“Do I pass inspection, Chief?”
He gave her a single nod. Duke finished his olfactory exploration of her jeans, then sneezed his approval.
She smiled, then bent to scratch behind Duke’s ears. “I last wore these when I was at Linda Moore’s house for supper. Her cats spent the evening wandering in and out of my lap.”
“That’s nice,” he said, for lack of anything else to say.
“Not really. I’m not a cat person.”
He opened the passenger door for her. “You don’t like cats.”
“I don’t dislike cats, but we had dogs growing up. Labs, mostly.”
Duke took advantage of the conversation to jump up into the passenger seat. Alana smiled. “You’re in my seat,” she said. To Lucas’s utter astonishment, Duke turned and wriggled between the two front seats, into the back. “Good dog,” she praised. “He’s very smart.”
“Working dogs have to be. It’s not the brains that are a problem. It’s the obedience. He usually ignores everyone except me.”
“Your grandmother isn’t the only person who knows her way around a treat jar,” Alana said loftily as she fastened her seat belt.
Duke nosed her ear, then licked her cheek before Alana shooed him back into the backseat. Lucas covered a moment of irrational jealousy with a quick briefing.
“I’ll take you out for a few hours. If anything happens requiring lights and sirens, I’m going to put you out of the car at the nearest crossroads. Call county dispatch.” He tapped the number, visible on a worn sticker affixed to the visor. She entered it into her cell phone. “They’ll send someone to pick you up. You’re okay with that?”
“Yes,” she said. “What are the odds of anything happening?”
“Probably nothing will happen. I just want you prepared in case a call comes in and I ditch you at the intersection of two gravel roads.”
“Nothing’s going to happen,” she said confidently. “Nothing ever happens to me. It comes with the librarian territory. We’re like a spell against excitement.”
He shifted into drive and pulled out into the street. After a quick stop at the mini-mart to gas up the truck and pick up coffee, he turned onto the highway leading out of town. Duke curled up on the floor behind Alana’s seat. She sipped her cream and sugar with a topper of coffee. “Where to first?”
He pulled onto the county road running parallel to Brookhaven, past the cemetery. “I want to stop by Gunther Jensen’s place, give him an update.”
“All right.” Alana turned to look at Brookhaven, the floor-to-ceiling windows running the length of the enormous house, glazed with the pinkish hue of the setting sun.
“Have you been inside since she left?”
“Yes, for yoga classes and coffee dates, and I went to look at the kitchens. You were at the wedding reception. What did you think?”
“It was nice, but the Walkers wouldn’t do anything less.”
One corner of her mouth lifted. “I meant of the house.”
“Unbelievable,” he admitted. “I hadn’t been inside since the last summer I spent here in high school.”
“Were you there that night?”
“No. Still in school in Denver.” He glanced over at her. “You know what happened with Marissa and Adam. You had something to do with that.”
“I did.”
He didn’t say anything after that, just parked the Blazer in front of Gunther’s house. “Stay,” he said to Duke. Alana followed him out of the truck, up to the front steps. They waited while Gunther eased out of his chair and made his way to the door.
“Well, hi, Lucas. This is a surprise. Come in, come in. I’ve got coffee on. Let me get you some.”
He introduced Alana to Gunther. An audiobook droned on while she helped the elderly man bring out coffee and a plate of cookies fresh out of the box.
“House looks back to normal,” Lucas commented when they were all seated in the living room. Gunther reached over and shut off the CD player.
“Pastor Theresa and the kids came over that night and helped me set the place to rights,” Gunther said.
Lucas set down his coffee cup. “I wanted to give you an update on what we’ve done. I went into Brookings and gave all the pawn shops a picture of the jewelry that was stolen. They’ve all got my number so they can call if it comes in.”
“Well, thanks, Lucas. You didn’t have to do that.”
He didn’t. He could have faxed a picture, description, and phone number to the pawn shops. But he did have to do it. Rings meant something, and this ring was especially precious. “It’s no problem,” he said.
“You seen Tanya lately?”
“Not since the day after your break-in,” he said. “Has she been back to help you with anything?”
“No,” Gunther said. “She said she would, but she didn’t show up.”
He kept his face expressionless, something he found all too easy to do except when he knew Alana was watching. “When was this?”
“A week or so ago. She was going to help me change out the storm windows.”
“And she didn’t show?”