“I couldn’t have finished my job if I hadn’t had your research. It was a big help.”
There. That wasn’t so bad. She knew I appreciated her. That should be enough.
I pulled Peter by the arm and started to head for the exit.
“I’m glad it could help, though I’m not sure how that information could help with a delivery.”
“That’s because she’s not just a messenger,” Peter volunteered.
I cuffed him lightly upside the head.
He ducked, holding his hand to the spot I’d tapped and giving me a scandalized look. I narrowed my eyes at him, my expression saying I didn’t appreciate his help.
“I thought you were just a messenger. What else do you do?” Caroline asked.
I could see she was trying to rein in her imperiousness. She used a question rather than a demand. Maybe she had changed in my absence. Just a little.
I sighed and gave her a half answer. “Just about anything that a client needs.”
“Like what?” For once she sounded interested, not censorious, just interested.
I decided to give her a little bit of what I was working on now. “Right now I’m trying to track a family that disappeared during the great flood in the 1900s.”
“How’s that going?” she asked.
This was the longest conversation we’d had since our parting of ways that hadn’t ended in argument.
I wasn’t willing to shut her down quite yet so I admitted. “It’s not. They’re ghosts after the flood. I haven’t been able to find anything on them.”
“Could be they died in the flood.”
“I hope not or my client is not going to be happy.”
“Why don’t you give me some of your information?” Caroline suggested. “I know a couple of people who specialize in that area of history. They might be able to find records that you don’t have access to.”
I tapped a finger against my leg. It was a tempting offer. I’d hit a dead end that I wasn’t sure I could overcome. Who better to find this family’s lineage than a historian?
Did I want to chance putting her in danger? It was one of the reasons I let our argument stand rather than trying to reach out sooner.
“I would need something from you in return,” Caroline said nonchalantly.
Ah ha. Now we got to why she was trying to be so helpful.
I didn’t want to be curious, but I was. “And that would be?”
“You attend the gala with me at the Columbus Art Museum tomorrow night.”
Uh no. I didn’t go to galas. That wasn’t my scene at all. Give me a dingy bar with a dart board or pool table any day of the week. It didn’t even have to have the stuff to make fancy cocktails. If it had beer, I was good. Galas? Nope. Not going there. She’d have to find someone else to be bored out of their mind.
“I don’t think so.”
“Come on. I don’t want to go alone again.”
I scoffed. She was known as the ice queen for a reason. “Since when? You’ve never had a problem with it in the past.”
She rolled her eyes. “Since one of the professors in the sociology department has taken to hitting on me. Normally I wouldn’t care, but last time he kept popping up to ask me out when I was talking with the dean of my department.”
“So bring a date. Not your friend.”
