How Perfect You Are (Carlson College Mysteries Book 1) Read online

  This Friday morning was no different. The three women on the front patio were the only guests currently around. Local regulars who came for brunch once a week, they were starting in on round two of mimosas and possibly making plans to abduct Peter Paul Pablo and lock him in their basement. Other than that, things were quiet.

  Cara Saunders, the nineteen-year-old dining room attendant, slunk across the front parlor and over to the front desk, eyes darting nervously. Cara was just finishing her first year at the Walker House and was understandably still a bit wary of Susan.

  “Is she around?” Cara asked, casting a nervous glance behind me as if Susan might be crouched under the counter just waiting to attack at the first sign of someone leaving their assigned post.

  “No, I think she’s out back smoking,” I said. “Apparently the stress of trying to explain her complicated serving rules was too much.”

  Cara reached up and tucked a loose strand of curly brown hair behind her ear. She wandered over towards the window, where she had a view of Peter Paul Pablo. He appeared to be trying to slowly disentangle himself from not one but two ladies who were now clinging to him.

  “I’d be glad to give him the rundown,” Cara said, waggling her eyebrows suggestively. “What’s his name, anyway?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. Paul, I think? Maybe?”

  Cara looked at me in surprise. “Cassie, for shame!” she exclaimed, brown eyes wide.

  “For shame, what?”

  “A hunk like that, and you haven’t even bothered to find out his name? What’s wrong with you?”

  “What’s wrong with Cassie?” came the voice of Drew Newsome, the bellhop. He had just returned from taking a massive shipment of wine back to the cellar behind the inn, and his mousy brown hair was damp with sweat. His eyes shifted from me to Cara and back again.

  A fellow Carlson College student, and a junior like me, Drew looked more like a sixteen-year-old with his slight build and pimply complexion. He had started working around the same time as Cara, and while he was somewhat shy he had turned out to be a hard and dependable worker.

  “Nothing,” I replied at the same time as Cara said, “She doesn’t know Mr. Sexiest Man Alive’s name!”

  Drew blinked, looking confused. “Who?”

  “The new bellhop. Your trainee,” I explained.

  “Oh, Parker!” Drew’s face lit up in understanding before his expression again became confused. “He’s the sexiest man alive?”

  “Duh!” Cara exclaimed. “Tall, tan, blond, looks like he just came off a remake of Baywatch. What more could you want?”

  “If we’re talking Baywatch, then breasts,” Drew said. “Pamela Anderson’s.”

  Surprised at his uncharacteristic joke, I snorted as I took a sip of my coffee. Cara just rolled her eyes, clearly not appreciating having her taste questioned.

  “Come on! I mean- oh my god, here he comes!” she broke off as Mr. Sexiest Man Alive, formerly known as Peter Paul Pablo, returned.

  “Um, Ms. Burgess wants to switch to Bloody Marys now. But she wants all this extra stuff in them, should I…” he started to say, directing his question to Drew as he looked down at his arm, where he had apparently attempted to scribble Wendy’s notoriously complex, customized Bloody Mary recipe.

  Cara sidled up to him and interrupted, “Oh, I’ll help you with that. I know what Wendy likes. I’m Cara, by the way,”

  “Parker,” he replied, giving Cara a relieved smile.

  “Come on, I’ll show you what to do,” Cara said, grabbing Parker’s arm. Parker gave Drew and me a sheepish wave as Cara practically yanked him back towards the kitchen.

  Drew looked perplexed as he watched their retreating backs. “But all he has to do is tell the kitchen that the Bloody Mary is for Wendy,” he said slowly. “He doesn't have to make it himself. What does she have to show him?”

  “Nothing. But it gives her an excuse to talk to him, something she apparently is incapable of doing without a work-related reason behind it,” I explained, rolling my eyes. I went over to the computer behind the front desk and swished the mouse around. The screen instantly brightened, revealing at least a dozen tabs Susan had left open. I closed the ones related to online shopping and juice cleanses before opening a new tab and logging into my email account.

  Email from a professor, email from Amber’s mom to the both of us that no doubt contained at least ten cat GIFS, email about my car insurance payment being due...in other words, nothing exciting. I quickly sorted the relevant emails into my carefully organized files. I kept ones for school, bills, personal things, and work all separated. Any junk I immediately deleted.

  “Anything good?” Drew asked, appearing beside me to retrieve the coffee he had stashed behind the desk when the wine shipment had arrived. Like many of us at the Walker House, Drew had an official position of bellhop but was really a jack of all trades. He was forever carrying luggage, taking random drink orders, answering the phones when I had too many calls already, and even occasionally chasing woodland creatures from the building. You name it, Drew had probably done it at some point. He was always quick to help out, which I certainly appreciated.

  “Nah. Lots of junk, bills, and midterm schedules,” I replied, closing the screen moments before the clacking of heels signified Susan’s return.

  “Cassie! Drew! Don’t you see our guests arriving?” she snapped, nodding down the nearly mile-long road in front of the inn. Her blonde hair was escaping from the bun anchored to her skull with a million bobby pins. As someone who prided herself on looking put together, Susan with messy hair was a bad sign. In general it was a signal to stay far, far away, something that was unfortunately rarely possible for me.

  I glanced out the front window. A car had just turned off the main road and was slowly navigating the uneven terrain of the gravel driveway. It would take them at least another five minutes to make it down the long drive.

  “You should be out there ready to greet them!” Susan gestured towards the door, unnecessarily frantic. She held her hand to her mouth as if to take a drag of her cigarette. Realizing she was empty handed, she settled for shooing us towards the door.

  “I think we’ll make it out there in time, barring a broken leg or something,” I muttered to Drew, already moving towards the door. He snickered under his breath.

  “What was that?”

  “Nothing, Susan,” I said. As Drew and I slipped onto the porch I let the door close behind me louder than was strictly necessary.

  3

  It was two o’clock in the afternoon before I finally, finally, made it home. Susan had disappeared right in the middle of a rare check in rush, so both my afternoon replacement and I had been too busy for me to clock out until close to an hour and a half after my shift should have ended. I made a mental note to demand overtime pay.

  I kicked off my shoes immediately upon entering the front door, sending one under the coffee table and another tumbling across the room before it came to rest against Amber’s tennis racket. I rolled my eyes at the racket. I’d asked Amber a dozen times to get rid of the dumb thing, or at least keep it in her room since her plans to be the next Venus Williams had fallen through.

  Over the summer, Amber had been invited to play tennis with a guy she was casually dating. After their game, he had complimented her ability nonstop. I assumed he was just vying for another date, but Amber took him at his word. Even after she had decided to stop keeping company with him she had religiously gone to the tennis court on our university’s campus every day for a month.

  Like most hobbies she had taken up, however, tennis eventually lost its appeal. Now the only reminders that it had ever been a “thing” were the tennis racket that had taken up residence in the living room and the tennis skirt Amber insisted on keeping because she thought it was cute.

  Not wanting to contribute to the mess, I retrieved my shoes and tucked them neatly into the hall closet. Then I sat down on the couch and closed my eyes, exhausted. There were
a million things I needed to do. I had planned to start a load of laundry, study for my stupid geology midterm next week, proofread an essay that was due soon, and bake cupcakes for my friend Jenna’s birthday. Later that evening we had plans to take Jenna out to celebrate, so my time was limited.

  I forced myself off the couch and made my way to the small utility room- “The Laundry Nook,” Amber and I called it, as it was really more of an alcove off the kitchen than an actual room. I started a load of laundry, tossing anything from the hamper that even marginally qualified as darks into the washer. I set the cycle and waited until I heard the water start running before returning to the kitchen.

  Next, I pulled out the various ingredients I needed to make the cupcakes. I used an old recipe of my grandmother’s I had made so many times before I no longer needed to reference the directions she had once hastily scribbled on the back of a takeout menu for me. I carefully measured the flour, eggs, cocoa, sugar, baking powder, and coffee (the not so secret ingredient) before spooning the batter into the cupcake liners. After spending several minutes adding half spoonfuls of batter to various liners until they looked perfectly equal, I popped them in the oven and reluctantly drug my stupid geology textbook from my bag.

  For several long minutes I struggled to read through the dry, technical text. Start of the holocene, 11,500 years ago, blah blah blah. When I realized I had reread the same paragraph at least three times, though, I sighed and closed the book. I was way too tired to focus, what with my earlier than usual wakeup call and the busy day at work. If I didn’t get some more sleep I was going to be a real party pooper later tonight.

  Not trusting myself to leave something in the oven unattended and not burn it, I whiled away the next twenty minutes straightening up in the kitchen. I scrubbed the mixing bowl I had used for the cupcake batter, put away the stack of clean dishes Amber had left sitting by the sink, topped Willow’s bowl with fresh water, and tossed a few condiments near their expiration date in the trash.

  When the cupcakes had finished baking, I tested them with a toothpick before setting them on the counter to cool. After triple checking that I had turned off the oven, I retreated to my room to take a quick nap.

  Upstairs my neatly made bed was waiting. I quickly changed out of the skirt and blouse I had worn to work and into a pair of yoga pants and a Carlson College sweatshirt. Moments later I was sliding beneath my blankets, my eyes already heavy. I heard the door, which I hadn’t shut all the way, creak slightly. There was a small thump as Willow jumped on the bed and curled into a ball of fluff at my feet. I reached down and gave her a quick stroke on her velvety head. Setting the alarm on my phone for an hour later, I closed my eyes and in just minutes I was asleep.

  When I woke up some time later, I checked the time to see that only five minutes remained before my alarm would go off. Unwilling to get out of my cozy bed just yet, I rolled over and stared at the sloped ceiling in my room. I noticed a small cobweb had formed in the corner above the door and I made a note to dust it.

  My gaze fell downward to the door itself. It was a sturdy, wood paneled door with a pretty crystal knob common in these older farmhouses. But right now, something seemed off about it. Rolling over to study it more closely, I frowned. It was shut tightly, which by itself was not unusual. But I had heard it creak open earlier when Willow had come in, and I hadn’t gotten up to close it. At least not that I remembered.

  I glanced down at the cat. She was still there, sprawled across the length of my bed. Amber must be home, I reasoned. She would have shut the door to keep from waking me. I grabbed my phone again and saw I had several texts confirming the plans for the evening.

  OK, ladies, here’s the final plan: Meet at the restaurant at 7:30. Then DaVinci’s for karaoke night! Jenna had written. That was half an hour later than we had originally planned, I noted with mild annoyance. At least it wasn’t earlier. That might have given me a panic attack, what with all the things I still needed to do before then.

  Can I get a ride??!!! I’m stuck on campus, my car’s not back from the shop yet!!! Brooklyn had replied with her characteristic overuse of punctuation.

  I can get you after I leave work. Cassie, I’m going to be working late apparently. I’ll go straight to dinner after I get Brooklyn. Can you bring something for me to change into? Black dress on the chair in my room, pick some shoes for me? Please and thank you! Amber had responded.

  So Amber hadn’t come home. I looked back at the door, uncertain now. It was a silly thing to be bothered over. A draft could have easily blown the door shut, or maybe some kind of old house settling caused it to swing back into its frame. There were a number of reasonable things that might have caused the door to close all on its own. Still I felt uneasy, though, not unlike I had that morning. As I recalled the strange texts I felt a chill run down my spine.

  I slowly withdrew my legs from under the blankets, careful not to disturb Willow. I crossed the narrow strip of floor between my bed and the door and put my hand on the knob. Quickly, before I could freak myself out even more, I pulled the door open.

  The hallway and the landing were empty. I wasn’t entirely sure what I had been expecting to find, but I let out a small sigh of relief all the same. I was surprised that I could see my breath. It was then I realized that it was freezing, far colder than it had been when I had gone upstairs.

  I quickly made my way down to the living room and saw that the large window behind the couch was wide open, allowing the cold air from outside to flow in. The light, sheer curtains fluttered in the autumn breeze. I shut the window and locked it, noting for the first time just how flimsy the small metal latch seemed to be. Racking my brain, I tried to remember if I had opened the window when I had come home. I was pretty sure I hadn’t, but there had to be some explanation.

  Perhaps Amber had opened the window after I had gone to work that morning and forgotten to close it, and I just hadn’t noticed it was open when I got home. After all, I reasoned, I’d been hot from running around like a crazed lunatic at work and might not have noticed how chilly it had gotten. Plus, I had been tired and preoccupied with everything I needed to accomplish. It would make sense that the window’s openness, or lack thereof, hadn’t been high on my list of things to pay attention to. It could also explain how my bedroom door had gone from ajar to closed. A gust of wind could have come in through the open window and caused the door to blow shut.

  Even though it made sense, I felt unsatisfied with my explanation. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something just seemed off.

  “Get a hold of yourself, would you?” I said aloud, feeling rather silly. I stretched my arms above my head and glanced around the living room. Everything looked perfectly normal. Nothing was broken or missing. Clearly having a messed up sleep schedule just didn’t agree with me. It made me both oddly paranoid and unobservant, it seemed.

  I looked at the time on the clock next to the TV. I only had a few hours before I would need to leave. I immediately started making a mental list of what ingredients I needed to get out to make frosting for the cupcakes. I also wondered what I was going to wear and considered whether I had time to curl my hair.

  Half an hour later, I was in the middle of spooning buttercream into a decorating bag when I heard a loud thump in the living room. I froze, my earlier unease rushing back. There was a rustling, followed by the distinct sound of footsteps.

  Heart in my throat, I tiptoed over to the kitchen door and gently pushed it open. Peering into the living room, I saw no one. The front door, however, was wide open.

  Confused, I stepped out into the living room, decorating bag still in hand. Just when I had almost convinced myself I might be literally losing my mind, a familiar face appeared in the door, overnight bag draped over one shoulder.

  “Jenna!” I cried out, relieved.

  “Cassie!” Jenna replied, mimicking my overly enthusiastic tone. She laughed, her dark curls bobbing as she did. “What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost!
You’re all pale. Well, paler than normal, anyway.”

  “I’m fine. I just thought I had locked the door, so you startled me when I heard you in the living room.”

  “Spare key, remember?” Jenna flashed a key chain full of keys at me. “I was bored after class and didn’t want to just sit at my place by myself, so I thought I’d come hang out here until it was time to go. Oh, cupcakes!” she added, seeing the decorating bag in my hand. “Can I have some frosting?”

  “Sure,” I said. “I’ll give you a whole cupcake. Come be my taste tester.” Following Jenna into the kitchen, I allowed myself one brief glance back at the door. It was shut, the window was shut, and everything was normal, I reassured myself.

  In the kitchen, Jenna was already helping herself to a cupcake, spooning frosting on it directly from the mixing bowl. She peeled off the wrapper and ate half of it in one bite.

  “Mmm, this is good,” she said around a mouthful of cake. “Hey, are you working tomorrow?” she asked before polishing off the rest of the cupcake and reaching for another.

  “Hey, knock it off if you want to have any for your actual birthday tomorrow,” I chastised. I reached out and took the cupcake from her and quickled piped on a swirl of frosting before handing it back to her.

  “This’ll be the last one, I promise,” Jenna assured me. “You didn’t answer my question, though. Do you have to work?”

  “Nope. I am, blissfully, off tomorrow,” I replied, carefully adding frosting to another cupcake.

  “Do you want to go hiking, then? You know, for my birthday?” Jenna asked, hopping on the counter and smoothing out her skirt, a short white one that looked great against her warm brown skin.