by Laurie Cass
“And if you want, I’ll do the project supervision as a wedding present, and send you photos every day.” Her expression was unreadable. A funny feeling started forming in the bottom of my stomach, so I quickly added, “Only if you trust me, of course. I mean, you know how I feel about cooking and kitchens and hardware, but supervising your project would be different. All I have to do is pretend to be you, and—ooff!”
The air whooshed out of me as my aunt grabbed me and gave me a massive hug. And it was possible, although it was almost too hard to believe, that she was crying.
* * *
• • •
Whistling a happy tune, or at least doing something relatively close to whistling, I walked downtown. The sky had cleared, the sun was out, and it was a beautiful winter day in northwest lower Michigan, specifically in Chilson, and there was no place else on earth I’d rather be.
“Hey, Minnie!” Mitchell’s head popped out of the toy store. “Come in a minute. Coffee? No? Well . . .” He peered down at me. “You look okay, but I just wanted to make sure. I mean, I heard that . . . that . . .”
“I’m fine,” I said. “No frostbite for me or Eddie, and the bad guy is in jail.” I gave a few more details and hoped he wouldn’t ask any more questions, because I’d have to tell the story at the library and there were only so many times I wanted to talk about it.
“Good to hear. So . . .” He rubbed his face with his hands. “I probably shouldn’t bother you with this right now, but have you figured out anything else about Bianca and me? Because I really think she’s going to break up with me.”
“Mitchell, you’ve been worried about that since you started dating. What’s changed between now and last week?”
He shuffled his feet. “Well, nothing that I know of, but that doesn’t mean there’s not something.”
“Talk to her,” I said. “Talking is the only thing that’s going to clear this up. The sooner the better.”
“Sure, but—”
“Talk!” I said in my Librarian Voice, hardening my heart to his protest. “Do it today,” I added in a softer tone, then murmured some words of encouragement, which didn’t seem to make a dent in his unhappiness, but he sighed and said he would.
Outside on the sidewalk, I saw that the blue sky had managed to grow even bluer. Smiling up at the boundless infinity, I decided to take the gorgeous morning as a sign that Mitchell’s troubles were transitory.
“Morning, Minnie!” A blond woman waved at me energetically. “How are you this fine morning?”
“Hey, Bianca.” I smiled. “How’s business?”
“Horrible, but I don’t care. I’m going to get engaged today,” she said cheerfully.
“Um, congratulations.” I almost winced, because I was pretty sure I’d sounded like I was asking a question.
Luckily, she didn’t seem to notice. “My Mitchell is such a lovable lug,” she said, laughing. “I am so tired of waiting for him to ask me to marry him. I thought he might pop the question at Christmas, but nothing happened. This morning I woke up and saw this blue sky and decided today was the day. I’m going to propose to him!”
She pulled a small box out of her pocket and opened it, right there on the sidewalk. “These are my great-aunt’s rings, the aunt I’m named after. Mitchell might want to buy me something new, but I’d rather wear these than anything from a store. What do you think?”
The question was asked almost shyly. “I think they’re wonderful,” I said. And they were. The engagement ring’s largish diamond sparkled, glinting with the colors of the rainbow, and the tiny diamonds in the wedding band twinkled cheerily in the sunlight. “Mitchell’s a lucky man.”
“Hah.” She snapped the box shut and put it back in her pocket. “I’m the lucky one.” She grinned and headed off to her future.
I watched her go, tempted to follow along and watch the fun through the window, but I strong-mindedly pushed aside the temptation and went on my way. My coworkers had been texting me all morning and I’d only kept my cell phone from wearing out by telling them I’d be in before noon and would explain everything.
So that’s what I did. As soon as I walked in, I pulled Donna aside and promised her a special telling if she’d man the front desk solo for fifteen minutes, then assembled the rest of the interested staff—which was everyone except Graydon, who was closeted upstairs with Trent—in the break room.
After I’d finished, there was a moment of stunned silence. Then the questions began.
Holly came in first by half a syllable. “Is Eddie okay? You would have said if he wasn’t, but you didn’t say for sure, so I need to hear you say it.”
“Have you heard from Darren?” Josh asked. “About the bookmobile, I mean?”
“And how about you?” Kelsey asked, handing me a mug of coffee. “Don’t worry, I didn’t make this pot. How are you doing? Being cold like that . . .” She shook her head.
Smiling, I answered all their questions. “Eddie is indeed okay. He slept on my feet through the night, and when I left the house, he was still sleeping.”
I turned to Josh. “Darren says there is some minor body damage, but the engine and transmission are fine.” Which was a huge relief as big expensive repairs were not part of the bookmobile’s budget. They should have been, but I’d decided to push what extra bookmobile money there was into a fund for the eventual purchase of a replacement vehicle.
After taking a deep sip of the dark life-giving liquid, I said, “And I’m fine. Really.” This was essentially true, but I had briefly considered driving downtown instead of walking.
“What did you tell Graydon?” Holly asked. When I didn’t respond, she asked a bit hesitantly, “Um, Minnie? You did tell him, didn’t you?”
I had. But last night’s conversation had been odd, filled with hints and undertones I hadn’t understood, though at the time I’d put it down to mild hypothermia and fatigue. However, in the bright light of the break room, surrounded by friends, I realized I still didn’t understand what he’d been getting at when he’d told me things would be changing. I’d been too tired to ask what he meant, but now I was itching to find out.
First, what would be changing? He couldn’t be talking about ending the bookmobile, could he? Or letting staff go? What was so horrible here that he and Trent needed to change anything? Had we done such a terrible job that the board was going to reorganize everything? Sure, there was always room for improvement, but to talk about a need for massive changes was ridiculous!
It had taken all of two seconds for me to stoke my irritation and anger up from embers to a steady flame.
“There you are.”
All heads turned. Graydon was in the doorway. “The board is asking for you,” he said, nodding at me.
“Right now?” I asked. Technically, I wasn’t supposed to be at work for another half hour.
“They’ve called a special meeting.” He sounded almost apologetic, which made the insides of my palms tingle. Why would Graydon need to apologize for anything? There was only one possibility: The board wanted to fire me. I’d crashed the bookmobile too many times, gotten involved in murder too many times, dragged the library’s name into the mud . . . it had all added up and now they wanted me out.
I nodded, since my suddenly-dry mouth made it impossible to use actual words, and accompanied by the sympathetic glances of my coworkers, I went up to meet my doom.
* * *
• • •
I let myself into Rafe’s house—our house, I reminded myself—and set Eddie’s carrier onto the entry mat I’d bought a few weeks ago. “We’re here!” I called out, unlatching the wire door.
As I divested myself of outerwear, I watched the feline progress. First, Eddie’s nose came out, then his head, ears twitching. One front paw reached out to rest gently on the mat, then the other came out to meet it. Then, in a sudden leap to the floor, a
ll of Eddie was out of the carrier.
“In the kitchen,” Rafe called back. “Hope you’re hungry.”
“How odd,” I said to Eddie. “This particular kitchen is the last place I’d expect to find food.” But Eddie was too busy sniffing his new environment to pay any attention to anything I said.
I put my coat in the front closet, slipped into moccasins I’d bought last month, and picked Eddie up, using my legs to lift because he really was a pretty big cat. “Come on, buddy. Let’s go see what Rafe hunted and gathered for our sustenance tonight. I wonder if—”
My words came to a halt, just like I did. Eddie and I had walked through the living room and the dining room, and now an amazing sight greeted us.
The last time I’d seen the kitchen, it had been a mostly empty room, empty because the cabinets were still somewhere else, nowhere near completion. There still weren’t any cabinets, but in the middle of the room stood a square table and two dining chairs. On top of the table was a white tablecloth, china, and flowers, all lit by the soft glow of candlelight.
Rafe, dressed in paint-splattered jeans and sweatshirt, stood behind one chair. “Would you like to be seated, miss?” He pulled out the chair smoothly.
I grinned and let a squirming Eddie drop to the floor. “Why, yes, I would.” Now that my eyes had adjusted to the dim light, I saw that the tablecloth was actually a drop cloth, that the china was made of paper, that the flowers were silk poinsettias that looked suspiciously like the ones from the Christmas wreath we’d bought, and that the candles were stuck into the bottoms of cut-off tubes of caulk. Still, he’d gone to a fair amount of effort, and knowing that he’d done it just for me was making me a little wobbly.
“Dinner will be served momentarily,” he said as I sat and hitched forward to the card table. “I hope sandwiches from Fat Boys will be to your liking?”
“How could they not?”
He turned, reached into a white bag that was sitting on a pile of paint cans, pulled out two foam boxes, and uncrated our dinner.
“Mrr.”
“Don’t worry, young lad,” Rafe said. “Yours is next. Hope you’re okay without a plate.” Out of the white bag came a smaller foam box.
I couldn’t quite see the box’s contents, although from the sound of it, Eddie was plenty happy with whatever it was. “What did you get him?”
“Piece of fried fish with all the breading taken off.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’ll probably be his favorite from now on.”
“Thought I already was.” Rafe sat. “So what happened at the meeting?”
After I’d come back downstairs from my board summons, I’d texted him that there’d been a special meeting and I’d tell him about it over dinner. “It’s kind of a long story,” I said slowly.
“They’re not firing anyone, right?” he asked. “And not getting rid of the bookmobile?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “That wasn’t it at all. It’s just . . .” I paused, because old emotions, ones I’d thought had long since faded, were coming back to life. I swallowed. “Remember Stan Larabee?”
“Well, sure.” Rafe nodded. “His donation to the library paid for the bookmobile. And he’s the . . .” His voice trailed off, because he’d come to the sad part.
“And he’s the one,” I said, “that I found in that farmhouse almost two years ago, just before he died.” It had been a difficult time, but Stan’s killer had eventually been brought to justice. And soon after, it turned out that Stan had willed the bulk of his substantial estate to the library. However, the relatives had come out of the woodwork to contest the will, and it had been in the hands of lawyers ever since.
“The estate has finally been settled,” I said. “That’s why the board had a special meeting. Graydon and Trent have been handling the settlement details, and they were announcing it to the board.”
“And they invited you, too?”
I nodded. “Because the bookmobile was mentioned specifically in the will. Stan . . .” A knot in my throat caught my words and I had to cough it out. “Stan wanted to create a foundation with enough capital to buy a new bookmobile every ten years.”
And that was why, when I’d first met Trent, he’d been asking so many questions about the bookmobile. Otis, the outgoing president, had handpicked Trent as the new president because Trent’s attorney skills included handling large bequests. In addition to the bookmobile, Stan’s wishes also included some other odd details that hadn’t been explained fully to me, but I wasn’t going to worry about those right now.
Rafe put his sandwich down, got up, and came around the table. He pulled me up into a massive hug and twirled me around. “I always knew I liked that Stan,” he said, after putting me down and giving me a big smacking kiss.
“Yes,” I said, sniffing a bit, but it was a happy sniff. “Me, too.”
The board had also apologized for keeping me in the dark about Stan’s will, Graydon and Trent especially.
“We know you’re the soul of discretion,” Trent had said, “but until the decision was final, the attorneys all insisted that the board and the director be the only ones to know.”
I’d been fine with that—mostly—and had forgiven them completely when I’d seen the number of zeros on the check the library would receive even after the bookmobile foundation was set up. Soul of discretion I might be, but I wasn’t sure I’d be able to keep that kind of news to myself.
Rafe gave me one more hug. “So all’s well that ends well, right?” he asked, ushering me into my chair again. “But there’s one thing we have to talk about,” he said.
“What kind of thing?”
“You came very close to becoming Stewart’s second murder victim. I know you’re fine, but it was a close call and thinking about it scares me.”
Rafe’s face, normally full of humor and mirth, was filled with worry and concern. “You said you can’t walk away from friends who ask for help. I understand that. And I love you for it. But we have to think up a different way to do this.”
I frowned. “To do what?”
“To fight crime and stuff.”
“‘And stuff’?”
He shrugged. “Don’t want to leave out any possibilities. So here’s what I’m thinking. If a friend comes to one of us with a problem, big or small, we work on the solution together. Me and you. You and me. We’re a team.”
I smiled, my heart full to bursting with love for this wonderful, though sometimes annoying, man. “A team. You and me.”
“Mrr!”
Without missing a beat, Rafe made the necessary correction. “You and me and Eddie.”
My furry friend jumped onto my lap and I hugged him tight. “The best team of all,” I said. “The absolute best.”
About the Author
Laurie Cass is the national bestselling author of the Bookmobile Cat Mysteries, including Wrong Side of the Paw, Cat With a Clue, and Pouncing on Murder. She lives on a lake in northern Michigan with her husband and two cats.
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