* * * *
“What are you doing today?” Noah asked.
Dallas sat across the table from him in the breakfast nook. Dressed in a crazy, but gorgeous, burgundy muumuu featuring embroidered flowers and sleeves that flared like wings, blush pink coloring her lips ― her only makeup ― hair perfectly tousled, she spread an old cloth across the table top and laid out her gun and cleaning supplies. “I thought I’d call Lily, for starters. Maybe we can all go out together this weekend. The Marina, maybe.” She dipped an old toothbrush in cleaning solvent and scrubbed the inside of the frame and cylinder of her handgun.
“Sounds like a plan.”
“How did you sleep?”
“Great.” She looked at him and smiled. “Thanks to you. For the first night since Katie’s death, I slept without waking and without nightmares for five hours straight. I take that as a good omen. Maybe soon Katie’s killer will be behind bars.” She used an old rag to wipe off dirt and grease on the Glock.
He leisurely sipped his coffee. “We’ll get him.”
Noah looked at the corkboard hanging on the wall in the kitchen. Centered in the middle, was an eight by ten photo of Dallas and Katie taken last year at Katie’s high school graduation. Dallas, her head thrown back in laughter, wore a simple red sleeveless dress with a square neckline. He remembered Dallas teasing Katie she would wear her ‘blues’ to the ceremony.
In the photo, Katie looked up at Dallas, smiling. He could virtually see her lips move as she said something funny to her sister. Katie was always cracking jokes.
He missed her, too, and remembered that Dallas’s mom kept Katie’s room just as it was. When she had moved in with Allison, Eileen hadn’t touched Katie’s room, either. Just in case, she’d said. There was no chance for Katie coming back this time. Just in case…
“You didn’t tell me if you found anything in the back yard,” she said, eyeing him peripherally as she dipped a cloth remnant into the cleaning solvent. She ran the rod through the barrel of the gun, wiped the rod clean, then put on a clean cloth patch and repeated the procedure.
“Huh?” He frowned, though he knew the gig was up. She was on to him.
“When I was in the shower, you snuck out.”
He took offense. It seemed his best defense. “I didn’t sneak out.”
“I’ll go along with you, if you tell me what you found.” She dabbed oil on all of the moving parts of the gun and wiped the outside of the gun with a dry, clean rag.
Busted. He cleared his throat. “A boot print in the huckleberry bush. A size twelve, it looks like.”
Dallas, seemingly intent on polishing the barrel of her eight-millimeter, asked, “The same bush where you found the Holland Lop?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Might the killer have been in the bush at the same time?”
“Might.” And that’s what harassed his gut. He was so close…so close…well, the asshole better get his affairs in order because he wouldn’t be so lucky the next time. And there would be a next time. Of that, the interloper could be assured.
“I’ll get a mould of the print,” Dallas said, suddenly excited.
The phone jangled at the same time as she laid her hand around the receiver. “Hello,” Dallas said breathlessly.
“Dallas, hello. This is Lily O’Ree-Fenwick.”
“Hi there,” Dallas said, giving the thumbs-up and mouthing Lily’s name to Noah. “I was just thinking about you.”
“So was I, hence my call. Abbott and I are having a backyard soirée Saturday evening. Nothing fancy. Barbecue, country and western, barley wine. Interested?”
Was she! She covered the mouthpiece with her hand and whooped her glee. “May I bring a date?” She looked at Noah and winked.
“Yes, of course. Anyone I know?”
“My ex. Noah Madill. We reconciled.” She smiled.
“Excellent. You’ll have to tell me all about it.”
“Count on it.”
Lily rhymed off the guest list.
Dallas hurried her memory to keep track.
“See you eight-ish on Saturday.”
“Can I bring anything?”
“Just yourself and that handsome husband of yours. Ta.”
“Ta.” Dallas hung up and looked at Noah. “Dust up yer cowboy boots, pardner, cuz we’re going to a hoe-down Saturday night.”
“A hoe-down?”
“It’s the latest fashion among the elite, darling,” Dallas said in her best southern accent.
“Ah. Did she say who y’all be there?” he asked.
She laughed and slapped him with the dishcloth she used to wipe the table. “Lily’s parents, Alexandra and Geoffrey O’Ree, and Abbott’s parents, Calliope and Wilson Fenwick and―” She stopped abruptly when Noah visibly shuddered. “What is it?”
“Calliope. Her name always sends a chill down my spine. Do you know what she said to me yesterday?”
Dallas couldn’t imagine. “What?”
“She said I had the nicest buns of any man she’s seen.”
She managed a straight face. “Given her age, I’d say it’s quite a compliment.”
“Yeah, but every man’s buns probably look good to her ―”
She silenced him with a kiss. “Don’t put too much into it, Noah. Give her credit and cut her some slack.”
“I do. The whole of Bracebridge’s PD does. Anyone half her age would be behind bars for the stunts she’s pulled.”
She hesitated, wanting to tease him more and wondering whether she should, until she saw the smile in his eyes. “You’re bad.”
He grinned as though to say ‘Gotcha’. “Who else is invited to this shindig?”
“Judge Stanhope and his wife, Melissa, and the neighbors on either side of them, of course ― Rob and Judy Decker, and Dick and Annie Mullin. When you have a soirée, you always invite the neighbors.”
“Speaking of whom, none of your neighbors saw or heard anything last night or if they did, they’re not talking.”
“We’re back to square one.” She huffed a breath.
“We’ve got the boot print.”
“Which won’t serve us until we catch him and match him, that is, of course, if he hasn’t disposed of the boots before that. The boots are probably sold in every department store across the country.”
He pulled her onto his lap. “ Oh ye, of little faith.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck. “Don’t you have work today?”
“I called in. Said I’d be late. How about you?”
“I’m off for the rest of the week.”
He nuzzled her neck. “Sounds like a plan. I have time coming to me.”
“Great! We can work on Katie’s case.”
“We can―”
She looked at him and frowned.
“And we will.” The words rushed from his lips lest she think that Katie was not high on his list of priorities. “But first…” He slid his hand inside her muumuu and as his fingers trailed up her leg, he stood, cradling her in his arms.
“Okay, but we’ll spend the rest of the day going over Haye’s murder file on Katie.”
Rightly, Noah experienced guilt, but the moment quickly passed.
“What about the mould guy?” Dallas asked as she hooked her arms around his neck.
“We’ve got some time.”