Scone Cold Dead (4 page)

“Why don't you two go on upstairs and settle in?” she suggested. “Zara, you're in the back bedroom. Sandy, hang a left at the top of the stairs and you end up in my spare room. The love seat folds out into a bed.”

“No need for that,” Sandy said with a grin. “I don't mind sharing one of the big beds.”

Liss distinctly heard Dan's teeth grind together.

“Come back down when you're ready for cocoa,” she called after her two houseguests. “I just want to say good night to Dan.”

Liss waited until Sandy and Zara reached the second floor before she turned to look at him. She'd never before seen such a surly expression on his face. “What on earth is bugging you?”

“That spare room connects to yours.”

“So?”

“So just where is your good friend Sandy
really
going to sleep tonight?”

“With Zara, I presume.” Liss felt her eyes widen as she finally caught on. “You thought he was planning to sleep with
me
? Get a grip, Dan. Sandy and I are friends. I've told you tons of stories about scrapes we got into on the road. How could you possibly—”

“I
thought
Sandy was short for Sandra, not Alexander. It's not that easy to shift gears.” He looked away, then back at her. “I was kind of hoping the guy would turn out to be gay.”

“Well, he's not.”

That seemed to set him off all over again. “You know this from personal experience?”

“That is none of your business!” How could she possibly explain what she had with Sandy? She could hardly say they'd “dated.” Surely that was a misnomer when two people traveled together with a troupe of dancers for months on end.

“I thought we were in a relationship, Liss.”

“That does not give you the right to question me about my friends.” Exasperated, she jerked open the closet door to hang up her coat. “I don't even know why we're having this discussion. This is so high school!”

“You called him your ‘best pal.' Exactly what does that mean?”

“You're out of line, Dan.” Besides, he didn't deserve an answer if he thought so poorly of her that he'd assume she'd sleep with someone else at the same time she was involved with him.

“I just want—”

“Oh, for goodness' sake! Dan, go home. Come back when you decide to have a little faith in me.” Put out at his attitude, angry with herself for arguing with him about it, and suddenly completely exhausted from a long, harrowing evening, she opened the front door, shoved him through it, and slammed it shut behind him. She could still see him through a side panel. He didn't move until he heard her lock the dead bolt with a resounding click. She flicked off the outside light, plunging the porch into shadow, just as he started to turn her way.

Liss leaned her forehead on the door, resisting the temptation to bang her head against the wood.
Dan
was the one who needed some sense knocked into him.

“Trouble in paradise?” Zara asked from the stairs.

“Nothing that won't blow over when he's had a chance to come to his senses.” She hoped.

As far as Liss was concerned, her relationship with Dan Ruskin was still at the fun, getting-to-know-you-better stage. She was a long way from being ready to plan a future together and she had no idea where this ridiculous jealousy had come from. What really hurt, though, was that he didn't automatically trust her.

She led Zara past the open living room to their left and the closed doors of closets and a bath on the right, down a narrow hall, and into the kitchen. It took up the entire back end of the house and included a dining area. This was the room in which Liss had made the greatest number of changes since moving in. New appliances had been a must—the ones already there had been at least forty years old—and she'd splurged on a small wooden drop-leaf table and four chairs because Dan had assured her the workmanship was excellent. The walls, those not taken up by cabinets, were decorated with framed prints of various cooking herbs set off by the pale green wallpaper she'd hung herself.

“There used to be a formal dining room,” Liss remarked as she ran water into a large glass measuring cup, “but the last owner decided she'd rather have a combination library and office. She closed off the doors that opened into the kitchen and the hall, and now the only entrance is through the living room.”

“It's a great house.” Zara gravitated toward the back door, which looked out across a narrow strip of land at Moosetookalook Scottish Emporium. “Does your aunt live above the store?”

“She has an apartment there, yes, but at the moment she's visiting my parents in Arizona.”

Liss put the water in the microwave to heat and collected packets of hot chocolate and mugs, taking them to the table. Some of the troupe preferred a nightcap after a performance, but she and Sandy and Zara had usually opted for a soothing drink of the nonalcoholic type. So much for the sophisticated image!

Lumpkin wandered into the kitchen just as the timer on the microwave dinged. He jumped a good foot and came down wild eyed, claws extended, and the fur on his tail puffed up to twice the size it had been.

“Settle down, Lumpkin,” Liss told him.

“Nervous for such a big lug.”

“He has his little quirks. Try to avoid sneezing if he's in the room. That startles him, too.” She finished pouring the water into the mugs and got out a cat treat. Panic attacks never seemed to dull Lumpkin's appetite.

Sandy appeared just as Liss joined Zara at the table. He'd changed from the kilt into a comfortable fleece sweat suit that was the twin of Zara's.

Liss lifted a brow as she looked back and forth between them. “Cute.”

He grinned and took a moment to absorb his surroundings before he turned one of the remaining chairs backward and straddled it. “You've done all right for yourself, Liss MacCrimmon,” he said as he reached for the steaming mug on the place mat. “I knew you'd bounce back.”

“Even when I hit the floor of the stage with a splat?”

“Even then.”

“So, what's this surprise you promised me?”

Sandy reached across the table to take Zara's hand. She always wore rings, when she wasn't onstage, but the gesture called Liss's attention to a new one.

“We're getting married,” Sandy announced, fingering the square-cut emerald. “In two months. And we want you to be in the wedding party.”

“We had to flip a coin,” Zara said over Liss's delighted congratulations, “to decide which one of us you'd stand up with. I won. You'll be wearing a dress instead of a kilt.”

As they sipped hot chocolate, the conversation slowly turned from wedding plans back to
Strathspey
. “So, how did we look from out front?” Zara wanted to know.

“Pretty darned good. I have to tell you, though, that it was strange seeing someone else dance my part.”

“Emily's not bad,” Sandy conceded. “Sarah was better, though.”

“Sarah?”

“The first dancer Victor hired to replace you.”

“I thought Emily was—”

“No, she came in when Sarah left, at about the same time you sent word that you wouldn't be back at all.”

“So this Sarah was just hired as a temp?”

Sandy and Zara exchanged a glance. Then Zara shrugged. “I never was a believer in ‘speak no ill of the dead.' She would have been your permanent replacement if Victor hadn't told her she'd have to sleep with him to get the job. She smacked him upside the head, accused him of sexual harassment, and threatened to bring formal charges against him. I'm not sure what changed her mind.”

“I guess I'm not surprised,” Liss said. “Victor made a pass at me shortly before my accident. That was just after you broke up with him, Zara.”

“I swear I don't know what I ever saw in the man, although he could be charming when he wanted to. He didn't pressure me into a relationship, in case you're wondering.” She reached for Sandy's hand and he gave her fingers a reassuring squeeze. “But after it was obvious Sandy and I were developing feelings for each other, Victor went out of his way to make things difficult for us on the road. We've been considering leaving
Strathspey
.”

“I don't understand. Victor was always a pain, but he wasn't petty.”

“He'd been under a lot of pressure,” Zara said. “My guess is that the company is on shaky ground financially.”

“Has attendance fallen off?”

“Not so's you'd notice, but expenses are up. Gas for the bus, for instance.”

And rates for health insurance, Liss thought, remembering Victor's complaint. “I can sympathize. I've learned more about finances than I ever wanted to know since I started running the gift shop. My aunt was barely making ends meet before we restructured her mail order business and made the entire inventory available online.”

Encouraged by questions from Sandy and Zara, Liss talked a bit about what she'd done to turn the business around. She hoped she didn't sound as if she were boasting, but she was extremely pleased with the success she'd had so far.

Sandy took a thoughtful bite out of one of the molasses cookies he'd found by foraging in her cupboards. “Sounds like you might be able to work the same magic on
Strathspey
if you were to step in as manager.”

“You did say you'd love a chance to come back,” Zara reminded her.

“Well, yes, but—”

“Someone's going to have to take Victor's place.”

She temporized. “It seems a little callous to talk about this now.”

“The man's dead. The show isn't,” Sandy said bluntly. “Not yet.”

They were watching her intently, making Liss extremely self-conscious. Then a yellow paw appeared over the edge of the table. It patted the surface, reached farther, found the plate with the cookies, and had almost snagged one when Liss tapped it lightly with one finger.

“Bad boy, Lumpkin.”

“Does he do that often?” Zara asked.

“Every chance he gets. And anything he finds goes straight into his mouth. Even lettuce. Even, once, a pearl onion. He spit that back out, though.” Liss glanced at the clock, then stood and collected their mugs, dumping them in the sink to deal with after she'd slept. “I don't know about you folks, but I've just hit the wall.”

Sandy and Zara exchanged a look but they didn't say any more about Victor's job. Liss knew she'd made her point—she wasn't prepared to make any decisions tonight.

Ten minutes later, they had all retired, but the sleep Liss craved was slow in coming. What Sandy had proposed intrigued her. She wasn't sure why she'd hesitated. They were right. She had been looking for just such an opportunity . . . before she'd settled into life in Moosetookalook.

What she'd said at the reception had been a holdover from those first days here, when she was still mourning her lost career. Things were different now. As much as she might enjoy returning to the road, it would not be the same. She wouldn't be dancing again. She'd be handling the business end of things, just as she was in Moosetookalook. Where she was settled. Productive. Content.

Besides, she had responsibilities to her aunt, to the shop, to Lumpkin. She refused to add Dan into the equation, but even without him, and in spite of a certain wistful longing to return to what had been, Liss told herself she was happy in her new life. Wasn't she?

 

 

Three hours after Liss, Dan, and everyone else had left the Student Center, Sherri Willett was still in the building. With Pete's help and that of a campus security officer, she was meticulously searching every nook and cranny.

She was playing a hunch. There had been something distinctly odd about Victor Owens's death. That's why she'd grabbed the plate with the remaining cocktail scones and suggested to the Fallstown police officer who'd shown up to take charge of the scene that its contents, and the scone Owens had been eating when he died, be analyzed. She'd tasted one herself and could well believe that the filling had contained mushrooms.

But who made scones with mushrooms? Nobody, that's who.

Sherri was no great shakes in the kitchen, but Liss's experiments with making her own scones over the last seven months had taught her friend a thing or two about the ingredients that went into that particular flaky pastry. She wished Mrs. Eccles, “the Scone Lady,” hadn't left the reception before Owens died, but Sherri was certain she wouldn't have put mushrooms into her scones, either, especially after Liss had specifically told her, and all the others who'd provided food for the reception, that one of the guests was allergic to them.

“We've looked everywhere,” Pete said, breaking into her thoughts. He sounded tired and a trifle exasperated.

The campus security officer looked bored, but he pointed to an alcove Sherri would otherwise have missed. “There's one more office off there.”

“Think maybe you might be taking that online course of yours a bit too seriously?” Pete had to stifle a yawn halfway through asking the question.

“No.”

And thank God she'd signed up for it. She'd learned more about investigative techniques in the last couple of months than she'd ever dreamed possible. Most of it was plain hard work and boring to boot, but it had to be done. In the end it usually yielded results.

“If there's nothing here,” she said, “then I want to go to the motel where he was staying.”

“I doubt they'll let you into his room, and they certainly won't let you search any of the others.”