Page 31 of Dying to Meet You
11
Rowan
“Rowan?”
I look up from my computer, where I’d been searching for news updates on Tim’s murder. “Yes?”
“Didn’t you say you were going to get coffee?” Beatrice prompts from her desk across the room.
“Oh. Sorry.” I did say that, but then I’d forgotten. Now I push my chair back.
“Or I could go,” she says. “It’s no problem. But you said you could use a break.”
“I’m going,” I insist. My finger hovers on the lid of my laptop.Senseless Murder at the Wincott Mansion.No Suspects Yet. The article speculates that he was killed for his “valuables.” Which must mean his wallet and his computer.
I close my laptop, unease swamping me again.
“Survivor’s guilt,” my father said last night, as we were washing the dishes together. “That’s normal.”
He’s a shrink, always quick with a diagnosis. But he has a point. I’d been so angry at Tim. I’m struggling with the idea that I was thinking mean thoughts about him—probably during the minutes that he’d died.
“Rowan?” Beatrice prods gently.
I rise from my seat. “Should we have half caf? It’s almost three.”
She’s about to answer when the lights flicker again.
My eyes fly to the fixture on my desk, which blinks one more time before steadying. “You know what? At this point I actuallyhopethe mansion is haunted. It would explain a few things.”
Beatrice makes a grumpy noise and stands up. She hates it when anyone mentions ghosts. She feels it’s undignified. “I’ll walk with you. I haven’t been outside all day.”
In other words, I seem like someone who needs babysitting. “Sure. But it’s my turn to buy.”
“Sweet. Let’s hustle.” She heads for the door. “Don’t forget that you have a call with the glazier at four.”
“Right. Thank you.” I trail her into the library. It’s not really her job to keep my calendar. She’s not my personal assistant. But there’s no denying that I’m operating at 50 percent capacity today. “After that call, I have to head out. The funeral starts at five thirty.”
She looks over her shoulder. “You want company for that, too?”
Yes. Desperately. “No, I’m okay.”
I don’t mention that I still have Tim’s watch and cufflinks, too. It feels tawdry, but I need to return them to his family. I follow her into the corridor.
“Back door,” Beatrice says, just as I turn reflexively toward the front.
“Oh. Shit.” I reverse course immediately. “Good call.” I’d forgotten about the police tape in front and the gawkers.
Beatrice leads the way toward the back, which means descending a few steps into the grim, cavernous galley. There are no Greek gods on the walls in here. This was a room where servants worked.
My plan for this space will divide it into a sleek catering kitchen and a passageway toward the Orangerie, which is what I’m calling the new glassed-in gathering space at the back of the mansion.
There was once a real orangerie on the property. I found a reference to it in the old plans for the house, and Hank was charmed by my idea to reference it in the new design.
Of course he was. Growing citrus fruit out of season was the way the elite of New England used to show off their wealth. Before there were Amex Black Cards or private jets.
Beatrice stops at the exit. “Remember the new code for the door?”
“Um...” It takes me a second. “Eighteen-sixty-one.” It’s the first year that Amos Wincott lived in his new home.
