Софи Келли - A Midwinter's Tail

“I don’t remember seeing you with Brady at that reception,” I said.

Maggie laughed. “That’s because you and Marcus had finally realized that I and everyone else was right about the two of you. I could have been dancing with a gorilla in a tutu and you wouldn’t have noticed.”

I felt my own face get warm and I reached for my mug and took a drink. “Why were you asking me about Vincent Starr? This has something to do with Dayna, doesn’t it?”

Maggie nodded. “Brady talked to his mother before the fundraiser.”

“I know,” I said.

“She told him she came back to town to see him and his brothers.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “You don’t think so.”

She shook her head and there was a touch of sadness in her green eyes. “I had Brady’s ticket for the party and I stopped by his office to drop it off to him because I was going to meet him there. I wanted to get to the Stratton early and double-check the table arrangement.”

I nodded without speaking.

“Brady was out by the reception desk talking to his mother when I got there. She took a pen and a piece of paper out of her bag and wrote down her cell phone number for him.” Maggie took a deep breath and let it out. “She had a ticket for the Vincent Starr lecture in her bag.” Her eyes met mine. “You told me it was sold out more than a week in advance.”

I felt something tighten in my chest. “It was.”

“You sent some tickets out by mail,” Maggie said.

“Yes, we did.”

“Dayna Chapman didn’t come here to see her sons. She came here because Vincent Starr was here. That’s what Brady thinks.”

“Do you think she had some kind of rare book?” I asked. I’d reduced half a piece of bread to a pile of crumbs on the plate in front of me without realizing it.

Maggie shrugged. “Maybe. Brady said she told him that his grandfather had died not long ago. Maybe . . . maybe she ended up with a book that belonged to him and wanted to sell it quietly so her sister wouldn’t find out.”

“Does Brady know if his grandfather was a collector?” I asked.

Maggie shook her head. She picked up her teapot and then set it down again, realizing that she hadn’t put any more hot water in it. “There’s one more thing that happened when Dayna was at Brady’s office. He said his mother dropped a piece of paper with an address on it and when he picked it up and asked her about it she grabbed it from him and told him it was none of his business.”

I caught Claire’s eye across the room and pointed at Maggie’s little hot water pot. The contents were probably cold by now. I waited until she’d brought a new one and topped up my coffee as well before I spoke. “Mags, did Brady see the address?”

“He did,” she said as she started the tea-making process again. “Tamera Lane. There’s no street with that name anywhere around here or in Minneapolis.” She stopped and looked at me across the table. “Kath, I don’t want to do anything to cause problems with you and Marcus. But you’re good at this. Please, could you ask a few questions? Brady’s a good guy.”

It felt as though the entire town wanted me to figure out what had happened to Dayna Chapman. I nodded across the table at her. “Okay,” I said.

21

I was having dinner with Marcus, so it was easy to stop at Roma’s clinic on the way out to his house to check on both Micah and Smokey again.

The old tomcat was doing much better. “I think he’s out of the woods,” Roma said. “But keep your fingers crossed.” She smiled at me. “Aren’t you going to be late for your dinner date?”

“How did you know I have a date?” I asked.

She gestured to Micah. The tiny ginger tabby cat was asleep in her cage on top of Marcus’s scarf. “Marcus stopped by to check on her on his way home.”

“He says he doesn’t have time for a cat,” I said.

Roma laughed. “Yeah, I don’t think she knows that.”

* * *

Marcus was tasting something from a pot on the stove when I got to his house.

“I don’t care what that is,” I said, unwinding my scarf from around my neck. “I haven’t eaten since lunch and I’m hungry.”

“So if it’s roadkill in cream sauce you’ll eat it,” he said with a smile.

I smiled back, unzipped my coat and tucked my gloves in one sleeve as I took it off. “If it’s gum rubber boot in sauce I’ll eat it.”

He gave an elaborate eye roll. “Well, I wish you’d told me that before I made meat loaf.”

“You made meat loaf?” I said. “I love meat loaf.”

He smiled. “I know,” he said, “and Hannah says hi.”

I dropped onto a chair. “Hi back at her. When did you talk to Hannah?”

He ducked his head over the large pot that smelled a little like nutmeg. “This morning when I called her for her meat loaf recipe.”

I laughed.

“She says she’s going to write out some of her recipes and e-mail them to me.”

“I’m looking forward to that,” I said. I tucked one leg up under me. “How was your day?” I asked. “Have you figured out who killed Dayna Chapman yet?”

“No.” He looked back over his shoulder at me. “Have you?”

“No,” I said.

“But you know something.”

“Kind of.”

“Kind of yes or kind of no?” He got a wire rack out of the cupboard and set it on the counter.

“Could I wait to answer that until we eat?” I asked.

He turned his head to look at me again. “Why?”

I stretched my arms over my head. “Because if we have a fight, then I’m going to have to go home and have a peanut butter sandwich instead of meat loaf and I don’t want to do that.”

Marcus reached for the oven mitts. “Okay,” he said.

“You were supposed to say we’re not going to fight,” I said teasingly.

He took the meat loaf out of the oven and set the pan on the wire rack. He turned the heat off under the pot on top of the stove and then he closed the space between us in two steps, leaned down, swept my hair behind my ear and kissed me. It would be clichéd to say my heart started fluttering. But it did. “We’re not going to fight,” he whispered against my ear.

Marcus went back to finishing supper and I sat there for a moment and tried to remember what we’d been talking about.

“Mmmm, that is so good,” I said after the first bite of the meat loaf. The nutmeg I’d thought I smelled had been sprinkled in the turnip and carrots that had been cooking on the stove.

“I’ll tell Hannah you liked her recipe.”

I looked at him sitting across from me. He was an incredibly handsome man. He was kind and loyal and smart. He had integrity and cats loved him. And no one had ever kissed me the way he did.

I set down my fork. “I’ve been trying really hard not to get mixed up in this case.”

“I know,” he said. “And I know it’s difficult because people you care about are involved.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “Kathleen, I don’t want you to be someone you’re not. I really don’t. It’s just that—” His mouth worked as he tried to find the right words. “I remember what it felt like when you went over that embankment down by the river, and that was just a few months ago. And last year, when you came so damn close to getting caught inside when that cabin exploded in the woods.” His blue eyes locked on to mine. “I don’t want to lose you.”

“You’re not going to,” I said. I leaned across the table to kiss him this time. I pressed my hand against his cheek.

He smiled. “Your sleeve’s in your turnip,” he said.

I smiled back at him. “Your elbow is in yours.”

After we’d gotten our respective body parts out of our supper and cleaned the turnip and carrot off our clothing, I told Marcus everything I knew.