Chapter Twenty-Nine
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
I follow Dev on a path that winds through some bushes before opening onto a garden, at the end of which is a cottage with a single chimney.
Dev pushes open a thick wooden door. It’s a one-room cottage, with a tiny kitchen in the corner, a square wooden table, an armoire, two armchairs by the fireplace, and a bed covered with an old blanket.
There’s a neat stack of books and a spiral notebook on the bedside table, shoes lined up in a row behind the door.
The place is sparse and tidy but still cozy.
Nothing like my house, with my grandmother’s things mixed up with my own.
Dev fills the kettle and turns on the stove.
He keeps moving, his face always away from me.
Is he regretting our moment outside Wisteria Cottage?
Maybe he’s about to tell me that he’s afraid he gave me the wrong idea by walking me home.
Maybe I should apologize for giving him the wrong idea, holding on to his hand like that.
Why didn’t I let go? Why am I still thinking about it?
A vacation crush should not be this unsettling.
“Have a seat,” he says, still not looking at me.
I sit at the table. He puts mugs out for tea. Takes out tea bags. I don’t bother to tell him I don’t like tea. At this rate, by the end of the week I’ll have acquired the taste. The kettle whistles. He doesn’t move.
“Dev? The kettle?”
“What? Oh, right.”
He pours the water.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“Yeah, I’m just worried about my mum.” He hands me a mug.
I put down my books and rest my arms on the edge of the table. It’s a little sticky. I lift my arm, and Dev pops up, gets a sponge, and wipes off the jam.
“Sorry. I had breakfast in a hurry. I was eager to get some time in the garden today before the rain.”
“It’s going to rain?”
“It’s England. It’s always going to rain.”
He sits opposite me. We lift our mugs of tea at the same time. His smile seems shy, but his gaze is steady. I look away.
“Tell me again how you came to bring my mum back from the bookshop?” he asks.
I describe the group of noisy tourists, all eager for Germaine’s attention.
“You were there shopping too?” He nods toward my books. I pick up the Melling School book.
“A nostalgia purchase. Boarding school in England was one of my earliest fantasies.”
“Consider yourself spared.”
“I went to the shop because Germaine wanted to talk to me. She’s convinced that my mother wanted to come here to find someone.”
“And you doubt that?”
I rub my finger on the rim of my mug.
“I think it’s unlikely.”
“Were you and your mother close?”
He speaks so tenderly that I’m reluctant to disappoint him. He’s one of the lucky ones, who was raised well and assumes others were too. I tell him the basics.
“She left when you were nine and never came back?” he asks.
A bird chirps. I turn toward the window as it lifts off, a flash of magenta under a black wing.
“She flitted in now and then, like unexpected sunshine. She’d bring gifts.
Dolls, macramé kits, books. It was always a holiday with her, brief and beautiful.
I loved it. And then she’d leave.” How strange.
I don’t usually talk about that time. He must be a very good listener.
“I started seeing her more three years ago after my grandmother died. But always on her terms and at her place in Florida. I didn’t have anyone else. But I can’t say we were close.”
“That must have been difficult for you.”
“It’s all I knew.”
I’ve always prided myself on how much I like being alone.
Hanging out with friends, having the occasional fling—usually someone who fell into my path, like the guy who fixed my sump pump or the old crush I ran into at my college reunion.
Preferably someone who didn’t like me too much (no flowers, thank you kindly) or ask a lot in return.
But I don’t want Dev to think I was a sad, abandoned girl who grew up into a damaged woman.
“My grandmother raised me well. I was loved, and I loved her back.”
“I’m glad for that.” He leans forward, arms on the table. “And your mother, did she marry again?”
“No, but not for lack of trying,” I say. “She was addicted to falling in love. She found her soulmate many times. It never stuck. But she was always ready for another go.”
“You say that like it’s a character flaw, like there’s not something admirable about maintaining hope after defeat.”
“What’s that definition of insanity, doing the same thing again and again and hoping for a different result?”
“I guess it might be a little crazy, but it’s wonderfully optimistic, don’t you think?”
I cock my head, like I’m thinking about it, and say, “Nope.”
He laughs. He tips back in his chair, balancing it on two legs, like a teenager.
“You’re not a searcher like your mother?”
“I’m nothing like my mother,” I say quickly, so quickly that I’m a little embarrassed. “Although I am searching for something.”
He lets the chair tip back down. “And what’s that?”
“A murderer,” I whisper.
“Ah, right.” He sips his tea, looks right at me. He’s smiling. “I have faith that you’ll find him.”
“Are you assuming that it’s a man, or do you know something?”
“ Moi? ” he says in mock alarm. “I know nothing, other than how to make an inordinate number of gin cocktails. There’s nothing nefarious about me at all.” He wiggles his eyebrows dramatically. “Unless, of course, there is.”
“Prove it. Where were you between eight and ten the night Tracy was murdered?”
He bites his lip, an exaggerated expression of nervousness.
“I was helping out at The Lonely Spider, remember?”
“But that was early, and over by eight thirty,” I say. “What about your whereabouts afterward?”
“My whereabouts? Is that a technical sleuthing term?”
“Answer the question, please.”
“I came home and took a shower.”
“Can anyone corroborate that?”
“I should hope not. I generally bathe alone.”
“No one was aware that you were showering?”
“Are you implying someone was spying on me?”
“It could happen.” I try to sound flippant, but I know I’m blushing. “And after your shower?”
“I went to work.”
“You do realize I’m going to have to verify that, right?”
“I’m aware. Now, can I ask you a question?” Dev says. “Do you want to take a brief murder vacation?”
“Isn’t that what I’m on?”
“No, I mean a vacation from murder. From the mystery. Have you been to Stanage Edge?”
I remember the name from my first Google search about the Peak District, but that’s it. Dev tells me it’s one of the area’s great attractions, a gritstone ridge that runs for four miles.
“It’s got stunning views of the moors and the valley. You can’t leave the Peak without visiting.”
“Is it far?” I ask.
“About a half-hour drive. You can park and climb straight up, takes about five minutes, or you can take the longer, scenic hike from Hathersage that they’re now calling the Jane Eyre trail.”
“ Jane Eyre ? That’s one of my favorite books.”
My mother and I both loved it, but while she swooned over the happy ending for Jane and Mr. Rochester, I loved Jane’s strong sense of her own worth despite being mistreated and dismissed since childhood.
“We can go tomorrow morning if you’d like,” Dev says.
“Are you trying to distract me from my sleuthing?”
“I suppose I am.”
I watch him waiting for me to answer. He looks hopeful and sincere, like he’s made a perfectly friendly offer. And that’s all it is. It’s not like we’re going to start anything. By next weekend, I’ll be gone.
“You cannot go back to the States having seen nothing but little Willowthrop. I won’t allow it.”
He’s right. I should see Stanage Edge. It would be silly to refuse an offer to go there.
“Okay. Let’s do it.”
“Great. Pick you up at ten?”
“It’s a date.” I regret my choice of words until Dev repeats them.
“It’s a date.”