Telling Tails

Chapter 9

That was all it took to wash away Rose’s anger at Charlotte and Mr. P., although I suspected she wouldn’t have stayed angry even without all the work the two of them had done to try to trace Jeff Cameron. Rose and Charlotte had been friends for a long time, and although she didn’t talk about it, I knew her feelings for Mr. P. ran deep, just the way his did for her.

I reached for my coffee and shifted in my chair so I could look at Liz. “And do you have anything you’d like to share with the group?” I asked.

“As a matter of fact, I do,” she said. “Leesa Cameron may”—she held up one finger—“may have been seeing another man.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Well, apparently she’s some kind of rower.”

I nodded. “I saw a scull in the backyard.”

“Her husband is a runner.” She looked at me and I nodded. “Leesa Cameron had been working out with someone.” She paused. Knowing Liz, it was for effect. “For at least the past two months. And they’d been running.”

“Why wouldn’t she just go running with her husband?” Rose asked.

“You’re sure about the running part?” I said.

“One hundred percent,” Liz said. “Shannon, who did my nails”—she held up her hand like she was royalty—“said Leesa admitted she’d been running, but she said ‘we’: We were running.” Liz reached for the insulated carafe that held the tea. Her eyes flicked in my direction. “Shannon said Leesa Cameron’s feet reminded her of yours.”

Liz had gifted me with a spa pedicure at Phantasy after a road race I’d done in May. It had been a wonderfully pampering experience and I’d been thinking of doing it again.

I made a face at her. “For the record there’s nothing wrong with my feet, but we get your point. Do you know who Leesa was working out with?”

Liz shook her head. “Shannon didn’t know, but I’m going for a massage. I’ll see what I can find out.”

Talk turned to what to do next. The consensus was to dig into Jeff Cameron’s background to try to figure out where he was at the moment and who was helping him.

Rose decided to spend the afternoon in the Angels’ sunporch office with Alfred, while Charlotte worked in the shop with Avery. Mr. P. looked as though a load had been lifted from his shoulders.

“I’m going to do some fact-finding,” Liz said, slipping one arm around my waist and walking me to the stairs.

“The kind of fact-finding that involves scented oil and a massage table?” I teased.

“The kind that I hope will either verify Alfred’s theory or put the kibosh on it.”

“So you think the idea that Jeff Cameron set up his wife is a little too far-fetched,” I said, lowering my voice so Charlotte and Avery didn’t have a chance of overhearing.

Liz scrunched up her nose at me. “Child, I’ve been around long enough that there’s very little that seems too far-fetched to me. But Detective Andrews and Nicolas, they don’t have the same amount of life experience.”

I smiled. “I love you,” I said, knowing what she’d say before she answered.

She leaned over and kissed my cheek, waving one hand dismissively. “Everybody does,” she said. And with that she headed out the door.

Chloe Sanders showed up around two o’clock. I was working out in the garage. Mr. P. came to get me. Charlotte and Rose were in the sunporch waiting with her.

“Sarah, this is Chloe,” Charlotte said. She gave the young woman a warm smile. “Sarah owns Second Chance.”

“Thanks for coming to talk to us, Chloe,” I said.

“Mrs. Elliot told me what happened,” she said. “I’m not sure I can help, but I’ll try.”

Chloe Sanders was tiny—barely five feet tall. Her shoulder-length brown hair had a deep blue streak of color in the front and she had three piercings in her left ear. In contrast, her clothes were conservative—black trousers and a crisp white shirt with three-quarter-length sleeves.

“Do you have any idea where Mr. Cameron is?” Rose asked.

Chloe shook her head. “I got a text from him last night telling me that he was going out of town so I had the rest of the week off.”

“Did he say anything to you yesterday?” I asked.

“I only saw him for a few minutes yesterday morning. He had me researching a list of companies. I was at the library and down at the town hall.”

Elvis padded into the room, jumped up onto Mr. P.’s desk and bumped Chloe’s arm with his head. She smiled down at him. “Hello,” she said.

“That’s Elvis,” I said.

She held out her hand and after he’d sniffed it Elvis let her stroke his fur. “What happened to his nose?” Chloe asked, indicating the long scar on the cat’s face.

“I don’t know,” I said. “It happened before I got him.”

“Was it typical for you not to talk to Mr. Cameron all day?” Charlotte asked. Her hands were folded over the apron she always wore in the shop.

“It was if he had meetings most of the day. He’d just give me a list of what he wanted done.” She continued to stroke Elvis’s fur. He had a blissful expression on his face.

“He had a meeting yesterday?” I asked.

She nodded. “In Portland. You know that Helmark provides temporary employees for businesses?”

“I do,” I said.

“Jeff was trying to convince more companies here to use Helmark. He had a lot of meetings.”

Chloe Sanders was articulate, not surprising for a former debater, and she looked whomever she was talking to in the eye when she spoke. I couldn’t see any reason not to believe she was telling the truth. I thought about Leesa saying Jeff called Chloe the Roomba. It was hard not to think of him as a jerk.

“How late did you work last night?” Rose asked.

“I think it was about quarter to six when I left the library. They close at six.”

“Chloe, do you mind telling us what you did last night?”

She cleared her throat, pressing her free hand to her mouth for a moment. “No. I don’t mind. Mom and Dad went to New Hampshire for a few days. They’re big NASCAR fans. I went home, ordered a pizza and watched TV. Like I said, Jeff sent me a text giving me the rest of the week off. That was it.”

I glanced at Elvis and then caught Rose’s eye. I gave my head a little shake. I turned my attention back to Chloe. “Thank you for talking to us,” I said.

“You’re welcome.” She gave Elvis one last scratch behind his ears and then she turned to Charlotte. “It was so good to see you, Mrs. Elliot. If you need anything else, call me, please.”

“I will,” she said. “I’ll walk you out.”

I waited until they were out of earshot, and then I turned to Rose. Elvis was washing his face.

“You saw that?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said.

That blissful expression Elvis had been wearing while Chloe stroked his fur hadn’t wavered until she’d told us she’d been home alone all evening watching TV. Then it had changed to a look that was the antithesis of contentment.

“Chloe Sanders lied about what she was doing last night,” I said.

“Do you think it’s possible that lovely child had something to do with what I saw?” Rose asked.

“I hope not,” I said.

“Alfred and I will see what we can find out about her.”

I nodded, hoping that the young woman Jeff Cameron had derisively referred to as a Roomba hadn’t gotten herself into a mess that couldn’t easily be cleaned up.

Rose came up to my office at about four thirty. “I’m taking Avery home with me to bake,” she said, standing in the doorway.

“Do you want a ride?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Liz is coming to get us. She didn’t manage to find out anything about who Lessa Cameron has been working out with. She said she’s not throwing in the towel, though.”

I smiled. “That doesn’t surprise me.”

Rose yawned. “Would it be all right with you if we took the dog biscuits over to Casey tomorrow?”

“Sure,” I said.

She smiled then. “Thank you, Sarah.”

“Hey, I like Casey, too.”

“I mean thank you for everything you’ve done in the last twenty-four hours.” She paused for a moment. “I don’t know what we’d do without you.”

“I’m not planning on going anywhere,” I said, “so you won’t be able to find out.”

“I love you, sweetie,” she said.

“I love you, too,” I said.

I stayed late to finish cleaning the wicker chairs so I could get them painted. Elvis was happy to curl up on my desk chair with a few fish crackers while he waited. I was standing back, admiring my handiwork, when Mac came into the garage.

“Hi. I didn’t realize you were still here.”

“I want to paint these tomorrow,” I said.

He walked around the two fat chairs. “They look a lot better than when you bought them from Cleveland.” Cleveland was a picker I bought things from on a regular basis.

I wiped my hands on my jeans. “Yeah, scraping off a layer of chicken droppings is pretty much guaranteed to spruce up anything.”

Mac grinned.

“What are you working on?” I asked, pulling off the old flannel shirt I’d been wearing over my T-shirt while I worked.

“Just gluing the joints of that old nursery rocker. I already sanded it, so one of us will be able to paint it.”

I stretched one arm up over my head. “Thanks,” I said. “I couldn’t do all of this without you, you know.”

He turned and smiled at me. “Hey, you’re the one who keeps finding treasures under layers of chicken poop.”

“And you’re the one who keeps all of this running while I’m off being Dr. Watson to the Sherlock Holmeses who have their office in my sunporch.”

“What do you think about Alfred’s theory?” Mac asked.

I blew a stray clump of hair back off my face. “I admit it seems like a bit of a stretch, but on the other hand it also seems like a bit of a coincidence that Rose would show up at the cottage just when Leesa Cameron was moving her husband’s dead body.”

“I had the same thought,” Mac said. “The fact that there hasn’t been any activity on his cards or his phone is unsettling, though.”

I nodded. “I know. I only spoke to Jeff Cameron for a couple of minutes when he was here, and I spent maybe five minutes with Leesa Cameron when Michelle and I went to talk to her last night, but I can’t help feeling there was something wrong in that marriage.” I reached down and picked up the scrub brush I’d used on the chairs. “Which I guess makes sense whether you’re setting your wife up for murder or killing your husband.”

“It’s more than that, though, isn’t it?” he said.

I turned the brush over in my hands. “Let’s say for a moment that Mr. P. is wrong. That means Jeff Cameron ended his marriage with a text message. And was cruel enough to send a gift to his wife to mark the occasion, because, let’s face it, those candlesticks had nothing to do with remembering Leesa Cameron’s grandmother on what would have been her birthday. Who ends what was supposed to be a lifetime commitment like that?”

He shrugged. “Sometimes people make a commitment and they mean it when they make it, but after a while they find out they just don’t have what it takes to keep it.”

I set the brush back down on the stool I’d been using as a makeshift table. “As Avery would say, that doesn’t mean that then they get to act like a glass bowl.”

Mac grinned at my use of Avery’s euphemism for the word “asshole.”

“Maybe it would be better if we all waited to get married until we could keep our commitments,” I said.

That made him laugh. “There probably wouldn’t be nearly as many marriages.” He lifted one of the chairs off the drop cloth I’d been using. I moved the other and bent down to pick up one end of the canvas. Mac reached for the other two corners. We had a length of clothesline cord stretched across one end of the old garage and we draped the drop cloth over it to dry.

“Do you believe in marriage, Mac?” I asked. “I mean, in the idea of it?”

“Yes,” he said. He pushed back the sleeves of his chambray shirt. “I see it as a public affirmation of a private commitment.”

“You think we need that.”

He shrugged. “I can only speak for myself, and I know I want it. I want the person I’m with to know that I’m not going anywhere when things go bad, because at some point they will. That’s just life.” He narrowed his dark eyes and studied my face for a moment. “May I ask you something?”

“Sure,” I said. “You’ve been around when things have gone bad around here. I think that means you’re entitled to ask me pretty much anything you want to.”

“Why didn’t you and Nick ever become a couple?”

It wasn’t the question I’d expected. I pulled the elastic free that had been holding my hair in a loose knot to buy a moment of time. “Timing,” I finally said. “The summer we were fifteen I had a crush on Nick and he went to music camp and fell for a flute player, a cellist and a girl who played the bassoon from Nova Scotia. In that order. I came home from college my freshman year at Christmastime madly in love with a poet who wrote long poems with no punctuation or capital letters.”

“You made that last part up,” Mac said with a smile.

I ran a hand through my hair. “You have no idea how much I wish I had. But I didn’t.” I shrugged. “It’s just never been the right time for Nick and me.”

“You’ve both been back here for more than a year now. You’re not seeing anybody, and as far as I can tell, neither is he.”

A piece of a wooden dowel was lying on the floor. I bent down to pick it up. “Everyone wants us to be a couple,” I said. “You’ve probably noticed that. Rose made a point of telling me what great hair Nick has. Charlotte actually worked the fact that he doesn’t snore into a conversation, and they told him that I have good teeth. They’d all be so happy if Nick and I got together.”

Through the open door I heard a vehicle pull into the parking lot.

“Would you?” Mac asked. He glanced outside. “That’s the people Rose sold the bed to on Tuesday. I better go.”

I nodded without speaking and watched him walk across the lot to the middle-aged couple getting out of a red half-ton truck. I thought about Mac’s question and wondered how I would have answered if he’d waited to hear me.

I looked at my watch. I had just enough time to grab Elvis, head home, change and meet Jess for Thursday Night Jam. And Nick, I remembered belatedly.

I was the first to arrive at The Black Bear. I stood just inside the entrance and peeled off my slicker. It had started to rain as Elvis and I were driving home, and I hoped the people who had bought the bed hadn’t had far to go.

Sam waved from across the room and hurried over to wrap me in a hug. “Hi, kiddo,” he said. “I saved you a table.” He was tall and lean, his hair a shaggy salt-and-pepper mix and his beard was clipped close, a concession to the warmer weather. A pair of Dollar Store reading glasses was perched on his head.

Sam Newman not only owned and ran the pub, he’d been my late dad’s best friend. Sam had been making music his whole life, and he’d known my father just about as long. Right after college, before what Sam referred to as the three “M’s”—Mariah (Mom), marriage and the munchkin (me)—my dad and Sam had put together a band called Back Roads. They’d even had a minor hit, “End of Days.” Even though I considered my stepfather, Peter, to be my dad, Sam still took on a kind of fatherly role in my life. I could count on him to be straight with me, and when it came to music and guitars I trusted him more than I did anyone else.

“Thanks,” I said, looking around. There were photos on every wall of the space; Sam with the various bands he’d played in over the years and musicians who had played in the pub, including some celebrities. My favorite was a photo of Sam and my dad that hung behind the bar. They were squinting into the sunshine, grinning, with their arms around each other’s shoulders, and it made me feel good every time I saw it.

The place was already three-quarters full and I knew by the time the band was ready to play there wouldn’t be an empty seat in the house.

“You’re early,” Sam said as he walked me over to a small table with a RESERVED sign on it. “You want supper?”

I nodded. “Please.” My stomach growled loudly for emphasis.

“How about spicy chicken and noodles?”

“That sounds wonderful.”

“Do you want to wait for Jess?” Sam asked.

I patted my stomach. “No.”

He grinned. “I’ll put your order in.” He turned toward the kitchen and then turned back to me. “I almost forgot. I heard what happened. How’s Rose?”

“She’s fine,” I said. “I’ve been trying to get her to take it easy.”

Sam laughed. “That’s a fool’s errand.”

I laughed as well. “Tell me about it. She either pretends she can’t hear me when I tell her to sit down or she plays the I changed your diapers card.”

“I’ll have to remember that one,” he said.

I rolled my eyes. “You’ve never changed a diaper in your life.”

He nodded in agreement. “But I have fed you smushed-up peas and I have the photos to prove it. Who knew smushed-up peas could also be used as hair gel?”

“One of these days I’m going to find those pictures,” I warned, shaking a finger at him.

Sam just laughed again. “Are you driving?” he asked.

I nodded. “I am. It’s raining. Why?”

“We have an amber ale from that new microbrewery, Grimcross. I just wanted to get your opinion.”

“Ask Jess,” I said. “She’d be happy to tell you what she thinks.”

“Good idea,” Sam said. “Tina will bring your order when it’s ready.” He headed for the kitchen.

I’d just picked up my fork when Jess slid onto the chair beside me. “I was not meant to live near the water,” she said, shrugging out of a red raincoat, which she draped on the back of the chair.

“Hello to you, too,” I said. “And why were you not meant to live near the water?” I knew Jess didn’t really mean that. She loved being close to the ocean. She wasn’t as fanatical about sailing as Mac was, but she liked to go out a few times each season on one of the big schooners that called the harbor home. I teased her that she’d been a pirate in a past life.

Jess put a hand to her hair. “This,” she said.

“Your hair looks good,” I said. She was wearing it back from her face in a loose braid.

“Well, it was like wrestling with a bear to get it to do anything.” She held up her hands about three feet apart. “When it’s humid, it gets this big.” She peered at the bowl in front of me. “That smells fantastic. What is it?”

“Spicy chicken and noodles,” I said, taking a bite.

“Ooo, I want some,” she said.

I darted my eyes sideways to look at her.

“Don’t worry,” Jess said. “I’m not crazy enough to try and take food away from you.” She looked around the pub, and then I saw Tina making her way across the room toward our table.

I had no idea how Jess did it, but she was always able to get the attention of servers, bartenders and sales associates wherever we were.

“What could I get you?” Tina asked when she reached the table.

“I’ll have what she’s having,” Jess said, pointing to my bowl, “with a fried egg on top.”

“What is it with you and fried eggs?” I asked after Tina was on her way to the kitchen.

Jess shrugged. “I like them as long as I don’t have to eat them by themselves.” She reached over and swiped a breadstick from my plate.

“I saw that.”

“I know,” she said before taking a huge bite.

“How was your day?” I dipped the end of the remaining breadstick in the spicy sauce in my bowl.

“Good. Lots of tourists in the shop. No bus tours, but there was a group of people in camper vans traveling together. Did you get any of them at your place?”

I nodded.

“Hey, I saw Josh. He told me about Rose. Is she all right?”

I set down my fork. “She’s fine. I think her head is harder than a cement block. How did Josh know?”

I had known Josh Evans since we were kids. He was a lawyer and had come to the Angels’ rescue more than once.

Jess shrugged. “His mother’s working for Liz now, remember?”

Jane Evans had worked for Daniel Swift, who was descended from the original family that had founded North Harbor, at Swift Holdings. Liz had persuaded her to come work for the Emmerson Foundation, Liz’s family’s charitable foundation.

“Liz probably told Jane,” Jess continued. “She told Josh. You know how those things work.”

Tina came back then with Jess’s order, including a bottle of the amber ale Sam had mentioned to me.

“Sam wanted your opinion on that,” I said, indicating the tall green bottle.

Tina smiled. “On the house.”

“I can do that,” Jess said with a smile.

We ate in companionable silence for a few minutes, Jess wordlessly handing over one of her breadsticks. “So is Nick coming?” she asked.

“As far as I know.”

“Do you want me to remember a previous engagement and make myself scarce?”

I frowned at her. “Why would you do that?”

She raised an eyebrow. “So the two of you can have a little alone time.”

I looked around at the rapidly filling room. “Because this is such an intimate romantic place,” I said.

“Hey, I was just trying to nudge you two along a little,” Jess said.

I rolled my eyes at her.

“Are you at least going to kiss him again? And I don’t mean that little peck-on-the-cheek thing you do, which is more like kissing your brother.”

“We’re not talking about kissing Nick or my brother.”

Jess opened her mouth to say something and I held up a hand. “Not. Doing. It.”

She laughed. “Well, at least tell me if the earth moved when you kissed Nick.”

“You’ve been watching Outlander again, haven’t you?” I said.

“Love me some Jamie Fraser,” Jess said. “I wouldn’t mind kissing him.”

I shook my head and bent over my bowl again.

“So have you figured out exactly what happened to Rose yet?” she asked after she’d devoured about three-quarters of her noodles and chicken. She’d tucked one leg underneath her and was leaning against the back of her chair, drinking the beer straight from the bottle.

I sighed and shook my head. “Not really.” I explained what Rose had seen, what Michelle thought had happened and how I’d noticed the needle mark on Rose’s neck, which had resulted in Nick taking the blood sample.

“So what do you think?” she said. “Do you believe Rose actually did see someone dragging that guy’s body?”

“I think she saw something. I just don’t know what. You know Rose. She’s not above taking a little dramatic license to get what she wants, but she wouldn’t make this up and she didn’t have a stroke. First of all, they checked her out at the hospital, and second, she’s as healthy as a horse. Her blood pressure is lower than mine.”

“Well, for what it’s worth, I don’t think Leesa Cameron killed her husband, assuming that he’s really dead.”

I pushed my empty dish away. “And that would be because?”

“She’s been in the shop about half a dozen times,” Jess said. “And she just bought a vintage lace robe on Tuesday. It’s not the kind of sexy purchase a woman makes if she’s going to kill her husband the next day.”

“True,” I said. “But it is the kind of sexy purchase a woman makes if someone other than her husband is going to see her in it.”

Jess made a face. “Good point. You think someone else was going to get a look at the goods, so to speak?”

“I don’t know,” I said with a sigh. “I wish there was a way to find out.”

“What are you drinking?” a voice said behind us. Nick was standing there.

He really was cute, I thought, looking up at him as he shrugged out of his rain jacket. His hair was windblown, which made him look younger and less serious. He’d always had the kind of boy-next-door looks that made women swoon.

Jess turned the bottle so he could read the label. “So what’s wrong with it?” he asked, snagging the third chair and pulling it closer to us before he sat down next to me. He smelled like Hugo, the aftershave he’d been wearing since high school, the aftershave he’d been wearing when I French-kissed him at fifteen.

I shook my head. It wasn’t a good time to think about that.

“Nothing,” Jess said. “It’s great—rich, warm with a hint of caramel.”

“So why the face?”

“We were talking about what happened to Rose,” I said. “Do you know if Michelle has managed to get a lead on Jeff Cameron?”

“Not as far as I know,” Nick said. “What about Rose and her cohorts? Have they come up with anything?”

Jess tried not to smile and took another drink of her beer.

“They have a couple of theories,” I said, choosing my words carefully.

“Are you going to tell me what they are?” Nick scanned the room but couldn’t seem to catch the eye of any waitstaff. Jess looked up, and just like before, Tina was suddenly on her way to the table. “How do you do that?” he said.

“I’m cute,” she said with an offhand shrug. “And I tip better than you do.”

Nick ordered a cheeseburger and our usual chips and salsa, which we had winter or summer.

“And one of those?” Tina asked, pointing at the beer bottle in Jess’s hand.

Nick made a face. “Sadly, I’m on call. Just coffee.”

“Good choice,” she said. She looked at me. “Another decaf?”

“Please,” I said.

“And one for me, too, please,” Jess added.

“It shouldn’t take long,” Tina said.

Nick leaned an elbow on the table. “So tell me, what are the Angels’ theories about where Jeff Cameron is?”

“I’m not answering that question,” I said. “It’s just going to make you crazy if I tell you.”

He gave me that little boy smile that after all the years of using it on me shouldn’t have worked so well but often did. “Oh, c’mon, Sarah. Give me a break. I’m trying. I didn’t say one word to Rose about getting involved in this case.”

“Seriously? You didn’t?” Jess said, skepticism clearly in her expression and her voice.

He turned to look at her, narrowing his brown eyes. “You’re not helping.”

She pointed a finger at his face. “It’s so adorable how you think I was trying to.” A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth, but she managed to keep it in check.

A different server appeared at the table with Nick’s coffee, along with a pot of decaf and a heavy stoneware mug for Jess. I waited until he’d filled both of our cups before I answered Nick. “Okay,” I said. “Rose and the others actually have two theories and they’re working on both of them. One is that Leesa Cameron killed her husband.”

“I thought she has an alibi.”

“Alibis can be faked,” Jess said, adding cream to her mug.

“Yes, Leesa Cameron has an alibi, but it’s just the word of one person at the moment,” I added.

“What’s the other theory?” Nick asked.

I hesitated, reaching for a packet of sugar to buy a bit of time.

“Oh, c’mon, Sarah,” he said. “Tell me.”

“Jeff Cameron faked his own death,” I said flatly.

I waited for him to laugh. To my surprise he just nodded.

“Wait a minute, you’re not going to tell me how preposterous the idea is?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “Because it’s not. People have faked their deaths before. The problem is they tend to slip up in some way—they contact someone in their old life or their story makes the news and they get recognized. So if that’s what happened, there’s a good chance he’ll get caught.”

Jess leaned sideways out of Nick’s line of sight and winked at me. I ignored her even though I was happy to see that Nick was trying to be less judgmental when it came to the Angels’ detective agency. He’d been blindsided when Mr. P. had met all the state’s requirements, become a licensed private investigator and taken Rose on as his apprentice. He seemed to think his mother and her friends should spend their time baking cookies and holding fund-raisers for the library.

Tina came back with Nick’s food and the chips and salsa just as Sam and the rest of The Hairy Bananas came from the back and headed for the small stage. We didn’t talk after that, although more than once Nick and I did sing—along with a lot of other people—much to Jess’s amusement. Nick was actually a very talented guitar player and a couple of times had sat in for a few songs with the band. Anyone who could play was welcome to join the guys, although it didn’t happen very often. Sam had asked me to join them, but I hadn’t practiced in a long time and I’d never been as good as Nick anyway. I liked to play mainly because it made me feel closer to my dad. My guitar had been his, lost for years after his car accident.

The band ended their first set with a rocking version of Bachman-Turner Overdrive’s “Takin’ Care of Business.” Classic rock songs were the most popular with the pub’s clientele.

Jess got to her feet. “I see someone I need to talk to. Do you want anything?”

I shook my head.

“How about you, Dr. Feelgood?” She nudged Nick with her elbow.

“I’m good, thanks,” he said.

I turned so I was facing him. “When are you going to bring your guitar and sit in with Sam?” I asked.

He swiped a hand over his chin. “When I have some time to practice first.”

“You know every single one of the songs they just played.”

He grinned. “I’ll bring my guitar if you bring yours.”

I shook my head. “No way. I don’t play nearly as well as you do.”

“‘Peaceful Easy Feeling,’” he said. The Eagles song was the first one he’d taught me to play after I’d gotten my dad’s guitar.

When I didn’t say anything he bumped my leg with his knee. “You could play that with your eyes closed.”

“And I’ll sound like I’m playing it with my eyes closed,” I retorted.

“I’ll bring my guitar over and we’ll practice it together.” He leaned closer. “It’ll be fun.” His breath was warm against my cheek and I could smell his aftershave. Catching the scent always seemed to take me back in time.

It would be fun, I knew, playing with him again. Nick had finally agreed to come running with me, and the times we’d been out I’d laughed myself silly, mostly because he ran like a black bear chasing a picnic basket. “I’ll think about it,” I said.

He straightened up and gave me a triumphant look.

I waggled a finger in his face. “No, no, no! Don’t think you’ve won any kind of victory. I said I’d think about it. Think. That’s all.”

He just kept grinning at me.

“I’m changing the subject,” I said. “Any idea when you might get the results of Rose’s blood tests?”

“Maybe tomorrow,” he said. “More likely it will be Monday.” He shrugged. “Once we get those results we’ll have a better idea of what happened to Rose.”

“What would make someone set up another person for murder?” I asked, reaching for my mug.

“Anger and revenge are the top two reasons.”

“As far as I know there was no reason for Jeff Cameron to feel that way about his wife,” I said. Jess was making her way back to the table.

Nick nodded. “Yeah, that theory does have more holes than a colander, but like I said, once we get Rose’s blood work maybe we’ll have a better idea of what’s going on.”

For a moment I couldn’t move. Then I carefully set my mug back on the table. It was that or break it over Nick’s head, and I knew Sam wouldn’t be happy about the latter. “What did you say?” I asked. To my surprise my voice sounded perfectly normal.

“I said there are a lot of holes in the Angels’ theory,” he said.

“No, you didn’t,” I said. “You said their theory had more holes than a colander.”

Nick looked at me blankly. “Uh-huh. It’s the thing you drain spaghetti in. It has holes in the bottom.”

“I know what a colander is,” I said.

“So what’s wrong?” he asked. “Because I can see that something is.”

What had Michelle said to me on the phone about that blood work? “Maybe that will clear things up.” Now I understood exactly what Nick’s agenda had been.

Jess had reached the table, but instead of sitting down she stood by my chair. She was five-nine in her sock-covered feet, at least two inches taller in the heels she was wearing, and I felt as though I had a Valkyrie beside me.

“At lunch today your mother said the same thing; their theory had more holes than a colander.”

Nick flushed and his mouth twisted to one side.

“She told you what to say to me.”

He shook his head. “No.”

I raised my eyebrows but didn’t say anything.

“Okay, she did suggest I not say that I think Michelle is probably right about Rose.”

Jess groaned. “I swear, Nick, sometimes you’re about as smart as a bag of hammers.” She sat down, gave me a look of sympathy and rolled her eyes.

Nick shook his head and gestured with one hand. “Both of you seem to be ignoring the fact that Rose could have had a stroke. A stroke. If she did, she needs to be under a doctor’s care.” He made a motion in the air between Jess and me. “You think you’re the only ones who care about her? Yes, when you called I’d already talked to Michelle. I saw a chance to have a couple of blood tests run to make sure Rose is all right. And yes, the toxicology tests are being done as well.”

“Rose was examined by a doctor at the hospital. And they ran some tests. She didn’t have a stroke, Nick.” I struggled to keep my voice down.

“Oh, c’mon,” he said. “Do you really think Rose saw Leesa Cameron dragging her husband’s body across their kitchen floor? Or are you going with Cameron and some mysterious girlfriend staging some kind of elaborate setup?”

I swallowed down the sour taste at the back of my throat. “I’m going with taking Rose at her word until I see some real evidence that tells me something else happened.”

“Well, I’m not willing to let something bad happen that I could have prevented.”

Jess touched my arm. “Please let me take this one,” she said. She didn’t wait for my answer. She fixed Nick with her blue eyes. “First of all, you’ve taken one too many hockey pucks to the head if you think misleading or pretending or whatever you want to call it with Sarah is a good idea. And second, who exactly appointed you the guardian of all the rest of us, the all-knowing, all-seeing oracle who knows what’s best?”

Nick kept his eyes on me. “Stay out of this, Jess,” he said. “This has nothing to do with you.”

She gave a snort of laughter and moved her chair back a couple of inches. “I’m moving out of the way because I figure there’s a good chance you’re going to get hit with lightning for being such a hypocrite.” She glanced at me. “You should move out of the way, too, Sarah.”

Anger flashed across Nick’s face. Jess didn’t give him a chance to speak. “You’re right about one thing. This”—she made a motion in the air with one hand—“doesn’t really have anything to do with me. Just the way Rose’s health has nothing to do with you. She’s a grown adult perfectly capable of making her own decisions, even if no one else likes them.”

Nick opened his mouth and closed it again. Jess was on a roll and wasn’t about to stop until she was done.

“You keep doing this,” she said. She made a fist with her left hand and moved it up and down in a chopping motion. “Beating your head against the wall when all you have to do is walk around. You think you know better, better than Rose, better than your own mother, because they’re old. And maybe you do. I don’t know. The thing is, even if you do, you don’t get to choose because it’s not your life. We don’t want to hear it. We want to screw up our own lives our own way.” She took a breath and let it out; then she looked at me. “Can I get a ride home?” she asked.

“Sure,” I said.

She smiled. “Thanks.” Then she scouted the room, found Tina and pointed at the empty beer bottle on the table, holding up a finger.

Nick leaned toward me, resting one hand on the back of my chair. “Sarah, I’m sorry I wasn’t straight with you, but I can’t apologize for caring about Rose.” The marimba ring tone of his phone interrupted before I could answer him. He stood up, took a step away from the table and pulled the phone from his pocket.

Tina came then and delivered Jess’s beer. “Could I get you anything else?” she asked.

“Another order of chips and salsa,” Jess said. She glanced at me. “This one’s on me.”

Nick ended his call and came back to the table. From the corner of my eye I saw Sam and the rest of the band making their way back to the stage. Around us people began to clap and cheer.

Nick leaned over my chair. “I have to go,” he said. “But this isn’t over.”

I watched him walk away. I knew it wasn’t over. I just wasn’t so sure we had even gotten started.