Skirting the Grave

by Annette Blair

  “His brother, the politician.”

  “Isobel’s father? Didn’t see that on the Net while paying for the beer.”

  “The very man. As for the details, we’ve petitioned the Feds for access to the case files.” Werner tapped his mouth with a finger for a thoughtful second. “Since those voice-modulated phone calls started before Payton or Isobel arrived, it may also be a matter of mistaken identity, as in, Payton might have been the wrong target carrying the right train ticket. Where does your sister Brandy come into it? Which York girl is she friends with?”

  “It’s a friend of a friend thing, but Isobel, my intern. Brandy begged me to take her on. You know, if it is a case of mistaken identity, Isobel needs a bodyguard. How about Nick?” I suggested. “His ego could use a boost. He can’t talk, but he can still shoot and beat the crap out of anybody.”

  “Except you.” Werner grinned. “You beat the crap out of him.”

  “You know how that feels,” I said to take the grinning starch out of him. I’d beat Werner up a time or three.

  He raised both hands. “Ya got me.”

  “I am not proud of myself. I am really, really sorry I hurt Nick.”

  Werner rubbed the bump on his head. “I know, like you’re frequently sorry you hurt me.”

  “For Nick to be Isobel’s bodyguard,” I said, “I guess he would have to live at my house.”

  “Damn,” Werner said. “Tell you what, Isobel can move in with me.”

  I stood, jarred by my own reaction. “Gotta hit the ladies’. Don’t need any help this time, thanks.”

  I shut his office door behind me, while something that smacked of jealousy followed me down the hall. I mean, so what if Isobel lived with him; I wouldn’t let her, but not because of that.

  From the high, transom-style open window in the ladies’ room, on the E-shaped center hall of the municipal building, I saw Werner across the parking lot in his office, tipping back a bottle that might be a cola for all anybody knew.

  He was also being watched by the two people standing beneath a tree outside the ladies’ room: Nick and Isobel. Odd, seeing them as a pair.

  I realized that I didn’t like it any more than pairing Isobel and Werner in my mind. Hmm. Two men vied for my attention, and I liked it. What did that make me? The only word that came to mind was “normal.”

  “Wasn’t my boss supposed to bring you some hot broth?” Isobel asked, as if she thought I didn’t and pointed out my lack. Nah. I was imagining things.

  Nick put a finger over his lips to shush her but rubbed his tummy, as if he was full. What a guy, standing up for me. Which meant he must have caught her tone as well.

  She offered him a juice box from her pocket, straw included. Well, that was nice. But it meant that she was prepared to spend time with him. Adults only carried juice boxes when someone else needed them.

  He took it with a surprised nod . . . which meant that he didn’t expect to spend time with her. He couldn’t figure it out, so she had to open it for him. Big smart FBI agent. My niece Kelsey opens those boxes and slips in the straw all the time.

  “I’m following her because I’m worried about my boss,” Isobel said. “She and the detective make a handsome pair, don’t they?” Isobel slipped her arm through Nick’s.

  He looked down at their entwined arms but didn’t push her away.

  Was I wrong, or was she making a play for my . . . ex?

  “What about you? Are you worried about her?” she asked.

  A strong nod. Hard to see him in pain, knowing it to be my fault, and unable to move the facial muscles that would give away his thoughts.

  “You love her, don’t you?” Isobel asked.

  Another affirmative nod, maybe more affirmative than the last, and it gave me a heart flutter, something to think about. Was his love for me a love forever after or the love of a BFF?

  And would I want Werner to nod as affirmatively to the same question? I wasn’t sure. I mean, eventually I had to choose between them, because if I didn’t, what did that make me?

  Besides lucky?

  I supposed I’d better take stock and decide what I wanted in my . . . go-to guy? Boy toy? Life?

  I couldn’t really be thinking of replacing Nick. Could I?

  Fact was, I couldn’t think in terms of forever. Not yet. I wasn’t ready. Probably came from mothering my siblings since age ten.

  But I supposed I wasn’t being fair to Nick or Werner. So I’d stop taking them both for granted.

  Scrap silk and little bone buttons, I was guilty of doing what I accused Nick of, taking me for granted. Maybe during my years in New York, that had been mutual.

  “You’d better stake your claim, then,” Isobel said. “Detective Werner is, I believe, falling in love with her, too.”

  Nick gave her a slow, sad, affirmative nod.

  Isobel leaned closer to Nick, and frankly she was ticking me off. “But you’re not angry with either of them?”

  First Nick nodded yes, then no. I guess that would mean he’d like to be angry, but he didn’t have the right. Fact is, he hadn’t staked his claim on me, either. And neither did I have a right to be upset because somebody else found him attractive, though she used me a bit like a step stool to reach him.

  “So you’re following her not because you’re jealous but because you’re trying to protect her from the guy who’s after me?”

  Nick nodded and moved to cross his lips with a finger, again, disengaging himself from her hold.

  “I won’t tell her,” Isobel said.

  Nick gave another half nod then repeated the sign for shh.

  Nick looked sad but not jealous, probably because jealousy broke us up in the first place. Yet, after all that and a wired jaw, too, there he stood in the shadows, on my tail, just to keep an eye on me. I sighed. My hero.

  My cell phone rang. The two beneath the tree turned toward the window, and I ducked and turned it off, midring, wondering if Nick recognized the sound. How many people in Mystic chose the music the world most associated with the cancan as a ringtone?

  On my way back through the squad room, I got a text from Brandy. Four letters: “Help.”

  “Billings,” I said as I passed his desk. “Tell the detective I had to run. Emergency at home.”

  In the parking lot I whistled. “Yo, behind the tree, Isobel, let’s go.”

  She ran over looking sheepish, brows furrowed.

  “Night, Nick,” I called. “Thanks for having my back.”

  I knew his response by heart: “I’d rather have your front.”

  Twenty-four

  Fashions are born and they die too quickly for anyone to learn to love them.

  —BETTINA BALLARD

  I drove in silence for a bit, but I couldn’t help asking, “How did you get from Mystick Falls to the police station?”

  Isobel braced herself. “Aren’t you driving a little fast?”

  “It’s an emergency. I got an SOS from Brandy, and I’m trying not to imagine the worst.” My father gasping for his last breath.

  “What would be the worst?” Isobel asked.

  “My father or Aunt Fee being sick or hurt, anybody I loved.” Drive safely, I told myself, backing off on the gas pedal. “Humor me to keep me sane. How did you get to the police station?”

  “I run five to ten miles a day. Didn’t Brandy tell you? I missed my run yesterday and needed to run off brownies and a Caramel Macchiato today.”

  I took in her Nike shorts and tank top, wondering if Nick had admired the way the athletic gear showcased her toned arms and legs. “You shouldn’t have been out on the streets alone after dark, especially after that caller threatened your life. What do you say to Nick as your bodyguard?”

  “I don’t need—Nick? Really?”

  I knew that would grab her attention. “The detective and I think you need someone to stick with you, in case the stalker-caller shows up. If you want to stay here, you’ll have a bodyguard, or I’m sending you back to D.C. wh
ere you’ll be safe.”

  “I live in New York. I happened to be visiting my grandmother in D.C. I have a place there.”

  You hate your grandmother, or she hates you. It’s Giselle she loves. I wished I wasn’t so suspicious. I really liked this girl. “I lived in New York for seven years,” I said.

  “I know, and you excelled in your field. That’s why I wanted to learn at your creative right hand.”

  “I thought you didn’t like your grandmother.” The words slipped right out, no filter. Scrap.

  Isobel bit her lip, then she gave me a sheepish grin. “Doesn’t mean I care to be cut from the will.”

  “I think you’d be safer with Nick as your bodyguard. I’ll ask him if he can do it. It’ll make him feel useful while he’s healing. Having your attention and protecting you will also make him feel more like the hunky FBI agent he is.”

  “FBI? I mean, he’s so cute. Who’d guess? Are you sure you want us spending time together?”

  “Nick and I have been on again, off again since junior high,” I said. “We’re off right now.”

  “You make it sound temporary.”

  “Maybe I think it is,” I said, considering. “As a couple, we’re unsettled, to say the least.”

  “So you have one of those bungee-type relationships?”

  “Yes, and the bungee cord is usually on fire, me breathing smoke and getting whiplash. Take him off my hands. Please.”

  “Permanently?”

  That sent a knife point to my chest. “I’m not asking you to marry him; just let him keep you safe while you’re here.” I parked on a dime and ran into the house.

  “Brandy, is Dad okay?”

  “I’m fine,” my father said, “if overrun with women, again, like the good old days.”

  I put my fists on my hips. “Brandy, why did you call for help? You scared ten years off my life.”

  “Panic,” Brandy said. “Cort wants me to move in early tomorrow, and he’s having a few potential donors in for a dinner party tomorrow night so they can meet me.”

  “But that’s good, right?”

  “That’s bad. I don’t want Cort to see me like this. I don’t have any daytime clothes, never mind dinner party clothes.”

  “I had to fight with you to get new clothes and now you’re—”

  “Begging?” Brandy asked on a chuckle. “I was working you, Sis. I knew you’d outfit me. I didn’t miss the fact that I met Cort wearing something of Mom’s that you picked out. Can you go back to the shop tonight and find a few quick pieces for me so I can start being a proper development director tomorrow and attend a dinner party in my honor at Vancortland House tomorrow night?”

  Can you go back to the shop tonight? she’d asked. Not can we?

  “This reminds me of a quote.” My father chuckled. “ ‘ Women thrive on novelty and are easy meat for the commerce of fashion. Men prefer old pipes and torn jackets.’ ”

  “Well, you certainly prefer them, Dad,” I said. “I think your smoking jacket is old enough to vote.”

  “Anthony Burgess spoke those words, and I’m telling you, he was right!”

  “Sure he was. Isobel, you want to come to the shop with me and Brandy?”

  “I’d like to crash,” she said, “if that’s okay with everyone?”

  Werner knocked and walked in, Nick behind him.

  “What brought you two here? Together?”

  “Your quick escape,” Werner said. “Billings said you beat a quick path out of the police station due to a family emergency. Nick saw you running across the parking lot, calling for Isobel, and once we compared notes, we decided to follow you here.”

  “Well, good,” I said. “Nick, I want to hire you to be Isobel’s bodyguard until we find the voice-modulated caller who said she should be dead.”

  Nick scribbled on the notebook he kept in his jeans pocket. “Yes, but you have to keep me in the loop.”

  “I won’t interfere with your FBI work?” Isobel asked.

  “On leave,” Nick wrote.

  “Perfect,” I said. “You’ll have to move in here, though. Is that a problem?”

  Nick winked and grinned at me.

  Werner elbowed him.

  “Nick, you can have Alex’s room, across from Sherry’s,” I said, “which is where Isobel is staying. You’ll be in the room next door to my father’s, as you might remember.”

  My father chuckled. “Don’t threaten him with my presence. Alex, Tricia, and the baby are on their way—they’ll take my room—and I’m moving to Fiona’s. I’ll come back every day, but I’m out of here late evenings and nights, so I can get the kind of peace a man of my years needs.”

  Fiona’s eyes twinkled. “A man of your years.”

  Such a loaded statement.

  “I didn’t think Alex and Tricia were coming until the weekend,” I said.

  “Alex now has to go to Washington, D.C., to teach Nick’s classes at an FBI conference this week, and he wants Tricia and the baby to be in good hands. That way, he can just meet them back here for the fund-raiser.”

  I hung my head. “Sheesh, you break one jaw and throw your entire family into a tizzy.”

  “You’re not kidding, Sis,” Alex said, pushing open the door with his backside, juggling luggage and dragging baby furniture behind him.

  Alex’s wife, Tricia, came in and handed Kelsey to me. “That’s what you get,” she said, “for beating up your boyfriend. Aunt duty.”

  “No,” Werner said. “Mad and Nick broke up.”

  Everyone eyed him.

  He lost his delight in the news and backed up a step. “Just the facts, ma’am.”

  Kelsey opened her arms to Nick, who took her but tried to keep his jaw a safe distance from her probing fingers, though he needn’t have bothered. Kelsey recognized a boo-boo when she saw one. She pointed toward his purpling jaw with a small finger. “I kiss it better?” she asked.

  Nick nodded.

  Kelsey planted her baby lips gently on his jaw. “All better,” the little one said, patting Nick’s shoulder as if she were taking care of him.

  Nick cupped my baby niece’s head and touched his lips to her brow.

  And I felt an arrow shoot straight to my heart. Had I lost the possibility of having this wonderful man in my life? Had I lost the opportunity of a lifetime?

  Twenty-five

  Artistic creativity is a whirlpool of imagination that swirls in the depths of the mind.

  —ROBERT TOTH

  “We’d best go get Brandy’s new clothes,” Werner said. “Nick, this’ll give you a chance to hang out with Alex and his wife for the evening while Isobel rests. I’ll escort Mad to the shop and act as her bodyguard.”

  Brandy smiled, a rare sight. “And I’ll stay here and play Auntie so Tricia can rest.”

  I couldn’t believe her. “You really don’t care what I dress you in, do you, Bran?”

  “Nope. I trust you.”

  “Okay, then.” I waved at Nick, and he gave me a wink that I could practically read, a reminder that he’s my go-to guy.

  Werner raised a saluting hand. “See you all tomorrow. Night, Mr. Cutler, Ms. Sullivan. You probably won’t be up when we get back.”

  “Or here,” my father said beneath his breath, and I chuckled.

  Nick handed me a note. “Go through OLD clothes when Eve or I can help.”

  “Nonsense,” Werner said, reading it over my shoulder and thinking nothing of the capital OLD. “I can help her.”

  “Good night, Detective,” my father said, his eyes narrow, his expression rather sternly protective and fatherly as he watched Werner’s hand at my back.

  While we headed toward the car, Eve called my cell phone, looking for details about Nick’s jaw. “You heard,” I said. “I want to hear about your weekend, too, but not now. I need to go get some outfits for Brandy the development director and Brandy the sophisticate.”

  I frowned and looked at my phone before I brought it back up to my ear. “Will y
ou stop laughing? I’m serious. Sure you can, but Werner’s with me. Nah, he wouldn’t mind if you came along in your pj’s. Would Kyle?”

  “Yes, I would,” Werner said. “Tell her to stay with Kyle. I’m all the help you’ll need.”

  “Kyle agrees with you,” I said as I put my phone away. “Are you taking your own car, or are you coming with me in mine?”

  “Give me your keys. I’ve never driven an Element.”

  I tossed my keys his way.

  He opened the passenger door for me and gave me a hand up. “Such a gentleman.”

  “Please, don’t spoil the moment with snark.”

  I said nothing more until he settled himself in the driver’s side.

  He turned the key in the ignition, and my car got smaller inside, intimate, with Werner in the driver’s seat, like this was a date or something. “You misunderstood,” I said. “I like being treated like a lady.”

  “Glad to hear it. I like not getting beat up.”

  He grabbed my hand across the space between the seats and squeezed.

  We’d shared a thermonuclear kiss, and I was having heart palpitations because he held my hand on purpose.

  Unaware of my heightened senses, he pulled into the Vintage Magic parking lot.

  My motion detector lights went on along the front and right side of my building, which made Dante step into an upstairs window. Without windows downstairs—because this was an old carriage house, and I didn’t want sunshine fading my vintage treasures, anyway—my friendly ghost wasn’t likely to spook me with a face-to-face. No, the only windows on the lower level were small squares, high behind the horse stalls, aka dressing rooms, and I liked it that way.

  Not that Werner could see Dante watching us.

  Then again, Werner was continually surprising me. “I want to bring Brandy a good selection,” I said. “I hope we find enough for the next few days, but my right arm has been sore all day, maybe from when I blacked out this morning and you caught me up. If I point out the items I want, would you mind reaching up to take them off the racks for me? And would you carry them?”