“I’ll suffer through another action film if I have to.” He walked toward the couch, where a huge bowl of popcorn was on the coffee table. “How’s your neck?”
“Washed, so you can draw in your fangs.”
“Fangs aren’t the part of me that needs drawing in,” he said as he sat on one end of the couch and patted the seat beside him.
Sara picked up the bowl of popcorn and put it next to him.
With a grimace, he said, “Give me that” as he held out his hand for the remote.
Sara suppressed her laughter and sat down as far from Mike as the couch allowed.
In the main house next door, Jocelyn sent a text message to Tess:
DID YOU KNOW YOUR BROTHER IS FALLING IN LOVE WITH SARA?
Immediately, Tess wrote back:
I’M GOING TO SPEND TOMORROW AT ONE OF THE CATHEDRALS HERE PRAYING IN THANKS. WHAT ABOUT SARA?
SHE TREATS HIM LIKE HE’S ANOTHER COUSIN.
CONTRIVE TO GET HIM UNDRESSED.
Joce looked up at Luke. “You said you saw Mike at the gym. Did you happen to see him with his clothes off?”
“Not something I would pay attention to, is it?”
“So what’s he look like naked?”
“Fat. Big belly. Scrawny legs. Not a muscle on his body.”
Joce texted back to Tess:
WILL DO. YOU REALLY ARE MY BEST FRIEND.
11
MIKE LOOKED FOR Sara across what he’d been told was Nate’s Field, but he didn’t see her. “Maybe I should look for a woman so angry her hair is on fire,” he muttered as he remembered what she’d seen that morning, of his sitting on the edge of Erica’s desk and openly flirting with her.
Across the open field were about a dozen men wearing leather tool belts as they built the pavilions for the coming fair. If he weren’t going to spend a second day searching Merlin’s Farm he’d be helping them. Maybe he’d be able to tomorrow, he thought. Jocelyn had sketched some designs for the fortune-telling tent, and she’d given them to Sara to replicate. Mike and Sara laughed that Joce had won the argument over her participation in the fair.
“She won’t be in any danger, will she?” Sara’d asked. “I mean this Mitzi person won’t bash Joce on the head to get the cards?”
“And miss out on what she really wants—whatever that is?” Mike asked. “No, I don’t think she will.”
Mike didn’t say so, but he didn’t want Sara in direct contact with Mitzi. But he did want to obtain as much DNA as he could. His new plan—which he didn’t tell Sara—was to get the notorious Erica to help out. She would call as many women of the appropriate age as possible to come into the shop, fit them with dresses, and get them to drink the free wine from a paper cup. She would write the name of the woman on the cup and bag it. It wasn’t much, but it was a start.
Mike had asked a couple of people about Erica, and if she was half as sexually voracious as he’d heard, he knew how to deal with her. He’d persuaded a lot of women like her into doing what he wanted.
Earlier that morning, on the way to the gym where he was to meet Luke, Mike had stopped to talk to Sara’s mom and got her to agree to keep both Sara and Brewster Lang busy all day so Mike could search the farm in peace. Ellie said she’d give Sara the job of making wreaths for Luke’s booth for the fair, but that Lang was about as easy to trap as a greased eel. She promised to do her best.
Mike had gone from there to the store that Sara owned with Stefan. Mike had left the quaint little town center of Edilean, where people felt as though they’d stepped back in time, to the inside of a store of all chrome and glass. He couldn’t help it as he glanced back through the front windows to reassure himself that he was still in Edilean. The town’s building codes hadn’t allowed the outside to be changed, but the inside was utterly modern. Mirrors were everywhere, as were gold fixtures and silk-upholstered seats. Mike glanced at a price tag: $1,200 for a simple white blouse.
No wonder the town of Edilean hated Vandlo. The clientele this type of store would bring in weren’t the ones who’d contribute to the town. No, they’d just park their expensive cars, get what they wanted, then leave.
As Mike looked around he saw what people like the Vandlos would think was high class, but he didn’t see anything that reminded him of Sara. He hadn’t seen her apartment yet, but he doubted if it was like this place.
“May I help you?” a young woman asked.
Mike looked her up and down. Her all-black attire was more appropriate for New York than Edilean. “I need to see Erica,” he said.
An hour later, he was leaving the store. Everything with Erica had gone just as he’d planned, and he’d managed to coax her—fortyish and desperate—into taking over the job with the women. The problem came when Sara, carrying a load of clothes, had walked into the store before he was finished.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sara leave, and he could tell from her quick step that she was angry. He’d wanted to go to her, but at that moment he couldn’t stop what he was doing with Erica. In fact, he’d had to spend extra time soothing her to get her back in the correct mood after Sara’s unexpected appearance. He knew that what he was doing with Erica might not look like business to Sara, but it was, and he had to continue.
So now, everything was arranged with Erica. At the end of the day an agent would pick up the bags containing the cups and take them to a lab. Their great hope was that one of the samples would be a relative of Stefan’s.
With Lang being kept busy at the Farmers’ Market, all Mike had left to do was calm Sara down.
“My salary ought to be doubled for this job,” he muttered as he walked across the fairgrounds. A few people raised their hands to acknowledge him, but Luke knew what Mike wanted. He pointed to the shade trees along one edge. Mike saw Sara’s golden head bent over what looked to be a few tons of weeds.
She glanced up, saw Mike, started to smile, then her face changed and she looked down again.
Around him, men he didn’t know looked at him with curiosity, and Luke slapped him on the shoulder in sympathy.
“Good luck,” Luke said, laughter in his voice.
Mike went to where Sara was sitting, her lap full of wire and long stalks of purple-flowered stems. He wondered if she’d speak to him.
He shouldn’t have worried.
“You were disgusting,” Sara said, her upper lip curled into a sneer. “You were sitting on the corner of Erica’s desk like some 1950s secretary. And you were leaning over her and using that weird voice of yours to … to flirt with her.”
“Yeah. So? What’s your complaint?”
“That’s no way to conduct business, that’s what. You know how this town gossips. If you didn’t care about how people see you, you should have thought of Tess. She’s going to be living here. With her children.”
“So how should I have done it?”
Sara couldn’t contain her anger. “In a businesslike way. Sit in a chair in front of the desk and talk to her in a respectful way.”
“You wanted me to politely ask her to do your work? To spy on her own clients? And to gather information for a federal investigation but keep her mouth shut about it?”
Sara was aghast. “You told her about Mitzi?”
“Of course not. I told her I’m from the U.S. Bureau of Health and Disease—which doesn’t exist—and I’m investigating an STD outbreak. It seems that everyone in Edilean is sleeping with everyone else.”
“You didn’t say that!”
“I did.”
“Do you have any idea what people are going to say when they hear such a lie?”
“Who’s going to believe what an outsider like Erica says? And for that matter, I’m not sure she’ll tell anybody. Besides, Erica strikes me as a person who’d like to know that other people have some sexually transmitted disease. Wanta put money on it that she’ll be at her doctor’s this afternoon?”
“The point isn’t what you said but how you said it. Don’t you have any pride?”<
br />
“Enough to believe that most women—except for you—like me.”
“That’s because I think on a higher plane than just physical attraction. And for your information, there’s more to being in love than just sex.”
“You sound like a woman whose well is dry.”
“That’s absurd—and vulgar.” Looking away, Sara busied herself with the wreaths. “Not that it’s any of your business, but Greg and I have a fulfilling relationship in every possible way.”
When Mike said nothing, she looked up and saw that he was smiling as though he didn’t believe her.
“So how long’s it been?” he asked.
“He’s only been gone a few days.”
Mike kept his smug smile.
Sara narrowed her eyes at him. “So how long has it been since you have been with someone?”
“Years. Centuries. It’s been so long the crack of dawn is in danger.”
Sara tried not to laugh, not even to smile, but she couldn’t help herself. She looked back down at the wreaths.
“Are things settled between us now?” When she didn’t answer, he said softly, “Sara, I do what I have to in order to get criminals off the streets. In normal life I wouldn’t come on to some woman the first time I met her, but I needed something done, and that was the fastest way to achieve it.”
“You do know, don’t you, that now Erica’s going to expect you to go to bed with her?”
“I don’t think so,” he said solemnly.
Sara gave a sigh. “All right, what did you learn from her?”
“I think she has a boyfriend.”
“Erica? She never leaves town.”
“So it must be someone in Edilean.”
“I’d know about it if she did. Everyone would, and I’ve not heard a word. She’s a workaholic, and she’s with Greg twelve hours a day.”
When Mike made a little sound as though to say “ah ha!” she glared at him. “Don’t even think it. Whatever complaint people have against Greg, he’s a hard worker. And no one says he isn’t. Well, except for Joce, that is, but she …”
“She what?”
“Nothing. What are you going to do today? My mother stuck me with making wreaths for Luke’s booth for the fair.”
“Do you need some help?”
“Sure. If both of us work together we can get these done in half the time.”
“Sara, uh, I meant that maybe someone here could help you. Don’t you have some female cousins?” He took a step back.
“Okay, I can take a hint. This is a girl thing and you want to get away. Going to visit Erica?” She was being facetious, but when she glanced at Mike there was a dull shine in his eyes that she was beginning to recognize.
“I thought I’d go to the gym in Williamsburg for some cardio, then to the outlet mall,” he said. “I still need some more clothes.”
There was something so awkward about the way he’d said that, she knew it wasn’t true. “You’re lying,” she said calmly. “You are flat out, going-to-hell lying.”
“That’s ridiculous. I need to go.”
Sara looked at the wreath in her hand for a moment, then back up at him and smiled. “I hope you have an enjoyable day, and I bet I get at least a hundred of these made. I’m sure they’ll sell really well.”
Her change from anger to sweet agreeability puzzled him.
She kept smiling. “How about if I make dinner tonight?”
“Tuna casserole?” he asked in a teasing voice.
“Tuna surprise.”
“Sounds great,” he said, but he was frowning. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Couldn’t be better. Go on. Get your new clothes. You can show them to me tonight. Maybe even model them for me, and I’ll save my best wreath to show you.”
He was walking backward. “That sounds great. See you about five?”
“Perfect.”
Still frowning, Mike turned away and went to his car. Why had she given in so easily? he wondered. One second she was saying he was going to hell for lying and the next she was wishing him well.
It hit him in an instant. She knew where he was going and why. When he’d driven into the lot at Nate’s Field, he’d noticed Sara’s car parked under a big tree. It took him about two minutes to get there, and he wasn’t surprised to see her leaning against the tree, her handbag on her shoulder.
“Took you long enough to figure it out,” she said. “Are you sure you’re a cop? My car or yours?”
“Sara …”
“Yes?”
Visions of tying her up, putting her in the trunk of his car, and taking her someplace safe ran through his mind. But she was at the center of everything, and he had to keep her nearby. “Mine. That thing you drive is a piece of garbage.”
“Aren’t you a snob? We can’t all have five-liter V10s with five hundred horsepower that do zero to sixty in four-point-six seconds.”
He looked at her in astonishment.
“I looked it up on the Internet.”
“You snooped through my room and researched my car? What other devious things have you done?”
“Wouldn’t be much of a secret if I told you, would it? Have you ever considered that it would save a lot of time if you just told me the truth about what you’re trying to find?”
“If I swear on Tess’s life that I don’t know, will you believe me?”
“Yes,” she said seriously. “But I am the key, aren’t I?”
When they reached his car, he looked at her sharply.
“You don’t have to tell me,” she said. “I’m not stupid. I know I’m one of the women you flirt with to find out things. Is it because I own the dress shop and have access to people?”
It wasn’t yet time to tell her about Stefan. “Yes.” He unlocked the doors and they got in. “Sara, I really can’t tell you everything, but you must trust me. The truth is that you are the center of this case. It may be about the dress shop, but we aren’t sure. I can’t tell you why or how, partly because I don’t know, but we believe you have something or know something that Mitzi wants.”
He could see that she was trying to be calm, and to act as though he hadn’t just hit her with a thunderbolt.
“My aunt Lissie left me some jewelry in her will,” she said at last. “Maybe it’s valuable.”
Mike wanted to put his arms around Sara, but they were in an area that was too public. Instead, he made himself think of the list of jewelry Mitzi Vandlo had accumulated over the years. Her clients gave it to her in gratitude for what they thought she’d done for them. “Maybe.”
“You are truly the worst liar in the world. This case is bigger than some pieces of jewelry, isn’t it?”
“Unless she left you the Hope diamond, the answer is yes.”
As he started the car, she could see a muscle in his jaw working. “Did you talk my mother into piling those wreaths on me?”
“Yes.”
“And I guess you told her she was to keep Mr. Lang away from Merlin’s Farm today.”
“Until four.”
“You and my mother have become thick, haven’t you?”
“Whisper a few words about enzymes to her and she’s mine. What’s Luke going to think when his wreaths aren’t done?”
“It’s okay. I have two older sisters who are super achievers. They love to excel at everything.”
“What does that mean?”
“When they find out that I walked away from all those wreaths and left poor Luke in the lurch, they’ll trample over each other to show me up. I learned long ago to just look helpless and I’d get out of a lot of work.”
Mike shook his head at her. “Who in this world besides me knows what you’re really like?”
“My dad—and Tess a little bit.”
“Not your mother?”
“She thinks I’m a wimp.”
“How about the boyfriend?”
“I assume you mean Greg, my fiancé. No, he thinks I’m sweet and quiet and agree
able to his every idea.”
“Is a lie like that a good basis for a marriage?”
“Maybe you could teach me about honesty in a relationship.”
They looked at each other for a moment, then laughed together.
12
I THINK YOU SHOULD be more cautious when you snoop around Merlin’s Farm,” Sara said from beside Mike as he drove along the curving road. “I know you hide evidence that you’ve been there, but if Mr. Lang found out … Well, he’s notorious for his retaliations.”
“Such as?”
Sara was watching Mike drive. He never took his eyes off the road, and the way he sat, with both hands on the wheel, looked like he was prepared for something bad to happen. “No one can prove anything, but we know in Edilean that if you cross Mr. Lang, you get punished. It’s something we’re all told from childhood up, and I was told that his father was just like him.”
Mike glanced in all three mirrors.
“Are you expecting someone to follow us?”
“With this case, I never know what I’ll have to do.”
“I guess that includes oozing all over someone as sex-starved as Erica.”
Mike gave her a quick glance out of the corner of his eye.
“All right.” Obviously, Erica was not something he was going to discuss further. “Let’s see. Where do I begin? I’ve heard these stories all my life. When I was about twelve, a man who worked in Williamsburg moved here with his family and he prided himself on his plum jam. I remember my mother telling him that Mr. Lang would be his competition at the local fair and that he usually won.”
“Lang has to win or else?”
“Oh, no. He’s lost before, but his produce is so good that it’s rare for him not to win. But when he lost that time, he went to my mother, who was a judge, and told her the man had cheated. I remember my mother being angry and saying Mr. Lang was a sore loser, so, unfortunately, she didn’t investigate the matter.”
“What did he do?” Mike asked.
“You have to understand that Mr. Lang is a very keen observer of people.” Sara paused. “The truth is that he’s a Peeping Tom. No one’s been able to prove it, but we all know it’s true. If you cross him, he tells you secrets about yourself and what you’re doing that you don’t want people to know about.”