Quill grabbed the remote and turned the television off. She was sitting at one of the small tables for two next to the mahogany bar. Nate, the bartender, was restocking the shelves with a shipment of liquor that had just come in. Outside, the sun sparkled on snow. The sky was a clear, frosty blue. The inn was going to reopen tomorrow, unless another storm blew in.
Quill put her feet up on the chair across the table from her own and sighed. It'd been a long trip home.
The door facing the perennial gardens opened, and Myles walked in. He pulled off his heavy parka, and Quill looked at his shabby sports coat with a surge of affection. "I ought to sew those buttons on for you."
Myles laughed.
"What?" she demanded.
"Just wondering how long this excess of sentiment is going to last. No. Don't get huffy. I love it." He bent over her chair and kissed her hair.
"Did you straighten things out with Jerry?"
Myles nodded, eased her feet off the chair, and sat down. His eyes were very gray in his weathered face. Quill thought she noticed more silver in his dark hair than there had been before. She took his hand and held it. "Is he still furious with Meg and me?"
"He's making loud noises, but I think he'll come around. He's right, Quill. Fooling around with someone like Franklin Carmichael could have been very dangerous."
"I told Ernst to call the police."
"But Jerry didn't get there until after Ernst tackled Carmichael and got the gun away from him. And if Ernst hadn't had a black belt in tae kwon do - " His hand tightened on hers. "Well, I'm just glad he did."
"Has Carmichael confessed?"
"No one's confessed. But it took Carmichael almost eighteen hours to - er - prepare those quart jars, and he's having a lot of trouble coming up with an alibi that the prosecution's going to buy. My guess is that he'll plead and get a suspended sentence."
Quill straightened up in horror. "After what he did? He canned Verger Taylor's body! And it was just for the percentage he got selling that stock for Ernst?"
"He cleared close to a million dollars on it, Quill. And he was running with an expensive crowd. Anyway, it's pretty clear Verger was already dead when he got there. He was Verger's personal lawyer, remember - he wouldn't have had a slice of Ernst's business after Verger's death. The heaviest charge Jerry can come up with is interference with the disposal of a body. The risks were pretty small. And, of course, the fee Carmichael collected for the stock sale belongs to him. It was all perfectly legal."
Quill shuddered.
"So. I talked to John this morning. Convinced him that the inn can do without you for a few days. That the two of us should take off for a long weekend. Someplace warm. What do you think?"
Quill looked at him. "They say that Toronto is absolutely fantastic this time of year."
"Then Toronto it is."
The End