His mom leaned over and kissed his cheek. “After you two wrap up all these issues you have going on, why don’t you come visit me up in Nantucket?” She looked over her shoulder and winked at Millie. “I have plenty of room and the dog would love it.”
Roscoe lifted his head and barked once.
“The dog’s in,” Theresa said, smiling.
Scott didn’t look at Millie. They needed to talk soon, and he knew he wasn’t right for her, but he was rapidly reaching the point where he wouldn’t let her go.
* * * *
Millie’s phone buzzed just as Scott pulled into the driveway of her Cape Cod–style cottage in Falls Church. She liked living close to DC in the quaint neighborhood, and more importantly, she could get home to her aunt Mae in just a couple of hours from there. She pressed the speaker button upon identifying the caller as the River City chief of police. “Hey, Chief,” she said. “Is everything okay?”
“Depends how you look at it,” the chief said.
Scott put the vehicle into park. “What does that mean?”
“It means the prosecuting attorney for the county wants to speak with you both.”
“About what?” Scott asked tersely.
“Background on Clay’s murder and the attack on you the other day,” the chief replied. “I said I would extend the invitation. He’s going to be here tomorrow going through case files.”
Millie looked at Scott, and his gaze narrowed. “Sure, if he’ll answer our questions as well.”
Man, he sounded like a lawyer. For the first time, Millie found that to be a good thing.
“I think that’s fair. Also, feel free to tell the entire town to stop confessing to the murder, would you? It’s getting tiresome.” The chief sighed. “It wouldn’t hurt for you to bring your own attorney tomorrow. Just a warning.” He clicked off.
Millie sighed. “This is getting more and more bizarre.”
“I agree.” Scott shook his head. “I’m having difficulty tying together all of the disasters coming at us right now.”
Millie unfastened her seat belt. “Maybe they’re not related to each other,” she murmured. “I think it’s possible that Dearth is unhinged and hurt his wife, in which case maybe he’s angry at us as well.”
“I haven’t found anything in the guy’s background that shows any sort of violence like this, or that he’d actually hire a hit squad to come after us.” He looked at the cottage. “This isn’t what I expected.”
She blinked. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. I expected some sort of high-end steel-and-chrome building with automatic sensors and booby traps everywhere.” He grinned. “Maybe a contraption that would carry us from the car inside the house.”
The guy lived in a penthouse and had a house in Nantucket. She’d had to scrape every dime together for her down payment. They didn’t belong together. He owned a private plane, for goodness’ sakes. “I wanted a place that felt more like the house where I grew up, but don’t get me wrong, I do have a workshop with all sorts of booby traps and gadgets.”
“I have no doubt.” He stretched out of the SUV and opened the back door for the dog. “Come on, Roscoe.”
Roscoe leaped out, looked around, and ran to mark the nearest bush on the other side of Millie’s small lawn.
They had stopped by Scott’s apartment for him to gather clothes before popping into his office so he could fetch several case files, and now they had finally arrived at her place to get clothing. She figured she’d need enough for maybe a week or two, but she also kept her closet full at her aunt’s house.
She walked to the garage and placed her hand on the innocuous looking doorframe. The keypad emerged a foot lower than her hand, and she reached down to type in the code. The door slid open to reveal her compact Nissan. She wondered fleetingly if she should drive her own vehicle to River City but quickly discarded the idea because she liked traveling with Scott. Plus, the outfitting operation sported several work trucks she could drive if necessary.
Scott and Roscoe followed her through the pristine garage into her small, country-style kitchen. The appliances looked like they were from the 1950s and she had thrilled in finding each one at different garage and estate sales. Of course, she had updated and tweaked them with modern conveniences not imagined in the fifties.
Roscoe sniffed around.
Scott tilted his head to the side. “There’s something off.”
“What do you mean?” Millie looked around. The place felt as it usually did.
He moved past her to the comfortably furnished living room and glanced through the shades at the rain starting to fall. “I don’t know. It’s just a sense.”
