“Do you feel that the meeting with Angela Calvo will get off to an adversarial start if she feels that you’ve brought what the kids would see as backup?”
Megan opened her mouth, then shut it. She hadn’t even thought about that, but Katherine was right. “Do you want to leave? Do you think that would make for a better meeting?”
“Oh no,” Katherine said. “There’s still a not-remote chance of her being a sociopath. I definitely want to stay.”
Megan bit her lip to keep from laughing. “You’re not going to tell her the sociopath theory, are you?”
“Not right away.” Katherine sipped her coffee. “I’d like to observe her more first.”
“Speaking of sociopaths, how’s the ethics review at the university going?” Megan asked. “The Alice Kraft thing?”
“It seems to be running into a wall. She wants the university to clear her record but isn’t offering anything new to add to the initial investigation. Nothing that would mitigate the evidence against her. She simply seems to think the college owes her an apology because she wasn’t found guilty by the court.” Katherine frowned. “Ethics panels don’t work like that.”
“She sounds entitled,” Megan said. “I have to say, that fits with my initial impression of her. Is that typical for college professors?”
“In my experience? Absolutely.” Katherine’s entire face brightened. “Did I tell you that Fred the Third solved his most complicated puzzle yet?”
“You didn’t. You mentioned the eel-reproduction thing to me though, and now it keeps coming back to me at odd times.”
“One spawning ground in the entire Atlantic Ocean.” Katherine nodded slowly. “Fascinating, isn’t it?”
“It’s… definitely something.” Megan could never get as excited about eel reproductive systems as Katherine did, but that’s why she wasn’t a scientist. “Do you think Trina’s doing the right thing heading back to Atlanta next year? She could get accepted at Central Coast in a heartbeat.”
Katherine didn’t answer quickly, which Megan appreciated.
“She’s very attached to her friends and family back east,” Katherine said after a long pause. “And you won’t find many better schools for undergraduate degrees in biology in the United States than the one she’s chosen. If she sticks with marine biology, then her options for graduate school will be wide open. She might return here or she might move to a school that specializes in the mid-Atlantic region, which is really what she’s interested in.”
Megan put a hand over Katherine’s hand. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For caring about my kids so much. I know Trina talks your ear off.”
“I love it,” Katherine said. “It makes me much more comfortable at large gatherings if Trina is there to quiz me about coral or ocean-temperature trends or whatever has caught her attention that week. And getting to know Adam has been just as delightful.”
Megan cocked her head. “Adam?”
Katherine nodded. “He’s been running on the beach by our house most afternoons lately and he always offers to take Archie with him. The dog loves it.”
“I thought he was running with his basketball team.” Megan was feeling distinctly out of touch with her kids. She felt like she hadn’t spoken to Adam in months. Not a real conversation anyway.
“I’ve just seen him on his own,” Katherine said. “But it’s nearly every day. He’s a lovely young man.”
“I’m glad you think so,” Megan said. “He’s been like a thunderstorm fixin’ to cloud up and rain on whatever’s nearby lately. I don’t know what’s going on with him.”
“Adam?” Katherine’s eyebrows went up. “Well, as Baxter often reminds me about my freshman students: be gracious. Their frontal lobe isn’t fully developed until twenty-five.”
A voice came from a few feet away. “And that’s just the average.”
Megan looked up and saw Angela Calvo standing a few feet away with a polite smile on her face.
“Angela!” Megan stood and held out her hand. “Good to see you again.”
“Is it?” Angela seemed ill at ease. She was looking at Katherine. “Do I have the right time for lunch? I don’t want to interrupt.”
“You’re not interrupting us; I’m interrupting you.” Katherine held out her hand, and Angela shook it. “We met briefly at the winery, but I’m not sure you remember. I’m Katherine Bassi. I hope you don’t mind my intruding on your lunch. I live right down the street.”
Megan was struck by a sudden memory. “You said you lived near the beach, right?”
Angela’s shoulders relaxed. “I do. I’m just a couple of blocks from this place.”
Megan gestured toward Katherine. “So you and Katherine are neighbors. I thought you might be. That’s why I invited her.”
“Oh.” Angela was smiling again. “Thank you. I haven’t met many of my neighbors yet.”
“People here can be very private,” Katherine said. “My husband and I have lived here for ages, and we still feel like newcomers sometimes.”
Angela looked relieved. “So it’s not just me.”
“Oh no; it’s not just you.” Katherine dragged a chair out, playing hostess as Megan pulled herself together. “I can’t shake the feeling that we’ve met before though. Have you ever guest-lectured at Central Coast State? Done a fundraiser there?”
“I don’t think so, but I believe my mother has, and I look quite a lot like her.”
“That must be what I’m remembering.”
Megan could tell from Katherine’s tone that wasn’t what she was remembering, but the professor didn’t push it.
“We were just talking about Megan’s son, Adam,” Katherine continued. “He loves running on the beach near my house.”
Thank God for her friends. Katherine and Toni were the best things that had happened to Megan in a long, long time. For the first time in her life, Megan didn’t feel like she had to have everything together all the time.
She could be messy if she needed to. Katherine and Toni had her back.
“Adam?” Angela sat and folded her hands in her lap. “Yes, he seems like a very bright young man, but I know he’s challenging for his father.”
Megan bristled, then immediately forced herself to calm down. “It was hard for him when Rodney left. I imagine that would be hard on any kid his age.”
Angela nodded. “I’ve told Rodney that. I think it would be beneficial for him to spend dedicated time with Adam, but then he feels like he’s leaving Cami out.” Angela looked between Katherine and Megan. “I don’t have any children, but that seems sensible to me. If I have an employee who is underperforming, I try to spend time with them to determine the issue before anything else is addressed.”
Katherine watched Angela. “That’s very sensible. Have you done this a lot?”
“Done what?” Angela reached for the glass of ice water that the waitress brought to her and sipped.
“Dated people with older children,” Katherine asked. “I think it takes a unique individual to understand the bond single parents have with their children.”
“No.” She opened the menu. “Rodney is the first man I’ve dated who has children.”
“Really?” Megan was surprised. Angela’s face was impeccably smooth with hardly a laugh line or a crow’s-foot, but she wasn’t in her twenties. This was a mature, experienced woman, and she’d never dated anyone with children?
“I avoided relationships with men who were fathers. My relationship with my own father is complicated, so I eschewed them. It wasn’t difficult.” She perused the menu. “Is the grilled-fish salad good here?”
“Yeah,” Megan said. “It’s great.” She didn’t know what to think of Angela. Her manner was warm but a little formal.
And what manner are you supposed to take when you’re meeting your boyfriend’s ex-wife?
Fair point.
Megan picked up her tea and sipped the bland brown water with hardly any sugar. On days
like this, she really missed home. “So if you avoided men with children, can I ask what drew you to Rodney?”
Angela closed her menu and put it down. “That’s a fair question. Also, thank you for meeting me for lunch. I know it’s not the most common request you might get from your ex-husband’s significant other.”
“I will confess I was surprised you wanted to meet me. None of his other girlfriends did. Sorry, is it strange to mention them?”
“I think most of the women he dated were quite young, weren’t they?” Angela sipped her water again. “I’m not passing judgment, but I think that tends to make a difference. I prefer to face things that could be difficult head-on. My mother taught me that.”
My mother, the state representative.
“Difficult?” Megan shrugged. “I don’t think there’s anything particularly difficult about Rodney and me. We’re divorced, and I think we’re both happier. He was unfaithful, and I kicked him out of the house. We’d been struggling for years before that, so it was more of a relief than a heartbreak on my side.”
Not strictly true. Megan had been heartbroken, but not about missing Rodney. She’d been heartbroken that she’d devoted so much of her life to a partnership that wasn’t really a partnership. She’d given her ex-husband so much of her life, and he’d thrown her offering away. That had been the part that hurt and angered Megan the most, not losing Rodney.
“And yet,” Angela said, “he seems to be the most emotional when he’s talking about you. Do you think he has unresolved feelings for you?”
“I would hope not if he’s serious about dating you.” Megan noticed that Katherine was particularly quiet and wondered what her friend was observing. “Trust me, I don’t have any interest in reconciling with him, and neither do the kids.”
“I see.”
The waitress came and took their orders. The grilled-fish salad for Angela, a vegetarian pasta salad for Katherine, and a chicken salad for Megan.
Angela’s face was blank, and Megan tried to remember what she’d said before they placed their order. “I know that may sound harsh, but I wanted to be clear—”
“It would hurt Rodney if his children no longer want a relationship with him.” Angela carefully twisted her napkin in front of her on the table. “I can tell that much about him. He’s quite transparent when it comes to the children.”
“Does he hide his feelings about other things?” Katherine asked.
Angela glanced at Katherine but turned her attention back to Megan. “The children mean a lot to him.”
“I didn’t say that correctly,” Megan said. “I mean the children don’t harbor any illusions about Rodney and me getting back together. They’re not attached to that idea. Does that make sense?”
“So you do think they want to repair their relationship with their father?” Angela asked. “Even Trina?”
“Have you ever met Trina?”
“Not once.” Angela shook her head. “I would like to.”
“She’s always been a person—even as a child—who had very high expectations of herself. Because of that, she has a hard time forgiving people when they do things she considers wrong.”
“Like cheating on her mother?”
Megan nodded. “That’s a pretty good example, don’t you think?”
“Yes.” Angela looked out the window, watching the ocean in the distance. “I think Trina and I might share that trait. I have a hard time forgiving others when they wrong me.”
Megan sipped her under-sweetened iced tea. She’d added sugar, but it just wasn’t the same. “I think Trina will reconcile with her father in her own time, but she won’t be rushed, and I know that’s what Rodney wants.”
“He wants to move forward,” Angela said.
“Yes. But it’s not simple for her the way it is for Cami.” Or Adam. She almost said her son’s name, but then Adam hadn’t been acting like himself. “I think you just need to be patient,” Megan said. “Teenagers are young people, and I’ve raised my kids to think for themselves. Give them time to warm up to you. If you stick around, they’ll come around.”
Angela’s smile said that wasn’t the answer she wanted to hear, but she wasn’t going to argue.
Before they could say anything else, their meals came, and Katherine diverted the conversation to news and information about the internet.
Megan tried to relax, but something wouldn’t let her. She had too many questions on her mind.
Why had Rodney’s girlfriend wanted to meet her so much?
Why was this woman dating Rodney to begin with?
Why was Adam so negative about a woman who seemed fairly pleasant?
What was going on with Adam in the first place?
She kept a smile on her face and made all the appropriate noises as Katherine steered the conversation, but Megan’s mind was a thousand miles away.
Chapter 15
The next day, Megan drove back to Katherine’s house on the beach to meet Val and her boyfriend Sully. The giant truck roaring up North Beach Street in the middle of the afternoon was better than an alarm clock. Katherine and Baxter were still at work, but Megan waved at the truck and pointed toward the small driveway behind Katherine’s cedar-clad house.
“Hey!” She walked to Val’s side when the vehicle parked. “You made good time!”
“Sully got a few days off work.” Val shot her burly man a look. “Which was way overdue. My kid is getting ready for midterms and can stay with Robin and Mark for a few days—he likes them better anyway.” Val opened the door and jumped down from the lifted pickup truck. “So we decided to come down and help with your mystery this week.” She clapped her hands together. “Fresh fucking air. Thank God.”
A giant man walked toward the front of the truck, his hands stuffed in his pockets.
“You must be Sully.” Megan walked over and held out her hand. “It’s very nice to meet you. I’m Megan, and I’ve heard nothing but good things.”
“You must have been talking to Robin and Monica then.” The man was the size of a brown bear and had a beard to match. His voice, his manner, it was all gruff. Megan loved it.
“You look like a lumberjack.”
Val cackled, and Sully got red in the cheeks. “I’ve worked in timber. It’s not… We don’t use the word lumberjack anymore. I’m the sheriff up in Glimmer Lake now.”
“Oh, I’ll have to introduce you to our friend, Drew Bisset. He’s the local detective in Moonstone Cove.”
“There’s just the one?”
Megan shrugged. “You have much call for a full-time detective in Glimmer Lake?”
Sully glanced at Val. “With this girl and her friends around? Not much.”
Megan ushered them up to the wraparound deck and the table at the far end that overlooked the ocean. Once they were sitting, she felt herself relax.
“I’m so glad you’re here.”
Val closed her eyes and let her face relax in the breeze coming off the sea. She was a thin, dark-haired woman with half her head shaved up the side, numerous tattoos, and a keen, penetrating gaze. She wore black gloves that came up past her elbows along with black cowboy boots and a black denim jacket.
And Sully really did look like a lumberjack. He was burly and tall, had a bit of a belly and a scruffy beard, but he was handsome in a rough, square-jawed way. His sandy-blond hair was grey at the temples, and his beard was sprinkled with silver.
“So let me get this straight,” Sully said. “You’re investigating a robbery, but all that was stolen were grapevines?”
“Well, yes.” If you didn’t know the backstory, it all seemed a bit silly. “These were experimental grapevines. Clones from a specific vine in Northern California that were grafted onto local rootstock. My client is trying to revive a rare variety of wine grape and grow it commercially here in Moonstone Cove. Normally this type of grape is only grown in a tiny area of France, so if they could grow it here, it would be a big deal.”
Sully nodded. “Okay, so
these are not normal grapevines.”
“Not even a little bit. The winery owner and his winemaker—who is Toni’s boyfriend—have been working on this project for about three years. They were going to do the first field trials this spring.”
Val opened her eyes. “Until the vines were stolen. And did you say something about blood?”
“That’s the newest development. Detective Bisset dropped by and told us they found the truck used to carry out the theft, and there was a sizable amount of blood in the truck bed. Like, enough that they suspected someone hadn’t survived that kind of blood loss.”
“Not good,” Sully rumbled.
“Definitely not. And the day before they found the truck, Katherine had a very short vision of soil going over someone’s face. She didn’t get much more than that, but she’s working on a sketch now. Just a face, which she said looked dead, being covered by loose soil.”
“As if someone was burying a body,” Sully said.
“Exactly.” Megan turned to Val. “That’s why I’m desperately hoping you’ll be able to pick something up from Nico’s greenhouse. We are at a dead end in this investigation, and I think the police are too. It’s very possible the vines are already planted somewhere and we’ve lost our chance to recover them, but we can’t ignore a man’s death even if we have no idea who he is.”
“Cheery,” Val said. “How’s your telekinesis doing?”
Megan picked up the pile of keys sitting on the table in front of Sully and floated them over to Val. “You want to drive, or should I? I’ll tell you on the way.”
Val grinned. “That’s wicked cool.” She stood and patted Sully’s shoulder. “You want to come along? Or hang out here and wait for more people you don’t know?”
He heaved himself up and out of the chair. “I’ll come along. Who knows, I might even be able to help with my rusty old nonpsychic eyes.”
“You drive,” Val said. “We’ll leave the truck here. We can’t check into our hotel until about four anyway.”
“Where are you staying?” Megan asked.
“Seaglass Inn,” Sully said. “She said it’s right on the beach.”
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