She focused her attention on their hosts for the evening. Irene and Devlin Nakamura waved cheerfully from the front porch of their home.
Irene was a tall, attractive blonde who could trace her heritage back to some of the many Norwegians who had settled in the Pacific Northwest at the end of the nineteenth century. She was the kind of woman who could handle being the wife of a man who worked in law enforcement. She was also a very sharp businesswoman with a fast-rising local company that specialized in high-end cookware.
Devlin Nakamura bore the unmistakable stamp of a man others looked to in a crisis. Which was a good thing in a police officer, Grace told herself—unless he was looking at you. He radiated determination and a stern will and he had cop eyes. It was easy to imagine him kicking down a door, or reading you your rights. If you were a criminal, he was not the investigator you wanted on your trail. Grace shivered. She had not been surprised to discover that Devlin and Julius Arkwright had once served together in the Marines.
“I’m sure Irene and Devlin meant well,” she said.
Julius fired up the SUV’s big engine. “Do you always say things like that after someone has ambushed you with a blind date?”
“Don’t be so melodramatic. It wasn’t that bad. Just . . . awkward.”
Grace was certain that Irene’s motives had been well-intentioned. She and Irene had grown up together. They had been close friends since kindergarten.
Devlin’s motives, however, were questionable. He was relatively new in Irene’s life. The pair had met shortly after Devlin moved to Cloud Lake a year ago to become the town’s new chief of police. Grace had been Irene’s maid of honor at the wedding.
Grace liked Devlin and she sensed that he was a committed husband. But tonight she’d had the uneasy impression that he was watching her with the same cold speculation that she had seen in the eyes of the Seattle homicide detective who had questioned her after Sprague’s murder ten days earlier.
“Okay,” Julius said. “We’ll go with awkward as a description of the date. For now.”
The amusement that etched his dark, deep, deceptively easygoing voice sent another chill across her nerve endings. She glanced at him. In the otherworldly glow of the car’s interior lights his face was unreadable but his eyes were a little tight at the outer corners, as if he was preparing to pull the trigger of a rifle.
Not that she knew much about guns or the type of person who used them, she thought. The only man of her acquaintance who actually carried one was Devlin. But given his job, she supposed that he had some business doing so.
She had to admit that she was probably at least partially responsible for the atmosphere of impending doom that had hung over the small dinner party that evening. The problem was that she was not doing a really great job of thinking positive these days.
Stumbling onto a murder scene was bound to have some unpleasant repercussions. Still, it had been ten days since she discovered Witherspoon’s body and the darkness was not lifting. It hovered at the edge of her consciousness during the day. At night it swept in like the tide. In spite of a lot of meditation and positive self-talk and the three rituals, the bad energy seemed to be getting worse, affecting her thoughts and her dreams. Both were growing darker and more unsettling.
And the disturbing emails from a dead man were still arriving every evening.
Julius eased the SUV out of the driveway and onto Lake Circle Road with the cool, competent control that seemed to be at the very core of his character. The man would make a really good friend or a very bad enemy, she thought. She doubted that he was the positive-thinking type—more likely a tactical strategist.
She refused to contemplate what kind of lover he would be.
Whatever you do, don’t go there, she thought.
She had been too tense—too aware—of Julius all evening to consider the reasons why he disturbed her senses. The best she could come up with was the old warning about icebergs—the most dangerous part was hidden under the surface. Her feminine intuition told her that Julius Arkwright had a lot going on under the surface. So what? The same could be said of everyone. There was no reason to dwell on Julius’s concealed issues. She had her own issues these days.
The only hard facts that she knew about Julius were the bits and pieces that had come out in the course of conversation that evening. He was a venture capitalist—a very successful venture capitalist, according to Irene. Other investors routinely entrusted gazillions of dollars to Julius to invest on their behalf.
Not that she had anything against making money, Grace thought. As it happened, figuring out how to generate some future income was right at the top of her To-Do list at the moment. Nothing like losing a job to make a person appreciate the value of steady employment. She should know—she’d lost count of the number of jobs she’d had since leaving college to find herself.
The position at the Witherspoon Way headquarters had lasted longer than any of her previous careers—a full eighteen months. She knew her mother and sister had begun to hope that her ever-precarious job situation had finally stabilized. She’d had a few expectations that might be the case, as well.
Julius drove at a surprisingly low rate of speed along the narrow, two-lane road that circled the jagged edge of Cloud Lake. The surface of the deep water was a dark mirror that reflected the cold silver light of the moon.
The silence in the front seat became oppressive. Grace searched for a way to end it.
“Thank you for driving me back to my place,” she said. She struggled to assume a polite tone but she knew she sounded a little gruff.
“No problem,” Julius said. “It’s on my way.”
That much was true. The lakefront cottage that Julius had recently purchased was less than half a mile beyond the house in which Grace had been raised. Nevertheless, she hadn’t anticipated the ride home with him. She had fully intended to drive herself to the Nakamuras’ that evening but Devlin had offered to pick her up. She had assumed that he would be the one to take her home. But when Julius had pointed out that he would be going right past the Elland house and said it would be no trouble to give Grace a lift, there had been no gracious way to refuse—not with Irene and Devlin both nodding encouragingly.
Dinner would not have been nearly so uncomfortable, Grace thought, if it hadn’t been so obvious that Irene had been trying her hand at matchmaking.
Oddly enough, now that she found herself alone with Julius, she could almost see the humor of the situation. Almost. She settled deeper into the seat.
“Did you know ahead of time that Irene and Devlin were setting us up?” she asked.
“I was told there would be another guest.” Julius’s mouth edged upward at the corner. “Like you said, they meant well.”
“Now that it’s over, I suppose it’s sort of funny.”
“Think so?”
“I’m used to people trying to set me up with blind dates,” Grace said. “My mother and my sister have made something of a hobby out of doing that in the past couple of years. Now Irene appears to be giving it a whirl. Between you and me, they’re all getting desperate.”
“But you’re not interested?”
“Oh, I’m usually interested,” Grace said.
“Just not tonight, is that it? Got a problem with the fact that I’m divorced?”
His tone was a little too neutral. So much for making light conversation. This was getting more awkward by the moment.
She tried to sidestep.
“Nothing personal, really,” she said. “It’s just that I’ve got a few other priorities at the moment. I’m trying to come up with a new career path and that requires my full attention.”
Julius did not appear interested in her job issues.
“Any idea why things haven’t worked out with any of your other dates?” he asked.
She was starting to get the deer-in-the-head
lights feeling.
“It’s just that nothing has ever clicked,” she said, very cautious now. “My fault, according to Irene and my family.”
“Why is it your fault?”
“They tell me that I have a bad habit of trying to fix people. If I’m successful, I send them on their way and I move on, too.”
“And if you can’t fix them?”
She tapped one finger on the console that separated the seats. “Same outcome. I send them on their way and I move on.”
“So, you’re a serial heartbreaker?”
She did laugh then. “Good grief, no. I’m pretty sure I’ve never broken any man’s heart. Men tend to think of me as a friend. They tell me their troubles. We talk about their problems. I offer suggestions. And then they go off and date the next cute blonde they meet in a bar or the good-looking coworker at the office.”
Julius gave her a short, sharp look. “Has your heart ever been broken?”
“Not since college. And in hindsight, it’s a good thing he did break my heart because the relationship was a disaster for both of us. Lots of storm and drama but no substance.”
Julius was quiet for a moment. “Looking back, I don’t think there was any storm and drama in my marriage.”
“Not even at the very end?”
“We were both relieved that it was all over, as I recall.”
That was hard to believe, Grace thought, but the last thing she wanted to do was dig into the subject of his failed marriage. She was not going to try to fix Julius Arkwright.
“Mmm,” she said instead.
“Don’t worry, I won’t spend the rest of the drive to your place unloading on you. You don’t want to hear about my divorce and I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Whew.” Grace pretended to wipe her brow. “Good to know.”
Julius laughed.
Some of the tension went out of the atmosphere. She relaxed a little more and searched for a neutral topic.
“How long will you be staying here in Cloud Lake?” she asked.
“I plan to use the house year-round. I have a condo in Seattle but most of my work is done online. With some exceptions, I can work here as well as I can at my office. Cloud Lake is only an hour from the city. I’ll commute a couple of times a week to make sure things stay on track.”
She reminded herself that Julius was a very successful venture capitalist. He probably bought lakeside cottages and city condos the way she bought new shoes and dresses. Not that you would know that to look at him, she thought. In recent years the Pacific Northwest had proven fertile ground for start-ups and the savvy investors, like Julius, who funded the businesses that hit big. There was a lot of new money walking around the region these days and very little of it gave off a flashy, rich vibe. Most of it blended in very well with the crowd that shopped for deals at Costco and bought mountain bikes and all-weather gear at REI.
Grace was quite certain that Julius’s money was not the old kind. He had the edge of a self-made man—the kind of man who was accustomed to fighting for what he wanted.
“The house you bought used to be owned by your neighbor, Harley Montoya,” she said. “I was surprised to hear that he had sold it. He’s owned that property and the house he lives in for nearly a decade.”
“Harley says it’s time to downsize. What about you? Planning to stick around Cloud Lake?”
“For a while. Now that I’m unemployed I need to watch every penny. Mom kept the lake house after she and Kirk retired but they only use it during the summer. They suggested that I save rent money by living here until I figure out my new career path.”
“Where do they live now?” Julius asked.
“They moved to Scottsdale a couple of years ago. Mom sold her gift shop here in Cloud Lake and Kirk turned over his insurance business to his sons. At the moment Mom and Kirk are on a world cruise.”
“Irene said you have a sister?”
“Alison, yes. She’s a lawyer in Portland.”
“So you intend to stay here in Cloud Lake only until you get your act together?”
“That’s the plan,” Grace said.
“What’s your strategy?”
She blinked. “I thought I just explained my plan.”
Julius shot her an amused glance. “I’m talking about your strategy for finding a new career path.”
“Oh, that.” She flushed. “I’m still working on it.”
She didn’t owe him any explanations, she reminded herself.
“You must have some thoughts on the subject,” he said.
“Actually, no, I don’t,” she said, going for a frosty, back-off tone. “My life has been somewhat complicated lately.”
“I know. Must have been tough finding the body of your boss the way you did.”
She hesitated, not sure she wanted to go down that particular conversational path.
“I try not to think about it,” she said coolly.
“The Witherspoon Way will collapse without Witherspoon at the helm.”
She crossed her arms and gazed fixedly at the pavement through the windshield.
“Trust me, all of us who worked for Sprague Witherspoon are aware of that,” she said.
“You need a job. Sounds like your problem is pretty straightforward.”
“Is that right? And just when, exactly, was the last time you found yourself out of work?”
To her surprise he pondered that briefly.
“It’s been a while,” he admitted.
She gave him a steely smile. “In other words, you really have no idea whatsoever about the current job market, let alone how complicated my particular situation might be.”
“How did you find the job with Witherspoon?”
The question caught her off guard. “I sort of stumbled into it. That’s usually how I find a new job.”
“You stumbled into working for a motivational speaker?”
“Well, yes. A year and a half ago I was looking for a new direction. I decided to attend a Witherspoon Way seminar hoping to get some ideas. After Sprague Witherspoon talked to the audience I waited around to speak to him.”
“About what?” Julius sounded genuinely curious.
“While Sprague was giving his seminar on positive thinking, I came up with some ideas about how he could take his concepts in different directions.” She unfolded her arms and spread her hands. “To my surprise, he listened to me. The next thing I knew, he was offering me a job. Once I was on board he let me have free rein. Working for the Witherspoon Way was the best job I’ve ever had.”
“Just how many jobs have you had?”
“A lot.” She sighed. “It’s embarrassing, to tell you the truth. And it makes for a sketchy résumé. Some job-hopping is okay but beyond a certain point it makes you look—”
“Flighty. Unreliable. Undependable.”
She winced. “All of the above. My sister knew that she wanted to be a lawyer by the time she was a senior in high school. But here I am, still searching for a career path that will last longer than eighteen months.”
“You’ve got a problem,” Julius said. “You need a business plan.”
She stared at him. “A business plan for landing a job?”
“As far as I can tell, everything in life works better if you have a good, well-thought-out plan.”
It was all she could do not to laugh. He sounded so serious.
“Are you talking about a five-year plan?” she asked lightly. “Because I don’t think Mom will give me free rent for five years.”
“Not a five-year plan—not for finding a career. More like a three-months-at-the-outside strategy. If you’re serious about this you need to set goals and meet them.”
“I’ve never been much of a long-term planner,” she said.
“No kidding. I would not have g
uessed that.”
She gave him a cold smile. “Sprague Witherspoon said that one of my assets was that I think outside the box.”
“There’s thinking outside the box and then there’s failing to be able to find the box in the first place. You can’t appreciate the new model until you understand the old one and why it isn’t working anymore.”
Irritation sparkled through her. “Gosh, maybe you should go into the self-help business. That sounds a lot like one of the Witherspoon Way affirmations.”
“What’s an affirmation?”
“It’s a shortcut to positive thinking. A good affirmation helps focus the mind in a productive, optimistic way.”
“Give me an example,” Julius said.
“Well, say you had a bad day at work—”
“Let’s go with something more concrete. Say you found yourself at a dinner party with friends who set you up with a boring blind date. What kind of affirmation would you use to help you think positive about the situation?”
She went very still. “Probably better not to get too concrete.”
“I’m a businessman. I deal in concrete facts.”
“Fine,” she shot back. “You want an affirmation for this date? How about, Things are always darkest before the dawn? Will that work for you?”
“I don’t think that’s a Witherspoon Way affirmation. Pretty sure it’s been around for a while.”
“Got a better one?”
“I don’t do affirmations. I’ve got a couple of rules that I never break but neither of them fits our current situation.”
“Here’s my place,” she said quickly.
But he was already slowing for the turn into the tree-lined driveway that led to the small, neat house at the edge of the lake. He brought the SUV to a halt in front of the wraparound porch and shut down the engine.
The lights were still on in Agnes Gilroy’s house next door. The drapes were pulled but Grace was certain that Agnes was peering through the curtains. Agnes possessed a deep and abiding interest in the doings of her neighbors. She was bound to have heard the unfamiliar rumble of the car in the driveway.