Stonechild and Rouleau Mysteries 4-Book Bundle. Brenda Chapman

Christmas and New Year’s. Today was also a stat holiday since Christmas had fallen on a Sunday.

      A few miles further on and she reached the junction that led her to Hunter’s road. It was a narrower country road, not as well plowed as the highway or secondary road. The truck tires gripped without problem. She carefully pulled closer to the side of the road as a delivery truck flew past coming the other way. “Idiot,” she said under her breath. She could see the turn off to Hunter’s driveway up ahead.

      A black Mercedes was just pulling out from Hunter’s side road. As Kala watched, the car turned in a tight arc onto the road ahead of her, facing in her direction. She leaned forward to get a glimpse at the driver through the sun reflecting off the windshield. It wasn’t until the car was alongside that she recognized the tumbling red hair and slender profile of Laurel Underwood. She passed by without glancing in Kala’s direction.

      The plot thickens. Kala craned her neck to follow the Mercedes until it was out of sight. It was curious how two people who said they had nothing to do with each other kept being caught in each other’s company.

      Kala parked in the same spot as her first visit. She could see the tire tracks from Laurel’s Mercedes and her boot prints to and from the front door. Laurel couldn’t have been there overnight or the prints would have been filled from the snowfall that ended early morning. Kala followed her own frosty breath up the walkway.

      Hunter opened the door almost immediately. “Did you forget…?” he began, but stopped when he saw Kala standing in front of him. “Oh, it’s you.” He recovered quickly and stepped aside. “Come in out of the cold.” He checked the parking area as he moved behind her to shut the door.

      “Sorry to bother you so early,” she said. “I just have a few more questions.”

      “Would you like coffee?” he asked.

      She could smell coffee brewing and was suddenly thirsty for a cup. “Please,” she said slipping out of her boots. She undid her parka as she followed him into the kitchen.

      “I’ll make a fresh pot. This one’s been stewing for a while.” He patted Fabio behind the ears on his way to the stove. The dog was lying near the hot air vent. He got up and stretched and made his way to Kala. She reached down scratched him behind the ears. Fabio thumped his tail against the table leg before retreating to the warmth of his corner.

      She took a seat and watched Hunter pour water from a jug into a kettle. He measured coffee grounds into filter that fit into a clear coffee pot on the stove. Then he poured milk from a carton into a small pitcher and set it on the table with teaspoons and mugs. His fingers were long and his hands strong and tanned. When the water boiled, he poured it carefully through the filter. The coffee dripped steaming dark and rich into the waiting pot.

      “You’re a coffee purist,” Kala said. “I make it the same way at home.”

      “Anything worth having is worth extra care,” he said, with his piercing grey eyes that had turned a charcoal shade in the kitchen light.

      She smiled. Surely he didn’t think she was that easily taken in by charm. She looked down and busied herself by taking out a notebook and pen while he poured the coffee into their mugs. She had to admit it smelled as good as she made at home. She set her notepad on her knee and added milk.

      He watched her while she took a sip and smiled at her expression. “Good?”

      “Wonderful.” She set the mug down and picked up her notepad. “I want to get a better understanding of your father and his relationships with family members and colleagues. It’s come to our attention that you were engaged to Laurel before she married your father.” She paused and waited.

      Something changed in his eyes. It was a flash of pain that crystallized into something unreadable. “I wondered how long it would take you to dig that up. Did my mother tell you?”

      “The person who told me isn’t important.”

      “I guess you’re right.” He sighed and stretched out his legs, then took a drink of coffee all the while watching her. “I met Laurel at university. She worked in the admin office. I thought I’d never seen a woman so beautiful but I didn’t think about approaching her. I was a few years younger and she was out of my league. She actually introduced herself to me at the university pub one evening and we hit it off. I asked her out the next day, and we dated my senior year. I brought her home in the summer to meet my family after we got engaged. My father offered her a job, which she took. A few months later, she called off our engagement for no reason that I could understand. I found out why a few months later when she moved in with my father, who’d not so coincidently moved out of our family home into an apartment downtown.”

      “Do you blame Laurel for ending your parents’ marriage?” Kala was still fishing for a reaction. He’d told the story as if it was about somebody else.

      “I’ve thought about it recently with my father coming around to see me and asking to make amends. I think if it hadn’t been for Laurel, he would still be married to my mother, or if he hadn’t died that is. Laurel was the catalyst.”

      “So your mother and father had a good relationship before Laurel?”

      “I’d say yes. They were comfortable with each other and always said they were in it for the long haul. They’d been together since high school.”

      “You must have taken Laurel’s defection hard.”

      “I distanced myself from her and my father and soon got over it. I was blinded by her but came to realize that we didn’t have anything in common. It wouldn’t have been a good marriage.”

      “You say that like you’re certain.”

      “Because I am. Laurel definitely is not my soul mate.” He looked directly into her eyes. “You know how it is when you meet somebody and know right away that you fit? There’s just something about them that feels like coming home. It wasn’t that way with me and Laurel. I was infatuated and mistook it for something deeper.”

      Kala broke his stare and looked past him out the window. The depth of his gaze was disconcerting. Maybe he’d meant it to be. “Your mother and Geraldine. How did they take your father marrying Laurel?”

      “About as you’d expect. My mother was a wreck for a few years. I think in hindsight that she had a breakdown, but we didn’t recognize it then. She started seeing a counsellor and that helped her to recover her equilibrium. It also helped that Geraldine and I sided with her, and of course her best friend Susan was always there. Geraldine forgave our father after a little time passed and they’ve stayed close. He was excited that she was having a baby.” Hunter smiled and spread his hands wide, “I didn’t want to hear about my father at all, but Geraldine wouldn’t give up. She kept telling me things and it got so I looked forward to her updates. When Dad asked to see me at the beginning of the month, I was ready to see him. More coffee?”

      Kala looked down at her empty cup. “No, I need to get moving.” She began packing up her notebook and began to stand. She stopped partway and sat back down as if she’d thought of one last question. It was the question she’d wanted to ask all along. “What was Laurel doing here this morning?”

      Hunter grimaced. “I thought you might have seen her leaving.”

      “I’m finding it odd that I keep finding the two of you together.”

      Hunter stood up and crossed to the stove to refill his coffee cup. With his back to her, he said, “I didn’t conspire with Laurel to kill my father. She drove here to tell me that there wasn’t going to be a service. Dad wanted to be cremated with just his family to accompany his ashes to the vault. She wants me to organize Geraldine and Max, my mother, and Susan and Clinton.”

      “She could have phoned.”

      “Anybody who knows me knows that I rarely answer. I like my solitude.”

      His explanation was weak, just like the one about parking his Jeep far away from Laurel’s driveway.