Mist on the Meadow (25 page)

Rosalie had located stolen cattle and other
various wandering livestock. Not something that would translate to
Marissa’s present situation. She could help locate missing persons,
but that required working with the police. Would they think she was
a crackpot if she approached them? Not to mention she had no track
record, no references. How did a
Kundigerin
go about
obtaining references?

One particularly interesting part of the
journal detailed home remedies and purported love potions. Uncle
Balt’s notes said the concoctions seemed to be stronger when
Rosalie sang a song while she prepared them. That was something
Marissa could relate to. Apparently, she’d already created food
with aphrodisiac qualities. But home remedies? And what exactly
would she cure?

“What’s got you so deep in thought?” Angela
scooted into the chair across from her.

Marissa shrugged. “Reflecting, I guess.”

Angela leafed through the journal. “German? I
didn’t think you knew German, except for those Uncle
Balt-isms.”

Marissa shrugged as she retrieved the
journal.

“All the special orders for tomorrow have
been baked,” Angela said, “Seems like they’re ordering rather than
stopping in while the weather is disagreeable.”

“They’ll be back when it stops snowing.”

Angela laughed. “Don’t I know it.” She
reached across the table and grabbed Marissa’s wrist. “What’s going
on, girlfriend? You okay?”

Angela’s sea green eyes twinkled with the
mischief that lay beneath the surface. No doubt Angela wanted
Marissa to tell her about Wolf, but Marissa was still trying to
figure that out herself.

Uncle Balt had written that Rosalie confided
in him about her relationship with Friedrich, as if on at that
twenty-fifth birthday they’d been unable to resist whatever drew
them together. Marissa’s attraction to Wolf might be related to her
legacy.

“Marissa?” Angela tilted her head. “What’s
going on in there?”

Better to steer clear of that topic for the
time being. “I’m worried about someone breaking in again.”

The café door opened and Officer Don Walker
walked in wearing jeans beneath a snow laden peacoat. He looked
younger out of uniform, close to her in age. He shook snow out of
his dishwater blond hair.

Marissa walked to the counter. “Off duty?”
she asked.

“Yep. Wanted to thank you for the coffee and
muffin this morning, and tell you how good it was. You guys are
closing at three-thirty?”

Marissa checked the clock on the wall. Ten
minutes to go. “Yeah. We’re pretty quiet with the snow coming down
the way it is.”

“Nice of you to stop by again,” Angela said.
“I’m Angela Demarco.” She held out her hand.

He shook her hand. “Don Walker.”

“We’ve got lots of leftovers,” Marissa said.
“Do you want to take some back to the station?”

He smiled. “They’d love that.”

“Marissa and I were talking about the
break-in,” Angela said. “Any leads?”

“As a matter of fact, the gas station behind
you has a camera. When I clocked out this morning, they were
running a license plate.”

Angela nodded. “That’s excellent news, don’t
you think Marissa?”

Marissa nodded.

“They got your apartment, too, I heard,” Don
said.

“Detective Gibson thought they might be
related,” Angela said.

“I don’t think so,” Marissa said. “They meant
to do damage here. They didn’t do anything at my apartment, other
than leave salt everywhere.”

“Any idea why they’d do that?” Don asked.

Marissa shook her head. “Can’t figure that
one out.” She unfolded a box and filled it with an assortment of
baked goods.

Don pulled off his gloves when she extended
the box to him. Marissa’s hand touched his momentarily and a mild
cramp tightened in her belly. The picture flashed inside her head
like a snapshot.

“That engagement ring,” Marissa said, “she
found it, but she isn’t ready yet. She hid it in your underwear
drawer.” Her eyes opened wide and she put her hand over her mouth.
“I didn’t mean—”

Don laughed. “Seriously?”

Angela looked from one to the other of them.
“What engagement ring? What are you talking about, Marissa?”

“How do you know about that?” Don asked.

Warmth rose up her neck. She had to come up
with a plausible explanation. “Don Walker, right? I overheard one
of my customers talking about it earlier. A pretty woman. Your
girlfriend?”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Well, I thought she
was, but she’s been acting strangely lately. I was going to
propose, but then the ring went missing and, come to think of it,
she’s been avoiding me ever since. I hadn’t related the two before.
What else did she say?”

Marissa had seen what she’d seen. She hadn’t
meant to manufacture an explanation, but who would believe she was
a psychic? She took a deep breath and reached into the bakery case
for her last ‘treat of the day,’ a peach tart flavored with
cinnamon—
cinnamon,
she paused to inhale the aroma—and
nutmeg. Marissa’s baking had taken on a new dimension since her
birthday. If the woman wasn’t ready, was Marissa playing fair?

Marissa hummed the first couple lines of
Du, du liegst mir in Herzen
and set the bag with the tart on
top of the box for the police station. “Here’s what you do,”
Marissa said. “Go find the ring. Tell her you stopped by here at
closing time and we had the one tart left. Tell her you bought it
for her and when she takes a bite, sing or hum your song. Everybody
has an ‘our’ song, right? Sing her that song. Then give her the
ring. She won’t be able to say no, I promise.”

He narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

Angela curled his fingers around the box. “I
think she’s got a winning idea.”

Don shrugged. “Couldn’t hurt. But didn’t you
say she wasn’t ready?”

“She’s had time to think about it,” Marissa
said. “Worth a try, don’t you think?”

“I’ll be here when you open in the morning,”
he said. “I’ll let you know how it goes.” He grinned. “And
thanks.”

“Closed tomorrow for New Year’s. The day
after?”

“I almost forgot! This will be a New Year’s
Eve to remember.” He saluted and walked out with a big smile.

They locked the door behind him.

“How’d you know that?” Angela asked. “We
didn’t have that many people in here today, and haven’t you been in
the kitchen for most of the day?”

“Educated guess,” Marissa replied. “You said
the special orders are all done?”

Angela nodded. “Yep. Go home. And I have a
flight to catch.”

Marissa rolled her eyes. “I’m not going back
to that apartment.”

“Staying with your folks again?”

“No, I took a room at the Extended Stay.”

“You and a certain someone else?”

Marissa sighed. “No.”

“You’re staying at a hotel alone? That’s no
fun. You could stay at my place, you know.”

“Thanks, but I already paid for a week.”

“That doesn’t seem right, Riss. What’s going
on with you and Wolf? After what you told me the other day, I’d bet
he’d let you stay with him. Unless—”

Marissa pushed her toward the back door.
“No,” she repeated. “I need some time to myself. That’s all.”

“Maybe you should eat one of your magic
tarts. Want me to have Wolf sing to you?” Angela pursed her lips,
but couldn’t hold back the smile.

“Get out of here. You’re going to miss your
plane.”

* * *

For the third time in as many hours, Wolf
picked up the phone in his office at Harper Electronics, fully
intending to call Marissa. And for the third time, he didn’t
call.

He’d had enough heartache in his life. He
would not pursue a woman who so clearly wasn’t interested. What was
wrong with him, anyway? He’d spent eleven years trying to avoid
this type of situation.

Instead, he tried to focus on writing the new
software for Conglomerated, which was a waste of time. Code
required concentration, and his was shot. Better to wait for the
new year and a fresh start. He shouldn’t even be writing the code,
but the client had demanded personal attention after the problems
Uncle Pete had caused.

Everyone was on holiday break. He could use
the days off, too. By next week, the new components should arrive
in the warehouse and he’d feel like he could complete the
requisition. Without the parts, he was creating code to load onto
devices that weren’t there. An exercise in futility.

How had Elliot forgotten about the
surveillance cameras? Seems like he would have considered ways to
avoid being caught, and that was the most obvious. Then again, no
one had bothered to stop him up to this point.

Wolf powered down his computer. He wasn’t
accomplishing anything in the office. He gathered his coat and
walked into the corridor, just in time to see his uncle headed his
direction. Wasn’t Uncle Pete taking vacation days? For a moment,
Wolf considered turning the other way. Instead, he folded his arms
and waited.

Uncle Pete slowed to a stop a few paces away,
his eyes not as bleary as they’d been earlier in the day. “The
Board is asking for my resignation,” he said.

“Are you surprised?” Wolf asked.

“This is Harper Electronics. I’m a
Harper.”

“You can’t tell me you didn’t know anything
about the theft. You do know how much inventory had to be replaced,
don’t you?”

Uncle Pete looked away. “I thought it might
have been clerical error, you know? Like someone forgot to order
the parts. Or they were in the warehouse, but not properly
marked.”

Wolf leaned toward his uncle. “There were
signed bills of lading. That’s not clerical error. And if they were
improperly marked, you do an inventory count to locate them. You
don’t pretend there’s not a problem.”

“Your father was the businessman, Wolf.” His
shoulders drooped and the crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes
were more pronounced. “You’re a lot like him. Me? I’ve been faking
it for the last eleven years.” He heaved a sigh. “Take over. You’ve
been doing the work anyway, but there’s got to be a place for me
here. We’re family.”

Wolf swallowed down the lump that rose in his
throat. His uncle cut a pitiable figure, and yet this was the same
man who broke into Marissa’s apartment. Drunk? Sober? Did it
matter? Who could blame Marissa if she never spoke to Wolf again?
One more thing to lay at his uncle’s feet. And there was little
doubt about where Elliot got the idea to threaten Marissa.

“They’ll listen to you,” Uncle Pete said, a
break in his voice. And then his lips began to tremble. “I’m not
old enough to retire, and I’m too old to start over. Please. Your
father would have helped me.”

Wolf took a step closer and pointed at his
uncle. “You leave my father out of this. You brought this all on
yourself and I’m done being patronized by a lying sack of shit.” He
turned to go, but his uncle wasn’t finished.

“It’s the girl, isn’t it?”

“You crossed the line,” Wolf shouted. He
waved his arms at the offices around them. “This wasn’t enough,
taking away my inheritance, you went after an innocent woman, for
what reason I don’t know.”

His uncle’s voice was low, quiet. “She’s a
witch, Wolf.”

“You sound like Grandpa. This is the
twenty-first century. She hasn’t done anything wrong. You, on the
other hand—” Wolf shook his head. “Why am I even bothering?” He
stormed down the hall and into the elevator. If he was smart, he’d
have security remove his uncle from the building, and yet he
couldn’t bring himself to take that step.

Wolf refused to spend New Year’s Eve alone in
the big empty house. Even Chuck had gone out to celebrate.

One last look at his cell phone confirmed
Wolf had not received any communication from Marissa. One more
reason why it was smarter to shut off his emotions. For a brief
moment, he believed the New Year would bring new hope into his
life.

Hope was a waste of time. But the flutter was
still there every time he thought about Marissa. She’d managed to
disrupt years of practiced control.

Wolf snatched his overcoat and left the Manor
house. He didn’t need two houses. Harper Manor was a big empty
mausoleum filled with years of memories—and yet Harper Manor was
the only real attachment he had left. Solid. Unmoving.

Empty.

Every time Wolf had gone out, he ended up in
front of Marissa’s parents’ house, or her apartment building, in
spite of his intentions to drive into the city. Wolf stood beside
his car in the garage and grunted his frustration. What he needed
was distraction.

He clambered behind the wheel. At least the
snow had stopped. He deliberately turned onto the expressway,
headed toward Chicago. With a nod, he assured himself he would get
past this fascination for Marissa, one way or another. A big city
party would do wonders.

Wolf tuned in the classical station on the
radio and conducted the orchestra with one hand while he hummed
along.

He decided on his destination. “Navy Pier,”
he said out loud. But when he arrived, the parking lot was
full.

“I’m not going back,” he said, and then
winced. He would look like an idiot if he continued to talk to
himself all night.

Since the lot was full, Wolf drove the three
blocks to his condo and his assigned parking spot. He hadn’t been
to his place in the city since his grandmother died.

And yet, he didn’t go into the condo. Wolf
pulled his collar up against his neck and approached Navy Pier on
foot. Lights sparkled against the winter night sky and music blared
through speakers. In spite of the cold, the outside walkways were
crawling with people. Wolf gazed upward and watched the Ferris
wheel slowly circle.

If Marissa were with him, he’d take her for a
ride. The Chicago skyline, especially from Navy Pier, never failed
to fascinate him. They could have watched the fireworks at
midnight.