Софи Райан - The Fast Аnd Тhe Furriest

Nick took a deep breath. He shook his right hand as though he were trying to loosen his fingers. “I saw a man. He was wearing a gray hoodie and his hands were in his pockets so I didn’t see what color skin or hair he had. But I heard Erin Fellowes call him Mac. For the record I don’t think Mac is a murderer but I do think he’s keeping secrets and it’s very possible those secrets are why Erin Fellowes is dead.” His eyes were glued to my face. “She said, ‘Mac, leave me alone.’ I heard her clearly, Sarah. I’m sorry.”

I felt a surge of relief. Nick’s ID of Mac was far from certain. “All right,” I said slowly.

His eyes searched my face a little uncertainly. “All right what?”

“I will try to put aside our differences for now , until Erin Fellowes’s killer is found. After that I’m not making any promises.”

He smiled. “Okay,” he said. He glanced at his watch. “I’m sorry. I have to go.” He hesitated and then put his arms around me. It was an awkward hug, which told me things weren’t really completely okay with us.

“I’ll talk to you soon,” he said.

I nodded and watched him get into his SUV and drive away.

I went back inside to get my bag and Elvis. The latter I found sitting on Mr. P.’s desk in the Angels’ office, looking idly out the window. He looked up at me and licked his whiskers.

“Ready to go home?” I asked.

“Mrr,” he said, then his gaze darted to the window again for a moment.

“I was talking to Nick.” I folded my arms over my chest. “Which I’m sure you knew. Did Rose tell you to spy on us to make sure I didn’t whack Nick with my purse?” I knew that wasn’t nearly as preposterous as it sounded. The cat suddenly became engrossed in washing his right front paw.

Elvis and I headed home. There was no sign of Rose so I couldn’t tell her I knew what she’d done. Elvis and I ate supper and then he went into the bedroom to watch Jeopardy!

I sat on a stool at the counter and called Liz. “Hi,” I said when she answered on the sixth ring, slightly out of breath. “Did I take you from something? I was going to come over for a minute.”

“Where are you?” Liz asked.

“I’m home. I know what you and Rose and probably Avery as well were up to and I will give you all an A for effort—and sneakiness.”

Liz gave a snort of derision. “If the two of them had listened to me you wouldn’t be home right now. At least not by yourself.”

“You do know that whole chloroform-on-a-handkerchief thing only works in the movies, right?” I said, grinning in spite of myself. I really wanted to be mad at their attempts at matchmaking between Nick and me, but I couldn’t seem to manage it.

“Speak for yourself,” she retorted.

“I’m leaving now,” I said, getting up to grab my bag from the arm of the sofa. “So if Channing is dancing in your living room in his boxers and a feather boa you might want to get him out of there.” I hung up laughing before Liz could answer.

“I’m going to Liz’s. I won’t be long,” I called to Elvis.

“Merow,” he answered after a moment.

Liz let me in and I made a show of peeking into the living room with one hand up to shield my eyes.

She glared at me. “Don’t start, missy,” she warned.

I gave her my best wide-eyed look of innocence, which was pretty darn good.

“Channing wasn’t here and if he had been it certainly wouldn’t have been in a feather boa.” She looked down her nose at me as only Elizabeth Emmerson Kiley French could do and then led the way into the kitchen. “You know feathers make me sneeze,” she added over her shoulder.

Liz didn’t ask if I wanted a cup of tea. She just got out two cups and poured one for each of us. There was a plate with two lemon tarts in the middle of the table. I reached for one. Liz set my tea in front of me and I set the tart on the edge of the saucer.

She turned to the cupboard and handed me a plate. “Were you born in a barn?” she asked.

I broke a bite off the tart and popped it in my mouth, putting the rest on my plate. “No. I was born in a hospital, although rumor has it I was almost born in the backseat of a Toyota Tercel.”

Liz grinned as she sat down opposite me. “Front seat, the way I heard it,” she said.

I made a face, wrinkling my nose at her. “You’ve been looking into Mac’s background,” I said.

She didn’t deny it. She simply nodded and reached for her teacup. Liz had connections in the business world from her work with the Emmerson Foundation.

I waited. She took a sip of her tea and set the cup down again. “It probably won’t surprise you to learn that Mac was an excellent financial adviser, by all accounts.”

“It doesn’t.”

She reached for the other tart. “I would have hired him,” she said.

High praise.

“Did you find out anything about Leila’s family?” I asked, licking my finger to pick up the crumbs of shortbread crust on my plate.

“Old money and many of the clichés that go with it,” Liz said with an edge of disdain in her voice. “Mac’s clients, his coworkers, no one other than Leila’s family, believed he had anything to do with what happened to his wife.”

“You think there were hard feelings when Mac took over as Marguerite Thompson-Davis’s financial adviser.”

“There was a”—Liz cleared her throat—“a conversation that got a little heated between Mac and his future father-in-law right after the account was moved, heated at least on Leila’s father’s part.”

“How heated?” I asked, reaching for the other half of my lemon tart.

“There were pigeons in the parking lot that heard him. Or so I was told.” Liz tapped a nail on the top of the table. “I know that Alfred has eliminated Leila’s cousin, Stevie, as a suspect, but I did find out an interesting piece of information about her.”

I raised a curious eyebrow since my mouth was full of lemon tart.

“That property you visited, that house, all mortgaged to the hilt. They’ve been trying to get this organic food business of theirs off the ground for the past two years. They don’t have a pot to—”

I shot her a look across the table.

Liz narrowed her eyes at me. “Bake beans in,” she finished.

“Money,” I said with a sigh. “None of these people knew what it was like to go without and yet it seemed to mean so much to them.”

Liz reached for her tea again. “You know what the good book says. Love of money is the root of all evil.”

I nodded as I picked up my own cup. I wasn’t sure if anything Liz had found out was going to help Mac, but as Mr. P. liked to say, information is power.

There was a white bankers box on the chair between us. It seemed like a good time to change the conversation. I dipped my head in the direction of the carton. “Have you found anything?” I asked.

Liz had agreed to help Michelle in her quest to prove that Michelle’s late father, Rob Andrews, had been framed for embezzlement. When I’d found out what they were doing I’d asked Liz if I could help as well. It was, I hoped, my chance to really restore our friendship.

Liz played with the china cup in front of her, tracing the rim with a finger. “I’ve been going over notes from the board meetings from that time.”

“And?”

“And I haven’t found any indication that anything was wrong or anything was even suspected of being wrong. We all liked Rob. He’d had great references and he was doing a good job.” She leaned over, lifted the lid of the box and handed me a manila folder. “Would you take a look at these?”

“Sure,” I said. “What am I looking at?”

“Financial documents from the time period when Robert Andrews assumed directorship of the Sunshine Camp.”