“Sir, it’s not that simple.”
“No?”
“Sometimes it’s…easier to stay by yourself.”
“Keep the status quo, you mean.”
“Yes.”
“It’s certainly safer.”
“Yes.” She saw where he was going and gave voice to her biggest fear. “He’s a child with a crush.”
“He looked full-grown to me. He also looks like a man who knows what he wants.”
“Hmph.”
They had finished searching the bed-and-breakfast, which was free of guests except for a couple on their honeymoon, currently enjoying themselves behind a closed bedroom door. No serial killers in that room.
Sophie was embarrassed; for a while she’d completely forgotten that there was quite a bit more at stake than her love life. But she and the king were almost half-hearted about the search; their enhanced senses had already told them the B and B was virtually deserted, but it was always best to make sure.
“Thank you for listening,” she said, following him back out the front door. “I appreciate your advice and will think hard about what you’ve said.”
“I didn’t say much,” he replied mildly. “Compared to my queen, I’m not much of a talker.”
“Is that some kind of slam, pal? Because if you wanna go, we’ll go.” Betsy was walking through the front yard, Liam on her heels. “No luck at the other place. They’ve got a full house, and none of them are our guy. It’s all couples.”
“Couples like the killer with his new girlfriend?” Sophie asked.
“Naw,” Liam said. “Couples like retired people on vacation. You guys didn’t have any luck?”
“How could you search an entire house, then drive across town and be here just as we finished?” Sinclair asked.
“Dude: have you seen this town? It’s, like, a mile long. Is it our fault we’re way more efficient at looking for killers than you two are? I’m telling you, our guy’s not there.”
“Well, he isn’t here either,” Sophie said. “Damn it all. We’ll have to go back and talk to Shawna’s mother some more, poor thing. I was hoping we could leave her out of it.”
Liam was looking at the wooden sign over the front door. “This is the Rose Manor. But The Garden Bed-and-Breakfast is the one we’re looking for. We just assumed this was The Garden, because it’s the other B and B you can see from the road. But…”
“There’s another one,” Sinclair said immediately. “Probably called The Iris or something tiresome like that. But since the same people own and run them both, they’re considered one business. We checked the one across town, and we checked this one, because those are the two businesses.”
A quick trip inside to speak with the owner confirmed their suspicions; there was indeed one other B and B called The Garden.
“Stupid,” Liam said disgustedly. “We should have checked. Never assume, that’s what my mom always said.”
“I don’t understand,” Sophie said. “We checked the two in town. What are you talking about?”
“There’s three in town, and they’re all under the business name The Garden, because they’re all owned by the same family. We checked two of them…you and Sinclair checked The Rose, Betsy and I checked The Tulip.” At her mystified expression, he continued. “Those are the names of the individual houses, though they’re all under the same business name. But there’s one more, like the guy said inside. And it’ll have another flower name, like Sinclair said.”
“I guess it makes sense for the bad guy to make it hard for us to track him down,” Betsy said. “I know I’m totally confused. But if there’s another one, there’s another one. Let’s go check it out.”
Five minutes later, they were standing at the end of a long driveway outside a third Victorian with yet another flower motif.
“The Sweetheart Rose,” Sinclair said. “I was close.”
“We’re assuming he’s even still there,” Betsy said. “If it was me, I’d be long gone.”
“He’s not going anywhere,” Sophie said as Sinclair nodded agreement. “With the funeral, and the reporters, and all the mourners…there’s too much here for him still.”