Page 54 of Murder Will Out
And she fervently wished she’d voiced her uncomfortable suspicions with Catherine before finding herself in this situation.
Suddenly, a familiar voice called from behind her shoulder. “Willow?” Willow turned to see Naomi coming toward the table, a nearly empty highball glass in her hand. “Fancy seeing you here—we have to stop meeting like this!” Naomi said with a too-bright smile; her eyes had the same sharp glitter they’d had the last time Willow met her here, the one that made Willow sure this was not her first drink of the night. Willow felt her teeth grinding together as Naomi came over and rested a languid hand on Nick’s shoulder. “And you too, Nick—as usual, as handsome out of your uniform as you are in it, and—” She broke off and gave a false little giggle. “Oh, no, I didn’t mean—I’m sure you’re incredibly handsome in whatever you’re wearing.” She gave him a long sideways look under mascaraed lashes. The unspokenor not wearingdid not need to be said; it all but hung in the air.
Willow tried not to let Nick catch her attempting to see his reaction, but as it turned out, he wasn’t paying the least attention to her. His face had gone an embarrassed shade of crimson, and his hand twitched and nearly knocked over his water glass. He mumbled something unintelligible that might have been, “Nice to see you too, Mrs. Talbot.”
Naomi gave his shoulder another squeeze, then wiggled her fingers to Catherine and Willow in a nonchalant farewell. “I’m off to the ladies’—so lovely to see you all!” She turned and walked away.
Willow suspected the extra bounce in her hips was for Nick’s benefit, but it was wasted on him; Nick was still staring at the table and rearranging his napkin. Finally, he looked up and glared at her. “What are you smirking at?” he asked.
This was a surprise, Willow thought. Nick Tyler, of the broadshoulders and Central Casting good looks… was shy. He had reacted to Naomi’s flirting—over the top though it was—like the acne-ridden teen Willow had known fifteen years ago. So yes, it was possible she was smirking. A little. “Nick… you have a fan.”
He ran his fingers through his hair as he often did—somehow Willow was starting to find the gesture more endearing than annoying—and let his breath whoosh out. “God, that woman—she drives me crazy.” He saw Catherine and Willow exchange amused glances and immediately corrected himself. “Not that kind of crazy, for God’s sake.” He looked away, his face still flushed. “For the past year, every time her husband did some dumbass thing with that golf cart of his, or whenever she was home alone and thought she’d seen someone lurking around the property, she made sure I was the one to come out, and it was so…” He shuddered. “Even at the hospital, with her husband lying right there. It was like she thought I was all twelve months of the Hot Cops of the Islands calendar or something.”
Catherine grinned. “And which month were you again?” she added, barely keeping a straight face.
Nick glared at her. “Really? I followed you all over Downeast Maine this afternoon and now you’re giving me a hard time?” He glanced sheepishly at Willow. “October.” He shrugged. “It was a fundraiser. Did well too. Brought our little department into the twenty-first century, by a slim margin.”
Rather than imagining that October calendar page, Willow asked the question that had been gnawing at the back of her mind since Patricia’s “accident” at the bottom of Boulder Hill. “Nick… the other night after Patricia ran one of Hank’s old muscle cars off the road after her band gig here, you weren’t on duty, but you showed up at the scene, anyway. Except you didn’t come from the island side; you were over here on the mainland. Where were you coming from?”
Nick’s gaze sharpened as he regarded her across the table. “First of all, that’s none of your business. Second, I’ll tell youanyway, mostly because I’m curious why you want to know.” He sat back and crossed his arms. “I was in Pittsfield all afternoon, talking with some of the union organizers for one of Talbot’s factories up there.” Nick shot Willow an amused half grin at her look of surprise. “What, you think you’re the only one investigating? And you suppose all of it can happen on a computer from your cabin? I was on my way back home when I got a call about the accident. I would have made a stop at the hospital to check on Talbot, but instead, I went straight to the scene. And found, as usual”—he gave Willow a wry sideways glance—“Willow Stone, our newest island visitor, who seems to be in the middle of most of the weirdness happening around here these days.”
Willow asked abruptly, “What do you like on your pizza?”
Nick’s head jerked around to her. “Seriously? Where did that come from?”
Catherine knew where it had come from; Willow could see from the pained look on her face as the librarian silently pleaded for her to abandon the question.
But she couldn’t. “Just tell me,” Willow insisted.
He narrowed his eyes. “Fine. Banana peppers with black olives and pineapple.” He looked indignant at the expressions of horror on both women’s faces. “What?”
Catherine’s face twisted in distaste. “Wow, Nick, that’s… disgusting. A crime against nature.”
“Who puts pineapple on their pizza without ham or bacon or something?” Willow asked, looking faintly nauseated.
“I’m a vegetarian. I like it. As an added bonus, it’s weird enough that I rarely have to share my pizza with anyone.”
A vegetarian, Willow thought.Okay.She felt her insides begin to relax a little as she realized how much she did not want Nick to be involved in any of this, how much she wanted him to be on the side of the angels.
Catherine gave Willow an impatient look and jerked her chinin Nick’s direction. “You might as well tell him about the texts. He needs to know,” she murmured to Willow.
Willow told him about the texts Naomi had received three nights ago, right there in the Raven. When she got to the part about the pepperoni pizza, Nick exploded at her. “My God, Willow, you thought I was sleeping with the victim’s wife? Are you insane?”
“No, I—I didn’t really figure it was you, but… the way she talked about you, and all the visits you’d paid her, she made it sound like you spent a lot of time together. And when you were off-island the very night she was off with whoever it was…”
“Wow,” he said, looking hurt. “I mean, totally aside from the fact she’s not my type at all—”
“And whatisyour type?” Willow broke in sarcastically.
“None of your business,” he retorted. “I can’t believe you think I would be that irresponsible, or that bad at my job, or—”
“Cut it out, both of you.” Catherine slammed her hand on the table as Nick and Willow broke off in shock. She turned to Nick. “Please. She doesn’t think you’re having an affair with Naomi Talbot; she’s just smart enough to look at things logically, rather than trusting someone automatically because they are a cop, or good-looking, or she likes them.”
“Well, one out of three,” Willow muttered, chagrined.
Catherine rounded on Willow. “And you. I know you don’t know any of us that well, and that whole thing with Rina hiding Sue’s letter gave you massive trust issues, but if you’d told us about this particular suspicion, we could have helped set you straight.”
“It’s none of my business who he sleeps with,” Willow said.
