Cold Case Affair. Loreth White Anne
Ted Gage.”
After finalizing the details of the meeting, Muirinn slowly replaced the handset, a coolness cloaking her skin. Both Gus’s offices ransacked? This was more than coincidence.
And why hadn’t Officer Gage mentioned this to her last night?
Muirinn quickly gathered up the photos and slid them back into the envelope. To be safe, she unlocked a drawer hidden in the side of Gus’s thick, handcrafted table.
She placed both the envelope and the laptop into it, but as she was about to shut and lock the drawer, she caught sight of a small bottle of pills in the drawer.
She picked up container and read the label. Digoxin.
Gus’s heart medication.
Closing her fist around the bottle, holding it tight against her chest, Muirinn walked back to the window, eyes hot with emotion. Her grandfather had never mentioned his heart condition to her. But while that hurt, it wasn’t surprising. Gus had routinely refused to acknowledge his encroaching age or ill health, and he used to drink all sorts of herb teas to ward off the inevitable.
Comfrey had been his favorite—knitbone tea, he’d called it. “To knit them old bones.”
Her chest tightened at the memory of his words, and she swiped away an errant tear.
Gus had always said crying was a useless waste of time. If something worried you, you went out and fixed it. And that was exactly what she had to do now. She needed to get to the bottom of these break-ins. And she needed to know why Gus had been looking into the Tolkin Mine murders again.
Collecting herself, she locked the drawer, slipped the key and the pills into her purse, and glanced into the hall mirror. Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, she scooped up the keys to Gus’s Dodge truck.
She’d go into town, meet with Rick at the paper, and then head over to the police department.
Because now she really wanted some answers.
The truck wouldn’t start.
Muirinn turned the ignition again, and it just clicked. The oil light on the dash glowed red.
Damn.
Muirinn climbed out of the cab, hoisted up her skirt and got onto hands and knees to look underneath the vehicle. Sure enough, there in the gravel was a big, dark pool of glistening liquid.
Stretching to reach under the truck, she tapped her finger lightly into the puddle so she could smell what it was.
“Muirinn!”
She jumped, banging her head on the undercarriage. Cursing, she backed out from under the vehicle and sat up, heart thumping.
“Is that you, Muirinn?”
She blinked up into bright sunlight at the silhouetted form of an old woman bent double, peering down at her with a bunch of purple flowers clutched in her hand.
“Mrs. Wilkie?” she said, rubbing her head. “My God, you half startled me to death!”
“Are you all right, dear? Did you hurt yourself?” she said in a warm, gravelly voice that Muirinn remembered so well from her youth.
“I’m fine.” She got to her feet awkwardly, dusting her knees off. “I was just checking out the oil leak.” The back of her head throbbed where she’d banged it, and her baby was kicking. Muirinn placed her hand on her belly, calming her baby and herself.
“I heard you’d come back, sprite.” Mrs. Wilkie angled her head as she spoke, wrinkles fanning out from her intelligent gray eyes. Quicksilver, who’d materialized from nowhere at the sound of Mrs. Wilkie’s voice, was purring and rubbing against the old lady’s legs.
“I was just coming up to feed the cat, and to put some fresh flowers inside your house. I’ve also got some new herbs for tea. Sorry I scared you, dear.”
Muirinn noted that Mrs. Wilkie’s body had bowed even further to age, like a gnarled tree that had spent its life on a windswept shore. But she was still beautiful, her face tanned and creased in a way that spoke of kindness, her eyes still bright and quick. A thick gray braid hung over her shoulder, and she wore a long gypsy skirt, riotous with color. Muirinn wondered just how old the woman was now. To her mind, Mrs. Wilkie had seemed old forever, like a mythical crone.
She gave the hardy old dear a shaky smile, adrenaline still coursing through her body. “Thank you. It’s good to see you, Mrs. Wilkie. I heard from the lawyer that you’d been taking excellent care of Gus, and I see you’ve been feeding Quicksilver, but I—”
Muirinn was about to say she no longer needed daily housekeeping services. Guilt stopped her. This woman had been here for Gus—she’d been a companion to him. Which was more than Muirinn could say for herself.
Mrs. Wilkie had lived in a small cottage down by the bay on Gus’s property as long as Muirinn could remember. Even though it was now Muirinn’s land, there was probably an official lease that still needed to be honored. Plus, the woman likely relied on the minimal income Gus had paid her, whatever it was.
Muirinn needed to go easy, go slow. Give things time.
“You were saying, dear?” Mrs. Wilkie was watching her intently, waiting.
“It’s … nothing.”
“Well, it’s a terrible thing about Gus. I miss him. But it’s good to see you back, Muirinn, and to see that you are expecting, too,” Mrs. Wilkie said softly. “Are you going to have the baby here in Safe Harbor?”
Muirinn realized that she hadn’t really thought that far ahead. “I. yes, I am.”
“Well, if you go running into any trouble, you know where to find me. I’ve helped deliver my fair share of children, including my two nephews.”
“I know. Thank you, Mrs. Wilkie.” Muirinn was aware that Lydia Wilkie had once been a nurse who’d moved gradually into midwifery and naturopathy. She’d always had a keen interest in herbs and the natural healing practices of aboriginal peoples. When they were kids, Muirinn and Jett used to peer into her cottage window down by the water, pretending they were spying on the Good Witch because she was always boiling some herbal concoction on her blackened wood stove.
“Now, you call me Lydia,” she said.
Muirinn smiled. “I can’t. You’ve been Mrs. Wilkie to me forever.”
Mrs. Wilkie’s face crumpled into a grin. She took Muirinn’s hand firmly in her gnarled one. “It’s so good to have you home, sprite. Gus would be mighty pleased. Especially to have a small one around the house again.”
Muirinn nodded, emotion prickling into her eyes again at the sound of her old nickname. Damn these pregnancy hormones and this trip down memory lane. “I know he would,” she answered quietly.
I just wish I’d come home sooner.
Mrs. Wilkie turned, her gypsy skirt swirling around in a rainbow of color as she scuttled up the steps toward the front door. She unlocked it with her own key.
“Do you know any decent mechanics in town?” Muirinn called after her, vaguely uneasy with the idea of this woman coming and going into her house at will.
“Why, Jett next door could fix that truck for you, Muirinn. I’ll just go right on inside, put these flowers down on the table and call him.” She disappeared through the front door.
“Mrs. Wilkie! Wait—”
The old woman peeked back out the door. “What is it, love?”
“I … I’d rather call a mechanic from town.”
“What nonsense. You’ve been away too long, sprite.” She smiled. “We look after each other out here.” And with that she vanished into the house.