by Cate Conte
“Thanks,” she said, her tone decidedly warmer as she accepted the mug. Then she glared at me.
“What?” I asked.
“I have a bone to pick with you.”
“Great,” I muttered. “Who doesn’t?” But my heart was pounding. I was afraid she’d heard about Cole and wanted to know why I hadn’t told her yet. “What did I do now?”
“Dad asked you to help with the gala.”
“Yeah.” I waited.
She continued to glare.
“Is there more?” I asked.
“That’s enough, isn’t it? Why did Dad ask you? I mean, do you have to be the favorite for everything?”
That’s what this was about? The relief was so strong I felt almost giddy. “Val. For real? You can have the job. Seriously. Dad thought you were under enough stress.”
“Yeah, well, he didn’t bother to ask me. I don’t want it now.” She took a noisy sip of her coffee. “But I don’t think it’s fair that you get all the glory.”
“Believe me, there’s no glory here,” I said. “And I’m happy to have the help if you want to jump in.”
“I’ll bet,” she said, still snooty. “That’s all I wanted to say. I’ll let you get back to your conversation.”
“Okay. I’ll, um, see you later,” Ethan said.
No wonder he wasn’t listening to me or offering me sympathy. He’d been preoccupied with the Cole part of my evening, because he’d been worried about how it would affect Val. My business partner had clearly become smitten with my married sister. The question was, did she realize it?
I waited until she left then reached over and grasped his arm. “What is going on?”
He frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, with you and Val.”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? Ethan. Please tell me you don’t have a thing for her. Because her life is really complicated right now—”
“Maddie,” he interrupted. “Please. Leave it alone.”
I stared at him. “Leave it alone? You can’t be serious.”
“I’m dead serious,” he said, and for once, he sounded it. “Besides. You should worry about your own relationship. Or whatever you want to call it at this point. Maybe figure out why you keep sabotaging it.”
And he left the room, leaving me speechless.
Chapter 42
I was about to go upstairs and hide in my room for the day when Gigi came into the kitchen looking for me.
“Gabe’s here to see you,” she said. “I’m going to run a quick errand before we open, is that okay?”
Gabe. My heart started to pound thinking of his van tearing away from the scene behind the restaurant last night. What was he doing here?
“Sure, go,” I said. “Just come back, okay?”
Gigi gave me a funny look but nodded, then took off. I downed the rest of my coffee before getting up and following her to the living room.
Gabe stood in the middle of the room, staring out the window. At what I couldn’t tell. He snapped to attention when I came in.
“Gabe. Hi,” I said, shoving my hands into the back pockets of my jean shorts and trying to appear casual. “What can I do for you?”
“Morning, Maddie. Sorry to show up unannounced.” Gabe looked like he hadn’t slept in days. His eyes were bloodshot and his curls stood off his head in crazy tangles. His clothes were wrinkled, as if he’d been in them all night.
I snuck a discreet—I hoped—look at his hands. Would I be able to tell if he’d punched Cole out last night? Or would his hands be all chewed up anyway from the work he did? I was out of luck for the moment anyway. His hands were shoved into the pockets of his sweatshirt.
He took a deep breath and looked around, as if the words he needed were on my walls, or my floor. “I wondered if you’d decided if I got the contracting job.”
“The job,” I repeated. His aunt was sitting in jail and he may have been involved somehow—and he wanted to talk about my job?
“Yeah. See, this thing with my aunt, well, I need to hire a lawyer. And I don’t have the cash flow right now. So I need to make sure I have enough jobs lined up before I set things in motion.”
Ah. Now I understood. But what was I supposed to do? “Of course. I totally get it.” I took a deep breath, stalling for time. On the one hand, we needed the work done and contractors weren’t busting down my doors to do it. On the other hand, last night’s scene had been disturbing on a lot of levels. On the third hand, he could’ve been trying to help his aunt by forcing Cole to tell the truth about whatever he saw, if he saw anything. On the fourth hand, maybe if he was around, I’d be able to get some info from him.
I was running out of hands, and he was waiting for me to say something. “Yes, you got the job, Gabe. Ethan and I are looking forward to working with you.”
It took him a second, then a smile broke out. “Really? You mean it?”
I nodded. “Yeah. We need the work done. The sooner the better, you know?”
He grabbed my hand and pumped it up and down. I glanced down. Nothing. No blood, anyway. It was moving so fast I couldn’t tell much more than that. “Thank you. Thank you so much. I’ll start tomorrow, if that works. I’ll go get the permits today.”
Well, I’d said I wanted the job started sooner rather than later. “Um. I guess. We can at least talk about the schedule,” I started, but a knock on the door interrupted.
So much for wanting to avoid people. “Hold on,” I said to Gabe, then stopped and stared. Lucas was at my door. Maybe I hadn’t screwed it up as badly as I thought. Maybe he thought he’d overreacted and had come to tell me. Maybe he was here to ask if we could try again tonight. Then I remembered that I was dressed in clothes I had picked up off my floor and barely brushed my hair, and cringed. I went over and unlocked the screen, holding it open.
He shuffled from foot to foot and nodded. “Morning.”
“Hey.” I motioned him in, trying to play it cool. Maybe if I didn’t call attention to my rat’s nest hair Lucas wouldn’t notice. “How are you?”
“Fine. I’m here to groom the new cat.”
“The new … oh. Myron,” I said, suddenly feeling stupid. The cat that hated the car so much he tried to climb out the window after escaping from his carrier. “That’s right, Katrina told me. I’ll, um, go find him.” I turned away, completely embarrassed. Of course he wasn’t there to see me. Because I’d screwed everything up. Tears pricked my eyes and I blinked them away, trying to see past the blur to find our new resident and not make a fool of myself. Well, any worse than I’d already done. “Lucas, this is Gabe,” I said, waving in Gabe’s direction.
Then I realized they were staring at each other in kind of an odd way. Lucas nodded. “Hey,” he said.
Gabe mumbled something.
I let them do their caveman routine and went to look for the feline in question. “Myron,” I called, then immediately felt stupid. Myron had been a stray. Katrina had probably named him in the van on the way over. He wouldn’t know it was his name. And even if he did, he wasn’t a dog. Luckily, I caught sight of him curled up in the cubbyhole of one of the cat trees. “Ah, there you are.” I peered in. He blinked lazily at me. I reached in to pet him. He came out and head-butted me. I scooped him up and handed him to Lucas. “You can use the downstairs bathroom,” I said, pointing. “There are towels in the closet.”
“Thanks.”
Our eyes met.
Then Lucas turned away and headed to the bathroom.
I felt my heart break a little bit. I took a minute to blink away the fresh tears that filled my eyes, then turned back to Gabe. “So. Anything else for today?” I asked brightly.
“Can I take a quick look at the rooms again? I want to do some measurements,” Gabe said. “Then I’ll get out of your way.”
“Sure. Help yourself. Oh, by the way?”
He looked at me, expectant.
“I was just curious. How is Adele?”
He shook hi
s head. “She’s okay. Home now, thank goodness. But I don’t think she’s out of the woods yet. And it’s killing me.” He looked really sad.
“I’m sorry,” I said quietly. He seemed so broken up about this. Maybe my theory was right about him taking matters into his own hands.
But how would he have known Cole had been the one to call in the body, unless he’d been there too? Was it possible he’d heard me talking about it while he was here? I didn’t think so. I tried not to mention that whole thing a lot around the house because of Val, and certainly not in front of strangers.
“Yeah, thanks,” he said. “I’m sorry too.”
I waited until he’d left the room, then weighed my options. I could pretend Lucas wasn’t here and go hide upstairs. Or I could go try to talk to him.
My inner voice was screaming at me to go talk to him. And usually when I ignored that voice, things didn’t go so well for me.
I steeled myself, went down the hall and knocked on the bathroom door. The running water stopped and Lucas cracked the door.
“Yeah?”
“Can I come in?” I pushed the door open without waiting for an answer. Myron was in the sink huddled in a ball, looking miserable.
“Sure. It’s your house.” Lucas went back to bathing Myron.
So that’s how it was going to be. “Lucas. I’m really sorry, again.”
Silence.
Seriously, he was going to make me beg? Before I could decide what to say next, he finally spoke.
“He working for you? That guy Gabe?”
I nodded. “Yeah. He’s Adele’s nephew.” Saying her name gave me a stab. “She heard me saying I couldn’t find a contractor and set me up. I was going to give him the job anyway but he was in a real hurry to get started because he needs to hire a lawyer for Adele. Why? You know him or something?”
“Kind of. I groomed his dog,” he said. “Did a drop-off for him because my schedule got backed up and I felt bad.”
“Oh.” I frowned. “Is he mean to his dog or something? Did he not pay you? Or was I imagining you were looking at him weird?”
“Nothing like that. I don’t even know him. But the person he was with when I went to his house…” He shook his head. “I got the sense he was trying to hide her. But she answered the door, so it was kind of a moot point.”
Her? What the heck was this about? “Okay,” I said. “Who?”
He took a deep breath. “Holly Hawthorne,” he said. “Wearing a T-shirt and nothing else.”
Chapter 43
That was not what I was expecting. I stared at him. “Holly … are you sure?”
“I guess I can’t be sure which sister it was. It wasn’t like I was introduced,” Lucas said dryly. “I didn’t know she had a twin until … all this. But the one who died had a diamond in her nose. I could see it in the picture they ran in the paper. The one at Gabe’s did too. Do they both?”
I thought back to my altercation with Heather. Before the veggies started flying, I’d been face-to-face with her and hadn’t noticed any piercings. Which made sense, because Becky said she worked in some fancy banking job. Lord knew they probably frowned on nose rings.
So it had to be Holly. Which meant Holly and Gabe were an item. Gabe. Adele’s nephew. Adele, who hated Holly’s guts and threatened to slash her tires. Or worse. Had she known about this? If she had, it had to have fueled the fires of her already intense hatred for Holly. Or what if she hadn’t known and recently found out … I could almost hear her reasoning: if she treats cats the way she does, I’m sure she’ll treat my nephew even worse.
And what did this mean for Gabe? His aunt was accused of killing his lover? Did he know more than he was telling?
Had Gabe been there that night? Had he killed her? And now he was panicking because his aunt was taking the fall?
Holy cow, what a mess. “Wow,” I said finally.
“Yeah,” he said. “I didn’t know anything about either of them at the time, so I didn’t think anything of it. But when I saw her picture in the paper, I recognized her but couldn’t place her. When I saw him it clicked.” He turned off the water and rubbed a towel over Myron’s fur.
“When was this?” I asked.
Lucas thought back. “Probably a month, month and a half ago?”
“That recent. Wow. Okay.” So that changed things. I wondered what happened between them. Had they broken it off and that was why Holly was with Cole? Rebound, or revenge? Or had they not broken it off and Gabe caught Holly and Cole and killed her in a jealous rage? Of course, that assumed my original theory of Holly and Cole being an item at all was correct. And what about the cat toy?
Lucas lifted Myron out of the sink and toweled him off. Myron hissed. His ears were flat. Lucas didn’t seem fazed by this, which I loved. So many groomers didn’t want to deal with cats, but he was clearly gifted. And fearless.
I didn’t want to have lost my chance. Desperate to keep the conversation going any possible way, I blurted out, “I think Gabe is the guy who punched Cole out last night.”
That caught his attention. He looked at me sharply. “You saw him there?”
“I saw his van speeding away when I went down the alley after him. And the guy’s voice sounded kind of familiar, so I’m guessing I’m right. So the question is, was Gabe there that night?” I thought back to what I’d overheard. The voice I thought was Gabe’s wanted to know what Cole saw. Which could mean either Gabe was there and wanted to know if anyone saw him, or hadn’t been there and wanted to know who had been.
Lucas, meanwhile, was now staring at me as if he’d never seen me before. “You went down the alley after someone who’d just committed an assault? Why would you do that, Maddie?”
I tried a small smile to ease the tension, even though I felt more like throwing up than laughing. “I didn’t think you still cared.”
He didn’t smile. “I’m not laughing. That whole thing last night was … not good. For a lot of reasons. This being probably the biggest one. You could’ve gotten hurt. Or worse.”
“I know. I’m sorry. But I’m even sorrier that I upset you. Lucas…” I went over to him with the idea of grabbing his hands and looking deep into his eyes, convincing him to fall completely in love with me and forgive all my transgressions. But I’d forgotten about Myron. The phrase angrier than a wet cat had always seemed like just a figure of speech, but I was sadly misguided. Before I could even reach for Lucas’s hand, Myron sensed the distraction and seized his chance, leaping from Lucas’s arms like a cougar, using Lucas’s chest as a springboard. I could see the blood from the scratches blooming under his white T-shirt. Guess they hadn’t reached the nail-clipping portion of the program yet.
“Oh my God. Shoot. I’m so sorry. Here, let me put something on that.” I spun around and yanked open a drawer, hoping for some antibiotic cream or something. I couldn’t even do that right. All I could find was an old tube of toothpaste and some of Grandma’s unfinished prescriptions. Helpless, I slammed the drawer shut. “Hang on, let me just run upstairs and get something to clean that…”
Lucas, to his credit, barely reacted. With hardly a wince, he reached down and scooped up an unhappy Myron, whose great escape had been thwarted by the closed door. “Don’t worry about it, Maddie,” he said, and whatever opening I’d had vanished. “I need to get back to work, okay? We’ll talk later.”
And he turned away. Apparently he was done with me.
Chapter 44
Once Gigi returned and she and Grandpa assured me they would hold down the fort, I grabbed JJ and slunk upstairs to my room, locking myself in under the guise of work I needed to catch up on. I think JJ was a bit disgruntled at not being able to hang with his pals downstairs, but I was being selfish. I needed his company.
I had to get updates for the Web site over to my Webmaster—the guy Ethan and I used out in California for the juice shop—and formulate my social media strategy, which at the moment was basically called winging it. I had to put a deposit toge
ther with our revenues from this weekend, and try to do some cash flow estimates. I needed to work on the budget, and factor in Felicia. I also needed to get the money in order for Gabe’s contracting services, although at this point I was a little worried that I’d hired either a murderer or an accomplice. Then I needed to get to work on the gala. And figure out what to do about Lucas. If there was anything left to do at all.
It all seemed daunting enough that I just wanted to crawl under my covers and cry.
But I put my chin up and got to work. I tried to push the whole mess out of my mind and spent the next couple hours sorting out the auction part of the hospital gala with Dad’s point person, Charlotte. She was lovely and just needed direction. We put together a game plan and some names to help her get the rest of the auction items collected and she seemed much less likely to have a nervous breakdown. I gave her my mother’s number and told her she’d be happy to help oversee the remaining tasks. That gave me a little bit of pleasure.
I’d made enough progress that when my phone rang just after lunch I was annoyed by the distraction. But I reached over and grabbed it. My dad.
“Maddie. I got your message about the caterer. That’s wonderful news.”
“Yes. The caterer,” I said, remembering I needed to probably show up at today’s meeting too. So much for not having to face people. “Meeting at three today. We’ve got it.”
“Great,” Dad said. “So which company is it?”
“Felicia Goodwin’s.”
A pause. “Felicia Goodwin?” he asked finally.
Same reaction as my mother. “Yes. Why? Something wrong?”
“No, it’s just … how did you come across her?”
“She’s helping us out here at the café, she’s eager for work, and you needed someone by three today. What’s the problem, Dad?”
He sighed. “I don’t know if she’s the best person for this, Maddie.”
I gritted my teeth so hard I worried I’d chipped a couple. “Why on earth not? I’ve tasted her food. It’s great.” Granted, my tastings were limited to cinnamon buns, but if she could cook salmon or beef with half the same success, the event was in good hands. I was seriously getting annoyed now. Bad enough this got dumped on me, and now my father was going to make matters worse by micromanaging? I took a breath and reminded myself that my type A personality hadn’t just dropped out of the sky. Cass would tell me we have to embrace the aspects of ourselves we might not like that other people mirror back to us.