by Gayle Roper
“But what if we get there and no one’s home?”
“She’s visiting her sick grandfather. They’re not going to the mall.”
“I was thinking the hospital.”
“Then we wait until someone comes home.”
In spite of Joanne’s misgivings, they followed Vinnie’s plan, leaving at ten in the morning and calling the Trevelyans as they neared the house. They got a busy signal.
“Good,” Vinnie said. “Someone’s home. That’s all we need to know.”
It wasn’t all they needed to know, Joanne thought. They needed to know where the house was. “Stop and ask directions. Please.”
Vinnie waved away her suggestions. “I can find it myself.”
By the time they finally located the house, it was midafternoon. All Joanne wanted was something to eat, but she didn’t dare suggest it. Vinnie was way too surly and mean from driving all the twisty country roads.
Now they stood on the front porch of the big brick house waiting for someone to answer the doorbell. Dori MacAllister’s suitcase rested at their feet.
Nineteen
AS THEY WAITED FOR THEIR MEALS, Maureen looked around Moe’s with its menus on the place mats, its sodas served in red plastic tumblers with red and white straws sticking out at a jaunty angle, its flatware wrapped in large white napkins, its scuffed dark red linoleum floor, and its flaking white paint on several of the mismatched chairs at the motley collection of tables.
“Very posh.” She grinned at Phil. “I’m impressed.”
“Never say I don’t take a girl to the very best places.” He leaned toward her. “Just wait til you see where I take you next time.”
Her grin broadened. “My heart goes pitter-pat with anticipation.” He didn’t need to know that there was truth in her comment. She waved her arm to indicate the chaos that was Moe’s. “But to better this place—I don’t know. It’ll take some doing. I don’t think there’s another place like it within miles, at least not that I’ve been to.”
Maureen froze. What had she just said? Surely he’d realize she’d once again shown knowledge of Seaside and its surrounds. Greg would kill her if she blew this assignment, especially since she’d lost the pastor and wife on Friday. Sure, she’d found them again, but that didn’t stop Fleishman from commenting and Greg from speculating.
And she had to keep reminding herself that it was an assignment, not a date.
Phil nodded, accepting her words at face value. “This is my favorite restaurant in town, but I usually don’t look forward to the meal as much as today. I mean, who wants to eat alone in a lovely place like this?” His hand indicated the stained ceiling tiles and the tattered posters on the wall. “This is where a guy brings a favorite girl.”
Favorite girl, huh? This guy could really lay it on. Usually flirts made her very uncomfortable, but there was something about Phil that made his outrageous statements charming instead of repulsive. Maybe it was because for a very long time no one except her father had indicated in any way, shape, or form that she might be a favorite girl, and her father didn’t count. He was supposed to feel that way. Whatever the reason, she soaked up Phil’s comments like a neglected piece of furniture soaked up wax.
Did that make her pathetic or what?
As she straightened her place mat over the cracked Formica of their table rather than look at Phil and risk seeing that his comment meant something—or worse yet, nothing—she realized that she had held the world, especially the male half, at arm’s length since Adam’s death. No involvement, no pain. No relationships, no danger. But she liked this man with his over-the-top humor and kind streak. And he took notes on his brother’s sermon!
She took a deep breath to steady herself and said lightly, “You expect me to believe that you eat alone all the time?” With women like Monica eyeing him as a fox eyes a plump chicken, it was impossible to believe he didn’t have a harem following him around.
“Eat alone. Live alone.” He tried to look woebegone. “My life is a sad, sad thing.”
She laughed. “I am not convinced.”
For a few seconds he looked at her, suddenly serious. “Will you answer a question truthfully?”
She blinked. “Sure.”
“What does a good girl like you think of a guy like me?”
“What do you mean, ‘a good girl like me’?” He made her sound five years old, and just when she was really starting to like him.
“Easy, Irish. It’s a compliment. All I mean is that if I read you right, you’re not into wild living.”
She nodded, mollified. By that definition she was a good girl. “What do you mean, ‘a guy like me’?”
“You know. A wild guy.”
“You’re a wild guy?”
When he nodded, Maureen struggled not to laugh. “A wild guy who takes notes on sermons?” But what if she had read him wrong, and he really was a wild guy, one cleverly playing a role, one involved somehow with stolen art. Please, God, no.
Phil gave her a halfhearted smile. “I’m going to tell you something I have told very few, but for some reason I refuse to analyze at the moment, I want you to know.”
Pressure built in Maureen’s chest until it actually hurt. She found herself rubbing her sternum and forced her hand to her lap. She was stunned by how much she feared what he was about to say.
He began to draw lines on his place mat with the tines of his fork, studying the results as if they were great works of art. His hand paused, and he put the fork down. He looked at her.
“I’ve only been a Christian for a little over two years, and it’s still new and feels awkward to talk about. It happened after Trev came to Seaside Chapel, and I bought the pharmacy. I started going to the chapel as much to razz Trev as anything. I kept thinking that I’d find the holes in his new life. Not that I thought he was a phony or anything. Even before he got religion, Trev was always one of the good guys. I just thought I’d find all the flaws in his reasoning, his logic.”
Phil stopped as their waitress set their meals before them. Maureen took one look at her crab cakes, and her mouth started to water. She took a bite and closed her eyes in pleasure.
“Told you,” Phil said as he forked a bite of his flounder smothered in crab imperial.
They ate in silence for a few minutes, giving the delicious food the attention it deserved. Then Phil began to talk again.
“When I realized that I needed Christ desperately, I came to Him as someone who had lived his life very selfishly Not that I was a terrible person or anything, but I usually managed to arrange things the way I wanted them.”
Maureen listened carefully, relieved that he wasn’t announcing his complicity in the Matisse case, knowing there was something more going on here than just the recital of a personal journey.
Phil looked at her with an intensity that would have been unnerving from anyone else. “I bet you’ve been a Christian all your life, haven’t you, Irish?”
Surprised a bit by his change of direction, Maureen nodded. “I grew up in a home where Christ was much honored. I knew I was a sinner at five years of age.”
Phil grinned. “Some sinner. A little curly-haired sweetheart with a dark past.”
Though he made light of her sinful little self, she sensed a sadness beneath his words. “No big sins,” she agreed. “I got mad at my brothers. I lied to my parents. I disobeyed their rules. But even in my young heart I knew that I had a lousy attitude. And I knew it didn’t please God.” She shrugged. “Big sin, little sin. God hates it all.”
“I know,” Phil said. “But how can a sweet, godly woman like you ever accept a wild man like me who’s been around the block many too many times?”
Well, now she knew the reason for that gentle, unspoken sorrow. He thought she was too good for him, or worse still, he thought she’d think herself too good for him. Maureen frowned.
“Sweet, godly woman,” he’d said. Like she was beyond sin and struggles.
She remembered the battles
she and Adam had had keeping themselves pure, especially when he was about to leave the country for dangers unimaginable. She and he had grown up knowing each other forever, going to the same church and youth group. They’d even committed their lives to the Lord at the same youth retreat. Adam was as much a constant in her life as her parents and her brothers. That he might actually die in his military service was something she knew intellectually. But after his death, she learned that in her deepest heart she had believed that since they had been obedient King’s kids in spite of their yearnings, then God was obligated to protect him.
When word came of Adam’s death, Maureen was rocked to her core. It was like God had reneged on His part of their bargain. After a life of espousing chastity, she found herself deeply regretting their purity. Now she’d never know the magic of physical love, and it broke her heart. She resented her obedience and God for asking it of her.
“Oh, I know all about struggling and doubting,” she said, an edge to her voice.
Phil looked like he was waiting for more, but she wasn’t going to pour out her deepest heart. Not yet anyway. Still, there were safe things she could say.
“I was engaged several year ago.” She stared over Phil’s shoulder as she spoke. “Adam was killed in Bosnia. Land mine. When he died, I was so angry. I felt that God had cheated me, cheated us both. We had always followed Him. He owed us.”
She suddenly felt the need to pay attention to her last two bites of crab. “So you see, I’m not that godly after all.”
She could feel his concern as he asked, “Do you still feel cheated? Are you still mad at God?”
She shook her head, remembering God’s patient nudging, returning her unerringly to His standards. As she looked back, it hadn’t taken her that long, though it had felt like forever at the time. A life of thinking in a certain pattern and hewing to a certain standard was hard to change, especially when the Holy Spirit impressed the wisdom of that standard on her heart.
“ ‘Do you still want to argue with the Almighty?’ That’s what He thundered at Job. I slowly realized that while by His grace God gives me much, He owes me nothing.” She shrugged. “I finally stopped fighting and accepted that truth.”
“Wow. That sounds like godly to me.” He gave her a sad half smile. “All I have is belated propriety. Secondhand purity. Late-blooming morality.”
Maureen’s heart melted. “In other words, you’re a new man in Christ practicing godly living and godly standards.”
He perked up a bit. “It sounds so much nicer phrased that way.”
She reached across the table and took his hand. “I think that is one of the most wonderful things I’ve ever heard.” She smiled. “It’s what you’ve become since you met Christ that matters, not what you were before. Never forget that.”
He turned his hand over and gripped hers so hard that it hurt. He swallowed before he spoke, and his words trembled a bit. “Thank you, Irish. You’ll never know what your words mean to me. I’ve been terrified that no nice girl would ever be interested in me.”
“If Christ can forgive all your offenses, neither I nor anyone else has the right to hold them against you.”
“I don’t care all that much about the others, but I find I care inordinately about your opinion.”
Maureen swallowed and looked self-consciously away, right into the cynical gaze of Fleishman sitting two tables away with a pleasantly plump woman she assumed was his wife.
Much as she didn’t want to, she flushed. What must it look like, her sitting here deep in conversation with Phillip Trevelyan, holding hands with him no less. She pulled her hand free and tucked it into her lap.
“What a lovely meal,” she said, all chirpy, but her stomach suddenly knew that the crab cakes still had claws.
Phil frowned slightly at her almost flippant manner, but the waitress appeared with the bill and distracted him. He pulled out his bank card and slapped it on the table. The waitress disappeared to do the electronic magic of fund transfers.
Phil leaned back in his seat and gave her a look that immediately made her crab claws even more active. He definitely had something on his mind, and this time it wasn’t pleading his case.
“So you’re like a PI?” He seemed intrigued by the idea.
Maureen’s heart tripped. “What?”
“You’re a PI. A private investigator.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yeah, but that’s what you’ve got to say, or you’ll compromise your investigation, right?”
Maureen stared at him. She could feel her mouth hanging open and snapped it shut.
“Who hired you?” Phil asked. “Pop? He wants to make sure Trev and Dori stay together, and he hired you to keep him informed.”
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Fleishman and his wife getting out of their seats. She felt her shoulders relax as he headed for the door. At the door he stopped and turned. He stared at her, a contemptuous glare that told her quite clearly what he thought of her. Then he turned on his heel and left.
Maureen forced herself to forget Fleishman and concentrate on the job she had to do. “Phil, I don’t know where you got that absurd idea, but I’ve never met Pop, and I’ve certainly never been hired by him.”
Phil seemed to gauge her words, to weigh them in some mental balance like a merchant weighing produce in a bazaar. She couldn’t tell his conclusions from his expression.
He reached across the table and fingered one of the enameled butterflies hooked in her ear. His fingers tickled, but all she could think was how glad she was that Fleishman was gone. If he’d seen this move—she couldn’t even bring herself to think of his reaction.
“Cute,” Phil said, tugging ever so lightly. “Like you. Pop’s our grandfather. He and Honey raised the three of us after our parents were killed.”
Maureen forced herself to ignore his hand against her neck. “Pop’s who Dori came east to visit in the hospital?”
“As if you didn’t know.” Now his fingers played with one of her curls, twisting it gently.
She raised a hand like she was making a pledge. “I didn’t.”
Phil narrowed his eyes and sat back in his chair. He folded his arms across his chest and studied her for several moments. It was all she could do not to fidget. She couldn’t keep one hand from pushing the curl he had played with behind her ear.
“Then why are you following them, Maureen?” The bantering tone was gone. In place of the charming tease was a man who stared implacably across the table, his whole demeanor demanding an answer to his question, a reminder that new men in Christ weren’t pushovers or idiots.
She tried to dissemble. “What makes you think I’m following them?”
He didn’t even bother to answer.
She looked down at her empty coffee cup, studying the dram of liquid still sitting in it.
Oh, Lord, I’m about to go with my instincts here. If I’m wrong, please show me in the next five seconds or so.
She took a deep breath and looked at Phil. His brown eyes remained fixed on her as he waited.
“Fm not a private investigator,” Maureen began.
Phil raised a doubtful brow.
“I’m a cop.”
At this announcement, Phil blinked. “A cop?”
She nodded and sighed inwardly at his disbelieving look. She would miss his friendship, his humor, his outrageous behavior.
“What’s a cop doing watching Trev and Dori?”
“I’m not watching them. I’m watching her suitcase.”
“You’re watching Dori’s suitcase.” He repeated her statement as if it made no sense, which, of course, it didn’t out of context.
“We have a very reliable tip that that particular suitcase contains stolen goods.”
The temperature at the table cooled dramatically. “You’re saying that Dori is a thief?”
Maureen shook her head. “I don’t know who the original thief was. I don’t think anyone does. All we know is that the stolen goods
were being transported to Seaside. My job was to watch for the courier and follow her back to Seaside.”
“So where does Dori come into this?”
“She picked up the suitcase.”
“The one with these stolen goods inside.” He made it a statement.
Maureen nodded.
“How do you know she took that specific one? So many suitcases look alike.”
“It had a piece of red yarn tied on the handle and a streak of white chalk down the side.”
He was silent a minute, and she suspected that he was seeing that damaging red yarn attached to the case Dori wheeled to his car.
He shook his head decisively. “But Dori would never transport stolen goods. I know she wouldn’t. She’s not that kind of person, and besides, Pop’d have her hide.”
“My feeling is that she took the wrong suitcase.” Maureen saw again Joanne Pilotti and Dori reaching for the same bag. “Everyone else I work with isn’t quite as certain of your innocence as I am, so—”
“My innocence?” He looked highly offended that it was ever in doubt.
“Not you as in Phil specifically.”
He grunted approval.
“You as in all you Trevelyans.”
His expression told her what he thought of that absurdity.
She sighed. “I’m supposed to be ingratiating myself into your family to ascertain your degree of involvement in this whole mess.”
Hurt flashed in his eyes, quickly banished. “So that’s why you came to lunch with me.” And he had poured out his heart to her.
“Yes.”
He compressed his lips, disgusted with her.
“But no.” She was desperate for him to understand.
“What is it? Yes or no?”
She slumped in her seat. He’d surely hate her now. “Both. I had to come, but I wanted to, too.” She wet dried lips. “I-I really wanted to.”
“And I’m supposed to believe that, fall under your spell, and confess my evil machinations—oh, pardon me, our evil machinations.”
“Wow.” She managed a half smile. “I never heard anyone use that word in real life, and you used it twice in one sentence. And I don’t think any of you had anything to do with the stolen goods.”
