A Justified Murder (Medlar Mystery #2)(23)

When Kate let out an involuntary gasp, Jack glared at her to be quiet. The caller was Gil Underhill, Jack’s best friend, the foreman of all his jobs. The guy who had shot himself in the foot with a nail gun.

“I’m at the office. Alone.” Tayla slammed a drawer shut. “I am looking for the copies of the emails, but they aren’t here. People use my office. I’m afraid Kate will see them. I don’t need Sara Medlar snooping into all this.”

“You gave them to me and I destroyed them, remember?”

“Right. Sorry.” Tayla closed the bottom drawer of the cabinet and leaned on it. “I’m on edge.”

“We all are. We just need to find Sylvia’s book so we can clear her name. It has to be in that house! Are you sure she didn’t tell everything in one of her other novels?”

“How would I know? I never read any of them.”

Gil paused. “How’s Charlene holding up?”

“She doesn’t know anything has happened and I want it to stay that way.”

“You can’t keep her in the dark for long. This town is already on fire with gossip.”

Tayla turned toward the window. “That’s a perfect word choice. Fire. And witches and suicides and...and white lilies.” Her voice broke.

“It’s going to be all right,” Gil said softly. “Carl will take care of it all.”

She took a deep breath. “Have you said anything to Jack?”

“And get his temper involved? No thanks! When I was at the hospital he—”

“Hospital?” She picked up the phone off the cabinet. “What happened? Was it Carl?”

“No. Just me being stupid. But all the attention was on Jack and whether he was going to work on the murder. He says they won’t and I pray that he keeps his word.” Gil took a breath. “I have to pick up Quinn now. I can’t risk him being alone for even minutes. I want you to calm down and keep quiet about everything.”

“I’m hiding it all well. No one would guess that my life is falling apart. If I see you, don’t even wave. It’s better that we pretend we don’t know each other.”

“I agree. Go home and read one of Sylvia’s books.”

Tayla gave a bit of a laugh. “Not a bad idea. Her book, a tub of hot water, a bottle of gin, twenty-five or so pills, and—”

“Stop it!”

“Okay. Gil, thank you.”

“Save your sympathy for Charlene.”

Tayla grimaced. “When I think of that poor, poor baby... Sorry again. I hope we both have an uneventful night.” Tayla clicked off the phone, dropped it into her bag, and quickly left the office.

For a moment, Jack and Kate stood together, unmoving, then he dropped his arms. When Kate looked at him, his face was a stone mask. Unreadable. But he didn’t fool her. What he’d just heard had deeply upset him.

“Maybe we shouldn’t go...” He didn’t finish.

As for Kate, she didn’t know who all the people Tayla had mentioned were. Quinn was Gil’s son. But Charlene? Carl?

She knew Jack meant that maybe they should call off the celebration. And then what? He would go to Gil and demand to be told what was going on? If Gil refused, would the infamous Wyatt temper come out? It’s what Gil dreaded. She filled in a word for him. “We shouldn’t go separately?” She made herself sound cheerful. “Good idea. I’ll ride with you.”

Jack took a moment as he seemed to be deciding what to do.

“Is the champagne cold?” she encouraged.

His eyes let her know that he was aware of what she was doing. “Yeah. It is. Come on, let’s go.”

They didn’t speak as they walked to his truck and got in. As he drove, she could see a muscle working in his jaw. When he went down Heron Lane, she drew in her breath. Suddenly, she realized what he’d finally accomplished. He’d managed to buy either the house his grandfather had grown up in or Sara’s old house. For years, it had been a dream of Jack’s to buy them, but the owner had refused to sell. “You didn’t!”

For the first time since hearing Tayla’s phone conversation, his eyes lit up and he nodded.

“Which one?”

“Both.”

Kate laughed in delight. “And who handled the deal? Did—?” She cut herself off. She wasn’t going to ruin this with talk of money.

“The owner has a cousin who’s a Realtor. Sorry.” He pulled the truck into the weed-infested driveway of a little house that looked as though it might collapse at any moment. Sagging roof, rotting porch posts, broken windows. But she knew that to Jack it was a trophy of triumph. The house had belonged to his grandfather Cal, and through the rampant Florida growth she could see a bit of the house next door. It had once belonged to Sara’s family.

She got out of the truck. The place was going to take a massive amount of work. So much so that it would be easier to bulldoze the two houses and build from scratch, but she knew Jack would never do that. He’d worked for over a year to get the current owner to sell to him. When Jack came to stand beside her, she said, “Well? Are you going to show me or not?”

“It’s bad inside. I don’t think—”

“Oh come on. Couldn’t be worse than parts of Chicago.”