Cat Trick

I looked over at Eddie. Straight on, it looked like he was reading the news, but from this angle it seemed as though he were watching me out of the corner of his eye, over the top of the newspaper. “Mags, is Eddie watching me or am I just imagining things?” I asked.

“Very good,” she said with a smile. “You’re the first person to notice that, or maybe I should say you’re the first person to say you noticed it. Everyone else has just moved to the other end of the sofa.”

“So you did it on purpose?”

She picked up one of the heavy pottery mugs and brought it over to me. “It was an experiment. Remember me telling you about the art show I went to in Detroit?”

“There was a painting—a landscape. You said it made you uncomfortable, but you couldn’t figure out why at first.”

She nodded. “It turned out there was a person in the image, almost lost in the shadows of the picture. Wherever you stood in the gallery, it felt as though that figure were watching you.” She picked up her own mug. “Close your eyes.”

I closed them. The feeling I was being stared at seemed stronger now that I couldn’t see Eddie.

“Don’t look,” Maggie said.

I folded my fingers tightly around my cup, and after a minute I felt Maggie sit down. “Okay, open your eyes,” she said.

The first thing I did was turn my head toward Eddie. I had no idea what she’d done, but he wasn’t watching me anymore. That unsettling sensation, like someone’s breath on the back of my neck, slipped away.

“What did you do?” I asked.

Maggie was curled into the opposite corner of the sofa. “I just moved his head, maybe an inch or so down and about the same amount to the side.”

I leaned forward. “It’s almost like he’s smiling at me now.”

“I know,” she said. She grinned and took a sip of her hot chocolate.

“Mags, do you know much about Legacy Tours?” I asked.

“A little,” she said. “Why?”

I hesitated. “This stays between us?”

Her expression turned serious. She put one hand over her heart. “Of course.”

“Harry Taylor—Junior—asked me to poke around a little and see if I could maybe figure out what happened to Mike.”

“Why?”

I leaned back against the arm of the couch. “Because his sister, Elizabeth, is friends with Wren Magnusson, and Wren’s pretty much the only person who really feels bad about Mike Glazer’s death.”

“And if Elizabeth is upset, then so is Harry Senior.”

“He’s a good person. I couldn’t say no.”

Maggie shook her head and gave me a half smile.

I shrugged. “Okay, I could have said no, but I care about Harry. He feels like family to me.”

“You care about Harry. Harry cares about Elizabeth. Elizabeth cares about Wren. It’s getting complicated, Kath.”

“If I find out anything, anything, the information goes to Marcus.” I took another sip from my cup.

Maggie wrinkled her nose at me. “So I’d be wasting my time telling you what a bad idea this is.”

“Pretty much,” I said.

She pulled her feet up so she was sitting cross-legged. “Okay. Most of what I know about Legacy Tours comes from Liam. You know that they specialize in putting together travel packages for corporate clients.”

I nodded. “I did a little research. I know that Alex and Christopher Scott started the company and they brought Mike in about three years ago.”

Maggie propped her cup on one knee. “Did you know that the company was having financial problems at the time?”

I sat up a little straighter. “No.”

“Legacy wasn’t the only company Liam considered for this tour pitch. He checked every one of them very carefully. He knows someone who works for one of the big banks in Chicago. Liam found out that before Mike became a partner, Legacy had a high expense-to-revenue ratio, but in the last eighteen months things had turned around.”

She peered into her cup, frowned and got up for another marshmallow. Then she settled back on the sofa again. “I know the major reason Liam thought Legacy was the best choice for this whole tour idea was because Mike Glazer had grown up here, but I also know it was important to him that Mike was a good businessman.”

My foot was going to sleep. I stretched out my leg and rolled my ankle in slow circles. “I found an article online that hinted that Mike was taking kickbacks from some of the businesses he was dealing with.”

Maggie nodded and took another drink. “It’s probably the same article Liam found. I know he spoke to the writer. He said all the guy had were rumors and loose talk.”

“Did you know that either Alex or Christopher Scott was here the day Mike died?” I asked.

“Are you sure?”