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“Maybe it was closer to one of the rocks, and then the current in the water shifted it as the day went on,” I suggested.
“Possibly.” He lifted one of the mugs and handed it to me. I took it from him, glad of the warmth of the heavily glazed stoneware beneath my fingers. The sweats he’d loaned me were warm enough, but the tile floor under my bare feet was cooler than I’d expected it to be. “Anyway,” he went on, “I’ll take a look. And from now on, try to avoid playing amateur detective.”
“Because the professional ones are doing such a great job?” I responded, and he shot me a pained glance.
“This isn’t TV,” he told me. “Things don’t get wrapped up neatly in forty-five minutes.”
“I don’t even watch TV,” I said, which might have been a slight exaggeration but close enough to the truth.
Apparently, he chose to ignore that comment, because he said, “I know you think you’re trying to help, but you need to let me do my job.”
“Fine.” I lifted the mug to my lips and took a teeny sip, just because I knew it was still probably too hot to drink anything more than that. “Were you able to find Athene Kappas?”
His lips thinned. Obviously, asking about the other chief suspect in a murder investigation wasn’t what Calvin Standingbear considered leaving him alone to do his job. And even though I could tell I’d annoyed him again, I had to admit that there was something highly satisfying about standing a few feet away and simply looking at him, taking in the high, hard cheekbones and the lashes that were even more night-dark than his hair…the mouth that was just as chiseled as his nose and chin.
Had I ever seen a more gorgeous man?
I doubted it. Or rather, I didn’t think I’d ever seen anyone quite so godlike outside the pages of a magazine or maybe on a movie screen.
However, there was nothing particularly godlike about the scowl he sent in my direction. “You know I can’t talk to you about that.”
“I’m not asking you to tell me what shesaid,” I replied, then allowed myself a slightly larger sip of tea. “I only asked if you were able to find her.”
He paused, then appeared to decide that minor point wasn’t worth quibbling over. “Yes, I found her. As you told me, she’s staying at an Airbnb here in town. And I let her know that she needed to stick around, same as I told you.”
Only I wasn’t guilty. Athene didn’t seem to me like the sort of person to fly into a jealous rage and stab someone multiple times, but that didn’t mean much. My work with clients — and my own experiences working through my shadow self, or the darker side of my soul that needed to be understood and embraced as yet another part of myself — told me that everyone had sides to their natures they preferred to keep secret.
I had to wonder what Calvin Standingbear’s shadows might be.
“I doubt she was too happy about that.”
Not even a twitch of his mouth. “I’ll take the Fifth on that one.”
So, Athene was annoyed that she’d been instructed to cool her heels in tiny Globe for the time being. Well, I couldn’t blame her too much. I’d had the store opening preparations to keep me busy, but otherwise, there wasn’t much to do. A few restaurants, a few shops, some truly spectacular hiking if you were into that sort of thing. The town did boast a very small, very cute movie theater right downtown, but with only four screens to choose from, you’d run out of viewing options pretty fast if you had to spend any amount of time there.
So much I wanted to ask — whether she’d seemed shocked or sad when she found out about Lucien, what she’d looked like when she got the news, whether she had any suggestions for possible suspects.
Or maybe I didn’t want to know that last bit. Athene had never been a fan of mine, and I thought it distinctly possible that she’d throw me under the bus if it meant removing suspicion from herself. Not exactly the most charitable position to take, but over the years, I’d learned that people who considered themselves enlightened — or at least spiritual — could be just as petty as anyone else.
Anyway, it didn’t matter what I wanted to know. Calvin clearly planned to remain tight-lipped, and any attempt on my part to pry important information out of him would meet with failure.
So, I decided to try another tack. “Can I come with you tomorrow when you go back to the river to look for that object I found?”
“Now, why would I let you do that?”
“Because you wouldn’t even know it was there if I hadn’t told you about it,” I said reasonably. His tone irritated me, but I wouldn’t let him see that he’d gotten under my skin.
He sipped from his oversized mug of tea, dark eyes watching me over the brim. I stared back at him, trying to look as guileless as possible. Actually, Iwasguileless — I didn’t know what the object was and whether it would turn out to be important to the case or not, but I figured I had just as much right to be there as anyone else.
“All right,” he replied after a long pause. “But I plan to be out there early. You’ll need to meet me at the river at eight o’clock.”
Inwardly, I winced. I had never been what you could call a morning person; even a ten o’clock opening time for the store was a bit early for me. However, I vowed to myself that I’d be there to meet Calvin at the river, even if he’d said he was heading out there at dawn.
“I’ll bring coffee,” I said coolly.
An eyebrow lifted, but he only said, “I take it black.”
“Good to know.”
