My feeling of brilliance lasted until I tripped on my dress at the door of the restaurant and literally fell into Adaire’s arms.
Fortunately, the evening only improved from there. Adaire gently set me back on my feet, but then he didn’t remove his hand from the small of my back as he pointed me toward our table in the back of the restaurant. Aaran, I noticed, simply gestured for Beattie to go ahead of him, so I thought maybe we weren’t going to have a “brothers and best friends” love situation here after all. Still, everyone was smiling, including me, even though I could still feel the blush of embarrassment on my cheeks.
At Beattie’s request, Aaran ordered a bottle of white wine for us, and then he told us about the fish that was probably freshest from the boat today. The three of them took his advice and ordered the special while I decided on mushroom ravioli in a cream and truffle oil sauce that sounded like absolute heaven on a plate, especially to my seafood-hating palate.
While we waited, we munched on the scrumptious bread and fresh butter our server brought, and Aaran regaled us with fishing tales that had Beattie and me laughing and gasping in suspense. I’d never thought Melville was much of a fisherman for real because while his book was fantastic in a number of ways, it was not a page-turner, and every fisherman I had met could tell a story better than Edgar Allan Poe himself.
When our meals arrived and the natural lull of first bites settled around us, I decided to take the opportunity to posit my question for the group. “So, does anyone want to go snoop around Davis MacDonald’s house with me tomorrow?”
When three forks stopped midway to three mouths, I realized I might have needed a little more lead-up before suggesting what sounded like breaking and entering to my best friend, her date, and my date. I quickly sputtered out, “With the inspector’s permission, I mean.” I stuffed a whole ravioli in my mouth and then had to do that thing where I kept my teeth apart to try to mush the food to death so that I wasn’t chewing with my mouth full because I took too big of a bite.
Beattie smiled and, as she always does, saved me. “Poe and I were talking earlier today about alternative motives for MacDonald’s death. The inspector seems pretty committed to the idea that this is book-related, and that’s certainly a possibility—”
Aaran interrupted, “But you think it could be something else, like a heartbroken lover.” His eyes grew wide with delight, and when I looked over at Beattie, I thought I saw her pupils forming tiny hearts. She loved a good exaggeration almost more than I did.
“Exactly,” I said. “But we don’t know enough to even hazard a guess. So I thought maybe I could ask the inspector if we could look around MacDonald’s house for more information about the book.” I laid a lot of emphasis on the word book for effect.
Three heads nodded, and we spent the next two hours planning our mission, as we decided to call it because, as Adaire said, we could all feel a bit more like Tom Cruise that way. I had never thought I wanted to feel like Tom Cruise, honestly, but in this context, it was pretty fun.
After dessert and a second bottle of wine, the four of us wandered back onto the street, a bit tipsy and full of giddiness about tomorrow’s escapades. Maybe a little romance was also involved because Aaran asked Beattie if she wanted to see his boat, a question he asked with a tone so full of innuendo that even I blushed. My friend, however, didn’t bat an eye before she said yes.
The two of them headed off in what I could only assume was the direction of the docks, and Adaire and I continued walking down the street next to the river. The lights of the city were gorgeous—all golden in the thin fog. Our stroll led us up and over a footbridge, and when we paused at the apex to look down at the river, I decided this was the most beautiful spot in all the city and told Adaire so.
He looked down at the water and then up at me. “Agreed,” he said as he put a hand on my cheek, “with the most beautiful woman.” His kiss was sweet and tender, and I returned it with equal intent. But, true to form for me, as soon as we pulled away, every question about the future that I had in my head crowded to the tip of my tongue, and I was only able to keep from asking them all by biting my lip, a gesture I hoped Adaire would think was about the kiss and not about my inability to be in the moment.
He winked at me and then turned back toward the water. “Can I ask you something?” he said.
I nodded and hoped he had clear peripheral vision because I still couldn’t risk opening my mouth to answer lest all my high-pressure questions poured out.
“Do you think you’d like to see me again?” His voice was quiet.
I turned toward him and said, “That kiss didn’t tell you your answer?”
This made him smile. “Well, I was hoping I interpreted it right, but we do have this thing called the Atlantic Ocean to consider.” He turned back to me. “I mean, I’m not asking for a lifelong commitment or something,” he said as a blush spread over his cheeks, “but I like you, and I just don’t do casual well.”
I leaned forward and kissed him, not quite so sweetly this time. When I pulled back, I said, “I don’t do casual well either, and I like you even more for asking me all the questions I was trying not to ask.” The two of us would have to have a lot more conversations about this topic, but for now, it was enough to know we were both considering things the same way.
He grinned and kissed me one more time before walking me back to the hotel. When we reached the door, I said, “Thank you for a wonderful night,” and let him kiss me yet again. He kissed my fingers before he turned to go, and then I said, “Hey, I don’t have to worry about Beattie, do I?”
He turned back to me and laughed. “Hardly. If anything, I should ask you that about Aaran. My brother puts on a big show, but he’s a huge softie . . . and a complete gentleman.” He waved and then walked up the road whistling.
Sure enough, Beattie was back just a few minutes after me, but she did have those plumped lips that showed she had been thoroughly kissed. And if they hadn’t been a dead giveaway, the way she skipped around the hotel room would have been.
After a quick but general catch-up about the remainder of our evenings, the two of us slipped into bed, and I jotted off a quick text to the inspector to ask, as casually as possible, if we could visit MacDonald’s house to see if he had anything relevant about the book. I refrained from suggesting he need not be there since that seemed suspicious.
He replied almost immediately, despite the late hour, and said we could certainly take a look around and that he’d have one of his officers meet us there at 10 a.m. Please, do let me know if you find anything relevant, though, he added.
I assured him we would and then drifted off to sleep, where I dreamed the Pink Panther—the pink cat from the cartoons, not Poirot’s master thief—was traveling on a ship across the Atlantic. Dreams have a strange way of telling you the truth, even when you can’t quite understand what they’re saying.
After a series of texts, both business-oriented and flirty, Adaire and I decided the four of us would meet in our hotel lobby at 9:30 and walk over to MacDonald’s house together. I figured this would give us a chance to plan our approach in a bit more detail. Plus, I was pretty eager to see Adaire again, and if we met here, I got to spend an extra half-hour with him.
What I didn’t plan for was the fact that drinking two carafes of coffee would make me feel like I was the Roadrunner in those old cartoons. By the time Beattie and I headed to the lobby, I felt like I could maybe skip down the side of the building a la Spiderman. Clearly, caffeine also made me think of every cartoon I’d ever seen, and I had to tamp down my desire to stand like She-Ra with her sword at the elevator as Adaire and Aaran walked over. I was feeling spunky.
Adaire gave me a sweet kiss on the cheek, and Beattie planted a significantly less sweet kiss on Aaran’s lips. He didn’t seem to mind, and with the four of us flushed with romance, we began our walk across the river.
While I’d caffeinated that morning, Beattie and I had set out a loose plan of research. We figured our best bet for finding information would be in the spaces MacDonald spent more time—his office and his bedroom—so we planned to start there, with Adaire and me in the library and her and Aaran in the bedroom. Then, if those things didn’t pan out, we’d check other rooms, like the kitchen, to see what we could find.
We told the men our plan, and then we brainstormed the kind of things we might be looking for—letters, ledgers, photographs. I kept imagining blackmail notes constructed from clipped magazines, but I kept that thought to myself because it seemed a little too Criminal Minds for the situation. In all likelihood, we weren’t looking for an attention-seeking serial killer here. Probably.
When we got to MacDonald’s house, the officer let us in and then told us she’d be in her patrol car out front if we needed anything. I let out a small sigh of relief that she hadn’t felt the need to oversee our actions as I shut the door, and then we set to work. Adaire went straight to the bookshelves in the library, probably because he was curious about the titles. But I didn’t dissuade him because he, of all of us except maybe Beattie, would be able to see if other books on the shelves were things of worth. If they were, our money motive might be firmer.
I turned to the desk and looked methodically through each drawer. They were mostly full of the things desks were full of, such as notepads and paper clips, old to-do lists, and staple removers. The lower drawer on the left was filled with files, and one by one, I took them out and looked through them carefully. Nothing stood out as suspicious. In fact, his files looked like mine at home: bills, manuals for appliances, and records about pets that felt important to keep but that I never needed.
We’d brought Butterball along for the outing because he’d been alone a lot lately and was getting a little persnickety. This morning when I’d given him a few pieces of sugar cereal as a treat, he’d looked from them to me to them again and then, with only the kind of flair a chubby hamster can manage, turned his back on both the treat and me. I did catch him snacking a few minutes later when he thought I was busy putting on my shoes, but I let him think he’d made his point.
At the moment, he sat in his bag on the desk next to me, watching my every move. I suspected he was hoping I’d drop some of the paper I was holding into his bag so he could shred it into oblivion, but I wasn’t giving in. He’d have to wait for the hotel newspaper just like yesterday.
But as I looked at my little guy in his plastic tote, a thought occurred to me. “Adaire, did you know that Davis MacDonald had a cat?”
Adaire turned from where he was carefully reshelving a thin blue book and looked at me. “He did? No, I had no idea.”
I looked around the room, and sure enough, there in the corner of the window seat was a cat bed. “Look,” I said, pointing to the window. “And he adored that cat. He paid for it to have cancer surgery and chemotherapy last year.”
“Wow, that’s devotion,” Adaire said as he sidled up beside me and looked over my shoulder. “Maybe we should look for that cat?”
“Don’t you think his niece would have taken it, you know, so it didn’t starve?” I asked.
Adaire tilted his head and looked at me. “Do you think that woman cares about a cat?”
He had a point. “Okay, let’s look around.”
The two of us made our way through each of the rooms on the first floor, and then, after I shouted that we were coming upstairs so as to give a potentially kissing couple a chance to put some space between themselves, we headed up and gave the two bedrooms and the bath up there a once-over. No sign of a kitty anywhere.
“You haven’t seen a cat, have you?” I asked Beattie and then explained why I was asking.
“Nope. No sign of one up here,” Beattie said as she and I looked under the bed in MacDonald’s bedroom from opposite sides. “Well, unless you count this.” She pointed to a fleece blanket draped over one corner of the bed and covered in cat hair.
“Do you think the cat died before MacDonald did?” Adaire asked.
I shook my head. “One of the vet bills was from just a week ago, and honestly, given how much he’d spent on the cat already, I kind of think he might have had the boy cremated so he could keep his ashes nearby.” We all looked around for a cat-holding urn but didn’t find one. “Yeah, I think the cat was alive.”
“Let’s go ask the neighbor,” Beattie said as she headed for the door after giving Aaran a squeeze on the butt. He blushed. She didn’t.
“Okay,” I said with a smile at Adaire, who winked back at me, making me blush as much as Aaran had.
I didn’t know exactly which neighbor we were going to ask, but given that I knew the pets of most of my neighbors, I didn’t figure it mattered much. But when we stepped out on the street, the same woman who had recognized us before was, once again, standing outside the front garden watching the house. “Hi,” she said, apparently unashamed of her nosiness. “Everything okay?”
I smiled and nodded. “Oh yes. We’re just finishing up some business of Mr. MacDonald’s. But we did have a question—have you seen his cat? We want to be sure Judo is safe.” I’d caught the cat’s name and that it was a tabby on the vet bills.
“Oh yes, he’s fine. Inspector Scott took him home.” She furrowed her brow but then shook her head. “I’m sure he’s in good hands.”
I looked at her closely for a minute. “Something wrong?” I said.
She smiled. “Oh, no, nothing. Just got my days messed up in my head. Too much Paw Patrol,” she said as she glanced over at the three little ones playing in her front yard. “I love those inklings, but I may be losing brain cells.”
I laughed and waved as she headed back to keep one of her inklings from bashing in the other’s head with a toy shovel.
Beattie headed back toward the house. “That mystery’s solved then,” she said. “I’m glad the inspector took the cat. That’s above and beyond the call of duty.”
I nodded. It certainly was, but then the inspector did seem like a man who cared about his work. And apparently, he had a penchant for cats, too, or maybe he’d just taken it to rehome Judo. I’d ask the next time I saw him, just because I was curious.
When we went back inside, I retrieved Butterball from a high shelf in the library, where I’d stashed him just in case Judo was around and eager to play, and then I joined Adaire in searching the bookshelves.
The man was, I had to admit, very thorough. He was looking at every book and then carefully flipping through the pages to see if anything had been stashed there. So far, he’d made it through half the shelves, and he didn’t seem to be in any more of a hurry than when he’d started. His patience was greater than mine was, that was for sure.
Still, I started at the bottom of the shelf, after planting myself on my butt, and began to do just as Adaire had done. I was just moving onto the second shelf when a photograph fell out from between two books. I picked it up and smiled when I looked at it. Two men were standing on the very bridge that Adaire and I had been on last night. They were posing like bodybuilders, but instead of wearing tiny shorts and no shirts, they were in turtlenecks and tweed pants.
I flipped the photo over and saw the words Silas Scott and Davis MacDonald, 1979, written on the back. “Look at this,” I said to Adaire as I tapped him on the leg. “It’s the inspector and MacDonald.”
Adaire took the photo and studied it. “Argh, that seventies hair.” He laughed and handed it back to me. “I suppose those were the times, though.”
“Fashion wasn’t much better in the States in those years, if that makes you feel any better,” I said.
“Oh, I wasn’t feeling bad for Scots. Just for those two who fancied themselves quite the catch,” Adaire said with a chuckle as he kept searching the books.
“What’s the catch?” Aaran said from the doorway. “You’re talking fishing now?”
“No, keep your head, man. Look at this picture.” Adaire took the picture from me and passed it to his brother, who showed it to Beattie beside him.
“Is that the inspector?” Aaran asked.
“It is,” I said, “and MacDonald. The inspector said they’d been friends a long time. I didn’t figure he meant forty years, though.”
Beattie shook her head. “What are they doing?”
I sighed. “No idea.” I turned back to the shelf to grab another book but then paused. “That photo was hidden here between the books. That’s odd, isn’t it?”
Adaire shrugged. “Could have just been stuck to one of the books when it was put away, I suppose.” He didn’t sound very convinced, though.
“Have you found anything but books on these shelves?” I asked.
“Not a thing,” he said. “And the books are in a strict order, have you noticed?”
I studied the shelves in front of me. “Alphabetical by author. Not so unusual.”
“Not unusual at all, but look at the shelves you haven’t touched yet.” He pointed to the shelf just above my head from my spot on the floor. “Notice anything?”
I looked again, but this time, I couldn’t see what he meant. “No. What do you see?”
“Look at the spines. Every one of them is lined up perfectly with the edge of the shelf. It’s been that way all along.” Adaire pointed back along the shelves he’d already checked.
“He flushed the spines?” Beattie said as she walked over to take a look herself. “This guy was serious about his books.”
I looked up at the shelves again, and now I could see it. They were perfect, far better than I had ever achieved in my years of working in Uncle Fitz’s shop. Every spine was exactly at the edge of the shelf, and not a single book was leaning or out of alphabetical order.
I glanced over at Aaran, who was still holding the picture. “So a guy who cared this much about his bookshelves wouldn’t accidentally have a photo amongst them.”
Adaire smiled. “Exactly.”
“But you didn’t find anything else in here?” I asked as I carefully checked in and between the rest of the books on the shelves in front of me.
“Nothing,” Adaire said with a shake of his head.
“Kitchen, everyone?” Beattie asked, and Adaire helped me to my feet before following our friends into the kitchen.
This room was almost as orderly as the library. Every can was facing out and organized by type, and he didn’t even have a junk drawer. Still, we went through every cabinet and drawer systematically. My most impressive find in the quarter of the kitchen I’d taken was that the man actually had a utensil divider that had spaces for both dinner and salad forks. I was envious.
Beattie was swearing under her breath about the fact that the guy had organizers for both his pot lids and his plasticware lids when she stopped short. “Well, this may be important,” she said.
I walked over to the corner where she knelt by a cupboard and looked at the small piece of paper she held in her hand. I hadn’t seen anything like that in almost thirty years, but it reminded me of the notepaper my mom had kept in her desk and used to shoot off tiny messages of encouragement to people from time to time.
As Beattie handed me the paper, she stood up and said, “There’s a whole envelope of notes like that.” She pointed to the side of the cabinet where MacDonald had stored his impressive cookware collection. I bent over and looked inside, and sure enough, there was a large brown envelope taped to the side of the cabinet.
I squatted down and peeled the pieces of scotch tape—wondering as I did if the popular tape was actually invented in Scotland—off the corners of the envelope. Then I extricated the whole thing and set it on the counter in front of me before pouring out the contents.
Inside, there must have been thirty or more sheets of paper, each covered in a scrawling hand that looked both casual and thoughtful from the way each line of writing extended the full width and length of the sheet. To me, it seemed like the author wanted to give as much as they could on this small, light-blue piece of paper.
I scooped up the papers and moved them to the small wooden table by the back window over an elaborate flower and vegetable garden. Each of us took a few sheets and began to read. Immediately, I loved the relationship these people had with each other. The author was making jokes, both about life in general and about the person who had received the notes, teasing him—presumably MacDonald—about his penchant for tidiness and, sometimes, about the way he had talked about a new book he’d acquired for his collection.
D, it’s no wonder you have never married. How would any woman stand up to your latest copy of Robinson Crusoe? Plus, I don’t know many a lass who’d take kindly to be set on a shelf.
The tone was playful and light for the most part, but occasionally, the author, who only gave their initial as S, turned to heavier topics like the latest tragedy in Inverness or events in Scottish politics that were troubling. I got the sense, from the few letters I read, that these people were old friends, good friends.
As we each finished reading our section of letters, we turned to each other. “These are sweet,” Beattie said.
Aaran nodded. “I’ve never been one to write letters, but these read like two mates are catching up.”
“Any of yours signed?” I said as I looked at the scrawled S written on the bottom of each of the sheets in front of me.
“Not a one,” Adaire said. “That makes sense. I usually only sign an A to notes to friends, even on email.”
That did make sense, but something was bothering me about the letters. Of course, Beattie, brilliant as she was, hit on the oddness right away. “So if these are just letters between friends, why hide them?”
I hissed in a breath. “Yes, why hide them? Did any of you see anything in them that seemed embarrassing or something?”
Three heads shook around the table. “Mine neither. So why, then?” I stared down at the paper and then glanced across the table when my eyes landed on the photograph of MacDonald and Inspector Scott that Aaran had carried in with him. I tapped on the photo and said, “You don’t think S is . . .?”
“Oh, I most certainly do,” Beattie said. “Now, though, we need to get a writing sample to confirm.”
After a cursory search of the final rooms of the house that yielded nothing new, we carefully arranged everything as we found it, except we slipped the photo into the envelope with the notes and let Beattie slip the whole thing into her tote bag beside Butterball’s bag. He was sleeping soundly after all the excitement of watching us move around the house, and I was glad for him. And a bit envious too.
I thanked the officer outside in her car as we left.
“Find anything?” she asked with a smile.
I tried to look rueful as I said, “Not a thing that’s much use to the inspector, I’m afraid.” I shrugged, “but we did get some more information about MacDonald’s book collection that might help with the project we’re working on.” I smiled and finished with, “You will thank the inspector for us?”
“Of course,” she said as she stepped out of the car. “Have a good day.” When I glanced back, I saw her walk to the door, peek inside, and then lock it up sound. She wasn’t a bit the wiser, which felt like a small miracle since I had basically sweated all the way through the back of my shirt while I lied. Deception was not my forte.
By a silent but mutual agreement, the four of us made our way back to the hotel and settled down in the bar with pints, crisps, and the assortment of documents we’d found at MacDonald’s house. I had no idea what to make of them or why they were hidden, but clearly, they were significant—at least to MacDonald—if he wanted to not only keep them but keep them tucked away in some pretty careful hiding places.
The longer I stared at the papers and the photograph, the more I drank. Eventually, with my pint almost gone and my empty stomach not sure what to do with it, I said, “I’m at a total loss.”
Adaire smacked his hand on the table, “By George, I’ve got it,” he said in an accent that even I recognized as a terrible English one. “Secretly, the two men are in love, but they can’t let anyone know.” He looked over and winked at me again.
“Clearly, you deduced this fact from the declarations of love and adoration in these notes we have here,” Aaran said.
“It’s code, you see,” Adaire said. “Here, where S says, ‘Remember that time when Winky Douglass tried to bungee jump off the tower at college?’ that’s code for, ‘Remember that romantic walk we took around the tower at college?’” The grin on Adaire’s face was wide.
Beattie tapped one long nail on another sheet, “So ‘My wife has decided she is going to grow enough leeks to feed all of Inverness’ is then a secret way of saying, ‘My love for you is as vast as our smallish Scottish city.’” She rolled her eyes.
“Precisely,” Adaire said and then drained his pint before asking the barkeep to bring another round for everyone and then sighing. “I have no idea either.”
The four of us looked at the papers a while longer until Aaran quietly said, “Do you think Inspector Scott might have murdered MacDonald?”
Given the fact that none of us reacted with a strong word of dissent, I gathered that we had all been considering that possibility but were afraid to offer it up. I, for one, liked the inspector, and I really didn’t like the idea that he could be a killer.
“It would explain some things,” Beattie said. “Like his insistence, despite the total lack of evidence to the contrary, that the book is the reason MacDonald was killed.”
It was my turn to sigh. “True.” I looked down at the papers again. “But given that MacDonald obviously hid these things before he died, he must have had a reason. Did he suspect that Scott was going to try to kill him?”
Adaire shook his head. “If he did, why hide all of it? Why not take them to another police officer?”
Beattie rolled her eyes again. “You don’t watch any American TV?”
Aaran laughed. “You think the whole force might be corrupt,” he said as he slid his hand over Beattie’s. “Corruption here in Inverness. Now, that would make for a good fish tale.” He winked at his brother. “I doubt that, lass. It’s not impossible, but I have to say, I’ve known most of the folks on the force. They’re good people.”
Beattie nodded. “Okay then. So what was MacDonald trying to hide? If he knew that he was in danger, why not leave? For a little while, at least?”
“And why hide these things? They’re just notes. Nothing scandalous about two old friends exchanging letters.” As I spoke, something chimed in my brain. “But why was Scott writing to him if they lived in the same town? That’s weird, right?”
Adaire sat back. “That is weird. I don’t write any of my mates, even emails, when I’m going to be up here. We just get together for a pint and catch up that way.”
“Before we get too far ahead of ourselves here,” Beattie cautioned, “remember, we don’t even know that these letters are from Inspector Scott.”
All the energy of my earlier insight dissipated like fog in the sunshine. “True. So I guess we need to start there. Anyone have a sample of Inspector Scott’s writing?” I was serious when I asked, but the three wide-eyed looks from the people at the table told me I’d just asked a ridiculous question. Why would any of us have a sample of Inspector Scott’s handwriting? “All right, then. So how do we get one?”
Beattie drummed her purple nails against the table in what I knew to be her classic scheming behavior. After a few moments, she said, “I expect Uncle Fitz might like to be involved in a bit of international intrigue, don’t you?” Her smile was almost feline in its delight, and I had an impulse to shield Butterball from her stare. Fortunately, he was still asleep in his bag on my lap.
Sure that our hamster was safe, I said, “What do you have in mind, Sherlock?”
“Ooh, I get to be Sherlock,” she said. “Does that make you Watson?”
“Sure,” I said. “Just call me doctor.”
“No,” Beattie said without a bit of humor and then continued. “What if we asked your Uncle Fitz to request a signed statement from Inspector Scott saying that the book was not in MacDonald’s home when he was killed? A sort of insurance that the book was free and clear in terms of the actual murder.”
I studied her face for a minute. “That could work.”
Aaran shook his head. “Do we know that for sure? If not, then the inspector won’t sign.”
“That we actually do know,” I said, “because Stovall had the book when we visited him in Inverness. It was definitely not in MacDonald’s possession when he was killed.”
“Um,” Beattie said as a frown deepened on her face. “Actually, we can’t say that for sure, Poe.” She stared at me hard.
“What do you mean? We were there to buy the book from Stovall. He gave us a price, and if we had agreed, he would have given us the book.” Understanding dawned on me as I said the word book. “But we didn’t agree, and we didn’t see the book.”
Adaire sat forward. “He didn’t show you the actual item you were going to purchase?”
I appreciated that he phrased his question such that it placed the blame for this massive snafu on Stovall, but really, it was my mistake. “No, no, we didn’t see it.” Suddenly, I was overwhelmed by relief that we hadn’t bought something Stovall might not have actually had and the shame that comes when you’ve been fooled over something you were smart enough to avoid. “Do you think he really didn’t have it?” I asked Beattie.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. He seemed pretty confident we’d take his offer, but maybe he’s a master gamesman.”
I sighed. “So now we’re back to square one. We can’t get Inspector Scott’s signature because we can’t be sure the book wasn’t in the house when MacDonald was killed, so we can’t compare it to the letters.”
A sinister smirk crossed my best friend’s face. “Well, the inspector doesn’t need to know that we didn’t see the book in Inverness, does he?”
“Lass, are you suggesting we defraud a law enforcement officer?” Aaran asked, his voice falsely deep with gravitas.
“We don’t know it’s not true. We just know it’s possible it’s not true. If he signs, the responsibility for error is on him.” Beattie shrugged.
I knew this ruthless side of my bestie. When it came to justice, she was unrelenting. Once, when I was in high school, a popular guy pretended to like me and invited me to his tennis match. When I got there, his girlfriend from another school was there to cheer him on, and all his teammates snickered when they saw me sitting in the stands.
As soon as Beattie found out what had happened, she went into revenge mode. First, she glued all the locker room doors shut so that the guys couldn’t get their clothes after they showered and were forced to wear their smelly tennis uniforms. Then, she gathered a whole bunch of friends and enacted a thorough and quiet plan to have every door handle on every tennis player’s car covered in pancake syrup. Finally, she somehow managed to get the story out about what he had done to me and had it make its way to his girlfriend. When she found out, she promptly broke up with him. It was really a work of vengeance art, and I had never felt so loved.
I didn’t think we were into dousing of door handles territory here, but I knew better than to argue with Beattie about her plan. Apparently, Adaire and Aaran sensed the same and stayed quiet.
Beattie shot off a quick email to Uncle Fitz, and within minutes, he had written back to say he’d draw up the document and send it over by the morning. Beattie was practically skipping with delight when we headed up to our room with plans to meet the guys later for dinner so we could plan our next steps in what we were now formally calling our investigation. I was both excited and terrified about what we were getting into.