Smoldering Flames and Secrets Read online

  Smoldering Flames and Secrets

  A Raina Sun Mystery

  Anne R. Tan

  Copyright © 2018 by Anne R. Tan

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Anne R. Tan

  www.annertan.com

  Author’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  To Polly,

  for being my first baby doll

  Contents

  1. Yippie Ki-Yay!

  2. One Fine Execution

  3. A Fresh Dug Hole

  4. In the Arms of an Angel

  5. In Plain Sight

  6. Two Peas in a Pod

  7. Trouble in Paradise

  8. A Call After Midnight

  9. An Old Familiar Friend

  10. The Jelly Between Boulders

  11. Spy vs Spy

  12. A Train Wreck

  13. The Black Widower

  14. A Scary Cat

  15. The Penny Dropped

  16. Going Native

  17. Jealous Much?

  18. Letting the Cat Out

  19. Storming the Castle

  20. Death Comes Knocking

  21. He Said. She Said

  22. Everything Old Is New Again

  Acknowledgments

  Just Shoot Me Dead

  About the Author

  1

  Yippie Ki-Yay!

  As Raina Sun studied the groom—who was an ex-boyfriend—he continued to track her fiancé’s movements under hooded eyes on the winery’s lawn. The bridal party and a handful of family members loitered around the space and picked at the snacks set out for them, waiting for the call to be photographed with the bride and groom. The rolling green hills of the Livermore winery made a stunning backdrop for wedding photos, but Raina felt dread settling into her stomach.

  Sebastian Luc, “Blue” to his friends, was dressed in his white tux with a turquoise bow tie. The color set off his hazel eyes, turning them into an arresting shade of blue with golden flecks among all the brown eyes in the bride’s Chinese family. He flashed the deep dimple on his right cheek when he thanked the photographer and walked “off stage,” leaving his bride, Raina’s cousin, to pose by herself.

  While his gaze scanned the crowd, his hand brushed a lock of black hair off his forehead. As with all mixed race children, his height and Eurasian features looked exotic among the Wong family, like a peacock among a gathering of swans. His gaze locked in on Raina’s fiancé again like a homing pigeon, and he made his way to join the men gabbing by the drinks cooler.

  A hand waved in front of Raina’s face. She blinked, breaking off her thoughts. She turned to Lucy Fong, her grandma’s foster granddaughter. “I’m sorry. What did you say?” The two of them were sitting underneath the pop-up shade canopy on the lawn, a few feet away from the main crowd.

  Lucy grinned at her. “Your wedding will come soon enough. You don’t need to keep your eyes on your man. No one will steal him from under your nose at a family gathering.”

  Raina flushed. She wanted to march up to Blue and demand to know why he was marrying her cousin but watching her fiancé like a salivating dog. He wasn’t gay, so why the sudden interest in Matthew? However, this would probably get her into more trouble than it was worth. “Did you ask me something?”

  “I’m here if you want to talk about it,” Lucy said.

  Like the groom, Lucy was also half-Chinese. Her black hair was in a pixie cut with red streaks. The fringes of her bangs highlighted the brown eyes and delicate cheekbones of her heart-shaped face. Raina’s foster cousin was close to five foot eight inches with her heels. Her hideous designer bridesmaid dress matched Raina’s, but her height turned the geometric print on the ball gown into a thing of beauty.

  On Raina, the dress added fifteen pounds to the hips. The bodice was full of daisies—the 3D kind that protruded from the fabric—and flattened what little chest she had. She would have looked more attractive walking around in a burlap sack and a Hawaiian lei. And to make her torment complete, all these outfits would have to be dry cleaned before show time next weekend, and it was her job to take care of it.

  “There’s nothing to talk about,” Raina said, forcing a smile on her face.

  From a distance, she could hear Gigi yipping. Her grandma was pet sitting the Boston terrier for an acquaintance. Unfortunately, the dog complained whenever she was within smelling distance of Raina. “I better go inside before Gigi’s barking gets on everyone’s nerves.”

  Before she could take a step toward the house, Gigi charged into the middle of the group, her leash dragging a lawn chair in her wake. When she looked behind her, there was panic in her face. As the dog ran to get away from the plastic chair, she crashed into bridesmaids and photo equipment alike.

  Po Po, Raina’s grandma, ran after the dog. “Gigi! Stop, girl. Stop.”

  “Holy Toledo,” Lucy muttered, covering her mouth with a hand.

  “We need to help Po Po,” Raina said.

  Lucy shook her head. “Not my monkey, not my circus.” She didn’t bother hiding the grin on her face.

  Raina laughed. “You’re so bad.”

  “Po Po would film the entire thing with her cell phone and post it up on YouTube. She’s lucky I have restraint,” Lucy said.

  Gigi ran away from the patio and onto the lawn. The leash towed a lawn chair, tablecloth, and a watermelon fruit basket. The dog’s tongue lolled out of her mouth. Her eyes were white with terror. Oh, the poor baby.

  “We need to get the dog before my cousin has a hernia,” Raina said, kicking off her heels and rushing toward the dog and her grandma.

  Lucy followed her lead and soon over took Raina with her longer legs. They spread out, hoping to box the dog in with Po Po coming up from the rear.

  “Somebody needs to get this dog off the lawn,” Cousin Jung-yee shouted. Her reddened face and flashing brown eyes made Raina pick up her pace.

  Gigi swiveled her head toward the bride. The dog made a wide arc on the lawn to change direction. Po Po lunged and slid like a baseball player to cut the dog off, but all she got for her effort was a face full of grass and the watermelon fruit basket. As the Boston terrier charged toward the bride, the plastic chair legs dug into the lawn and clumps of lush green grass followed in her wake.

  Jung-yee’s eyes widened. She grabbed the full skirt of her wedding dress to run away from the animal, but her three-inch heels got tangled on the train. She screamed as she fell to the ground. “Help—”

  Before she could finish, Gigi was on Jung-yee. The dog pounced on the bride and licked her face. Gigi wiggled her tail so excitedly that her bottom got tangled in the tulle fabric around her. The lawn chair and tablecloth waited behind her like silent servants. While Gigi hated Raina, she loved Jung-yee with an equal passion. Too bad the love was unrequited.

  The patio went silent. Po Po stopped short at the sight. She gave Raina a look of horror, changed direction, and fled back into the house.

  Raina stopped running and tiptoed toward the disaster. She didn’t want to spook the dog and have her blaze another trail of destruction. “Come here, Gigi. Be a good girl.”
/>   “Get her off of me!” Jung-yee said. “Get this beast off me.” She pushed ineffectively at the dog.

  Lucy trotted forward, scooped up the dog, unclipped the leash, and headed toward the house. “I’ll keep Gigi out of everyone’s hair,” she said over her shoulder. Smart woman. If Jung-yee got her hands on the dog, there was no telling what would happen.

  Raina and Blue got to the bride at the same time. Each of them took an arm and hauled her off the ground. Jung-yee was sobbing by this time. Her once sleek up-do was a tumbling mess around her face. Mascara ran down her cheeks. She was trembling, though Raina couldn’t tell if it was from suppressed anger or defeat.

  “It’s okay. We’ll have this cleaned up in no time,” Blue said, wrapping his bride in his arms. He kissed her hair, but she continued to sob.

  Raina untangled the train and brushed off the grass and dirt. Her cousin would have to change into her red Chinese dress for the rest of the photo shoot. As she straightened another section of the dress, her hands hovered over the fabric. There were red paw prints on the skirt.

  Jung-yee pushed away from her fiancé, ran a finger under each eye—not that it helped—and straightened her back. “Bridget! Call the makeup and hair people. See if they can come back within the hour. Thank you.” As the operations manager for her father’s chain of Chinese restaurants, she was used to issuing commands. Though her voice wobbled, it didn’t make her any less formidable.

  Raina bent over the paw prints for a closer look. The liquid was thick and dried to a deep burgundy.

  Jung-yee’s gaze swept down to her skirt, and she grimaced. “I need a club soda before the stain sets.” She brushed at it, and her fingers came away red. As her face changed from determination to horror, her hand trembled. “What...”

  Raina swallowed. “It’s blood.”

  Raina backed out of the sitting room, closing the door softly. She took a deep breath, thankful she was in the hallway instead of dealing with a weeping bride inside. She didn’t blame her cousin for the meltdown, but she didn’t want to get caught in the crossfire.

  Even with the help of a wedding planner, the time and expense for planning a party for over four hundred guests was stressful. Chinese weddings were never a small event because the parents either had a large extended family or a network of friends and associates. Leaving someone off the guest list could be interpreted as a loss of face and start a family feud. And to top it off, the elders didn’t believe in RSVPing for weddings. It was always a toss-up as to how many guests actually showed up. Everyone gave a red envelope filled with money to help offset the cost. If an absent guest forgot to send along a red envelope, the host family might take offense.

  Politics were nothing compared to the intricacies surrounding a Chinese wedding, and the expectations between host and guest. Sometimes it had little to do with celebrating the love between a bride and groom. And with her cousin’s perpetual need to be more Chinese than everyone else, the stress must be the size of Texas.

  Raina sighed. Her poor cousin. Even though Jung-yee had spent their entire childhood competing in a one-sided match, Raina wouldn’t wish this on her worst enemy. She hoped the cleaners would be able to remove the bloodstains. But where did the blood come from? Everyone looked hale and hearty. There was enough blood to look like someone had a stab wound. She shivered at the unlucky thought and pushed it aside.

  She smelled her fiancé’s unique scent—a sage and clean water body wash—and spun around to find E. Matthew Louie approaching her. He was named after his father but went by his middle name. And after decades of calling her fiancé Matthew, she sometimes forgot he even had a different first name.

  He was in a white tux with a silvery gray bow tie. As a courtesy to Raina, he was made a groomsman—an honor he had tried to get out of since day one. He had stayed away from the months of planning, but he had to make an appearance for the photo shoot this morning and the family dinner tomorrow.

  His normally amused gold-flecked brown eyes were dark with concern. “How is Jung-yee doing?”

  “She has calmed down a bit, but she’s still weeping. Were you able to track down the source of the bloodstains?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “The guys and I went through every inch of the front and back lawns and patio. The bridesmaids went through the event center. We couldn’t find anything that would account for the bloodied paw prints.” He raked a hand through his thick black hair. “We should broaden our search beyond the proximity of the building.”

  Matthew was a police detective in their small town of Gold Springs. He was also an ex-Marine who did side jobs for extra cash, though Raina didn’t know his clients. She suspected one of them was her uncle, the criminal lawyer. Her fiancé approached an investigation methodically, leaving no stone unturned. There were times when Raina’s spaghetti-on-the-wall approach drove him nuts.

  “Did Gigi hurt herself running?” Raina asked.

  He shook his head again. “I found Lucy with the dog in one of the small conference room. She cleaned Gigi’s paws, and there was no trace of a wound.”

  Now this was even more intriguing. “Did you speak to Po Po?” Raina asked.

  “No one has seen your grandmother. We tried calling her, but she’s not picking up her cell phone.”

  Raina frowned. What if the blood came from her grandma? But Po Po had run rather vigorously after the dog.

  As if following her train of thought, Matthew said, “I don’t think so. Your grandma was too vivacious to be suffering from blood loss.” He chuckled. “Did you see the way she tried tackling the dog?”

  Raina grinned at the memory. The look on her grandma’s face when she ended up with the watermelon fruit basket was priceless. “Has anyone checked the barn or wine cellar?”

  “I don’t even know where they are located. The winery is ninety acres.”

  “They’re down the hill, beyond the first rows of grapevines. They process and bottle the grapes in the barn, and the wine is stored temporarily in the cavernous cellar underneath it. They also have two aging caves. They gave us a tour of the facility when we first checked out this venue.”

  Matthew looked at the heels on Raina’s feet. “Do you want to change shoes before traipsing through the dirt?”

  Raina wiggled her toes. If she and Matthew found the source of the blood, she wouldn’t want to stain another dress. “Give me five minutes. I want to change into something more comfortable.”

  He grinned. “Do you need any help?”

  “No, thank you. If someone is hurt, showing up an hour later isn’t much help.”

  He wiggled his eyebrows. “Who needs an hour? I could get done in two minutes.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Yes, I’m familiar with those two minutes.”

  “Hey! Those were the best two minutes of your life.”

  She laughed. “If you say so.”

  Raina disappeared into the room next door, which was used as a dressing room by all the bridesmaids. She got into her regular clothes—a T-shirt and capris. It took her more than two minutes to get out of the dress.

  When she stepped back into the hallway, Matthew glanced up from his cell phone. His face was ashen, and his lips were pressed into a thin line.

  “What happened?” Raina asked, stepping up to her fiancé and wrapping an arm around his waist.

  Matthew’s frown became even grimmer. “Your brother just texted me. One of the field hands found a body among the grapevines. Gigi’s bloodied paw prints led the worker to the crime scene.”

  “Does anyone recognize the victim?”

  He shook his head. “She wore a tank top and yoga pants. She wasn’t an employee.”

  Raina blinked. And if the victim were a member of the owner’s family, someone would have recognized her. “How did the woman die?”

  “A single bullet between the eyes. She was executed.”

  2

  One Fine Execution

  The next few hours flashed by in a blur. Jung-yee chan
ged into her regular street clothes, and the photographer packed it in for the day. He’d tried reassuring the bride that he got a few good shots, and he could take some more on the day of the wedding next weekend. Raina helped the other bridesmaids pack up the various props they’d brought for the photo shoot.

  The local police showed up half an hour later. The winery owner left to round up his staff for the police. When Po Po showed up in the sitting room to give her statement, Raina breathed a sigh of relief. She never really believed that Po Po was in any danger, but she didn’t want her grandma contaminating the crime scene by playing detective. When the police were finally satisfied with their statements, the wedding party was allowed to leave. Everyone rushed to their vehicles and departed like roaches under a flashlight beam.

  Matthew opted to stay behind to offer his assistance to the local police rather than to come home and deal with the fallout from the disastrous photo shoot. Smart man. But in reality, the local police probably couldn’t use his help even if they wanted to. Bureaucratic paperwork and all. He would be a lookie-loo among the uniforms. If Raina had the choice, she would rather hang out with him.

  After a quick stop at the drive-thru for dinner, Lucy dropped Raina and Po Po off at the three-story Victorian in Pacific Heights in San Francisco. As her foster cousin pulled away from the driveway, she waved. Gigi popped her head up from the passenger seat and gave them a huge doggy grin. Lucy had offered to keep the dog in her apartment and out of everyone’s hair. Lucky dog.