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CHAPTER TWO

Teague was waiting for me.

As soon as I turned the corner to my street, I saw him through thickening snowflakes, leaning against his vehicle in the driveway that served the two-story red brick colonial I called home. He’d left room for me to pull around him and into my regular spot in the attached garage.

Uh-oh .

His mere presence didn’t cause that response — more like it caused a cartwheel in the vicinity of my heart.

Nor did his neutral expression stir the uh-oh .

But the reaction was warranted, since we’d ended our very recent phone conversation saying we’d see each other for dinner. Something made him move up the timeline by hours.

The only thing I knew that had happened was Clara’s phone call.

Which not only made it likely his reason for being here connected to the substance of her call, but meant I was at a major disadvantage because my knowledge could be boiled down to Mamie from the flower shop’s boyfriend’s father was killed and Mamie wanted our help because her boyfriend was understandably upset.

I strongly suspected that, as the sheriff’s department consultant, Teague knew more.

He met me in the garage and followed me into the house. Might as well be warm before my disadvantage became obvious.

Getting inside my back door isn’t easy. Getting in any door to my house isn’t easy.

Friend, stranger, intruder, no one gets past my dog, Gracie.

It’s the collie security system.

I can’t imagine her truly attacking anyone — though Clara staunchly maintains our dogs would act heroically in our defense — but Gracie sure does slow them down.

First, she’s right there at the door, blocking passage with her sixty-five pounds of fluffed-out presence, including a tail that seems to double the space she claims. When she’s wagging it, as now, make that triple.

Second, she expands the territory she occupies by being in constant motion.

Unlike some breeds, which stand still and look menacing, her genetic code tells her to whirl and weave around her flock to keep them in motion, so she doesn’t have to overcome inertia.

Worked on sheep for centuries. Works on humans, too.

Third, she’s barking. The tenor and volume depend on who’s entered.

For squirrels it would be as loud and ferocious as for wolves.

For Teague and me it was excited yipping that both threatened to shatter glass and conveyed a note of reprimand to Teague for not bringing his lab mix, Murphy, one of her besties.

Fourth, she’s employing her elongated nose — sniffing to find out where we’ve been, poking to declare it’s about time we got here, and generally letting us know she’s not to be bypassed without homage of petting and praise and promises to never, ever, leave her again.

In this process, she deposits enough fur on everyone and everything that forensics could still find traces after a would-be perp went through a detox worthy of a clean room.

Teague and I finally popped out of the back hallway and into the relative openness of the kitchen. Mostly because Gracie let us.

He took advantage to give me a quick but satisfying kiss hello, as Gracie went to the back door and sniffed loudly.

“You’re in trouble.”

Teague’s statement caused another of those heart cartwheels, but not a fun one. More like a kung fu fighter trying to avoid an attack.

Which is not the way you want to feel about the man you—

No. Wasn’t going to let myself go there until we had the past out on the table. What if he walked away because—

No. Wasn’t going to go there, either.

“Gracie’s not happy you didn’t bring Kit back,” he added.

She confirmed it with a pointed look from the door to me and back. It was an order to right this wrong and get Kit back here. Right now.

Dog and great-aunt ran neck and neck in being strong-minded. Okay, sometimes downright bossy. When they double-teamed me, I didn’t have a chance. Maybe with being limited to one dominant female I could run my own household.

But achieving that nirvana wasn’t at the top of my mind at the moment.

To hide my relief that Teague’s reference to me being in trouble involved Gracie and Kit, not him, I turned to hang up my jacket in the back hall.

“Ned says he and Clara are up for spending New Year’s Eve with us,” Teague said from behind me.

“Good, that’s good. You must have talked to him right after you and I hung up.”

I tried to figure times and sequence in the seconds it took to secure my jacket on the peg, wishing I had a hanger to mess with to give me more time.

Clara hadn’t mentioned talking to Ned.

Would she have called Ned while putting away groceries to tell him she wanted to start another murder investigation with me?

No way.

“A lot can happen in a short time,” Teague said.

I decided to focus on the mildness of his words and ignore the subtle edge.

“Uh-huh. Want me to hang up your jacket?”

Almost certainly, Ned called Clara to tell her about Teague’s invitation for us all to spend New Year’s Eve together. Under those circumstances, would Clara have not told Ned about her encounter in the grocery store and its potential to impinge on New Year’s Eve plans?

No way.

She’d have spilled like an unstable bag of dog treats poked by a determined collie nose.

Which prompted Ned to call Teague back and tell him about Mamie’s plea, causing Teague to wait for me here.

If you think this meant I could accelerate the timetable of telling Teague my secret, because he was here and I was here, and there’s that bromide about no time like the present, you’re nuts. This was not the ambiance for sharing my past.

“No thanks. I’ll keep my jacket. Can’t stay long.”

“Because you have a case?” I asked, as neutral and matter-of-fact as he’d been.

“Uh-huh.”

“Somebody was killed?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Derrick Dorrio?”

“Uh-huh.”

Time for the plunge. The pool wasn’t very deep, since my assessment of the sequence of events meant he already knew.

On one breath, I said, “Mamie — she’s the girlfriend of Derrick Dorrio’s son, Robbie — asked us to find the murderer.”

“Already did,” Teague said laconically.

“What? You know who killed Derrick Dorrio? This fast?”

“No.”

“But you said—” I squinted at him. “Are you trying to confuse me?”

“No.”

“Then what do you mean you already found the murderer?”

“The sheriff’s department was called to the scene and found Derrick Dorrio dead. And he was a murderer.”