We came to my driveway and the carriage bumped over the rocky, pitted surface. This time, I noticed how Derrick held himself stiffly and kept firmly to his side of the seat. All at once, thoughts of evidence and clues slid away and the memory of what I’d done slammed into me, sending wave after wave of fire to my cheeks.
Had I actually kissed him? His suggestion had been so . . . well . . . ingenious . . . and it had quite taken me by surprise. I’d been going about this investigation all wrong, hoping someone might slip up and inadvertently admit the truth. But evidence doesn’t lie. Clues don’t make excuses. They lay out a trail from crime to culprit, if one is clever enough to follow them.
Was I?
Apparently not, if I couldn’t decide on a proper course now. Should I apologize for my brash action? Say nothing? Make pleasant small talk? The heavy silence that fell over us seemed to make my decision for me.
Derrick turned the horse in a wide arc and brought the curricle to a stop in front of the house. Before I could make a move, he leaped to the ground and came around to help me down. My hand in his, we stood facing each other in the light spilling from my front parlor. Muffled from the other side of the house, ocean waves broke against the foot of the property.
I cleared my throat. “I . . . ah . . . well . . . thank you for all your help today.”
“You’re welcome, Emma.”
“Would you . . . um . . . like to come inside?”
“No, thank you. It’s late and I should be getting back.”
But he didn’t release my hand, or make any other move to leave. I stared into his face, into his eyes, which suddenly seemed darker than the sky overhead—dark with whatever thoughts he didn’t see fit to share with me. The moment stretched, became uncomfortable, nearly unbearable, yet just as he didn’t move, neither did I try to slide my hand free and step away. I wished he would say something. Was he waiting for me to do the same? To tell him, perhaps, why I’d kissed him when I’d made it clear we had no future together?
“I . . . it was such a good idea you had . . . about the clues . . . and . . . well . . . I didn’t mean to—”
“You didn’t,” he said firmly. “And you don’t have to explain.”
“Oh, but—”
“It’s much more fun if we keep each other guessing.” The lamplight from inside caught the gleam of his teeth as he smiled.
“Is it now?” I slapped a hand on my hip. “Is that why we’re standing here as though we’re waiting for . . . for I don’t know what?”
“Don’t you?” Was it my imagination, or did he lean in, crowding me and depriving me of oxygen?
My instinct was to retreat a step, but my legs no longer seemed adequate to support me. It was my turn to be mute. I shook my head.
He grasped my chin and raised it, then brushed his lips against mine. “Good night, Emma.”
With that he swung up into the curricle and drove away. I watched him go until he turned onto Ocean Avenue and disappeared into the darkness. My fingertips quivered; my heart fluttered. My mind conjured a single word that summed up Derrick Andrews.
Fiend.
I was up with the sun next morning. When Nanny found me in the front parlor, I was sitting cross-legged on the braided oval rug in my dressing gown, with a tablet and pencil beside me and several items ranged in front of me.
Nanny hovered in the doorway, eyeing me with obvious puzzlement.
“Don’t worry,” I said, without looking up, “there is a method to my madness.”
“To undo the work Katie did cleaning in here yesterday?”
I sat back, propped on my hands behind me, and contemplated my array of improvised evidence: a silk scarf, a deck of playing cards in lieu of actual tarot cards, several unlit candles, a small pile of coins, one of the men’s flannel work shirts Aunt Sadie used to wear with her trousers when she did the gardening, and a handful of dusky pink blossoms I’d gathered from the lawn beyond our kitchen garden. These were merely tea roses, not the same as those I’d found in the pavilion, but today they would serve my purposes.
Nanny’s worn, embroidered slippers entered my view. “What on earth are you doing?”
“Deducing, Nanny dear.” I turned my face up to her. “These all represent the clues in Madame Devereaux’s murder.” I gestured at my little collection. “Up until now I’ve considered each one separately. But if they are to lead to the guilty party, they must be taken as a whole, all linked together. The same person has to have a link to each and every item.”
She moved across the rug to perch on the edge of the wingback chair. “How is a candle connected to a flower?”