Софи Райан - No Escape Claws

“Are you trying to say you think someone was impersonating Mike?” Nick asked. He looked a little skeptical and I didn’t blame him.

I shrugged. “I don’t know but I think we should keep digging and maybe we’ll find out.”

“I think you’re right,” he said.

I looked around the room.

“What are you looking for?” Nick asked.

“Zombies,” I said.

“Zombies?”

I nodded. “Because you and Rose agreeing on everything has to be a sign of something ominous like a zombie apocalypse.”

Nick laughed. Then his expression turned serious. “Can I tell you something but we keep it just between us?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Can you?”

He recognized his mother’s expression and gave me a wry smile. “I’m serious, Sarah. For now this isn’t something I want to share with the rest of your band of merry detectives.”

I hesitated. “Okay. We can keep whatever it is between us. For now.” I stressed the last two words.

“I told you I was going to talk to Claire again.”

I nodded. Had the medical examiner decided to change Gina Pearson’s cause of death?

“She said that if I can find more evidence—something that indicates Gina didn’t try to hang herself or that some other person started the fire, she’ll change the cause of death.”

“That would get the case reopened.”

He nodded. “It would.”

“That could potentially get Mike out of jail,” I said.

“Or put him there for a lot longer,” Nick added. “You can see why I don’t want to get Rose’s hopes up just yet.”

I shifted in my seat. “You’re right. I won’t say anything.” I eyed him for a moment.

He frowned. “What? Do I have food on my face or something?”

“No,” I said. “I was just wondering how you do it every day. How do you not get overwhelmed by all the investigations?”

Nick ran a hand back through his hair. “I try to look strictly at the facts and not emotions.”

I laughed. “And how’s that been working lately?”

He gave me a bit of a shamefaced grin. “Let’s just say it’s a work in progress. What keeps me going is knowing that I speak for the dead. I hear what they say through the evidence and I’m their voice.” He gave me a sideways look and said, “Sounds hokey, I know.”

“It doesn’t sound that way at all,” I said. “I just wish we could figure out what Gina Pearson is trying to say to us.”

Jess and Liam came back to the table then, heads together laughing about something. More plotting for their ruse? I didn’t get a chance to ask because the band was coming back to the stage just then as well. Sam was carrying an extra guitar and he looked in our direction.

Nick shook his head. “No,” he said.

I grinned and poked him with my elbow. Jess was already smiling and pointing at the stage.

“This is an ambush,” Nick said over the clapping and hooting of the crowd. He looked at me.

“I didn’t know Sam had this planned. I swear,” I said, my mouth close to his ear. “I mean, I would have helped if I had known. But I didn’t.” I smiled at him. “Please play. I haven’t heard you play in ages.”

Nick rolled his eyes. “You owe me,” he said. “And don’t expect a lot. I’m really rusty.” Then he got up and went to join the band, to even more clapping and cheers.

Nick played three songs with Sam and the boys and if he was rusty it didn’t show. He came back to his seat to even more clapping, hoots and cheering. His face was flushed and he was grinning from ear to ear.

I suddenly remembered what Mallory had said about her stepmother, how much fun Gina had been before she started drinking all the time: She’d put on music and dance with us with that sparkly sort of look in her eyes and her hair swirling all around . I looked at Nick, still smiling as Jess gave his arm a squeeze and all around us people still clapped. If he lost the look that was on his face right now, I wouldn’t give up until it came back. Was it fair to think Mike Pearson had given up on his wife? Maybe Rose was right. Maybe Neill Halloran was mistaken about what he saw. Or maybe he’d been deliberately misled. Either way, I knew I couldn’t quit until I got some answers.

I was in my office with Elvis the next morning, checking Web site orders, when Mr. P. knocked on the half-open door and stuck his head around the door frame. “Am I interrupting, Sarah?” he asked.

“No, you’re not,” I said. “He, on the other hand . . .” I pointed at Elvis, who had just squeezed himself in between me and the laptop keyboard, which made it pretty much impossible for me to type.

The cat blinked his green eyes at me. I made a shooing motion with one hand. “Go downstairs and help Rose in the shop,” I said. To my amusement he took a couple of swipes at his face with one paw, then jumped down from the desk, and moved behind Mr. P. out into the hallway.

I shook my head. “Sometimes I think he knows every word I’m saying to him, but he ignores it all just to mess with me.”

Mr. P. smiled. “Cats are very intelligent animals,” he said. “I’m sure you remember that they were worshipped in ancient Egypt.”

I laughed. “That might explain why Elvis acts like royalty.”

“It may indeed,” he agreed.

“So what’s up?” I asked, leaning back in my chair.

“The high school has a cross-country race after school today.”

I felt a little confused and it probably showed on my face. “I didn’t realize you followed high school sports,” I said.

He smoothed down the few wisps of his hair with one hand. “Well, the women’s hockey team does look like it’s going to be very competitive this year, but the reason I mentioned the cross-country race is that Hannah Allison is competing.”

It took a moment but then I made the connection. “Hannah Allison is the teen Gina Pearson hit with her car.”

Mr. P. nodded. “Yes. It would be a good opportunity to talk to her parents. I have it on reliable authority that both of them will be there.”

“Then so will we,” I said.

Liam and Nick showed up at lunchtime. Liam stuck his head around the workroom door just as I was putting a guitar back on the wall. “Hi,” he said. “Nick has the afternoon off so we’re going to start in the sunporch if that’s okay with you.”

“It’s fine with me,” I said. “Just make sure it’s all right with Mr. P.”

No surprise, it was all right with Mr. P. I helped the three of them move what little furniture there was in the sunporch out into the workroom. We made a space for Alfred’s makeshift desk near the workbench so he could plug in his computer.

“How can I help?” he asked Liam once Nick had moved his desk chair.

Liam fished a piece of paper from his pocket. “These are the Web sites for a couple of salvage places. They have their inventory online. What I need is enough trim to go around the windows and enough baseboard to finish the walls under the windows.” He looked at me. “I know you don’t care if the trim matches the rest of the place but I do.”

I held up both hands. “That’s fine with me.”

Liam pointed to the bottom of the paper. “That’s how many feet I need of both, and you know what both the trim and the baseboard look like.”

Mr. P. nodded. “I’ll get right on it.” He nudged his glasses up his nose. “I have some sources of my own as well.” Then he disappeared into the workroom.

Liam looked at me. “He has sources?”

“Yes, he does,” I said with a smile, “and you probably don’t want to know about them.”

I spent the first part of the afternoon in the garage work space removing moldings and plaster medallions that had been added to a beautiful Shaker-style armoire, which had also been painted a bilious shade of pea soup green. It had been meticulously put together with thick shelves and a shiplap back. I had no idea why anyone had wanted to paint it and then add so much decoration. For me the beauty of the piece was in its simple lines and beautiful wood.