Софи Келли - Cat Trick

“Ruby is the artist with the rainbow-sherbet-colored hair, isn’t she?” Alex asked. When he smiled, I noticed it didn’t go as far as his eyes.

“That’s right,” Mags said. The smile she gave Alex was much warmer. “Guess what? Alex is going to take four dozen of Georgia’s cupcakes with him for a meeting tomorrow morning in Minneapolis.”

“That’s wonderful,” I said.

I moved closer to the front of the kiosk, eyeing the pale varnished wood and the area around it while I pretended to look at Ruby’s work. You’re just being paranoid , I told myself. Then I saw it: a tiny corner of cream-colored paper. It looked as though a business card had been slipped in between a side support and the flat front counter of the booth.

I swallowed, hoping no reaction showed on my face. All I had to do was keep an eye on the booth and wait to hear from Marcus.

Maggie came to stand beside me. She pointed up at the sign. “See how Ruby has the letters coming out of the line of the cupcake? For outside, she did an outline of Wild Rose Bluff, which turns into the words ‘A Taste of Mayville Heights,’ and then into a wild rose.”

“I can’t wait to see it,” I said.

I was about to suggest that she finish showing Alex around when suddenly she frowned and leaned forward. “Wait a second. What’s that?” She was pointing at that little corner of card stock. “I thought Burtis said all the booths had been cleaned.”

As an artist, Maggie was incredibly observant. This time I wished she hadn’t been.

“I think it’s just a bit of cardboard,” I said. “Burtis probably had cardboard and plastic around all of these booths to keep them from getting banged up when they’re not being used.”

Before I could say anything else, she leaned over, caught the edge of the card with a nail—it was a business card—and pulled it free. She looked at me, giving her head a little shake. “How the heck did that get there?” she said. She studied the heavy off-white card stock. “I wonder who Victor Wyler is.”

Alex shrugged. “Probably the last person who rented the tent and the booths.” He looked around. “Maggie, I think everything is fine. I appreciate you coming to let me look things over, but you have a lot to do. I’m just going to go. Tell Liam I’ll see him tomorrow.”

“Are you sure?” Maggie asked.

He nodded. “It looks fantastic. I need to head back to Minneapolis anyway. I have that meeting in the morning. I should be here before lunch tomorrow, though.”

He’d ordered four dozen of Georgia’s cupcakes to take to that meeting. Was he going to plant something at her house, too? I couldn’t take the chance.

“Victor Wyler is Georgia’s father-in-law,” I said. “Former father-in-law, actually.”

Maggie looked from the card to me. “He is?”

“She probably just dropped it, then,” Alex said, pulling his keys from the pocket of his jacket.

In a moment, he was going to be past me and I wouldn’t be able to stop him from leaving. I pressed my hand against my leg, hoping he wouldn’t see the tiny tremble in my fingers.

“She didn’t drop it,” I said. “You put it there.”

“Sorry,” he said. “I don’t know anyone by the name of—what was it? Wyler?” He didn’t seem the least bit uncomfortable. He gave Maggie that polite, practiced smile. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I didn’t want to do the big melodramatic moment, like we were playing a game of Clue—the killer was Mr. Scott in the tent with the curtain—but I couldn’t think of any other way to keep him from going. And suddenly it seemed like a very bad idea to let him leave.

“Did you plan on killing Mike from the beginning?” I asked. “Or were you hoping somehow that you could convince him to just go away quietly?”

“Excuse me?” Alex said. He had just the right amount of incredulous anger in his expression.

Maggie’s eyes shifted between the two of us. “Kathleen, what’s going on?” she asked. I noticed she had carefully slipped the business card into the pocket of her jeans.

I took a step close to Alex, effectively blocking his way. I wondered if he could hear my heart pounding in my chest. “Mike was ruining your business, wasn’t he? Oh, you were making money, but not in the way you wanted to.”

“My business isn’t any of your business,” he said.

“I wondered why on earth you’d ever agreed to that juicy contract in the first place,” I said. “But you had to, didn’t you? That’s the problem when you make a deal with the devil. He gets to dictate the terms.”

He switched his keys from one hand to the other. “I don’t mean to offend you, Ms. Paulson,” he said. “But I think you need some professional help.”

“Your brother wrote the bar exam for you.”

His hand tightened around the ring of keys. If I hadn’t been watching for the movement, I would have missed it.

He gave me a cool smile. “Clearly, research is one of your strengths. You obviously know I didn’t pass the bar on my first try—or my second—but I did pass eventually. Myself.”

I kept going as though he hadn’t spoken. “I don’t know how Mike figured it out, or what he had for proof, but you paid him off and you thought that would be the end of things. And then Mike needed a job. He blackmailed you.” I wrapped my hand around the cell phone in my pocket, wishing Marcus would call, or even better, show up.

“Mike Glazer was my friend as well as my partner,” Alex said. “And there was nothing to blackmail me about. I’m offended that you’d even suggest he’d do something like that.” His voice was just a little bit less controlled.

Maggie touched my arm. “Are you serious?” she said. “You think he killed Mike?”

“He did kill Mike,” I said. I didn’t look at her. I kept my eyes on Alex. “I’m guessing you didn’t set out to make Georgia Tepper the fall guy,” I continued. “I think that was just a happy little coincidence of Georgia being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

He shook his head and moved to push past me. I stepped in front of him. “Somewhere there’s going to be a receipt for that airbrush makeup kit you bought,” I said with a confidence I didn’t feel. “The police are going to figure out that there isn’t a single photo of you and your brother together at that benefit. And they will find Mike Glazer’s briefcase. They might have to search every garbage can and Dumpster between Mayville Heights and Minneapolis, but they will find it.”

Just like that, the charming businessman was gone, his face all tight, angry lines. He grabbed my upper arm, fingers digging painfully into the skin. “Stop talking!” he said in a rough-edged voice.

Maggie sucked in a breath.

I swallowed and bit the inside of my cheek so I wouldn’t give away how much he was hurting me. “What did he do?” I asked, working to keep any shakiness out of my voice. “I know you didn’t plan to hurt him.”

“I didn’t,” he said. He swiped his free hand over the back of his neck. The veneer of the polished businessman had all peeled away.

“What happened?”

“He had some kind of crisis of conscience.” He exhaled loudly. “He said he wanted to be a man of integrity.” Alex laughed, and the sound was harsh against the soft wall of the tent. “He didn’t know a damn thing about integrity.”

So something Wren had said to Mike had gotten through to him. I didn’t say that, though. “So tell that to the police,” I said. “Everyone in town knows the kind of person Mike Glazer was.”

“I don’t think so,” he said. He pulled on my arm, twisting it up behind my back at an unnatural angle.

I clenched my teeth. It felt as though my shoulder were going to come right out of its socket. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a blur of black-and-white fur as a yowling Hercules seemed to come from nowhere to land in a crouch on the counter of the Sweet Things booth. His fur was on end and his ears were flat against his head.