Page 16 of Honey Drop Dead

Jeremy lifted both hands and said, “Okay. She gets complete and total access.”

“Oh.” Holly was about to add something else, then her jaw bunched and her mouth snapped shut.

“What?” Theodosia asked.

“Nothing,” Holly said as her eyes skittered away.

“Something,” Theodosia said.

Holly grimaced. “I was just thinking... I hope Booker didn’t do anything crazy.”

“Booker?” Drayton said. Clearly, he was still listening in on the conversation.

“Who’s Booker?” Theodosia asked.

Holly looked across the table at Jeremy with widened eyes, silently urging him to speak up.

Finally, Jeremy sighed and said, “Thadeus T. Booker. He’s one of the artists Holly recently signed to the gallery. Booker’s what you might classify as an outsider artist. He’s remarkably talented but a trifle eccentric. He smokes a little weed and has been known to carry a knife.”

“And why would you think Booker might have done something crazy?” Theodosia asked.

“Because he’s just plain off the chain,” Holly said. “Booker talks about painting in blood and doing crazy street art. Sometimes he’ll sneak out at two in the morning and work all night, creating some kind of weird giant mural on the side of a building. Without the building owner’s permission, of course.”

“Booker incorporates words and numbers along with rather startling images,” Jeremy said. “He refers to it as guerrilla art.”

“I think I’d like to talk to this Booker,” Theodosia said.

“No, you don’t,” Drayton murmured under his breath.

“Where would I find him?” Theodosia asked.

“Last I heard he was hanging around the colleges, working on street paintings. The coffee shops and tattoo parlors are big fans of the stuff he does, the graffiti stuff and the phantom art,” Holly said.

“What’s phantom art?” asked Theodosia.

“It’s when Booker does a painting, signs it, and disappears,” Holly said.

“Interesting,” Theodosia said. Very interesting indeed.

***

Twenty minutes later, Theodosia was in the kitchen, nibbling an apple scone. Haley had just pulled a pan of blond brownies from the oven and was mixing up a bowl of chocolate frosting, whipping it into a frenzy with her wire whisk.

“My mulligan soup should make a nice starter today,” Holly said. “It’s chockablock full of beef brisket, gold potatoes, and carrots, and should go well with my lemon poppy biscuits.”

“Terrific,” Theodosia said. “What else do we have on the menu?”

“Seafood salad, caramelized onion and cheddar quiche, cucumber and cream cheese tea sandwiches with blackberry jam, and crab salad on brioche tea sandwiches. Plus, we’ve still got plenty of scones and tea bread from this morning.”

There was a soft knock on the door jam and then Drayton poked his head in.

“Theo,” he said. “We’re getting busy.”

The Indigo Tea Shop was busy all right, but nothing Theodosia couldn’t handle. She took orders, ran them into the kitchen, then swooped back out to grab pots of freshly brewed tea from Drayton. It was a ballet of sorts, the dipping, swooping, and pouring, but it energized Theodosia. Reminded her just how much she loved her cozy little tea shop. How important owning a small business was to her own self-worth.

At one fifteen, Bill Glass, the photographer and publisher, sauntered in. He saw Theodosia standing at the front counter, touched two fingers to his forehead, and shot her a mock salute. Today Glass wore a faded denim jacket, saggy jeans, and a pair of scuffed loafers. A Nikon camera was slung around his neck.

“There she is, the Angel of Death herself,” Glass said.

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