Town in a Wild Moose Chase

it yesterday. You inferred it was inside information—I can assure you it’s accurate, I think you said, or something like that. So if you’re right, how did you know?”

“I was obviously mistaken,” he said, giving her a disinterested look and turning away. Candy shifted her gaze as well and spotted movement out of the corner of the eye. “Oh, here comes Ben.”

“Ah!” Preston’s eyebrows rose. “We should give you two some time together,” he said smoothly. He held out a hand to Maggie. “Would you care to dance?”

Maggie gratefully placed her hand in his. “I would love to.”

They were gone by the time Ben arrived at the table. “It looks like Liam’s going to be all right,” he said as he settled in next to her. “Nothing busted except his pride. Duncan must have hit him with a pretty good right.”

Candy nodded and pointed to Maggie and Preston on the dance floor. “That’s Maggie and her date,” she said.

Ben squinted in their direction. “Who’s that she’s with?”

“It’s a great question,” Candy said. “Have you noticed that he’s avoiding you?”

Ben made a face and shrugged. “Not particularly. But why would he avoid me?”

Candy leveled a finger at him. “That’s a great question. And I think I’m going to go find out. Excuse me.”

She rose from her chair and started across the room. Maggie and Preston were currently on the opposite side of the dance floor, so she angled toward them, threading her way through the other couples on the floor.

She was several couples in when she felt a hand brush across her shoulder. She stopped and turned.

A svelte woman in her mid to late fifties, dancing with her spouse, smiled at her. “I’m sorry,” the woman said, “I don’t mean to disturb you, but I love your dress. Where did you get it?”

“Oh, this?” Candy looked down absently. “A friend loaned it to me.”

“Well, it looks lovely on you. You know, I have one exactly like it. I bought it at Neiman Marcus when we were visiting our daughter down in Boston last fall. I would have worn it tonight, but my husband forgot to pick it up at the dry cleaner’s yesterday.”

Thirty-Five

Candy was mortified. She could feel her cheeks redden and her face grow hot. Her whole body began to tingle. She felt lightheaded, and for a few moments thought she might collapse if she didn’t sit down instantly.

But she steadied herself, blinked several times, forced herself to focus, and said in the most natural voice she could muster, “Well, if I had known that I would have worn something else.”

“Oh, dear, don’t you see?” the woman said with obvious delight. “If Sid had picked up the dry cleaning, we’d both be wearing the same dress! This way is much better. I decided to wear Chanel, which I picked up in New York the last time we were down in the city, and you look so much better in that dress than I do. Everything turned out for the best, you see!”

Candy mumbled a quiet “thank you” and slinked away as the woman turned back to her husband, Sid, delighted at her good fortune.

Candy took a moment to get her bearings, and put Maggie clearly in her sights.

But just then the string quartet plunged into the final notes of the Vivaldi piece and ended with gusto. As the music stopped, the couples around her pulled apart as applause rippled across the dance floor and around the room. The cellist announced that the group would be taking a short break, and a staff member rang a bell, announcing that dinner was imminent and would the guests kindly take their seats so they could get started with the evening’s program.

With that announcement, everyone in the room, suddenly animated, shifted en masse, and Candy was caught amid a swarm of moving bodies. She held her place, waiting for the crowd to dissipate, and when a clear line of sight finally opened up again to the far side of the dance floor, Maggie and Preston were gone.

Candy looked in both directions, searching for them. She thought she caught a glimpse of them headed out through the French doors, into the hallway beyond.

Curious, she followed. Preston’s behavior had become increasingly odd over the past day or two. It was time to find out what was behind it all.

Waiters with the first course arrived through a side door to her left, so she hurried through the French doors into the hallway beyond to avoid any more traffic jams. Only a few guests lingered here, glasses in hand, chatting away obliviously. A staff member was just coming through the hall, encouraging the guests to take their seats. Candy waved her down.

“Did you just see a middle-aged couple go through here?” She briefly described Maggie and Preston, and the staff member pointed toward the front lobby area.

“I believe I saw them headed that way.”

Candy started off again, moving at a quicker pace.

Why are they headed to the lobby? she wondered. Perhaps it was nothing. Perhaps Preston simply wanted to check on a reservation, or maybe they were looking for a quiet place to talk.

But maybe it was something else. Preston’s brief appearance at the ball had been too suspicious. Candy suspected he was up to something. But what was it? Where was he taking Maggie?

Her mind jumped too quickly to several conclusions, which she forced down as she approached the lobby.

She scanned the place in a matter of milliseconds but saw no sign of her friend. Shifting direction, she was just about to ask the two women behind the front desk if they’d seen any sign of Maggie and Preston when she glanced out the inn’s twin front glass doors and spotted Maggie outside under an awning, without her coat, arms wrapped tightly around herself as she stared into the darkness toward En-glish Point Lighthouse and the coastline.

Candy ran out to her. “Mags, are you all right?” She couldn’t keep the worry from her voice.

Maggie looked at her, slightly bewildered. “I’m not sure.”

Candy took her by the shoulder. “What happened? Where’s Preston?”

“He left.”

“Where did he go?”

“I don’t know, he… he said he wanted to show me something outside. Then he suggested we go back to his place. I told him I didn’t think that would be a very good idea. And then he got very… strange. It’s like something clicked inside him. He pulled me out here and gave me this really cold look.” She turned to Candy. “To be honest, he was a little scary.”

“Did he do anything to you?” Candy asked, worried for her friend.

But Maggie shook her head. “No, he… he told me to tell you something.”

Candy felt a little chill go through her, and it had nothing to do with the fact that they were standing outside without their coats in twenty-degree weather. “What is it?”

“He said just two words, and then he—”

But Ben walked out of the door behind them just then, with an expression of concern on his face. “Candy, there you are. Is everything okay? I saw you running out of the room and I—”

He stopped as a police car turned into the driveway in front of the inn, lights flashing, and slid to a stop just a few feet from them, its rear end fishtailing a little on the ice. The door popped open and Officer Jody McCroy leapt out. He came around the car in a rush as a second police car pulled up behind him, its roof lights flashing also.

Ben instinctively put his hands on the shoulders of both Candy and Maggie, gently pulling them out of the way. As a trio, the three of them took several steps back, giving the officers plenty of room.

“Jim, what’s going on?” Ben asked one of the officers as he rushed past. The officer glanced at him but continued on as a third police car, and then a fourth, pulled into the driveway.

Chief Darryl Durr stepped out of the passenger seat of the last car and watched as his men converged on the building.

He saw Candy, Ben, and Maggie, nodded casually, and started past them toward the inn’s front doors. But a