Page 27 of The Woman Who Couldn't Scream
“Whatlady?” Why did he look like a meteor had landed in City Hall?
He looked around at the avidly listening customers. He leaned down and said softly, “Abitchylady.”
Kateri drank more coffee, ate another bite of eggs. “What’s this bitchy lady’s name?”
“She refused to tell us. Said you’d know her.”
“Description?”
“Caucasian. Blond. Expensive. Thinks she’s important.” Now the true extent of Moen’s foot-in-mouth syndrome burst forth. “So mean I thought she must have PMS but Bergen said no, she was just scary. For sure. She scared the hell out of me. She’s waiting in your office.”
Kateri wondered how it was possible for Moen to drive a narrow mountain road and grin with excitement, but when he faced a malicious woman he displayed the hollow-eyed terror of a two-year-old on Santa’s lap. “Is there no one else in the station who can handle this woman?”
“No.”
That was blunt. “All right. I’ll come.” She handed Moen her toast, handed her card to Merida and said, “Text me. Let me know where you’re staying.”
Merida nodded, her eyes wide, as if seeing Kateri in action startled her.
Walking stick in hand, Kateri headed across the street and around the square to City Hall, Moen pacing beside her. She asked, “So do you figure this is an uppity tourist? Or a reporter who thought she could bully her way into a story?”
“I don’t think so.” Moen’s tone was ominous, but he chewed through the toast with relish.
As she entered the police department, she called, “Hi, guys, thanks for last night!”
No laughter. No teasing. Just a lot of quiet, tense officers avoiding her eyes, and mostly filling out their reports without being nagged.
Something had spooked them. Orsomeonehad…
Kateri’s curiosity hitched up a notch. She stepped into her office, looked at the woman sitting before her desk, at the back of that blond, perfectly coiffed head—and almost backpedaled all the way to the Oceanview Café.
It was Lilith Palmer. Her very own wicked stepsister.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Merida watched Kateri and Moen leave. It had been good to see Kateri again, to reestablish the bond between them. It had been sad to see Kateri’s sudden wariness, too, but she supposed not surprising. She wasn’t the optimistic, hopeful Merry Byrd that Kateri had once known. Too many years of rigid self-discipline and meticulous plotting had changed her, made her cold, made her hard, made her a woman fired by fury and driven by vengeance.
Bending her head to her tablet, she brought up her spreadsheet and checked her figures. Last night, caught up in the excitement of putting her plan in motion, she had worked later than she meant to. Financial revenge would be satisfying, but if she handled this correctly, one man would be very sorry that he had ever crossed her path.
The door opened. A breeze swept through the diner.
Linda yelled, “Hey! You born in a barn? Shut the door!”
Merida glanced up.
There, holding the door open and viewing the diner and its customers as if they were a bucket of worms, stood Professor Dawkins Cipre. He looked the same as he had on the cruise: tall, white-haired, round-bellied, wearing a rumpled tan suit and a blue oxford button-up shirt with the top button open to accommodate his sagging, jowled neck.
Merida ducked her head. All too well she remembered those horrific days aboard the yacht: meeting Benedict, listening to Dawkins’s lectures until she wanted to fall into a coma, and dealing with Nauplius’s increasingly outrageous jealousy and aging temper.
“In or out!” Linda yelled.
Merida raised her iPad and peeked over the top.
Dawkins looked astonished to be addressed in such a manner, but he stepped in and let the door swing shut behind him. Again he looked around the café and before Merida could avert her eyes, he saw her.
She froze.
He looked her over.
