“What about it?” Billy answered smoothly. “You asked me to find a way to get rid of the bees, so I opted for a natural method.”
“I did not ask you to get rid of the bees!” Madame Blue stomped her foot in frustration. “You and I both know how much those bees mean to me.”
Billy’s featured pinched. “But you did ask me, Bluebell. Why else would I try to drive them off?”
“Lies!” the old woman hissed.
“Not lies,” Billy countered calmly. “Let me get dressed, and I can drive you into town to see your doctor. We both knew this day was coming.”
“If you’re trying to suggest I’m senile, you’ve got another think coming. My hips are bad, hearing’s gone, but my memory is just fine. I did not ask you to scare off my honeybees.”
They both seemed so sure of their position, it was hard to know who was telling the truth.
“Knock, knock,” someone called from out in the hall. Before anyone could answer, Madeline Mackenzie let herself into the room. She was wearing yet another Hawaiian shirt. How many did this woman have in her wardrobe?
“I heard shouting and just wanted to make sure everything was all right.” She shot Billy a meaningful glance, and that’s when it all clicked into place.
“You!” I rounded her, pointing a finger in accusation. “You’re the one who caused all those accidents. You locked my husband in our room, and I’m willing to bet you messed with the stairs, too.”
“That’s ridic—”
“The game is up, Madeline,” Billy interjected, obvious relief coloring his expression. “Just admit what you did.”
Everyone waited for someone to confess, but nobody did.
“You wanted the house for yourselves,” I explained. “You were willing to do anything to get it, including endangering the other guests.”
“Silly and offensive!” Mrs. Mackenzie shouted.
I came right up to her and poked my finger into her chest, same as Blue had done with Billy.“And true!” Now we were all shouting.
“I didn’t do any of those things,” she fumed, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Okay, can you prove that you didn’t?” Charles posed calmly.
She growled but didn’t respond with any words.
“I think maybe I can,” Blaire said, coming forward with phone in hand. She handed it to me.
“You know how I’ve been sneaking around at night to take things from the kitchen? I didn’t put two and two together before, but look at this.” Blaire hit play on the video, and my eyes grew wide as I watched the scene unfold. She’d managed to catch footage of Mrs. Mackenzie and Billy meeting by the broken staircase before it had been broken.
“They didn’t see me, and I thought this was some kind of midnight lovers thing despite the obviously enormous age gap.”
“Why would you record that?”
She shrugged.“I record everything. Thought this would either turn funny, disgusting, or into good blackmail fodder. Since I didn’t have money to keep staying here, I thought maybe I could convince one of them to foot the bill in exchange for me keeping their secret. I just hadn’t hit that point of desperation yet.”
I watched as they talked for a while, pointed at the stairs, talked some more, then hugged and wandered off in separate directions.
“What were they saying?” I asked, confused as to how this was the smoking gun we needed.
“Just stuff about plans and being ready. Again, I thought it was about an affair, but maybe they were plotting something else. Maybe they were working together to sabotage your stay.”
Neither Billy nor Mrs. Mackenzie said anything in response to this accusation. That’s when Mr. Mackenzie joined us.
“What’s all this talk of having an affair?” he asked good-naturedly, clearly thinking it was out of the realm of possibilities.
“We think—” I started, but Blaire cut us off.
“Sorry to be the one to break it to you, but your wife is cheating on you with that guy!” Blaire pointed to Billy.
He looked from his wife to Billy, then burst out laughing.“No way. That’s our son. Didn’t you know?”
“What?” Madame Blue shouted. “How come nobody said anything to me?”
“I guess it slipped our minds,” Mrs. Mackenzie said with a wave of her hand.
“Or you didn’t want her to know,” I suggested, unmoved by this shock twist. If anything, it made the pieces fit together more perfectly. “How long ago did you hire Billy to help out around here?” I asked Madame Blue.
“About two years ago. Why?”
“That was after your most recent inspection, right?”
“Just a couple months after, yes. It was the enormity of the repairs needed that made me realize I couldn’t do it all on my own anymore.”
“Madame Blue, you’re not losing your memory. You’ve been double-crossed,” I revealed dramatically.
“Of course I’m not losing my memory. I’m sharp as a tack, but what do you mean about double-crossed?”
“These two”—I pointed at the mother and son—“were working together to sabotage your business. She has a special place in her heart for the house but can’t buy unless you put it for sale. Billy has been her inside man. He’s been secretly damaging the house, ruining the gardens, and encouraging guests to leave bad reviews,” I added thinking back to how nonchalant he was while we were changing rooms, even going so far as to suggest we leave negative feedback online. “Scaring off the bees was probably meant to be the last straw, since you love them so much. He thought that you’d have no reason to stay with everything that was going wrong.”
Mr. Mackenzie did not look happy about any of this.“These are very serious accusations you’re making.”
“Yet somehow they’re true.”
“You can’t prove anything,” Billy said flatly.
“Well, my friend, you messed with the wrong guests,” I said with a smirk of my own. “My husband’s a lawyer and I’m a private investigator.”
“And I record almost everything,” Blaire added.
“I’m sure with a little digging we could piece together a timeline of events, uncover receipts for repairs that never happened, and even get a clean bill of health from Madame Blue’s doctor to prove her memory is just fine.”
“We should get another inspector in too. To check out the stairs and see if there’s been any obvious tampering.”
“There’s no need to do that,” Mrs. Mackenzie said. “We’ll leave. That’s what you wanted, right? You want the good room back?”
“This is about so much more than a room.”
“Did you really do what they’re saying, Madeline? Billy?” Mr. Mackenzie asked with a crestfallen expression. “I know we wanted this place, but we all agreed to wait until the old woman died. Goodness knows that should happen soon enough.”
“Billy, you’re fired,” Madame Blue growled. “Get off my property.”
“Before you go.” Charles stepped forward with a business card in hand. “I’ll be representing Madame Blue in a suit to reclaim damages due to willful destruction of property. Expect a call from me soon.”
EPILOGUE
FOUR DAYS LATER
“Mmm,” I moaned as the creamy goodness filled my mouth. “So worth the wait.”
“Cheers to that,” Charles said, holding up his fork to bump it to mine as the sun rose over the garden.
“Ready for another round?” Madame Blue asked, hovering nearby with a Pyrex dish half-filled with the delicious homemade biscuits and gravy.
“We should save some for Blaire,” I suggested, daintily wiping at the corners of my mouth as if I weren’t making a huge mess of myself already. “She’ll be hungry when she finishes replanting those roses.”
This was the last day of our stay at the old stone mansion so beloved by my parents. Now that Billy and his parents had gone, it was a perfectly lovely place to vacation. The inspector had come out yesterday to assess the house and its property. We were still waiting on an official report, but he noted at least sixty thousand dollars’ worth of new damages since the last inspection.