“I don’t know if I can trust him,” she said softly.

  I drew a deep breath. “I have to tell you something. Dad’s coming to Clover Ridge.”

  “Jim is?” Was that pleasure I heard, mixed in with her surprise? And why was she patting her hair? “I haven’t seen him in years.”

  “He’s concerned about you and wants to be supportive. He’s flying in tomorrow.”

  “He’s actually coming here because of me? There’s no need for that,” my mother said.

  “Which is what I told him, but I couldn’t change his mind. He’s going to stay with Dylan.”

  I pulled into the library parking lot and turned off the engine. “Be right back,” I said.

  “I don’t mind spending time in the library while you finish your day’s work.”

  “Really?”

  She nodded. “I’ll find some magazines to read or chat with some of your colleagues. It will be a relief to talk to someone not connected to the police or those movie people.”

  “Well, all right, if that’s what you want—but Mom, they’re bound to ask you questions about the movie and Ilana.”

  My mother shot me a knowing look. “Carrie dear, I’ll be fine.”

  And she was. I left her chatting with Angela, who offered to show her around the library during her break. After greeting Susan and giving her an abbreviated version of my trip to the police station, I buckled down to some much-needed paperwork. I finally came up for air at four thirty, when I left my office to check on my mother and found her sitting at a table in the coffee shop with Marion, the children’s librarian, and Katie, who ran the coffee shop.

  “Your mother’s been regaling us with stories about you when you were little,” Marion said.

  “Really?” I said, wondering what on earth she’d remembered or had made up to tell them.

  “Carrie dear, you’re so lucky to be working in this library,” my mother said. “Your coworkers are by far the nicest group of people I’ve met in a long time.”

  Katie beamed at me. “And we feel the same about Carrie.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “Mom, we’ll be leaving for home in half an hour. Please come to my office at five o’clock.”

  “I’ll be there!” she said with a grin. Socializing with my colleagues seemed to have cheered her considerably.

  My mother was practically euphoric on the drive to my cottage. She went on and on about how proud she was of me. I had finally settled down. I had a good job and a wonderful man in my life. She finished by saying, “Who knows? I might become a grandmother in a couple of years.”

  Who is this woman and what has she done with my mother? “Mom, what put you in such a good mood?” I asked.

  “Aren’t you glad that I am?” she asked, sounding peeved.

  “Well, sure—I guess. I’m just surprised that you seem so happy after the harrowing day you’ve had, being questioned again by Lieutenant Mathers.”

  “Carrie dear, I know I didn’t murder Ilana Reingold, and I have confidence in Phil Demuth.”

  Oh no! A thought struck me like a bolt of lightning, and I didn’t like it one bit. “Mom, please tell me your good mood isn’t because Dad is coming.”

  “And what if it is? I’m deeply touched that Jim’s coming all this way because I’ve been interrogated in a homicide case.”

  “What about Tom?” I asked.

  “What about him?”

  “I’m just wondering if perhaps you should give him another chance.”

  “We’ll see about that. Anyway, enough about this. I’m tired, and I’m going to close my eyes until we’re back at your cottage.”

  * * *

  While my mother rested in her room, I watched the local news on the living room TV. There were no new developments regarding the two homicides.

  Dylan called me from his car. “I’m on my way to the airport to pick up your dad.”

  “You’re kidding! I thought he was arriving tomorrow.”

  “He changed his plans. Talk to you later.”

  At six thirty, I was heating up last night’s leftovers when my mother came into the kitchen. She opened the cupboard and started setting the table.

  “Wine or water?” she asked.

  “Whichever you prefer.”

  “I think water tonight.”

  “Then water it is,” I said.

  She reached for the tumblers and placed two on the table.

  We chatted as we ate. I was surprised. There were no criticisms. No bragging. “This is nice,” I said when I’d swallowed the last of my dinner.

  “It is, isn’t it?” My mother put her hand on mine. “I quite like having a daughter.”

  I frowned. “Why didn’t you like having a daughter years ago?”

  My mother studied my face. “I loved you and Jordan—really I did—but I didn’t have the stamina to deal with your father and raise two kids on my own. I’m sorry, Carrie, for not being the kind of mother you would have adored.”

  I nodded. “I suppose I wasn’t the easiest daughter in the world.”

  “You weren’t, but I was the adult. I should have tried harder.”

  Something inside me urged me to get up and hug her. “I’m glad I have you now.”

  She wrapped her arms around my waist and squeezed. “Me too.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  My mother and I were having coffee and dessert in the living room when the doorbell rang.

  “Caro, honey!” My father enveloped me in a bear hug as soon as I opened the door. Peering over his shoulder, I shot Dylan a questioning look.

  “Jim wanted to surprise you both.”

  “He sure did,” I said, then concentrated on observing my parents.

  My father was holding my mother at arms’ length, a devilish grin on his face. “Linda! Why, you don’t look a day older than when I last saw you.”

  My mother blushed. “Thank you, Jim. You’re in pretty good shape yourself.”

  Indeed, my father looked handsome and trim and considerably younger than his fifty-eight years—just one of the many benefits of going straight and getting a job he loved.

  I rolled my eyes at Dylan as my father hugged my mother considerably more gently than he’d hugged me.

  “What are we in for?” I whispered.

  “Don’t ask me. They’re your parents.”

  My mother and father sat side by side on the sofa. Were they …? Yes, they were holding hands. I was longing to yank their hands apart when Dylan murmured, “Leave them be.”

  I was shocked by my impulse. Equally shocked that Dylan had known what I was thinking.

  With their foreheads bent toward each other so that they almost touched, my parents conversed in low tones. I heard my mother mention Tom a few times, my father asking about the murder.

  “Did you have dinner?” I asked Dylan.

  “I grabbed something at the airport, but I can eat.”

  “Dad, want something to eat?”

  “Whatever you have, Caro, would be nice.”

  “And to drink?” I asked over my shoulder as I walked into the kitchen.

  “Why don’t we open a bottle of wine?” my mother said.

  “Now?” I asked. “It’s almost nine o’clock.”

  “A nice red would suit me,” my father called out.

  “Got it,” Dylan said, and hurried to open a bottle.

  I took leftovers, cheese, and bread from the fridge and placed them on the kitchen table. I put out plates, cutlery, and wineglasses. My parents were still engrossed in conversation when they joined Dylan and me in the kitchen.

  Dylan and my father piled food on their plates and started eating. In between, Dylan and my father fell into conversation about a case they’d both worked on.

  “I’m so glad you finally have a legitimate job that you like,” my mother said to my father.

  “Like?” he roared. “I love working with Mac and Dylan.”

  I smiled at my father, pleased that he was happy and looking so well.

  Jim winked at me, then covered my mother’s hand with his. “Linda, I hope you take your time deciding what you want to do—about your marriage and your future.”

  “Right now my main concern is not being charged with killing Ilana Reingold. My lawyer thinks they don’t have a solid case against me, but I’ve started to worry again.”

  “All I can say is, John Mathers is an upstanding lawman,” my father said. He turned to me, “And your own daughter is an excellent detective. When I was a suspect in a homicide a few months ago, she made it her business to find the real killer.”

  Three pairs of eyes regarded me with various expressions. My father beamed at me with pride and my mother studied me with speculation, but Dylan was the first to express what he was thinking.

  “While Carrie has proven to be a remarkable detective, she is not a trained investigator. If you’ll remember, Jim, by chasing after that killer, she managed to put herself in harm’s way—which is not something we want.”

  “Of course we don’t,” my father agreed.

  Time to redirect the conversation. “I thought the police were looking at Dirk Franklin as a possible suspect.”

  “They were,” my mother said, “because of his personal relationship with Ilana and because he’s been visiting his cousin here in Clover Ridge since he was a kid.” She frowned. “Though I can’t see what that has to do with anything.”

  Dylan and I exchanged glances.

  “Come on. Out with it,” my father coaxed.

  “A man named Chet Harper was murdered twenty years ago,” Dylan said. “His son was tried and convicted for the crime but later exonerated. Chet Harper was the father of the young woman who was killed the other day.”

  “The day before that young actress was murdered,” Jim mused.

  “And the old homicide was never solved.” My mother scoffed. “Sounds like your police chief is looking to tie up three murders with a neat ribbon.”

  Dylan frowned. “Linda, John Mathers isn’t that kind of a cop. If two or all three of the murders are connected, he’ll find the link. Otherwise, he’ll keep an open mind.”

  “You’re saying there might be two killers,” my father said.

  “Possibly three,” I said, “if we include Daphne’s ex-husband. Still, I can’t help wondering if her murder is related to her father’s all those years ago.”

  “What do you know about the twenty-year-old murder?” my mother asked.

  “The man was an abusive drunk,” I said. “He beat his family and got into bar fights. Someone knifed him one night when he was home alone.”

  “Sounds like there must have been plenty of people who wanted to kill him,” my father said, “yet they never came up with the right person.”

  “Could his wife have murdered him?” my mother asked.

  “She was at work.”

  “I still don’t understand why Lieutenant Mathers was so interested in the possibility that Dirk might have been in Clover Ridge when this man was murdered all those years ago,” my mother said.

  “Because the police suspect that Chet’s wife had a lover who might have killed Chet because he’d been mistreating her,” I explained.

  My mother laughed. “I can’t see Dirk in the role of gallant lover.”

  “Why not, Mom? This was twenty years ago. Dirk would have been in his midthirties.”

  My mother pressed her lips together as she thought. “Well, why doesn’t the man’s widow tell the police who this person was?—unless she’s no longer alive.”

  “She left town right after the murder, moved to the West Coast, and changed her name,” Dylan said.

  “Her son Robby Dowd—that’s what he goes by now—recently came back to the area to find his father’s murderer. He happens to work in the gym Dylan and I belong to.”

  My father chuckled. “Now there’s a bit of good detecting right there. Carrie, how did you find out this Robby Dowd was Chet Harper’s son?”

  I felt my cheeks grow warm. “Robby told me himself. He knew I’d been involved in a few homicide cases, so he asked me to help him find his sister’s killer—possibly the same person who murdered their father. He thought his mother might have had a lover, but he can’t ask her because he has no idea where she’s living. I asked Dylan to try to track her down.”

  “So without this woman’s testimony, there’s no way of knowing who her lover was,” my father said.

  “If she had a lover. If he’s still alive,” my mother said. “Lots of ifs in this story.”

  Dylan cleared his throat. I sensed his hesitation about what he was about to share. “The woman once known as Patricia Harper is very much alive. She remarried some years ago and is presently living with her husband across the sound on Long Island.”

  I grinned. “That’s brilliant. Good job, Dylan!”

  “Actually, Rosalind, my secretary, deserves all the credit. All I did was show her some of the various ways to locate people who don’t want to be found,” Dylan said.

  “Have you told John?”

  “Not yet,” Dylan said. “I will, of course, but right now he’s concentrating on the two current homicides.”

  “I know Robby will want to see his mother ASAP.”

  “Maybe that’s not such a great idea,” Dylan said.

  “Why shouldn’t he?” I asked. “Don’t you think he deserves some answers? His mother took off, leaving him and Daphne when the police were already treating him as a suspect.”

  “Of course he deserves answers. That woman has a lot of explaining to do.”

  The doorbell rang, startling us all.

  “Who on earth could that be at this time of night?” my mother said as I headed to the front door.

  Dylan followed me into the hall. “Ask who it is before you let anyone in.”

  “I plan to,” I said, pissed that he thought it necessary to state the obvious. “Who is it?” I called out.

  “It’s Tom, Carrie.”

  I cracked open the door. My mother’s husband loomed in the doorway. He looked more disheveled than he had when he’d shown up at the library. What’s more, he now reeked of liquor.

  “I want to speak to my wife.”

  “Now isn’t the best time.”

  “It is for me,” he said as he pushed his way inside.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Tom! What are you doing here?” my mother asked as she joined Dylan, Tom, and me in the hall.

  “I need to talk to you, Brianna.”

  “It’s late, and you should leave.”

  Tom strode past us and glanced at my father, still sitting at the kitchen table. “It doesn’t look like you’re about to go to sleep anytime soon. In fact, I’d say you’re having a party.”

  “Not a party exactly.” My father came to stand with us. “Just some old friends getting together.”

  Old friends, my foot. I couldn’t remember if Tom and my father had ever actually met, so I made the introductions as any good hostess would. “Tom, this is my dad, Jim Singleton. He’s spending a few days here in Clover Ridge. Dad, Tom Farrell.”

  “A pleasure,” Jim said.

  Tom ignored my father’s outstretched hand and glared at my mother. “So, Brianna, we run into a few problems and you call on your ex for comfort and consolation?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous! I didn’t invite Jim to come here. And please stop calling me Brianna. My name is Linda.”

  Already sloshed to the gills, Tom was totally incapable of dealing with the scene he’d encountered when he’d entered my cottage. He opened his mouth, but no words came out. Feeling sorry for him, I took his arm and escorted him into the kitchen. “Why don’t you sit down and have something to eat?”

  He nodded. “Thanks, Carrie. I never had dinner.”

  I viewed the contents of what remained in my refrigerator and brought containers of chicken salad and tuna salad and more bread to the table. I grabbed the half-empty bottle of wine and slipped it into the pantry. Wine was the last thing Tom needed.

  My father and Dylan returned to their places at the table and resumed eating. My mother hovered in the hallway. I beckoned to her and pointed to my seat. She made a face but sat down.

  Silence reigned as I put on a large pot of coffee. I had a feeling the evening was far from over.

  “I understand you’re here to make a movie,” my father said to Tom.

  Tom nodded. He swallowed what he was chewing, then said, “We were making great progress; then one of the actors was murdered.”

  “How terrible,” my father said.

  “Tom’s costar and former fiancée,” my mother said.

  “Nothing like keeping it in the family,” my father said.

  Was that supposed to be humorous? I glared at him, but Jim didn’t notice. If anything, he seemed to be enjoying himself. Having made an effort to be social, he returned to his conversation with Dylan, for which I was grateful, as it filled the silence looming between my mother and Tom.

  When the coffee was ready, I poured everyone a mug, then said, “Tom, I know you came here to speak to my mother. You can go into the den and talk to her there.”

  My mother shot me a look of reproach. “Carrie, it would have been appropriate to ask me if I want to talk to Tom.”

  “Sorry, but I’m caught in the middle, seeing you’re both here in my house. Please talk to Tom, find out what he wants, then … I don’t know. Do something!”

  “Thank you, Carrie,” Tom said softly as he got to his feet. He seemed calmer, more in control of himself. “Brianna, Linda—whichever you prefer—I’d like you to hear me out.”

  My mother nodded. She followed Tom into the den and closed the door behind them.

  Five minutes passed. Ten. The door remained closed. Finally, Tom walked out, shaking his head. I hurried to him. “Are you all right?” I asked.

  “As good as can be expected.” He looked morose but completely sober as he headed for the front door.

  My mother waited until he was gone before she joined Dylan, my father, and me in the living room.

  “Do you want to tell us what just happened?” my father asked as she sank into one of the chairs.

  My mother could be very private when she chose, and I expected a snippy reply. Instead, she released a deep sigh. “Tom just admitted he’d been unfaithful to me with Ilana. He apologized for having lied to me and begged me to forgive him.”