Sure enough, there was a side door from the kitchen that led to the hallway. Knowing the kettle would take a minute or two to boil she dared to slip out into the hall. That way was Jonah’s study, so that meant this way—
Algernon Keaton careened straight into her, knocking her to the floor.
Rubbing her sore shoulder, she glared up at him. “I’m not so sure that was an accident,” she accused him.
“I don’t have time for this,” was Algernon’s terse reply. Without even offering to help her up, he began to stride away.
“Hey!” Jack Travis was there now. Miranda got the impression he’d been stalking after Algernon, and that maybe that was why Jonah’s son was in such a rush to get away. “Keaton, you knock a lady down and you don’t apologize? I don’t think so. Not where I come from.”
“And where would that be, exactly, Detective?” Algernon said it with his chin out and his nose in the air. “I come from wealth, and I come from a place of importance.”
Miranda’s jaw dropped to hear him talk like that. Jack, on the other hand, just smiled and stepped closer. “I’m just plain folk from back of Bourke,” he explained, spreading his hands wider, using a term that meant he was from someplace far, far away from here. “But I know which end of a dog bites, and I put my pants on one leg at a time just like you do.”
“Good for you,” Algernon quipped.
“Why don’t you go back to the dining room like I instructed you to,” Jack told him, with another step closer. “After you apologize to Miranda, that is.”
It took a moment, during which Algernon sized Jack up from scuffed shoes to very serious eyes. Then he sniffed and looked down at Miranda on the floor. “It was an accident, Miss Wylder, but I apologize anyway. I wouldn’t want to be accused of having worse manners than someone who was just plain folk.”
With an arrogant smirk, he headed off back to the dining room where the others were.
It was Jack who put his hand down to help her. He pulled her back on her feet with ease. “Are you all right, Miranda?”
“Apart from a bruised ego, yes.”
To her surprise, he placed a kiss on her cheek, very near the edge of her ear. It sent tingles along her spine. “You’re a tough lady. You can handle it.”
“I liked the way you defended me from that jerk,” she said. “I guess not all men can be as chivalrous as you.”
“Aw, shucks, Ma’am,” he said in a horrible imitation of a Texas drawl. “Just doin’ my job.”
“Uh-huh.” She found herself leaning against his chest, feeling his heart beat against her hand. “Speaking of your job, sir, did you look at Lea’s body?”
“I did. There’s puffy red splotches around her mouth and her tongue is swollen. I’d say she was definitely poisoned.”
That fit with the note she had found. Peanut allergies could be lethal if the victim wasn’t careful. “And did you get anything from Algernon or Morgan Dale?”
He shook his head. “Algernon is sticking to his story. He was in the sitting room, they were all sharing some soup and bread, and then Lea dropped dead to the floor.”
Which would prove to be a great alibi, if they couldn’t find anything to disprove it. “What about Morgan?”
“Well, that’s a different story.” Scratching a finger against his neck, Jack shrugged. “He wasn’t in the closet when we opened it up.”
“What?” She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“It’s the truth, I swear it. I had Algernon open the door for me and there was no one inside. That’s when we noticed the back wall of the closet was off center. Turns out there’s a hidden passage in there. Can you believe it? This place is practically a castle to begin with, and now we’ve got secret passages! Anyway, he’s gone.”
Miranda was stunned. Their chief suspect had slipped out from under their noses. Now they’d have to track him down and where in God’s name was Kyle? Wasn’t he supposed to be watching that round man to make sure stuff like this didn’t happen in the first place—
Behind her, in the kitchen, the kettle began to whistle.
“What’s that?” Jack asked, his hand twitching toward the inside of his jacket where Miranda knew he wore his gun.
“It’s okay, big guy,” Miranda told him. “I put a kettle on for coffee.”
“Didn’t I tell you to stay put with the others?”
She gave him a wink. “One thing you’re going to have to learn about me if we’re going to continue dating, Jack Travis, is that I rarely follow orders.”
“I’m beginning to see that,” he admitted. “And I can’t say that I don’t like it. Well, come on. I’d like some coffee myself.”
Just as he motioned toward the kitchen, a blue streak came racing up the hallway. Kyle, finally back from the errand she’d sent him on. She stared at him, acutely aware of the handsome detective next to her watching her every move.
“You won’t believe what just happened I can’t wait to tell you this because you’re never going to believe it yourself!” he stumbled over his words.
Then he saw her face, and the way she kept flicking her eyes toward Jack.
“Oh, right, right,” he said, a lot more slowly. His hands came up to pat the air. “It’s all right, it’s okay, I’ll do both sides. Ready? You would say, where on Earth have you been, Kyle? To which I would say, why, I was following our suspect down a dark tunnel through the bowels of this very house, Miranda. Then you say, wow, what a great job you did! I would then thank you profusely and protest I was just doing what came naturally to a ghost who could follow him around unseen until he finally stepped foot outside…”
Miranda’s eyes widened.
“Oh,” he said to her, “I didn’t tell you that part yet, did I. Well, it’s true. Morgan Dale isn’t even in this house anymore.”
Miranda turned to Jack, trying to quickly think of some way to tell him how she knew the vital information that Kyle had just given her. Then she saw the look on his face. He was regarding her oddly, which probably made sense considering she’d just been staring at empty air for two solid minutes. At least, from his point of view she was.
“Let me explain…” she started.
“It’s okay, I think I get it.” He surprised her by looking back up the hall, nearly straight at where Kyle was floating. “I’m pretty sure I know the secret you’ve been hiding. Anything you want to tell me?”
“Oh so much,” she said, realizing she hadn’t told him about the medicine bottle or the note or the baking pan yet, either. “It’s not fair though, if you get to figure out my secret and I don’t know yours yet.”
He shrugged, and gently guided her into the kitchen. “I thought a little mystery made a relationship more interesting. Let’s get this kettle off the stove before we burn the house down and then I’m going to call for more officers to assist us, and you can fill me in on the snooping you’ve been doing.”
“I do not snoop!” she protested.
“Yes, you do,” he disagreed.
“Yes, you do,” Kyle said at almost exactly the same time.
Miranda was helpless against the two of them. The men in her life—alive and dead—were going to drive her crazy.