Lucy and the Valentine Verdict (9 page)

I, however, was above that. I had been
robbed. I knew it and everyone else in the room, with the possible
exception of Mr. Blore, knew it.

I crossed my arms over my chest to hold in
my disgust and stared around at the group, hoping at least one or
two of them were avid Yelp reviewers with a sense of justice that
would force them to post about this outrageous transgression
against the sanctity of Agatha Christie and everything she
represented.

While everyone recovered from the unexpected
outcome and wandered forward to press around Mr. Blore and
congratulate him on seeing what no one else had
and couldn’t
because it was completely without merit,
I stood by myself,
licking my wounds and trying to recover enough that I could twist
my lips into a smile and congratulate him too.

Peter walked up beside me and slipped his
arm around my waist. “So Minnesota it is.”

I looked at him. “I didn’t win.”

“You might not have been declared the
winner, but that wasn’t the bet. The bet was which one of us could
identify the killer. I’m a cop. I know better than anyone how the
courts can mess up and let a guilty man go free.”

I gave him a sideways look. “Really?”

He responded with a hug. “Really.”

Mrs. Peabody approached, looking disgusted.
“I can’t believe she gave that to him. I will never hear the end of
it,
and
he won a free weekend so I have to come back!”

She was still mumbling to herself when Lady
York strolled up. “One of our most creative endings, I think,” she
said. “Although yours was a good guess too.” She smiled at me as if
we didn’t both know she was lying through her teeth.

I smiled back. Fake as hell, of course.

“Now if we can just locate my husband’s
grandmother’s watch,” she added.

With my win ripped from me, I wasn’t in much
of a mood for more of her subtle and not-so-subtle accusations.
Peter, however, cut me off before I could reply with exactly what I
was thinking.

“You don’t know who has it?” he asked,
looking surprised. “I was sure you did.”

“How would I know?” she asked,
indignant.

He shrugged. “I thought your husband told
you.”

“Arthur?” She glanced over her shoulder at
Sir Arthur, who, on hearing his name and apparently figuring out
what we were discussing, had turned redder than any herring she
might have planted.

When she turned back, her gaze locked onto
me. “It was you.”

I glanced at Peter, wondering why our crazy
hostess thought Sir Arthur knowing pinned the guilt onto me.

“Lucy didn’t take your watch,” Peter
explained, patient as always. “But I bet she also knows who
did.”

Mrs. Peabody, who had been following the
conversation with rapt attention, perked up even more. “Tell us!”
she ordered.

In fact, everyone in the room seemed to have
stopped what they were doing and were now watching me.

It was, I realized, my second chance. Except
Peter was wrong. I didn’t have any idea who had stolen Lady York’s
watch.

I looked over the expectant faces, and then
it hit me. I did know, and after two seconds of thinking about it,
I knew why the person, or persons, had taken the watch too.

I cleared my throat and took my spot, back
in the limelight.

“The mistake you made, Lady York, wasn’t
with who stole your watch, but who in fact I am. You see, I am
exactly what I said that I was, a crime reporter turned antiques
dealer originally from the Missouri Ozarks with no previous ties to
Montana or anyone from this fair state.”

For the first time that weekend, Lady York’s
expression of extreme confidence wavered.

I knew then that my guess was correct, both
as to who had taken the watch and why Lady York had been so fixated
on me.

“I’m not sure why you thought I was someone
I’m not. Maybe because of our last-minute reservation? My age also
hits within the target range... And maybe my hair made you think I
was younger?” She had reacted to it more visibly than most people
did, I realized. I tilted my head to the side as if considering. In
truth, I was just milking the moment. I deserved it, and she owed
it to me.

“I have to admit, I was confused at first
too. Not so much by who took your watch. I wasn’t even sure it had
been stolen, but with why I suddenly seemed to be getting so much
attention as a potential suspect in the murder game. Now I realize
that was part of the cover up. The true thief must have realized
that you had confused me with her, and she wanted to keep the focus
on me as much as she could. So she rigged Mandrake’s cards to cast
doubt on me. The poem was a double dig, putting more doubt on me
and calling you out for what she thought of you marrying her
father.”

The ladies in the room, with the exception
of Lady York and the thief herself, gasped. The men responded too,
but with more variety, ranging from open mouths to uneasy
frowns.

Feeling just like a star sleuth, I pulled in
a breath. “And now, I will name the thief!”

“No need.” Miss Claythorne pushed Mandrake
out of her path and moved within a few feet of her father’s new
wife. “I took the watch, but I didn’t steal it. It’s mine. It
wasn’t ever my father’s, not really. It was my mother’s. She would
have wanted me to have it.” She looked at Lady York,
challenging.

Our hostess lifted one brow and looked at
her husband.

He dropped his gaze.

Frowning, Lady York looked back at Miss
Claythorne. “You can’t expect me to take your word on who you
are.”

“You don’t need to take my word. Just read
the papers my attorney sent my father, the ones you
intercepted.”

“I would never–”

“We know you did. You signed for them.”

Lady York glanced at the door. If she was
hoping for a rescue, none came.

“After my private investigator found my
father, I tried calling, but after her meeting with him, you must
have found out and intercepted all of my efforts. I realized if I
wanted to meet him myself, I’d have to give up on being invited and
just show up. I researched some more.

“That’s how I found out about you and your
past; it’s also how I found out about your mystery weekends.”

“So the poem?” I asked.

Miss Claythorne shrugged. “Cheap shot, but I
was mad. I knew she’d intercepted the papers and my calls. Knowing
that she was doing whatever she could to keep him from meeting with
me...when I saw her wearing my mother’s watch, I snapped.”

“How’d you know it was your mother’s?” I
asked.

She pulled out an old photo. Sir Arthur was
in it with a dark-haired woman. The woman was wearing the
watch.

“My private investigator got this. It was
the first time I’d seen either of my parents.”

Miss Brent, or Michelle, as Mandrake had
called her, looked just like her mother. Sir Arthur had to have
known who she was as soon as she walked into the house.

She looked at her father, her eyes sad. He
cast his gaze to the ground.

An awkward silence fell over the group after
that. I felt a bit like a character in
Ten
Little Indians
, trapped in a house with people I didn’t
particularly like or trust. Except Peter, of course, and Kiska, and
Mrs. Peabody.

She was the one who saved the day, herding
everyone out of the living room and into the dining room where she
and her husband took over, setting up the TV and a marathon of
movies. They also raided the kitchen, bringing in popcorn and soda
and expensive-looking hand-dipped chocolates that I’m sure weren’t
meant for us.

I grabbed three of the gourmet bonbons and
popped them one by one into my mouth. Peter made do with popcorn,
eating it at a frustratingly slow speed of one piece at a time.

“What do you think is going to happen?” I
asked him.

“With the watch?”

I nodded.

“Not much, I’d guess, unless the daughter
refuses to give it back and Arthur and Lady York want to press
charges.”

“He won’t.” The guilt I’d seen on Sir
Arthur’s face assured me of that.

“Then she’ll probably get to keep it.” He
ate some more popcorn, completely uninterested in anything past the
possible legal outcomes.

“What about their relationship?” I
prompted.

He frowned. “What do you mean?”

I widened my eyes. “Will they have one? Do
you think they’ll be father and daughter? And what about Lady York
and Sir Arthur? How can he forgive her for destroying the papers?
Why do you think she did that, anyway?”

I had a ton more questions, but Peter just
closed his eyes, picked his cowboy hat off the floor and placed it
over his face.

This was why a man could never replace
having a best friend. Rhonda would never have taken a nap at a time
like this.

“The money.” Mrs. Peabody squeezed past
Peter and then me to take the chair on my right. “This place...”
She motioned with a straw to the room around us. “...wasn’t in Sir
Arthur’s family. It was in his first wife’s. With her daughter
turning up, there’s an heir who isn’t his current wife.” Looking
pleased with herself she took a sip of whatever was in her cup.

“Oh...”

She lowered her glass. “If this
had
been an Agatha Christie story, the
daughter
wouldn’t have been the one doing the
crime.” She lifted an eyebrow.

I nodded.

“In fact, you’re lucky this was all
make-believe. You could have been victim number one.”

I nodded again.

“You never know though...” She looked
around.

My boyfriend grunted, telling me he wasn’t
asleep and he didn’t appreciate the direction our conjecture was
going.

“Do you think they’ll keep having the
weekends?” I asked.

“Depends on whether the marriage makes it
through this, but I hope they do. I wouldn’t mind seeing what
happens next.”

“I did have fun...”

Peter grunted again and then dozed off,
leaving Mrs. Peabody and I to gossip at leisure.

o0o

An hour later, the movies were still
playing, but I was stuffed with chocolate and gossiped out. I woke
Peter and he, Kiska, and I headed to our cabin.

There, I fell back onto the bed and
luxuriated in my success.

He sat down beside me. “I agreed to
Minnesota,” he said.

I rolled over and looked up at him.
“So?”

“So... isn’t that enough?”

“Enough for what?”

“To prove...” Suddenly uncomfortable, he
glanced around the room.

My interest peaked, I sat up. “To prove
what?”

He mumbled something and got off the bed. He
walked to the closet and pulled something out of his duffel.

When he walked back, my entire body
froze.

In his hand was a box. A tiny innocuous
white box. Not the kind with a hinge on one side, but still...

He bent on one knee. “I never thought I’d do
this again.”

I glanced around, afraid for a moment that
he’d been shot and was in the process of collapsing in front of
me.

He raised a brow and cleared his throat.

Not shot.

Still holding
The
Box
.

I cleared my throat. I was ready. I
thought.

He lifted the lid.

“Lucy?”

“What?” I realized suddenly that somehow my
eyes had closed.

“Are you going to look?”

Oh, yeah... look. That’s what people did in
such situations. Except I couldn’t. I loved Peter. I really did,
but The Box and what would be inside. That was huge and I was...
me. I had my house and my dog and my shop, and I just wasn’t sure I
was ready to give any of that up and become someone else.

And that’s what would happen, right? That’s
what always happened. People got... I couldn’t think of the word...
and had... another mental bleep... and grew up and became
mature
.

I so wasn’t ready for mature.

“Lucy...” he prompted.

I had to tell him.

I opened my eyes. “Peter, I don’t—” My gaze
fell on the open box.

Inside was not what I’d expected.

Inside was a... key.

I picked it up and turned it over. A key.
Just a key. No secret messages inscribed on it. No ring tucked
under it. Just a... “It’s a key,” I muttered.

“Yes, I didn’t... you didn’t...” He glanced
around, looking more panicked than I’d ever seen him. Not that I’d
seen him panicked before, but he definitely was now.

He dropped the empty box on the floor and
moved to sit beside me on the bed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think. It
was Valentine’s and I wanted to make a gesture, but I didn’t mean
to lead you to think—”

He was stuttering. It was kind of nice.

“You know how I feel about you...” more
rambling...

I blinked innocently. “Do I?”

“Of course.”

“And how is that?”

“Uh... I...”

“What?” He hadn’t given me a ring. He hadn’t
dropped the life-changing question that for a moment I had thought
he was going to, and honestly, I was relieved. But there was
absolutely no reason to let him know that, at least not yet.

“I... love you.”

He looked like a little boy when he said it.
All insecure and uncertain.

I grinned. “You do?”

Suspicion crept into his eyes. “Yes.”

“And what’s this?” I held up the key between
my thumb and index finger.

“The key to my house. I wanted you to know
that there were no secrets between us, that my house is your house,
that you can come and go when you like, that you don’t have to wait
for me to not be busy with a case, because no case is as important
as...”

I raised my eyebrows.

Suspicion glimmered in his gaze, but he
finished the sentence anyway. “You. Nothing is as important as
you... except Jeremy, of course.”

Okay, he’d had to add his son. I understood
that.

“And maybe Alphie and Kiska... then there’s
She—”