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“You’re a thousand miles away,” Allistair said.
I shook off my morass of morbid thoughts and tried for a smile. “No, I’m not.”
Allistair neither spoke nor looked at me, but kept his gaze glued to the Jaguar’s windshield as we drove along Sound Avenue.
I reached for his hand. “I’m here beside you on this lovely June day.”
He moved his hand. “It’s not that lovely with you shutting me out.”
“You’re serious,” I said.
“I’m perturbed.”
I’d never seen Allistair perturbed before, and I didn’t like it. I tried to talk it away. “We’re driving out to the North Fork. We’ll have a great time.”
He turned to me. “You’re distant. Distracted. You might as well have stayed home.”
That did it! I forgot my social manners and went for the truth. “What do you expect? I’m upset because Anne’s dead. She was killed leaving my house. Excuse me,” I said sarcastically. “Sylvia’s house. I had to go to her funeral and offer empty condolences to her parents as they buried their only child.”
Allistair turned to me. “I’m sorry about Anne. She was a lovely young woman.”
“Who somebody killed. Donovan said there was a streak of paint along one side of her car, though he wouldn’t say what color.”
He took my hand. “Lexie, I’ve gotten the definite impression that you like me. Am I wrong?”
I squeezed his hand. “Of course I like you.” Why was this so difficult to admit?
“Then why are you acting like this?”
I laughed. “You mean like a man? Oops,” I amended when I caught the flash of displeasure in his eyes, “I mean, the way some men behave.”
He released my hand. “You’re right. Plenty of blokes come on strong, get the girl’s interest, then back off. But I believe in relationships. I’ve no idea where ours is headed, but I think it deserves a chance.”
I gave a little laugh. “Maybe I’m not ready for a relationship right now.”
He scowled. “Because your husband died burning down your house?”
“Hey, you stole my line,” I complained.
“That’s because it is a line, and has nothing to do with us.”
Allistair slowed down behind a truck. I tried to form my words as politely as I could. After all, I liked the guy and had no desire to drive him completely away.
“Look, Allistair—”
“Call me Al. That’s what my good friends call me.”
“Al?” I shot back. “Some of my friends call me Al.” I shook my head. “This is too weird.”
“Will you try it?”
“I will. Soon.”
“Okay.”
I took a deep breath. “Since I was thirteen, I’ve been gaga over some guy. This went on through high school, college, graduate school, and in between husbands. When I wasn’t writing papers or reading or studying for tests, my energies went into some guy. Getting him, keeping him happy, fighting, making up, worried he was angry at me, worried he liked someone better.”
I exhaled, pleased that Allistair had made no attempt to interrupt because he knew I wasn’t finished. “Now I’m at a point where I’m not hung up on some male. I’m concentrating on my life, on the book I’m writing, and figuring out who killed Sylvia, Gerda, and Anne.”
Our eyes locked. He turned back to the road to concentrate on passing the truck.
“I like you, Allistair, or Al. I think about living with you and making blueberry pancakes for breakfast. But frankly, I can’t go through all the angst and crap and aggravation that male-female relationships require.”
That cracked him up laughing. He pulled to the side of the road, and caught me in a fierce hug. “At last, the truth emerges!”
I stared at him. “You’re not perturbed?”
“I’m not.” He shook his head. “How can I be, when you’ve told me the way things are?”
“You’re not going to tell me how I ought to feel?”
“Certainly not.”
I wrinkled my nose. “You’re weird.”
He shook his head. “I’m not weird, which might be the problem.”
My neck grew warm. He’d scored another home truth. “What the hell are you talking about?”
He laughed. “Rosie told me you go for the artistic type. Which I suppose I am, being an architect. But inside I’m the guy next door.”
I shrugged, though all my nerves quivered. He was edging too close to the makeup of my psyche.
“She mentioned you dated Hal in college, then ditched him for being boring and normal.”
“My loss,” I said lightly. “Look how well Hal’s doing. If I’d played my cards right, I’d have my own home in Old Cadfield instead of housesitting there.”
“You don’t belong in Old Cadfield, Lexie.”
“Thanks!” I crossed my arms and pursed my lips.
“Hey, that wasn’t meant as an insult.” Allistair put his arm around me and squeezed my shoulder. “You’re complicated and loving and real. Which is precisely why I find you adorable.”
“I care about you, too, Al.” I giggled. The nickname sounded strange when I said it out loud. “Only I can’t have complications in my life right now. I don’t want to have to worry: will he call me? Does he like me?”
“No need to worry,” he said teasingly. “I like you. I’ll call. We’ll take things slow till you’re ready to move ahead. Just keep me informed of what you’re thinking.”
I smiled. “Sounds good to me. We’re friends. But right now, I want to focus on finding the person who killed Sylvia and Anne before he or she kills someone else.”
“And I want to help.” He ran his fingers up and down my arm. “I can be amazingly helpful when it comes to analyzing situations.”
“All right. I suppose two heads are better than one.” I thought a minute. “Although Brian warned me not to play detective.”
“Brian?”
“Donovan. The detective on the case.”
“Oh. I didn’t know you were on a first name basis with him.”
My face grew warm. Why had I mentioned Brian’s name?
“He gave you good advice, but I’ll be around to make sure you don’t do anything rash.”
Allistair drove on. “This looks like a nice place,” he said a few minutes later. He turned into a winery. “Shall we try their vintage?”
I’d heard of this winery. “It has a good reputation, but it’s barely noon.”
“So?” Al—I was starting to think of him as Al—shut off the ignition and offered me his first smile of the day. “We’re on holiday. Let’s take things as they come.”
Some of the heaviness that had pressing on my shoulders disappeared. “Yes, damn it! Let’s enjoy ourselves!”
We walked up to the bar, which was empty except for two young wine servers chatting. The lack of customers was no surprise, this being a Wednesday and early in the season. We studied the selections and made our choices. I opted for their best chardonnay and Al chose their award-winning merlot. While he paid, I carried our glasses out to the patio, which faced the vineyard.
He sat down beside me and sipped his wine. “Very nice. Care to try?”
I didn’t really like red wine, but accepted his offer.
“Mmm, very nice,” I agreed. It was mellow with none of the harshness I associated with red wine. “Taste mine.”
Al sipped and nodded his approval. We sat in quiet harmony. I reached for his hand. “I’m sorry I pulled away like that. I was getting scared.” There, I said it!
“You can always talk to me, whether it’s good news or bad.” A shadow crossed his face. “I loved my wife, Melody, very much. It pained me that she found it impossible to share what she called her dark feelings.” He shook his head. “No matter how often I reassured her I wouldn’t get angry or upset with whatever she had to say, she found it impossible to tell me anything negative or unpleasant regarding our relationship. It set up a barrier between us.”
I sighed. “Then let me say I’ve talked enough about us for the next six weeks. I want you to help me find out who killed the three women.” I shivered. “I feel like we’re on that island in And Then There Were None.”
“You think Sylvia, Gerda, and Anne were killed for different reasons?” he asked.
“I have no idea, which makes all this so frustrating.”
Al cleared his throat. “I hate to say it, but their only connection seems to be the book club.”
“You mean me? I can’t see how any of the murders have anything to do with me.”
“Me, neither.” Al rubbed his chin. “We’ll have to go on digging. Looking into each person’s background.”
“Paulette must have known about her husband’s affair with Anne.”
“Yes, but what did Paulette have against Sylvia? Or Gerda?”
“Nothing.” My mind searched back. “In fact, when Sylvia took ill, Paulette wanted to help her, but Rosie wouldn’t let her.” My hand flew to my mouth as I remembered. “Rosie said she was giving Sylvia something to help ease her pain. Not that Rosie had anything to do with Sylvia’s death. She’s my best friend,” I finished lamely. “She’s not capable of killing anyone.”
“I drove Rosie home the night Anne died.”
I pressed my lips together, hating to say what I had to. “Of course I don’t suspect Rosie. Or Ginger, for that matter. But anyone at that meeting could have hopped into his or her car and waited for Anne to drive down the road. Even in the dark, on a road without streetlamps, her red car was impossible to miss.”
“True,” Al conceded. He tilted his chair back and shot me a curious glance. “Why was Ginger so upset last week, when the conversation turned to justice and how criminals often go unpunished?”
I shrugged feigning ignorance, while my brain dashed about my head seeking a fast comeback to dodge his question.
Al reached out to touch my arm, sending flutters throughout my body. “Can’t you tell me what happened to her?”
I gave him a half smile. “You’re too damned perceptive.”
“I have to be, if I’m going to help you find our murderer.”
Our murderer. “Rosie swore me to secrecy, but since it happened seven years ago, I’m going to tell you and count on your discretion.”
“I won’t tell a soul.”
I lowered my voice, though there wasn’t anyone around, except for the tabby sniffing at our feet. “Ginger was fifteen, a CIT at the camp she’d been going to for several years. Anyway, she had a crush on one of the male counselors. One night she went for a walk with him in the woods. He came on strong and,” I swallowed, “she says he tried to force himself on her. She screamed and ran away. The next morning, she told the head counselor what happened. The counselor gave a completely different story—that Ginger tried to kiss him, and he had to let her down gently.” I made a face. “She had marks on her arms. Still, the head counselor said she must have misunderstood.
“Rosie and Hal went up to the camp and insisted they fire the counselor.” I grimaced, remembering the ordeal they’d gone through. “He was popular with both kids and the staff. Ginger’s bunkmates turned against her. They said she was a tease, that she should have known what to expect from the way she kept coming on to the guy. He ended up leaving the camp a few days later, the same day Rosie and Hal took Ginger home.”
“No charges were brought against him?”
I shrugged. “There were no witnesses. The camp was in one state, the counselor lived in another, Ginger lived in a third. When it happened, all she wanted to do was put it behind her.”
Al slammed down his chair. “Poor kid. She seems all right now. I mean, she and Todd are dating.”
But not getting along. “The next couple of years were difficult for the three of them. Ginger went into therapy. Rosie had to learn to butt out of Ginger’s life.” I cracked a half smile. “Not to hover, as Ginger put it. The therapist told Rosie to be on hand to listen and not direct so Ginger could develop self-confidence. And Rosie had to button her lip and stop telling her how to behave, whom not to date. It was the hardest thing she ever did.”
Al smiled. “I can relate to that. When my older daughter, Tessa, went on her first date, I wanted her to leave her cell phone on with me on the other end—just in case she needed us.” He laughed. “My wife talked me out of that brilliant idea.”
I pleated the tiny napkin back and forth. “I must admit, I was too busy working and studying to worry about what Jesse was getting up to. But maybe it’s different, being the mother of a son. I can’t believe how overprotective Ruth and Adele are. And their daughters are over thirty.”
Al sipped his wine. “They’re really that bad?”
“Oh, yes. Adele treats Paulette as if she were a fragile doll. Anne said she gave Paulette an exaggerated sense of her importance. And Ruth—” I laughed, remembering, “she actually asked me to postpone the book club meeting because she didn’t want her daughter to be in danger.”
“Marcie was there. So was Ruth.”
I smiled. “I don’t think Marcie pays much attention to what Ruth does or doesn’t want her to do. Grown daughters make their own decisions.”
Al wrinkled his nose into a puzzled expression. “Then why do those overbearing mothers keep on trying to run their lives?”
“I suppose they can’t help themselves.”
“I suppose not,” he agreed. “Care for another round?”
“Don’t mind if I do.”