“Bess!” Harriet cried when she spotted us. “Look, Grandad! It’s Bess and Lori!”
She and the rest of the children dropped their kites and clustered around the pram to admire my daughter. Arthur smiled warmly and trailed after them.
“Hello again, Lori,” he said pleasantly. “You’ve arrived just in time to witness a mass launch.”
I refused to blow my stack in front of the children, but I didn’t return Arthur’s smile with one of my own.
“I’m not here to witness a launch,” I said coldly. “You and I need to talk.”
Arthur studied my face for a moment, then said lightly, “Harriet? I’ll allow you to be launch leader if you promise not to be too bossy. Children? Take your kites to the meadow and give them a proper flight test. Lori?” He inclined his head toward the French doors. “Shall we repair to the library?”
While the chattering children collected their kites and ran out of the fountain court, I parked the pram beside the French doors, slung the diaper bag over my shoulder, and detached the bassinet. Arthur stretched out his hand, as if he wished to help me, but I pulled the bassinet out of his reach and carried Bess and the diaper bag into the library.
I placed bag and bassinet on the rug in front of the sofa and stood over them until Arthur had closed the French doors behind him. I then marched across the room to point accusingly at the map of Finch while I glared at him.
“Arthur Hargreaves!” I roared. “We are not your lab rats!”
Twenty-two
If I’d written the ensuing scene, Arthur would have thrown his head back and rattled the rafters with a mad scientist’s cackle of laughter. A bookcase would have swung outward to reveal the hidden entrance to his secret laboratory. There would have been thunder and lightning and, perhaps, the distant howl of a ravening wolf.
In real life, the scene was a bit less dramatic.
Arthur tilted his head to one side and inquired politely, “I beg your pardon?”
“Don’t play dumb with me,” I snapped, straightening. “I’ve spoken with Marigold Edwards. I know all about Monoceros Properties, Limited.”
“I see,” said Arthur. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “If it’s not too much trouble, would you mind telling me what you’ve learned about Monoceros Properties, Limited?”
“It’s a cover,” I said furiously. “You’re using it to control access to housing in Finch.”
“Why would I wish to control access to housing in Finch?” he asked.
“Because you’re an evil genius!” I expostulated. “You bought up the village on the sly so you could use it in some sort of crazy social experiment.”
“Interesting,” he said without the least hint of rancor. “I’ve been called a genius many times before, but you are, to my knowledge, the first person to describe me as evil.”
“Evil may be too strong a word,” I admitted, blushing, “but unethical genius doesn’t pack the same punch.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Arthur agreed. “How did you find out about Monoceros? Did you run my name through a computer search engine?”
“I don’t use computers to spy on people,” I said disdainfully. “I spoke face-to-face with my neighbors. Then I rifled through Marigold’s files.”
Arthur’s mouth twitched. He made an odd, choking noise. Then he began to laugh. It wasn’t the cackling laugh I’d half hoped to hear from him, but the hearty guffaw of a man who’d just heard a delicious joke. He staggered a few steps farther into the room and sank onto an armchair across from the sofa, where he continued to chortle helplessly while I stood my ground, glaring at him with a mixture of uncertainty and seething indignation.
“Forgive me, Lori,” he said finally, wiping his eyes. “I don’t mean to be disrespectful. We all have certain lines we refuse to cross. Yours apparently include computer searches, but exclude the rifling of files.”
He allowed himself one last, hiccuping chuckle, then took a shaky breath and contained his mirth.
“I’m perfectly aware of how contradictory I sounded just then,” I said haughtily. “I told you about the files because I didn’t want you to think that Marigold had betrayed your confidence. She seems like a nice person and I wouldn’t want her to get into trouble for something she didn’t do. But the fact remains that I don’t trust the Internet. I do trust the evidence of my own eyes and ears.”
“I, too, prefer firsthand evidence,” he said. “In this instance, however, I’m afraid your own eyes and ears have led you astray.”
He raised a hand to silence my protest.
“You’re on the right track, I’ll grant you, but you’ve ended up at the wrong destination.” He nodded at the sofa. “Have a seat and I’ll tell you where you went wrong.”
He seemed so relaxed and so sure of himself that I began to have serious doubts about my hasty accusations. I glanced at the yellowing map of Finch, then crossed to sit on the sofa, with the bassinet at my feet.