exactly that. Not that her sizing up Matt Rossi sexually happened in the first couple of seconds. Well, maybe. But she shouldn’t be thinking of him in that way at all. There was nothing redeeming about him save his looks—that short, dark, mussed hair with those intense brown eyes—and she hated that this alone was enough to make her think lascivious thoughts.
Meg went for the mind. She didn’t think about men that way until she found their brains sexy. That was her story, and she was sticking to it.
Until Rossi.
This was an aberration, she decided. One she could just brush aside. He might be intelligent, but in a really annoying way. His brain was not sexy. So being hot for that gorgeous body was a rare, stray, hormone-charged anomaly. That was her story and she was sticking to it.
“When you drop down from the clouds, let me know,” she vaguely heard.
Meg shook her head and looked up. Tina was grinning. That was ominous. Tina never grinned unless she’d just kicked a guy between his rocks and his hard place.
“I was just thinking about a new plot twist,” Meg said.
“Like doing it with the murder victim?”
“Tina—”
“Just an observation,” Tina said, examining her nails.
“Well, observe something else.”
“Like how gorgeous Mr. Murder is?”
“Is he? I hadn’t noticed.”
“Oh, good. Then you won’t mind if I flirt with him a little.”
“Do it and die, babe.”
“Ha! I knew it!”
Meg was mortified at her knee-jerk reaction. “I’m just saying don’t mess with the guests.”
“Right.”
“Do you want to mess with me right now? And I might mention I’m PMSing.”
“I’m out of here.”
“Good decision.”
The problem was, Meg wasn’t PMSing. Unless PMS stood for “Please, Matt, Sex.” Which was dumb as dumb could be. Sure, he was good-looking. But he was also infuriating. The man had walked in and honestly believed he could take over. Just because he owned the place, he thought he could just waltz in and take control.
Control. That was the word. He was into control. Which made him so unappealing in the sexiest kind of way. Her father had been a control freak, too. Until her mother had died when Meg was ten, Jeanie Renshaw had been a buffer between father and children. But once she was gone the household had become a boot camp. And Meg had been the designated sergeant, being the eldest.
Learning to improvise had been so necessary. Checklists and protocols had become evil before she’d even turned into a teenager.
A rap on her office door brought her head up and her brain down from the clouds of memories. She looked at Mr. Checklist himself, standing in the doorway, busy scribbling notes on a legal pad. Great. More lists.
Meg took a moment to realize she didn’t appear all that professional in jeans and a Black Death European tour T-shirt. But they were under the gun and she had to be prepared to do anything from paperwork to housework.
She sighed. “Don’t come in, Mr. Rossi.”
“Too late,” he said, strolling through the door.
She didn’t think she could stuff that legal pad down his throat, but she’d love to give it a shot. “Look, you’re the dead guy. You’ve got one major speech and then you’re gone until you return as the ghost. From then on, you wing it. We’ve been through this.”
“I think we should be caught making love before the murder.”
Meg was never speechless. Right now her vocal chords had gone south. “Huh?” was about as much noise as she could conjure.
He looked at her with something very akin to pity. “You. Me. In bed.”
She needed to swallow. In fact, breathing might be a good idea, too. Fantasizing was out of the question, even if her brain was malfunctioning and doing it anyway.
“I’m—” she kind of squeaked, then cleared her throat “—not sure why that’s necessary.”
“Because we’re having an affair,” he said, tapping his notes. “We need to be caught.”
“I’m not certain that’s necessary,” she repeated. Although it sounded fun in theory.
He sighed and dropped his pad on the desk. “Do you want this weekend to be successful?”
“Well, yes.”
“Then it needs to have a little ‘oomph.’”
She swallowed. Hard. “Oomphing” sounded a little naughty. And nice.
“And you have to kill me.”
“Excuse me?”
“You are my killer.”
“The maid is your killer.”
He looked utterly exasperated. Although he looked really good exasperated, she felt she should own that emotion at the moment. He was driving her nuts.
With the patience of a saint trying to reform a sinner, he said slowly, “What motivation does the maid have for murdering her boss? That puts her out of a job.”
Talk about motivation. She was becoming more motivated by the moment to be his killer. “She’s having an affair with one of the men that you are promising to ruin.”
He shook his head. “Too many affairs happening. Just you and me.”
Meg tossed down her pen. “Why don’t you just rewrite the entire script?”
“As a matter of fact—”
Meg stood, knocking over her chair. “Stop right there. We are one day away from this production. The actors all have their scripts. You’re asking them to change at this point?”
“It’s not a huge change.”
“You’re changing the murderer. That sounds pretty drastic to me.”
“Wouldn’t you like to kill me?” he asked, a twinkle in his brown eyes.
“Right now? Absolutely. And I’m a pacifist.”
“Good. Then you won’t have to fake it.” He sat down and laid all of his notes between them, sideways. “Now here’s how I see it…”
Meg looked down at a detailed checklist.
Murdering him was not going to be a problem.
MATT SPENT the rest of the day checking off, one-by-one, the items on his list. He knew Meg was seriously hacked off at him, but she’d surprised him by going with the flow. He knew if the situation were reversed, he’d be furious. He didn’t like people changing his game plans. He also recognized he was doing exactly that to hers, and it was pretty intrusive. Unfortunately, it was just who he was.
Matt couldn’t pinpoint exactly what explosive event in his life had turned him into the man he was now. Not that it mattered. So far almost every goal he’d ever set he’d accomplished. So that was a good thing, right?
Except he didn’t feel triumphant about it all right now, and he didn’t know why. Megan Renshaw was exactly the type of woman who drove him crazy. She let any change in plan roll right off her back. She didn’t seem to care when things went wrong. She just amended her plans.
Take this morning, for instance. The cook had practically burned his kitchen down by experimenting with a flambé that obviously had a little too much fire power in it. Meg had walked in, calmly doused the flames with an extinguisher, then patted the woman and said, “It’ll be better next time.”
He’d about had a stroke. Meg sailed out of there as if the cook had simply put a little too much salt in the soup.
Matt had followed her, trying to keep from exploding. When he’d confronted her with “That woman is dangerous,” all she’d done was smile and say “I’ll keep an eye on her.”
There was something about Meg that was dangerous, too. And it wasn’t just that she found disasters amusing. Although that was part of it.
He wasn’t accustomed to being indulged. He was accustomed to being listened to. Having his plans followed.
And while Meg seemed willing to follow his game plan to a certain extent, twice she’d looked at one of his proposed changes and just grinned and said, “That’s cute. No.”
But she had given in on his suggestion that her character was having an affair with his character. He liked that. He wasn’t so sure that he was as enthusiastic at her cheerful willingness to kill him.
5
REHEARSAL WAS TURNING OUT to be an utter disaster. In a kind of funny way, Meg decided. Maybe they could turn this into a comedy. As it was right now, it would be a mystery if it actually worked.
Lori Benedict, the actress playing the maid, Molly, was running her lines with all the enthusiasm of a convict being walked to the gas chamber. She had been really relishing her role as the murderer, especially when she took one look at the victim, and she wasn’t happy with the change in plans.
The rest of the cast—which included the butler, three couples whose lives and livelihoods Lionel De Wynter would threaten to ruin, the homicide detective, Matt, and Meg—was still enthusiastic about the gig, but since so much of the script had changed, they were all a little confused.
Except for Rossi, of course, who’d studied his lines for about three and a half seconds before tossing down his script.
And although he was a godsend, his talent still irritated Meg. And she wasn’t quite sure why. Maybe because he kind of reminded her of Mike in a way. Mike, with his charm and looks and brains, seemed to have had it easy all of his life. He hadn’t had to work too hard at anything.
Now she didn’t know Matt well enough to make such a sweeping judgment about him like that, but so far he’d pretty much taken command without batting an eye, and had gotten his way with just about everything so far.
Even when she’d surprised him by agreeing to the plot twist that the two of them were having an affair, he’d just smiled as if she’d just dumped a floor full of Christmas presents under his tree.
She had drawn the line at the two of them getting caught in flagrante delicto, and he’d instantly erased the line, arguing that when suspicion was being cast her way, she could always protest that she had no motive, since she was madly in love with him.
“What is her motive?” the elegant elderly woman playing the better half of the Holmes family asked.
“He stinks in the sack,” Meg whispered, for his ears only. The smile she shot him was pure innocence.
His, on the other hand, turned a tad feral. But then he faced the woman who’d asked and said, “After years of faithful service, he’s about to terminate her both in the office and out. She’s furious. Of course, none of you as guests will be aware of that. If you follow your scripts and hit your cues, the paying guests will have to puzzle it out. So absolutely no hints except the ones we want them to discover.”
Meg crossed her arms at the “we” thing. She tried to think back on the exact moment she’d lost control of this weekend. As near as she could figure, it was the moment this man had stormed through the front door.
“Okay, folks, let’s go through the dinner scene one more time,” the idiot commanded. “You can use your scripts. But by tomorrow’s run-through, know your lines. And remember your time lines.”
Meg caught his eye and raised her brows.
He shrugged, then said with a slight smile, “Okay with you, boss?”
She had this fleeting need to overrule him, just for the sake of doing it, and to assert her authority to everyone in the room.
Unfortunately, her practical side said they needed to do exactly as he said. She just wished she’d said it first.
“One more thing,” she said. “Remember that you aren’t to acknowledge the guests in any way. As far as you’re concerned, they’re invisible.”
“That seems kind of un-Southern,” drawled the woman playing Agatha Bond, wife of Jim, the owner of a nationwide chain of bookstores. “We Southerners pride ourselves on our manners. You might not realize that, being a…you know.”
The woman made it sound like a curse. Which was pretty good, considering Agatha hailed from Cleveland. Meg gave her brownie points for staying in character. “They’re going to know you’ll be pretending not to see them. They won’t be upset.”
“It’s just…unseemly.”
Okay, there was “in character” and there was annoying. “Not to worry,” Meg said, “they’re all from New York.” They weren’t. “They’ll feel right at home.”
Meg felt a boatload of satisfaction when she heard Rossi choke on his Coke.
“WHY AM I BARGING INTO the master bedroom an hour after supper now?” the man playing Watson Holmes asked. “I thought I was supposed to be rifling through the bast—er, the Lord of the Manor’s desk then.”
Meg jumped in before Matt could explain in lurid detail. “You’re confronting him in a murderous rage. You’re furious that he’s just informed your wife that she either sells him her pipe and violin empire, or he’d see her go up in smoke, so to speak. But what you come upon is a little more interesting. You’re going to share what you discover with your wife, but she’s never been known to keep a secret, and will soon inform all of the other guests.”
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Trish Jensen
What do you mean your house?Since her aborted wedding, Meg Renshaw's thrown everything into her work. But her latest brainstorm–a mystery weekend at a Charleston plantation–hits a few bumps. For one, her "corpse" has passed out on pain pills. One guest is a cat. And the owner of the house walks in, claiming their lease is invalid.Luckily, Meg's got a persuasive bent and she sweet-talks Matt Rossi into becoming the new corpse. With that item checked off, she's ready to move on. Until she discovers the uptight, controlling corpse refuses to stay murdered and has just turned her plans for the weekend upside down.And then he starts demanding some other rights….
Dear Reader,
I’m a Court TV and crime-drama junkie. I also learned from my family that laughter is an essential ingredient in life. Call me weird, you won’t be the first. But I have this horrible problem with wanting to inject humor into everything. In fact, when I first began submitting work to publishers, they kept telling me that I made them laugh in inappropriate places.
Trust me, I took the hint, and decided murder and laughter didn’t mix. Then I got feisty. There had to be a happy medium. Thus, Without a Clue was born, where I could have a murder mystery that’s gone horribly wrong. Or wonderfully right, if you’re a lover of lovers.
So this book is a nod to all of the things that float my boat. Love, laughter, murder, mayhem and a mystery with no possible solution except to decide everyone’s guilty of something.
I wish you all plenty of love, plenty of mayhem, plenty of reading and plenty of fun!
Trish Jensen
“What now?” Matt asked, his voice a little gravelly as he turned from the open doorway in the bedroom
“We…uh, explore the secret passageway?”
He sort of liked that Meg put it in the form of a question. It left open other possibilities.
Matt checked his watch. “Probably not enough time right now. We have to get me ready to be murdered.”
Her eyes took on a wicked light. “Now the good times are starting to roll.”
“A guy could develop a complex,” he said, but he let her go.
She showed him how to close the secret passageway again, and they returned to the bedroom suite.
“Let’s check the weapon,” Meg said, reaching for the stage knife.
“Bloodthirsty little wench, aren’t you?”
She smiled. “You betcha.”
Without a Clue
Trish Jensen
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Trish Jensen once wanted to be famous. But she decided to be a writer instead.
Life is still sweet. She lives in the gorgeous mountains of central Pennsylvania with the love of her life, Ross, and the banes of her existence, dog Cassie and cat Foxy.
E-mail is welcome at trishjensen@earthlink.net. Or you are welcome to yell at her editor at the Harlequin address. Send snail mail c/o MTH, 233 Broadway, Suite 1001, New York, NY 10279.
This book is dedicated with much love to a bunch of loopy women who help me wake up with a smile every single day. Humor is such a powerful thing. Thank you, ladies (you, of course, know who you are) for empowering me constantly.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
1
“OUR CORPSE IS DRUNK.”
Megan Renshaw glanced up from the script before her. Her assistant, Tina Brown, stood at the entrance to the study of the old Charleston plantation. “Pardon me?”
Tina stomped farther into the room, hands planted on slim hips. “You heard me. Our corpse has arrived. And he’s high as a kite.”
Megan sat back and dropped her pen. “Well, he has time to sober up. The paying guests don’t arrive until Friday.”
“Acement truck could land on that man’s head and he wouldn’t feel it.”
“This isn’t a problem,” Megan said, sliding back her chair and standing. “We’ll get Glenda to pour some coffee down him.”
Tina scowled. “Drunk and drunker.”
Megan checked her watch. “Already? It’s not even three.”
“She’s been using the ‘two for you and one for me’ method while experimenting with the Marsala sauce for tomorrow night’s veal.”
Megan winced. “Do we need to buy more Marsala?”
Tina’s frown deepened. “Only if she adds it to the eggs again tomorrow morning.”
Megan laughed as she headed to the door. “So that’s what that flavor was this morning.”
Tina followed, hot on her heels. “Remind me again why we keep her?”
“You mean other than the fact that she makes a crème brûlée to die for?”
“Only after she’s cracked open the brandy.” They headed down the hall to the front foyer of the mansion. “It also doesn’t hurt she’s the boss’s cousin,” Tina said under her breath.
Grinning, Megan replied, “Doesn’t hurt a bit.”
Tina scowled at her. “This weekend hasn’t even begun and already we’ve got half the staff blitzed. I smell disaster.”
Tina always smelled disaster. “Not exactly half the staff. We’re still waiting on our butler, our chambermaid and four of our ‘invited guests.’ I’m certain at least one of them will be sober.”
“You’re inhumanly unflappable, Meg,” Tina grumbled. “Does anything ever faze you?”
Megan refrained from mentioning that she hadn’t taken being left at the altar all that well four years ago. Of course, by the next day she’d decided Mike had done her a huge favor. And right now she was frankly ecstatic. If she’d married Mike, she’d probably be a stay-at-home mother by now, instead of special events coordinator for Big Adventures Travel.
And she loved her job. Adored it. True, crises like this one arose on a regular basis, but that’s what kept the job interesting. And challenging.
This weekend was the most important event to date, career-wise, though. It was the launch of Big Adventures’s murder mystery theme package. It was also her baby. She’d presented the idea to her boss, Roy Lucas, a year ago. He’d been skeptical that she’d be able to find enough people who met the requirements necessary to make the venture profitable. By her count, the clients only needed two. A love of a good whodunit and nice, fat wallets.
“The guy isn’t going to be in any shape to walk through dress rehearsal tonight,” Tina muttered.
“What’s to rehearse? He gives one speech at the beginning of supper, then disappears until he’s found dead.”
They entered the large marbled foyer, and Meg immediately spotted their corpse slouching on a receiving couch, blowing at the fronds of a potted palm. By the slackness of his jaw and the glaze in his brown eyes, she realized Tina hadn’t been exaggerating. The man was sloshed. Meg would have to call the agency next week and request sober actors from here on out. She didn’t think that was asking too much.
She sifted through her brain trying to come up with the man’s name. He’d been hired to play Lionel De Wynter, the supposed owner of this mansion, and the host for the supper where the mystery began.
That’s right, Terence Brogan. Formerly a Shakespearean actor, lately reduced to bit TV parts and commercials. Even stoned, he exuded an imperious air that would work well in his role as the evil corporate raider, about to announce to his “guests” his nefarious scheme.
His hair was graying gracefully, and his eyebrows held a sinister bent. His Roman nose gave him the natural look of a snob. Perfect. Just as soon as he stopped drooling.
“Mr. Brogan?” Meg said, stopping before him and thrusting out her hand. “I’m Megan Renshaw.”
Although the two had talked on the phone several times—most of which were spent with him dissecting his motivation for playing a dead guy—this was Terence Brogan’s first job for Big Adventures. Possibly his last if he always had this much trouble struggling to his feet and focusing. Instead of shaking her outstretched hand, he grasped it, turned it palm down and almost plowed into her as he began to bend down, thought better of it, and instead lifted it to his lips to press a gallantly drunken—and thankfully not slobbery—kiss upon her skin.
When he finally managed to connect after a couple of aborted attempts, his foggy eyes swept over her and his palm went to his breastbone. “‘She walksh in be-beauty, like the night,’” he intoned, “‘as if all the world were his stage. Of cloudlesh climes and st-starry nights; And all that’s best of dark and night…’” He stopped, looking momentarily confused. “Wait, wait, that should be ‘bright. All that’s best of dark and bright.’“
Much as she enjoyed a good Byron poem, Meg didn’t have all day. “That’s lovely. Truly. What a very dear man you are. And that delivery! Why, I knew straight off, just from your photo and impressive résumé, that you were quite a catch.” She waved in Tina’s direction. “And this is my assistant, Tina Brown.”
“A pleasure, madam,” the actor said, without moving his head an iota in Tina’s direction.
“Tina, why don’t you take Mr. Brogan to the kitchen and offer him some of Glenda’s wonderful coffee, while Timmy takes Mr. Brogan’s suitcase—” that’s when she noticed the steamer trunk, the large suitcase and the industrial size makeup case flanking the man “—er, while Timmy and I take his luggage to his room.”
Thank goodness the mansion sported an elevator that ran to all three floors.
Brogan’s eyes widened a moment, and once again his palm dramatically covered his heart. “Why, madam, are you under the mish-mistaken impression that I am inebriated?”
Tina snorted.
“You’re not?” Meg said dubiously. If this was sober, they were in even bigger trouble.
“Sh-certainly not! I’m a professional, I’ll have you know.”
“Of course you are,” she rushed to assure him. “A recent blow to the head, perhaps?”
He looked mildly offended, but shook his head and his hand came up to cover his jaw. “Emergency root canal shurgery.”
Meg blew out a relieved breath. “Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that. The Novocain hasn’t worn off, I take it.”
“I had the shurgery Monday. However, it’sh still quite painful.”
Terrific. Pain pills. If she couldn’t talk the man into putting them away for the rest of the weekend, she might have to sneak into his room and steal them. It wouldn’t do for the first corpse of her first murder mystery weekend not to be able to say his lines clearly, although she had the feeling he’d make a believable stiff.
That was her last thought just before Terence Brogan’s eyes rolled to the back of his head, and he pitched forward, straight into her arms.
MATT ROSSI WAS RIDING OUT the biggest endorphin rush in his entire thirty-six-year life. Catching the touchdown pass that won his high school the state championship his senior year had nothing on this. Getting inside Nina Chambers’s panties in eleventh grade had nothing on this. Hell, making his first million dollars at the age of thirty-two had had nothing on this.
As he drummed his thumbs on the steering wheel of his vintage blue Mustang convertible, in beat with the music of Harry Connick, Jr. blaring from his speakers, Matt decided he was definitely the master of his fate. The keeper of his destiny. The maker of his dreams.
Yesterday he’d signed a land development deal so huge and so profitable he could never work another day in his life and he’d still have money to spare when he died at a hundred. Even with the bunch of kids he planned on having. Even with lavishing his wife with expensive gifts every day of their marriage.
His bubble burst just a tad at that. In truth, he didn’t have a wife yet. Or any kids that he knew about for that matter. But now that this deal had been successfully completed, it was time to move on down his checklist.
Graduate high school. Check.
Earn a college scholarship. Check.
Graduate college. Check.
Work hard for several years and save and scrape. Check.
Open own real estate development company. Check.
Make a fortune. Check.
Start a family. No go.
Not yet, anyway, although in truth he’d been awfully busy checking off all those other items to really begin an honest search for Ms. Right. He’d kept his eyes peeled over the years, just in case she popped into his life at any given moment. But so far, it was still a no go. He’d correct that now. He was taking time off from work to search in that systematic way he approached every challenge he tackled.
And really, his standards weren’t out in left field, either. All he was asking for was an intelligent, funny, beautiful, sexy, orderly woman who was interested in settling down and making babies. Lots and lots of babies.
He wanted a houseful of them. He’d grown up the only son of “Brick” and Maria Rossi, both of whom had worked tirelessly; his father as a bricklayer and his mother a cleaning lady. Consequently he’d been left alone much of the time. Too much of the time. What he wouldn’t have given for younger brothers and sisters to fill the void, to be companions. And his personal slaves.
No kid of his was going to grow up an only child. Therefore his wife would have to agree to a houseful of them. Of course, he also enjoyed peace and solitude, so she’d have to be good at keeping them quiet, too. Noise and chaos drove him crazy.
As he reached the outskirts of Charleston, he conjured a vision of a wife and kids filling the Charleston mansion he’d invested in at an auction three years ago. He’d originally checked it out as merely another good investment. But the first time he’d laid eyes on the Southern Georgian, he knew it was perfect for his future family. The mansion was huge, with seventeen bedrooms and two guest cottages out back. He could produce a whole passel of children without having everyone tripping over one another. It’d be big and peaceful and orderly.
Smiling, he made the left onto Magnolia Lane, the mile-long drive that led to his, only his home. No pesky neighbors to contend with. Another plus.
Whistling, he enjoyed the secluded solitude the huge live oaks dripping with Spanish moss afforded him. Yes, indeed, he’d chosen well. He certainly hoped the Realtor maintaining the place had made certain the cleaning service was doing their job. He wasn’t into dust.
His whistling stopped in mid-toot when he emerged from the tunnel of foliage and passed through the brick gates, and into the mansion’s cul de sac. There had to be ten cars parked in his driveway! What the hell?
Pulling in to the first available spot, he cut the engine and practically leapt from the car. A scowl tugged at his lips as he passed car after trespassing car. It grew even fiercer when he looked up the steps between the giant columns to find the oak double doors thrown wide open.
Racing up the stairs two at a time, all kinds of thoughts were scrambling through his head. Especially the one of how he was about to murder a Realtor.
He reached the door and stopped dead in his tracks. The sight that greeted him nearly made his eyes bug out.
Chaos reigned.
2
MEG WAVED as best she could at their new arrival. He looked a little dumbfounded, which was probably natural, considering she was using an unconscious man’s hand to deliver the greeting. But her corpse was her only tool at the moment. The rest of his sprawled self had the rest of her sprawled self plastered to the marble floor.
“I’ll be right with you,” she kind of grunted, as she heaved with all her might until Mr. Brogan rolled off her body and ended up spread-eagled on his back.
Now another dilemma presented itself. How to gracefully rise from the floor in a skirt that wasn’t constructed to give much leeway unless she hiked it up around her thighs. So thinking quickly, she rolled onto her stomach pushed to her knees, then one leg at a time got to her feet.
She ran a hand through her hair before turning around to face the newest guest. For some reason his lips were slightly parted and he was staring at her midsection. She had the feeling he’d just taken in an eyeful of her butt poked high in the air.
She jumped over Terence, her hand outstretched. “Hi, I’m Megan. Are you the butler?”
“Excuse me?”
“One of the paid guests?”
“Excuse me?!”
Meg dropped her hand, seeing as he looked too dumbfounded to shake it. He was really cute, but apparently a little dim. “Are you lost?” she suggested. That was a better option than an escapee from a mental institution. Last time she checked, they didn’t have any straitjackets on hand.
His brown eyes cleared a little and he shook his head. “No, but you must be. I’m Matt Rossi and this is my property.”
Meg took a step back, took a deep breath, then plastered a smile on her face. “Thank you so much for renting it to us.”
“I didn’t rent it to you.”
“Well, um, yes, you did.”
“I think I would know, don’t you?”
Okay, he wasn’t all that cute. Well, he was, but in a downer sort of way. “We signed a contract.”
“Who are we? I know I didn’t sign anything.”
Terence Brogan began to moan pitifully, and Meg glanced around to see all the witnesses frozen like statues, including Tina. This wasn’t good. “How about we go to my office and talk about this?”
Both of his brows lifted. “Your office?”
Nope, he wasn’t in the least bit cute. His hair was too black and his jaw was too square and his nose was crooked. Meg conceded that his mouth was sexy, but what came out of it wasn’t. “Yes, my office. At least for the duration of our…of the lease.”
“Well, then, by all means, let’s go to your office.”
MATT WAS FLOORED. It had been like walking into a Laurel and Hardy movie that was freeze-framed. Everybody who’d been in motion had gone still, and the one still person had arisen from the debris of the wreckage and taken charge.
He needed to regroup fast. Except, the woman who had risen from the carnage had a smile that could scramble eggs. And his eggs needed to stay intact. As far as he could tell, his home had been invaded without his consent. And apparently this brain scrambler was claiming they had legal permission to invade. If she was right, there was going to be one hurtin’ Realtor in Charleston.
“Follow me,” the woman said, as if he needed a guide.
Gladly, he decided after catching the view.
She led him down the maze of hallways to the study. His study. Which she had confiscated and turned into her office.
He seemed to vaguely take in that she was chatting pleasantly the entire time. But scrambling did strange things to his brain because all he was digesting were words like “murder” and “guests.” He wasn’t into murder as a rule and he most definitely wasn’t into guests. Any guests.
They reached the study and she took command of the desk as if she owned it, smiling while she offered him the guest chair.
If she hadn’t used the smile, he might have tossed her straight out the bay window. But her mouth and face were weapons he had a hard time overcoming.
She had rust-brown hair that fell in wisps to her jaw, and gray eyes that defied description. She smelled good. And that butt moved right. He’d never known there were wrongs and rights in butt-moving before, but he knew right when he saw it swaying in front of him.
Nonetheless, she was an intruder, and therefore had to be considered the enemy.
“Mr…?”
“Rossi. Matt Rossi. And this is my house, Ms…?”
“Renshaw. But call me Meg. And we’re thrilled to be able to use this spectacular house for our mystery weekend.”
“Don’t be so thrilled. You have no right to be here.”
“As I said, we’ve signed a lease,” she said, rooting through a file drawer.
“That my agent had no right to draw up.”
She pulled it out, still serene as all get-out. “He told us he has the authority to sign off on anything to do with the maintenance of this house.”
She was right, but he wasn’t willing to concede that easily. “Renting it to intruders technically is not maintenance.”
“We’re not intruders. We paid for the privilege to use it.”
That fact finally hit him. “Is this your first time here?”
“Yes, it is,” she said, smiling even brighter. “And it’s perfect.”
Matt took the lease from her hands and perused it. “You know, I could have you evicted,” he said, between clenched teeth.
She nodded. “You go right ahead and begin eviction proceedings first thing in the morning. By my calculations we’ll have been gone at least three weeks by the time they come to toss our butts out.”
Right again. As long as they’d signed the lease in good faith, it would probably take weeks before he could legally have them kicked to the curb. This wasn’t good. “Okay, the lease says that you pay for cleanup and any and all damages that might occur during your occupancy.”
Her mouth popped open and she waved at the papers. “You barely glanced at that thing. How do you know that?”
Matt shrugged. “I read fast.”
“Wow, that’s pretty impressive.”
He’d question her sincerity, but her smile actually did look genuinely impressed. And he knew she knew her rights, so she wasn’t trying to butter him up. Still, he felt a twinge of pride. “Here’s the deal, I’m not leaving. I’m staying to protect my investment.”
Ms. Renshaw nodded. “You’ll have a great time. And it only costs—”
“Don’t even try it.”
“—not a dime for you! Have fun on us.”
“And I, of course, will be staying in the master bedroom,” he added, trying to grab back some control over this untenable situation.
She pursed her lips and her brow furrowed. “I’m afraid that’s not possible. The murder victim is going to be the owner of the mansion. It wouldn’t do to have him found in a guest room.”
“Kill him off in the kitchen.”
She shook her head, and the light from the bay window showcased every single nuance of highlight in her hair. “Owners of mansions don’t generally even know where the kitchen is.”
He was about to argue until he realized that even he wasn’t exactly sure where the kitchen was. “Off the dining room?” he ventured to guess.
“Do you even know where the dining room is, Mr. Rossi?” she asked, sweet as cream pudding.
“Right 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 prefer to call them adventurous. With open minds.”
He had the feeling there was an implied insult in there, even though not a hint of it showed in her serene expression. “I don’t know. Playing a ghost? Would I have to wear a white sheet or anything?”
Meg laughed, a tinkling sound that was as soothing as soft music. If one liked soft music.
“Then what?”
She held up her hands as if framing him out behind a camera. “I see you in the same smoking jacket and silk pajama bottoms you’re found dead in. But the clothes would be much more tattered and still blood-spattered.”
“What about makeup?” he asked suspiciously.
“If anything, we’ll just make your face and hands a lot more pale. And the way we’d set it up is you’ll always show up in a dimly lit room, so you’ll look not from this world.”
“I don’t know,” he said, forcing skepticism into his voice he wasn’t exactly feeling. Oddly enough, it sounded like a challenge, and Matt thrived on challenge.
“Do you have anything better?” she asked, eyebrows raised.
“Yes. You all relocate.”
“Not an option. Try again.”
Matt felt the same exhilaration he usually received haggling over a real estate deal, and it was befuddling—and different. After all, this was puff-ball stuff. And instead of wanting to break down his adversary, he sort of wanted to see her rise to the occasion. Not to win, of course. Losing wasn’t an option for him. But to give him some fun in the process.
Then again, he’d already lost one battle to her. But that wasn’t technically his mistake. His mistake was trusting the man he’d hired to oversee this property. That would be rectified shortly.
“How about if you cast me in another part that puts me in the middle of things the entire weekend, instead of the dead guy?”
He could swear her shoulders drooped just a little, and his heart kind of pinched.
“I could do that,” she said. “But all of the other roles have been cast.”
“So, recast.”
“I can’t ask them to learn a new role on this short notice. It’s just not fair. And I’m not sure of the rules, but they might charge me extra for it. Besides, that means you relinquish your bedroom.”
This woman might be a little crafty, but he still figured she didn’t have a clue what she was doing. “You don’t have a clue what you’re doing, do you?”
The shoulders straightened and stiffened, which kind of made him want to cheer.
“Listen, things were going just fine until you came along.”
“Right, your dead guy was basically DOA.”
“I could have found a way around that without you. You just seemed…convenient, in a really inconvenient kind of way. I’m trying to accommodate your desires while still pulling off this gig. And you’re really beginning to tick me off.” She paused for a breath, but before he could retort she chimed in some more. “I have the lease. As far as I can tell, you are the one trespassing. You could be a drifter or a squatter or something for all I know. So you can choose one of the options I’ve given you, or you can come up with one of your own which I’ll approve, or you can stick it and just leave. Work with me or you’re dead weight.”
Whoa! Smiling and grinning and beaming and cajoling, she was beautiful. Pissed off she was absolutely stunning. Her eyes turned a dark, firecracker silver, her cheeks turned into flaming spots. Even her hair seemed to get mad at him, tossing and shimmering like molten lava.
Deadly if messed with.
But still funny. “A hobo who drove up in a Mustang?”
“Could have been stolen.”
“In these clothes?”
“Stolen.”
He was suddenly in the position of having to prove himself, which felt a little ludicrous. How had she turned the tables on him? “Want to see my driver’s license?”
“Could have been forged.”
“Talk to my lawyer?”
“Could be your bookie.”
“Audit my taxes?”
“You mean you’ve actually filed?”
Okay, now cheeky had morphed into insulting. He was trying to prove himself to a squatter who in the last half hour had claimed she had the right to invade his home and evict him at the same time. This was reaching critical mass on his acceptable meter. She might be pretty, but she was taking the upper hand without him ever having figured out how, and that was unacceptable. But he wasn’t quite sure what the next step would be. He’d encountered crooks and shady dealers and wretched lawyers, but he’d never had to deal with an adversary who demanded with such conviction that she was within her rights while he was a possible fraud.
He squelched all of the possible courses of action he could take to ruin her uppity attitude and her weekend, swallowed his pride and said, “I’ll play the ghost.”
Her anger seemed to melt from her eyes. She smiled. “Thank you,” she said softly. “And I’m sorry. I really almost never have a temper.”
Somehow he doubted that.
Once again she thrust out her hand. “I promise, you’ll receive industry wages.”
He almost choked. But he kept a straight face and said, “I should hope so. I don’t work for free. And since I’m pulling double duty…”
“You’ll get the same wage as everyone else. Scale. And be glad for it, seeing as I didn’t ask to hire you. Don’t push it.”
He wanted to grin so badly. “Well, technically you did hire me.”
“That was a choice of getting rid of you or putting your carcass to use.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “My carcass is at your disposal.”
“Don’t I wish,” she muttered, but then grinned. “Just teasing of course.”
He wasn’t so sure. Didn’t Ted Bundy have an engaging smile?
“All right,” she said, her voice going all practical again, “I’m going to have to do some rewrites tonight, before I can get you your script. How about if I have it delivered to your room by nine? That should give you time to memorize by—”
“Nine-fifteen.”
“Sure. Yes, well, let’s hope so.”
“I have a better idea,” Matt said, from out of nowhere that he could figure out. “How about if we meet for supper and go over the script together? I’d love to help shape my ghost character.”
Meg also looked gorgeous flustered. He wondered if she’d ever be able to play a corpse because she’d probably look too good then, too. No one would ever believe it.
“I don’t think—”
“I want a say in my ghost,” he said.
She stared at him for a moment, then nodded. “Okay, a dinner meeting. In here?”
“Let’s do it from the suite adjoined to my bedroom. I’d like to work out logistics.”
She stared at him, narrow-eyed.
Holding up his hands, Matt assured her. “Ms. Renshaw, I have no designs on you. But whatever I do, I want it to be done right. And if I’m dying up there and clues will be planted up there, I want to talk them through.” When she still continued to look skeptical, he said, “You’re welcome to bring a bodyguard. How about Tina?”
Meg stared at him and laughed. “It’s a deal, Mr….”
“De Wynter. Just call me Lionel De Wynter.”
VIOLIN STRINGS had nothing on Meg’s nerves. Her career depended on the success of this weekend, and so far everything was shaping up about as well as her wedding day to Mike.
A disaster in the making is what it was. Her dead guy was gone, and in his place she had an overbearing, angry homeowner who was trying to call his own shots on her project.
So she’d spent all day feverishly rewriting much of the script to incorporate the fact that the man didn’t look all that sinister. Sinfully sexy, maybe, but turning him into the twenty-first century Genghis Khan wasn’t going to be easy, given he wanted to play the part sans makeup.
And it was hard to conceive of anyone wanting to rid the world of this particular male specimen. Climb into bed with him, maybe. But shoot him in bed? No.
He wanted to talk over the script. He’d had to cancel the supper meeting—which gave her a vague sense of disappointment—because an important business call had come through. So she’d had to write one herself, fast. And she wasn’t a writer, she was a party planner for a travel agency.
Was it only six hours ago she’d loved her job? Right now she’d happily flip flapjacks at the local diner. At least those people would appreciate her efforts.
She blew a strand of hair off of her forehead, just as there was a knock on her door. “It’s open,” she said, with not much conviction.
Tina walked in. Just who she wanted to see. The voice of doom and gloom.
“We have a problem.”
“This is news? What now?”
“Lionel De Wynter’s personal assistant has just run off with the pool boy.”
“They’re supposed to run off together. It’s in the script. Maybe they’re rehearsing?”
“If they are, they’re really into their roles. They just called from Las Vegas.”
“Oh, boy.”
“Let’s do the same thing. Blow this pop stand and head to Vegas.”
Meg tsked. “You have no imagination. We can get through this.”
“Tell me how.”
Meg looked at Tina speculatively. “Feel like playing the part of a personal assistant?”
Tina’s hands raised defensively, and she began backing up slowly toward the door. “Not a chance, boss. I’m the behind-the-scenes person, remember?”
Sighing, Meg closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. There had to be a solution. One just wasn’t popping into her head at this very moment.
Tina squeaked, and Meg glanced up sharply. Apparently an obstacle at the threshold to the office had blocked Tina’s escape.
That obstacle had gorgeous brown eyes and dark hair and a mouth that screamed “kiss me.” Especially when he had that lazy smile tugging at his lips.
“Excuse me,” Tina managed, then ducked under Mr. Rossi’s arm and skedaddled. That was kind of a strange, skittish reaction from fairly bold and stoic Tina. And it kind of irritated Meg that this man could intimidate her assistant like no one—not even Meg—could.
Rossi glanced to his left, watching Tina make good her escape, then turned back to Meg. With a barely concealed smirk, he strolled toward the desk. Raising his eyebrows at all of the pages littering the desktop, he drawled, “Problems?”
“Nothing we can’t handle,” she said, trying to keep a defensive, hysterical tone from her voice.
“I hear my personal assistant jumped ship.”
“Are you always into eavesdropping, Mr. Rossi?”
“Only when I happen to be standing at an open door, trying to get your attention.”
Meg sighed. “Yes, we lost a couple more to the whims of passion.” She snorted. “Never have seen the merit in that, but what can you do?”
“I know what you can do.”
Meg’s heart tripped a little, because the instantaneous list of things she’d like to do were a little scandalous. And shocking to even herself.
She swallowed and tried for bland. “Really? What would that be?” She picked up her water glass and sipped.
“Why don’t you play my personal assistant?”
Water splooshed all over her desk, and she choked.
The man moved quickly around the desk and began thumping her back. “You all right?”
Meg grabbed tissues from a box and wiped her watering eyes, then mouth, then the surface of the desk. “Sure. Fine. Really.”
He stopped thumping her, but began stroking her back in what should have been a soothing manner, but was failing miserably at soothing her.
His huge hands were warm and gentle and whispered seduction, even in such an innocent act.
Meg didn’t even like this guy. Even though he’d agreed to step in and help out when he didn’t even want them here, he was just an additional monkey wrench in what was turning out to be a disastrous venture. He wasn’t the enemy—Meg didn’t believe in having enemies—but he wasn’t a friend, either.
So why was his touch so electrifying?
Meg wasn’t into being electrocuted, either.
Finally she stood to get away from the current. “You’re joking, right?”
“Why not? You have to be around all the time to oversee things anyway. If you’re not part of the action, you’re merely a distraction. Do it.”
“Mr. Rossi—”
“My name is Matt. Call me Mr. Rossi one more time, and I’m tossing all of your butts out of here.”
She’d be mad, but she couldn’t quite get there when he was smiling. “Fine. Call me Ms. Renshaw one more time and I’ll personally rewrite this so that it’s your personal secretary who gets to kill you off.”
“Does that mean you’ll do it…Meg?”
She chewed on her lower lip. “Fine. Actually, it does make some sort of sense.”
His smile grew wider, and his eyes sparkled. “Great. This should be fun.”
Meg clamped her jaw shut to keep it from dropping. He actually sounded like he meant it. “I sure hope so,” she finally managed.
He leaned toward her, and she had to drop her head back. That’s when she noticed just how tall he really was. She was not a short woman.
“So tell me, Meg, am I sleeping with my personal assistant?”
4
“SINCE WHEN is the personal assistant sleeping with De Wynter?” Tina asked Meg, reading through the player profiles.
Meg never blushed. She prided herself on that. So she was certain the heat in her cheeks was simply from the heat in the room.
“You’re blushing, Meg.”
“I, umm, just thought I’d add a twist to the, umm, dynamics.”
“Right.”
Until this moment, Meg had been happily deluding herself into believing that she’d added that element just to throw off Mr. Matthew Rossi. He’d been irritating her all last evening with lists, acting like he was organizing this event instead of she.
But if she were to be brutally honest, a niggling of a fantasy had crept in to her obviously—yet heretofore unrealized—warped mind. The thought of having an affair with the man was…
Ridiculous. This wasn’t like her at all. One time she’d read a study that most men sized up women within seconds of meeting them and classified them as “yes” or “no” in the sexual sense. She’d snorted at the time. Men. It figured. She knew it had taken one look at Christie to make Mike decide a walk down the aisle with Meg wasn’t in the plan. Well, no matter. Good riddance to Mike.
She couldn’t exactly feel that way about Christie, though, considering Christie was Meg’s sister. And Meg was long used to Christie stealing Meg’s boyfriends. It just would have helped if Christie hadn’t decided to do the stealing a day before Meg’s wedding.
Then again, after the wedding would have been worse. So Mike and Christie had done her a favor. That was her story, and she was sticking to it.
Men were basically dogs, but women sometimes helped by wagging their tails just right.
Yet, here she found herself doing almost exactly that. Not that her sizing up Matt Rossi sexually happened in the first couple of seconds. Well, maybe. But she shouldn’t be thinking of him in that way at all. There was nothing redeeming about him save his looks—that short, dark, mussed hair with those intense brown eyes—and she hated that this alone was enough to make her think lascivious thoughts.
Meg went for the mind. She didn’t think about men that way until she found their brains sexy. That was her story, and she was sticking to it.
Until Rossi.
This was an aberration, she decided. One she could just brush aside. He might be intelligent, but in a really annoying way. His brain was not sexy. So being hot for that gorgeous body was a rare, stray, hormone-charged anomaly. That was her story and she was sticking to it.
“When you drop down from the clouds, let me know,” she vaguely heard.
Meg shook her head and looked up. Tina was grinning. That was ominous. Tina never grinned unless she’d just kicked a guy between his rocks and his hard place.
“I was just thinking about a new plot twist,” Meg said.
“Like doing it with the murder victim?”
“Tina—”
“Just an observation,” Tina said, examining her nails.
“Well, observe something else.”
“Like how gorgeous Mr. Murder is?”
“Is he? I hadn’t noticed.”
“Oh, good. Then you won’t mind if I flirt with him a little.”
“Do it and die, babe.”
“Ha! I knew it!”
Meg was mortified at her knee-jerk reaction. “I’m just saying don’t mess with the guests.”
“Right.”
“Do you want to mess with me right now? And I might mention I’m PMSing.”
“I’m out of here.”
“Good decision.”
The problem was, Meg wasn’t PMSing. Unless PMS stood for “Please, Matt, Sex.” Which was dumb as dumb could be. Sure, he was good-looking. But he was also infuriating. The man had walked in and honestly believed he could take over. Just because he owned the place, he thought he could just waltz in and take control.
Control. That was the word. He was into control. Which made him so unappealing in the sexiest kind of way. Her father had been a control freak, too. Until her mother had died when Meg was ten, Jeanie Renshaw had been a buffer between father and children. But once she was gone the household had become a boot camp. And Meg had been the designated sergeant, being the eldest.
Learning to improvise had been so necessary. Checklists and protocols had become evil before she’d even turned into a teenager.
A rap on her office door brought her head up and her brain down from the clouds of memories. She looked at Mr. Checklist himself, standing in the doorway, busy scribbling notes on a legal pad. Great. More lists.
Meg took a moment to realize she didn’t appear all that professional in jeans and a Black Death European tour T-shirt. But they were under the gun and she had to be prepared to do anything from paperwork to housework.
She sighed. “Don’t come in, Mr. Rossi.”
“Too late,” he said, strolling through the door.
She didn’t think she could stuff that legal pad down his throat, but she’d love to give it a shot. “Look, you’re the dead guy. You’ve got one major speech and then you’re gone until you return as the ghost. From then on, you wing it. We’ve been through this.”
“I think we should be caught making love before the murder.”
Meg was never speechless. Right now her vocal chords had gone south. “Huh?” was about as much noise as she could conjure.
He looked at her with something very akin to pity. “You. Me. In bed.”
She needed to swallow. In fact, breathing might be a good idea, too. Fantasizing was out of the question, even if her brain was malfunctioning and doing it anyway.
“I’m—” she kind of squeaked, then cleared her throat “—not sure why that’s necessary.”
“Because we’re having an affair,” he said, tapping his notes. “We need to be caught.”
“I’m not certain that’s necessary,” she repeated. Although it sounded fun in theory.
He sighed and dropped his pad on the desk. “Do you want this weekend to be successful?”
“Well, yes.”
“Then it needs to have a little ‘oomph.’”
She swallowed. Hard. “Oomphing” sounded a little naughty. And nice.
“And you have to kill me.”
“Excuse me?”
“You are my killer.”
“The maid is your killer.”
He looked utterly exasperated. Although he looked really good exasperated, she felt she should own that emotion at the moment. He was driving her nuts.
With the patience of a saint trying to reform a sinner, he said slowly, “What motivation does the maid have for murdering her boss? That puts her out of a job.”
Talk about motivation. She was becoming more motivated by the moment to be his killer. “She’s having an affair with one of the men that you are promising to ruin.”
He shook his head. “Too many affairs happening. Just you and me.”
Meg tossed down her pen. “Why don’t you just rewrite the entire script?”
“As a matter of fact—”
Meg stood, knocking over her chair. “Stop right there. We are one day away from this production. The actors all have their scripts. You’re asking them to change at this point?”
“It’s not a huge change.”
“You’re changing the murderer. That sounds pretty drastic to me.”
“Wouldn’t you like to kill me?” he asked, a twinkle in his brown eyes.
“Right now? Absolutely. And I’m a pacifist.”
“Good. Then you won’t have to fake it.” He sat down and laid all of his notes between them, sideways. “Now here’s how I see it…”
Meg looked down at a detailed checklist.
Murdering him was not going to be a problem.
MATT SPENT the rest of the day checking off, one-by-one, the items on his list. He knew Meg was seriously hacked off at him, but she’d surprised him by going with the flow. He knew if the situation were reversed, he’d be furious. He didn’t like people changing his game plans. He also recognized he was doing exactly that to hers, and it was pretty intrusive. Unfortunately, it was just who he was.
Matt couldn’t pinpoint exactly what explosive event in his life had turned him into the man he was now. Not that it mattered. So far almost every goal he’d ever set he’d accomplished. So that was a good thing, right?
Except he didn’t feel triumphant about it all right now, and he didn’t know why. Megan Renshaw was exactly the type of woman who drove him crazy. She let any change in plan roll right off her back. She didn’t seem to care when things went wrong. She just amended her plans.
Take this morning, for instance. The cook had practically burned his kitchen down by experimenting with a flambé that obviously had a little too much fire power in it. Meg had walked in, calmly doused the flames with an extinguisher, then patted the woman and said, “It’ll be better next time.”
He’d about had a stroke. Meg sailed out of there as if the cook had simply put a little too much salt in the soup.
Matt had followed her, trying to keep from exploding. When he’d confronted her with “That woman is dangerous,” all she’d done was smile and say “I’ll keep an eye on her.”
There was something about Meg that was dangerous, too. And it wasn’t just that she found disasters amusing. Although that was part of it.
He wasn’t accustomed to being indulged. He was accustomed to being listened to. Having his plans followed.
And while Meg seemed willing to follow his game plan to a certain extent, twice she’d looked at one of his proposed changes and just grinned and said, “That’s cute. No.”
But she had given in on his suggestion that her character was having an affair with his character. He liked that. He wasn’t so sure that he was as enthusiastic at her cheerful willingness to kill him.
5
REHEARSAL WAS TURNING OUT to be an utter disaster. In a kind of funny way, Meg decided. Maybe they could turn this into a comedy. As it was right now, it would be a mystery if it actually worked.
Lori Benedict, the actress playing the maid, Molly, was running her lines with all the enthusiasm of a convict being walked to the gas chamber. She had been really relishing her role as the murderer, especially when she took one look at the victim, and she wasn’t happy with the change in plans.
The rest of the cast—which included the butler, three couples whose lives and livelihoods Lionel De Wynter would threaten to ruin, the homicide detective, Matt, and Meg—was still enthusiastic about the gig, but since so much of the script had changed, they were all a little confused.
Except for Rossi, of course, who’d studied his lines for about three and a half seconds before tossing down his script.
And although he was a godsend, his talent still irritated Meg. And she wasn’t quite sure why. Maybe because he kind of reminded her of Mike in a way. Mike, with his charm and looks and brains, seemed to have had it easy all of his life. He hadn’t had to work too hard at anything.
Now she didn’t know Matt well enough to make such a sweeping judgment about him like that, but so far he’d pretty much taken command without batting an eye, and had gotten his way with just about everything so far.
Even when she’d surprised him by agreeing to the plot twist that the two of them were having an affair, he’d just smiled as if she’d just dumped a floor full of Christmas presents under his tree.
She had drawn the line at the two of them getting caught in flagrante delicto, and he’d instantly erased the line, arguing that when suspicion was being cast her way, she could always protest that she had no motive, since she was madly in love with him.
“What is her motive?” the elegant elderly woman playing the better half of the Holmes family asked.
“He stinks in the sack,” Meg whispered, for his ears only. The smile she shot him was pure innocence.
His, on the other hand, turned a tad feral. But then he faced the woman who’d asked and said, “After years of faithful service, he’s about to terminate her both in the office and out. She’s furious. Of course, none of you as guests will be aware of that. If you follow your scripts and hit your cues, the paying guests will have to puzzle it out. So absolutely no hints except the ones we want them to discover.”
Meg crossed her arms at the “we” thing. She tried to think back on the exact moment she’d lost control of this weekend. As near as she could figure, it was the moment this man had stormed through the front door.
“Okay, folks, let’s go through the dinner scene one more time,” the idiot commanded. “You can use your scripts. But by tomorrow’s run-through, know your lines. And remember your time lines.”
Meg caught his eye and raised her brows.
He shrugged, then said with a slight smile, “Okay with you, boss?”
She had this fleeting need to overrule him, just for the sake of doing it, and to assert her authority to everyone in the room.
Unfortunately, her practical side said they needed to do exactly as he said. She just wished she’d said it first.
“One more thing,” she said. “Remember that you aren’t to acknowledge the guests in any way. As far as you’re concerned, they’re invisible.”
“That seems kind of un-Southern,” drawled the woman playing Agatha Bond, wife of Jim, the owner of a nationwide chain of bookstores. “We Southerners pride ourselves on our manners. You might not realize that, being a…you know.”
The woman made it sound like a curse. Which was pretty good, considering Agatha hailed from Cleveland. Meg gave her brownie points for staying in character. “They’re going to know you’ll be pretending not to see them. They won’t be upset.”
“It’s just…unseemly.”
Okay, there was “in character” and there was annoying. “Not to worry,” Meg said, “they’re all from New York.” They weren’t. “They’ll feel right at home.”
Meg felt a boatload of satisfaction when she heard Rossi choke on his Coke.
“WHY AM I BARGING INTO the master bedroom an hour after supper now?” the man playing Watson Holmes asked. “I thought I was supposed to be rifling through the bast—er, the Lord of the Manor’s desk then.”
Meg jumped in before Matt could explain in lurid detail. “You’re confronting him in a murderous rage. You’re furious that he’s just informed your wife that she either sells him her pipe and violin empire, or he’d see her go up in smoke, so to speak. But what you come upon is a little more interesting. You’re going to share what you discover with your wife, but she’s never been known to keep a secret, and will soon inform all of the other guests.”
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Trish Jensen
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: What do you mean your house?Since her aborted wedding, Meg Renshaw′s thrown everything into her work. But her latest brainstorm–a mystery weekend at a Charleston plantation–hits a few bumps. For one, her «corpse» has passed out on pain pills. One guest is a cat. And the owner of the house walks in, claiming their lease is invalid.Luckily, Meg′s got a persuasive bent and she sweet-talks Matt Rossi into becoming the new corpse. With that item checked off, she′s ready to move on. Until she discovers the uptight, controlling corpse refuses to stay murdered and has just turned her plans for the weekend upside down.And then he starts demanding some other rights….