“Nope, in fact I think that was the cleanest the room had ever been. Now honey, why don’t you come back here and let me take care of you.”
Evie knew it was time to make a retreat. “Thanks for the info, hun. I’ve got to go.” She turned and walked quickly out the door ignoring his pleas for her to come back.
*
“Where to now?” Anthony asked.
“What climbed up your ass?”
“Gee, I don’t know. Your little performance?”
“Oh come on, we got the information we needed.”
“Yeah, in about another thirty seconds I was going to have to come in there, then what would you have done?”
“I’d have figured something out. Anyway, let’s go to this little B&B up the road a bit.” She took a brush out of her purse and started to comb her hair.
“What no hoochi-mama this time?”
She burst out laughing. “Hoochi-mama? Oh god. That is hysterical in your slightly proper British accent.”
“Can we get back to business?”
“Sure can, Sweet Cheeks.” She enjoyed pushing his buttons and wondered how far she could push before he pushed back.
“Here make yourself useful, plug in the address in the GPS.”
“Oh, I’m very useful.” She put the address into the GPS. “There. It’s not too far away. It’s lucky we know his real name and that he didn’t use something different.”
“Hopefully that will be his undoing; he’s a bit too cocky for his own good.”
She watched as his knuckles became white on the steering wheel. Wanting to sooth him and take his pain away she reached over and placed her hand on his shoulder. “I know Anthony, we’ll catch him. He can’t keep this up forever.”
“But how many other women have to die first? How many more is he going to torture?”
“We just have to work harder. We’ve got to do this.”
They rode the rest of the way in silence.
*
Anthony looked over at Evie who looked like her normal self again, wondering what she was going to do this time. “Don’t do anything stupid.” That last one had almost given him a heart attack.
“Who me? Come on, out of everything, this is the easiest part. Chill dude.” She chuckled as she got out of the car and slammed the door shut.
He turned to the app on the phone and watched the B&B come into view. He didn’t want her to know how much he worried about her, or how amusing she was. Sitting back, he got comfortable to enjoy the show.
*
Walking into the foyer Evie looked around and marveled at the detail in the restored, old, Victorian house. Everything stayed true to the historic value, but had been updated to include all of the modern conveniences. She turned when she heard someone approaching. Show time.
“Hello dear, how may we help you?” asked the man with dark close-cut hair and green eyes.
She ran her fingers through her hair and then made a helpless gesture with her hands.
Another man who also had close-cut hair, except his was dark blonde. He had brown eyes and a goatee. As he came over, he put his arm around her. “Oh, now, it can’t be that bad. Let’s just go sit down in the parlor for a bit and we’ll get to know each other. Good idea, Joe?”
Evie didn’t miss the look that passed between them. So far so good.
“I’ll get us some tea, and maybe some cookies?”
Seeing Evie nod, he left the room. She let the other man lead her to the sofa and sat down with him.
“Okay girlfriend, you’ve got a couple of minutes to pull yourself together before Joe gets back so I’ll tell you everything you need to know about us while we wait. My name is Amir. Joe and I have owned this place for, oh, about five years now. We took a couple of years to restore it.”
“It looks wonderful. You did a great job.”
“I can’t take credit for the work, I’m the idea man, now my Joe he’s the one with the good hands.”
“Here we are. Now you sit back and have a snack and tell us what you need.” Joe set everything down on the coffee table.
“Thank you. Well, I’m not sure where to begin.”
“At the beginning, of course.” Amir laughed.
“Well, I understand this is a bed and breakfast that caters to the gay community. Right?”
“Yes dear, we aren’t exclusive toward the community, but yes, most of our guests are gay. We like to support tolerance no matter what the lifestyle.” Joe patted her hand.
“Well, I think my fiancé is cheating on me. I have felt that something has been off for a while. I checked his receipts, and well, he stayed here for a bit. I was wondering if you could help me. Have you seen this man? He would have stayed here last year.” She made sure her hand shook as she gave them the photo.
Joe looked at Amir before turning to her. “Well my dear, you don’t have a very nice fiancé.”