Page 10 of Death By Llama (Friendship Harbor Mysteries #7)

SIX

“Well, I think the inn is marvelous,” my mother said for the third time. “And I know real estate.”

Normally, her bragging made me cringe a little, but I was too preoccupied by Peanut’s demise to think much about it.

At least my parents and Cameron were enjoying themselves as Cameron gave us a guided tour of the Inn’s restoration, pointing out every corbel and antique.

Cameron had been so upset earlier, it was nice to see he was putting the failed festival behind him.

“Sophie did tell me you’re the it agent to the stars,” Cameron said, giving my mother a winning white smile.

“She exaggerates.” My mother pretended to demure, but she ruined it by adding, “I don’t know if Sophie told you, but I was invited to be on a reality show as a one hundred million dollar seller in Los Angeles County, but I turned it down. TV cheapens a brand.”

Oliver frowned next to me. “Cheap?”

Considering he and I had both been actors on television shows, it sounded like a jab, but if she intended it to be or not, we would never know because my father gave another cry of admiration as he stroked a newel post.

“More white pine! It’s incredible, Cameron.”

“The inlay is hemlock,” Cameron said, rocking on his feet proudly.

“Marvelous,” my mother said.

“Incredible,” my father repeated. “Isn’t it, Soph?”

I started at being singled out. I had only been half-listening.

“Hmm, yes,” I said, nodding. While I appreciate good wood as much as the average person, I was more concerned about the many fingers pointing at my llama as a murderer than what was undeniably an impressive renovation.

Besides, we had strolled through every inch of the house, examining every historic detail as we were regaled with tales of furniture sourced by Paris, England, and oddly enough, a German castle.

For whimsy , Cameron had said.

I wasn’t sure how whimsical a hefty carved fireplace mantle was, but who was I to argue? I had lived in a cinder block box apartment in L.A. after moving out of my eighties built childhood home in the valley.

For all my mom liked to claim she was hot-to-trot in the real estate market, it didn’t mean she could afford a Malibu beach house or a West Hollywood glass marvel.

She would send me over the cliff after Peanut if I told anyone she actually still had mauve carpet in her primary bedroom suite because she’d never gotten around to renovating it.

“And Brandy was mad she wasn’t invited to this dinner,” Oliver mumbled to me under his breath. “Jokes on us.”

Frankly, I was surprised Brandy didn’t invite herself. She’d been dying to see inside the guest rooms at the inn. But all of them were currently occupied anyway, so she would have only gotten the wood tour so she wasn’t missing much.

“She had to pick up her son from her mom’s anyway. Do you think Justin is treating Peanut’s death as suspicious? It really didn’t seem like it.”

Cameron was shepherding everyone into the dining room, which was massive for a residential home, but small for a restaurant.

It only had six tables and was fine dining so I felt less threatened by it as competition for my pub.

This was more of a dining room designed for the guests than to bring in a crowd from town for dinner.

“I don’t think Justin treats anything as suspicious. For being a sheriff, he’s very trusting.”

That was not an inaccurate description of Justin.

“I just know that Jack wasn’t responsible,” I said, repeating my earlier assertions. “He doesn’t like the smell of alcohol. He wouldn’t have gotten within three feet of Peanut.”

“A teetotaler llama?” Oliver shot me an amused look. “Well, I could use a glass of wine after today.”

“I thought these tables were going to be put together for a larger group,” Cameron said, shooting a look of annoyance at Oliver. “There are six of us for dinner with Henry and these tables are four tops.”

“I can eat in the kitchen,” Oliver said. “As the staff.”

There was a bit of bite in his words. There seemed to be tension between him and Cameron. I made a mental note to ask him about it later.

“That’s ridiculous,” Cameron said. “You’re Sophie’s best friend and my brother’s boyfriend. Of course you’re eating with us.”

“Where is Henry?” I asked. I hadn’t seen him at all at the festival.

“He’s upstairs changing for dinner,” Cameron said, immediately removing place settings from one table and shifting them to another. Then he started to wrestle the table a few feet over to align with another. My father jumped in to help him.

I glanced down at my elf costume. “The option to change clothes would be amazing right now.”

My mother clearly agreed. “Go put something of mine on,” she said. “We’re in the Lighthouse room. I’m sure your father left it unlocked. He never worries about my jewelry being stolen.”

I sent Oliver a help-me look.

He jumped in and said, “I’ll show you which room it is. Don’t want you walking in on anyone.”

“Great, thank you.” I’d prefer one of my mother’s stylish Anne Taylor outfits over this elf costume, even if she and I didn’t really share the same taste in clothing.

“Today was something else, wasn’t it?” I asked Oliver as he and I moved toward the grand staircase.

“It was quite the spectacle.”

“I really think someone pushed Peanut off the cliff. Even drunk, how do you just fall off? It hasn’t rained in over a week. Nothing was muddy or slippery.”

“Or you could be seeking a murder where there is none.”

“But…if it was a murder, who would you suspect?”

“I daresay Saint Nicholas. He’s a rather suspicious looking fellow.”

I paused on the fourth step and looked at my best friend. “Why are you talking like that?”

“In what way am I speaking?”

“Like you’ve joined the Victorian acting troupe when I wasn’t looking.”

“It’s rather entertaining, I daresay.”

If he said “daresay” one more time I wasn’t responsible for my actions. “Do you miss acting?”

“No, I don’t miss acting. I have a current role right now.” We reached the upstairs landing and he gestured with his arm. “I’m acting as a house manager for a renovated inn.”

Interesting. It concerned me that Oliver wasn’t truly content in this new role. “How is that going?”

Oliver led me to the Lighthouse room. If I had been expecting a wooden lighthouse nailed to the door, I was very wrong. There was a bronze placard with the words on it in a classy font. The door was unlocked.

Once we were inside, Oliver said, “It’s going. But I’m a stickler and Cameron’s a stickler and sometimes we don’t stickle in the same way.”

“Is that a word? Stickle?”

“It is now.”

I took in the room. “Wow, this really is gorgeous.” It was large, with high ceilings and decorated in light and airy creams and blues and pale greens.

“Did you notice the wood?” Oliver joked.

That made me snicker as I crossed over to the valet stand where my mother’s suitcase was open. She kept a tidy suitcase. Everything was in individual bags. I found a lightweight sweater and a pair of beige linen pants.

“How is your room?” I asked Oliver. He was living in the inn so he would be available around the clock.

“It’s darker. Plaid. I feel like I’m in an English hunting lodge. Which, as you know, is so me.” He rolled his eyes. “When Henry stays with me, I feel like we’re a secret couple hiding from the ton .”

“That sounds…romantic?” In an unfortunate sort of way.

I dropped my phone down on the coffee table in front of the fireplace.

“Maybe. Henry is in my room right now.” He lowered his voice. “Honestly, Soph, sometimes I feel like I’m playing the part of his boyfriend too.”

“What do you mean?” I sat on the bed and yanked off my elf shoes. “Don’t you like Henry?”

“I do, a lot, but it feels like I can’t be completely myself with him, do you know what I mean? Like, it’s good on paper, but is it really a good fit?”

I knew exactly what he meant. I made a face.

“Sometimes I feel that way about me and Cameron.” Then paranoia instantly set in that I was admitting something out loud about a man who had been very kind to me.

What did I actually have to complain about?

I glanced around the room. “Is this a smart inn? Is there any way they can hear what we’re saying in here? ”

“No, of course not. That’s a privacy violation.”

Yet I noticed he did glance around too, and picked up a small gold tabletop clock and flipped it over to study the bottom.

I stripped down my tights and pulled the linen pants on under my dress, making sure I kept it PG.

Oliver had seen me in all manner of embarrassing situations, including hungover and on set during a wardrobe malfunction, but we were almost thirty now and this was a classy inn. We had to pretend to be sophisticated.

Or did we? That was a legitimate question we both needed to ask ourselves, apparently.

I stepped into the en suite to take the dress off and slip on the sweater and when I returned Oliver shook my phone at me. “Well, well, well, look at who texted you.”

“Who? If it’s Brandy trying to crash our dinner, she might as well. I could use a buffer tonight.”

“It’s Dean.”

I walked faster across the room than I should have given that Dean Jordan was my ex-pub manager and brief boyfriend last winter. “What did he say?”

Oliver cleared his throat and tried to imitate Dean’s deep baritone. “Heard about Peanut. You okay?”

Well, that wasn’t exciting at all.

But my heart still beat unnaturally fast. I hadn’t heard from Dean in months. I took my phone and typed out a quick reply.

It was a shock but I’m okay.

“Do you think he’s subtly asking me if I’m sticking my nose into this incident?

” That was part of the reason Dean and I had broken up.

He didn’t like my penchant for investigating local crimes.

The other part of why we’d broken up was a mystery to me.

I couldn’t sleuth out what was in Dean’s head and that was a problem.

“Probably. But are you sticking your nose into this?”

“I might be,” I admitted, putting my elf shoes back on. My mother had smaller feet than me.

“That’s a look,” Oliver said. “Coastal grandma meets Macy’s elf.”

I winced. “I know. But seriously, what did you think about that Brad guy? He was pretty upset that Peanut’s fight with Victorian Santa ruined his booth. And do you think he and Ashley are a couple?”

“Who’s Ashley?”

“The other Opulent Occasions booth person.”

“I have no idea. But I did see St. Nick in a compromising situation with a woman young enough to be his daughter.”

“What is a compromising situation?”

“He had his hand on her bosom.”

I wasn’t sure which era Oliver was in now but I never wanted to hear him say “bosom” ever again. He could daresay all he wanted if he steered clear of bosom.

“That is compromising. I just think there is more to this whole Peanut thing. Plus I need to clear Jack’s name. He’s not a killer llama.”

“Just be careful. This inn is Cameron’s baby. He wants to protect its reputation because he’s invested a lot of money into it.”

“I understand that, but a man died.”

“A drunk man fell off of a cliff. It’s sad, but not unexpected.”

I couldn’t be that cavalier about a death.

Apparently, Cameron could though because when we returned to the dining room, he was on the phone with his lawyer.

“I don’t want any liability to come my way,” he was saying, giving me a distracted smile and gesturing for us to sit down.

The tables were together and we took seats opposite my parents. My mother took in the visual of her clothes on me and didn’t say anything, so I didn’t know how to interpret that. Instead I just took a sip of the wine already poured.

Cameron ended his call and ran his hand across my back before dropping into the chair at the head of the table. “Do I build a fence?” he asked.

“What? Where?”

“In front of the cliff.” He shook his head and raised his hand for the server who had mysteriously appeared from the kitchen. “Bourbon. Neat.” He glanced around the table. “Does anyone else need anything? I had intended to have a champagne toast but that seems inappropriate now.”

“I agree.”

My mother protested. “It wasn’t your fault! You can’t fence off an entire coastline because a drunk man in tight boots lost his footing.”

“I know, but this isn’t good for business.” He waved off the server. “Just the bourbon.”

I felt bad for the outcome of his grand opening celebration but I also felt bad for Peanut’s family.

“No one will even remember this by next week,” my father assured Cameron.

If a man was murdered, they should remember.

I was going to reach out to the sheriff after dinner.

I crossed my leg and my elf shoe jingled.

My mother said, “Is there a cat in here?”

“It’s my shoes,” I told her.

“Good grief, Sophie.”

“I think they’re adorable,” Cameron said.

I smiled at him, but I couldn’t shake off what Oliver had said as Henry appeared in the doorway of the dining room, looking handsome and rich and overdressed.

Maybe I was playing a role as well.