Four hours later everyone who helped move was taking a lunch break. They sat around Roz’s beautiful maple table with folding chairs pulled up between the sturdy chairs that accompanied the set. Roz had decided to use disposable plates since that was simply more practical on a day like this.
Caprice really did like the house. It had multiple levels, which Roz and Vince seemed to appreciate. The kitchen looked in to a nice-sized living room, where two of Vince’s leather club chairs were paired with what looked like a new sofa. The colors in their house were mainly beige, peach, and green, arranged in such a way to be both masculine and feminine. The new sofa was covered in a striped fabric in peach and beige. The two club chairs were deep hunter-green leather.
Caprice crossed to the oven to pull out another pan of lasagna. Roz was right there beside her. “I saw you looking in to the living room,” her friend said. “What do you think?”
“It’s hard to tell without anything on the walls,” Caprice teased.
“I know we’re a long way from finished,” Roz admitted. “But seriously, how do you think it will all look?”
“Honestly, Roz, I think it looks great. Somehow, you and Vince have combined your styles. That’s not easy to do.”
Roz shrugged. “We decided what furniture in our individual places we wanted to keep and what we wanted to buy new. It all sort of harmonized.”
Harmonize was a perfect word. “I’m wondering if Grant and I can harmonize.”
Roz lowered her voice. “Why do you have any doubts?”
“Because I think Grant wants me to sell my house so we can buy something together. You know, start out with everything new, I suppose. He needs a home office, and that’s not possible with my house. So, it makes sense we can find something to accommodate us both.”
“But?”
Caprice sighed. “I’m having a hard time wrapping my mind around the concept of selling my place.”
“You’ve put time and care and love into your home. It only makes sense that would be hard to leave. But you need to tell Grant your feelings about it.”
“I don’t want to put a damper on our future by refusing to give in to what he wants.”
“Do you think he wants you to give in, if that’s not what you want to do?”
“I’m not sure. It’s a real dilemma for me.”
Just then, Caprice’s phone played from her pocket. She plucked it out and checked the screen. It was Ray Gangloff. She motioned to Roz that she was going to slip down the hall to the powder room to take the call.
“Hi, Ray,” she said in the hall.
“I thought about what you said. If you want to talk about Merriweather, I’ll do that.”
“Where and when?” she asked, deciding to take advantage of the opportunity before he changed his mind.
“I get a twenty-minute break mid-morning.”
“You want me to come to the packaging center?”
“No, not in the center itself. Can you meet me out back in the alley tomorrow, say 10 a.m.?”
An alley in back of a row of buildings she didn’t know very well. But she really had no choice. If Grant was free, they could be connected by their phones. They’d done that before.
“All right, I’ll meet you there at 10 a.m. I’ll bring coffee.”
It wasn’t much of an incentive, but she hoped it was enough.
* * *
Even though it was daylight, the weather was blustery and below freezing. Winter had moved in. There was traffic on Kismet’s main streets and even tourists Christmas shopping. Caprice could surmise that from the out-of-state license plates. But the alley behind Seal and Send was deserted. Not only deserted but downright barren-looking.
Caprice wasn’t sure this was a good idea and neither was Grant. He’d wanted to come along with her but she’d nixed that idea. It was obvious Ray didn’t want to talk to her, not really. And having someone else along would make the conversation even more awkward or shut Ray up all together. She couldn’t take that chance. Truth be told, Grant wasn’t that far away. Downtown Kismet would be a three-minute drive, and he’d insisted on coming to his office so he would be within a short distance from her.
In the meantime, she had her phone line open so Grant would know exactly what was going on. It gave Grant a measure of assurance that she was safe, and it gave her a backup.
She parked on the street around the corner from the alley. She really had no choice. The alley was narrow, only wide enough for one car or a garbage truck to drive through. It was a one-way thoroughfare, right now littered with bags from the bakery, one from a fast-food establishment, and a coffee cup from the Koffee Klatch. It rolled across the alley.
She jumped when a vehicle backfired. Her nerves really were frazzled, and she wasn’t sure why. Probably because Ray Gangloff was a big guy, and she was meeting him solo. She’d gotten out of tight spots before because of a self-defense course she’d taken. Maybe if she had a refresher, she’d feel more confident. Or maybe she should take up kickboxing.
The door to the back of the postal shop rattled and then opened, and Ray stepped out.
She smiled and hoped that smile wasn’t too uncertain. “Thanks for agreeing to talk to me,” she said, handing him a coffee from the Koffee Klatch. “I just put a touch of milk in it.”
He opened the lid, took a sip, then motioned to the alley. “Sorry we’re meeting back here, but my time is at a premium. This won’t take long because I don’t have that much to tell you.”
She wondered if what was coming would be any help at all. Just the fact that Ray said he didn’t have much to reveal made her wonder if he did. That shuttered look in his eyes told her—almost as much as Harrison not showing up for their tête-à-tête—that these men stayed private and kept thoughts to themselves. They didn’t talk easily, especially about things that had to do with each other. As her father had said, they had an unspoken bond.
She wanted to finger her phone to make sure it was still where it was supposed to be, to make sure the screen said what it was supposed to say, but she knew she couldn’t do that. The warmth of her coffee cup seeped through her gloves, and she was grateful for the heat. Already her fingers were getting numb from the cold.
“Can you tell me what happened on your trip to D.C.?”
Ray didn’t speak immediately, and she wondered what he was sorting through in his head. What had happened? Because obviously something had.
“It wasn’t that anything happened,” he maintained.
With that statement, Caprice sensed he was lying, but she couldn’t call him on it because she didn’t know. “Then why did you agree to meet me?”
“Nothing happened, but Chris’s behavior was a little off.”
“A little off. You mean because of his brain tumor? Was he dizzy?”
“No, nothing like that. He just seemed preoccupied, and he was on his laptop a lot.”
“So, he brought it along? Was that usual?”
“Actually, no, it wasn’t. I mean, we had our smartphones. When I asked him why he brought the laptop, he said he was looking at real estate sites and viewing house videos was easier on the laptop. I knew he and Sara were putting their house up for sale, and at first, I didn’t think much about it. Maybe he was doing comparison stats or looking at those condos he had his eye on. But he acted funny about it.”
“Funny how?”
“He closed the computer whenever one of us got close.”
“So, you didn’t see anything?”
“Actually, I caught a glimpse. It looked like he was in a chat room.”
“A chat room on a real estate site?”
“That’s not what chat rooms are usually about,” Ray confirmed tersely. “But I don’t know for sure. You said you wanted to know if anything happened that was unusual. That was. Maybe you can follow up on it somehow.” Ray checked his watch. “I’ve got to get back inside. Christmas rush and all that.”
“Thank you,” she said, knowing a person really could
catch more flies with honey than with vinegar—or maybe with coffee rather than with probing questions.
“No problem,” Ray said, then opened the door and went back into the postal store.
However, when he did, Caprice knew he was hiding something. Call it woman’s intuition or whatever you wanted, but she was sure. She told Grant as much after she fished her phone out of her pocket.
“Did you hear all that?” she asked him.
“I did. What do you think?”
She walked toward her car. “I think something else happened in D.C. that he’s not talking about, and Harrison doesn’t want to talk about it either. I’m not going to get anywhere with them if they don’t want to open up.”
“I think you’re right. So, what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to call Brett. Maybe this information will help him in some way. You just never know.”
“You don’t have anything concrete.”
“No, but I think Brett’s beginning to trust my instincts.”
“He has instincts of his own.”
“I know. So, if we match them up, maybe we can solve this.”
“You mean maybe he can solve this.”
“Of course, that’s what I mean.”
Grant gave a little chuckle. “Don’t think you can fool me by placating me.”
Grant didn’t let her get away with anything. “I would never think that.”
“All right. I wish I could see you tonight, but I have papers that have to be filed in the morning.”
“I’m going to be helping Bella at the community center.”
“Bella can be a slave driver,” he said with a touch of humor.
“She can, but she knows how to get things done. Call me when you get home tonight.”
“I will. I love you.”
“Love you too.”
When she ended the call, Caprice was smiling. Unlocking her car she slipped inside, glad to be out of the wind. She started it up and fired up the heater. With her phone still in her hand, she found Brett in her contacts and dialed his cell.
“Hi, Caprice, what’s up?” he asked.
“I just spoke with Ray Gangloff, Chris’s buddy.”
“We talked with him,” Brett said in a quick tone, as if she thought he wasn’t doing his job.
“I figured you did. Did you talk to him about his trip with Chris to D.C.?”
“I know they went on one, but he didn’t elaborate on it. I poked around a bit, and he said they went down one day, stayed in a hotel that night, and came back the next. Just a guy trip.”
“Maybe so,” she said, “but I think something happened on that trip. He’s not saying.”
“And that’s what you called to tell me?” Brett sounded exasperated, as if his time was too valuable for vague suspicions.
“He mentioned something else,” she was quick to say. “Chris took his laptop along, and Ray said that was unusual. Sara said you have Chris’s computer. Did you find any clues on it?”
“Caprice—”
“I know, I know. You can’t give me specifics. Did you find real estate sites?”
“Is this going to be twenty questions?”
“Not if you answer the first one.”
She heard him sigh. “Some.”
“What about chat rooms?”
There was a longer pause this time. “If I tell you anything—”
“I’ll keep it completely confidential, I promise.”
“Except for Grant, except for your dad, except for—”
“Stop! How about this: what if I guess? You can tell me if I’m wrong.”
“And how is that different from me telling you if you’re right?”
“Do you give Nikki this hard a time?”
He relented and chuckled. “Sometimes. Go ahead, guess. But I might not react at all.”
“Chat rooms usually have nothing to do with real estate sites. Chat rooms could have something to do with porn.”
“Wrong, at least in this case.”
“One more guess then. A chat room is where people hook up.”
Brett said nothing.
“Have you questioned Sara about what you found?”
That question he obviously felt he could answer. “I did. She knew nothing about it. She did suggest that her daughter Deanne might have used Chris’s computer.”
“Ah-ha,” Caprice said. “That means it was a singles’ website.”
Brett gave a grunt that might have meant he shouldn’t have said anything.
“Am I right?”
“You’re not wrong.”
“Did Sara seem upset?”
“You’ll have to ask her. I have to ask the questions, and I have to follow where the clues lead.”
Which meant that Brett could have put doubts in Sara’s mind about Chris.
“Did you question Deanne?”
“I did.”
“Are you going to tell me what this website was, or do I have to ask Deanne?”
“Let’s talk hypothetically.”
“All right, let’s,” she agreed.
“Say I wanted to date somebody other than Nikki.”
If he was hoping to get a rise out of her, she wasn’t jumping at the bait.
He went on. “I just might put up a profile on LetsGetTogether.com. I’m told it’s not as popular as it once was, but there’s still lots of traffic on it.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“For me wanting to date somebody other than Nikki?”
“You don’t have time to date her, let alone go trolling on a singles website.”
“Touché. We’re on it, Caprice.”
She bet they were. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t be on it too.
Chapter Fifteen
That evening, the volunteers at the community center were finishing up the sets for the pageant. Caprice had washed out her last paint brush and was almost ready to call it a night. But she wanted to talk to Vince, who was moving scenery to the storeroom. She’d called Deanne earlier to have a talk about the LetsGetTogether singles’ site.
Deanne admitted she had subscribed and had posted a profile on there, but she hadn’t used it for about a year. In her words, “That site’s old news.”
After their conversation, Caprice investigated the website. In order to register, she had to pay a hefty fee for a three-month cycle to see beyond the front opening page. That’s why she’d decided to talk with Vince, to see if he knew anything about it. After all, before he dated Roz, he’d been a serial dater.
She caught up with Vince in the storeroom as he moved around the set flats. They’d be transported to the theater tomorrow and set up.
“I need to ask you something,” she said to him.
He stopped pushing a fir tree flat into place and gave her his attention. “What do you need?”
“Did you ever use the dating website LetsGetTogether. com?”
He gave her a wary look. “Yes. Has Roz asked you if I’m on the prowl again or something?”
“Goodness, no,” Caprice denied immediately. “She trusts you.”
“I sure hope so,” he said. “Especially since we’re sharing a house now.”
“How’s it going?”
“It’s going okay. I keep expecting a shoe to fall. You know what I mean?”
“Are you tiptoeing around each other or are you acting normal?”
“You mean, do I leave my socks and underwear on the floor? Yeah, I have, and she didn’t seem too startled by it.”
Caprice laughed. “Then you’re moving to a higher level.”
“Once I began dating Roz, I didn’t renew my subscription to LetsGetTogether.”
One of the younger fellows in his early twenties, who had come into the storeroom area, must have overheard their conversation. He asked, “Are you talking about LetsGetTogether? You two on there? Any success?”
Vince said, “I used to be. She definitely isn’t. She’s engaged.”
He took t
hat in. “I’m registered on there. What a waste of money! I had two dates, but they didn’t pan out. One was a total airhead. The other one kept going on and on and on about how much she wanted to leave Kismet. So why would I want to date her?”
“Are you still registered on the site?” Caprice asked. “I was just wondering what the site was all about, but I can’t get past the front page.”
“You want to see?” The young man held out his hand. “I’m Gerald by the way, and I’d date you in a minute.”
Caprice had to laugh at that. “There’s a bit of an age discrepancy,” she said. “And as my brother mentioned, I’m happily engaged. But I would love to see the site.”
“I’ve got my laptop with me. Be right back.” He pointed to a work table over at the side of the room. “I can set up on there.”
Five minutes later he was back, his laptop booted up, and the LetsGetTogether website front and center. “You have to put in long passwords,” he said. “Supposedly that helps make it more secure, along with your username.” He tapped the button and went to his profile page. He said, “See? You put up a photo and fill out a profile. They have a form that sets it up. In that profile, I just say what I’m looking for in my significant other. Of course, everybody enhances. I know some of the women airbrush their photos.”
He pointed to a contact button. “Then if somebody’s interested, they just click on that icon.” He did that and an e-mail form came up. “A girl who wants to date me just types in what she’s looking for or something cute and then it gets sent to my e-mail. I can scan it and either accept it or ignore it. If I accept it, then we can share contact information.”
“So, you share your actual e-mail address?”
“Heck, no. I just set up a Gmail account. I use my real name, but lots of people don’t. They use fake names. But there’s another way to go besides e-mail. You can message back and forth on a personal message board. It kinda looks like a chat room.”
Caprice realized that must have been what Ray had spotted Chris doing. Well, either doing or observing.
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