Diana Killian - Murder On The Eightfold Path

It sounded like important work. Not the kind of profession a scheming blackmailer would opt for, but perhaps the SCA had merely been his day job.

Locating a phone number at the bottom of the official website for the SCA, A.J. spent the next few hours trying to find someone who knew of Dakarai Massri. Given the six-hour time difference, some long distance problems, and a bit of failure-to-communicate, she didn’t get far beyond verifying that Dicky had indeed been employed by the SCA for a time.

By the time she was finally willing to concede defeat for the day, it was after two o’clock and she was starving. She went next door to see if Lily was back from lunch. Lily had returned but she was upstairs teaching another class.

A.J. decided she could wait to have another unpleasant run-in with her co-manager until Monday. Packing her laptop, she went to the front lobby to tell Emma she would be out for the rest of the week.

As she knew she wouldn’t feel like cooking, she decided to stop for lunch on her way out of town, pulling into the parking lot of the Blue Bridge Pub, a new place she and Jake had talked about trying out.

The pub was surprisingly crowded-although maybe it wasn’t that surprising, as any new restaurant in Stillbrook tended to draw a lot of business for the first few weeks after opening.

A.J. was led to a comfortable high-back, leather-lined booth against the wall. She glanced over the menu, ordered Greek spinach salad with feta cheese and a hot oil dressing, and then studied the artfully placed copper dishes and molds adorning the dark-paneled walls while she waited for her meal.

Her idle gaze fell on a familiar set of shoulders and sleek, dark head. She registered the fact that the shoulders and head belonged to Jake at approximately the same moment she realized that he was having lunch with a slender, attractive young woman about her own age.

It gave her an odd jolt. Not that there was anything wrong with Jake having lunch with someone of the female persuasion. She certainly had male friends who she occasionally lunched with. She tried to think of one and came up with Simon Crider, one of the instructors at the studio. Well, and Andy, her ex-husband. Jake hadn’t objected too much when Andy had spent several weeks with A.J. the previous summer while he was going through a rough patch.

She tried to scrutinize Jake’s companion without appearing to stare.

The woman had wide light eyes and brown hair artfully streaked with blonde. Her smile was very white. She smiled a lot. While she was not pretty exactly, she had a certain wholesome sex appeal.

A.J. watched them for a few seconds with an odd, uneasy sensation. She told herself not to be an idiot, but there was nothing like having been the victim of a cheating husband to hone a woman’s instincts, and even from behind, watching the curve of Jake’s lean cheek crease in a slight smile, watching the attentive tilt of his head as he listened to the woman, A.J. knew this was not a long lost sister or a former partner from his days in uniform.

Of course, what she should do-the normal thing-would be to get up and walk right over there and say hello.

So why wasn’t she doing that?

The waitress arrived with her lunch, and A.J. managed to eat a few bites of salad before her gaze was drawn inexorably back to Jake and his companion. They were laughing. The woman reached over and rested her hand briefly on Jake’s arm.

A wave of cold nausea washed through A.J. She told herself not to overreact, but she knew her instinct was not wrong. There was definitely something between them.

She tried to decide what to do. If the situation between her and Jake were as usual, she would simply go over there and say hello. But with matters strained as they were…

As this thought took form in A.J.’s mind, Jake-as though feeling the gaze burning between his shoulder blades-glanced around. He did a double take. And then he rose and came over to A.J.’s table.

A.J. dredged up a smile.

Jake didn’t even try. “I didn’t see you come in,” he said. He didn’t seem guilty, exactly, but he did look uncomfortable.

“You were otherwise occupied.” She winced internally at both the words and the light, cool tone. The last thing she wanted to appear was jealous or insecure. She and Jake did not have a commitment. They didn’t even have an agreement not to see other people.

“I’m having lunch with an old friend.”

A.J. considered and discarded a variety of responses. She settled on the all-purpose, “Oh?”

Belatedly, though only by a second or two, Jake asked, “Would you like to join us for dessert?”

“I don’t think so.” Somehow, despite A.J.’s best intentions, it came out sounding like an action hero’s line seconds before he blew the bad guy away.

She couldn’t read Jake’s expression at all, and he seemed to be having a similar problem with her. He said, “Well, at least let me introduce you.”

“Of course!” It came out far too brightly, but she was oversteering, trying to make up for the snippiness of her earlier response.

Scrubbing her teeth with her tongue in search of any stray bits of spinach, A.J. slipped out of the booth and followed Jake through the crowded tables.

“How is your back?” he asked as an afterthought. “Are you back at work now?”

“It’s better,” she said. There wasn’t time for more as they had reached Jake’s table.

Jake’s companion smiled confidently up at A.J. Her eyes were a strikingly light shade somewhere between green and blue.

“A.J. this is J-” Jake broke off, looking confused, and the woman smiled that frank, white smile and offered her hand.

“Francesca Cox. But everyone calls me ‘Chess.’”

“Nice to meet you, Chess.” Chess? What kind of nickname was “Chess”? Affected was what it was.

“I’ve heard so much about you.” Chess was smiling.

Maybe it was intended as a pleasantry-well, it was almost certainly intended as a pleasantry, what was the matter with her? She was not this insecure. But it did bother A.J. that Chess apparently knew all about her, and she’d had no idea of Chess’s existence until that instant.

A.J. asked with all the cordiality she could muster, “Are you visiting or are you new to Stillbrook?”

“I’ve just moved here, yes.”

“How nice! Welcome to the neighborhood.” Welcome to the neighborhood? Break out the zippered cardigans. A.J. had morphed into Mister Rogers.

“It’s a lovely little town,” Chess said. She smiled at Jake. He, meanwhile, was doing his best impersonation of one of those Easter Island statues. Why did he look so… so stony if everything was on the up and up?

“It is lovely, isn’t it? You should see it in the autumn. Where are you from originally?” A.J. inquired.

Chess’s eyes flickered. “Oh, I move around a lot. I admit that’s one of the charms of a small town like yours. The idea of putting down roots, of getting to know your neighbors, of building a real home: it’s very… alluring.”

A.J. heard herself give one of those terse murmur-laughs that sounded uncannily like Elysia when she was displeased and barely trying to hide it.

“What do you do, A.J.?”

Apparently Jake hadn’t shared all the pertinent details if Chess didn’t know something this basic. Then again, she was probably just making conversation. Someone needed to.

A.J. replied, “I run a yoga studio.”

“Really? Now I wouldn’t have guessed that.”

“What do you do, Chess?”

“I’m a travel writer.”

“That sounds like fun,” A.J. said politely.

“It is mostly.”

A.J. checked her wristwatch. “Gosh, is it that time? I’ve got to pay my check and run.”

Literally.