Cat Trick

“Excuse me?” Alex said. He had just the right amount of incredulous anger in his expression.

Maggie’s eyes shifted between the two of us. “Kathleen, what’s going on?” she asked. I noticed she had carefully slipped the business card into the pocket of her jeans.

I took a step close to Alex, effectively blocking his way. I wondered if he could hear my heart pounding in my chest. “Mike was ruining your business, wasn’t he? Oh, you were making money, but not in the way you wanted to.”

“My business isn’t any of your business,” he said.

“I wondered why on earth you’d ever agreed to that juicy contract in the first place,” I said. “But you had to, didn’t you? That’s the problem when you make a deal with the devil. He gets to dictate the terms.”

He switched his keys from one hand to the other. “I don’t mean to offend you, Ms. Paulson,” he said. “But I think you need some professional help.”

“Your brother wrote the bar exam for you.”

His hand tightened around the ring of keys. If I hadn’t been watching for the movement, I would have missed it.

He gave me a cool smile. “Clearly, research is one of your strengths. You obviously know I didn’t pass the bar on my first try—or my second—but I did pass eventually. Myself.”

I kept going as though he hadn’t spoken. “I don’t know how Mike figured it out, or what he had for proof, but you paid him off and you thought that would be the end of things. And then Mike needed a job. He blackmailed you.” I wrapped my hand around the cell phone in my pocket, wishing Marcus would call, or even better, show up.

“Mike Glazer was my friend as well as my partner,” Alex said. “And there was nothing to blackmail me about. I’m offended that you’d even suggest he’d do something like that.” His voice was just a little bit less controlled.

Maggie touched my arm. “Are you serious?” she said. “You think he killed Mike?”

“He did kill Mike,” I said. I didn’t look at her. I kept my eyes on Alex. “I’m guessing you didn’t set out to make Georgia Tepper the fall guy,” I continued. “I think that was just a happy little coincidence of Georgia being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

He shook his head and moved to push past me. I stepped in front of him. “Somewhere there’s going to be a receipt for that airbrush makeup kit you bought,” I said with a confidence I didn’t feel. “The police are going to figure out that there isn’t a single photo of you and your brother together at that benefit. And they will find Mike Glazer’s briefcase. They might have to search every garbage can and Dumpster between Mayville Heights and Minneapolis, but they will find it.”

Just like that, the charming businessman was gone, his face all tight, angry lines. He grabbed my upper arm, fingers digging painfully into the skin. “Stop talking!” he said in a rough-edged voice.

Maggie sucked in a breath.

I swallowed and bit the inside of my cheek so I wouldn’t give away how much he was hurting me. “What did he do?” I asked, working to keep any shakiness out of my voice. “I know you didn’t plan to hurt him.”

“I didn’t,” he said. He swiped his free hand over the back of his neck. The veneer of the polished businessman had all peeled away.

“What happened?”

“He had some kind of crisis of conscience.” He exhaled loudly. “He said he wanted to be a man of integrity.” Alex laughed, and the sound was harsh against the soft wall of the tent. “He didn’t know a damn thing about integrity.”

So something Wren had said to Mike had gotten through to him. I didn’t say that, though. “So tell that to the police,” I said. “Everyone in town knows the kind of person Mike Glazer was.”

“I don’t think so,” he said. He pulled on my arm, twisting it up behind my back at an unnatural angle.

I clenched my teeth. It felt as though my shoulder were going to come right out of its socket. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a blur of black-and-white fur as a yowling Hercules seemed to come from nowhere to land in a crouch on the counter of the Sweet Things booth. His fur was on end and his ears were flat against his head.

Alex swore. “Where the hell did that thing come from?” he said. The cat was enough of a distraction that I managed to wrench my arm free.

He raised his hand and a voice behind us said, “Don’t do that, Mr. Scott.”

Marcus.