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Kylie was sitting on the floor in a corner playing with a kantele, a stringed instrument similar to a ukulele but longer.
He didn’t see Anu or Milo as he went to join his daughter. He settled on the wood floor beside her. “You’re pretty good at that.”
“Anu has been teaching me for a long time. This is her kantele, and she said I can have it one day.” Kylie ran her fingers over the smooth birch surface.
“Where is Anu? I don’t see Milo either.”
“Milo won’t leave her alone. She’s in the break room getting me a piece of Fazer. That’s okay, isn’t it? I know I haven’t had dinner yet.”
“It’s fine. There’s no chocolate in the world better than Fazer. Think she’d give me some if I ask?”
“If you ask nicely, I will,kulta,” Anu said from behind him. She had a candy bar in her hand.
Max Reardon was with her, and Jon got up to shake hands with him. He’d been the first man Anu had dated in the decades since her husband had disappeared.
“Good to see you,” Max said. He turned to Anu and brushed a kiss across her lips. “I’ll meet you at the restaurant in a few minutes.”
She nodded as he went out the door. Milo whined at her feet.
Jon noticed how agitated the puppy seemed. “What’s with Milo? Doesn’t he know he can’t have candy?”
Anu handed blocks of chocolate to Kylie and him, then placed the remaining bar on the counter before she scooped up the pup. “He has been like this since they arrived. He’s very distressed, but I do not know why.”
The dog nuzzled her chin, then tried to worm his way down to her belly. He’d done that the other day, and Jon couldn’t figure it out. He stared at Anu’s stomach, which looked distended. She’d always been so thin that it was noticeable. But the middle-aged spread got to most everyone, even women as active and slim as Anu.
But was that all it was? There was something he’d heard at a doctor’s seminar recently that nudged him, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Something about dogs...
He frowned as he stared at Milo’s agitation. It would come to him. The more he tried to grasp it, the more it danced away. The chocolate melted smoothly on his tongue, and he picked up the partially eaten package of Fazer. “Mind if I have another piece?”
She put down the puppy before she turned to fold some sweatshirts. “You may eat it all.”
Without the puppy in the way, Jon could see her stomach more clearly. He tried to tell himself the distension meant nothing, but he couldn’t dispel the unease. His gaze fell on the purplish rash between the folds of her fingers. Dermatomyositis? He didn’t see any of the muscular weakness that often accompanied the inflammatory myopathy. He’d seen several patients with the condition.
“You been feeling okay, Anu?” He tried to make the question sound casual.
“A bit tired, but there have been many tourists through the shop, and I have been shorthanded.” She rubbed her stomach as if she had fleeting pain. “In spite of not feeling hungry, I have gained a bit of weight. That might be adding to my fatigue.”
“You look great,” he said in case she’d seen him staring at her stomach.
The memory Jon had been trying to grab finally surfaced. One of the doctors at the seminar had mentioned dogs trained to sniff out cancer. Milo wasn’t trained for anything like that, but canine capabilities could surface by themselves. Was he totally off track? He wasn’t an oncologist or a gynecologist, though he’d had to study the subjects in medical school.
Ovarian cancer caused bloating, and some patients experienced dermatomyositis. The symptoms were often very vague at the beginning. Was it right to scare Anu and ask her to get checked out?
Not yet. He’d do more research and talk to Annie about it. He could even ask Dr.Eckright when she’d last had a checkup and see if he thought there was any cause for concern. No need to terrify her if he didn’t have to.
He licked the last of the chocolate from his fingers. “Want to go hunt agates while we wait for your mom? Bree might be home now, and the kids are likely there.”
“They are,” Anu said. “Bree texted me on her way home to fix dinner.”
“Yay!” Kylie rose and grabbed her pup. “Let’s go play, Milo.”
The dog wiggled and whined to be let down, so she ploppedhim back on the floor. He raced to Anu again and his whines escalated in volume.
“You silly puppy.” Anu reached down and scratched his ears, but the caress didn’t soothe his agitation.
This was getting them nowhere. Jon stepped to Anu and picked up Milo. “We’ll get out of your hair. Thanks for taking care of the squirt. How’s the closing going on the cabin? I haven’t asked Annie lately.”
Anu was buying a dilapidated cabin on the Tremolo Marina property. The cabin would have held too many bad memories for him to want to live there, but finding two dead bodies dumped in the closet hadn’t seemed to bother Anu. She still thought the place was perfect for her retirement.
