A Justified Murder (Medlar Mystery #2)(25)

Smiling, Jack opened the champagne and filled their flutes.

She raised her glass toward him. “Congratulations. I know it was a long, hard struggle to get the owner to sell and I’m glad you did it.”

“Me too,” he said and they drank.

For the next hour, they gave themselves over to the feast he’d prepared—with help from his mother.

There was ropa vieja, beef with olives and capers, and rice made with toasted cumin. Everything was delicious and Jack kept filling Kate’s plate until she ate too much. When he pulled two pretty little molded pumpkin flans out of the cooler, she groaned. But she ate every bite of it.

By the time they’d finished, it was dark outside, but the candles made the room glow. Jack handed her an icy pineapple mojito made with coconut rum, a sprig of mint at the rim.

In any other circumstance she would have complained that he was trying to get her drunk. But after what she’d seen and heard in the last few days, she needed something to relax her.

Kate was sitting on a pillow, leaning back against the wall, drink in hand. Straight ahead was the big window. It was dark out, not even a flicker of light. It was time to start talking. “Who is Charlene?”

“Tayla’s niece. Her sister Diane’s daughter.” He glanced at Kate and saw that she was waiting for him to continue. “Charlene is mid to late thirties, married, has two little boys. Smart kids. Husband is a lawyer at a firm in Plantation.”

“Do you know her well?”

“Yes and no. She’s very pretty and I had a crush on her when I was a kid. She moved away for a few years, but came back, met her ugly husband, and that was it.”

“Ugly, huh?”

He grinned. “I think so. One of those blond guys.”

Kate laughed. Blond would be a stark contrast to the darkness of Jack. “What does Charlene do?”

“She builds birdhouses.”

“What?”

“Really. We toss any building scraps she can use into a big box wherever we’re working. Charlene and her boys come by on Saturdays and clean it out. During the week, while her family’s at school and work, she makes really nice birdhouses, then ships them all over the US. She does copies of people’s houses. National Register homeowners love her work.”

“How interesting,” Kate said. “I’d like to see them.”

“We can visit her if you want.”

The way he said it made her look at him sharply. “You want to find out why Tayla referred to her as ‘a poor baby,’ don’t you?”

“Yes.”

When he didn’t say any more, Kate felt herself getting angry. “Jackson Wyatt! Don’t you dare clam up on me. I don’t want any of your prehistoric ideas of ‘protecting’ me. I want to know everything you do about what Tayla said.”

Jack was unperturbed at her anger. “I think you do know all that I do. I had no idea Gil and Tayla knew each other. As for Charlene, she’s a sweet, funny woman who adores her family and old houses. You two would probably like each other. As for the other things, we know about the witches and the attempted suicide. I have no idea what fire she was talking about. And I don’t know anyone named Carl. I can’t imagine how all this is connected to Janet Beeson’s murder.”

“Did you know that Sylvia Alden wrote books?”

“Had no idea. But if anyone knows, it’ll be Sara.”

“She would have told us.”

“Maybe,” Jack said. “But she doesn’t want us to get involved.”

Suddenly, Kate froze in place. In spite of two mojitos, she felt fear run through her. Her voice lowered. “There’s someone outside. I saw the light from a cell phone.”

The only indication Jack gave that he’d heard was a slight widening of his eyes, then he leaned back and started laughing. “That’s funny,” he said loudly. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to make a pit stop. Stay here and have another drink. I’ll be right back, baby.”

As though they were lovers, Jack kissed Kate’s cheek. “Don’t move,” he whispered, then got up and stretched a bit. He didn’t seem to be in a hurry.

Kate sipped her drink and forced herself not to glance at the big, dark windows. When she’d first seen them, they were beacons of light. Now they seemed like bottomless wells of darkness.

When Jack disappeared into the house, her heart began pounding, her hands shaking. She was listening with all her might but there was no sound from him. No creaking floorboards. No opening and closing door. There were some sounds from outside, but they were just Florida noises, nothing unusual.

As the minutes went by, she thought she was going to have to move. What if Jack was hurt? There was a monster on the loose. A killer who used any kind of weapon he could find. Or maybe there were three killers. Maybe they were all outside and waiting. Maybe—

She heard a thud, like something—a body?—hitting the ground. She turned to the window just in time to see a tiny flash of light. Most of it was hidden behind the jungle that surrounded the old house.

Kate sprang up so fast she upset the plywood tabletop and the bowl of rice hit the floor. She ran through the kitchen and out the back. The door had been closed and—damnation—locked. Looked like Jack wasn’t going to let whoever was outside get in.