The reading program had started with a grant. Maybe there was some money I’d missed, something else we could apply for.
“Dayna Chapman’s dead, isn’t she?” Maggie asked, her eyes glued to the road.
“I think so,” I said.
“May she be welcomed by the light,” Mags said softly.
“Do you think Olivia will be all right?” she asked after a moment.
I rolled my head slowly from one shoulder to the other, trying to work the knots out of my neck. “I think so. Her reaction seemed less severe than Dayna’s.”
“Was it Olivia’s chocolates?” Maggie asked as we turned up Mountain Road.
I shook my head. “I don’t know. I know it looks that way, but it could have been anything Dayna ate at the theater—or maybe something she’d brought with her.”
Maggie sighed softly. “I feel bad for Brady and his brothers—and for Burtis.”
“What’s going on with you and Brady?” I asked. I remembered how Brady had looked at Maggie after Marcus told him to go to the hospital. And how she’d brushed his hand when she urged him to go.
“We’re just friends,” Maggie said as she pulled into my driveway. She looked over at me as she turned off the engine. “Really. That’s all it is.”
I got out of the car and we started around the side of the house. “I didn’t know you and Brady knew each other,” I said.
“He did some legal work for Ruby. Then he offered to look at the paperwork for the co-op’s grant application.”
Maggie had applied for and gotten a grant to start an artist-in-residence program at the artists’ co-op store.
I unlocked the back door and she followed me into the porch. “We’ve had lunch a couple of times, but that’s it. There’s nothing going on.”
I’d seen how they looked at each other. There was definitely something happening between Maggie and Brady Chapman, even if they couldn’t see it or admit it yet.
We stepped into the kitchen and discovered Owen waiting just inside the door.
“Hey, Fuzz Face,” Maggie said, leaning down to him, hands in her pockets. Owen’s golden eyes narrowed as he looked up at her and he began to purr.
Owen adored Maggie. He would have been the perfect guy for her, if he’d been a person instead of a small gray cat.
I stepped out of my heels and tossed my coat and scarf over the back of a chair. While Maggie talked to Owen I washed my hands and started hot chocolate for both of us.
Hercules wandered in from whatever he’d been doing. He looked at Maggie and Owen and then looked at me and his expression seemed just a bit amused.
I leaned down to scratch the top of his head. “How was your night?” He gave a small “murp” that I knew meant “fine.” Then he tipped his head and studied me for a moment before meowing softly.
“Long story,” I said quietly as I straightened up. “I’ll tell you later.”
I got a plate for the cupcakes, put our cocoa on the table and sat down. Maggie peeled off her coat and took the chair opposite me, her furry boyfriend sitting adoringly at her feet.
I reached for a Death by Chocolate cupcake. I could see the irony, but I was tired and not eating a cupcake wasn’t going to change what had happened.
“Ruby and I will get everything cleaned up in the morning,” Maggie said, peeling the paper liner off her Maple Crème cupcake.
“You don’t have to do that, Mags,” I said.
She smiled. “I know that, but it’s okay. I have my own little cleanup crew already put together.”
I smiled back at her across the table. “What would I do without you?”
“Merow!” Owen seconded his agreement loudly from his station by her chair.
Maggie laughed, and I felt some of the tension in my shoulders begin to melt away. “Well, lucky for you”—she leaned down to make a smiley face at the cat—“and you, since the new contract with the library board has been signed, neither one of you will be finding out anytime soon.”
It had taken me a long time to decide whether or not to continue as head librarian here in Mayville Heights or go back to the life I’d left behind in Boston. I’d been originally hired on a short-term contract to supervise the renovations to the library for its centennial. Maggie hadn’t exactly been silent or subtle about what she thought I should do. In the end, I’d decided to stay because the little town had become my home. Maggie was here, and Roma and Rebecca, the Taylors and Susan and Eric.
Marcus was here.
I’d discovered that I didn’t need to go home. I already was home.
“We’re still going out to Wisteria Hill on Saturday to help Roma paint, aren’t we?” Maggie asked, breaking her cupcake into three pieces. She moved her hand casually down to her side and dropped a tiny bite of her cupcake on the floor for Owen.
I should have objected—Roma had been very clear about not feeding things like that to the boys—but Owen had sniffed the bit of cake and starting licking the frosting before I opened my mouth.
“As far as I know, that’s what Roma’s planning,” I said. “Eddie’s on the road.”
Roma’s boyfriend, Eddie, aka Crazy Eddie Sweeney, played for the NHL’s Minnesota Wild.
Maggie licked a dab of maple icing from the side of her thumb. “So, the three of us can put our heads together while we’re working and come up with another way to keep the Reading Buddies program going.”
Mags and Roma had helped me work out the details for the fundraiser at this table, I remembered, over a Crock-Pot of beef stew and dumplings, with a furry four-legged Greek chorus in the background.
“All right,” I said, leaning back in my chair, my hands wrapped around the warmth of my mug of hot chocolate. “But the dunking booth is still off the table.”
Maggie looked down at Owen again, her green eyes sparkling with mischief. “Oh, but that was our best idea, wasn’t it, Fuzz Face?” she said.
“Meow!” he said, again with great enthusiasm.
Hercules rubbed against my leg. I lifted him up onto my lap.
“They think they’re funny,” I said. He made a face, which as far as I was concerned meant he disagreed.
Hercules leaned back against my chest and I stroked his fur with one hand and held my hot chocolate with the other.
I knew Maggie and Roma would help me figure out how to find the money to keep the reading program going. And I also knew that Marcus would figure out what Dayna had eaten that had caused that allergic reaction. Maybe it hadn’t been the chocolate truffles. Maybe it hadn’t been something at the reception at all. Olivia had been adamant that there were no nuts in her chocolates.
I still felt unsettled, though. I couldn’t banish the image of Dayna struggling to breathe, lips rimmed with blue, wheezing and gasping and trying to tell me how much she wanted to live. I couldn’t help wondering why she’d been at the party and why she’d come back to Mayville Heights at all.
5
I had an early breakfast with Vincent Starr in the morning at the St. James Hotel. It had already been planned and I didn’t see any reason to cancel. He was already seated in the dining room at a table that looked out over the Riverwalk.
He got to his feet and pulled out a chair for me. “How are you, Kathleen?” he asked with genuine concern in his dark eyes. “I’m so sorry about what happened last night. I heard that one of the women didn’t make it.”
I nodded as I sat down. “Sadly, that’s true.”
Dayna Chapman was dead, most likely from anaphylaxis. Olivia was going to be fine. The medical examiner’s office was investigating, but so far, no one had any idea what Dayna had eaten that had triggered the allergic reaction.
“If you’d like to cancel your talk this morning and head back to Minneapolis, I understand,” I continued. “Last night was unsettling for everybody.”
Vincent shook his head and stretched his arm along the back of his chair, resting his hand on the empty one next to him.