Deadly Devotion (12 page)

“Well, all you have to do is arrest Edward.”

Tom held in a sigh. If only the solution were that simple. “How did Beth explain her actions last night? I assume that’s why you dropped in on her.”

Kate laid her menu on the table and realigned the salt and pepper shakers. “The person following me couldn’t have been Beth. She’s too sick to go anywhere.” Kate met his gaze for only an instant, then fussed with the pansies on the center of the table.

He picked up the vase and moved it out of her reach. “What aren’t you telling me?”

Kate’s shrug, a clear sign that she intended to deny the obvious, dampened his appetite.

“If you want me to help you, I need all the facts,” he said.

“Has anyone ever told you you’re moody? Because I could recommend a tea for that.”

“Yeah? Do you have one that will get uncooperative witnesses to talk?” That earned him a smile.

“Okay, Beth mentioned that she lets Molly borrow her car. Molly’s been helping her out by running errands for her. Last night she used the car to pick up groceries for both of them.” The shift in Kate’s gaze suggested she’d been selective in which facts she shared.

“Who’s Molly?”

“The counter girl at A Cup or Two.”

“Really?” Maybe Darryl had given the girl some extra work trailing Kate.

“She’s also Edward’s fiancée. They got engaged last night.” Kate’s gaze dropped to the fork she was fiddling with. “Molly seemed kind of . . . insecure . . . when Edward ran into me at the shop yesterday. I think maybe she followed us.” Kate stopped fingering the cutlery and met Tom’s gaze. “But now that Edward has asked her to marry him, I’m sure she won’t worry anymore.”

“In my experience, jealous lovers are exactly the kind of people one should worry about.”

Kate frowned and then gnawed on her bottom lip. “I don’t think she’s jealous, exactly. No, definitely not. I spoke to her outside the bakery and she was positively twitterpated. I just hope she doesn’t blame me when you arrest Edward.”

“I’d be doing her a favor.” Tom let out a frustrated sigh. He’d hit nothing but dead ends tracing Crump’s history in
search of outstanding arrest warrants. “It could be some time before I have enough evidence to make an arrest. You need to be on your guard.”

“Me? What about Molly?”

“She’s a waitress. Edward isn’t going to kill her for her money.”

“No, but the longer this goes on, the more devastated she’ll be. What more do you need? Edward did it.”

“We don’t know that.”

Uncertainty crept into her gaze. “You still think Daisy killed herself, don’t you?” Kate said in scarcely more than a whisper.

He stroked his thumb over the back of her hand. “No, I believe you.” But divulging his reasons was too risky. He’d have to figure out some other way to convince Kate to lie low and let him handle everything. He dropped his gaze to their hands and traced the edge of her bracelet. “What’s this for?”

“It’s a medic alert bracelet. I’m allergic to hazelnuts.”

Reflexively, he squeezed her fingers. Life was way too fragile. “I promise you, I will get whoever is responsible for your friend’s death.”

Dutiful maid of honor that she was, Kate felt too guilty not to spend Saturday morning helping Julie take care of wedding details. She sucked in her stomach as the seamstress zipped up the back of the satin bridesmaid gown.

“I should probably let it out on the side,” the woman mumbled around a mouthful of pins.

Kate barely took a second to admire the drape of the gown
or how well the emerald green suited her complexion “It’s perfect as is,” she said on what little air she could breathe in. The sooner she got through Julie’s to-do list, the sooner she could check into the newest theory tangling her thoughts like vines of creeping Charlie.

Julie frowned. “Are you sure the waist isn’t too tight?”

“It’s fine.” Kate wiggled to prove she wouldn’t pop a seam and made a mental note to cut out the corn chips for a couple of weeks. In the floor-to-ceiling mirrors lining the enormous octagonal fitting room, her multiple fidgeting reflections looked like a crowd of bridesmaids with gnats in their knickers.

She motioned to the seamstress to unzip her.

Julie didn’t look convinced. “You’re mad at me, aren’t you?”

“Why would I be mad at you?” Kate lifted the dress over her head. They still had the caterer and florist to visit before she could get away. Not that she was complaining. The errands had been a perfect excuse to pass on Edward’s invitation to go through Daisy’s belongings. Of course, Julie needn’t know that Kate was being unselfish for selfish reasons.

“You’ve been kind of distant since I force-fed you a carton of ice cream.” Translation: since I held you at spoon-point while you bared your soul. “And you weren’t too thrilled this morning when I told Edward you couldn’t help him today.”

“Trust me. Edward is the last person I wanted to spend the day with.” Kate hated keeping her suspicions about Edward a secret, but Tom and his dad had been insistent that no one be trusted.

And Julie did love to talk.

After the seamstress carried Kate’s dress out of the dressing
room, Julie whispered, “Do you think Edward poisoned Daisy?”

As Kate pulled on her slacks and T-shirt, she debated how to answer the question without answering it. “Let’s just say I share your uneasiness about him.” As soon as she finished her maid of honor duties this morning, she intended to unearth the proof she needed to bury him. A notation she’d found in one of Daisy’s journals suggested the proof might be on the research lab’s computer.

“You should leave this to the police. I don’t want you being next. And I’m not just saying that because I’d have to find a new maid of honor.” Julie made a quirky face, but the tremor of her chin suggested she was far more concerned than her teasing indicated.

“Don’t worry about me. Parker’s making sure I stay out of trouble.”

The seamstress returned with Julie’s wedding gown draped over her arm. “Tom Parker?”

“You know him?” Kate asked, not surprised that the woman would jump into the conversation. Conversation jumping was one of Port Aster’s most popular pastimes. One that, if handled right, might prove informative.

The seamstress’s professional smile turned dreamy. “I had a major crush on him in high school. I saw him at the Wildflower restaurant last night, but I couldn’t place the face until you mentioned his name just now. Was that you he was with?”

Julie’s jaw dropped, but only for the second it took for her voice to rise to Mount Everest altitudes. “You went to dinner with him and you didn’t tell me?”

Kate tugged at the collar of her cotton tee. Wow, was it hot in this room or what? She edged to the farthest corner,
half afraid that any second daggers might shoot from Julie’s eyes and ricochet off the mirrors. “It’s no big deal. It’s not like it was a date or anything.”

Although more than once Tom had intimated that it was, and despite her issues with his line of work, she’d enjoyed spending time with him, and okay, maybe she wanted to see him again. But first they needed to prove Edward killed Daisy. “Besides, you weren’t home until late last night, so I didn’t have a chance to tell you.”

Julie planted her hands on her hips and looked at Kate as if she were a rabbit that had eaten her wedding bouquet. “In case you haven’t noticed, we’ve been together more than two hours. Plenty of time to tell me all about your date.”

“This is your day. The evening was no big deal.”

The seamstress helped Julie into the gown, apparently missing Kate’s can-we-drop-this tone because the woman chattered on for a good five minutes about how good-looking Tom had been in high school.

Suddenly, her face flushed. She stopped fastening the buttons on the back of Julie’s dress and glanced at Kate. “Oh my, if you’re worried about me, don’t be. My husband and I were at the restaurant to celebrate our tenth anniversary.”

“Congratulations,” Kate said, ignoring the woman’s inconsequential assurance that she wasn’t a rival for Tom’s affections. Kate straightened Julie’s train, which prompted the seamstress to finish fastening the row of buttons.

Thirty-seven buttons later, the woman stepped back and surveyed the fit.

The dress, with its sweetheart neckline, basque waist, and A-line cut, was exactly the style Kate might choose for herself. One day. “It’s perfect. I wouldn’t change a thing.”

Julie grinned at Kate’s reflection. “A dress like this could be in your future sooner than you think.”

Concealing the zing prompted by the comment, Kate rolled her eyes. “Tom and I shared one dinner. That’s all.”

“Tom, now, is it?” Julie teased.

Kate’s pulse skittered the same way it had when Tom appeared on Darryl and Beth’s doorstep, looking all worried. Hypnotized by the protective glimmer in his eyes, she’d slipped into the role of girlfriend with scarcely a moment’s hesitation. Having someone worried about her had felt surprisingly wonderful. But she couldn’t let wistful thinking undermine her good sense. Tom seemed like the kind of guy who would be equally worried about any man, woman, or child. Or a cat caught in a tree, for that matter. She shouldn’t read more into their time together than there was—no matter how tempting.

Kate looked at Julie in the mirror. “I’d rather not talk about this right now.” She slanted her head toward the seamstress. “Okay?”

The seamstress took the hint and made quick work of pinning the places on the dress that needed altering.

As Kate watched, her thoughts drifted back to her conversation with Tom. Although she’d known him only a short time, she could tell by the way he’d intently studied her face in the restaurant that he hadn’t believed she was telling him everything. Beth had made her promise not to tell anyone she was pregnant. Two previous miscarriages had shattered her confidence that she’d be able to carry the baby to term, and Kate hadn’t felt right about betraying her promise to satisfy Tom’s curiosity.

Since he’d warned Kate not to talk about the case with anyone, she couldn’t very well tell him about the other possible
poisons she and Beth had discussed. Poisons whose effects better matched the symptoms recorded in the autopsy report. Poisons anyone could’ve slipped into Daisy’s food or beverages. Poisons that were virtually undetectable.

At least not until she had some proof.

The seamstress left the room, and Julie waited only a millisecond before launching back into her quest for information. “How did you and Tom
happen
to meet up for dinner? I thought you said the local police couldn’t be trusted.”

“Uh, we were both following the same lead and sort of ran into each other. I’m telling you, the date meant nothing. We were simply comparing notes.”

“But you admit it was a date.” Julie smirked.

Kate threw up her hands. “You win. It was a date. Tom’s madly in love with me and can’t bear the thought that I’m putting my life in danger by hunting down a killer.”

Julie yanked up her jeans. “For crying out loud, Kate, if you don’t want to talk about him, just say so.”

“Wha-a-a-t?” Kate splayed her hand on her chest and feigned a hurt expression. “You don’t believe he could be madly in love with me?”

“No, I believe that part.”

Julie’s matter-of-fact statement gave Kate’s heart a jolt.

“It’s the putting your life in danger part that better not be true.”

Kate’s momentary happy bubble burst with an ear-thudding pop. In a couple of weeks, Julie would be on her honeymoon and no one would be at home, waiting for Kate, ready to call in the cavalry if she was late. Or missing. Or dead.

Maybe she was crazy to try to solve Daisy’s murder on her own. Certifiable, even.

Daisy’s favorite maxim whispered through Kate’s mind.
We’re never alone.

But if that was true, where was God when Daisy drank that tea?

Kate shoved away the thought. Just this morning she’d found a passage in the Bible that said, “The righteous are taken away to be spared from evil.”

If God took Daisy to spare her from something worse, the least Kate could do was ensure Daisy’s reputation wasn’t sullied by unfounded allegations.

“You worry me,” Julie said. “Two days ago, you were certain Brewster was connected to Daisy’s death. You insisted the local police couldn’t be trusted. What if you were right? Tom and Hank go way back. What if Hank asked Tom to cozy up to you to figure out what you know?”

“I thought you liked Tom. You were the one who called him to my rescue the other night.”

“I do like him. He seems nice. I just think you need to be careful.”

“You’re making a bur oak out of a bonsai,” Kate quipped, trying to lighten the mood.

Julie scrunched her eyebrows in incomprehension.

“Big tree out of a little tree. Big deal out of nothing.”

“Oooh, I get it.” Julie laughed. “Let’s hope so.” She looped her arm through Kate’s and towed her toward the door. “I know you miss Daisy, and I understand how important finding out what really happened is to you. I just worry.”

“I know you do. I promise I’ll be careful.” How dangerous could searching the lab computer be?

On a Saturday afternoon, the building would be deserted.