Secrets in a Still Life, Kari Ganske [best fiction books to read .TXT] 📗

"You called him?" Nana K asked.

"Yes. And Nana, if you can keep a secret, you can stay. Otherwise, I'm kicking you out too," I said, pointing my finger at my grandmother.

"Cross my heart," she said, and did.

I left to fetch my camera bag from the floor by the door where I'd left it. I nearly jumped out of my skin when someone knocked.

"Alex?" The door opened a crack. "Can I come in?"

Linc.

I sighed. I was bound to tell him about the locket at some point anyway. I hauled the door open all the way. He nearly tumbled inside. Fang ran by me, a blur of black and white.

"Whoa," I said, putting my hands on Linc's chest to stop his momentum. "I'm the one with the clumsy schtick, remember?"

"Sorry. I didn't expect you to be right here," he said, righting himself. He handed me a bouquet of wildflowers. "Housewarming gift."

"Oh, these are lovely, Linc. Thank you," I said, breathing them in, touched more than I could explain. I couldn't remember the last time I'd gotten flowers from someone other than my parents. Definitely never from Rick. He wasn't really a hearts and flowers kind of guy.

"Is it okay if Fang comes in?" he asked, even though by the sounds of oohing and aahing from the kitchen, he'd already made himself at home.

"Of course," I said, moving back to let Linc in fully.

"Is that Solomon's I smell?" Linc asked.

"So, that's what led you here. Following your nose," I teased.

He didn't deny it. "Any left?"

"In the kitchen." I pointed in the direction. I followed him down the hallway. I noticed he didn't even really look at the space, unlike everyone else who came through.

"Isn't the woodwork amazing? It's what sold me on this place."

"Sure," he said. "If you like that sort of thing." He noticed the group in the kitchen and stopped short. "Oh, sorry. I didn't know you had company."

"Lincoln Livestrong, the firefighter and EMT," Detective Spaulding said, pushing off the counter where he'd been leaning and holding out his hand.

Linc shook it, but his face remained unreadable. Fang had settled himself by Nana K's feet, eyes trained on her plate, hoping for a handout.

"Detective Spaulding," he said stiffly. "What are you doing here?"

"I called him," I explained.

Linc blinked at me, expressionless—what was his problem?—then turned his attention to Nana K. His face transformed back into the charming, amused Lincoln I knew.

"Nana K," he crooned. "It's been too long. You look gorgeous as always."

She gave him a tight hug from her seat. "Two handsome young men in the same room in one day. Have I died and gone to heaven? Alex, pinch me, quick."

We all laughed. I busied myself putting the wildflowers in a commemorative plastic Yankees cup I had in the cupboard. I heard Linc snort behind me.

"You're seriously going to put my flowers in a Yankees cup?" he asked.

I smiled as I fluffed them in the makeshift vase. Linc was a die-hard Baltimore Orioles fan.

"It's all I have at the moment." I set the bouquet on the fireplace mantle.

"Don't tell me you've joined the dark side. That would break my heart," he said, putting a hand over his chest in mock pain.

"Honestly, I'm not a huge sportsball fan at all. Unless I'm taking action shots at the game. Which is why I have this cup." I turned my attention back to Detective Spaulding. "I don't want to take up any more of your time," I said. "Colleen and I discovered something by the reservoir today. We thought the police would be interested."

I motioned for Colleen to take the locket out of the camera bag. I still didn't want to touch it. Detective Spaulding immediately reached for it with a napkin. Colleen placed it in his outstretched hands. He brought it to his face to examine, using his fingers and the napkin to rotate it. I pulled up the pictures of where we found it on my camera.

"MVP," he said, reading the inscription.

A cloud passed over Linc's face, but I ignored him. When recognition dawned on Detective Spaulding, his expression changed.

"Why do you have Missy Vandenburg's locket?"

Chapter 20

All eyes were on mine, except for Colleen's. Hers were examining her chicken bones as if they held the location to Atlantis, leaving me on my own to explain this.

"Well," I said slowly. "We were looking through the pictures from the reservoir shoot to see if there were any I could print. Colleen suggested I put together a display of local shots for the market downstairs. And we both agreed that no one printed pictures enough anymore—"

"Alex," Linc cut me off. "Get to the point."

"The point. Right. Similarly to how I noticed Missy's, um, leg, originally, something bright in a patch of darkness caught my eye. When I adjusted the settings, it looked like a locket," I explained.

"So you just decided to go get it? A little Saturday afternoon treasure hunt?" Detective Spaulding's voice had an edge to it now.

"I, uh, I knew Missy wore a locket because she showed it to me at the salon that day," I explained. Before the detective could ask, I said, "We didn't want to call in the police right away because we weren't sure who it belonged to. It could have been left there forever ago. We wanted to be sure before bothering anyone."

"And once you realized it was Missy's, you thought bringing it back here was better than leaving it where you found it?" Linc's voice held a similar edge—equal parts sarcasm and disbelief. In hindsight, taking the locket did seem a bit hasty.

"We weren't really thinking," Colleen admitted. "But Alex took lots of pictures of where we found it."

"How