Page 65 of Heartbeat

Mary flushed. She’d been caught out and didn’t like that. “Yes, but I won’t interrupt your event today by talking business. I’ll take a card and a brochure with your info, if you don’t mind, and get in touch with you at a later date?”

Amalie didn’t believe her. The woman had no interest in hiring her. She didn’t know what her game was, but she wasn’t going to waste time trying to woo her. Instead, she handed her a card and one of the brochures.

“Coffee and refreshments are on the back table. Please help yourself.”

Mary tucked the card into her purse and smiled again. “Thank you, I will.”

Amalie turned away, and within moments, a reporter and photographer arrived from the local paper to take some pictures for the Sunday edition. She paused to answer their questions for the piece, posed for pictures with several guests, and then left the photographer to snap at will.

At that point, she turned around to look for Sean and saw him watching her. When he gave her a thumbs-up, she smiled.

About an hour into the event, Aunt Ella announced she was ready to leave.

Sean left the party long enough to help get her back into the car, and as soon as she was buckled in, Ella had her last say.

“She’s a keeper, Sean. Bring her to see me sometime. She’s still trying to find her way.”

“Yes, ma’am. You two stay out of trouble. Mom, you know how to reach me if the need arises,” he said.

“We’ll be fine. You go do you,” Shirley said.

Sean waved them off and then headed back inside and quietly replenished goodies on the table and starteda brew of fresh coffee. His job today was to stay in the background as backup.

He’d been watching people coming and going with true delight. Amalie’s day was a rousing success. As best he could tell, every person who’d come to the event was a local business owner or a local resident. He didn’t think there was a random tourist among them except maybe for the blond woman who’d walked in behind Ray Caldwell.

She was a stranger to him, and he assumed she’d seen the Open House sign from the street and just wandered in. He saw her talking to Amalie and realized something was off when he saw the expression on Amalie’s face. After that, he kept a close eye on the woman, wondering if she and Amalie knew each other from before, because the woman had given Amalie a look he didn’t like. It was somewhere between disdain and disapproval.

When she turned toward the refreshment table, he snapped a couple of pictures of her on his phone. When she reached the table, he saw her eye the food like she was judging a contest, and then turn and walk away as if she’d found it lacking. Then she turned and again stared at Amalie as if she were mud under her feet. He snapped a picture of her again and then started toward her, but before he got to her, she’d taken leave on her own.

He walked to the window to see what she was driving, but she just kept walking down the street, so he shrugged off the feeling and let it go. He’d ask Amalie about her later.

Hours later, Fiona Rangely was back at Sutton Airfield, disembarking from the helicopter she’d chartered to take her to Jubilee and heading to her car. She was still patting herself on the back for thinking to check Wolf’s personal email via her own laptop. She hadn’t gotten where she was today without caution and perfect planning, and seeing that email from a woman claiming to be Wolf’s daughter had nearly stopped her heart.

Fucking DNA. Why didn’t people leave well enough alone?

Miss Amalie Lincoln. Wolfgang Outen’s daughter, throwing her name into the ring to inherit a fucking fortune.My fortune.

So, she’d pulled Mary Ingalls out of the mothballs and taken a visit to size up the competition.

It was no big deal. Just one more tragic death and she’d be in the clear.

She aimed the remote on her key ring to unlock the car, tossed her carryall into the back seat, then started the car to cool off. The urgency to put an end to this roadblock was upon her, but she never did “business” on this phone. She dug into the console and pulled out the phone belonging to Mary Ingalls. The battery was low, so she plugged it into a charger and began scrolling through her contacts.

She’d already used up Townley, and Romo was off the map. She kept scrolling until she saw the name Stinger and made the call.

It rang once, and then she got a one-word answer.

“What?”

“It needs to look like an accident.”

“Fifty thou.”

“Agreed,” Fiona said.

“Name and location.”

“Amalie Lincoln. Jubilee, Kentucky,” and then gave out two addresses.

---