“I just mean if there’s any . . . trouble.”
I couldn’t help laughing. “I love Rose, but she’s barely five feet tall. What exactly is she going to do if trouble shows up here?”
He laughed, too. “Okay, so she isn’t exactly Amazonian. I’d still rather take on a grizzly bear than I would an angry Rose. I feel better knowing she’ll be there. Humor your father.”
“All right,” I said. I propped an elbow on the counter. “I need a favor.”
“Sure. What is it?”
“Remember me telling you about the problems with the North Landing project?”
“I do,” he said.
“Well, now it seems that if Caroline doesn’t sell the bakery to the developer, the town will be able to expropriate the land.”
“I don’t think so,” Dad said slowly. “I don’t think it fits the criteria, from what I know.”
I leaned forward and snagged the edge of the container of cookies Charlotte had sent home with me and pulled it closer. “Word on the street is that Jon West has a silent partner or partners with enough influence to make it happen.”
“And you want to know who that is,” he said.
I fished an oatmeal-butterscotch cookie out of the can and took a bite. “Uh-huh. Both Jess and Liz stand to benefit if North Landing goes forward. I just want to know everything is legit.”
“And you think this secret-investor thing might somehow be tied to Lily Carter’s death.” He paused for a moment. “I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck, you know.”
I let out a breath. “Okay. Yes. It might—might—have something to do with what happened to Lily.”
“So why aren’t the police doing this?” he said.
I stuffed the rest of the cookie in my mouth and ate it before I answered. “Maybe they are,” I said. “I can’t exactly ask Michelle.”
“Point taken,” Dad said. I could picture him making a face as he mulled over my request. “All right. I have a couple of contacts I can ask. Just based on what you’ve told me, there might be a story in all of this.”
Dad taught journalism now and still regularly wrote longer feature pieces for several magazines, but he’d been a newspaper reporter for many years and that drive to chase a story was in his blood.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Hang on. I haven’t told you my conditions.”
I stuck out my tongue even though he couldn’t see me and reached for another cookie I was pretty sure I was going to need. “Fine. What are your conditions?”
“You know if you keep making that face it’s going to freeze like that,” he said.
“How do you know I’m making a face?” I said.
“I know you, sweetie,” he said with a laugh. “Condition number one: You don’t do anything stupid with anything I manage to find out for you.”
“Agreed.” Rose and the others were more likely to do that, and I wasn’t planning on sharing anything I found out.
“Number two: If you come across anything, anything that might be connected to Lily’s death, you take it to Nicolas or the police.”
After what had happened with the Arthur Fenety case, that was easy to agree to.
“Let me see what I can do,” Dad said. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“I love you,” I said.
“Love you, too, baby.”
I hung up the phone and turned around to find a pair of green eyes staring up at me. I hopped off the stool and scooped Elvis into my arms. “The game is afoot,” I told him.
* * *
Exactly five minutes after nine on Monday morning the phone rang at the shop. Mac answered it and then came out to the workroom where Charlotte and I were going through the linens I’d washed.
“Sarah, it’s your dad,” he said.
“Why don’t I just start ironing?” Charlotte said.
I smiled at her. “That would be great. Thank you.”
“I think I’ll take this in my office,” I said to Mac.
Elvis followed me up the stairs, jumping up onto my desk as I reached for the phone.
“Hi, Dad,” I said.
“Hi,” he said. “Did I catch you at a bad time?”
I sat on the edge of the desk and Elvis made himself comfortable next to the phone. “No. I was just sorting tablecloths with Charlotte. Did you find out something already?”
“I did,” Dad said. “Remember when I said it sounded like there might be a story in this whole North Landing business?”
Elvis rubbed his head against my free hand and I began to stroke his fur. “I remember,” I said. “Are you saying someone is writing an article about the development?”
“Yeah,” he said. “A pretty in-depth one, too.”
“You found out who that investor is, didn’t you?”
“Uh-huh.” He hesitated for a moment. “You’re not going to do anything stupid, remember?”
“I promise,” I said.
“The major investor in North by West is Swift Holdings.”
“You’re certain.”
“Absolutely. On paper the company is being funded by the Wellington Group, but that’s owned one hundred percent by Swift Holdings.”
Swift Holdings. Daniel Swift. Caleb Swift’s grandfather. Everything kept coming back to them.
“I’ve e-mailed you everything I could find about the Wellington Group,” Dad said.
“Thanks,” I said. “I have go.”
“Okay, sweetie. Stay safe. I’ll talk to you soon.”
I hung up and looked at Elvis. “Daniel Swift,” I said.
“Mrr,” he said. It was hard to tell if he was surprised or not.
I walked around the desk, sat down and pulled my laptop closer. Dad had e-mailed me a lot of background information on the Wellington Group, including the history of the company and its organization. I scanned the pages, not really sure what I was looking for. About halfway down the third page on the company’s corporate structure, a name caught my eye.
“No,” I said.
Elvis leaned around the computer as though he were trying to see the screen.
“Sloane Redding,” I said, touching the screen with a finger.
Elvis looked at me. Suddenly his whiskers twitched, and he jumped down from the desk and headed out into the hallway. I was guessing that Charlotte had opened the can of cookies she’d brought with her. Elvis not only had lying radar, he also had cookie radar.
I looked at the computer again. I’d been friends with a Sloane Redding in college. We’d lost touch after she spent a semester in Mexico as part of an exchange program. What were the odds that this Sloane was the same person? I crossed my fingers and pulled up a search engine.
For once, things were going my way. I found a photo from a benefit underwritten by the Wellington Group. Sloane Redding was in a group photo. Her hair was different and her clothing looked to be a lot more expensive, but it was the same person.
Was it really going to be that easy? Mr. P. hadn’t had any luck so far. Could I call Sloane and find out once and for all if the North Landing development had had anything to do with Lily’s death? There was only one way to find out. I scrolled up the screen and found the number for the Wellington Group in Boston.
“I’m sorry. Ms. Redding is in our North Harbor, Maine, office,” the young man who answered the phone told me.
The Wellington Group had an office here in town?
“Could you give me that number, please?” I asked.
“I’d be happy to,” he said. He read off a string of digits to me, and I wrote them down.
I leaned back in the chair and studied the numbers. Was this a wild-goose chase? Was I sticking my nose in where I shouldn’t be? Gram would have said, In for a penny, in for a pound.
I reached for the phone.
“Ms. Redding’s office. Charmaine Kellogg speaking,” the voice on the other end of the phone said when I reached Sloane’s office.
“Good morning,” I said. “Is Ms. Redding in? It’s Sarah Grayson calling about the North Landing project.”