They were fantastic.
“Look at this one,” I said to Owen, touching the screen. Lise had caught Ethan in midleap onstage. I grinned as the cat leaned in, as though he actually was trying to take a closer look at the image.
My favorite shot of the nine photos was the last one, of Ethan again, seated on a stool with his guitar. I knew that had to have been during “In a Million Other Worlds.” It was the only slow song the band did.
I leaned against the back of the chair, one hand on Owen, who still seemed to be studying the screen, as a wave of homesickness rolled over me. I was happy with my decision to stay in Mayville Heights. It really did feel like home, and people like Rebecca, Maggie and the Taylors felt like another family. But I missed Boston: Ethan and Sara, my mom and dad, Lise. We e-mailed, we talked on the phone, we texted—Sara and I had managed to Skype a couple of times. But I missed the little things—lunch with Lise, shopping with Sara, going to see Ethan and the band perform, watching my parents rehearse. I reminded myself that the twins were away from Boston now more than they were there, and even my mother had spent several weeks in Los Angeles during the fall on the soap the Wild and the Wonderful. No matter where my family was, it was hard to be away from them.
I thought about Dayna and what Harry had told me about his father’s suspicion that the cards and parcels from her to her children had really been orchestrated by Burtis. Could that really be true? I didn’t understand why she hadn’t come back to see her children. Where she had gone and what had she done after she left Mayville Heights all those years ago?
Owen seemed to have gotten tired of looking at Lise’s photos. He put a paw on the keyboard.
“Don’t do that,” I warned.
Owen hit another key and suddenly Google was open. He turned and looked expectantly at me. I had said I was going to see what I could find about Burtis’s ex-wife.
What I found was nothing.
“How can someone leave no digital trail?” I said to Owen.
His response was to poke at the keyboard again, adding three a’s and a q to Dayna Chapman’s name.
“Owen,” I started. Then I realized what the problem was: I was spelling her name wrong.
I kissed the top of his head. “You’re a genius,” I said.
He dipped his head in a display of very false modesty.
I’d been spelling Dayna Chapman’s name without the y. It was with Dayna Morretti—y—and her maiden name that I struck pay dirt.
Six years previous Dayna had been a witness to a robbery at a Minneapolis pawnshop that had left the owner with a life-changing brain injury. I scrolled down through the online newspaper article, stopping when I got to the third paragraph. The pawnshop owner’s name was Sutton. Nicolas Sutton Sr.
Owen and I looked at each other. It had to be Nic’s father. It was just too big a coincidence.
15
Marcus and I had cat feeding duty out at Wisteria Hill in the morning. Roma had taken a couple of days off to go meet Eddie on the road. Marcus probably already knew about the robbery and Nic Sutton’s connection—even indirectly—to Dayna, but I wanted to tell him what I’d learned.
It was just getting light when Marcus’s SUV pulled into the driveway. I climbed into the front seat and leaned over to kiss him before I fastened my seat belt.
“I like this,” I said as he backed out of the driveway.
“The bracing cold or going to feed the cats when it’s still dark?” he asked. He was wearing his old navy parka and a red knit hat. He was as cute as a bug’s ear, to use Mary’s expression.
“Neither,” I said, feeling my cheeks get warm. “I just meant that I like being able to kiss you.” I suddenly felt awkward and tongue-tied. “I like that we’re . . . us.” I swallowed and looked out the windshield. I sounded like a love-struck teenager.
“You could have gotten in and kissed me any time you wanted to before we were us,” Marcus said. “I wouldn’t have minded.”
I glanced over and saw his lips twitch as he tried and failed to hold back a smile. “You would have thought I was trying to get information out of you about one of your cases,” I said.
We headed up the hill toward Wisteria Hill. “Wasn’t that why you were always getting me coffee?” he asked, darting a quick sideways glance in my direction.
“No!” I said, a little more hotly than I’d meant to.
Did he really believe that?
“I got you coffee because . . . because the first time you showed up to question me at the library, I’d just made a pot for myself. It would have been rude not to offer you a cup.”
“Okay, so the first time was good manners. What about all the other times?”
“I wanted to talk to you.”
“See?” he said, eyebrows disappearing under his red hat. “You were trying to get information out of me with a cup of coffee.”
“You’re so dense,” I said softly, jiggling Roma’s keys in one hand.
He looked confused. “About what?”
I felt my face get warm again. “I brought you coffee or made you coffee because I wanted an excuse to be where you were.” It was the first time I’d admitted it to anyone, let alone myself.
Marcus kept his eyes straight ahead, but he took one hand off the steering wheel for a moment, felt for my hand and gave it a squeeze.
“I always drank slowly,” he said after a minute or so of silence.
I didn’t say a thing, but he couldn’t have missed the grin that spread across my face.
Marcus turned up the long driveway and parked the SUV in the cleared area by the house. I used the key Roma had given me to get the cats’ dishes, food and water. Marcus took the water jugs and the bag with the cans of cat food. I carried the dishes.
Harry had cleared a wide path from the driveway to the carriage house. As we headed around to the door, I told Marcus about Smokey. Roma had managed to entice him into the cage with some shredded chicken. He had a long gash on his leg that had gotten infected.
“I told Roma I’d stop by the clinic and check on him,” I said as Marcus held the side door open and I ducked under his arm to slip inside. “She said he was sleeping a lot. I thought it might help to hear a voice he recognizes, at least while she’s away.” I gave a little shrug. “It’s silly, isn’t it?”
He shook his head. “No, it’s not. I think it’s kind.”
We put out the food and water and retreated to the door the way we always did. Instead of leaning against the rough wood of the old building, I leaned against Marcus and he wrapped his arms around me. If there was somewhere better to be, at that moment I couldn’t think of where it was.
After a minute Lucy poked her head out, caught sight of us and headed purposefully in our direction. I slipped out from under Marcus’s arms and took a couple of steps away from him. Lucy stopped maybe four feet away from me. I knew she wouldn’t come any closer and I didn’t try to move any nearer to her.
She looked up at me and meowed. Behind her I could see the other five cats peeking out from where their shelters were. No one would head over to eat until Lucy did.
“Smokey’s all right,” I said. “He has an infection in his leg, but Roma is taking care of him.”
I felt certain she understood. I only ever talked to Lucy when Marcus was around. I knew he didn’t believe the small cat knew what I was saying. But even he couldn’t explain why Lucy seemed to prefer me to all the rest of Roma’s volunteers.
Lucy meowed again and then turned and headed to the feeding station. I moved back to Marcus and leaned against his side. He wrapped one arm around my waist and we watched the cats eating, looking for any sign of illness or injury. They all looked fine. When they’d finished eating and retreated to their shelters, we cleaned up, put out more fresh water and headed back to Marcus’s SUV.
“Do you want to see if we can feed Micah?” he asked, pushing back the sleeve of his jacket to check his watch. “We have time.”