Engaged to Die (3 page)

Chloe darted behind the coffee bar. “I'll fix us cappuccino. With caramel.” She measured and poured, words spurting. “Anyway, I still don't know his name—”

Annie looked at her sharply.

“—but maybe that's even better. I mean, he doesn't know who I am either. We just met that night on the pier in the fog. I was out at the end and I heard footsteps and I couldn't see anyone, and then he was there. He and his dog, this gorgeous red setter. I knew it was all right because of his dog.” She looked deep into Annie's eyes. “You can tell when people have dogs.”

“Tell what?” Annie moved her wrist just in time to avoid Agatha's fangs. She moved to the end of the coffee bar, opened a cupboard, and got out a bag of cat food.

Agatha's expression didn't change. Her tail flicked.

Annie understood. In Agatha's view, dietary dry food sucked. Annie poured out the pellets, keeping well out of range of Agatha's swift paw. “The better for your slim body.”

Agatha ignored the pleasantry, jumped down, ate, growled, ate.

“…Well, he's a dog person. His dog's named Alexandre. After—”

Annie had seen the latest remake of
The Three Musketeers
. “Dumas?”

“Yes. Annie, you're so clever.” The machine rum
bled and fizzed. Chloe filled two mugs from the collection on glass shelves opposite the coffee bar, added a mound of whipped cream, and shook out chocolate shavings. She handed a mug to Annie.

“Thanks.” Annie welcomed the warmth of the pottery. Each mug was emblazoned with the name of a famous mystery. Her title was
Grey Mask
by Patricia Wentworth, and Chloe's was
Run Jane Run
by Maureen Tan.

Chloe planted her elbows on the shiny wood and beamed at Annie. “Isn't that terrific?”

“The Three Musketeers?”
Annie sipped, then happily licked away her whipped-cream mustache, avoiding Agatha's gaze.

“Oh, Annie. Just think. He named his dog after Alexandre Dumas. What does that tell you about him?” Chloe's green eyes were as brilliant as emeralds.

“That he's a good sight more free,” Annie said dryly,

“with his dog's name than with his own.”

Chloe puffed out her thin cheeks. “Oh, Annie—”

Annie held up a hand. “Wait a minute, Chloe. Open your ears and shake the stardust out of your eyes. You met this guy when? Last week?”

“Thursday night. Just before midnight. A week ago tonight.” Chloe's voice was dreamy. “It had to be fate. I couldn't sleep and I decided to take a walk. My aunt and uncle keep their house hotter than the Equator. And it's just about as boring.” She paused, shook her head. “That's mean. Oh, Annie, I wish I liked them better. Frances was my mother's stepsister, and sometimes I don't even think she liked Mom, and I sure don't think she likes me. They always ask me for holidays, and I come because I don't have anywhere else to go, but it isn't any fun.” Her face was forlorn.

Annie understood the tremor in Chloe's voice. Annie's mom had died when Annie was in college, and her uncle, who lived on the island, had welcomed her for every holiday. But nothing ever takes the place of home. Annie had a sudden quick memory of their plain wooden house in Amarillo and how she felt when she walked in that door. There would never—not even here on Broward's Rock in the house she and Max had built and loved—be the same sense of belonging.

“Anyway”—Chloe took a deep, quick breath—“they live close to the harbor. It was foggy as could be. I walked along the boardwalk to the pier and out to the end. I could hear the water and it was like being in a cool gray cocoon. And then”—her face glowed—“I heard footsteps. I was scared for a minute. It was almost midnight. A dog barked—a kind of cheerful woof—and this really nice voice shushed him and there they were, coming out of the fog, this guy with his dog. We started talking. About everything. Fog. And loving nighttime. And travel. Neither of us has been much of anywhere. He wants to go to the Galápagos Islands, and I want to drink a gin and tonic at Raffles Hotel in Singapore. He thinks
The X-Files
are cool and he never misses Buffy. He says Britney Spears gets better and better. He likes jazz, real jazz, George Schering and Gerry Mulligan. He thinks the TV people have made the Olympics sappy. And he saw Tiger Woods at the Masters.”

“But he didn't tell you his name? Or where he's from? Or anything?” Annie knew she sounded like a maiden aunt. But Chloe had no one to care for her, perhaps to warn her. Annie had a gut-deep sense that a guy who had no name probably had something to hide. Why else be so secretive?

“Someday he'll tell me.” Chloe's tone was utterly confident. “I go to the pier at midnight every night and he comes. That's all I need to know—”

The sleigh bells jangled.

Chloe abruptly sank out of sight behind the coffee bar. “If it's for me, please get rid of him,” she hissed.

Annie raised an eyebrow. Shades of a Shakespearean comedy. Was there a first lover and a second lover? She gave a little shrug and turned toward the front of the store. Certainly life hadn't been boring since Chloe had come to Death on Demand over the holiday. Not that Annie ever found life boring. There were so many books to read, so many people to know, so much life to live, so much love to give. She moved quickly, ready to call out Max's name. He should be arriving any minute with the paintings.

But it wasn't Max. She looked up. And up. A basketball player? No, he was too thin and unfinished looking, his shoulders rounded from a habitual stoop, his long arms dangling. Water glistened on a khaki jacket that wasn't quite large enough, showing his wrists. He looked Annie over, his eyes behind thick glasses scanning the store. He had a nice face, though his long nose was crooked, most likely from a long-ago break.

Annie smiled. “May I help you?” Any customer on a rainy January morning was to be cosseted.

“Is Chloe here?” His voice was deep but diffident.

Annie restrained herself from asking brightly if he was Lover Two. Hmm, Chloe obviously had a talent. But she had asked Annie to get rid of this caller. “I'll be glad to help you.” Annie half turned, waved her hand. “Classics are on the south wall, used books on the north. Mysteries are shelved by category, Christies,
thrillers, and romantic suspense to my right, true crime, caper/comedy and—”

He took a step forward, his long face flushing. “I'm sorry. I just want to see Chloe.”

“I wish I could help you.” Annie reached to the cash desk, picked up a pad and pen. “May I give her your name?”

“Oh. I thought she'd be here.” He sounded forlorn.

“Her aunt said—well, anyway, tell her Bob came by.”

Annie wrote, held the pen poised. “Bob?”

“Bob Winslow. She knows me.” His eyes looked hurt and puzzled.

And you don't mind giving your name. Annie didn't say it aloud, but she wrote Winslow with a flourish. “Any message?”

He hesitated, his face furrowed. A shock of dark hair hung almost to the top of his glasses. “No. I guess not.” He turned away. In two long strides, he was at the door. He pulled it open. As the bells jangled, he looked back, said abruptly, “Tell her…tell her I've been looking everywhere for her.” Cool air and a dash of mist swirled inside as the door closed behind him.

Holding the pad, Annie marched determinedly down the central aisle.

Chloe was perched on a coffee stool. Before Annie could say a word, she held up her hand. “Nope. I know. He's honest, worthy, kind to animals, helps old ladies cross the street—and he's just deadly dull. I mean”—she crossed her arms—“Aunt Frances trotted out Bob the last time I was here. Before Mom died. And he was the first person she had over this Christmas. He's a lawyer. Probate and wills.” Chloe yawned. “His father and Uncle Hal bowl together. Anyway, Bob follows me around with big eyes, hat in hand—” Her eyes lighted.
“Bob doesn't really wear a hat. He doesn't have enough style. This guy, the one on the pier, wears a cap. You know, the kind golfers used to wear years ago. Annie, have you ever seen a really good-looking guy, curly dark hair and blue eyes and a golfer's cap, anyplace on the island?” She looked at Annie as though she might hold the secret to her dreams.

Slowly Annie shook her head. “Cap…hmm, I don't think so. But I don't know everyone on the island, honey. Why, at the last census we had ten thousand residents. We're darn near a metropolis.”

“Oh.” Chloe's disappointment was clear. Then she brightened. “But he'll be there tonight. Oh, Annie, he is so cool.”

Annie waggled the pad. “Mr. Mystery Man may be cool. But I think I'd go for Bob Winslow. As in, he has a name and uses it.”

“Oh, Annie, don't you have any imagination? Do you remember”—Chloe's eyes were suddenly serious—“when you met Max?”

The store was damp with the cool undercurrent of layers of moist air chilled by January wind. The flames in the fireplace added cheer and coziness but did little to warm the long room. Memories warmed Annie. Her lips curved into a smile. It wasn't that long ago when she'd looked across a crowded room at a tall blond man whose blue eyes met hers. They'd moved toward each other, a slender young woman with an eager face and a tall man who loved to laugh. They skirted other people, shook off greetings that might have slowed them. They came together and were quiet, their eyes meeting, oblivious to the noise and smoke and music, and both had known their lives were changed forever. “I remember.” Annie's voice was soft: merry blue eyes,
wiry blond hair, intelligence and charm and grace in his face, strength and power in his every move. That instant of attraction led to a whirlwind of days together, enchanted, magical, wondrous days, until she decided they were too different: He was rich, she was poor; he'd grown up with every advantage, she'd worked hard for her future; he was laid back, she was hard charging; he saw life as sport, she saw life as a challenge. She'd left him behind, returned to this South Carolina sea island, set to work in the bookstore she'd inherited from her uncle. But Max had come after her. And now…

Annie's eyes were still soft, but her voice was firm. “Yes, I remember. But, Chloe, he told me his name—”

The bells at the front door jangled. “Annie, we're here.” Max's shout was ebullient. “Got the paintings. Boston's with me.”

Annie laughed. Trust Max already to be on a first-name basis with the distinguished artist. Max and Will Rogers—and apparently Chloe, also—never met a stranger. Annie waggled her hand at Chloe. “Quick. Get those easels from the storeroom. I should have had them ready….”

Annie pushed a table farther from the coffee bar. There was just room enough for five easels. What a coup for Death on Demand! When she'd heard in late summer that the Charleston artist was to be featured in a January show at the Neville Gallery, she'd called Mackey. After all, he'd bought mysteries from her by e-mail for several years. And he was a collector. He'd paid five thousand and sixty dollars for a signed very fine first edition in dust wrapper of Graham Greene's
Ministry of Fear: An Entertainment
(Heinemann, London, 1943). When Annie told him about her mystery
contest—every month she hung five paintings by a local artist, each representing a famous mystery, and the first person to name the authors and titles received a free book (not a collectible) and coffee for a month—Boston Mackey boomed, “You can't afford my paintings.” Annie had said quickly, “A crayon would do.” His exuberant bellow of laughter forced her to hold the phone away, but he agreed to dash off watercolors. “Just one catch, young lady.” “Yes?” “I get to pick the books.”

As far as Annie was concerned, he could pick the mystery of Miss Muffett's tuffet as long as he produced. She'd wasted no time getting the word out across the island, and with Boston Mackey's approval, the watercolors would be auctioned in February to benefit the island's literacy program. Of course, the auction would be at Death on Demand. As Annie pointed out smugly to Max, “It just goes to show that it never hurts to ask.” Max smiled agreeably, though obviously it didn't occur to him to apply the moral of the story. Not that Annie had any firm ideas about what Max should ask and of whom. But still…

Carrying a large portfolio, Max strode into the coffee area. As always when they met, whether an hour or days had passed, his eyes held a special light just for her. He gestured toward his burly companion. “We've got the goods.” As he bent forward, there came an eager whisper for her ears alone. “That means you can take the afternoon off.” To Mackey, he announced, “My wife, Annie, and her assistant, Chloe Martin.”

Annie grinned, shot Max a cheerful but ambiguous look, and stepped past him. She held out her hand. “Mr. Mackey, I'm absolutely thrilled that you are creating this month's mystery contest. Everyone is very excited.”

The artist beamed, enfolded her hand in a firm grip, vigorously pumped. “Mrs. Darling. Miss Martin.” His dark eyes, bright and quick as a curious monkey's, swept the bookshelves and the collection of mugs behind the coffee bar. “I've wanted to see this store ever since I found you on the Internet.” His tone turned casual. “By the way, I noticed a very fine copy of
The Moonstone
in your collectible display.”

The locked glass case stood just inside the front door. Annie had recently added several treasures, first editions of Wilkie Collins's
The Moonstone,
E. Phillips Oppenheim's
The Double Traitor,
John Buchan's
The Thirty-Nine Steps,
and Eric Ambler's
Epitaph for a Spy
.

“We may have to have a little chat about it.” Merry brown eyes peered from beneath bristly gray brows. Mackey seemed to take up most of the room in the coffee area, a huge man with flowing silver hair captured in a bushy ponytail, a massive face, close-cropped white beard, and a chest that rolled over onto a bulging stomach. His brown tweed jacket hung open and probably hadn't buttoned in a decade of good dinners.