by Kylie Logan
I passed a hand over my eyes. “Maybe it all comes down to what we learned last night. Only, Gus . . .” When I looked his way I made sure not to turn my head too quickly. “You don’t know, do you? About the orangutans?”
He threw his hands in the air and let them land against his thighs with a slap. “As if this whole thing wasn’t complicated enough, now we’ve got orangutans to worry about?”
I tried to hide my smile. “Not exactly. But everyone else does. I mean Ben and Corrine and Wilma and Spencer. You see, the orangutans, that’s who’s getting all of Meghan’s money.”
“Orangu—” Gus let out a long, low whistle. “That changes things.”
“Well, it does if any of the people at last night’s meeting knew about the terms of the will.” This seemed obvious, even to a woman with a thumping head, but just to be sure, I looked from one of them to the other. “If any of our suspects knew that Meghan was leaving her money to the animal rescue then, yeah, it would only make sense for that person to be angry and maybe decide to get their revenge. We’re talking lots and lots of money.”
“But if they didn’t know . . .” Considering the possibilities, Gus squeezed his eyes into slits.
“What do you think, Laurel?” Declan perched himself on the edge of my bed. “You were there at the meeting. Did any of the others there seem not to be surprised by the news?”
“Well, certainly not Spencer,” I said. “The kid was so mad, he punched a wall, and I don’t think anyone makes up that kind of surprise if they’re trying to fool the other people in the room.”
I forced myself to envision the looks of the people around the table when Bart Presky read Meghan’s will. “Ben was angry. Wilma was . . .” I thought about it. Or at least I tried. A wave of exhaustion washed over me, I yawned, then put a hand on Declan’s arm when I saw he was going to use that as an excuse to stop discussing our case. “Wilma wasn’t exactly nervous the whole time. It was more like she was waiting for something. Like she . . .” I was hardly in any shape to come up with some good comparison so I said the only thing I could think of, the only thing that struck me as odd. “Like she was underwater and holding her breath and waiting to get rescued. Then once Spencer reacted the way he did, well, Wilma didn’t have time for anything but worrying about him. She jumped right up and went to find ice and Declan.”
“And what about Corrine Kellogg?” Gus asked.
“She took off. Said she had something to do. Was her car gone from behind the Irish store when you got back from the hospital?” I asked Declan.
He made a face. “I never checked. I was so worried when you didn’t answer the phone, I raced back to Hubbard, parked right at the Terminal, and went inside. I forgot all about Corrine.”
“It might not matter, anyway. None of it. If none of these people knew Meghan had cut them out of her will, then none of them had a motive.”
“If.” The single word from Gus fell flat against the green linoleum.
“And if not . . .” For a few moments, I let them consider the implications, my words floating in the air, much like my brain was doing. “If not, then maybe someone killed her because they figured once she was dead, they were going to inherit. And if not that, then there’s another reason someone wanted Meghan dead. And our job is to find out what it is.”
Chapter 12
“It’s not a good idea.”
Really, Declan didn’t need to repeat himself. He’d already said the same thing twice. Did he think the third time would be the charm?
To prove it wasn’t, I slipped on my jacket. Carefully. My right arm wasn’t broken, thank goodness, but it was scraped, sprained, and tender. In addition to making an appointment to see the doctor again later in the week, when I’d left the hospital Tuesday evening, I’d promised to take it easy.
“Going to the Terminal is taking it easy.” I put words to what I was thinking.
Declan didn’t look convinced.
He didn’t look like he was going to back off, either.
Behind me in the kitchen at Pacifique, he tugged a sweatshirt over his head. “I’m coming with you.”
“I can see that.”
I waited for him to walk outside before I locked the door.
“You can drop me at the Terminal before you go over to the Irish store,” I told him.
“You don’t get it, I’m coming with you.”
We were already in the car—his car since he’d refused to let me drive home from the hospital—and I slanted him a look. “You mean you’re coming to work with me?”
“I mean I’m coming with you to work.”
I didn’t argue. Not at that moment, anyway, because at that moment, I thought it was just a figure of speech.
Oh, how wrong I was!
Declan did, indeed, come with me to work.
He hung around the kitchen while I made coffee and George got the grill going.
He hung around the waiting area while I organized the menus and wiped down the front counter.
He hung around some more when the breakfast crowd showed (a number of them reporters) and I helped out as much as I was able, one-handed, with the crostata (an Italian breakfast tart with a buttery crust) and the eggs and the small bowls of fresh fruit we served with the pancakes and the oatmeal.
By lunchtime, he was still hanging around.
As nice as it was to have him there to help, I was a little perplexed.
I’d just seated a party of eight over at the back of the restaurant where they could see the trains rumble by on the tracks outside and I ran into Declan—literally—when I turned around to head to the front waiting area.
I had to tilt my head up so I could look into his eyes. “Don’t you have an Irish shop to run?” I asked him.
“What?” He dared to give me one of those smiles that make my toes curl. “You don’t like having me around?”
“Of course I like having you around.” A customer at a nearby table asked for a refill on water and I got a pitcher from a nearby tray and took care of it, then went back to Declan’s side. “But you’re around.”
“Having a person around means they’re around,” he told me, ever the philosopher.
I didn’t have time to debate it. There were other parties waiting to be seated and frankly, I didn’t care if they were there just because of the publicity we’d gotten from Meghan’s murder or that the word had gotten out about our terrific food. A full house meant full coffers, and that thrilled me no end.
In fact, I was so busy acting as the day’s hostess, I didn’t have a chance to think about Declan’s strange behavior.
That is, until after lunch when I pushed into the kitchen (carefully, since the window in the door that led from the kitchen to the restaurant was still covered with paper so reporters couldn’t snoop) and nearly slammed right into him.
“Did the Irish store go out of business?” I asked him.
“Of course not. Everyone loves the Irish store.”
“Then why aren’t you there working in it?”
“Mom’s watching the store today.”
I set down the empty iced tea pitcher I’d been carrying. “Because . . . ?”
“Because she wanted to.”
“She never wanted to before.”
“She always wanted to. I just never let her.”
“But now you let her.”
“That’s right.”
I bit back a screech. “Why?”
“I wanted to spend more time with you.”
This was, in fact, a lovely sentiment, and I would have taken it at face value and enjoyed the warm and fuzzy feelings it stirred inside me if a thought didn’t hit like the proverbial bolt out of the blue.
I pointed an accusatory finger at Declan. “You’re keeping an eye on me!”
He grinned. “I always keep an eye on you. You’re beautifu
l and I love you.”
I wagged that finger for emphasis. “Oh no! That’s not why you’re keeping an eye on me. Not today. You’re keeping an eye on me because you’re afraid something’s going to happen to me.”
“Something already happened to you.”
He didn’t need to remind me. After a lunchtime of helping out—even carefully—my right arm ached and my head pounded.
As if I was going to admit it!
When I rolled my eyes, I made sure to add a special dollop of Oh please!
“That doesn’t mean anything’s going to happen again,” I reminded him.
“That doesn’t mean I’m going to take any chances. And you shouldn’t, either. Somebody tried to kill you, Laurel.”
“They did not!” I was sure of this. After all, if someone wanted me permanently out of the picture, there were more efficient ways of doing it than dropping a stack of boxes on top of me. Still . . .
In spite of the fact that we were in the kitchen and no one was around but me and Declan and George, my pulse suddenly raced and my stomach went cold. I shot a look around the room.
Declan took this as the sign of weakness it was. “See? There! You’re worried, too.”
“Don’t be silly.” To prove it, I steadied my shoulders and marched over to the sink so I could deposit the pitcher in the sudsy water George had waiting there. “I’m perfectly safe here at the Terminal.”
“You were at the Terminal when those boxes came down on you. You weren’t safe then.”
“Amen,” George mumbled.
At least until I silenced him with a laser look.
“Whoever pushed those boxes over on me . . .” I grumbled my frustration. While I’d been in the hospital, Inez and Dolly had taken care of not only getting all those boxes of linens back in the storage room upstairs, but straightening the kitchen again, too. There was nothing to wave toward, but I waved, anyway, in the direction where I imagined the mess had been. “They were looking for something. Just like Meghan was looking for something. That’s why the kitchen was all torn apart again. I was in the way. That’s the only reason I got knocked out.”
“And if they’re still looking for that something?”
As much as I hate to admit it, Declan’s question stayed with me the rest of that Wednesday afternoon. I’m not a nervous person. I’m not high-strung, and I have never considered myself a wimp. If I was, I’d never have been able to get through my growing-up years.
And yet something about Declan’s warning tapped at my insides when I worked with George to show him how to make a proper Bolognese. He did fine browning the ground beef chuck. I did not-so-fine showing him how to grate whole nutmeg with a Microplane. But then, doing things left-handed was taking some getting used to.
The thought of everything I’d gone through on Monday night—and everything that might happen if my attacker returned—continued to niggle at me as we set up for dinner. When Inez dropped a glass and it shattered on the kitchen floor, I flinched. When it was particularly quiet and the phone rang, I jumped. When Dolly dumped a tray of just-washed silverware, I sucked in a breath and slapped a hand to my heart.
Declan had the good sense not to make a big deal out of any of this, but I knew he was watching. He dogged my steps all day and that, in addition to the games my imagination was playing with me, made me feel like I was going to jump out of my skin.
I reminded myself it was crazy, and I went through the motions, my chin high and my shoulders back, just to prove to the world—and to myself—that I wasn’t going to let my fears get the best of me.
It actually might have worked if I hadn’t just seated a group of six and stepped back behind the register to catch my breath. While I was at it, I glanced through the day’s receipts.
When someone tapped me on the shoulder, I jumped a mile high.
“Oh, it’s you!” I stared across the front counter at Spencer. The kid had the good sense to hide from the media underneath a ball cap pulled down low over his head with the hood of a sweatshirt pulled up over it. His right hand was in a cast.
“Looks like we’re twins, huh?” To prove it, I lifted my own bandaged right arm. “Except you did it up bigger than I did.”
“Whatever.” He barely spared his broken hand a look. “That’s not what I came to see you about.”
These were more words than I had ever head Spencer string together in all the years I had known him, so it was no wonder I was interested.
I glanced around. “You want to talk?”
He looked where I’d looked. “Not here.”
I called Dolly over, told her I was going to be out for a few minutes, waved Declan off when he stepped forward, and escorted Spencer out the front door and through the sea of TV video trucks that had set up permanent shop outside the Terminal.
“This way.” I gave the kid a nudge in the right direction and together we walked over to Caf-Fiends, the neighborhood coffee shop.
As usual, the two front windows that flanked the door were decked out in cheery decorations—a passel of stuffed dogs and cats cavorting in a garden of paper flowers and teapots on my left, and a miniature hot-air balloon over on the right, its basket piled with one-pound bags of Caf-Fiends’ special blend of beans.
We walked inside and I waved to Barb, one of the owners, who was behind the cash register, then led Spencer to a two-seat table in a quiet, private corner.
Now that push came to shove, Spencer fidgeted with the aquamarine napkin on the table that almost (but not quite) matched the color of the walls.
I dipped my head, the better to try and get a look at his face below the shadow of the brim of his ball cap. “So what’s up?”
He opened his mouth, but before he had a chance to say a word, Myra, the waitress, came over.
“Oh, it’s you.” Her top lip curled.
I knew better than to let her get to me. Myra, see, has this thing for Declan. This very unrequited thing. She’s been jealous of me since the first time she saw me with him, and she wasn’t very good about hiding it.
Which is why I made sure my smile was a mile wide when I said, “Hi, Myra. How are you today?”
Myra’s hair was chestnut brown and she wore it in a ponytail that twitched over her shoulder when she tossed her head. “What can I get for you and your . . .” Her gaze slid to Spencer. “You and your date?”
I inched up my smile just a bit. “This one’s a little young for me. I like my men older and more mature. You know, like Declan Fury.”
Her lips puckered. “Whaddya want?”
I ordered iced green tea and told Spencer that Caf-Fiends had the best key lime pie in town, so he ordered a slice.
Once Myra was gone, he leaned nearer. “I need to talk to you,” he said.
He sounded so serious, so mature, I had to keep myself from grinning. “About what?”
“My mom, for one thing.”
I put my hands on the table, but I didn’t dare reach across it and give his fingers a squeeze. He was seventeen, after all, and a man. At least in his own eyes. I couldn’t afford to scare him off by being too friendly or too patronizing.
“Is this about the will?” I asked him.
His lips puckered. “That was one cheap trick she pulled.”
“Are you surprised?”
He actually had to think about it for a minute. “Not surprised, exactly. More like pissed. That’s a lot of money going to monkeys.”
“And none going to the people who your mom should have cared about most.”
“You mean, like Wilma.”
“I mean, like first and foremost, you. Then, yeah, people like Wilma and Corrine.” If there was a code of ethics for amateur sleuths, I had no doubt one of the first rules was not to take advantage of anyone under the age of eighteen. I was about to break that rule. Sure, I felt guilty. A little. But I a
lso knew this might be my only chance to get Spencer’s perspective on the crime. He was young. He was a screwup. And I’d bet anything he knew more than anyone about what made his mother tick.
“Did Wilma or Corrine know about the will? I mean, before yesterday when Mr. Presky showed up.”
“I dunno. What difference would it make, anyway? Oh!” I knew Spencer wasn’t dumb. Which was exactly why he caught on so quickly. “You’re thinking if one of them knew Mom was going to leave them high and dry, they might have gotten mad and killed her.”
“I’m not saying it’s likely, I’m just saying it’s possible.”
He swallowed hard. “Even with all that about the money, she didn’t deserve to die.”
“No. You’re right. She didn’t.”
“But someone . . .” Another gulp and it was a good thing my green tea arrived. When I offered it to Spencer, he took a long drink to wash away the emotion that muffled his voice. When he was done—after Myra brought his pie and I asked for another glass of green tea—his gaze flickered to mine.
“Do you know who did it?” he asked.
“I wish I did. I’d tell the police. Then they could arrest that person.”
“Except Wilma, she says—”
“What?’
He scooped up a forkful of the pie and stuffed it in his mouth and if I didn’t know better and know how cool and worldly and devil-may-care he was trying to be—just like I’d always tried to be at his age—I would have commented when he closed his eyes and sighed with real pleasure.
I waited until he chewed and swallowed. “What did Wilma say?” I asked him.
He took another bite of pie before he answered. “She says she always knew you were smart. And she says she thinks you’re trying to figure out who killed my mom. You know, like a detective.”
“Well, I’m not a detective. I work in a restaurant.” Sometimes I had to remind even myself. “But I have been asking some questions, talking to some people.”
“You talked to my dad.”
“I saw your dad at the coroner’s office where we went to . . .” I reminded myself I was talking to a kid. “Where your mother’s body is. He didn’t have much to say.”