“That all sounds so horrible!” I said.
“It couldn’t have been fun,” Shep agreed. Then he sighed and said, “Now that you know he’s okay, why don’t you two head home? I’ve got to get to the scene and take a look at the car and get an estimate for how fast the other car was going, and from which direction.”
“There were no witnesses?” I said.
“I don’t know that yet, Cat. That’s why I’ve got to go.”
I nodded. “Understood. But will you monitor his condition and let us know if anything changes?”
“I will,” he said. “Do you guys know who to contact about getting a number for his next of kin?”
“His paralegal is named Jasmine, but I don’t know her last name,” Gilley said.
“Taylor,” I said, recalling her introduction to us.
“Terrific,” Shepherd said, jotting that down before closing his little notebook and putting it back in his blazer pocket. “I’ll call her next, tell her what’s happened, and be in touch.”
“Oh!” I said, remembering Julia’s get-together with Marcus the next day. “Can you tell her to make sure Julia knows that Marcus won’t be available to accompany her to the club?”
“What club?” Shepherd asked.
“The EHGC. They were going to have lunch tomorrow.”
“They know each other?”
“They do,” I said.
“Yeah, okay. I’ll pass along the message. You guys drive safe, and I’ll be in touch.”
With that, we went our separate ways.
When we got back home, Gilley and I got out of the car and he said over the hood, “Would you like to stay over again?”
“I would,” I said.
“Good. But this time, sleep in the spare bedroom, okay?”
“I don’t like to put you out by sleeping in a bed where you’ll have to change the sheets and remake the bed.”
“Cat,” Gilley said, as if he found the notion ridiculous. “Come on. Sleep in a bed tonight. Washing sheets is no big deal.”
“I’ll wash them tomorrow,” I said. “I have to wash the linens in the room Darius and Finley slept in tomorrow too.”
Gilley sighed. “Whatever makes you feel more comfortable,” he said.
I went to Chez Cat and changed into the same silk pajamas I’d worn the night before and headed back over to Chez Kitty.
Gilley was already in his robe and pajamas too. He yawned and said, “Did you want to stay up a bit?”
“No,” I said. “I’m exhausted.”
“Me too. See you in the morning?”
“Yes.”
“You’ll come get me if Shepherd calls with any news about Marcus?”
“I will. I promise.”
“Good night, Cat.”
“Night, Gilley,” I said before shuffling into the guest bedroom. I was asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow.
The next morning, I woke up to the smell of coffee. I grabbed my phone to make sure I hadn’t missed any calls from Shepherd—I hadn’t—and made my way to the kitchen.
“It’s so early,” I whispered when I found Gilley at the table, staring into space and sipping on a steaming cup of coffee.
“I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep,” he said.
It was 4:00 a.m., and while I didn’t feel fully rested, at least the hours of sleep I’d gotten were restful.
“Any news from Shepherd?” Gilley asked.
“Not a peep,” I said, moving over to the French press to pour my own mug of brew.
“No news is good news, right?”
“It is.”
“Who could’ve done that to him, Cat?”
I sat down and sighed. “I don’t know, Gil. He’s a defense attorney, and from what I understand of that profession, it’s not an especially safe one. A client loses in court, gets some jail time, and comes back for revenge when freed. I mean, you saw his office, right? It was all top-notch security, and I’m thinking there was a reason for that.”
“You’re right,” Gil said. “I just feel so helpless. I wish there was something we could do.”
I knew what he meant. I felt helpless too. But then I had an idea about how we could fill our morning with purpose. “Hey,” I said, tapping his arm. “What do you think about making not just one lasagna for Darius and Finley, but three? One for the D’Angelos, one for Tiffany and her parents, which will give us a chance to check up on her, and one for Aaron. I’ve wanted to call him since yesterday, when he was released.”
“I think that’s a great plan,” Gilley said, with an eager eye.
I stood. “Then let’s hop to it!”
We spent the next several hours making the lasagnas. Gilley even insisted on making the noodles from scratch. “What’s the point of having a pasta roller and a noodle drying rack if you’re just gonna go store bought?” he’d said when I’d questioned his laborious methods.
While Gilley tended to the pasta, I got started on his recipe for meat sauce, which was a complex series of steps, but when it was finally simmering, it filled Chez Kitty with an aroma that was heavenly.
Gilley placed two small fans in front of and behind the perfectly made pasta noodles and sniffed the air. “You did great,” he said, squeezing my shoulders in a one-armed hug.
“How long will the noodles have to dry?”
“The fan cuts the time in half, so about six hours.”
I looked at the time on the stove. “We can start assembling at eleven thirty, then?”
“Yep. It’ll take about forty minutes to assemble all three, and another forty to forty-five minutes to bake, and then I’d give it at least a half hour to cool, which means we’ll be good to go around two o’clock.”
“What should we do while we wait for the pasta noodles to dry?”
“Make breakfast and take a nap.”
“I love that idea,” I said, grinning.
Gilley put together a quick quiche while I sent a text to Shepherd in the hopes that he might be up. His reply was quick.
“Is Shepherd up?” Gilley asked me. He’d obviously seen me sending a text.
“He is. He’s heading out to the car lot to inspect Marcus’s car, and he’ll call me later.”
“Did you ask him about Marcus?”
“I did. He says there’s no news.”
Gilley paused to wipe his hands on a dish towel and looked at me earnestly. “Do we still think no news is good news?”
“We do,” I said, willing myself to believe it.
“Okay, then I won’t worry more than I already am.”
We ate breakfast together and talked over some ideas for Willem and Chanel’s reception. We’d given our first impressions to Julia, but now that we had a chance to discuss the event between us, we were coming up with new ideas and jotting them down to send to her later this afternoon, after we got done spreading some lasagna cheer along the way.
Around nine o’clock I yawned. So did Gilley.
“Nap time,” he said.
I grinned and asked, “Can I cuddle with Spooks?” Gilley had, of course, claimed the pup the night before, but Spooks gave me such comfort that I couldn’t resist asking.
“Of course,” Gilley said.
We headed back to our bedrooms, Spooks following me, and once again I fell asleep quickly.
By eleven thirty we were back in the kitchen, both feeling much more rested, and we got to work assembling the pasta.
“These noodles are perfect,” Gilley said.
“They feel amazing,” I told him. Soft and velvety, they covered the layers of meat sauce and cheese perfectly.
“Do you think we’ll have enough for a small lasagna for us?”
“We should,” Gilley said. “You made plenty of meat sauce.”
“But is there enough pasta?”
“There is,” he said. “If we cut the noodles in half and use a small casserole dish.”
“I’ve got the perfect size at Chez Cat.”
�
��Fantastic,” Gilley said. “You can take all the ingredients over there and assemble our dinner, and put this third one in your oven while you’re at it.”
“Sebastian,” I said.
“Yes, Lady Catherine?”
“Please preheat the oven at Chez Cat to three hundred seventy-five.”
“Preheating initiated,” Sebastian said.
“I love Sebastian,” Gilley said.
“I love you as well, Sir Gilley.”
That made us both giggle.
Gilley helped me across the driveway with all the ingredients for our small pan pasta and announced that he had to take Spooks for a walk.
“Careful he doesn’t pull the leash out of your hand this time,” I said.
“Trust me, from now on I’m holding on to that leash with a death grip.”
He left, and I put the third lasagna into the oven, then assembled ours and was so pleased that the leftover ingredients were the exact amount I needed. After setting that completed casserole dish in the refrigerator, I peered through the oven glass and smiled at the bubbling concoction. Then I glanced at the time and hurried upstairs to take a shower and change before I had to pull the lasagna out.
When I stepped out of the shower, I got a text from Gilley, asking me to pull out the lasagnas at his place because he wouldn’t be back in time.
I growled. He was cutting into my schedule now, but I donned a robe and dashed across to Chez Kitty just in time to hear the timer go off on the stove.
After carefully removing both casserole dishes, I set them on cooling racks, then hurried back across the drive to Chez Cat, looked at the timer on the stove, and said, “Sebastian, will you please let me know when the stove timer goes off?”
“I will, Lady Catherine.”
After dashing up the stairs, I shimmied into a pair of leggings, a long-sleeved olive dress that fell just below my knees, and some low-heeled black boots.
I was almost finished drying my hair when Sebastian told me that the timer had gone off on the lasagna, so I abandoned the hair dryer and raced downstairs to pull the lasagna out of the oven. After setting the casserole dish on a cooling rack, I went back upstairs and finished making myself presentable.
By 1:15 p.m. I was ready for the day, but I didn’t have a lot to do until the pasta cooled enough to be transported.
Making my way to the family room, I noticed how dirty the floor was, and so I hauled out the vacuum cleaner and got up most of the debris, which had been brought in by the birthday party guests. I then took the cordless vacuum upstairs, started in on the carpet in the hallway, and made my way to the boys’ rooms.
Opening the door to Matt’s room first and then to Mike’s, I sighed. “I’ve raised slobs,” I said. The boys’ rooms were a mess!
I started cleaning their rooms by pulling off the sheets and tossing them into the washing machine and starting the load. I then moved to the guest room and found it neat as a pin. Darius had kindly made up the bed. After pulling those sheets off, I dumped them in the basket in the laundry room, making a mental note to wash them with the sheets at Chez Kitty when the first load was done.
Peeking at the time on my watch, I saw that I had twenty minutes left before meeting up with Gilley, so I headed to the worst disaster—Matt’s room—and started sorting clothes scattered about the room into piles of darks and lights. It was as I was checking to see if anything had been shoved under the bed that I saw his duffel bag. After pulling it to me, I unzipped it and spread the flaps, only to be assaulted by the most god-awful stench.
His running shoes and sweaty clothes had been percolating ever since he left for school three weeks before.
“Oh, my God, child of mine,” I said, pinching my nose and gingerly taking out the shoes and the clothes.
And that was when it hit me.
And everything clicked.
All of it.
I could see it laid out perfectly, each such a tiny clue, but leading to the final conclusion.
“Oh, my God,” I whispered, rushing to my bedroom, where I’d left my phone. Snatching it off the bed, I realized that there were half a dozen texts from Gilley, sent only fifteen minutes before.
Ohmigod! I—shower—gone for ten minutes! He ate the whole thing!
Why aren’t you answering your phone????
Headed to emergency vet!
Immediately I called Gilley.
“Where have you been?” he yelled.
“Honey, I’m so sorry! I was vacuuming and didn’t hear my phone! What’s happened?”
Gilley was sobbing. “I’ve killed him, Cat! I’ve killed him!”
I gasped. “Oh, no! Gilley, you mean Spooks . . . he’s . . .” I couldn’t form the words.
“In the back, with the vet,” he said, still crying. “They’re doing an ultrasound. He ate the whole damn lasagna, Cat! He figured out how to push a chair to the counter climbed up and ate the entire thing!”
I bit my lip. “Do you need me to come there?”
“No,” he said. “No. I’ll call you if I get news. But it might be a while. They’re busy here today.”
“Okay, sweetie. I’ll wait to hear from you.”
Clicking off the call, I stared at my phone. I hadn’t wanted to add anything to Gilley’s brain, because he was so undone.
So I called Shepherd. I got his voice mail. Then a text, with the words Can’t talk right now.
I got up and began pacing the room. An idea was forming to confirm my suspicions, and I wondered if I could pull it off safely.
“I’ll just slip in and take a few pictures,” I said. “I’ve already got a distraction. I’ll be fine.”
Still, I paced just a little bit more before reaching for my laptop and conducting several searches just to satisfy any lingering doubt. “The theater is only two miles from the park,” I mumbled. “That’s an easy run for someone so in shape.”
I then looked up the safety features in Range Rovers and found what I was looking for easily. Next, I searched for a name that flashed through my memory, found it and, scrolling the associated web page, landed on the very item that tied every single thing together.
Standing up from my place on the bed, I settled on the endeavor before I lost my nerve. After dashing down the steps, I carefully placed my phone in my purse with the camera facing outward, put the lasagna in a warming bag, and rushed out the door.
Chapter 19
When I pulled into the drive, the garage door was up, but no car was in the bay, and there wasn’t one to the side, either.
I had sat there for a beat, wondering what to do, when I saw a car pull into the drive right behind me. My pulse quickened, but I didn’t let the fear get the best of me. I reached for the lasagna and my purse, got out of the car, and smiled all friendly-like.
“Catherine!” he said, smiling at me, as if he was genuinely happy to see me.
“Hello, Darius.” I lifted the lasagna and said, “We promised to bake you one, remember?”
Darius opened the back door of his car and unbuckled his son, who was barely awake and fell limply against his father’s shoulder.
“Aww!” I said, happy that things had also fallen in my favor. “He’s so sleepy!”
Darius rubbed his son’s back. “It’s his nap time,” he said, walking toward me.
I held out my free hand. “Can I?” I asked.
“Sure,” he said and placed Finley against my shoulder while he took up the lasagna. “This smells amazing.”
I grinned and shifted Finley to a more comfortable position for him. “Gilley insisted on homemade noodles.”
“Wow!” he said, getting out his keys to open the front door. “I get the VIP treatment, huh?”
I laughed softly. “Well, mostly Finley, but also you.”
Darius laughed. “Yeah, I get it.”
He unlocked the door and held it open for me, but I pointed toward the garage. “Your door sticking again?”
He shook his head and sighed. “That stup
id garage door never did work right. I gotta get a guy out here to get a whole new system put in.”
I walked into the home and swiveled on my feet as Darius was closing the door. Whispering, I said, “Can I put him down? I miss my sons so much, and it would give me great comfort to lay him down for his nap.”
Darius seemed to hesitate for just a moment. “Sure,” he said. “Don’t mind the mess in the nursery, though. I’m reorganizing a few things.”
I smiled at him. “You’re a wonderful father, Darius.”
“Thank you,” he said, and I could see the set to his shoulders relax a fraction. “This thing is still really warm. Should I put it in the fridge until we’re ready to eat it?”
“I’d put it on a cooling rack for another thirty to forty minutes. Let it cool to nearly room temperature before you put it in the fridge and risk any other food spoiling.”
He pointed a finger gun at me. “Gotcha,” he said, then made a clicking sound. When he turned to move into the kitchen, I took Finley up the stairs and into the nursery.
The place was a mess. Much of Finley’s clothing had been pulled out and strewn on the floor. Almost all of it for cold weather. After moving to the crib, I laid Finley down quickly but carefully.
I then snapped a photo of the room, then hurried out into the hall on tiptoe, and eased open the door directly opposite the nursery.
Two large suitcases were standing upright against the wall, and various guitars in different states of repair were also set about the room. The guitars were the link between the two murders. Purdy hadn’t been killed with a piano wire. He’d been killed with a guitar wire. Most definitely from the guitar that Darius had pulled from his car when we’d approached him in the drive the night of the murders.
I snapped two more pictures, one of the suitcases and one of the guitars. And then something else caught my eye. On the wall where the suitcases were set were a series of framed photographs of Darius, grinning next to a woman who, in each photo, was wearing a different wedding dress but atop her head in each photo was the same elaborately-sized tiara. Every image showed the same pose for the two subjects, but clearly, they had been taken at different stages in both of their lives. I realized belatedly that the woman must be Darius’s mother at some of her many weddings.
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