“Oh?”
“Well, I am, but—” she squeezed lemon into her tea.
“But?”
“It’s gossip.”
“You can tell me.”
“John represented one of the board member’s sons. Got him cleared of all charges. This was years ago—I think anyone who’s dealt with Arlene wishes the kid had ended up in jail. Enough about the Wilsons. Your mother tells me you’re a famous artist. She’s very proud of you.”
I blinked. Mother, proud, and artist did not compute.
“I still have a drawer full of the sketches you did of our horses. Should I have them appraised?”
“Ellison—”
I looked up into Hunter Tafft’s handsome face. “Hunter! What a surprise!” Why did I feel as if he’d caught me doing something wrong? I shifted my gaze back to the woman across from me. “Do you know my friend, Penny Sylvester?”
“Penny Hawkins.” Penny, obviously taken with Hunter’s perfect suit, silver hair, and successful aura, extended her hand and smiled. “I’m taking my name back.”
“A pleasure.” Hunter shook Penny’s hand, and his eyes twinkled. “Have you known Ellison long?”
“All our lives.”
“Penny’s parents and mine are close. We spent a lot of time together as children but somehow lost touch. We’re having a catch-up lunch.”
“I’m sorry to interrupt.” He returned his gaze to me. “I saw Aggie in my law library. Is there anything we need to discuss?” Besides me, Hunter was the only person in the world who knew about Henry’s cache of files.
My stomach bypassed somersaults and plummeted. “I’ll call you.”
His eyes narrowed. If I hadn’t been looking closely, I would have missed it. “I’ll look forward to hearing from you. Soon. Nice meeting you, Penny.”
Penny watched him walk away. “He seems nice.”
“He is. Divorced three times, but very nice.”
“Are the two of you—”
“I’m seeing someone else.”
She rested her forearms on the table and leaned in. “Do tell.”
Whap!
Max’s paw hitting the mattress practically bounced me off the bed.
I opened one eye—one—and looked at the clock.
2:13.
“Go back to bed,” I mumbled.
Whap!
“Max, go back to bed.”
Max whined softly.
“Seriously?”
He whined louder.
“What did you eat?”
No answer. Whatever was responsible for this need to take a middle-of-the-night trip outside, Max wasn’t telling.
I opened the other eye.
Experience told me Max wouldn’t give up. There’d be more whaps and whines and maybe a groan or two until I relented.
“Fine.” I threw off the blanket and swung my feet to the floor. “You owe me.”
Together we padded the length of the hallway.
I paused at the top of the stairs.
He nudged me. A hurry-up nudge.
“I’m going.” I descended the stairs with Max at my heels. When we reached the bottom step, he surged past me and sat on his haunches next to the front door.
“Not on your life, buddy.” Max would be off like a shot if I let him out front.
He huffed his displeasure and followed me to the backdoor, which opened onto a fenced yard.
I opened the door, and Max stepped outside, sniffed the air, and raced toward the fence that separated my property from Marshall and Jennifer’s. He sailed over said fence like a hunter/jumper clearing a low-set crossrod.
Dammit.
I jammed my feet into the nearest footwear—Grace’s rain boots—and followed Max into the night.
At least he hadn’t jumped the fence into my other next-door neighbor’s yard. Margaret Hamilton had shifted from active dislike of Max to ambivalence. Given that she rode a broom when the moon was full, I didn’t want to move back to dislike.
“Max!” I whisper-yelled.
Wherever he was, he ignored me.
Double dammit.
I picked up the hem of my nightgown and trudged through the damp grass to the gate hidden by a blue spruce. Above me, the tattered remains of clouds played hide-and-seek with the stars. The air was damp and cool, and I wished I’d grabbed a coat.
“Max!”
No response.
I paused. Did I really want to wander my neighbor’s backyard clad in a silk nightgown and yellow rain boots?
I did not.
With a sigh, I lifted the latch and trespassed. “Max!”
In May, when the weather warmed up, this backyard would be filled with peonies and flag irises and lilacs. Now, in the dark of an April morning, the yard looked barren and vaguely threatening.
Where was that dog?
A breeze rustled through the trees, drowning out the possibility of hearing Max’s tags jangle.
I smelled smoke.
Smoke? A fire?
I clutched my nightgown, lifted my hem still higher, stepped over a boxwood hedge, and tiptoed into the yard.
Woof!
“Max!”
Woof, woof!
I slipped and slid (rubber boots and wet grass weren’t great together) toward his bark.
The smell of smoke grew stronger.
I rounded the carriage house and stopped short. My jaw dropped.
Max’s silver coat gleamed in the light cast by a fire burning in a metal drum. That same fire reflected off his bared teeth. A ridge of hair stood on his back.
Marshall glanced my way. “Can you call him off?”
“Of course. I’m so sorry. Max!”
Max ignored me.
All too aware of my sheer nightgown (I lowered the hem back to my ankles) and rain boots (I’d met Marshall once—a polite how-do-you-do—nothing to prepare us for this), I stepped into the light and grabbed Max’s collar.
Marshall pulled at his own collar, one attached to a Giants sweatshirt. “I bet you’re wondering what I’m doing.”
“Now that you mention it—” as a rule my neighbors didn’t burn things in the middle of the night.
“Those are letters from an old girlfriend.” He motioned toward the drum. “Jennifer found them and insisted I get rid of them.”
At two in the morning? In a fiery drum? “Really?”
“We had a big fight, and I thought a grand gesture might make things better.”
Did the man think I’d just fallen off a turnip truck? Obviously, the letters were recent. No woman expected her husband to burn old letters in the middle of the night. By burning them, Marshall had ensured Jennifer couldn’t fish them out of the trash.
Not that she’d do that, but the temptation—
Sometimes it was better not to know the details. Poor, Jennifer. I empathized. I knew all too well the pain and humiliation of a cheating spouse.
“I hope it works out.” My tone was chilly. “I apologize for Max.” I pulled on his collar.
My dog’s feet remained firmly planted.
“C’mon, Max.” I pulled harder.
Woof!
“Now!” I’d had enough of this. During the day, the situation would be awkward. In the middle of the night, clad in a nightgown and rain boots, the situation was intolerable.
The fire crackled.
I hauled on Max’s collar.
Max reluctantly gave ground.
With a final glance at Jennifer’s cheating husband, I took another step back. “Good night, Marshall.”
“Good night.”
Max and I tug-of-warred our way back to the fence (two steps my way, one step his).
“Bad dog.”
My opinion didn’t intere
st him.
We skirted the boxwood and passed through the gate.
When we touched my property, Max’s resistance melted away. I let him go, and he trotted to the back door and waited for me with a bored expression on his doggy face. As if I was the one who’d inconvenienced him.
We entered the kitchen, and I locked the door behind me.
“It’s a good thing you’re cute,” I told him.
He merely stared at the cabinet where we kept the biscuits.
“If you think you’re getting a treat after what you just put me through—”
Max huffed and turned his back on me.
I climbed the stairs, kicked off Grace’s boots, and climbed into bed.
But I couldn’t sleep.
Was being faithful a thing of the past?
Then I thought of Anarchy. Would he ever cheat? Never.
Ten
Wearing last night’s gown, an actual robe, and slippers on my feet, I stumbled into the kitchen and smiled at Mr. Coffee.
Ever-faithful, he greeted me with a sunny smile and a full pot of coffee. He could tell I’d had a rough night, and he didn’t judge. Nor did he ask questions—not until I’d had at least one cup.
Grace didn’t share his restraint. “Mom, have you seen my boots?” She crammed half a slice of toast in her mouth and pulled on her jacket. With the barely contained energy unique to teenagers leaving for school in the morning—a strange mix of what-will-happen-today excitement and what-if-there’s-a-pop-quiz dread—she bounced on her toes.
“Your boots?”
“My rain boots.” She pointed to the empty floor mat. “I left them right there.”
“Your boots! They’re in my room.” I lifted Mr. Coffee’s pot and poured heaven into a mug. “I wore them when I chased Max last night.”
Aggie entered the kitchen carrying a basketful of laundry and cast a baleful look at the dog. “Where did he go?”
Max sighed in his sleep.
“Next door.”
Grace, who’d been a whirlwind of movement—eating her breakfast, making her lunch, stuffing books into her backpack—froze. “Not Mrs. Hamilton’s?” Her tone conveyed the direness of that situation.
“Thankfully, no. He went to Marshall and Jennifer’s.” I refrained from telling her about Marshall’s late-night bonfire. “Which reminds me, how did your math test go?”
Grace shoved a final book into her backpack and looked down at her feet. She wore rainbow socks. “I think I did really well.” She glanced out the window at the dripping sky. “I need my boots.”
“They’re upstairs. We’ll have to take Jennifer a thank you gift.” My coffee cup was empty. How had that happened?
“More coffee?” asked Aggie.
I held out my mug.
“I need my boots,” Grace repeated.
“Could you get them, honey?”
Grace rolled her eyes, muttered something about borrowing things without putting them back, and dashed up the backstairs.
In the silence of her absence, I took another large sip of coffee. “I ran into Hunter yesterday.”
“That’s what he told me. I saw him when he returned from lunch.”
“Did you find anything?”
“When I told him what I was looking for, he assigned a paralegal to help me. We found eight cases. If the paralegal finds more, she’ll let me know.”
Grace exploded back into the kitchen, her outfit now complete with rain boots, and grabbed her backpack off the counter. “Gotta go. See you later.” She flew out the backdoor and disappeared before I could say goodbye.
Max opened a single eye.
I leaned against the counter and drained my second cup of coffee.
“I brought my notes if you’d like to look at them.”
“I would, but I’m going to grab a quick shower first.” Maybe hot water would jump-start my brain—coffee wasn’t getting the job done this morning.
Max, the cause of the fog in my brain, lifted his head off his paws and yawned.
Thirty minutes later, clean, slightly more awake, and clad in jeans and a sweater, I went searching for more coffee.
I pushed into the kitchen and stopped dead in my tracks.
Aggie and Hunter sat on stools at the paper covered kitchen island.
Hunter? What was he doing here? I reached for Mr. Coffee’s pot. “Good morning.”
“Good morning. I stopped on my way to the office with notes from more cases.” Hunter nodded toward a manila folder labeled Wilson-Flournoy.
“Thank you.” I gripped my mug so tightly my knuckles ached. “Any defendants who received horrible deals?”
“I’m not a criminal lawyer, but nothing stands out.”
“We should go through them all.” I settled onto the stool next to Hunter’s and reached for a piece of paper. “Here’s Carl Becker.” I held up a sheet torn from a legal pad.
“What did he do?” Hunter asked.
I scanned Aggie’s notes. “Armed robbery. Sentenced to ten years.” I glanced at Hunter. “Does ten years for armed robbery sound right?”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know.”
“But you could find out?”
He nodded. “Of course.”
Ding, dong.
“I’ll get it.” Aggie stepped into the hallway.
Hunter watched her go. When the hem of her kaftan disappeared, he inched closer to me and whispered, “Have you looked at Henry’s file on Flournoy.”
I nodded. “I didn’t find anything particular. Maybe you should look.”
“They’re in the kitchen.” Aggie’s voice reached us before she did.
The door swung open.
Anarchy stood on the other side. Instantly, I became aware of how close I sat to Hunter, the papers spread across the island, and the folder with Lark Flournoy and John Wilson’s name on it. I jumped up, hurried to Anarchy, and kissed him on the cheek. “Good morning.” My voice was too bright. “Would you like coffee?”
“Please.” He smiled at me, but when his gaze traveled to Hunter, wariness shaded his eyes. He jerked his chin. Once. “Tafft.”
“Jones.”
Anarchy’s gaze moved to the island, to Aggie’s stack of notes, and the clearly labeled folder. His brows lifted and the corner of his left eye twitched. “Ellison, a word?”
“Of course.” I poured him a cup of coffee and led him into the family room. My steps were slow—as if an extra few seconds could mellow his mood.
He sat on the edge of the desk and wrapped his fingers around the mug. “Want to tell me what’s going on?”
“What do you want to know?”
“Why are you looking at John Wilson and Lark Flournoy’s cases?” A second unspoken question hung in the air—what’s Tafft doing in your kitchen?
“I think Wilson’s murder and the attempt on Lark’s life are related.”
“Why?” Twitch went the corner of his eye.
“I can’t tell you.”
Twitch, twitch.
“I’d like to tell you everything—” my voice took on a pleading edge “—but I can’t.”
“Because of Tafft?”
“Because of Henry.”
He winced. “Have you done anything illegal?”
“Of course not.” I spoke with a certainty I didn’t feel. It was my sincere hope that by concealing Henry’s crime, I wasn’t committing one of my own. “It’s nothing like that. Henry knew them both. I wondered if there was anything in their old cases that might lead to murder.”
“Their old cases?”
“Yes. Cases where John Wilson represented defendants in Lark’s courtroom. They’re public record.” I sounded defensive.
“What have you found?”
“Nothing. Yet.”
He clos
ed his eyes.
What was he thinking?
I put my coffee mug down and laced my fingers.
What should I say?
Life would be much easier if men came with instruction manuals.
“You’re not looking at current cases?”
“No. Should I be?”
“You shouldn’t be looking at any.”
“Is there a current case?”
Anarchy nodded—a creaky nod—as if it pained him to confirm it. “Have you ever heard of Tony Bilardo?”
“No. Who is he?”
“John Wilson represented him, and the Feds offered him a deal.”
“A deal?”
“If Bilardo informed on the mafia, the Feds would place him in witness protection. No jail time.”
“Now the lawyer’s dead and the judge is in the hospital. Where’s Bilardo?”
“In the wind. He jumped bail.”
“What about Marigold and Winnie?”
“What about them?”
“Why kill Marigold? She was just the yoga instructor.”
“Our working theory is that she was paid to give the mafia access to Flournoy’s house.”
“But why kill her?”
“No witnesses.”
“Why poison Winnie?”
“We haven’t figured that out yet.” He took a sip of coffee. “You don’t look convinced.”
Because I knew about the blackmail. Not that I could tell Anarchy. “Do you mind if I look at the old cases?”
“Not at all.” With a sigh, Anarchy reached for his belt and removed his pager. The message on its tiny screen wasn’t good. A furrow appeared between his brows. “May I use your phone?”
“Of course.”
He picked up the receiver and dialed. “This is Jones.”
His eyes narrowed, and his jaw firmed. “Got it. I’ll head to the hospital now.” He hung up.
“What’s happened?”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Lark Flournoy died.”
I stumbled backward until my legs touched the couch. “Dead?” That couldn’t be right. “He was stable. They were cautiously optimistic.”
“Internal injuries can be tricky.”
“Poor Lark.” I stared at Anarchy, at the plaid of his jacket, at the worried line of his brows.
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