Free Steamed to Death by Peg Cochran Page B

might be doing to it. She felt her anger rise another notch.
    “What’s going on?” Gigi asked in alarm. “Alice told me—”
    “Detective Mertz is just here to ask a few questions.” Sienna put her hand on Gigi’s arm reassuringly. “I’m sure it will all be straightened out in no time.”
    “Is Oliver here?”
    Sienna nodded. “He’s in the kitchen with Mertz.”
    They heard male voices approaching the door and turned toward the hallway that led to the kitchen. Mertz came around the corner and froze when he saw Gigi. His posture was as ramrod straight as ever, but his light blue eyes had an apologetic look in them.
    Part of Gigi’s brain recognized how attractive Mertz was, but the other part ordered her to stiffen her back and greet him with an icy glare.
    Gigi and Sienna stood aside and watched silently as Oliver followed Mertz to the door and ushered him outside, then closed the door and leaned against it, his hands hanging limply at his sides, his eyes closed.
    “Let’s go make some tea.” Sienna took Gigi by the arm.
    The kitchen was bright and airy, dominated by a limestone-topped island over which hung a pot rack filled with shiny copper pots. Gigi pulled out one of the stools and sank down onto it. She’d been in such a state since Alice pulled her over on High Street that she was now exhausted.
    Some color had returned to Sienna’s cheeks. Gigi watched as she held a brass teakettle under the tall, curving faucet and set it to boil on the stove. Sienna kept her back to Gigi as she fussed with cups and saucers, tea bags and cream and sugar, and Gigi had the impression that she was using the time to compose herself. When Sienna turned around with the tray set with tea things, she looked almost normal. Gigi bit her tongue and waited as Sienna poured tea, offered cream and sugar and had her first sip. Finally, Sienna set her teacup down. It rattled slightly in the saucer. She pushed a hand through her mass of golden hair and sighed heavily.
    “Your Detective Mertz seems to think I had something to do with Felicity Davenport’s death.”
    “He’s not my Detective Mertz,” Gigi sputtered. “Why on earth would Mertz think you had anything to do with what happened to Felicity?”
    Sienna looked away and kept her head averted as she spoke. “Well, that article in the New York Post for starters.”
    “True.”
    Sienna turned around, and her face definitely had color now. “I can’t imagine what Felicity thought she was doing with that outrageous scheme of hers. Unfortunately”—she smiled sadly at Gigi—“Mertz seems to think it gives me a motive for murder.”
    “He can’t be serious!” Gigi exploded. “No one in their right mind—”
    “Unfortunately, there’s more.” She stared into her cup of tea as if trying to read her future in it. “There was evidence that someone came up the back stairs that afternoon—some wet leaves stuck to the steps and some small puddles of water.”
    “But anyone could have left those!” Gigi protested.
    Sienna shrugged. “It seems that everyone else has some sort of alibi, while I . . .”
    “You don’t?”
    Sienna shook her head. “It’s not that.” She looked up at Gigi, and Gigi was shocked to see the tears in her eyes. “I can’t tell anyone where I was that afternoon. I just can’t.”
    • • •
    Gigi left Sienna’s house more perplexed than when she had arrived. What on earth had Sienna been up to that she couldn’t tell Gigi, one of her oldest friends? Gigi shivered, and it wasn’t from the sudden icy edge to the breeze nor from the line of clouds that suddenly masked the sun.
    Gigi was putting her key in the car door when she remembered Hector’s Plumbing and Heating and her date with the laconical Jackson. She glanced at her watch. She was twenty minutes late. Hopefully Jackson had waited.
    Gigi was relieved to see Jackson’s truck in her driveway when she pulled in. Jackson himself was asleep in the driver’s