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Though she’d promised Dean she wouldn’t go back to the meditation hollow, she had to at least look for her lost necklace.

She’d decided not to try to take the hidden frontage road path through the woods. While it was safer and better lit, walking through the woods alone (again) seemed ill-advised. Didn’t that count as being sensible? She guessed that Dean would not see it that way.

The hollow looked completely different in daylight—warmer and more welcoming, even if the air was crisply cool. She was surprised that she’d managed to negotiate the incline toward the cave in heeled boots the night before. She could see now why the staff limited the use of the hollow to supervised classes.

The boulder seating situation made much more sense in daylight. And now she could see herbs growing in random patches amongst mossy tiers that closed around the space like a bowl, forming a sort of frame around the front of the cave. It was very theatrical.

Jess supposed this garden was what kept the kitchen supplied with garnishes. Or maybe the spa used them, too, for the required lotions and potions. Between the golden light and the music of birdsong drifting through the herb-scented air, it was…perfection. She grinned. The Osbournes were freaking magicians. This was one of the most intentionally perfect places she’d ever seen.

And yet her necklace was still missing.

Carefully, she stepped off the path and walked through the gravel to the back row of seating boulders. She kept her eyes glued to the pea-sized pebbles at her feet for some glimmer of silver amongst the white rocks.

She’d been standing on the footpath when Dean had startled her, so she kept close to that area. She broadened her search area, closer to the seating boulders. But it turned out that looking for small, round, pale objects in a sea of small, round, pale objects…was pretty damn difficult.

“Well, shoot,” she said. She sank down to a sitting position on the nearest boulder, setting aside the file folder full of contact numbers Mavis had prepared for Jess.

Maybe she could ask one of the female Osbournes to take her around on the hidden path? Then again, all the Osbournes worked so hard up here, just like Dean said. She didn’t want to add one more thing to their plates.

How was Jess going to tell her grandmother she’d lost a huge piece of family history? She might as well have taken a Sharpie to the family Bible. Jess scrubbed a hand over her face. The Brickers should have replaced the necklace clasp years ago, but no one in the family had the heart to do that, as the original Jessamine’s initials were engraved on it.

She blew out a long breath, watching the water ripple down over the rocks. She tried to concentrate on the memory from the previous night so she could remember the moment the weight of the necklace dropped away.

Jess had never tried to meditate before, but she could see herself trying it in a place like this. She felt so far away from the potential loss of her home, far from whatever was happening in Diana’s head, far from everything. She closed her eyes and inhaled the fragrant breeze. She thought of where she’d been standing on the path when Dean had barked questions at her. She tried to focus on the sound she’d heard, the faintest metallic ping , in the darkness, which had felt so insignificant at the time.

She listened to the water burbling until she could almost pick up on its pattern. She remembered Papa Burt and the way that his gray eyes disappeared into the crinkles of his bearded face when he grinned. She thought about Nana Blanche and how she always smelled like lilac and sang June Carter songs, and how it made her feel safe. Jess could almost feel the muscles of her neck start to unclench…

However, her butt was going numb. The rock she was sitting on was really cold and it was seeping through her jeans. And with her frigid butt feelings creeping into her mind, all those faraway thoughts clawed their way back into her brain. The bills she had to pay. The boxes she would have to obtain if she had to move. Diana’s laser focus on luring Trenton into matrimony meant Jess didn’t have time for frigid butt feelings or relaxation. And her jewelry was still missing.

She needed to get to Poppy’s office.

Sighing, Jess pushed to her feet and walked toward the stepping-stone path. Just before she reached the first flagstone, her sneaker slipped on the gravel. She stumbled forward and it was all she could do not to yelp “Whoops!”

Which she figured would eventually be her last word before she died in some horrible accident…that she caused.

“Ooof.” Jess caught herself before she face-planted directly into the stepping-stone path. She righted herself and looked around, grateful that no one was present to see that. She would never tell Dean. Never.

The good news was being so close to the ground made it a lot easier for her to spot the silver clasp of her necklace, which was a foot or so to her right. The pearls were wedged into the soft dirt surrounding one of the stepping stones. “Yes!”

Jess dug the necklace out of the dirt with her fingertips. It was pressed down into the cold earth, as if someone had stepped on it. She brushed the dirt off the gems and checked for her initials on the clasp, just to make sure it was her own. The little crack in her heart, one that she hadn’t even realized had formed, healed over in a rush of relieved warmth.

Thick dirt stubbornly clung to the creamy surface of the pearls. She carefully moved over the thousands of tripping hazards near the water, thinking she might be able to wash it off. She’d take the necklace to a jeweler for a proper cleaning when she got home, but would this work for now?

As she got closer to the pool, she spotted long drag marks in the gravel, as if someone had stumbled through the hollow, disrupting its Zen simplicity. Someone had dropped a fork on one of the stepping stones.

“What the?”

Who would carry a fork all this way? Jess crouched to get a closer look. And that’s when she noticed the red sandal floating in the meditation pool.

Jeremy from Harmony Villa was floating face down in the rounded basin of the meditation pool. And he wasn’t moving.

“Hel—” She stopped herself. She had to stop calling “hello” when she was isolated in a dangerous location with…she wasn’t ready just yet to admit that it could be a dead body. “Sir?”

Between the obscuring greenery, the distance, and the dark clothes, Jess hadn’t seen him floating like a lecherous leaf on the surface of the water. She’d been in this hollow for twenty minutes. And he hadn’t made a sound.

Her jaw didn’t seem to work the way it was supposed to. She could barely unclench it long enough to say, “Mr. Treadaway?”

Hands shaking, Jess looked around for a stick or something to roust him out of the water. But the place was kept so immaculate that there was nothing out of place. Well, other than the fork. And the dead guy.

Instead, Jess picked up a handful of pebbles. She tossed one at him and missed, but the second hit him right in his thick, wet hair. He didn’t move. His ashen blue hands floated free near his head, listless. The cold-dread space where she suspected an emergency might be happening , split from the realization that it was actually happening , sort of crystallized in her head. And she realized she’d been “meditating” thirty feet from a dead body.

Jess had only seen one dead body in her life, and that had been her beloved Papa Burt, tucked away in a coffin in his best JCPenney Sunday suit. Tidy. Sanitized. Jeremy was a grim reminder that life could leave the body anytime, and what it left behind…

Oh no, she’d been tossing rocks at what was left behind.

“Gah,” she muttered, flinging the rest of her pebbles to the ground. Her fingertips felt numb, while her other hand gripped her necklace like it was a lifeline. She glanced down at the pearls in her hand. They’d been squashed down into the dirt when she found them. Had Jeremy stepped on them on his walk to the water? Her necklace could be considered evidence now.

She was glad she hadn’t picked up the fork.

Had Jeremy Treadaway wandered down here after his late-night pasta? Jess had trouble with the incline in her snug, sensible shoes. How much more difficult would the path be in Jeremy’s fancy flip-flops? And the fork…why would he carry a fork all this way? Where was his plate?

It had to be an accident. Murders weren’t supposed to happen at places like this. Well, OK, Jeremy’s wife seemed really frustrated with…well, everything about him. And Jeremy’s interactions with other people seemed exclusively creepy and intrusive. Susan did mention he was ordering a lot of late-night room service. Maybe he’d pushed someone in the kitchen too far? Dean Osbourne did seem awfully high-strung.

No, Jess was being ridiculous. This was an accident caused by uneven surfaces and ill-advised footwear. One day it would be studied by occupational health and safety experts and used to prevent silly deaths in health spas.

Jess took a deep breath.

Right, OK. This was definitely not how she expected to start her day, but she needed to get to Poppy or Sis—anybody— fast , before a guest came down here and started screaming, starting a facility-wide panic. Jess was no branding expert, but “luxury death hollow” was not the vibe the Osbournes were going for here.

Hands shaking, Jess walked back up the path to the spa’s calm, mostly-dead-body-free grounds. She took another deep breath, which seemed a lot more necessary after the climb up the hill. What was the fastest way to get someone to the scene of an “issue” without making a huge scene?

She had some experience at this. Like that time at the Taft-McMillan wedding when two of the groom’s little cousins broke into the reception venue during the ceremony and gorged themselves on the bottom tier of the wedding cake. By the time Jess and the caterer were done, the bride had completely forgotten that her four-tier cake used to have five tiers.

Down the hill, she spotted a group of yoga-gear-clad people trooping past the golden ash, led by Sis. But Dean and his sous chef, the older man with the utensil tattoos, were closer, carrying big wicker baskets. Jess thought maybe the baskets were more decorative than useful.

“We never harvest herbs this late in the day,” Dean was telling the other man. “We should be doing the lunch prep right now.”

“I’m not the one who insisted on chimichurri two nights in a row,” his companion replied. “You’re taking all my parsley plants.”

“It’s a popular item,” Dean said. “Give the people what they want.”

“Oh, you could give a damn about people and what they want—” the other man started before spotting Jess. “Miss? Are you OK?”

Jess opened her mouth. How was she going to explain herself? Hi, we’re out of towels in Tranquility Villa and there’s a dead guy in the meditation pool. You might want to take care of that?

In the distance, Jess overheard Sis say something about “mindfulness.” Sis was leading her group to a meditation class in the death hollow. Jess smiled sweetly, her expression one of false cheer, and nodded toward the approaching group. “You need to stop them.”

“Stop who?” Dean asked, taking a step back.

Now that they were closer, Jess could see that the embroidery on the other man’s jacket read “Jamie Ortega, Sous Chef.” Jamie gently wrapped his large scarred hand around her arm. The little bit of warmth that seeped into her sleeve seemed to draw her back to earth. “Why is her face doing that? Honey, why is your face doing that?”

“He’s right. It’s a very creepy face,” Dean agreed. “You look like an anxious mannequin.”

“I’m trying to remain calm while I tell you to stop that group from going into the hollow before they see the dead person floating in the meditation pool,” Jess told them quietly while she attempted to loosen up the “creepy” smile. “And I need you to go get someone.”

“Who?” Dean asked, taking her other arm. His hand was just as big and warm as it had been the night before.

Jess shrugged, but to her surprise, she didn’t shake off Dean’s hand. It felt good on her arm, keeping her anchored to her thoughts. It connected her enough to the anxious dread in her belly that the calm mask slipped. “I don’t know. Poppy, anybody who’s important enough for a walkie-talkie.”

“No, I mean, who’s in the pool?” Dean whispered.

She frowned. “Oh, I’m pretty sure it’s the guy from Harmony Villa.”

Dean’s mouth dropped open in shock, and without being asked, Jamie disappeared down the hollow path. Dean’s hand stayed on her arm, and it helped her breathe, plan.

“I thought I told you not to go down there by yourself?” Dean said pointedly.

“Clearly, I ignored you. I needed to find my necklace,” she said, holding up her dirtied pearls.

“Oh, well, obviously, that’s what I meant, don’t go down to the dangerous location alone unless there’s jewelry involved,” Dean retorted. “Are you all right?”

She shook her head. “Not really.”

“You’re holding up well,” he murmured.

“It helps that I’m here for work and this isn’t some vacation I’d saved up for years to enjoy. If I was a real guest, I would probably freak out,” Jess said. When Dean shot her a confused look, she changed the subject. “I overheard Susan Treadaway say that Jeremy was trying to target you to work at some restaurant project of his? She thought Jeremy was bugging you about it…which, now that it’s left my mouth, I understand that sort of sounds like I’m accusing you of something. Sorry, this is my first dead body.”

Dean’s eyebrows shot up. “So, just to clarify, you don’t think I had anything to do with the dead body?”

“No. I mean, it has to be an accident, right?” she said. “Has anything like this ever happened before?”

“Not an accident necessarily,” he said. “But it’s not the first time someone’s died on-site—heart attacks, strokes, that sort of thing. But we’ve been open for a long time. And when you think about how many people wait until their retirement years to travel, you’d be hard-pressed to find a tourist destination that hasn’t suffered some sort of incident. The stories people in town could tell you would curl your hair.”

“I know it seems too soon to blame the victim, but the guy did huff off into the dark, without a flashlight, so I guess this isn’t a shock,” she told him.

“You saw him?”

“It was right after you left me near the villas.”

Dean shook his head. “How the hell did he end up all the way down there?”

“Do you keep the exterior lights on all night?” Jess asked.

“Some of them,” Dean said. “The lampposts go out at midnight, but the footlights stay on. It’s an energy-saving measure.”

“Could he have gotten turned around in the dark?” Jess guessed. “I can imagine that, with only half the lights on. Maybe he followed one of those will-o’-the-wisps too close to the water and he lost his footing?”

“I’m pretty sure you’re the only person I’ve met who would follow ghost lights into the woods,” Dean told her.

“That can’t be true if it’s a legend your granny used to tell you,” she snorted.

“Yeah, a legend about people who fell for shiny, dangerous lights hundreds of years ago,” Dean shot back, making her snort. “Before standardized education was a thing.”

“Don’t make me laugh, there’s a dead guy,” Jess whispered. Dean looked like he was about to laugh, too. At least he did until Sous Chef Jamie returned, a grim expression on his face—which was replaced when he stared at the way Dean was touching Jess’s arm. He said, “I’ll go get Poppy.”

Dean let go of Jess’s arm to meet Sis’s group before they got too close. The Yoni Egg Queen was amongst them, her sunburned face shiny-clean of makeup, save for lip stain in a magenta that matched her ruddy cheeks. Jess noted that she was limping. Weird.

Jess really had to learn this woman’s name. Even in her head, the nickname was starting to feel unseemly.

“Jess, are you looking for your group?” Sis asked. “Miss Helston decided she’d rather move directly into the thermal suite this morning, once she saw the various steam treatments available.”

Jess nodded, struggling to keep her expression somewhere between “neutral” and “anxious mannequin brought to life.” Dean put on the most cheerful tone she’d ever heard him use to say, “Good morning, I’m afraid class is going to have to be relocated today. Jamie and I are handpicking herbs for a special treat for tonight’s dinner, and I wouldn’t want you to see how the magic happens.”

Jess was impressed. Technically, it wasn’t a lie. And there was no mention of the dead body or danger, so that worked. Sis tensed as if she was going to argue. But when she saw the look on her brother’s face and the way Jess was standing there, with her brittle, unnatural smile, Sis grinned back brightly. “Oh, well, we wouldn’t want to get in the way of creative genius, now would we?”

The group, guests Jess didn’t recognize save for Yoni Egg Queen, nodded agreeably—probably because they thought the cooperation would result in some form of dessert.

“I’ll just take the group to the yoga platform and we can work on some breathing exercises. I’m sure Dean wouldn’t mind going to Poppy and booking y’all some extra vitamin C exfoliating facials for your trouble.”

“Of course not,” Dean replied through gritted teeth.

“And maybe later, you can explain to me”—Sis gave Dean a pointed look—“what is going on in…the kitchen.”

“Thanks, Sis,” Dean called after her as she led the group away. Jess worried her thumb over the clasp of her pearls.

“I guess we can be grateful that Mrs. Treadaway wasn’t in that group,” Dean said quietly. “I’m not sure how I would have handled that, ethically speaking. Better to let the authorities notify her, I think.”

As Sis’s group reached the trail to the yoga platform, Jess spotted the same dark-haired woman who’d made the paper bag delivery the night before. Jess’s mouth dropped open to say something, but then the well-shod possible drug dealer gave Sis a hug and handed her a rather large tote bag. If there were drugs in that bag, there were a lot of them. So…that wasn’t good.

Jess wondered exactly how she was supposed to tell Dean that there might be nefarious characters, possibly including his own sister, selling drugs right under his nose. That would go over well, right? Jess was going to disrupt spa operations, family relationships, and whatever was going on with Mr. Treadaway, all for the sake of appeasing her sense of right and wrong. And she had to admit, she tended toward the goody-goody side of things. Who was Jess to come crashing in and wrecking everything? The family had enough to deal with right now, what with the dead body and all.

Thinking over her options, Jess closed her mouth—physically and metaphorically.

Jess’s Big Book of Life Plans: You didn’t see anything. Mind your own damned business.

“Jess?” Dean said, breaking her from her thoughts. “Poppy’s going to probably need to see you in her office. Blister’s probably gonna want to talk to you.”

Jess blinked at him. “I’m sorry, Blister?”

“The local sheriff. It’s a childhood nickname,” Dean said. “It will make sense once you meet him.”

***

The wait for Blister took longer than expected, so Jamie loitered near the hollow pathway to keep people from wandering down to the scene. Dean prepared a simpler-than-usual lunch menu solo. And Jess was left waiting in Poppy’s office, unattended. While her hands itched to call Mavis, she knew that she couldn’t possibly muster the energy to remember the details of Diana’s proposal right now. And if she called Mavis without work questions, she would have to explain why.

So instead, she studied the framed black-and-white photos on Poppy’s office walls. She was mid-anxiety spiral the previous night, too keyed up to notice them. But now she could see that the featured landscape looked familiar, surrounding one huge white clapboard building marked “Osbourne Spring Hotel.” The older pictures looked like they started right after the Great Depression, when the hotel was just a large family home. The Osbournes had clearly changed over the years, too, though Jess could sort of trace the cousins backward to their parents and grandparents.

Poppy walked in with the dark-haired lady, she of the cute shoes and questionable deliveries. Jess froze. This could be the moment Jess found out that Poppy was fully aware of the dubious bags.

“Jess, you OK?” Poppy asked, hugging her gently.

“I’m fine,” Jess lied.

“Ms. Helston has demanded that Jonquil come up with a hypoallergenic, gluten-free facial mask that will make her look like she has no pores. While I was trying to deal with a dead body on the premises, without letting anyone know there was a body on the premises.” Poppy sighed, pouring herself a large coffee. “I like to think my customer service tolerance is impeccable…but I was tested.”

“That woman is something else,” the other woman huffed.

“Pretty much full time,” Jess agreed.

“That much coffee, huh?” the mysterious bag deliverer asked, pointing to Poppy’s very large, very full mug. Poppy made aggressive eye contact with the woman while drinking deeply of her coffee.

“Wasn’t someone from their group in the office last night when I stopped by?” the woman asked. “The taller of the two redheads. She was on the phone with someone who was yelling at her, sounded like a cranky older lady.”

Jess frowned. The taller of the two redheads would be Kiki. Unless Kiki had used the spa’s landline to call a superior at the lab, it sounded like she’d spent the previous evening being yelled at by her aunt Birdie. When had she even had time to sneak away and do that? The only time they were apart was when Jess was dressing for dinner. Was Kiki reporting Diana’s activities back to their great-aunt? That seemed so sneaky, and Jess wanted to believe the best of her roommate. So far, Kiki was the only person in their group who hadn’t been awful to her.

Jess cleared her throat and awkwardly pointed to the photos. “You should put some of these in the main lodge or the dining room, where the guests can see them.”

Poppy frowned. “It doesn’t really match the feeling guests want to get when they’re here—what was it your friend Aubrey said? Lavish, romantic, and innovative—”

“I’m going to be a professional here, so I’m just going to limit my comments to: Aubrey is also not my friend. She isn’t a client, either, so I can talk bad about her. She’s an acute and persistent pain in my ass.”

Poppy snickered. The other woman flashed a grateful smile at Jess, as if she’d helped Poppy somehow. “Well, there you go. I’m Beth. Nice to meet you, Jess. Poppy says good things about you.”

Beth’s accent was flatter than that of a typical Tennessean, Jess noted, more nasal. New York? New Jersey, maybe?

“I’ve found that in times of crisis, you feel better when someone makes an inappropriate joke and gives you the excuse to laugh,” Jess said.

“It provides the necessary emotional release.” Beth grinned at her. “Let me guess, you’re here to seek respite from your high-stress career in crisis management back in the real world?”

“No. Are you a therapist?” Jess countered.

That would make the bag delivery make sense. Some therapists prescribed psychotropics, right?

Poppy laughed again. “Beth is the spa’s general counsel. And my cousin-in-law. She’s married to Jonquil.”

OK, lawyers didn’t prescribe psychotropics. But Jess decided to continue her mouth-shut policy.

“Do most spas need a general counsel?” Jess asked.

“Absolutely,” Beth replied. “Slick surfaces. Steep climbs. Potential asthmatic reactions to aromatherapy. And then, you know, bodies floating in the water features.”

“Right.” Jess frowned. “And as far as muted responses to crises go, I was a wedding planner. You don’t know what panic is until your justice of the peace decides that his doctor is overexaggerating a late-in-life shellfish allergy and dives face-first into a shrimp ring five minutes before the ceremony.”

Beth shuddered. “Yikes.”

“I got him into an ambulance and then ordained the groom’s uncle through an online church before anyone realized anything was amiss,” Jess told her, preening just a little bit. “Anyway, I have a lot of experience handling crises in a really public way while trying to act like nothing is wrong. I think I can help.”

They didn’t need to know about the Pepperfield-Cooper wedding.

Beth’s brow lifted. “What could you do?”

Jess shrugged. “Answer phones, make more coffee, deflect media requests.”

“Media requests.” Poppy groaned. “Wait, won’t it upset Diana if you’re distracted from, well, Diana?”

Jess shrugged. “Probably. I’ll tell her I’ve had to change her custom eyelash supplier last minute and it’s requiring a lot of calls.”

“What even is your job?” Poppy shook her head.

“I’m not going to take that from someone who claims goat yoga expenses on their taxes,” Jess shot back.

“Oh, no, don’t even bring goat yoga up in front of Sis,” Beth said, shaking her head. “She would never trust strangers around her babies. We’re lucky she lets us use the milk in our spa treatments.”

Poppy’s frown deepened when an SUV marked “Chickenhawk Valley County Sheriff’s Department” rolled to a stop in front of the lodge, red and blue lights flashing. An ambulance rolled in behind it, in full siren. “I told Blister the lights and sirens weren’t necessary. I’m trying to keep the guests from noticing.”

That idea of an unhurried ambulance struck Jess as sad, but having seen the body…yeah, she got it.

Poppy rose and strode out of the building, her coffee fueling her ability to whisper-hiss “ Blister! ” loud enough that Jess could hear it through the windows.

“Poppy’s not wrong,” Beth told her, nodding at the photos. She busied her hands, making a cup of tea from an electric kettle next to the office coffeepot. It was some sweet-smelling herbal blend, kept in a Bybee Pottery jar. She handed the mug to Jess before making one for herself. “Our guests are looking for something special, to distance themselves from their everyday lives. The original hotel started off as a sort of sanitorium and resort in the early 1900s, promising the middle class some time away from the city grime. And the Osbournes had a famous spring.”

When Jess laughed incredulously, Beth added, “I know, I had to learn about it when I moved here. Jonquil says families around here take particular pride in their water. They brag that their spring is the best, the cleanest, and all that. But somehow, the Osbourne family spring developed a reputation for being able to cure people of their ailments. I mean, they ran a goat farm at the time, and still. People started camping out on the edge of the property to get a chance at drinking the waters. Poppy said their great-great-grandpa decided that he might as well make some money off being harassed, so the family built the hotel. It was beautiful and cutting-edge for its time. But by the 1990s, it had deteriorated to the point that a location scout called Jonquil’s dad because she wanted to use it as the exterior set of a horror movie. After that, the parents decided it was time to update things a little.”

Jess sipped her tea—a fragrant blend of mint and chamomile. The tag was branded with the Golden Ash logo. “That must have been interesting, growing up on a…horror movie set.”

“The old goat farm setup didn’t help,” she admitted. “I’ve seen the pictures. It kind of gave everything a threatening pastoral undercurrent. The family renovated and moved the goat pen to the far edge of the property just to keep the smell of actual mountain life from the guests’ noses. Sis and the barn staff prefer it that way.”

Through the window, they watched as Poppy quietly fussed at Blister—a small, slender man in his forties with a wispy brown moustache and wire-rimmed glasses. He had to look up at Poppy when he spoke, and Jess thought maybe by the set of his shoulders that annoyed him. Meanwhile, the paramedics marched down to the hollow, rescue backboard in hand, to retrieve Jeremy’s body.

Fortunately, guests seemed to be engaged elsewhere. Maybe they could get Jeremy into the ambulance without being observed.

Beth checked her watch. “I was supposed to have a private guided meditation in Zephyr’s villa in a few minutes. I’m kind of glad Jana said she would cover it for me while I wear my lawyer hat. The lawyer hat is preferable.”

“Zephyr?”

Beth supplied the details, “The blond lady in Stillness Villa? That’s her name—first name only. Just Zephyr, like Cher.”

“Suddenly, me calling her the Yoni Egg Queen doesn’t seem so bad,” Jess muttered.

Beth stared at her for a second, then burst out laughing. Jess giggled, too, and clapped her hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be laughing. A man is dead.”

“Is he going to be any less dead if you laugh?” the other woman asked.

“Nope.” Jess pursed her lips. “Good point.”

Beth paused to study Jess for a moment, and then laughed all over again. “Zephyr’s had a difficult week, so if she comes across as…grumpy, give her a little grace.”

Suddenly, all the little tumblers in Jess’s head fell into place.

“You were giving her one of Jonquil’s remedies,” she said, feeling sheepish. “That’s why I saw you at her villa last night.”

“Yeah…why else do you think I would be there?” Beth grinned. “I’m sort of surprised you even saw me.”

“I’d never seen you before, and you weren’t wearing a spa uniform, so I didn’t know,” Jess replied quickly.

“Well, I wasn’t there for the company,” Beth said. “I really shouldn’t be telling you this, for privacy’s sake, but someone unidentified and unknown called Jonquil screaming because she has a rash on her…” Beth paused for a second to find the right words. “Lady area.”

“Yikes,” Jess cringed as they sank into the chairs in front of Poppy’s desk. “That’s rough.”

“Apparently, this someone bought one of those herbal ‘steaming’ kits that some newly spiritually awakened actress just started selling online. Not sanctioned by the spa. And not something I would try—especially if I was already paying people a ridiculous amount of money to design treatments specifically for me,” Beth noted. “But I would also avoid it if I was already sort of chafed from taking yoga classes and very mildly allergic to one of the steaming ingredients.”

Jess’s cringe became a full-body shudder. Steaming one’s…lady area with an allergen had to be uncomfortable.

“Why would you travel to a spa with that?” Jess asked.

“I know !” Beth said, flinging her hands up. “I’m all for self-care and embracing homeopathic alternatives, but I also heartily endorse reading directions and ingredient lists. Anyway, I tried to explain that Jonquil was busy and if she was really hurting, it might be better for me to call Owen—Poppy’s husband, who is a licensed medical doctor—over to see her. But this person insisted that she wanted natural remedies only—and she wanted them right that minute , or as soon as she got back to the real world, she would inform the real holistic healing community that we’re a bunch of posers who refused to give real care to our guests while draining them for every last dollar. So, I took her some of Jonquil’s miracle balm. Herbs, beeswax, a bunch of proprietary stuff Jonquil wouldn’t want me to tell you about. Super effective against burns and skin irritation. And for good measure, I brought her an over-the-counter cream that Owen recommended . ”

“ Someone still seemed to have a little hitch in her step when she was walking with Sis’s group,” Jess noted.

Beth’s dark brows drew together. “I might have Owen check in on her. He runs a family practice here in town—”

Beth was interrupted by Poppy walking in with Sheriff Blister. Jess glanced outside, where the ambulance crew was loading a body bag on a gurney and into their rig. They didn’t seem to be moving with any urgency and pulled away without lights or sirens.

“Poppy, I’m not here to cause you any trouble, you know that, but you also know I gotta follow through, even with accidents,” the mustachioed lawman said. “It’s not every day somebody drowns around here.”

“It happened twice last summer, Blister,” Poppy countered. Jess froze. She wasn’t sure she was supposed to be here, listening to what felt like private business or a law enforcement chat. But getting up and running out seemed more disruptive, so Jess just watched while Blister flopped into the nearest chair, paying no heed to how the many metal attachments on his uniform belt dug into the leather seat.

“Well, that was a couple of flatlander tourists who didn’t know any better than to try to swim rapids.” Blister sighed. Up close, the glasses, combined with a slightly hooked nose and a head-to-toe brown uniform, gave him an overall owlish appearance. “Not a guest in a fancy spa tripping and smacking his head on a rock and rolling into a ‘meditation pool.’ What the hell is a meditation pool anyway?”

“Is that really what you think happened?” Jess asked. “Doesn’t it seem weird that a grown man could drown in what is basically a decorative fountain?”

Blister stared at her as if she didn’t have the right to ask these sorts of questions—which, she supposed, she didn’t. He finally replied, “We’re exploring all our options. Why wasn’t anyone watching him?”

“Because he wasn’t a small child?” Poppy replied.

“And you don’t have a security camera on the whole damn property.” Blister shot a guilty look at Jess. “Apologies for my language, ma’am. I’m Sheriff Turnbow. Wish we were meeting under better circumstances.”

She raised her hand in a small wave. “Jess Bricker.”

“Why does Jess get an apology?” Beth asked.

“?’Cause I don’t know her,” Blister told her. “I apologized for cussing in front of you up until you’d been here a year.”

Beth considered that. “Fair enough. Does that mean I’m local?”

Blister jerked his narrow shoulders. “Sure.”

“We don’t have cameras because people tend to get real tetchy when you sell them a luxurious, relaxing experience and then videotape them in a bathing suit or less,” Poppy told him. “We have cameras at the front gate, but that’s it.”

“If it helps, I overheard Jeremy talking about local bars,” Jess said. “Maybe he managed to get ahold of some alcohol? It can’t be safe walking around in those shoes without all your faculties.”

“If he had booze, he brought it with him,” Beth said. “And if he was drunk on his personal stash, then walked into off-limits areas, ignoring caution signs, that strikes me as his own bad choices catching up with him, not the spa’s responsibility.”

Both Poppy and Jess shot inquisitive looks at Beth, who was laying on the lawyer-speak a little thick.

Blister was apparently tired of Beth’s and Poppy’s interjections, and asked Jess a series of questions about how and when she’d found the body, what she’d touched at the scene. Because she didn’t want to admit she’d taken her own property from the scene, she blurted out, “Also, I heard his wife say that she could just kill him last night, after they argued. And he stomped off.”

“What time was this?” Blister asked.

“Quarter ’til midnight,” Jess said.

“You heard someone utter a death threat and you didn’t report it?” Blister asked, clearly appalled.

“OK, but how many times have you told somebody you were going to kill them and not meant it?” Jess said.

“Look, Sis spent several hours with them in a couples’ yoga class this week,” Beth said. “Mr. Treadaway let his wife fall on her ass several times. Mrs. Treadaway probably said stuff like that all the time.”

“Are you trying to help Mrs. Treadaway or build a case against her?” Jess whispered.

Beth shrugged. “I’m neutral.”

“Well, hearsay issues aside for now, the coroner has to declare cause of death, whether it was an accident, all that. And you know Marty. The fish are biting this week, so it could take a while,” Blister said, as if efficient police work and outdoorsmanship were somehow connected. “I’m gonna have to ask you to let Mrs. Treadaway stay here until we get everything settled. We don’t want her running off.”

“She’s paid up for the week,” Poppy noted.

“I’m gonna need to go talk to her,” Blister said with a sigh. “Poppy, would you mind making the introduction?”

“I’d rather you move that marked car first, somewhere the guests can’t see it,” Poppy shot back. “I know it sounds terrible, but I’m trying to let the guests forget this as soon as they learn it happened. People are more than willing to let unpleasant things slip from their minds while they’re on vacation, as long as something else comes along to distract them. It’s like the twenty-four-hour news cycle, but with more room service involved. And as soon as you move the car and you’ve informed Mrs. Treadaway, I’ll have Dean make you a late breakfast.”

Blister thought about it for a second. “Is he still making those fancy French pancake things?”

“Maple pecan crepes,” Poppy said, her smile warming slightly. “If you move the squad car now, I’ll tell him to fire up a batch just for you.”

“With the candied pecans?” Blister asked, his eyes narrowing. Poppy nodded.

“Deal.” Blister hauled himself out of the chair and scooted out the door.

“The man eats like a horse, but I swear that’s the same uniform he was wearing ten years ago,” Poppy muttered, watching as Blister slowly rolled his squad car toward the service lot.

“Why don’t you go join your party in the treatment suite, Jess?” Poppy suggested. “I know I promised you use of the phones, but I kind of have my hands full right now. Would tomorrow work?”

Jess watched the warring instincts on Poppy’s face, the desire to please and help fighting the need for Poppy to protect her family, her business. And Jess felt like the source of that stress. She was fully aware that she hadn’t put the dead guy in the meditation pool, but she was the messenger who’d delivered the news. She decided, then and there, to do anything she could to help the Osbournes handle this mess.

“Jess?”

“Tomorrow will be fine,” she promised, pointing to the tree outside Poppy’s window. “Sorry, I was, uh, just admiring the golden ash.”

“Oh, that’s not an ash, hon,” Poppy confessed sheepishly. “That’s a ginkgo. No one is sure how old it is, but we think it was a gift from an early sanatorium guest. We knew it was something special, that beautiful blaze of color, so we built the whole resort around it, the construction, the theme, everything.”

Jess squinted at the tree and realized she’d been so awestruck by the fiery golden frenzy of leaves that she hadn’t recognized the distinctive fan shape of ginkgo leaves.

“But…you named the spa the Golden Ash ,” Jess noted, letting herself be distracted by this tidbit of trivia.

“Well, most people don’t know the difference,” Poppy said.

Jess thought about it for a moment, pursing her lips. “My experience in customer service tells me that you’re correct.”