by B. J Daniels
“Your daughter seemed to like the macaroons,” he said.
“You’re mistaken. Charlotte wouldn’t touch a macaroon and Bo’s allergic to coconut.”
“Your other daughter. Violet.”
“Oh, her.” She did an eye roll. “Violet will eat anything. I’ve tried to teach her to cook....” She lifted a brow as if to say it was hopeless.
“You’re also teaching your son’s fiancée to cook, I understand. Maddie?”
Another eye roll. “Not everyone is capable of cooking. There is a talent to it.”
“Your daughter Charlotte, is she a good cook?”
“Charlotte?” She let out a laugh. “She won’t need to learn to cook. She’ll do fine on her looks alone because she’ll marry well.”
Nick tried not to show his distaste for Arlene’s theories.
“What are you looking for in a wife?” Arlene asked.
He chuckled uncomfortably. “I’m not looking.”
“You’re a handsome man. Too old for Charlotte, but there is always Violet or other single women in the area you might be interested in. I can sign you up for my Internet Meet-a-Mate business. It only takes a minute—”
“No thanks.” He got to his feet, wanting to clear out as soon as possible. “What kind of poisons do you keep in the place?”
It was his lucky day. He’d caught Arlene Evans speechless twice in a row. Unfortunately nothing lasted long.
“How can you even ask something like that?” Arlene snapped. “Of course I don’t have any poisons in this house, Deputy.”
“Of course,” he said as he moved to the door to leave.
“If you change your mind about the Meet-a-Mate,” Arlene called from her porch, “you just let me know. First month free!”
He drove off as if heading for a fire and decided to run by Geraldine Shaw’s house. The attorney had told him that the women from the community had been in the house earlier that day to take care of a few things.
There was safety in numbers so he didn’t think he’d find the floorboards dug up where someone had been searching for hidden loot.
But he did worry about what he wouldn’t find. A missing diamond bracelet. The attorney had gathered up the rest of Geraldine’s jewelry. It was to be turned over to Maddie Cavanaugh once the estate was settled. There was no diamond bracelet.
What disturbed Nick was the fact that as far as he knew, the only person who’d spent much time in the house with Geraldine Shaw was Maddie Cavanaugh. So who else could have taken the bracelet? Unless it had just been misplaced.
He parked his pickup in the back and entered through the rear. He’d been dumbfounded to find out that no one in Whitehorse or most of rural Montana locked their doors.
The house had an old smell that went with the furnishings. It was cool and dark inside and resembled some museums he’d been in. He went from room to room trying to get a feel for Geraldine Shaw. The drapes were old but clean, the sheets on her bed threadbare, her clothing matronly and dated, the cupboard filled mostly with home-canned items from her garden.
Arlene had been right about one thing. Geraldine Shaw lived frugally. But because she had to? Or because she was a skinflint as Arlene and probably the rest of the town believed?
He heard the creak of a footfall on the front steps and slipped back into the shadows as the front door groaned open. He’d thought there might be visitors—but not until dark.
The door closed, then the sound of tentative footsteps grew closer. Nick would have expected Maddie to show up here. Or Arlene Evans.
So he was more than a little surprised when the intruder turned out to be the last person he’d expected.
He stepped out, startling Laney Cavanaugh. She slapped a hand over her heart, both surprised and guilty looking.
“Hello,” he said, unable to hide his grin. Laney made the cutest criminal.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded.
“Funny, but that was what I was just about to ask you.”
She reddened, glancing around as if there would be something in the room that could save her.
“You’re not interfering in my investigation, are you, Miss Cavanaugh?”
She straightened to her full height, her expression resolute. “You are investigating people I care about.”
He nodded. “Your cousin Maddie is hiding something.” He could see she wanted to argue that, but didn’t even try. “Why don’t you tell me what you’re doing here.”
“I was by earlier with the rest of the community women to see what I could do to help,” she said. “I left my sweater here.”
She picked up a pale blue sweater from the arm of a rocker by the window.
Was it her sweater? Or was she just fast on her feet under pressure? He couldn’t tell. She was that cool.
But given the way she’d entered the house, he’d say she was fast on her feet. Not that he didn’t like that about her.
“That color goes well with your eyes,” he said, smiling as he stepped closer and caught a whiff of perfume.
Laney, the times he’d been around her, smelled like fresh air and sunshine. The perfume, he realized, was coming from the blue sweater she had over her arm. How had Glen Whitaker described it? Old flowers.
“What is that scent?” he asked, thinking this wasn’t the first time he’d smelled it. Arlene Evans’s house had a faint hint of it. In fact, he would have sworn he’d seen Violet Evans a couple of days ago in a blue sweater just like this one.
Laney frowned. “What scent?”
“The perfume on your sweater.”
Some of the cool left those emerald eyes of hers. She raised the sweater to her nose and sniffed. “Lavender.”
Chapter Seven
Laney didn’t like the look in Nick’s eyes. It was as if he knew something she didn’t. Worse, she was awful at this deceptive stuff. Or maybe she just didn’t like withholding evidence. Especially from Nick.
“I have a confession,” she blurted. “Geraldine Shaw stopped by the house right before the party. She’d misplaced a diamond bracelet. She thought Maddie had it and was upset.”
He nodded. “So where is this bracelet?”
“That’s just it. No one knows.”
“You asked Maddie?”
She’d tried to get Maddie to open up to her after her interrogation in Nick’s patrol car in front of the house. But Maddie, clearly upset, had said she needed to find Bo and had left in a rush.
“Maddie swears she left it in the jewelry box with the other items Geraldine had planned to sell and I believe her,” Laney said with more force than she really felt. Something was going on with Maddie. Laney had sensed it from the moment she’d seen her cousin. With each passing day, Laney was becoming more concerned that Maddie was in serious trouble.
“Can you describe this diamond bracelet?” Nick asked.
“I can do better than that.” Laney handed him the snapshots Geraldine had had Maddie take and send copies to the antique jeweler.
“The rest of the jewelry is accounted for?”
She nodded.
He took the photo of the diamond bracelet and put it in his pocket. “Any more confessions?”
She met his dark eyes, tempted to confess that she’d wanted to kiss him from the moment she’d met him. “I think that about covers it. Except I was mistaken. This isn’t my sweater.” She hooked the blue sweater back over the arm of the rocker and turned to give him her best sheepish smile.
He seemed about to say something, then must have thought better of it. “No more investigating on your own, right?”
She didn’t answer as she left. She didn’t want to have to lie to him on top of everything else.
* * *
AFTER LANEY LEFT, NICK STOOD lis
tening to her drive away. Clearly she hadn’t come here for her sweater. But what? What would she have been looking for? The missing diamond bracelet? Or... He spied a drawer that was slightly cocked as if closed too quickly.
Stepping to it, he saw the dust was disturbed on the cabinet as if someone had put a hand down on it. The handprint could have been Laney Cavanaugh’s. It was that small, the fingers long and slim.
He pulled open the drawer, not surprised to find it contained Mrs. Shaw’s personal financial records. Laney Cavanaugh was an accountant. He wondered what she might have found interesting in Geraldine’s records.
As he started to leave, he had a thought. In the kitchen he found a clean trash bag under the sink. He put the sweater smelling of lavender in the bag and closed the top. If he was right, Glen Whitaker would recognize the scent.
He was anxious to get back to his office, to get the photo of the diamond bracelet on the wire. He was counting on whoever stole the bracelet to have pawned it as quickly as possible thinking that was safer than hanging on to it—especially after Geraldine Shaw dropped dead.
But as he drove by the community center, he noticed that the door was cracked open. Since he’d asked Titus to keep the place locked until the investigation was over, the door shouldn’t have been open. There was no car parked out front, but he’d noticed a trail behind the center that led down to more parking at the bottom of the hill.
He slowed to a stop, parked at the edge of the road and walked back. As he neared, he heard a thud, as if someone had bumped against something inside the center. Someone was definitely in there.
He climbed the steps and eased the door open, peering into the dim cool darkness. From what he could see, everything was just as it had been the day of the murder sans the food.
He pushed the door open farther and stepped in.
Laney Cavanaugh stood at the end of the table where the desserts had been during the engagement party. She had her hands on her hips, her head tilted to one side. He could hear her muttering to herself.
He smiled, shaking his head. She hadn’t exactly taken his warning about staying out of his investigation, now had she?
He thought about arresting her. He also thought about kissing her. The latter had the most appeal.
“And we meet again.”
She jumped, spinning around, guilt written all over her face. “I was just—”
“Looking for your sweater? No, that’s right, you found it at Geraldine Shaw’s. But then it turned out not to be yours after all. I hope you at least found what you were looking for here. And please don’t insult my intelligence with another story about a missing item of clothing.”
She met his gaze. “Fine. I’m trying to find out who killed Geraldine Shaw so I can clear my sister.”
He liked honesty. Hell, he liked this woman and found himself liking her more all the time. “I thought we’d already had this discussion. I’m the one who’s going to find out who killed Geraldine Shaw. You were the one who was going to stay out of it. At least that’s the way I remember it.”
“I can’t stay out of it. You don’t know these people. I do. I know this town. I know its history.”
He shook his head, afraid he knew what was coming.
“You need my help.”
He smiled at that, tempting though it was. “I’m an officer of the law.” He didn’t add that he’d had more experience than he wanted to admit with murder. And an even closer brush with cyanide poisoning.
She said nothing, but still had that determined look in her eyes.
“You realize there’s a law against impeding an investigation.”
Determination brought her chin up. “You can arrest me if you don’t like it.”
What he liked was the idea of taking her back to town, but not to jail.
“I can help,” she said, hesitated, then added, “I found Geraldine Shaw’s financial records.”
Yeah, so he’d discovered. He raised a brow though, curious what she’d made of what she’d found.
“She’d been withdrawing a thousand dollars a month in cash out of her savings account for the last year.”
Which probably explained why Geraldine’s savings account had less than a hundred dollars in it now.
“Blackmail?” he asked.
Laney shrugged then grinned. “You’re the officer of the law here.”
He shook his head at her, unable not to grin. “Arlene Evans thinks Geraldine hid thousands of dollars in her house.”
“That’s a rumor that’s been going around for years.” She shook her head. “They weren’t poor, but they weren’t rich either. Like most of the people who live in and around here, they lived off the land and made a living. No one around here gets rich. Or lives extravagantly.”
“So what would anyone have to blackmail her about?” he asked.
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
He took off his hat and scratched his head. “I’m sorry, where does your knowledge of these people and this community come in again?”
She glared at him. “I do have several theories about the murder if you’re interested. It’s one reason I stopped by here.”
He put his hat back on, pushed back the brim and crossed his arms as he leaned against the wall. “I can’t wait to hear them.”
Laney ignored his sarcasm. She could put up with a lot to save her sister. And her cousin, because like him, she feared Maddie was somehow involved in all this.
But putting up with Nick Rogers also meant ignoring the way her heart took off at a gallop when he was around. He seemed to fill any space he was in, changed the air pressure and the temperature. Made her body feel hypersensitive as if just his nearness was a caress across her bare skin.
What Nick Rogers did was remind her that she was a woman and it had been a long while since any man had done that.
“If the poison wasn’t in the macaroons—which it wasn’t since Laci baked them—then it had to have been added between the time she baked them and they ended up on this table,” she said, corralling her thoughts.
He nodded. “Who took them from the house to the center?”
“Aunt Sarah, Maddie’s mom, brought some of the baked goods, Laci and I brought the rest.” Before he could ask, she added, “I personally loaded the macaroons.” She met his gaze. “In case you’re wondering, I didn’t poison them.”
“So you carried the macaroons in and left them on the back counter behind the tables. Laci put them on the table and Laci was the only one who had access to the rest, right?”
She hated to admit it. “Yes.”
“So if Laci didn’t put the poison in the cookie, then it had to be administered while the macaroons were on the table, right?” His dark eyes reminded her of this part of Montana, vast.
She shook her head. “Too sloppy. The killer couldn’t chance being seen adding the poison to the cookie. So if you were the killer, what would you do?”
He shrugged. “Enlighten me.”
“Bring your own macaroon with the poison already in it.”
“Your sister’s right about you. She said you had a very analytical mind.”
She heard his words, not just the ones he spoke, but the ones he didn’t as his gaze washed over her. She felt heat flush her skin as she turned her back on him to study the counter behind the table. She hated that her behavior probably only made her look guilty.
Better him think that, she reasoned, than what she really had on her mind.
* * *
NICK STUDIED HER BACKSIDE, liking the set of her shoulders, the determined tilt of her head, the way her jeans fit her. The fact that she was hiding something from him only intrigued him as much as the woman herself. Since lunch she had changed to jeans and a sleeveless blouse, both dark blue. He suspected this was her invest
igating outfit.
“Nice theory,” he said as he debated what to do about Laney Cavanaugh. She was definitely too smart for her own good. The killer was bound to find out that she was doing some investigating on her own. From what she’d said, she wasn’t going to give up until she found out the truth.
And that was the problem. This was way too dangerous for her to be nosing around in. Worse, she could go too far—and find not only the killer—but also uncover things about Nick Rogers and what he was really doing here.
The problem was that warning her to stay out of his investigation was a waste of breath. She was right. She knew the locals, she knew the area and maybe even harder to accept, he needed her.
He also needed to keep an eye on her. For his own protection if not hers. Mostly, keeping an eye on Laney Cavanaugh was exactly what he wanted to do.
“So the killer baked one macaroon with almond extract and poison in it?” he asked, having a few theories of his own, but curious to see what she’d come up with.
She turned around to look at him. Her eyes were that clear cool-water mix of greens. “Almond extract?”
He nodded. “Arlene Evans said she smelled it in the cookie.”
“Laci would never have changed the recipe that way. She’s a purest about old family recipes. Our macaroons don’t have almond extract in them.”
He loved the way she not only defended her sister, but also the family recipe. “How did the killer know Laci was making macaroons?”
“Someone told her they were Bo’s favorite,” she said.
“But I talked to Arlene. Bo is allergic to coconut.”
“The intended victim would have had to have liked macaroons.”
He smiled and nodded. “Apparently Geraldine liked macaroons. And Arlene—although she says she prefers her own recipe. And Violet apparently was a big fan of the cookies.”
“The macaroon would have to be identical to the others,” she said more to herself than to him.
“Where did she get what your sister said was an old family recipe, then?”
“The Whitehorse Sewing Circle’s cookbook. My grandmother donated the recipe to raise money for the center.”
