“Sorry about your date.”
Kat looked up the stairs as Emily leaned over the railing in her favorite, worn-thin teddy-bear pajamas. Emily was small and slim with their father’s gray eyes. She’d pulled her dark, shoulder length hair into a ponytail, making her look even younger than her seventeen years. “I saved the message for you. What a jerk. He didn’t even come up with a decent excuse for standing you up.” She frowned. “Have you been working all this time?”
She considered lying. “No, I…went out to dinner.”
“By yourself?” Emily made it sound as if she couldn’t imagine anything worse. She probably couldn’t.
“No, actually, I met someone.” She tried to assure herself that it had been innocent, needing desperately to believe that. He’d just taken advantage of the situation. What man wouldn’t who saw the chance to have dinner with a young woman in a sexy black dress? An honest man. A man with nothing to hide.
“Who was this guy?” Emily asked, coming down the stairs to eye her more closely.
Kat wished she’d lied and said she’d worked late. “No one you know,” she said defensively, unable to forget that she’d been attracted to him, a man who lied to her. “I don’t need to have my dates checked out by you.” She flipped off the downstairs light, picked up her black platform heels where she’d dropped them by the door and started up the steps past her sister, hoping that was the end of it.
“As if you don’t give me the third degree about every guy I date,” Emily said, trailing after her.
“That’s different,” Kat said, stopping on the landing. “I’m twenty-three. You’re seventeen and you still have a lot to learn about men.”
Emily rolled her eyes. “As if you’re the authority on men. I’ve dated more this year than you have in your life!” She swept into her room, slamming the door behind her. Emily always had to get in the last word.
Kat stared after her, just wishing the last word hadn’t been the truth. Tonight proved how little Kat knew about men. In spades.
She climbed to her own bedroom on the third floor, not bothering to turn on a light. The room was large with two bay windows on each side and a tiny, railed widow’s walk at the end facing the town green and, past it, Raven’s Cove and the Atlantic. Light filtered in from the pale gray fog.
She dropped her shoes beside the bed and, opening the French doors, stepped out onto the walk into the damp mist, feeling oddly vulnerable. She no longer felt safe—not when she couldn’t trust her judgment any more than she had tonight. Who had she gone to dinner with?
She drew in a breath of the cool, wet night air and looked out at the wisps of mist moving like ghosts through the town green, trying to convince herself that she wasn’t her mother. But more and more when she looked in the mirror, she saw the startling resemblance to the old photographs of her mother.
Worse, she feared the similarities were more than skin deep, since her first choice of a man had been deadly wrong, a choice she’d paid for dearly a year ago. Now, it seemed, she’d made another mistake tonight, and to think she’d been tempted to let him walk her home.
The fog drifted across the green, weaving in and out of the trees. She caught a glimpse of the gazebo just beyond the wide sweeping branches of the witch-hanging tree, the white lattice of the gazebo dark with its cloak of dense ivy. It had been on a night like this almost twenty years ago—she shuddered and stepped back inside to close and lock the doors. How could she not help but think of her mother tonight?
KAT WOKE IN A SWEAT, the sheets tangled around her, her heart pounding. She sat up, terrified. Her hand shook as she reached to fumble on the lamp beside her bed, frantically trying to fight off the horrible images that surfaced to consciousness within her. The clock beside her bed read 2:28 a.m.
She’d had the dream again. Only this time, she swore she could smell her mother’s perfume. And for a moment, she would have sworn she wasn’t alone in the room.
She hugged herself as she glanced around her bedroom, seeing nothing but familiar objects—and no place for anyone to hide. After a few minutes, she curled back under the covers and, although she fought sleep and the possibility of the nightmare coming back, she finally dozed off again.
She woke to the sound of the radio alarm. It jolted her out of bed, dragging remnants of the nightmare with her. She stumbled to the bathroom, disrobing to step into the shower. The hot water and the light of day helped. By the time she dried off, she’d convinced herself that there’d been nothing to fear last night—including the dream and her mystery date.
Logically, if he’d meant her harm, he wouldn’t have taken her to the Moriah’s Landing Inn on Main Street. He’d have suggested someplace where there was less chance of them being seen together. And even though she’d heard footsteps on her way home, it didn’t mean whoever it was had been following her.
By the time she’d dressed for work, she’d discounted her fears from the previous night, even coming up with a logical explanation for the nightmare’s return after all these years. The twentieth anniversary of her mother’s death was only days away. Just the mention of her mother and her death had no doubt spooked her last night on the walk home and triggered the nightmare, even making her believe she smelled her mother’s perfume. Just as she’d imagined hearing someone in the room, before her eyes adjusted to the darkness.
But as she left for work, she didn’t cut across the town green as she normally did each morning. Her lapse in judgment last night and the dream still had her feeling a little vulnerable. She knew it was crazy, since she was trained to be able to take care of herself in most situations. And what did she have to fear in Moriah’s Landing in broad daylight, anyway?
On Main Street she spotted Arabella coming toward her and braced herself for another of the woman’s dire warnings of impending doom. But to her surprise, Arabella appeared to cross the street as if to avoid her. Kat saw the poor woman make the sign of the cross and duck down one of the narrow brick alleys.
Normally, Kat found Arabella’s bizarre behavior amusing, but this morning it made her a little uneasy.
Worse, Kat found herself looking for her mystery date in the faces she passed. She couldn’t help wondering who he was and if she really might have been in danger last night.
As she neared her office, she spotted something lying on the front step. She slowed, glancing around, suddenly feeling as if someone was watching her, waiting for her to find what he’d left for her.
On her office doorstep lay a small bouquet of daisies tied loosely with a short piece of frayed red satin ribbon. No white floral box. No card. Just freshly picked daisies and a worn red ribbon.
As she stooped to lift the flowers gently, as if they were an armed bomb set to blow at even the slightest movement, she told herself they were just flowers. Nothing sinister about daisies. Of course, they had to be from Ross. A small gesture after standing her up last night. Maybe she’d give him a second chance.
And yet she held the flowers away from her as she opened her office door and, after putting them in a glass vase with water, she set them in the front window away from her desk, away from her sight, anxious to e-mail Ross a thank-you, anxious to find out for sure if he’d left them for her. Or if it had been someone else. Her mystery date?
She checked her messages, not surprised to find one from the insurance company asking her to sign off on Bud Lawson’s recent vandalism at his curio shop. Bud was anxious to have it settled so he could get reimbursed for repairs before the start of tourist season—which was only days away.
Since she’d started Ridgemont Detective Agency two years ago, insurance investigations and workmen’s comp made up the bulk of her work, with a few skip traces and domestic-problem cases thrown in. But she loved the work, the slow, methodical plodding that led to a logical conclusion.
