by Sofie Ryan
“How did you manage that?”
“A bit of guilt, a bit of whining.”
Nick laughed.
“I’m guessing Charlotte brought you up to speed,” I said.
“Michelle, too,” he said. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
I sat down on the edge of the half-made bed. “Yeah, there is. That’s why I called.” I explained about the mark on Rose’s neck. “I might be wrong, but short of duct tape or chloroform, there’s no way I’m going to get her to go back to the hospital. If I’m wrong, it doesn’t matter. And if I’m right, maybe you’ll have better luck convincing her.”
“Well, of course, because my persuasive skills have worked so well on Rose in the past.” He made no effort to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.
“Please,” I said, stopping just short of begging—not that I wouldn’t beg if I had to. But I didn’t have to.
“I could stop by the shop sometime late morning,” he offered.
“Thank you,” I said, relief easing the knot in my shoulders.
“Hey, no problem.” I could feel the warmth of his smile through the phone.
I told Nick I’d see him later and we said good-bye. I brushed my hair into a low ponytail, put on some lip gloss and grabbed my bag.
Elvis and I waited in Rose’s kitchen while she got dressed. I’d called Mac the night before and brought him up to date on everything that had happened. He was opening the shop for me. Since he lived in the small apartment on the top floor, it wasn’t a big inconvenience for him. I thought—for what had to be the hundredth time—how hiring Mac had been the smartest decision I’d made when I decided to open Second Chance.
My cell phone rang while I was sitting at the kitchen table. I checked the screen. It was my grandmother.
“Hi, Gram,” I said. Hearing her voice wasn’t as good as seeing her in person, but it was close.
“Hello, sweetie pie,” she replied. “How’s Rose?”
“Let me guess,” I said. “Charlotte called you.”
“Liz.”
I leaned back in the chair. “Rose is fine, Gram. She spent the night with me. She snores, by the way.”
Gram laughed. “I know. I shared a room with her when the four of us went to Florida.”
“I’ll call Liz when I get to the shop,” I said. “I’m actually in Rose’s apartment right now waiting for her to get dressed.”
“They’ll work it out,” she said. “Do you know how many arguments they’ve had over the years?”
I shook my head even though she couldn’t see the motion. “I don’t have a clue.”
She laughed again. “Neither do I, but I can promise you that it’s a very big number.”
“I miss you,” I said.
“I miss you, too,” she said. “But I’ll see you in a bit more than a month.”
Gram and her new husband, John, had gotten married almost a year ago. Jess and I agreed that John looked like actor Gary Oldman’s slightly older brother. He had the same dark hair, streaked with gray, waving back from his face, and the same intense gaze behind dark-framed glasses. There were thirteen years between Gram and John—she being the elder—which had raised some eyebrows, but Gram didn’t seem anywhere near her seventy-four years. And more important, she didn’t care what other people thought.
They’d set out on their honeymoon in an RV that wasn’t much bigger than a minivan, intending to travel along the East Coast and work on a project for the charity Home for Good. One house-building project had turned into several, and now after nearly a year away Gram and John were finally coming home.
“I can’t wait to see you,” I said.
“You, too,” Gram said. “I have to go. John has breakfast ready. Give Rose a hug for me. And tell her I said to listen to you.”
“I will,” I promised. “Give John a hug for me.”
“I will.” She blew a kiss into the phone. “Love you, sweetie.”
“Love you, too,” I said.
Rose came bustling out of the bedroom then. “I’m sorry to be so much trouble,” she said, fastening her watch as she came into the kitchen. Elvis had already wandered around the apartment, sticking his furry black nose into pretty much everything. Now he was sitting quietly at my feet washing his face.
“You aren’t any trouble,” I said. “I’d do the same for Jess or Nick.”
Rose grinned and raised an eyebrow at Nick’s name.
I felt my face get red. “You know what I mean.”
“And you know what I mean,” she countered.
“Yes, I do,” I said, getting to my feet. “Which is why I’m not having this conversation with you.”
“I know it seems like we’re all a little pushy sometimes when it comes to Nicolas and you,” Rose said, reaching for the green-and-white canvas tote she’d left on one of the chairs. I picked it up for her.
“A little?” I asked, narrowing my gaze at her.
She wrinkled her nose at me. “You know that I love that boy as though he were my own, but goodness, he is as slow as cold molasses when it comes to women. All we’re trying to do is kindle a little spark so the two of you can get the fire lit.” And then she wiggled her eyebrows at me.
All of them—Rose, Charlotte and Liz, not to mention Gram, who wasn’t even in town at the moment—had been trying to nudge Nick and me into a relationship since we’d both ended up unattached and back in North Harbor at the same time, telling me about Nick’s great hair genes, and him about my good dental hygiene. We’d been spending a lot more time together lately now that Nick had started running with me when he wasn’t working. I wasn’t sure if I could call what was happening a romance, though. We had an easy familiarity that came from having known each other since we were kids. He was funny and handsome and I had no idea whether it would turn into something more—or if I wanted it to. I’d kissed him—more than once, and he seemed to like kissing me—but that was as far as it got. Rose was right; Nick could be as slow as cold molasses. But I wasn’t exactly a speedster myself.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” I said. I wrapped my arms around Rose and gave her a hug. “That’s from Gram. She called while you were getting dressed.”
“I’m sorry I missed her,” Rose said. “I’ll call Isabel tonight.”
“She’d like that,” I said as we moved out into the hall.
Rose pulled out her keys to lock the door. “Who finked me out to her?”
“Liz called her. I don’t think she was trying to fink you out to Gram.”
“Sarah, how long have Liz and I been friends?” Rose asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Since sometime just after the dinosaurs died out, I think.”
She glowered at me.
I held the front door for her and we stepped outside. “What I do know is that in all the years you’ve been friends, Liz has always had your back, so whatever it takes to fix things, I think you should do. And by the way, Gram said to tell you that you should listen to me.”
“I’m starting to see where your bossiness comes from,” Rose grumped.
I laughed and unlocked the SUV.
I stuck the sticky note with the address and phone number for Jeff Cameron’s sister on the dashboard. I decided we had a better chance of getting the information we were looking for if we talked to her in person, and if we didn’t call first it was a lot harder for her to say no to talking to us.
Since we were going to Second Chance after we talked to Nicole Cameron, we took Elvis with us. He sat on the front bench seat of my SUV between Rose and me and watched the road the way he always did.
“I wonder who used to own Elvis,” Rose said. “Do you think it could have been a long-distance truck driver?” The cat turned and eyed her as though he’d taken offense at the suggestion that anyone could claim ownership of him.
“Ma
ybe,” I said. “That would explain why he’s a bit of a backseat driver.”
Rose reached over and stroked the top of Elvis’s head. “He’s very intelligent,” she said. “Look at how he can tell whether or not someone is telling the truth.”
I was still making sense out of that skill. We’d all noticed that if someone was stroking the cat’s fur and telling a lie, Elvis would get an expression on his face that, as Liz expressed it, looked like he’d just had one of Avery’s kale smoothies.
Elvis’s apparent lie-detecting ability had come in useful in more than one of the Angels’ cases. Both Mac and Jess had theorized that somehow the cat was reading body reactions in much the same way that an actual polygraph machine did. Considering that he had an uncanny ability to figure out my mood, they were probably right.
“I know where you’re going with this, Rose,” I said. “We’re not taking Elvis in with us when we get to Nicole Cameron’s house. For all we know she might not even like cats.”
“I wasn’t suggesting that.”
“Good,” I said.
“Although I certainly don’t see why anyone wouldn’t like Elvis. He’s handsome, he’s an excellent mouser and as I just said, he’s extremely intelligent.”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Elvis straighten up as though he’d understood every word Rose had said. And for all I knew, maybe he had. I talked to him all the time, and sometimes it really did seem as though he was listening. And other times he made it very clear that he wasn’t listening to what I was saying at all.
Nicole Cameron lived on a tree-lined street about halfway up the hill from the main downtown. The houses were mostly Cape Cod style with a few two-story, older Federal-style homes.
“There it is,” Rose said, pointing at a gray-shingled house with a tall maple tree in the front yard. A red Jeep Wrangler was parked in the driveway, its front wheels turned sharply to the right as though it were parked on a hill.
I pulled to the curb and parked. Up ahead, on the other side of the wide street, I saw a vehicle I recognized. I didn’t point it out to Rose. “Guard the car,” I said to Elvis as I got out of the SUV. The cat moved over to the driver’s seat, reaching up to rest a paw on the steering wheel.
The front door of the house had a replica twist doorbell in an oiled bronze finish. I turned the knob and after a moment the door opened. Nicole Cameron was about my height. She had the same blond hair as her brother in a chin-length bob. Where Jeff Cameron had the lean build of a runner, Nicole was built more solidly, with the same strong, muscular arms and shoulders as her sister-in-law. She was probably a rower, too, I was guessing.
“Ms. Cameron, my name is Sarah Grayson,” I began.
“You want to ask me about Leesa,” she said. She was wearing a yellow T-shirt and gray cropped leggings and her feet were bare.
I nodded. “Yes.”
Nicole Cameron turned her attention to Rose. “You’re Rose Jackson, aren’t you? You were delivering the candlesticks my brother bought for Leesa.”
Rose nodded. “Yes, I am.” She sent me a look that was as confused as I felt.
A frown creased the younger woman’s forehead. “I’m sorry you were hurt. You’re all right?”
“Yes, I am,” Rose said, her voice gentle, as though she were talking to an animal that might spook at any moment.
Nicole sighed softly. “You should come in,” she said. “I uh . . . I know you have questions.”
She moved back and we stepped inside. The house opened into a small foyer. Ahead of us was a hallway that I guessed led to the kitchen and the stairs to the second floor. To our right was a coat closet, and the sun-filled living room opened to our left.
Rose took several steps into the room and then stopped so abruptly I almost bumped into her. Liz was sitting on the sofa.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, surprise evident in both her voice and the rigid way she held herself. So she hadn’t spotted Liz’s car on the street when I did.
“I know Nicole from Phantasy,” Liz said. Phantasy was a spa that belonged to Liz’s niece, Elspeth. “And I’m here because I wanted to find out if her sister-in-law was here last night.”
Nicole Cameron wiped her hands on her leggings. “Leesa was here last night,” she said. She shook her head and gestured in the direction of the sofa and a pair of boxy apple green Fillmore chairs. “I’m sorry. Please have a seat.”
I sat down on the gunmetal gray couch and Rose took one of the chairs. Nicole sank onto a tufted brown leather ottoman. “Leesa got here sometime around six thirty. She was upset. You know that my brother left her?”
I nodded.
“I put the TV on and the news was just starting. We watched Murder Ink,” she said, referring to the program known as water-cooler television because it was the show everyone was talking about the morning after it aired. “It was a rerun. It was after eight when Leesa left.”
Rose had gotten to the Cameron house just before eight o’clock. There was no way the hooded figure she’d seen was Leesa Cameron.
“I was just asking Nicole if she’d heard from her brother,” Liz said.
The younger woman shook her head. “The last time I talked to Jeff was Tuesday. I’ve been texting and calling since I got up, but he hasn’t texted me back and the calls just go to voice mail.”
“Did you have any idea your brother was going to leave his wife?” I asked.
She stared down at her feet for a moment. “No,” she said. “I didn’t see any sign that anything was wrong, and Jeff didn’t say a word to me.”
I glanced at Liz and one expertly groomed eyebrow raised about a millimeter.
“But . . . uh.” Nicole hesitated. “That’s the kind of person Jeff is. He wouldn’t have let on what he was planning to anyone. He isn’t good with emotions. We were raised by our grandmother. She died three years ago, and after it happened he just disappeared. He couldn’t handle the grief. We just reconnected less than a year ago. At some point he’ll call. It’s just the way he does things.” She was wearing a stack of bracelets on her right wrist and she slid them up and down her arm.
“When you talk to him, would you ask him to call Detective Andrews at the police department?” I said. I got to my feet. Liz and Rose stood up as well.
Nicole did the same, walking us to the door, still absently playing with her bracelets.
“Thank you for talking to us,” Liz said.
“I’m sorry Jeff got you all mixed up in this,” Nicole said. She turned to Rose. “And I’m very sorry you were hurt.”
Rose smiled and patted her arm. “Thank you, my dear,” she said.
No one spoke until we reached the street, and no surprise, it was Liz who had the first words.
“At some point he’ll call.” She snorted, turning to glance back at the house. “What a load of—”
I arched an eyebrow at her.
“—horse pucks,” she finished.
“Liz is right,” Rose said. “She doesn’t seem very concerned about her brother being missing. Maybe that’s because she believes he’s alive.”
“Well, if he’s done this kind of thing before, that’s understandable.” I held up both hands before Liz and Rose could object. “I’m not saying I think Jeff is still alive. I’m saying I can see why Nicole might.”
Liz rolled her eyes.
I pulled my keys out of my pocket. “So you think what? That Leesa Cameron killed her husband and his sister helped her cover it up?”
Liz shrugged. “Maybe.”
Rose studied her friend, her head tipped to one side. “You believe me.”
“Well, of course I believe you,” Liz retorted, as if there had never been any question of it. “I wouldn’t have gotten up at the crack of dawn to get here before the police and had one of those hideous smoothies Avery makes for breakfast if I didn’t.” She p
ulled a face. “I can’t believe the good Lord intends for me to drink what is essentially a weed for breakfast, not when he created sausage.”
I put my arms around her shoulders and pressed my cheek to hers. “We appreciate your sacrifice.”
“Yes, we do,” Rose said. She and Liz locked eyes for a moment, and I knew everything was all right with them again.
“So what are you doing now?” Liz asked.
“We’re headed to the shop,” I said.
Rose gave a melodramatic sigh. We eyed each other. The stubborn jut of her chin warned me I was in for an argument.
I crossed my arms over my chest. “We had a deal,” I said, warningly. “You let Nick look at your neck and I don’t drag you back to the hospital.”
“What happened to your neck?” Liz immediately asked.
Rose turned and tipped her head forward. “Sarah thinks someone might have injected me with something.”
Liz bent over her friend’s neck. “There?” she asked, pointing with one finger.
I nodded. “Maybe that’s why Rose was unconscious. Not because of the bump on her head.”
She squinted and leaned in for a better look. “I think you might be right,” she said. I could see the concern in her blue eyes, which she masked when Rose turned around.
“If you don’t want to go back to the store to wait for Nick, we could just go over to the hospital right now,” I said sweetly to Rose.
“Are you trying to blackmail me?”
I nodded. “Is it working?”
A smile pulled at the corners of her mouth. “It is, but only because at the moment Nicolas is the lesser of two evils.”
I laughed. “I’m sure he’d be flattered to hear that.”
“Fine,” she said with a bit of a martyred sigh. “You win.”
“Thank you,” I said. Then I reached out to touch her arm. “You did have a head injury. I just want to be sure you’re all right.”
From across the street we heard a burst of laughter. There were children dancing on the front lawn of the two-story house across the street in what seemed like a loosely choreographed routine. A girl who looked to be about twelve was shooting a video with a small camera, gesturing madly when one of the dancers missed a step.
