Софи Райан: The Fast Аnd Тhe Furriest

I wasn’t surprised. Natalie wouldn’t have raised the question if she hadn’t had an answer. “Jackson was with you?” I asked.

She shook her head. “No. He was in court. Someone else from his office was with me.”

I remembered Jackson telling me the first time we’d met that he’d been in court. So I wouldn’t be able to ask him about the meeting. But it wouldn’t be that hard for Mr. P. to check.

That was pretty much the end of our conversation. Rose thanked Natalie for answering our questions. Liz took Charlie Carroll aside for a moment. I had no idea what they talked about but they both seemed satisfied with the conversation. Rose and I walked back to the SUV.

“Natalie Welland has mixed emotions about her sister,” I said.

I knew Leila only from what little Mac and Jackson had shared and from the photos Mac had showed me, but even on the small screen of his cell phone I’d been able to see that there was something special about the woman, some spark that had made people want to know her. It was the same quality that Liz had. More than charm or personality, it was some undefinable quality that pulled people in. My grandmother called it “presence.” It was as good a word as any. Whatever that elusive spark was, Natalie didn’t have it.

“I think it must have been difficult to be Leila’s little sister,” Rose said. “She was smart, beautiful and successful.”

I wondered what it had been like after so many years of being the family’s dirty little secret to finally join it and find oneself in the shadow of the perfect big sister. Natalie had said she was trying to keep costs down but had sibling rivalry caused her to sabotage Leila’s company? We kept coming back to du Mer. I couldn’t shake the feeling that Leila’s business was tied to what had happened. I just didn’t know how.

Chapter 19

We headed home.

“Now what?” Liz asked from the backseat.

Rose sighed softly. “We must have missed something.”

“Maybe it was just some random attack,” Liz said.

“It wasn’t,” I said.

I could see Rose studying me from the corner of my eye. “I don’t disagree, but why are you so sure?”

“It’s like you said before.” I glanced over at her for a moment. “Leila’s accident, Erin believing Mac had something to do with that and then doing a complete one-eighty. Her showing up here saying she needed to talk to him and then a few hours later she’s dead.” I blew my bangs off my face. “C’mon, even a bad movie of the week couldn’t get away with that many coincidences.” I couldn’t keep the frustration out of my voice.

“So we go over everything again,” Rose said. “And again if we have to. Maybe we missed something, something so small that we didn’t realize its significance. We’ll figure it out.”

I nodded, but I kept my eyes on the road. I had an idea about what that something small might be.

We stopped for lunch at a little diner about halfway between the salt works and North Harbor. Liz gave me directions and I could tell she was getting a kick out of telling me where to go.

“This place better be good,” I said as we got out of the SUV.

“Would I steer you wrong, child?” she asked.

“You steered us down a one-way street,” Rose said from in front of us.

“And we were only going one way so I don’t see the problem,” Liz replied.

Rose looked over her shoulder and sent a withering look Liz’s way.

Liz linked her arms through mine. “We’ll have lunch. We’ll regroup and we will figure this out,” she said, her voice low. “We’re not going to leave this cloud over Mac’s head. That’s a promise.”

The restaurant she had steered us to was a tiny building with a back patio overlooking the water. A young woman wearing denim shorts and a Red Sox T-shirt greeted us at the door. She leaned around Rose and her smile got wider when she saw Liz. “Hello, Mrs. French,” she said.

“Hello, Kelsey,” Liz said. “Could we have a table outside, please?”

The young woman nodded. Her blond hair was piled on top of her head in a loose knot that bobbed when she moved. She led us through a screen door to the wooden deck and took us to a table near the railing, where we could look out at the water but still be sheltered by a trellis entwined with purple clematis. “Your favorite table,” she said.

“Thank you.” Liz gave her a warm smile.

“Iced tea?”

Liz nodded and held up three fingers.

“I’ll be right back.”

“I’m not sure I wanted iced tea,” Rose said.

“Iced tea, lemonade, water. Those are your choices.” Liz ticked them off on the fingers she was still holding up.

“We don’t have menus,” Rose continued.

Liz leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. “There are no menus. Your choices are fried clams, fish and chips or lobster roll. We’re having lobster rolls.” She opened her eyes.

“That’s fine,” Rose said. Her chin had come up a little. “I was just asking.”

Liz closed her eyes again and Rose rolled hers at me.

“I saw that,” Liz said.

“Well, now, it would have been pointless for me to do it if you hadn’t seen it, now, wouldn’t it?” Rose said. She tipped her face up to the sky like a sunflower.

“You know her,” I said, pointing toward the building.

Liz nodded. “She’s studying business. She won the Jack French scholarship.” Jack French was Liz’s second husband.

Kelsey came back with three tall glasses of iced tea that I knew from the first sip hadn’t been made from powder in a can.

“This is lovely,” Rose exclaimed.

Kelsey smiled at her. “Thank you. It’s Mrs. French’s favorite.”

The lobster rolls came about five minutes later with roasted corn salad and kettle chips and I actually moaned as I took the first bite—and the second and the third.

“Why didn’t I know about this place?” I finally asked Liz when there was one lone potato chip and a few stray kernels of corn left on my plate. I couldn’t remember ever having a lobster roll that tasted so good and I’ve been eating them every summer since I was a kid.

“That’s a very good question,” Rose said, adjusting her glasses on her nose, the lenses darkened because of the sun.

“I have to have a few secrets,” Liz said. Her gaze didn’t quite meet mine so I knew she was hedging for a reason.

Kelsey came back then, smiling as she collected our plates.

“How were the lobster rolls?” she asked. The smile on her face told me she knew the answer.

“Absolutely delicious,” Rose said.

The young woman’s smile got a bit wider. “You’ll have to come back and try our clams.” She looked at Liz. “You and your friend are coming back for one more feed before I head back to class, right?”

Rose and I exchanged a look.

“When do your classes start?” Liz asked.

Kelsey named a date less than three weeks away. They talked for a minute about what courses she was taking and then she said, “I’ll get your check.”

“Who’s your friend ?” I asked, putting a little extra emphasis on the word “friend.”

“I already told you Kelsey won Jack’s scholarship,” Liz said. “Were you not listening?”

“Yes, we heard that,” Rose said, lacing her fingers and resting her hands on the table. “We mean the friend you had clams and chips with.”

“Nobody said I had clams and chips with anyone,” Liz said. “Kelsey asked if we were coming for clams and chips before the prime season is over.”

I folded my own hands, tenting my index fingers like a church steeple and leaning my chin lightly against them. “No. Not we, meaning us. She asked if you and your friend were coming. Friend . Singular. Kelsey strikes me as a very smart young woman. I’m sure she can count.” I raised an eyebrow. “Who is it?”