Deadly Ever After by Eva Gates (distant reading .txt) 📗

tour guide and show him all the sights, while Stephen Livingstone, on the other side of Ricky, tried to get the lowdown on the gossip from Richardson Lewiston.

I enjoyed my chowder and plotted my escape.

“Book club.” Evangeline’s voice dragged me out of my thoughts. “I suppose that would be something to do, if we’re still here tomorrow.”

“What?” I said.

“Suzanne tells me your library book club meets tomorrow evening.”

“Uh, yes.”

“You’re reading The Hound of the Baskervilles. I love that story, although it’s been many years since I read it.”

Something was up: earlier Evangeline had been highly dismissive of Sherlock Holmes.

“Ricky and I would like to attend, if we may,” she said.

“We would?” Ricky said.

“Yes. We would.”

“You’d be welcome,” I said.

“You have nothing to do this evening,” Evangeline said to Ricky. “You can download the book and read it tonight.”

“Don’t assume I have nothing to do, Mom.”

“Do you?”

“I haven’t decided.”

“That’s settled, then.” She tapped her lips with her napkin.

“Maybe this’ll all be over by tomorrow and you can take Rich home,” Mom said.

“I hope so,” Evangeline said. “But, if that is not the case, we’ll attend the meeting of this book club.”

The waiter brought the bill, and Leon snatched it directly out of his hand. He smiled at Evangeline and said, “Lunch is on me.”

“Thank you. That’s very kind of you. Suzanne, I feel a headache coming on. I hope you and Lucy don’t mind if I bow out of our visit to the outlet shops.”

I refrained from leaping to my feet and performing a victory dance.

“Not at all,” Mom said. “I’d enjoy a quiet afternoon myself. It’s been a stressful few days.”

We all got to our feet.

“Ricky and I’ll drop you off at the hotel,” Leon said to Evangeline, “and then carry on to the Wright Brothers.”

“What’s the scoop on Melissa in human resources?” Stephen said to Ricky. “I heard her cousin got taken on, even though he was bottom of his class in law school.”

Not interested in the scoop on Melissa in human resources or her relatives, I hurried Mom out of the restaurant and to my car.

“Thank you for coming,” she said to me when we were on our way. “I’m grateful for your support, Lucy, while I’m supporting Evangeline.”

“Is she doing okay?”

“No, she’s not. I suggested she’d be more comfortable at home. She can wait for news there and come back when the police are ready to release Rich’s body. She refused. She wants to be near him. She said they’d never been close in life but it’s her duty to be with him in death.”

“That’s sad. Did you believe her?” I thought of Leon, so eager to please.

My mother gave me a smile. “I’m giving her the benefit of the doubt.”

“Mom, I have to ask this. Do you think it’s possible Evangeline killed Rich? She can’t account for her time when he died.”

My mother gave me the credit of taking my question seriously. She thought for several minutes. “No. I do not. If she wanted to, she would have had more than enough opportunities to do it in Boston, in a less dramatic fashion. She’s intelligent enough to know she’d need an alibi. That she doesn’t have so much as the shards of one indicates to me she did not arrange that unfortunate circumstance.”

“She might have acted without thinking. Impulsively. Seen him at Jake’s, been angry that he’d followed her, they got into an argument, and …”

“I doubt she’s committed an impulsive act in her entire life. Evangeline thinks things through before acting. Besides, as far as I know, she’s not in the habit of carrying a knife in her purse. The purse she carried Monday night wasn’t much larger than necessary to hold her phone and credit card.”

I didn’t mention that even a small knife can do the job, if it’s sharp enough. “Yes, I noticed that.” I’d also noticed that there hadn’t appeared to be any blood on her jacket. The police had taken it away for forensic analysis. If they’d found anything of significance, they’d have questioned Evangeline about it. And not in a polite interview in her hotel room.

“What’s your impression of Leon Lions?” I asked.

“He’s clearly in love with Evangeline, and I assume you noticed that also, thus the question.”

“Hard not to.”

“Quite. He’s probably been in love with her for a long time. I don’t know if the feelings are returned. Evangeline can be a closed book, when she wants to be. They met when he lived in Boston, many years ago. He might have continued to see Evangeline over the years, I don’t know. A surprising number of Boston people seem to be in Nags Head these days. The death of Evangeline’s husband has clearly given our Mr. Lions an opening to make his move. Is it possible, do you think, he’s responsible for that?”

“You mean, might he have killed Rich? Anything’s possible.” I remembered Watson telling me that Evangeline had visited the Outer Banks, despite her saying she hadn’t. Why would she lie? Surely, lying had to mean she’d been here to do something she didn’t want anyone to know about. “He is, by the way, on the police radar for reasons you mention.”

“You told Detective Watson.”

“I did.”

“You’re full of surprises, Lucy,” my mother said. “I’m beginning to realize that.”

It was nice to get thoughts of Rich and Evangeline Lewiston out of my head. After dropping Mom off, I’d returned to the library and managed to sneak up the stairs unnoticed. I curled up in the window seat with Fluffy’s chin resting on my lap and finished The Hound of the Baskervilles.

I wasn’t entirely happy—okay, I wasn’t at all happy—about Ricky and Evangeline coming to my book club tomorrow night, but I could hardly tell them to stay away.

I was ready for my date with Connor at the appointed time, and we met Butch and Steph in town. To my delight, they’d managed to get Jake and Josie to join us, and we had a fun evening. The band was