Once they were in the car, Valerie did her best to keep her reflections in the professional zone. That meant not lingering on the warm comfort that wrapped around her when she caught sight of him, or the way she had to fight her constant desire to touch him. That massage had been a bad idea for her impulse control. She eyed his arms as he drove. This was painful.
Think serious and unsexy thoughts.She started talking about Yvette. “Why do you think we can’t find her? Is she a ghost? Was Roger seduced by a phantom from a lonely road in the woods? We’ll have to get a necromancer, but the last one I worked with was eaten by a demon. It was messy.”
“We’ll find something,” he said with a slight smile. She liked how unruffled he was by life and her but, at the same time, loved getting a reaction out of him. “The investigator says he’s found a lead he’s following up.”
“How big a lead?”
“He wanted to wait until he had more information to tell me.”
She made a face. It was almost more frustrating to know a little than to know nothing.
The conversation continued until the square brick library, where Nico returned Roger’s book on finding one’s hidden potential. On their way out, Valerie glanced into one of the alcoves and grabbed Nico’s arm. “Look.”
Jenn sat with a pair of glasses perched on her nose, so engaged with what she was reading that she didn’t notice the two of them until Valerie said hello.
“Valerie! Nico!” She clapped her book shut. Valerie glanced down, expecting to see something unsavory, but it was a book that had been on the bestseller list for a few months, the couple on the front in a dreamy clinch.
Jenn smiled wryly at Valerie’s questioning glance. “Penny doesn’t like what she calls trash books in the house, so I come here when I feel like reading.”
“I liked that series, especially Ronan and Petra’s story.”
Jenn laughed. “Me too!” She glanced at her watch. “Oh, I’m late for a meeting.”
They left the library together and Nico dropped behind so Valerie could walk with Jenn on the narrow sidewalk.
“Where’s your meeting?” Valerie asked curiously.
“At the food bank.”
“A food bank, here?” She was astonished.
“Here.” Jenn gestured to the marina. “People like to think there’s no food insecurity in a place where they go to indulge themselves, but there is. It’s funded in part by the Badgerton Foundation, thanks to Roger. I helped set it up, and unfortunately it’s grown over the last five years.”
“Do you like the work?”
“I love it,” said Jenn enthusiastically. “I was in logistics before I had Fernie, and David was against me going back to my job. This is a perfect way to keep up my skills a bit without taking too much time away from my family.”
The way Jenn’s voice turned regretful made it impossible for Valerie to not comment. “Have you thought about restarting your career?”
Jenn shrugged. “It’s not easy when you’ve been out of the workforce for so long, and you spend summers away. David insists we come for at least a month to get our fair use out of the cottage.”
David would. Everything she learned confirmed for Valerie that David was exactly the type of guy to keep a life-changing secret from his brother. “You’ve been coming up here a long time,” she said.
Jenn gave her a surprisingly perceptive look. “I never knew your mother, I’m afraid. I met David after university, and it took three years for him to invite me up.”
“Were you dating the whole time?” Valerie asked.
“We were but Malcolm had firm beliefs about who counted as family. The cottage was for the chosen, and I wasn’t included until we were married. Sometimes I’m surprised he didn’t make me wait until I’d borne a grandchild.” She sighed. “Harriet was a little better, but she would never go against her husband. My mom was a nurse, after all, and my dad was a mechanic. Hardly Badgerton level and Malcolm let me know it.”
Valerie wanted to follow up on this new assholery of Malcolm’s out of nosiness, but Jenn had given her a way in to talk about Yvette and she needed to stay on target. “No wonder Malcolm was the one behind Yvette leaving,” she said, fishing for more information.
Jenn nodded and stepped around a woman holding a child covered in ice cream. “I think that P person Roger is fixating on is a stranger, though. Maybe an old lawyer or friend.”
“Really?” Valerie was getting into some dangerous territory here, but she might as well ask outright. “Not one of his siblings?”
Jenn walked a bit faster. “David was furious Roger thought he was capable of such a thing, and honestly, I can’t see any of them helping him do that to Roger. They were all desperate for Malcolm’s approval, but Peter had a moral core like diamond, and Penny of course would never. She adores Roger. Here’s the food bank.” They stopped at a side street and she checked her phone. “Damn, Tracey had to cancel.”
“Tracey?”
