The Detective's Secret Daughter. Rachelle McCalla
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to them, giving away her secret?
“My mom wanted me to take the cookies with her.” Paige rolled her eyes as she often did when she thought Victoria was being an overprotective mother. “But I already had my pajamas on.” Paige looked down at her fuzzy fleece pointedly.
“So you stayed behind?” Owen clarified.
He didn’t look up at Victoria, but kept his eyes riveted on Paige.
Did he know? Could he tell? Victoria tried to shake off her fears as Paige continued her story.
“I’m nine years old,” she asserted defensively. “I can stay by myself for a couple of minutes.” The words echoed the argument they’d had before Victoria left.
Victoria tensed, watching Owen’s face for any sign that he recognized the significance of Paige’s age. His jaw tensed. His eyes narrowed slightly. Had he made the connection between Paige’s age and their long-ago relationship and realized the truth? Or was he too focused on his investigation? Much as Victoria knew she needed to tell Owen the truth, this was not the way she wanted him to find out he had a daughter.
To her relief, Owen seemed focused on being a good cop. “Everyone in town needs to be a little more careful these days,” he reminded her gently.
Paige blinked, and Victoria felt a shudder ripple up through her as the little girl leaned more solidly into her arms at Owen’s subtle reference to the murderer at large.
Besides being relieved that Owen hadn’t jumped at the mention of Paige’s age, Victoria was impressed with Owen’s perception. She also wanted to set the record straight. “She wasn’t home alone. Charlotte is here, somewhere.” She looked around the kitchen as though expecting the Sugar Plum Café’s hostess to appear any moment. Now where had she gone?
This time Paige didn’t roll her eyes. “I came downstairs because my mom told me she left a cookie for me.” They all looked to the smooth stainless steel countertop, where a cookie sat undisturbed next to a glass of milk. Victoria had written I Love You Paige in frosting across the heart-shaped pastry, accenting it with silver dragées—Paige’s favorite.
“That was nice of your mom,” Owen murmured.
Victoria felt him looking at her. She kept her eyes on the top of Paige’s blond head. She couldn’t meet his eyes—hadn’t met them in almost ten years, afraid he’d see the truth that was screaming to get out.
“I came down the back stairs.” Paige pointed to the service stairway that opened into the kitchen just behind them. “I heard someone at the back door. That was weird, because Mom went out the front door, and I could hear Charlotte laughing in the dining room under my room, so I didn’t know who would be at the back door. It kinda freaked me out and I stopped.”
“Smart girl.” Victoria planted a kiss on top of her daughter’s head, relieved that Paige hadn’t walked in on their robber. What would have happened then?
“I tiptoed down the stairs. I thought it had to be somebody I knew. But then I remembered about Olivia.” Paige’s voice caught. Olivia Henry’s death had shocked their close-knit town, and obviously made an impression on Paige, too.
Olivia had come to Fitzgerald Bay from Ireland three months before her murder, not really knowing anyone in town. Since Olivia had stayed a few weeks at the inn, Paige and Victoria, being fairly new to town themselves, had quickly formed a friendship with Olivia that had lasted even when the young woman had gone to work as a nanny for Charles Fitzgerald, Owen’s older brother, who was a medical doctor in town.
Now a lot of folks in town thought maybe Charles Fitzgerald had murdered Olivia. Whether he’d done it or someone else, no one had been charged with the crime, which meant Olivia’s murderer was still at large, probably living among them, possibly plotting to strike again. The very thought sent a chill through Victoria as Paige continued to tell the story of her encounter with the robber.
“I stood up on the third step.” Paige darted from her mother’s arms to the back steps that led up to their private apartment adjoining the inn. Her stocking-clad feet perched on the step as she demonstrated how she’d stayed out of sight. “I peeked around the corner.”
“Oh, Paige.” Victoria imagined how close her daughter must have come to being seen.
“It’s okay, Mom. He was messing with the safe. He wasn’t looking at me.”
Owen had followed Paige to the doorway and now looked her in the eye as she teetered on the step. “Did you get a good look at him?”
“It was dark. He had his back to me.”
“But it was a man?”
“Yes. He was a big guy. He looked like that man—” Paige looked up at her mom “—the one we’ve seen.”
“Outside the windows?” Victoria finished Paige’s sentence in a fear-filled whisper.
Though her words were almost too quiet to hear, they sure got Owen’s attention in a hurry. “Wait a minute. You’ve seen this guy hanging around outside your windows? And you didn’t call the police?”
Victoria rushed to explain. “It’s only been a few times. At first it was a fleeting shadow—we thought maybe it was a trick of the light in the blowing snow. Then we saw him on the porch. But the Sugar Plum Café and Inn is open to the public. People take their coffee out on the porch all the time.”
“In March?”
“No.” Victoria began to earnestly wish she had called the police. “But I don’t want to chase off customers. He might have been meeting a friend for dinner. It could have been anything. He didn’t seem dangerous.”
Owen stabbed a glance at the gaping safe. “From here on out, let’s assume he’s dangerous.” His expression softened when he turned back to Paige. “Did you notice anything else about him that would help us identify him?”
“He was humming.”
“Humming?” Owen repeated.
“What was he humming? Did you recognize it?” Victoria had been taking Paige to voice lessons for years, first where they’d lived in New York, then here in Fitzgerald Bay. For a nine-year-old, she had an ear for music and could usually pick up a tune after hearing it only a couple of times.
Paige tipped her head a little to the side. “It was kind of hmm-hmm.” She tried a couple of notes and shook her head, obviously not satisfied that she’d gotten it right. “It reminded me of the Irish ballads I’ve been singing with Mrs. Murphy. Kind of like one of those, but not anything I’ve learned yet.”
“Maybe it will come to you later.” Owen pressed on. “What else can you tell us about him? What was he wearing?”
Paige made her thinking face. “A dark jacket and gloves. He broke the safe and took the bag. And then—” her expression twisted and Victoria realized her daughter might be about to cry “—he broke the cookies.”
Scooping her distraught nine-year-old into her arms, Victoria patted Paige’s back while turning to look at the tall cooling rack where she’d left ten dozen frosted cutout cookies. It had taken her most of the evening to decorate them, between darting up front to wait on the last of the evening’s customers and running the register report before tucking the money into the safe. She’d closed at eight—a mere ten minutes ago.
Now the cookies lay smashed all over the floor, clearly stomped upon. Victoria took a step closer to assess the damage.
“Stay back.” Owen raised his hand, and his fingers brushed her sleeve. “There might be a decent footprint. We don’t want to disturb anything.”
Victoria stepped backward, not needing physical contact with her long-ago beau added to her evening’s troubles. Her heart stuttered at the faint touch of his hand. Was it her imagination, or was he even more handsome than he’d been in high school?
“What’s