LANDON COULDN’T STOP thinking about Zander facing Tait alone. In their scenario, Tait was innocent, but logic wasn’t proof. If he knew about Orran’s crimes and if Zander approached the subject too directly—
She glared at the carrot in her hand and attacked it with the peeler. Supper prep as a way to calm down wasn’t working. Especially with Anna on the phone with Ciara.
When they’d confronted Ciara earlier today, the oxygen tube had been gone. Still, Landon had expected she’d have at least one more night to be monitored. The one-sided conversation sounded like the hospital was discharging her.
Anna replaced the phone in the countertop base. “Funny she called me instead of you.”
“She’s afraid I’d say she couldn’t have a room after all.”
“Would you have?” Anna retrieved a bright orange carrot peel from the floor and dropped it on the pile of curls in the sink.
“Of course not. But I’d have told her to drop the blackmail about Orran’s place.” Landon rolled her shoulders and tried to lose the tension. “It’s good there’s a spot for her here.”
Not that a full inn would have denied Ciara a bed. Landon could have slept on the sitting room couch for a night or two. She’d done that before.
Anna looped her apron over the hook in the pantry cupboard. “It’s late in the afternoon to let her go, but the doctor was in surgery all day. I’ll collect her while you finish here.”
Motion outside the window drew Landon’s attention. She hadn’t heard Zander’s SUV, but now he crossed the slate path toward the deck. With a brisk knock, he opened the door.
Anna poked her head into the hallway. “In here, Zander. I’m just leaving.”
“You may want to defer that.” Footsteps sharp, he stepped into the kitchen, his mouth a grim line. “Orran’s dead.”
“What?” Landon shared a horrified glance with Anna, who stood with her shoulders pressed against the cleaning cupboard.
“Tait was contacted this afternoon. They found Orran’s body in his van in a Halifax parking garage. It’d been there for days. He’d been shot.”
Landon couldn’t breathe. Poor Orran. And Tait. And Ciara. Her brain spun, connecting other dots. “So…”
Zander pocketed his keys. “So Orran did not break in here Monday night. Or steal the Burmese ruby on the weekend. Tait is devastated. He asked us to tell Ciara.”
Anna pressed her palms together. “She’ll be staying with us for a few days. I was on my way to pick her up from the hospital. I won’t say anything until we get back.”
He inclined his head in a slow movement. “One other point.”
The air seemed to chill. Landon braced a palm against the countertop.
“Tait said there’d been an attempted break-in at Orran’s today. With a key. None were found on the body.” He lifted an eyebrow at Landon. “His cameras malfunctioned, so he had no images for police. They’re linking this to the murder.”
Cameras. Of course a security pro would have cameras, discreet ones.
Shivers swept her, and she clung to the counter’s support. “We have to tell him. We can’t mess up their investigation.”
Anna’s rueful smile confirmed Landon’s words. “It might be easier to talk to one of the officers. Tait’s grieving.”
Landon remembered Tait yelling at Ciara on the phone. This would be brutal. But— “An officer might have to charge us. Tait may want to anyway, but I’ll try to explain.”
How on earth could she say they’d suspected his dead partner of assault and theft? By the time she’d finished chunking up the vegetables and set them in the oven to roast, she still had no answer.
It was spitting rain when Anna shepherded Ciara through the back door. The girl’s features, pale after days in the hospital, looked pinched from damp and exhaustion. If the doctor could see her now, he’d rethink releasing her.
The last of Landon’s frustration evaporated. In this fragile state, Ciara wasn’t at her best. And they were about to add another layer of pain. First, they helped her settle in the room across from Landon’s. Ciara tried to exclaim over the decor and Anna’s kindness, but she sounded near tears.
Landon hugged her. “Why don’t you lie down? I’ll come for you when the food’s ready.”
“I can’t believe they threw me out. I couldn’t reach Phil to stop them.”
They ate in the kitchen, the square pine farmhouse table drawn out from the wall to seat a fourth person. The pink-tinted walls and homey rose and grey flagstone-patterned floor drew warmth from the overhead lighting on such an overcast day, making the space a refuge.
Quiet and subdued, Ciara picked at her meal. The others kept up a light conversation, by unspoken agreement saving Orran’s death until the food was gone.
That conversation would be difficult enough. Telling Tait they’d been at Orran’s—that storm loomed heavier than the one building outside. Landon didn’t eat much more than Ciara.
She and Anna did a hurried cleanup while the coffee dripped and the tea steeped. Then Anna piled slices of cinnamon-apple coffee cake onto an oval serving dish and set it in the middle of the table. “Ciara, how do you take your coffee?”
Once they each had a steaming china mug, Anna folded her arms on the pine tabletop. She’d chosen her prettiest flowered mugs tonight, building Ciara up even in small ways. Now she gazed across the table with sad brown eyes. “We have bad news.”
Landon reached for her friend’s hand, offering a warm pressure while Anna relayed what they’d heard from Zander.
The kitchen fell silent except for the spatter of rain against the window. Ciara’s hiccupping breath unleashed a thin keening like a child lost in the night.
Landon reached to embrace her friend, but Ciara shrunk in on herself, a tight knot resisting comfort’s touch.
Ciara’s chair scraped away from the table and bumped the wall. “I need to be alone.” She dodged Zander and fled into the hallway. Her feet thudded heavy and slow on the stairs.
The sound resonated in Landon’s mind like an ominous, slow-ticking clock. She took a thick slice of coffee cake from the plate and broke off a corner. “I have to phone Tait.”
Zander lifted his mug and studied her over the rim. “I’ll drive you if you’d rather talk in person.”
The cake, so sweet in her mouth, felt like pebbles in her throat. She washed it down with a sip of tea. “He’s going to be so mad. I’ll phone and see if we can go over.”
She found Tait’s number in her contacts. “Jesus, help me with the right words.”
Tait answered, gravel-voiced.
She should have texted. “Um, Tait. I’m so sorry about Orran.”
“Yeah.”
“I need to talk to you. It’d be better in person. But if you’d rather not see anyone right now, I understand.”
“I’ll come to you. You’re at the inn?”
“Oh no, you don’t have to do that—Zander will bring me.”
A ragged breath filled the receiver. “I have to get out of here. The silence is making me crazy.”
“Ciara’s here at the inn too. We told her.”
“Thank you. Trying to get the story out for Zander nearly broke me, and he had no emotional investment in Orr.”
“Orran was a special man. It’s a huge loss. A tragedy.”
“Someone will pay.”
Landon caught the shadowed sympathy in Zander’s hooded expression. She ended the call and laid her phone on the table. “Don’t leave me alone with him when he comes?”
Zander splayed his fingers on the tabletop. “Not a chance. What about your partners in crime? They should wear the fallout too.”
She’d planned to tell Bobby about Orran after confessing to Tait. Take the blame before Bobby’s noble streak tried to shield her.
He would be furious. Hurt. Somehow that frightened her more than Tait’s wrath.
She swallowed the last of her tea. “I’ll call Bobby. Ciara may be too fragile tonight.”
~~~
Landon pleated her skirt between her fingers. Smoothed it flat. Folded it again. She sat in one of the hard-backed chairs beside the puzzle table, facing the rest of the group. Bobby had the other wooden chair. Sharing her penance?
Anna and Zander had taken the upholstered seats, leaving the leather club chair for Tait. Ciara had not joined them.
Positioned by the window, Landon saw Tait’s vehicle arrive. When he rang the bell, she glanced at the others. “I hope this doesn’t look like we’ve united against him.”
Anna went to meet him at the door, and a shrill bark interrupted her welcome.
He’d brought Moxie. In his grief, he’d thought to comfort Ciara in hers.
Tait shushed the Chihuahua. “I know dogs are against the rules, but can she have a few minutes tonight? Even if they have to go to the basement? It’s too wet outside.”
“Let me take him up to her room where we can contain him. This is so sweet, Tait. The poor girl.”
He stepped into the common room, shedding a mist-beaded wool coat. Features stiff, he curved an eyebrow at Landon. “I said I couldn’t handle the silence, but that didn’t mean throw a party.”
She winced. “Bobby’s part of this too. Zander and Anna are moral support, but they don’t have to stay.”
Tait’s brow hiked higher as his head tipped left. “Now you’ve got me curious.” He flopped into the empty chair and dropped his coat on the floor beside it. “This is the worst day of my life.”
When Ciara’s shriek and Moxie’s barks cut through their condolences, Tait glanced upward with a tight smile. “She taking it hard?”
Landon nodded. “I know she wasn’t as close to Orran as you, but she’s been through so much these last few weeks.”
“So, what gives? Or do you have to wait for Anna?”
“Here I am.” Anna stopped in the doorway. “Tea, coffee, anyone?”
At the sudden pinch around Tait’s eyes, Landon launched into the story. “Tait, the attempted break-in this morning at Orran’s—it was us. Me and Bobby. We don’t want to mess up the search for the killer.”
Chest lifting in a slow breath, he flattened his fingers on the chair’s armrests. After a beat, one finger lifted, tapped. Lifted, tapped. “What was worth invading his privacy instead of talking to him? Or to me?”
“We couldn’t talk to him. That’s the problem.” She shot a helpless glance at Bobby. “We were afraid Orran was behind the collectibles thefts, Ciara’s and the others. And behind the attack.”
Tait’s expression froze, the grief etching deeper. He studied them each in turn as if hoping someone would tell him this was all a bad joke.
Bobby cleared his throat. “There’s a ruby goblet in an online database of stolen goods that Ciara thinks she saw at Orran’s when she was young. She couldn’t reach him to ask for the truth, and it happened before you came—you wouldn’t have seen it.”
Tait slid lower in his seat as if the accusation weighed more than he could bear. “How could you even think such a thing? It’s the polar opposite of his life’s work. And where did you get a key?”
Fingers twisting in her lap, Landon said, “She told us about the one in the tree. She guessed Orran hadn’t bothered to delete her security code. She was going to drive out by herself as soon as she got out of the hospital, and she’s too weak for that.”
She forced herself to hold Tait’s gaze. “It’s my fault. If Bobby hadn’t taken me, I’d have found another way. I’m sorry. Especially since Orran—”
“We’re both sorry.” Bobby raked his hair into a squashed haystack. “As Orran’s partner, you’d be within your rights to press charges.”
Lips tight, Tait sniffed. “For what? You didn’t get past the threshold. I’ll tell the investigators a friend was worried about Orr. The killer has his keys, so that was our first thought. I was going to stay there tonight and guard the place. Now I can sleep in my own bed and leave it to the security system.”
Landon rested her forearm on the puzzle table, palm pressed against the smooth oak. Her ribs loosened to allow a full breath.
Tait’s hands clenched in his lap. He rocked in his seat, a vibration as if his body held too much energy to be still. “If you suspected Orran, you suspected me. We know” —his mouth spasmed— “knew one another too well.”
She looked down at her wrinkled skirt. “We thought he might be trying to silence Ciara so you wouldn’t learn his secret. If it’s true, he’s been at this since before you met.”
He blew out a harsh breath. “We talked about that goblet in the hospital. It was a prop for a play. Why did she think he’d still have it?”
“She thought he’d have newer things, stolen, but not disposed of.”
Tait slapped his knees. “Come to the house. Right now. Before I could hide anything. This ends tonight.”
~~~
The tour of Orran’s house was every bit as uncomfortable as Landon had feared. Radiating outrage and wounded pride, Tait insisted she, Bobby, and Zander inspect every corner of the building and the garage. Then they repeated the process at his apartment.
When they returned to the inn, Landon said good night to Anna and left Zander to report the details. It wasn’t even nine thirty, but she was running on fumes.
Upstairs, she tapped on the wooden schooner plaque on Ciara’s door. “Are you awake?”
“Come in.”
Ciara sat propped against snowy pillows, under a sea-blue duvet. She waved toward the mound of clothes in the rocking chair. “Just throw those on the floor. I’ll unpack tomorrow.”
As Landon transferred the pile to the age-darkened hardwood, Ciara asked, “How’s Tait?”
“Gutted. Finding out we’d suspected Orran was one hurt too many today.” Landon eased the rocker into a gentle motion. Enough to keep her blood flowing and her eyes open. “You need to talk to him. Apologize.”
“I will.” Perfect teeth caught Ciara’s bottom lip. “I’m sorry I pushed you and Bobby to go out there.”
“We should have had the brains to refuse. How are you feeling? Did Moxie help?”
“More than you know. Precious little guy. And Tait, still keeping him when he has to be angry at me. I’m just… drained. The drive from the hospital exhausted me, and then hearing about Orran…”
Tears slid onto her cheeks. “I mean, I’m relieved to know for sure he wasn’t behind the attack and he didn’t steal my things. That was a terrible feeling. But—” She covered her face with her hands. “He was always so kind to me. We were beginning to reconnect, and now this.”
Landon rocked, the floor cool under her feet. “Tait showed us everything in the house, plus his apartment. Even inside Orran’s big wall safe. We didn’t see anything remotely suspicious.” She snickered. “But you should have seen Bobby drooling over the man cave in Orran’s basement. He says it’s a gamer’s dream.”
“Tait must be his heir. Do you think he’ll move into the house?”
“At least for now. He says there’s a place he’s wanted to buy but the owner’s not ready. Oh, and he dug through Orran’s files and found the paperwork on your bracelet. It came from a dealer in Chicago. He scanned it for Anna’s insurance.” Landon hadn’t seen the valuation certificate, but Zander’s brows had shot up. Not a cheap trinket, for sure.
Ciara peeked up over her fingertips. “I’m so glad Orran was innocent, but you know what this means. We don’t have a clue who’s out to get me.”
Landon had been thinking the same thing. “At least we know Tait’s safe to trust. Orran wouldn’t have let him near you otherwise.” She smothered a yawn. “I’m toast, and I have classes in the morning. Zander’s heading to the city later to meet a few people Meaghan thought might know about Gord’s enemies. He’ll bring me home, and then he has an appointment with Ken and Kimi. He’s been trying to catch up with them all week.”
“He doesn’t think they’re behind this?”
“He’s talking to everyone again to see if it stirs any leads. It does look odd for your ex-boss to extend his vacation because of what’s happened to you, but Ken and Kimi seem like that kind of people.”
Hugging the duvet closer to her chest, Ciara drew her shoulders up to her ears. “This has made me doubt everyone I’ve ever trusted.”