“Well, I’ve certainly been learning that,” she said quietly. “I’m surprised you still work with him, if you know that too.”
“He pays well,” he said, with a shrug.
She nodded slowly. “I’m sure he did. It was all about loyalty for him.” He looked at her quizzically, and she shrugged. “I’m not blind to who he is, but I admit to having been fairly blind to a lot that went on back then. I think I was on autopilot, instead of actually living.”
“Well, you definitely look more alive now,” he said, with interest. “A lot less perfect.”
She winced. “I don’t know if that’s a compliment or an insult,” she said, with a wry chuckle, “but remember. Being perfect was the requirement of the day back then.”
“It was for you, wasn’t it?” he said, sounding amused. “More like a china doll.”
“Dumb and stupid,” she said cheerfully. “I had to stay quiet because I would always say the wrong thing, according to him.”
“I don’t think it was so much the wrong thing as that he didn’t want you to figure out what was going on.”
“Well, I never put any time or effort into it,” she said. “My mistake.”
He shrugged. “It happens.”
“What are you doing in Kelowna?”
“Well, I brought your husband in,” he said, “but he is off to Vancouver now.”
“Seriously?” she asked. “I’m surprised he left so fast.”
“He had business.”
“He always says he has business. You didn’t drive us to dinner last night.”
“No, he told me that he was going out for dinner, but I didn’t realize he was with you,” he said, his gaze even more curious.
“Yeah,” she said, “I was trying to figure it out myself.”
“If you say so,” he said. “I don’t know why you would though.” Then he stopped, shrugged, and said, “But it’s your business.”
“I went out mostly because I was curious as to what he wanted,” she said, with half a smile. “He never does anything without a reason, and I didn’t quite understand what the reason was for even looking me up.”
He nodded contemplatively.
“It would have been due to Robin, probably.”
“I imagine so.”
“I think he thought I had something that she gave me.”
He looked at her in surprise. “Did you?”
“Nope, not at all,” she stated. It wasn’t a lie because Robin hadn’t given it to her; she had dropped it out in the yard. “I had a USB key from when I lived with him, in one of my old purses,” she said. “So he made me go back to the house and get that for him.”
He laughed at that. “Of course he did.”
She shrugged. “I told him that it didn’t have anything of his on it, but he didn’t believe me.”
“He had to make sure,” he said comfortably.
She looked at the parking lot. “This is where she died, huh?”
“Apparently,” he said, but an odd note was in his voice.
She turned to face him. “Is that why you’re here?”
He looked at her and shook his head. “No, not at all.”
“That’s why I’m here,” she said. “She was my friend, before she became his mistress, you know?”
“Well, she was never your friend if she became his mistress. He was your husband.”
“Good point,” she said, “but I didn’t know what a louse my husband was at the time.”
“No, I think that’s one of his abilities. To be what you want him to be at the time.”
She thought about that. “You know what? That’s not a bad analysis. There was just something always very different about how he appeared to me versus everybody else.”
“And that was part of his talent,” he said.
“Well, you obviously respect him, since you’ve been working for him long enough.”
“I don’t know about respect at this point,” he said, “but it’s almost like I know him too well to quit.”
She gasped at that. “Exactly. Depending on what kind of man he really is, you could be right.” She looked back at the coffee shop, then at the spot where Robin had been stabbed, the bloodstains still evident. “You’d think that somebody would have seen this murder when it was happening.”
“You’d think so. But apparently not. And it is at the back of the corner, facing into the bush, so …”
“I guess I hadn’t really thought of it that way,” she said, “so maybe it was deliberate after all.”
“Usually a murder is deliberate,” he said, with a laugh.
And again, there was that odd note. She studied him quietly. “You never did have a family, did you?”
“Nope, my line of work wasn’t conducive to it.”
“No, you’d have to get out and to get away from my ex for that. He wouldn’t likely tolerate you having a partner. The competition probably wouldn’t go well.”
“Competition?” he asked.
“Well,” she said, “he wouldn’t like you being busy with somebody else. He’d want you at his beck and call, not somebody else’s.”
He looked at her for a long moment and then nodded slowly. “You know what? It really could be just that simple too.”
“What could be?” she asked, confused.
He shook his head. “Nothing,” he said. “Don’t worry about it.” He turned to head back into the coffee shop.
“It was nice seeing you,” she said.
He looked back at her, smiled, and said, “Ditto.”
Then he walked inside. She didn’t know what to do at that point, and it was yet another odd occurrence in her crazy life right now. She didn’t even know how to react. What she did know was that she felt even more unsettled now. And she knew of no reason for it.
Chapter 24
Doreen got back into her vehicle and greeted the critters again, only Mugs was growling out the window. She turned, and there was Rex again, just standing and watching her. She gave him a half smile and a three-finger wave and started up the engine.
“You don’t like him, huh, Mugs?” She couldn’t remember if he ever felt that way before or not. He certainly should
