by Linda Reilly
“Oh, maybe because a certain state police investigator saw you parked in front of a gourmet food shop. And later saw you pull in behind a bridal shop.”
Lara suddenly got it.
Lieutenant Conrad Cutler.
The black car. It was an unmarked state police car.
Had he been following her? The thought made a ball of ire rise in her chest.
Bad enough if Cutler followed her—he had to report it to Gideon?
“First of all,” Lara said, trying to keep her tone even, “Kayla went with me to Bakewell to look for a pair of shoes for the wedding. Which, in fact, I found—although they had to be ordered in my size.”
Gideon huffed into the phone. “Lara, I am really trying to understand this, but frankly, I’m not having much luck. Are you poking around in another murder?”
“‘Poking around’?” Lara said tightly. “No, I’m not poking around. It’s just—” She clutched Panda for moral support. “Megan came to see me this morning. She was in a bad way. She asked if I would help her.”
“Oh my God. And you agreed? After everything you’ve been through?”
“No, I didn’t agree. Not…exactly. I told her she needed to deal with her attorney.” Lara sighed. “The problem is, I felt sorry for her. After talking to her, I realized that she’s very intelligent, but she’s also immature. I think she lacks impulse control, which is what got her into trouble in the first place.”
For a long time, Gideon was silent. Lara was afraid he’d disconnected.
“Lara,” he finally said, “I am so frustrated right now that I can barely talk. Three days ago, you were upset that I’d never told you about Megan. Now you’re helping her? Have you forgotten what you went through last summer? And before that, at Christmas—”
“No, Gideon. I haven’t forgotten. I’m sorry if this has upset you, but something about Megan made me scared for her. Yes, I went to Bakewell today to be nosy, to ‘poke around,’ as you put it. But I really did need shoes for the wedding, and I found the perfect pair.” And I have to go back there to pick them up.
Gideon’s tone seemed to deflate. “Anything else?”
“I talked to a few local store owners. That was it.” She pulled in a calming breath. “Well, not quite it. The woman who assisted me at the bridal salon—her name was Tina Tanaka—Googled me when she saw the name on my credit card.”
“Oh boy.”
“Actually, Megan knows Tina. Megan told me this morning that Tina had bad blood with Chancer.” She related the story of Chancer text-stalking Tina. “After Tina checked me out, I guess she decided I’d gone there to spy on her. She was not happy, to put it mildly.”
“No, I don’t imagine she was. But I can’t help thinking what a coincidence it was that you just happened to bump into Tina Tanaka while you were looking for shoes.”
Lara choked back a lump. “Gideon, I don’t think we should continue this discussion on the phone. Do you have time tomorrow when we can talk in person?”
“Lara, I always have time for you.” His voice was gentle. “You should know that by now.”
I’m not sure what I know anymore.
“Then pick a time. Any time. I’ll be there,” she said.
“Okay then, early,” he said. “Is eight okay?”
“Perfect,” Lara said, though she didn’t think anything would ever be perfect again.
The timing of all this couldn’t be any worse. Sherry’s wedding was in less than three weeks. If Sherry suspected that Lara and Gideon were having troubles, she’d worry herself into a knot. Lara couldn’t let that happen.
“See you tomorrow, then. Love you.” Gideon hung up.
“I love you, too,” she murmured to a disconnected phone.
Sensing her dismay, Panda crawled closer to Lara. Lara buried her face in the cat’s neck. “Oh, Panda, why can’t people be as easy to get along with as cats?”
Panda responded with a sharp meow.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. You don’t have a clue either.”
Munster and Sienna had bailed on her. They were curled up in the corner cat bed, happy in their own kitty world. Amber was on the cat tree near the window in Lara’s room, gazing out into the night. Dolce and Twinkles were no doubt hunkered down in bed with Aunt Fran.
In the world of cats, all was peaceful at High Cliff.
If only things were as tranquil in the world of humans.
If only she could sleep like a cat.
Chapter 12
The next morning, at Gideon’s office, Lara was greeted by the part-time assistant he’d hired seven months earlier.
“Good morning, Lara.” Marina Martin’s deep brown eyes twinkled from a kindly, wrinkled face. “Another frigid day, isn’t it?” She rubbed her hands together as if to ward off the chill.
“It sure is,” Lara agreed, pasting on a smile. “How are you doing, Marina?”
“Oh, I’m doing, for an old lady.” She smiled and whisked her cell phone off her desk. “The latest pic,” she said, her plump chest swelling with pride.
Lara stared at the photo of a chubby little boy with a head full of dark curls. “Oh gosh, that’s little Dwight, isn’t it? He’s adorable. What is he, six months now?”
“Seven,” Marina said. “Going on eighteen, if you know what I mean.”
Lara laughed. How lucky Marina’s grandkids were to have her to dote on them. She was a wonderful woman. She’d also been a godsend to Gideon.
The summer before, Gideon had taken on added responsibilities when he accepted the job as the town’s attorney. A mother of two and grandmother of five, Marina had retired from her days as a legal secretary and hadn’t worked in years. When she went into the town hall to renew her dog’s license, she saw Gideon’s ad for a part-time assistant posted on the bulletin board. She applied, and Gideon saw right away that she was a gem. He’d hired her on the spot.
“Gideon’s waiting for you.” Marina winked at Lara, as if to assure her that everything would work out. “I’ll be in the back room doing some filing.”
Lara knew most of Gideon’s filing was done electronically. Marina was pulling a disappearing act so they could chat without her overhearing.
In Gideon’s office, a cup of freshly poured coffee and a cinnamon-chip muffin awaited her on the front of his desk. A yellow legal pad acted as place mat. A folded napkin sat beside the cup.
“Hi.” Instead of wrapping her in a huge hug, as he normally would, he kissed her lightly on the cheek. “Have a seat.”
Lara slung her tote over the chair facing his, then sat and slid her jacket off her arms. She smiled. “Thanks for the coffee.” He’d already added the cream and sugar. It was the exactly the way she liked it. Lara took a long sip. It tasted heavenly.
“I heard you come in, so I got it ready.”
Instead of sitting in his usual chair, he came around and perched on the edge of his desk facing her. He looked tired, as if he’d slept poorly. His eyelids drooped, and he had two tiny cuts where he’d nicked himself shaving.
“Lara, I apologize for sounding like such a bully last night. It was uncalled for. I was totally out of line.”
A huge breath of relief escaped Lara. She hadn’t expected their conversation to start off this way. She hoped it was a sign that they were getting past this hiccup in their relationship.
“I understand why you were worried,” she said. “I know that I’ve had…encounters in the past that put me in some danger.”
“Some danger? Come on, Lara. It was more than ‘some,’ and you know it.”
She nodded. “All right. I admit that. But something about Megan got to me. She seems, I don’t know, friendless, I guess.”
Gideon fixed her with a look. “Maybe there’s a reason for that.”
“What do you mean?”
Gideon close
d his eyes and tilted his head toward the ceiling. Then he looked back at Lara. “Lara, Megan has a hair-trigger temper. I only got a taste of it once, but once was enough. That’s why I don’t feel one hundred percent sure about her innocence. Ninety-nine percent, yes. But not a hundred.”
“But before this, you told me you didn’t think Megan had it in her to commit premeditated murder. Now it sounds like you’re hedging.”
“I know, but I’ve had time to mull it over. I’ll tell you a story, something that happened on our last and final date. I don’t like speaking ill of Megan, but this is serious stuff. If Wayne Chancer was, in fact, murdered—and it’s beginning to look that way—you could be putting yourself in danger if you keep asking questions.”
That reminded Lara of something else that was bugging her. “By the way, how did you happen to run into Conrad Cutler? Or did he call you specifically to tattle on me?”
Gideon sighed. “Yes, he called me. You can call it tattling if you want, but the man has a great deal of respect for you. He remembers what happened last summer. He doesn’t want to see a repeat of that nightmare.”
Lara’s hands curled into fists. “And I do? Oh yes, poor little me. I’m only a woman, so I guess I can’t keep track of things like someone trying to kill me.”
Gideon paled, and for a moment Lara felt a twinge of guilt. She knew it wasn’t his fault that Cutler was old-school in his thinking.
“I know he can be overbearing,” Gideon said, “but he’s an excellent investigator—one of the best. Remember, in his job he’s seen the worst of the worst—things neither of us can begin to imagine. It tends to make him overprotective.”
At that, Lara felt bad. She knew cops saw terrible things on a regular basis. It had to be depressing sometimes.
“All right, I’m going to let it go,” she said, unclenching her fists. She tore off a piece of her muffin and popped it into her mouth. It gave her a moment to think. After she swallowed, she said, “I guess I don’t understand why you’re suddenly so chummy with him.”
Gideon shrugged. “I think he’s just keeping me in the loop because of my past dealings with Megan.”
Dealings? Lara hated to think what that word meant.
“Why don’t you tell me the story about Megan?” she prompted.
He nodded. “This one day—maybe three, almost four years ago?—we were eating at a pizza place in Concord. Cute little place, nothing fancy. It was around the time I started to realize that Megan and I had very little in common. I knew I didn’t want to see her again. I just didn’t know how to tell her.”
Lara knew from experience how that felt. Usually, though, she’d been on the receiving end.
“In the scheme of things, what happened was minor, but it told me a lot about her. It was enough that I knew I had to end things before it went any further.” Gideon crossed his feet at the ankles and shifted on his desk. “An elderly woman sitting at the table next to us happened to get up just as we were leaving. The woman was holding a plate of half-eaten spaghetti. I guess she was going to toss it out—either that or ask for a take-out box. Anyway, Megan didn’t see her, and when she got up, the woman’s greasy spaghetti sauce ended up all over the sleeve of her blouse.” He stared off at the wall, as if reliving the scene in his mind.
“I gather Megan got upset?”
“Upset? She went ballistic. Started shrieking at the woman and making wild gestures. Told her it was a such-and-such blouse—some designer I can’t remember—and that she’d paid over two hundred dollars for it.”
Lara didn’t own any designer blouses. If she did, she definitely wouldn’t wear one to a pizza parlor, where it would almost certainly end up spotted with cheese and pepperoni.
Gideon went on. “Megan threatened the woman, told her she worked for lawyers and she was going to sue her butt off. Everyone in the place was staring at her.”
Lara was horrified. “I can’t even imagine what you were thinking. What did that poor woman do?”
He linked his fingers over his knees. “That was the thing that got to me. The woman started to cry. She kept apologizing and pulling cash out of her purse. She tried to give it to Megan so she could have the blouse cleaned, but Megan slapped the money away. At that point I got angry. I insisted that the woman put her money away, and I sent her on her way—as gently as I could.”
Lara sat back and mulled over the story. She hadn’t seen any signs of Megan’s temper during her visit the day before. Then again, Megan had been on her best behavior for sure. Was the woman a master manipulator?
She thought about the way Megan had enjoyed the cats’ attention, how they’d cuddled up to her and made her feel welcome. Blue had nestled close to Megan’s shoulder as if she was trying to comfort her. Lara couldn’t reconcile it with the story Gideon had just related.
Then again, they were cats, not psychologists or mind readers. Sometimes she had to remind herself to keep it in perspective.
And technically, Blue wasn’t a cat. Not a flesh-and-blood one. She was the spirit of a cat who’d passed long ago.
“That day, at the pizza place,” Lara said, “is that when you ended things with Megan?”
“Yes, though I waited until I drove her back to her apartment. It didn’t seem fair to tell her in the car.” He shook his head. “By the time I walked her inside, she’d done a complete one-eighty. She started to sob. She was totally repentant for the way she’d behaved. She told me she was going to find out who that woman was and send her a huge bouquet of flowers.”
“Maybe she really was sorry,” Lara said.
Gideon threw up his arms. “I’m sure she was. I never doubted that. It was her meltdown that was so unexpected.”
Lara stared into her coffee cup. “She told me that you warned her against crashing Chancer’s party, but that she didn’t listen. She said it was the dumbest thing she’d ever done.”
“She told you that?”
“Yup.”
“I guess that’s another example, then,” Gideon reflected. “Bursting into Chancer’s home and losing her cool at the party. It’s part of the same pattern.”
Not quite, Lara thought.
When Megan lost her temper in the pizza parlor, she hadn’t planned it in advance. But crashing Chancer’s birthday party? Flinging accusations at him in front of a roomful of guests?
That was premeditated.
Lara was so confused. She didn’t know what to think.
Gideon reached for her hand and wrapped it in his own. “Lara, I don’t want any of this to come between us. Not Cutler, and not Megan. They’re outsiders. They don’t have anything to do with us. They shouldn’t even be in our orbit.”
It was a strange way to put it, but Lara agreed.
“Why don’t we reboot,” he said, gently squeezing her hand. “Let’s go back to the way things were before Megan showed up in town on Friday. I’ll tell Cutler I don’t want to be kept in the loop. You can forget you ever met Megan. Bottom line, she’s not our problem, Lara.”
Lara wished it were that easy. She needed him to understand why that wasn’t possible.
“Gideon, remember the time you told me about a title search you did? You said you searched back in time further than you had to because something about the starting deed bothered you?”
“Yes, it was the Fitzgibbons search. I could have started the search with the nineteen sixty-two quitclaim into the daughter. Something about it bothered me, though, so I went back further. When I did, I discovered a huge gap. There were two missing heirs.”
“Exactly. And remember I asked you why you couldn’t just ignore the gap and pretend you started the search with that deed in ’sixty-two?”
He chuckled. “I guess so. Where are you going with this?”
“Because of how you answered me. You said you couldn’t ignore it because you were already tainted with kno
wledge. That’s the term you used. You said it was a legal phrase. It meant that you couldn’t ‘unknow’ what you now knew.”
Gideon slowly shook his head. “My God, Lara, you’re comparing apples and oranges. Once I knew about the two missing heirs, I was ethically bound not to ignore them. I don’t see how that relates to your asking questions of total strangers because you think someone got away with murder.”
Lara’s heart sank. “Then I can’t explain it any better.”
Should she tell him about Blue? How the cat that no one else could see had cozied up to Megan as if she were trying to get a point across to Lara?
“Honey,” Gideon said in a low voice, “is there a cat involved in this latest quest of yours? Does this have something to do with Blue?”
Latest quest. He made it sound like she was on a treasure hunt. But it was his patronizing tone she didn’t appreciate.
Still, she should have known he’d figure it out. Gideon knew her all too well.
“It does, in a way. Yesterday, when Megan was sitting on our sofa, Munster and Panda were all over her, and it was obvious she loved the attention. But then Blue suddenly jumped up, almost onto her shoulder. It took me by surprise. I couldn’t figure out why.”
“Maybe you’re reading too much into it,” he offered.
“Maybe.” Again, that tone. It was so unlike Gideon.
For the first time, Lara wondered if Gideon truly believed in Blue’s existence. Was it possible he’d been humoring her all this time?
“Listen,” she said abruptly, “you have work to do, and I’m taking up your time.” She rose from her seat and took her last swallow of coffee.
Gideon grabbed her napkin and wrapped up the remains of her muffin, slipping it into her tote. “Let’s talk again later, okay? I’m not sure we really resolved anything.”
Lara’s smile was flat. She couldn’t keep the tightness from her voice. “We’ll see. I’ve got a ton of projects lined up for today, plus this is an adoption day.”
“How’s Sienna doing?”