by Emily James
The officer took his hat off, revealing a shock of red hair.
“Speak of the…” I couldn’t really call an officer of the law a devil.
Mark looked back over his shoulder and raised a hand in greeting. Chief McTavish nodded in return and headed for the take-out counter to our left. That effectively put an end to our conversation, at least until he left, and for longer if I could help it. I wasn’t entirely sure how to answer Mark’s question.
“Nicole!” Mr. Marshall’s booming voice carried over the sounds of conversation and silverware clinking against plates. Janet Marshall was at his side this time.
They stopped beside our table. “We can’t thank you enough for the recommendation of this place. How’s the investigation going?”
At the edge of my vision, I caught a sharp movement from where Chief McTavish waited for his order. I forced myself not to look over even though the need to turn pressed on me more than the desire to scratch an itch that was just out of reach. Even I wasn’t enough of an optimist to hope he hadn’t heard Mr. Marshall’s question. Everyone at the nearby tables must have heard. Turning to look at the chief would only confirm my guilt and potentially make it seem like I was flouting my disobedience. If I ignored him, maybe he’d think they were asking about something else I was looking in to. Some Sugarwood business.
And tomorrow we’d get word that flying pigs had replaced the reindeer for Santa’s sleigh.
I’d keep my answer vague and hope with the noise Chief McTavish couldn’t catch every word. “It’s progressing.”
“Say again?” Mr. Marshall tapped a hand to his ear. “Janet keeps telling me I should get my hearing tested. Normally I hear fine, but tonight might have convinced me.”
“It’s progressing.” I cleared my throat and rolled my lips together. Must stop this conversation. “I can’t really share any more.”
“Of course not.” Janet Marshall spoke for the first time. She leaned against her husband, her arm tucked through his. “We wouldn’t expect you to. I just wanted to come over because Ted said you were hoping we’d seen something that would help you with your case. But there’s nothing I can add that he didn’t already tell you. I wanted to make sure you knew since we’re leaving on Thursday.”
“Heading home?” Mark asked.
Mr. Marshall shook his head. “This trip hasn’t turned out how we planned, so we’ve decided to extend our honeymoon and go someplace warmer and more relaxing for Janet, like the Maldives. Nostalgia was a nice idea, but it’s time we visited some white sandy beaches.”
I thanked them and wished them well, and they headed off. I couldn’t tell for sure if Chief McTavish still stood at the counter or not, but the hairs on the back of my neck insisted he was there. Still there and glowering at me. My heart did its best imitation of a moth bouncing against a window pane. If he were still there, he’d probably heard all of that. He’d know I was investigating the case he’d specifically told me to stay out of.
I caught Mark’s gaze and mouthed the words Is Chief McTavish still there?
A cell phone rang from the direction of the take-out counter. “McTavish,” the chief’s voice said.
That answered my question. I risked a glance over. He was now focused on whatever the person on the other end of the phone was saying.
He swore. “On my way.”
He snatched up his Styrofoam food containers and leveled a glare in my direction that looked a lot like the one parents gave to their children when they misbehaved out in public. The one that said “this isn’t over.”
As soon as he was gone, I pushed my plate away, crossed my arms on the table top, and planted my chin in the crook. “I bet if he decides to ‘take care of me,’ they’ll never find my body.”
Mark simply shook his head tolerantly. “Now you’re being melodramatic. He’d never kill you. Lock you in a cell, maybe, but not kill you.”
I stuck my tongue out at him. “How comforting.”
My phone vibrated in my purse. Normally I wouldn’t have answered it when Mark and I were out to dinner, but he was signaling the waitress for our check.
I opened my purse and wiggled the phone around. At least I could check who was calling.
The display read Daisy Northgate.
Dread slithered down my back, leaving a cold trail, and Chief McTavish’s reaction to the phone call he’d received flashed through my mind.
My voice seemed broken. It refused to work on my first try to answer.
“Nicole Fitzhenry-Dawes,” I finally squeaked out.
“My husband found Holly.” Daisy’s voice was thick, and not with happy tears. “The hospital already called the police. We need you right away.”
Mark drove me straight to the hospital. He offered to come up with me, but I asked him to wait downstairs, where he’d be safe from the fallout of Chief McTavish. Just because he couldn’t order me to stay away from the case anymore didn’t mean he wouldn’t make life difficult for anyone he suspected of aiding me.
Daisy had texted me the floor to meet her on. If I remembered the layout of the hospital—and I should, given how many times I’d been there recently—it wasn’t a floor with long-term rooms. That meant they either planned to release her today or she was still being treated and hadn’t yet been moved. Based on how frantic Daisy sounded on the phone, I’d guess the latter.
The elevator doors opened, and I didn’t have to look for the right place. Daisy and her husband stood next to the nurse’s station counter with Chief McTavish.
His eyes bugged out of his head like a classic cartoon character, but he strode toward me with the dignity I would have expected from an experienced officer. As much as I hated to admit it, I had to admire his self-control.
He said something to the Northgates as he passed them and intercepted me before I could get close to them. “I tried to be nice about this, Miss. Fitzhenry-Dawes, but now I’m going to need to be firm. Unless you stay away from my investigation of the death of Drew Harris, I’ll be forced to charge you with obstruction.”
It was an idle threat. I hadn’t done anything to obstruct the investigation, nor was there anything criminal about talking to people. I hadn’t tried to influence their statements or taint the evidence in any way.
Had I been a normal person who didn’t know his threat was as solid as a leaky balloon, I might have been scared away, though.
Instead, I took off my mitts and stuffed them into my pocket—letting my body language indicate my intention to stay before my words. “As Holly Northgate’s legal counsel, I have every right to be here if you intend to question her.”
His facial expression didn’t even twitch. Not the corner of his eye. Not the edge of one lip. The man was better than even I’d given him credit for.
He stepped aside and swung his arm in an arch indicating I should precede him.
Daisy left her husband’s side and met me halfway there. And wrapped me in a hug.
My arms dangled trapped at my sides, and all the professional things I’d planned to say dripped right out my ear.
Daisy released me quickly. “It’s thanks to your idea about the credit card that we found her. I told the police like you said, but I watched my statements, too. We saw a charge near where one of Holly’s old high school friends lived. The police had already checked with all her friends, but no one searched their parents’ outbuildings. My husband went to their door and asked if he could look in the little shed where they keep their gardening supplies, and there she was. When she didn’t wake up, he picked her up and brought her here.”
Her husband had the muscles of someone who did physical labor for a living. When she said he picked her up, I had a feeling it was literal.
I couldn’t stop myself from sliding a glance in Chief McTavish’s direction. He seemed to be listening. Hopefully he’d heard that I told the Northgates to tell the police about the missing credit card.
But it was time to start laying the professional groundwork between us. “No
one’s spoken with her yet, have they?”
Daisy waved her husband forward. “We’re still waiting for the doctors to give us an update on whether she’s awake and going to be okay.”
“They said it was a good thing I found her when I did,” Mr. Northgate said.
His voice reminded me a bit of Morgan Freeman’s. He could have been a voice actor in a different world.
“I’m happy to wait with you if you want until she wakes up.”
Daisy and her husband exchanged an in-over-their-heads glance.
“Does she need to have a lawyer with her at all times once she’s awake?” Daisy asked.
“Not at all.” I modulated my voice into my best imitation of my mom’s take-charge tone. “But no one should ask her any questions about the case without me present. Not even you, okay? If the police want to talk to her, for any reason, I need to be there.”
It was my parents’ rule. If the police wanted to talk to one of their clients, all they got was name, rank, and serial number—metaphorically speaking—unless they had legal counsel present.
Since this was my first time flying solo on a case I might actually have to argue, their operating procedures seemed like a decent place to start. I’d modify them as I went along to make them something that wouldn’t cost me sleep at night as well.
Since we had no word on how long it might be before the doctors allowed anyone to see Holly, the Northgates decided they didn’t need me to stay. Daisy promised to call me as soon as they knew anything.
Chief McTavish walked with me silently back to the elevator and pressed the down button. When the doors opened, I stepped inside. He didn’t.
The doors started to close, and he leaned forward slightly and blocked them with one hand. “I’ll be checking up on you. For those people’s sake, I hope that you are what you say you are.”
“What do you think he meant by that?” I asked Mark for at least the third time as we drove back to my house after church the next day. “He made it sound like he thinks I’m only pretending to be a lawyer.”
“He probably does think that. You did say the first time he talked to you he treated you like someone with a fetish.”
When he’d warned me away, he had admitted to suspecting I’d committed the crimes in order to get the glory of solving them. Given that was his initial profile of me, it made sense he’d now think I might be pretending to be a lawyer to insert myself into a case I’d been prohibited from joining.
“Not a flattering picture,” I said.
Mark chuckled. “At least he’s not the type to join in the game of telephone this town plays with every hint of a rumor.”
I spread my hands apart in the air, mimicking a billboard. “Breaking news: Lawyer and maple syrup maven arrested as criminal mastermind behind all crimes committed in Fair Haven for the past thirty years.”
“Maybe not thirty years. Even the Fair Haven rumor mill couldn’t suspect you of committing crimes as an infant.”
Mark parked his car in front of my house, and we headed up the walkway. As much as The Burnt Toast’s Sunday brunch was calling my name, my waist was yelling louder that we needed to stay in and eat a salad today. I’d even grilled the chicken ahead of time last night so I would have a strong motivation not to talk myself out of it.
The red flag on my mailbox was up. That was weird. A lot of things were different here from back in DC, but mail delivery wasn’t one of them. Nothing should have come on a Sunday. It could be a flyer for some event, but I didn’t want to risk that Stacey had left me something she wanted me to look over. Getting her to take a day off was becoming increasingly challenging. I was close to sic’ing her parents on her.
I tossed Mark my keys. “Can you let the dogs out of their crates?”
My throw went wide, whizzed by Mark’s face, and landed somewhere in the remains of the flower bed.
I scrunched up my face and headed for the mailbox, trying to ignore that my internal heater had suddenly cranked the temperature to the point where I’d need to take my coat off to be comfortable. At least Mark had known about my clumsiness before we started dating.
I dropped the flag and pulled the single envelop from the box. It didn’t have my name or address on it, so it probably was from Stacey.
Now that my blush had died down, the air felt twice as cold. I scurried into the house after Mark, popping open the envelope as I went. Whoever sent it hadn’t sealed it.
Mark already had Velma and Toby out, and Velma lay sedately on her side while he scratched under the edge of her collar and examined her belly. Traitor.
Mark stopping scratching, and Velma rolled to her feet in a move that seemed like it should be too fast and coordinated for a dog her size. She reached me in two bounds and leaned against my leg.
Mark brushed off his knees. “The cream doesn’t seem to be helping.”
“Good to know I wasn’t imagining it.”
I tugged the single sheet of paper from the envelope and unfolded it.
The message was handwritten. Please stop investigating. You’re going to send a good person to prison for murdering a bad one, and you don’t want to end up like Drew Harris.
13
The first thought that entered my head shot straight to my lips. “What kind of a criminal handwrites a note?”
Mark looked like I’d slapped him in the face. “I hope that’s a rhetorical question.”
I waved the sheet of paper in his direction. “Someone wants me to stop investigating Drew’s death.” The room swayed a touch, like I was standing on the deck of a boat rather than on solid ground. “Someone who knows where I live.”
Mark’s expression changed while I was talking. Now I saw what the people he worked with must see—a capable professional. His gaze focused on the letter, and creases built into a wall on his forehead. “Hold it up for me so I can read it.”
I did as he asked.
“Looks like we were right to think Holly didn’t kill Drew,” he said. “She certainly didn’t write the note, and given how desperate her parents have been to find her and have her defended, I can’t see them writing it, either.”
I gingerly folded the paper back up, trying to only touch places I’d already touched, and tucked it back into the envelop. Maybe if the sender was foolish enough to write it by hand, they’d also neglected to wear gloves.
Mark must have had the same thought, because he took both dogs by the collars and led them off to their room.
I slid my coat back on. As unsettling as it was to think a murderer knew where I lived—again—it meant I’d done something to make them nervous enough to hope a warning would keep me from investigating further.
Shivers ran down my skin like I’d fallen into an ant colony. All this note really proved was that someone didn’t want me investigating.
The person who seemed most opposed to my involvement right now was the same person we were about to take the note to.
Mark returned, and I took a step back away from the door. “Maybe we shouldn’t take this to the police. Is there anywhere we could privately test for prints?”
“Privately test for prints,” Mark said in a tone that suggested I was talking crazy talk. “I don’t even know if that’s possible. What’s going on?”
“What if the chief is the one who sent the note?”
Mark finished pulling on his coat. “He’s the chief of police. He’s not going to send you a note to try to stop you from investigating this case.”
“Because a chief of police would never do that.” I couldn’t keep the sarcasm from my voice. My first experience with the Fair Haven PD had involved a chief of police who did that and more to keep me from poking my nose where he felt it didn’t belong.
Mark sighed. “I would recognize Chief McTavish’s handwriting. It wasn’t his.”
I opened a cabinet drawer, pulled out a freezer bag, dropped the envelope in, and sealed it with more force than was necessary. Mark wouldn’t lie to me, and that left me with n
o choice but to trust that he was right. But I didn’t have to like it.
Mark was already on his phone, talking to someone about us needing to speak with the chief right away, that we were coming to the station.
That fact that he hadn’t waited for me to agree felt a little like a betrayal. I brushed past him and out the door. Mark followed behind me without a word.
The short, cold walk to the truck cooled my temper off a bit. I’d gotten to like my independence from someone else telling me how to live since coming to Fair Haven. It wasn’t surprising that it’d be hard for me to adjust to being part of a couple where decisions would once again be made together and where I’d have someone willing to step on my toes occasionally if it was in my best interest.
And the part of my brain that wasn’t panicking over another murderer taking note of me or throwing a childish hissy fit over Mark’s dictatorial action knew he was right. I buckled my seatbelt and waited for Mark to pull out onto the road. “Even if he didn’t write it—”
Mark sent me a withering sidelong glance that said, Really?
I crossed my arms and slumped back into the seat. “Even though he didn’t write it, Chief McTavish is going to use this as another reason for me to stay away from the case. I have every right as Holly’s lawyer to be looking into things.”
“Maybe he’s right,” Mark said so softly it was almost lost under the whine of the tires on the pavement. “Maybe you should stop investigating.”
The fury in my gut that had died down to embers flamed up again and sent enough heat through me that I felt like I could shoot dragon fire from my nostrils. “If I didn’t know your handwriting, I might think you sent the note.”
Mark huffed another sigh, longer and carrying more frustration this time. “All I’m saying is that you’re very good at what you do, and that keeps putting you in danger.” The annoyance drained out of his voice. “I don’t want to lose you.”