Софи Келли - Cat Trick

“But you couldn’t let the chance to talk to him go by,” I said.

Wren nodded. “I thought about it all the next day. I couldn’t let him just go without telling him what he did to me, to my family, either. I waited for everyone to leave Wednesday night and then I confronted him.”

Her face tightened in anger. “He didn’t recognize me, and when I told him who I was and why I was there, he tried to . . . to make excuses.” She was breathing hard. “I was so . . . so angry.”

The hand still resting in her lap was squeezed so tightly into a fist, I thought the skin pulled white over her knuckles would split open. “There was . . . a metal table just inside the tent. I think he was using it for a desk, and I kicked it or maybe I shoved it. I don’t know. He had this leather briefcase on top, and when I hit the table it fell off. When Mike went to grab it, the table knocked him off balance.”

She stopped to swallow and get her breath. “He went backward and he hit his head—on the ground, I think. I . . . I . . . waited for him to move . . . to get up, but he didn’t and . . . and I just ran.” She brushed another tear away. “I killed him. It was an accident, but I killed him just the same. I panicked. I used a rock to put a nail in my tire so it would go flat. I drove up onto the highway because I knew there was a good chance Liam would drive by and see me.”

“You didn’t kill Mike, Wren,” I said. She turned her head. I leaned sideways so she had to look at me again and put a hand over hers. “I swear you didn’t kill him. He didn’t die from a head injury. He was suffocated with one of the backdrops for the booths. Whatever you were going to do . . . don’t. Please, please, please don’t.” I swallowed, but I couldn’t seem to get the lump in my throat to move.

Marcus was standing quietly off to the side. I’d seen him come in a couple of minutes before, and now I turned to look at him. “Could you please tell her?” I said.

His shoulders were rigid and his expression unreadable. For a moment I wasn’t sure he was going to answer my question. Then he gave an almost imperceptible nod. “Mike Glazer didn’t die from a head injury,” he said.

22

Elizabeth pushed her way around the table and wrapped Wren in a hug. Wren looked stunned. She was crying and shaking at the same time.

“Ms. Magnusson, I do need to hear the whole story,” Marcus said. “Officially.” He looked at me.

Harry stepped forward. “We’ll come over to the police station,” he said. “Soon as I line up a lawyer. You understand, Detective. No offense.”

Marcus nodded. “Of course.”

“Thank you, Kathleen,” Harry said quietly as he moved past me. He put one hand on Elizabeth’s back and steered both young women over to another table.

“I’ll need to talk to you too,” Marcus said to Liam, “but that can wait until morning.”

“I’ll be there,” Liam said. He looked at me. “She really was going to . . . hurt herself, wasn’t she?”

I nodded. “She told you, didn’t she? That Mike had been partly responsible for what happened to his brother? It’s what you were arguing about the night he died.”

He swallowed before he answered. “Yes.”

“You were afraid she might be a suspect. That’s why you lied about what time you’d found her with the flat tire.”

“I knew it would hurt a lot of people if the truth came out,” Liam said, swiping a hand over his chin. “Especially Wren. I was friends with her brother. I’ve known her since she was a little kid.” He looked over to where Wren was sitting with Elizabeth’s arm still around her shoulders. “I had no idea she would . . .” He shook his head and looked at me again. “Thank you, Kathleen.”

Maggie gave me a hug. “You done for the night?” she whispered.

“I’m not sure,” I said softly.

“Call me if you need me,” she said before letting go. She touched Liam’s arm. “Let’s get something to go.” They started for the counter and Claire met them partway.

I’d been watching Marcus out of the corner of my eye, but now I turned and looked at him directly. “Thank you,” I said.

He stared at me for a long moment. “We need to talk, later,” he said.

I could tell by the cool tone to his voice and the rigid way he was standing that he was angry. But I knew once he understood that Wren really had been planning to kill herself, he’d also understand why I hadn’t waited for him to call me back.

“I know,” I said. “I’ll be home.”

He nodded and left.

Eric came around the counter and walked over to me. He had a take-out cup in one hand and a paper bag in the other. He held them out to me.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“Coffee and cinnamon rolls,” he said. “On the house.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I’m sorry about all this.”

Eric smiled. “I figure you had a good reason.” He inclined his head toward the street. “Everything okay between you and the detective?”

“I think so,” I said.

Eric glanced over his shoulder. “I have to get back to work,” he said.

I held up the coffee. “Thanks again.”

Eric nodded and walked back to the counter. I headed for the truck.

Hercules was waiting in the porch. The moment I opened the door, he meowed. “It’s all right,” I told him. I set the coffee and cinnamon rolls next to him on the bench and scooped him into a hug. I had a kind of giddy, unsettled energy. “Wren’s going to be just fine.”

He licked my chin and then squirmed to be set down so he could investigate the bag. “Cinnamon rolls,” I said, waggling my eyebrows. There was a loud meow from the other side of the porch door. I reached over and opened it, and Owen came in. He looked from me to his brother and licked his whiskers.

“How did you know?” I asked.

His nose twitched.

“You did not smell cinnamon rolls from out in the yard,” I told him. I grabbed the bag off the bench before Hercules managed to poke a hole in it with his paw.

Once I was settled at the table with the cats at my feet, I brought them up-to-date on what had happened with Wren and Mike Glazer the night he died.

“She gave the table a shove.” I mimed the motion. “Mike tried to grab his briefcase and he was off balance when the table hit him. He went backward and was knocked out for a minute. He was probably still groggy when whoever killed him showed up.”

Owen’s head snapped up as though he’d had the same realization I’d just had.

“Where did the briefcase go?” I said. I pictured the inside of the tent, working my way around it in my head. There had been no leather briefcase on the grass, no briefcase on the table. I looked at Owen. “Did you see it?” His golden eyes met mine and he gave a sharp meow.

No.

“The killer must have taken it,” I said. “But why?”

Owen didn’t have an answer for that question. But it seemed Hercules did. He jumped onto the chair opposite me and poked at my laptop with one paw.

I remembered that I hadn’t read Lise’s e-mail, so I pulled the computer closer and turned it on. “Chairs are for people,” I said to Hercules.

He gave me a blank look. Both cats thought they were people.

“People with two legs,” I added. “And you’re sitting on my sweater.”

He jumped down, making complaining noises low in his throat. Then he launched himself onto my lap, a glint of triumph in his eyes.

There was an e-mail from my sister, Sara, in my in-box too, but I opened Lise’s message first. She’d found out quite a lot in just a couple of days.

According to Lise’s information, Alex and Chris Scott wouldn’t have been able to push Mike out of the business that easily. He apparently had a deal that entitled him to major compensation if they let him go before the fourth full year of his contract—more than a million dollars.