Fiona Silk Mysteries 2-Book Bundle (51 page)

“Good. That's a relief. We know who he is now. I was afraid he might be someone dangerous.”

Mary Morrison's eyes widened. “Oh, but he is dangerous. Quite dangerous.”

We drove the rest of the way home without a sign of Abby. Or Dolan. Josey was stashed at Hélène's place for the night, although the long-term prospects didn't look good. Kostas was tucked in the wingback in front of the fire with the tail end of a bottle of Jameson and a smile on his face.

It had been a while since I'd felt that throb in my leg, so I had a smile on my face too. Tolstoy and I had spent a happy fifteen minutes with the Frisbee in the back yard. I came back in with a clear head and ignored the flashing light on the answering machine (almost certainly more bleating from Phillip). In turn, I left a message about Dougie Dolan for Sarrazin. For good measure, I left another message with the Flambeau Foundation, not that they'd returned my first call. I was going to be much happier when Hélène tracked down the very elusive Mme Flambeau.

I retired to my study to sort out my life with pencil and paper. I felt grateful for the solitude, even though it meant not gazing wistfully at Marc-André Paradis or listening to the finer points of knitting technique.

Tolstoy opted for the fire with Kostas.

I listed the sequence of relevant events in a column: 

-Benedict's death.
 

-His placement in my bed, with his little glued-on smile.
 

-The attempt to run me down.
 

-The yellow-haired man, now known as Dougie Dolan,

following us in Hull, St. Aubaine and all around West Quebec.
 

-The break-in at my house.

-The Findlay Falls, where we'd been shot at.

-The Skylark being vandalized. The theft of the books and
Benedict's ashes.

-The slashing of my clothes.
 

-The spotting of Abby in the Jetta.

I examined the column critically. Could Abby Lake have been involved in all those things? What was her motivation?

Time for a bit of logic rather than blanket assumption. Not that logic is my strong point.

First, Benedict's death. Abby had been in love with him, but then so had a lot of people. Had she been jealous enough to kill him over one or more of his numerous infidelities?

Whoever killed Benedict had to have known about our relationship, such as it had been, much earlier. Had that been what tipped Abby into crazed behavior? Or was she pursuing me because she believed I'd killed her lover?

I chewed on the end of my pencil.

Benedict had died of a broken neck. Something that could have occurred by accident, even in an argument with a jealous woman. A few too many drinks, a shouting match, an accidental slam into the furniture, a fall down the stairs. It made sense.

And Abby with her strong, lean body, the product of weight training and years of dancing, would have had the strength to lift him, to dump him in her car, and to deposit him in my bed. She could have done it by herself.

Here the logic collapsed a bit. Two problems: one, would Benedict stand there while Abby beat him? She hadn't looked like she'd been in a fight when I saw her at the Memorial. Two, why would Abby choose my bed?

I doodled a little bit with the pencil.

Unless. Since Benedict had been foolish enough to call me the lost love of his life in front of Bridget, maybe he'd dribbled out something like that to Abby. Knowing Benedict, he could have been foolish enough all right.

Could it have sent her over the edge?

For a woman who'd snapped, what better revenge than to lay her dead lover's body in the bed of the woman he'd dangled in front of her nose. And Krazy Glue a smile on his two-timing slimy face. She'd get the double effect of casting the suspicion as far away as possible—from her to me. Poetic justice.

For insurance, she could fake a little note in what looked like my handwriting and leave it for the police to find in Benedict's cabin. That would ensure no one believed I wasn't in touch with him.

It all hung together. I figured Abby's residual jealousy could have given her a motivation to follow me around waiting for a chance to do a bit more damage. Perhaps she didn't think I was miserable enough, perhaps she was jealous of all the publicity, perhaps she hated the idea that I was the Queen of the Scattering. So why not try to run me over? While I was enjoying nature at the Findlay Falls, why not take a few shots at me? Even if she missed, there'd still be tons of satisfaction. Even if I managed to stay alive, she could always pound the bejesus out of my car and slash my clothes. And reclaim Benedict's ashes.

Yes. I had it figured out. Except for how Abby had duplicated my handwriting and just where Dougie Dolan fit in, but it would all fall into place sooner or later. If I could avoid getting shot, run over or arrested.

Suffused with good feeling over having sorted out the whole mess, I tiptoed past Kostas and Tolstoy, both softly snoring, and headed to the washing machine for a night-cap.

I was smiling into the snifter when I remembered to check my messages. Three waspish calls from Liz with important information about injections for spider veins. A long spew from Philip in which you could practically hear his jaw spasms all the way from Salt Lake City. Normally, it would have bothered me. But perspective is all. I'd been shot at, burgled and corpsed, so dealing with Phillip was a piece of cake. Maybe there was hope for that settlement.

On the down side, I didn't like the tone of Sarrazin's returned message. He didn't out and out say so, but he implied it was certainly convenient for me, prime suspect numero uno, to finger other likely candidates, but I shouldn't seriously expect him to waste five minutes on it. I couldn't wait until he heard the one about Dougie Dolan.

Of course, I may have been projecting. Either way, it was time for Goldilocks to meet Papa Bear again. Not that I was nervous, or clumsy or inept or anything, but Aunt Kit's antique brandy snifter did slip from my hands. The fragrance of Courvoisier filled the house.

Kostas sniffed and opened his eyes.

Cayla stared at Brandon as if she'd never seen him before. She
didn't call him darling, chookums, or lambibun. The colour of
her face went from chalk white to puce and finally settled on a
fishbelly shade of pale green.

“You,” she sputtered, “you dope, you ox, you klutz, you bozo,
you big, dumb twit. You DOORKNOB.”

Brandon raised his chin with dignity. He'd been noticing lately
that Cayla had a tendency to let an unappealing little stream of
drool dribble down the side of her mouth when she ranted.

“Do you, do you know what you've done? Idiot.”

Brandon decided the fishbelly green shade did nothing for
Cayla's complexion, which he'd always considered a bit sallow.

“That snifter belonged to my mother,” Cayla shrieked. “It's
been in our family for...”

“One generation,” Brandon interjected, unwisely as it turned
out.

“The least you could do is pay attention to what I'm saying,
since you have more or less wrecked my belongings.”

Brandon wanted to say it was only a snifter and a profoundly
unattractive one, but the moment didn't seem right somehow.

“You know what you are? You know what you are, Brandon?”
He watched her and held his breath. As long as she didn't say 
it. As long as she didn't say...

“Clumsy,” she screamed, “clumsy, clumsy, clumsy.”

Brandon jerked in pain. He stayed silent for a full minute, feeling the deep wound. “Most people,” he said, finally, “most people would have said movementally challenged. But I see, Cayla, you are not most people.”

She stood amid the shattered shards of the snifter, which gleamed sharply in the moonlight. She wished she could take back her words, but it was too late.

Tears stung her eyes, and the back of her throat ached as she watched Brandon walk away, head held high, stumbling only briefly over the ottoman.

I read the words on the screen and shook my head in disbelief. What tripe. That's what you get for trying to write in the middle of the night without a drink in your hand. I shut off the computer, climbed back into bed and flicked off the light, knowing it would mean returning to my dreams.

Dreams in which I had to choose between marrying Marc André Paradis or being arrested by Sarrazin, both of whom were laid out in fine mahogany coffins, with the white of the
fleur-de-lis
repeating nicely on the blue satin linings. Dreams in which Benedict spouted vile poetry to me from his urn. Dreams in which I used Josey's knitting needles to protect the three of us against a crazed Abby Lake. Dreams from which I jerked awake every ten minutes from three until seven.

At seven I tried closing my eyes again. A troubling idea kept them popping open. Dougie Dolan had already looked familiar in the Acura following us and again when I saw him in the Britannia. He'd been cleaned up, but eventually even I had figured out he was the same big blonde panhandler we'd seen in front of Rachel's bed and breakfast. So that left a problem.

Rachel had looked right at that man. She'd shouted at him to go away. If I'd spotted him after a couple of quick glimpses, no way she wouldn't have recognized him as the boy she went to school with.

Rachel. Our friend. Miss Hospitality. So why hadn't she mentioned Dougie Dolan when I'd asked her about the boy in the picture?

Hélène sounded embarrassed. “I am so sorry, Fiona. But Jean-Claude has already called this morning, and he was not pleased to learn Josée spent the night here. We must find another solution. He will be home tonight. And even if he wasn't...”

She didn't have to finish the sentence. Let's just say that Hélène, for all her sterling qualities, had never been known to defy the lord of the manor. And Jean-Claude Lamontagne hadn't squished his competition in real estate development by being cute and cuddly.

“Will you be able to find a good place for her?”

“Of course. Don't worry about it,” I said. “I'll think of something.” I detected no sign of frostiness in Hélène's voice—that was good. Too bad my Plan B for Josey, Rachel Kilmartin, had slipped badly in the ratings. That reminded me that, while I had no intention of leaving Josey there, I needed to speak to Rachel. For some reason, Rachel wasn't answering her phone. That couldn't be good for business. I left a detailed message. A lot of the detail concerned Dougie Dolan and my opinion of Rachel for keeping him a secret.

Since I was in message mode, I called Montreal again and left my third message with the Flambeau Foundation.

I hung up and faced Kostas's anxious smile.

“You seem so upset, dear lady. I will be more than happy to help in any way I can.”

Naturally.

“I have to find another spot for Josey until this is over.”

Kostas's face drained of its colour. “Change her living arrangements now? But sure, dear lady, how can we disrupt her when she's not finished her sweater. Can't she stay here?”

I avoided saying the sweater was not a life and death matter. In fact, it was considerably less important than having her attend school. And as for staying with me. Well.

“Abby Lake might try to attack us again before the police begin to take her seriously. I can't take the chance.”

“Perhaps Rachel...?”

“No.”

Kostas blinked. He mopped his brow with his handkerchief. “I suppose you're right, but she's not going to like it.”

“Tell me something I don't already know.”

Kostas grumbled, “She's really enjoying this adventure. And you know the dear girl had to cancel her trip to France.”

“Absolutely. Josey will be distressed to be dropped from the cross-country, all-star-scattering-plan and dodge-the-murderermarathon, but no choice and no argument. When this is over, I'll take her on a real vacation. Somewhere she won't get shot at.”

“I suppose, dear lady, I suppose.”

“We don't want Social Services to discover she's not safe and slap her into a foster home. Imagine how she'd feel about that.”

“Indeed, you're right, we must be sensible, but it saddens me. She could have learned so much with a few more days. I'll never find another pupil so willing, so unspoiled by negative concepts of knitting.”

My turn to blink. I had to admit the bond between Kostas and Josey had become something strong and special.

“And what about her birthday? We have to do something for that,” he said, putting the final nail in the argument.

“Right. But only if we make sure she doesn't get shot or run over because she's standing too close to me.”

“But dear lady, you have me now. How much danger can there be with the three of us sticking together?”

The sight of Josey, scrubbed and dressed, with her cowlicks at full alert, caused an immediate guilty reaction, shared equally between Kostas and me. Tolstoy barked in greeting and rushed forward to get his ears scratched.

“You
are
going to school today.” I barked a bit myself.

“Miz Lamontagne's kind of jumpy this morning, so I'm just waiting here at your place for the school bus. Unless that bothers you.”

Kostas and Tolstoy shot twin glances of reproach my way.

“No problem. I just want to ensure you really go.” I didn't ask how the school bus would know to stop at my house, particularly with Josey on the inside and out of view.