Sean burst out laughing. I could feel my lips twitch, but I wasn’t ready to dismiss the incident. The altered photograph set off an unpleasant tingle in my gut, and I feared Laura might be dismissing this too quickly.
“How would she know you’re here?” Sean asked.
“We have mutual friends in LA, and one of them probably told her I was coming to Athena.” Laura shrugged. “Plus I’m sure she’s heard me talk about my father and remembered Dad’s name. Then all she had to do was look up the address in the phone book.”
“She sounds like a stalker to me,” I said.
My daughter put her arm around my waist. “Come on now, Dad, don’t start worrying. I promise you Damitra is harmless. To me, anyway. Connor’s the one who should be looking over his shoulder. She follows him everywhere.”
“Has she ever done anything physically aggressive toward you?” I wasn’t ready to drop the matter.
“No, she hasn’t. Just stupid little tricks like this.” Laura stepped back and crossed her arms over her stomach. Her nose wrinkled. “You don’t need to get all protective, either of you.” She glared at her brother. “I’m perfectly capable of handling this myself.”
Diesel rubbed against Laura, obviously bothered by her heightened emotions. “See, you’re upsetting Diesel, and that’s not good.” She crouched by the cat and cooed softly to him as she scratched his head.
I was still concerned, but I could see there was no point in discussing this further. I’d have a quiet word with Sean later, ask him to nose around and find out whether this Damitra Vane was in Athena. In the meantime I intended to keep an eye on Laura—as much as I could without riling her. “Let’s get back to preparing dinner,” I said. “You finish the salad, and I’ll reheat the risotto. Sean, you set the table.”
My children and my cat followed me into the kitchen. Laura applied herself to the salad and, once her back was turned, Sean and I exchanged glances. He gave a quick nod, and I knew he understood what I wanted.
“Will Justin be here for dinner?” Sean asked, his tone nonchalant as he pulled plates from the cabinet.
“No, he’s with his dad this weekend,” I said. “He’ll be back Sunday evening.”
Justin Wardlaw, a sophomore at Athena College, was my other boarder besides Stewart. When I inherited this large house from my late aunt Dottie, I kept up her tradition of renting rooms to students attending Athena. Justin boarded with me last year, and now he was almost family.
“How is he doing?” Laura asked. “He seemed like such a sweet kid when I was here for the holidays. I felt bad for him, after all he went through.”
“He’s doing fine.” I popped the dish of risotto into the oven and set the temperature and the timer. “He occasionally has some rough moments, but he’s handling everything well, considering.” Last fall Justin had been a suspect in a murder case and had suffered some serious personal losses. With his father and me, he had a strong support system, and Diesel, who adored him, was a huge help as well.
“The risotto will need about fifteen minutes to reheat,” I said. “In the meantime, shall we start on the salad?”
“Ta-dah.” Laura presented the bowl of leafy greens, peppers, and onion in a sweeping gesture and set it on the table.
After we each chose a drink for the meal, we sat down, and Laura dished out the salad. While we ate Laura regaled us with some amusing anecdotes from her recent auditions, and I listened for the buzzer on the oven.
Sean talked about a couple of the cases he’d worked on over the summer as we enjoyed the risotto. While he studied for the Mississippi bar exam, Sean was doing investigative work for Athena’s best-known lawyer, Q. C. Pendergrast and his associate, his daughter Alexandra. Sean and I met the legendary Pendergrast and Alexandra a few months ago when I was hired to inventory the rare book collection of one of the lawyer’s late clients, James Delacorte. Though Sean and Alexandra didn’t hit it off at first, they now worked well together, and I was beginning to suspect that Alexandra could very well be my daughter-in-law one of these days.
When we finished our meal, Sean insisted he would clean the kitchen and sent Laura and me off. We made ourselves comfortable on the couch in the living room. The cat sprawled between us, his head and upper torso in Laura’s lap, his back legs and tail against my leg. He was one blissful kitty. His purr rumbled, making the origin of his name obvious.
Laura wanted to hear more about the Delacorte murder case, and I obliged with a summary of the details. Laura loved mysteries as much as I did, and soon the conversation turned to books. Sean joined us then, and we talked for nearly three hours. Diesel remained between Laura and me the entire time, thoroughly content.
Around ten o’clock I yawned and declared that I was ready for bed. “You stay up as long as you like,” I said. Both my children were night owls, but I wasn’t. “Ready for bed, Diesel?”
The cat lifted his head from Laura’s lap and yawned at me. He rolled over and stretched as I stood up from the couch, and he meowed three times at Laura.
“It’s okay, sweet boy, you go on up to bed. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Laura kissed his nose and scratched behind his ears. He jumped to the floor across the coffee table. Thanks to his size, he had little trouble leaping that far.
I bent to kiss Laura’s forehead, and she then kissed my cheek. “Good night, love,” I said. “See you in the morning.” I squeezed Sean’s shoulder and wished him good night.
As Diesel and I headed up the stairs, I heard Sean and Laura talking about having some coffee, and I knew they didn’t mean decaf. I shuddered. How could they drink regular coffee this late at night and then expect to sleep? Ah, youth, I told myself.
Before long Diesel and I were in bed, the cat with his head on his pillow, lying on his side facing me. I rubbed his head and down his side several times, and he rewarded me with chirps of contentment. He was soon asleep, and I drifted off not long after.
At some point during the night a barking dog woke me, and I rolled over. The sounds came from the stairwell. That meant Stewart was home, and so was Dante, his poodle. Dante originally belonged to Sean, but once Stewart moved in and started fussing over him, the dog switched his adoration to my boarder. Sean seemed happy with this because, even though he was fond of the little fellow, he wasn’t that keen on having a dog. He had taken Dante to keep him from being sent to a shelter and brought him along when he moved to Athena back in the spring.
Diesel and Dante got along pretty well, though occasionally Dante turned rambunctious and Diesel had to calm him down. Since the cat was about five times the size of the dog, Diesel always had the upper hand—or paw, that is.
The next thing I knew my alarm went off at seven. I sat up, groggy, and reached over to silence it. I saw that Diesel wasn’t with me. Most days he didn’t get out of bed until I did, but when there was a new guest in the house, he sometimes went visiting in the morning. I expected he was in Laura’s room happily curled up next to her.
I breakfasted alone, and it was nearly ten before anyone else appeared downstairs. After that the day sped by. As I expected, Stewart and Laura really hit it off, and Laura kept Stewart entertained with bits of Hollywood gossip. Stewart insisted on cooking lunch for everyone, and Sean and Laura cleaned the kitchen afterward.
After lunch Sean pulled me aside for a brief conversation. Earlier in the day he’d called around town and verified that Damitra Vane was indeed here. She was staying at Farrington House, the best hotel in Athena. He also looked her up on the Internet Movie Database and showed me her picture on his laptop. She was beautiful, in what I thought of as a plastic, Hollywood manner. Her expression was vacant, and she didn’t look all that bright.