Part 10 (2/2)

”Fiona was shut in a casket last night, Eve,” he said. ”I think you'll grant that she had a right to be upset.”

Eve looked contrite. ”Of course.”

”I granted it from the get-go, Dad, but you mocked her.”

”I've never been more sorry about anything. She's a wreck. That's why she stayed the night. In Sherry's room. I slept in my own.”

I winked. ”You should have put her in Brandy's room so you could have experienced the full roller-coaster scope of the getaway tree.”

Every one of his children who ever sneaked a date up to our rooms-and we all did-sent them home via the tree outside Brandy's room, which is how it became known as ”the getaway tree.”

Bit of a sore spot with my father.

The thundercloud himself handed me one of my mother's plates bearing one of Fiona's famous homemade cinnamon rolls. Hmm.

”It's three o'clock, Madeira. And Eve,” he added, ”for your information, Madeira spent a few hours at Vintage Magic last night, and after the playhouse fire was under control, Detective Werner brought her home.”

A shred of memory rolled in, and I sat straight up to dislodge it, nearly spilling my latte. ”Uh, where's Chakra?”

My cat jumped on the bed. ”Oh, sweetie, thank goodness.”

”No worries. She rode in with you and your knight. He's waiting downstairs to see you.”

”Nick? Nick's home already?” I put my cup on the nightstand and jumped out of bed.

Eve chuckled. ”Do you remember nothing about last night?”

”It's fuzzy, and what's with the gossip?”

”Jump in the shower,” Eve said. ”And come down as soon as you can.”

Fifteen minutes later, wearing a black tent dress and two-tone flats, I sat across from the Wiener and my father in the gentleman's parlor. ”I thought Nick was here,” I muttered.

Eve shook her head almost in warning. ”He's on a.s.signment, remember?”

”Oh, you wanted to see me, Detective?”

”Ms. Cutler,” he said, ”before we left your shop last night-”

”We left my shop last night?”

Eve shook her head at me.

”What?” I asked.

”Selective memory. It's so accommodating. Mad's blocking it,” Eve told Werner as she sat on the arm of my chair.

Werner looked confused, an emotion I embraced, then lightning struck. ”That was you last night!”

Werner rubbed the side of his nose. ”Guilty.”

”For what?” I asked suspiciously.

”Please remember that I wasn't up there alone,” he said.

What did I do, kiss him or something? Had I called him a Wiener? If not, I probably should have. I held on to the chair's arms as memory tried to rush me, but I managed to push it away. ”Eve, what did you say about gossip? Never mind. Screw the gossip. I have to think.”

I got up to pace, the heat in my face making me want to open a window, October or not.

Werner obviously took my movement as a sign to continue. ”As I was saying, last night I saw your cat batting around an object of great interest. It seemed to come from beneath the body drawers in your storage room. Do you know what was under there?”

My heart stopped as I turned, but when Werner opened an evidence box, and I saw the skeletal appendage inside, some kind of trip switch got hit that restarted my heart double time.

I'm afraid it said a lot about our knowledge that neither Eve nor I ran screaming from the room, because my father sure looked poleaxed.

”Before you say anything,” Eve warned, her hand on my shoulder. ”He already interrogated me, and I caved like a kid caught with crib notes at a final exam. Detective Lytton Werner knows all.”

Werner wore a look of smug satisfaction.

I crossed my arms. ”Why ask me questions you know the answers to?”

”Details,” he said. ”Different people notice different things.”

Okay, so if I told him the truth, I'd be fine. ”Fine. Ask away.”

”What I didn't tell Ms. Meyers,” Werner said, ”is that a body, charred beyond recognition, was found in the rubble of the playhouse.”

”That's horrible.” I swallowed hard.

”The bones, most of which have been broken, have to be sent to an FBI lab for DNA testing, but judging by the pelvic bone, a local forensics team was able to identify the remains as female between the ages of twenty and thirty, never had children. Death happened approximately thirty-five years ago. Cause unknown.”

Nausea rose in me. I stood. ”I need a cracker or I'm going to be sick.” Wis.h.i.+ng I'd eaten that cinnamon roll, I ran for the kitchen, but Fiona met me with a cracker box. I dug in, grabbed one, and inhaled it, letting it fill the caffeine-raw hole in my quivering stomach.

Werner watched with concern. Sc.r.a.p, so did everyone else.

I ate another, and another, until the nausea pa.s.sed. I took a deep breath, kept the box, and returned to the sofa. ”Sorry.” I looked at the contents of Werner's evidence box and turned to Eve. ”Probably not from a dinosaur, a bear, or a bizarro dog, then.”

Werner raised both brows. ”You thought it belonged to an animal?”

I could either nod here or be honest. ”We hoped it belonged to an animal. We hoped hard.”

”Hard enough,” Eve said, ”to go looking for Vinney Carnevale to ask him if he broke in, instead of calling you about them, because the guy who broke in looked a lot like Vin. I suspected,” Eve added, ”though I didn't say so, that he took the rest of the bones that belonged to that . . . set you've got there. We did plan to call you after we confronted Vinney.”

”Animal bones.” Werner closed the box and put it aside, praise be. ”Puts a different spin on obstruction of justice and tampering with evidence and a crime scene,” he muttered as he made a few notes.

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