Her change from anger to sweet agreeability puzzled him.
She kept smiling. “How about if I make dinner tonight?”
“Tuna casserole?” he asked in a teasing voice.
“Tuna surprise.”
“Sounds great,” he said, but he was frowning. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Couldn’t be better. Go on. Get your new clothes. You can show them to me tonight. Maybe even model them for me, and I’ll save my best wreath to show you.”
He was walking backward. “That sounds great. See you about five?”
“Perfect.”
Still frowning, Mike turned away and went to his car. Why had she given in so easily? he wondered. One second she was saying he was going to hell for lying and the next she was wishing him well.
It hit him in an instant. She knew where he was going and why. When he’d driven into the lot at Nate’s Field, he’d noticed Sara’s car parked under a big tree. It took him about two minutes to get there, and he wasn’t surprised to see her leaning against the tree, her handbag on her shoulder.
“Took you long enough to figure it out,” she said. “Are you sure you’re a cop? My car or yours?”
“Sara …”
“Yes?”
Visions of tying her up, putting her in the trunk of his car, and taking her someplace safe ran through his mind. But she was at the center of everything, and he had to keep her nearby. “Mine. That thing you drive is a piece of garbage.”
“Aren’t you a snob? We can’t all have five-liter V10s with five hundred horsepower that do zero to sixty in four-point-six seconds.”
He looked at her in astonishment.
“I looked it up on the Internet.”
“You snooped through my room and researched my car? What other devious things have you done?”
“Wouldn’t be much of a secret if I told you, would it? Have you ever considered that it would save a lot of time if you just told me the truth about what you’re trying to find?”
“If I swear on Tess’s life that I don’t know, will you believe me?”
“Yes,” she said seriously. “But I am the key, aren’t I?”
When they reached his car, he looked at her sharply.
“You don’t have to tell me,” she said. “I’m not stupid. I know I’m one of the women you flirt with to find out things. Is it because I own the dress shop and have access to people?”
It wasn’t yet time to tell her about Stefan. “Yes.” He unlocked the doors and they got in. “Sara, I really can’t tell you everything, but you must trust me. The truth is that you are the center of this case. It may be about the dress shop, but we aren’t sure. I can’t tell you why or how, partly because I don’t know, but we believe you have something or know something that Mitzi wants.”
He could see that she was trying to be calm, and to act as though he hadn’t just hit her with a thunderbolt.
“My aunt Lissie left me some jewelry in her will,” she said at last. “Maybe it’s valuable.”
Mike wanted to put his arms around Sara, but they were in an area that was too public. Instead, he made himself think of the list of jewelry Mitzi Vandlo had accumulated over the years. Her clients gave it to her in gratitude for what they thought she’d done for them. “Maybe.”
“You are truly the worst liar in the world. This case is bigger than some pieces of jewelry, isn’t it?”
“Unless she left you the Hope diamond, the answer is yes.”
As he started the car, she could see a muscle in his jaw working. “Did you talk my mother into piling those wreaths on me?”