Earl Grey & Murder, page 6
“Of course he was.”
“He walked me to my car. Said nothing polite. Looked worried.”
Sasha’s lips twitched. “Sounds like Levi.”
I risked a glance at her. She was fighting a smirk.
“Don’t start,” I warned.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You did,” I said. “With your face.”
Her smirk widened, but she just took another sip of tea and let the silence stretch again.
I reached for the syrup, poured it slowly over the pancakes, and tried to convince myself that everything was still exactly as it should be.
But the knot in my chest said otherwise.
Sasha was up again a moment later, someone calling for an extra side of bacon and a mop near table three. She gave my shoulder a quick squeeze as she passed, then disappeared through the swinging doors with the grace of someone who could run a full inn while half-asleep and still remember your preferred jam flavor.
I was left alone with my tea and a quiet nook window that looked out on the mist-softened garden. The lemon steam curled around my face, but the warmth couldn’t quite reach the spot behind my ribs that had begun to ache.
I pulled out my phone and opened Margot’s art profile. She had over twelve thousand followers—most of them curated, tea-drunk aesthetes who loved her melancholy palette and brooding captions.
A new post sat at the top of the feed. Timestamped just after midnight.
The photo was moody and classic Margot: a teacup beside a half-burned candle on a cracked windowsill. Shadows blurred the corners. The light glowed amber and soft. It was haunting. Beautiful. A little too perfect.
The caption read: some storms happen in silence. trust the leaves when they rustle.
All lowercase, of course. Margot’s signature style.
But something twisted in my gut.
No photo of her.
No shot of the gallery. No guests. No post-show elation or gratitude. No chaos backstage. Just that perfectly staged image—and a line that felt like it was trying to sound like her.
I stared at the post a long moment, chewing my bottom lip.
Had Margot actually posted this?
Or had Henrik?
Or a social media manager, instructed to keep up appearances while something worse played out behind locked doors and blocked staircases?
My finger hovered over the screen, itching to check the tagged location, the comments, anything that might tell me she was really behind this.
There was nothing.
Just aesthetic fog and curated detachment.
Too convenient.
Too impersonal.
I locked my phone and set it facedown on the table.
The tea had gone lukewarm.
The bell over the front door gave its usual soft chime as I stepped into Steeped in Mysteary, but the shop itself felt unusually still.
Mid-morning light slanted in through the windows, dust drifting lazily in the air like it had nowhere else to be. The scent of black tea and lavender still clung to the woodwork, comforting and familiar. I inhaled it like oxygen.
I moved behind the counter on muscle memory, flipping on the small lamp in the corner and checking the steeping station. It was too early for customers, and I didn’t mind. I wasn’t ready for small talk or idle orders. I needed something quiet. Something grounding.
I reached for one of my mother’s old blends—rosehips, bergamot, orange peel, and a hint of cinnamon. I called it Evening Garden, but she never named her recipes. Just scrawled notes in her tea-stained journal like the blends spoke for themselves.
I measured the leaves into the strainer, listening to the gentle tap-tap of the tin against ceramic, the soft whoosh of the kettle heating behind me. These were the sounds that made sense. The ones that didn’t lie.
The tea bloomed slowly in the pot, and I let myself exhale.
While it steeped, I pulled out my journal from under the counter—faux leather cover, corners soft with use—and flipped to a blank page. I wrote the date, then paused.
Words didn’t come easy this morning. Everything felt fogged. Disconnected.
I started journaling after the Manuscript Festival as a way to express what I was feeling and it stuck. Now, I tried to write a page a day, even if it was a swear word over and over again.
Margot’s art had felt like a scream with the volume turned down. The gallery like a story already halfway told. Levi’s presence had grounded me in the moment—but I didn’t know what to do with that.
And then there was the post. That beautiful, eerie little post that felt more like camouflage than confession.
I tapped the end of my pen against the page, watching the tea darken in the glass pot beside me.
That’s when the door opened again.
This time, the bell didn’t chime so much as shudder.
Naomi Drake stepped into the shop like she’d been thrown forward by a gust of wind no one else could feel. She looked like she hadn’t slept—her eyeliner smudged, lipstick uneven, hair pulled into a too-tight twist that was already coming undone.
Her eyes locked on me.
And something inside me snapped alert.
Naomi didn’t move further into the shop.
She stood just inside the doorway, backlit by soft morning light, but everything about her posture was sharp. Tense. Like she’d bolt at the wrong word. Or throw one like a blade.
“Do you want tea?” I asked carefully, already knowing the answer.
“No.” Her voice was clipped. Rougher than usual.
I set the kettle down anyway and met her eyes. “Then how can I help you?”
She hesitated, like the question startled her. Then she stepped closer—not far, just enough that anyone walking by might not catch her voice through the window. Just enough to press the moment between us.
“You don’t know what you’re getting into,” Naomi said, low.
Something about her tone made the back of my neck prickle.
“I think you should explain that,” I replied.
She shook her head. “No, you think this is just a game. Just another sleepy Wallshire story where everyone’s charmingly eccentric and the only thing steeping is the tea.”
I crossed my arms. “So prove me wrong.”
Naomi’s jaw tightened. “Margot didn’t want to be saved, Peyton.”
She said my name like it hurt to say. Like I hadn’t earned it.
“She wanted to be remembered,” she added. “And she’d do whatever she could to be remembered. No matter who she hurt.”
The words hung between us like smoke. I tried to read her face—tried to find the truth behind her smudged mascara and the twitch of her fingers against her purse strap.
“Remembered how?” I asked.
Naomi blinked. Her mouth opened, then closed again. Her hands trembled once—just a flicker.
I stepped around the counter, slowly. Not cornering her. Just… being near.
“Whatever’s going on,” I said, quieter now, “you don’t have to carry it alone.”
Naomi’s eyes snapped to mine. And for just a second, they were glassy.
Then she hardened.
“You think knowing the truth is enough?” she asked. “Some truths can’t be exposed without hurting everyone who touched them.”
I swallowed. “But hiding them—”
“Could bury people too,” she cut in.
We stood in silence.
Then her phone buzzed in her coat pocket. A single vibration.
She fumbled for it, glanced at the screen, and every line of her body shifted.
Panic. Or maybe guilt.
Naomi turned toward the window, eyes narrowing as if she’d seen someone outside. A shadow, maybe. A silhouette.
And then, without another word, she opened the door and walked out.
The bell chimed after her like a question mark.
I stood there for a long moment, hands braced on the counter like I could still feel the vibration of her voice in the wood.
Then the kettle whistled, sharp and sudden.
I turned it off, but my hand slipped slightly as I reached for the mug. Hot water sloshed over the side, splashing onto the counter in a small, amber-colored arc.
“Great,” I muttered, grabbing a cloth from beneath the sink.
The shop was still empty. Still quiet. But it no longer felt peaceful. It felt like the air had been rearranged—like something that didn’t want to be disturbed had been knocked slightly off its shelf.
I wiped the spill, then went to return the tin of Evening Garden blend to the wall. My fingers hesitated halfway there.
Instead of placing it back, I set it down on the small wooden table in the back corner—beside the worn leather spine of my mother’s journal.
It had been there since I moved in. I hadn’t opened it in days.
Not because I was afraid.
Because I didn’t think she had anything left to say to me.
I stared at the journal. At the ghost of her handwriting I could see even through the worn cover. We weren’t close. We were a series of unfinished conversations, closed doors, mismatched teacups, and birthdays remembered too late.
And now, we would never get the chance to.
And Margot—who painted her secrets into windowsills and steam—hadn’t felt absent last night. She’d felt muffled. Like someone had lowered the volume on her life, one notch at a time, until no one noticed she’d stopped speaking.
What if she hadn’t wanted to disappear?
What if someone erased her?
The thought landed like a stone in the center of my chest.
I pulled the journal closer without opening it. Not to remember my mother.
But to give my mind a break from overthinking things that might not be there at all.
Chapter
Nine
The Wallshire Police Station always smelled like lemon cleaner and regret.
There was something about the fluorescent lights and the endless gray filing cabinets that made it feel more like a dentist’s waiting room than a place where justice happened. And the coffee—if you could call it that—smelled like it had been percolating since the ’90s.
Which is why I came bearing gifts.
“I brought peace in a cup,” I said as I stepped through the side door, lifting the tote bag with a flourish. “Or at least mild bribery.”
Levi looked up from behind his desk with that suspicious squint he’d practically trademarked. His tie was perfectly in place, and there was a pen stuck behind his ear like he’d forgotten it was there hours ago.
“What do you want?” he asked.
No greeting. No thank you.
Just peak Levi.
I walked over and placed the thermos and two ceramic mugs on the edge of his desk—real mugs, not those tragic chipped ones from the station’s sad communal shelf.
“Can’t I just do something nice?” I said, unscrewing the lid and pouring the Earl Grey with the practiced grace of someone raised by a woman who measured her affection in steeping times and citrus notes.
He gave me a look. One that said no so clearly it didn’t need words.
I handed him a mug, anyway.
“Properly brewed,” I said. “Hot. Steeped four minutes. Splash of milk. No sweetener. Just the way you like it.”
He took the mug like it might bite him. Gave it a slow once-over. Sipped.
Then blinked, grudgingly. “This is… decent.”
“A notch up from adequate, I hope?” I said, sitting down across from him. “And of course it is. I made it.”
He leaned back in his chair, mug resting in his palm like a question he hadn’t decided how to answer yet. “Still doesn’t explain why you’re here.”
And just like that, the temperature in the room dropped—just a degree. Barely noticeable.
But I felt it.
Because Levi Kessler was a man who didn’t trust kindness without strings.
Too bad for him, I was the velvet-wrapped, Earl Grey-scented contradiction he hadn’t figured out yet.
Levi set the mug down carefully, precisely—exactly an inch from the corner of his desk, like every object in his orbit had its assigned place and purpose. His shirt was crisp, sleeves ironed to perfection. Tie straight. Not a hair out of place. Even the pen beside his notepad was aligned parallel to the desk’s edge.
Honestly, it was exhausting just looking at him.
Still, I smiled. “What, no sarcastic comment? No thinly veiled suspicion about me tampering with it?”
He leveled a look at me. “I ran background checks the first week you got here.”
I blinked. “Wait—seriously?”
He didn’t answer. Just sipped again.
“Oh, my God. You did.” I leaned forward, resting my elbows on his desk. “What did you find?”
“You’re deeply annoying.”
“Is that in writing?” I asked. “Can I get a copy for my scrapbook?”
He sighed. “You don’t have a scrapbook.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know exactly how much storage you have in that car of yours. You barely have room for your coat, let alone sentimental crafts.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You’ve been inside my car?”
“I had to move it once. You left it parked illegally during the Manuscript Festival.”
“I was retrieving a pie for Arthur. That was an act of public service.”
“You were double-parked in front of the fire hydrant.”
“A decorative fire hydrant.”
He arched a single brow.
I sipped my tea and sat back. “Anyway. The point is, you’re welcome.”
“For…?”
“Rescuing your tastebuds from whatever that is.” I nodded toward the half-empty carafe of department coffee. “I’m fairly certain it qualifies as an act of cruelty.”
Levi didn’t crack a smile. But the corner of his mouth twitched.
Barely.
Which, by Levi Kessler standards, was basically an emotional declaration.
I let the moment settle between us, quiet and warm.
Then I said, gently: “I found something.”
And just like that, the smile—twitch or otherwise—was gone.
Levi’s expression shifted instantly. Not into interest. Not even suspicion. Into irritation. He let out the kind of sigh that sounded like it came from somewhere deeper than his lungs. “You need to stop inserting yourself into this.”
I blinked. “Wow. Okay.”
He didn’t flinch.
I crossed my arms. “Do you even want to find out what happened to her?”
That got a reaction. His jaw tensed, just slightly. “I want to do my job without civilians muddying the water,” he said coolly.
“Civilians,” I repeated, biting back a laugh. “God, you’re exhausting.”
He sat straighter. “This isn’t a game, Hart. You don’t know the damage you can cause by chasing shadows and sharing half-baked theories over tea with anyone who’ll listen.”
“Is that what you think I’m doing?”
He said nothing.
“You think I’m playing detective because I’m bored?”
His silence wasn’t defensive. It was careful. Measured. Like he was choosing between snapping and walking away.
I narrowed my eyes. “You’re being mean.”
He gave a dry huff. “Mean?”
“Yes. Not ‘detached.’ Not ‘professional.’ Just… mean.”
He glanced at the mug in his hand like he was rethinking ever accepting it.
“I brought you tea,” I added, voice light but shaking slightly underneath. “You don’t have to bite.”
“I didn’t ask for tea.”
“No,” I said. “You never ask for anything.”
That landed.
He blinked once, slowly, and looked away.
I let the quiet hang for a beat. Then I softened. Just a little. “I’m not trying to play detective,” I said. “I just… I see things. And I don’t know how not to care when they stop making sense.”
He didn’t look at me. But he didn’t stop me, either.
So I went on.
“There was a post on Margot’s account last night—after the showcase. Tea and candlelight. Her usual poetic tone. But no picture of her. No mention of the event. It felt off.” Still nothing. “And Naomi showed up at the shop this morning. Said Margot didn’t want to be saved. That she wanted to be remembered.”
His eyes finally flicked back to mine. Sharp. Focused. But still cold at the edges.
“She said some truths hurt everyone who touched them,” I added. “Then left in a panic.”
Levi was silent for a long time. Then he set his mug down. Perfectly, precisely.
“I need to talk to Naomi,” he said, more to himself than me.
“No kidding,” I muttered.
He gave me a long look. Something unreadable flickered behind his eyes. Not soft. But not untouched, either.
“I’m still not thanking you for the tea,” he said.
I smirked. “Good. That would’ve ruined the entire vibe.”
Levi’s fingers drummed once—precisely—against the desk, then stilled.
“What did she want with you?” he asked, voice flat.
I blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Naomi,” he said. “Why come to you?”
My mouth dropped open. “Gee, thanks. That’s flattering.”
He frowned, clearly not tracking the offense. “I’m saying she’s erratic, unpredictable—if she had something to hide, she’d know better than to dump it in the lap of someone who runs a tea shop and writes in a journal like it’s a spellbook.”
“Oh wow,” I said. “That got worse with every word.”
He looked slightly—slightly—uncomfortable. “I meant she could’ve gone to Henrik. Or one of her creepy society friends. Not… you.”
I crossed my arms, tight. “Because I’m soft? Or because I’m harmless?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to. It’s all over your face. Right between ‘you don’t belong here’ and ‘you’re going to get hurt.’”
He exhaled sharply. “Hart—”
