Bed & Breakfast Bedlam (A Logan Dickerson Cozy Mystery Book 1) by Abby L. Vandiver Page B

my energy on something other than being a good an archaeologist as my
mother.
    All I needed was to get up the courage to
make a pass at him . . .
    Once we found Colin, Miss Vivee didn’t
waste any time trying to get the information she needed from him. She handed
him the salve at the same time she handed him her first question.
    “What do you know about Gemma Burke during
the time she lived in Atlanta?” she asked.
    “I really can’t tell you anything, Miss
Vivee. It’s an open investigation. The Sheriff would be really upset with me.”
    “I just want to know what she did when she
was in Atlanta,” Miss Vivee said. “How would that compromise your
investigation? Especially if it was Renmar’s bouillabaisse that killed her.”
    “Why do you want to know, anyway?” he said
his eyes going from me back to Miss Vivee. “What are you two up to?” He placed
fishing rods and a large white bucket in the bed of the truck. “Is this
something I should tell Sheriff Haynes?”
    “We’re not up to anything,” I said and
held up my hands. “Miss Vivee was just wondering.”
    Miss Vivee wasn’t coming up with any of
her fantastical stories to tell Colin and I didn’t know quite what to say. Her
tactic with him appeared to be “badgering,” which was a long way off from what
I wanted to do with him.
    “You were both up there at the same time.
In Atlanta,” Miss Vivee said. “You must’ve seen her.”
    “I went to Atlanta before she did,” he
said.
    “Then did you even know she was there?” I
asked. I looked at Miss Vivee. “Maybe he didn’t know.”
    “I knew,” he said putting a cooler in the
truck. “I came home one weekend and found she’d sold her parents’ home and left
town.” He turned to look at us, he stood with his feet shoulder width apart and
crossed his arms. “Hadn’t even known she was putting it up for sale.”
    “Did that make you curious about where she
was?” I asked. My mouth got dry and there was pang in my stomach. Was that
jealousy? About a dead girl?
    Geesh.
    “A little.” He gave a nod. “I must admit I
was a little curious,” Colin said. “I’d always thought we’d be together, you
know. I’d be the deputy. Gemma would be my wife. We’d live here in Yasamee and
raise our kids.” He kicked rocks in his gravel driveway around with the toe of
his shoe. “But now that will never happen.”
    “So then how did you find out she went to
Atlanta?” Miss Vivee asked.
    “I knew she’d have to put her address on
the deed. That’s what we did when my daddy died and we had to transfer the
house to me. So, before I left to go back to finish my training, I went and
looked up her address in the land office,” he said. “I just wanted to know, you
know. And lo and behold. She had gone to Atlanta. Right where I was. I thought
maybe she had followed me.”
     “Then did you go and see her?” I was
hoping he would say no.
    He said, “No.”
    Yay!
    “You mean that you were up in Atlanta and
you knew she was there and you didn’t look up her?” Miss Vivee seemed surprised.
“Somebody from home? As far away as you were from it?”
    “She had dumped me. She should have come
to me.”
    “She didn’t dump you, Colin Pritchard. You
know that and everybody else in Yasamee knows it too. She didn’t want to date
you. All this talk about you two getting married. It’s just nonsense.” Colin’s
eyes showed dejection as he listened to Miss Vivee. “Ain’t no shame in it,
though,” she continued. “Plenty of people ain’t meant to be together. You and
Gemma were just two of those people.”
    “Yeah. And with her rejecting me like
that, you’d think I’d go and see her?”
    “I sure do.” Miss Vivee put one hand on
her hip and held on to the side of his truck with the other. “I know you. You
ain’t one to give up. You must have visited her when you both were in Atlanta,”
Miss Vivee said. “You can’t tell me, Colin Pritchard that you were in the same
city as a