Page 80 of Murder on the Page

I never said no.

CHAPTER19

“I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.”

—Elizabeth Bennet, in Jane Austen’sPride and Prejudice

Noeline tried to deter us, but Tegan was adamant about doing reconnaissance. I didn’t dissuade her. Something about Graham bugged me, too. His prickly attitude the other day at the bookshop before Quinby accused Piper of murder grated on me. Granted, I’d put him on the spot because of what Celia Harrigan had said, but how could I not press? If I could prove he killed Marigold, Tegan was in the clear.

“I’ll drive,” Tegan said.

I climbed into her MINI Clubman and strapped on my seat belt. “What exactly do you hope to see when we get there?”

“Not sure. A lurker? A drug lord? A neon sign saying,I’m the killer!We’ll pretend we’re going to Auntie’s. I’ve got a key. We’ll observe his place from the living room.”

“Didn’t Vanna change the locks for the Realtor?”

Tegan shot me a look. “She’d better not have.”

Oh, but she had. There was a lockbox on the door and aFOR SALEsign plugged into the lawn.

“Crud,” Tegan muttered under her breath. “If we sit in the car, he’ll spot us. I know what we can do.” She drove on andparked around the corner. “We’ll sneak to the front of my aunt’s house and hide in the bushes.”

“Tegan—”

“Shh.”

We returned on foot. The cool night air nipped my cheeks. I drew my peacoat tighter around my body.

Hugging the side of Marigold’s house, Tegan skirted the corner. I trailed her. She ducked into the evergreen bushes in front and pulled me to her. Luckily, they weren’t thorny bushes.

An hour passed without incident. No comings. No goings. My fingers grew numb. I said, “Let’s leave. I’ll buy you a hot cocoa.”

“No. You heard Mrs. Harrigan. I want to know what’s up.” Without giving me a warning, she darted across the street.

“Wait!” I rasped, loath to follow, but I had to. I couldn’t let her go off half-cocked.

She flattened herself against the wall of Graham’s house and inched along the side until she reached the corner near the rear. I remembered a time when we were girls and Tegan sneaked to a neighborhood at the south end of Bramblewood. She wanted to peek inside the witch’s house. The old woman who owned it wasn’t a witch, but the woman had straggly hair and bony hands and her Victorian home was gray and shabby, so Tegan often joked that the old crone ate children for breakfast. Tegan had wanted to see what the witch was cooking for supper. She’d hoped it would be Vanna.

“See anything?” I whispered.

“Nothing,” she said, peeking past the corner.

I peered around her. Graham’s house was laid out like Marigold’s, with the kitchen facing the rear yard and a screened-in porch jutting off the kitchen’s dining area. The porch was dark. “It’s quiet. No loiterers. Case closed. Let’s scoot.”

“Wait. A light went on. I see a shadow moving inside the room.”

“For all you know, Graham is practicing dance moves.C’mon, Tegan, let’s skedaddle.” I clasped her shoulder. “We’re trespassing.”

But she didn’t heed my advice. She wrestled free and tiptoed toward the porch.

Suddenly a dog snarled. In an instant, a huge, ugly thing barreled through a dog portal, which neither of us had noticed carved into the porch door.

“Tegan, run!” I clutched her elbow and steered her toward the street. When I’d played basketball, we’d had to practice sprints, but we’d never trained by running away from a vicious mutt. I was surprised by how fast I was . . . and how Tegan was keeping pace.

The dog barreled after us, grunting and slavering. To be fair, I couldn’t be sure it was slavering, but the foamy sounds it was making led me to believe it was as dangerous as all get-out and eager to taste our blood.

In record time, we reached Tegan’s car. She flicked it open with her key fob. We barreled inside and closed the doors.

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