“I’m all right.”

Grimshaw opened the door a bit more and leaned in. Seeing Julian bent over the sink, face dripping with water, he squeezed into the room and closed the door. “What happened?”

“Not now, Wayne. Not here.” Julian straightened and wiped his face with the hand towel. “Let’s finish the game and get out of here.”

“Are you reacting to the game?”

Julian hesitated. “I hope so.”

He studied his friend. “But you don’t think so.”

“No,” Julian said grimly. “I don’t think so.”

They returned to the social room and the game. Julian made excuses for his hasty retreat. Grimshaw didn’t know if Vicki believed him, but she pretended to and the Others followed her example. Figuring out the solution was a bit slapdash, but they finished the game and said their good-byes.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Vicki asked.

“I’m fine,” Julian replied. “Thanks for the interesting evening.” He ran to the car.

“I’ll persuade him to stay at Ineke’s,” Grimshaw said. “In case he does have a touch of something.” And if he couldn’t persuade Julian to stay at Ineke’s, he’d sleep on his friend’s couch at the cabin. One way or another, Julian wasn’t going to be alone tonight.

“I’ll call tomorrow,” Vicki said.

As they approached the intersection, Grimshaw said, “Which way? To your cabin or to Sproing?”

“Neither,” Julian replied. “Pull over here. Put your lights on so we don’t get rear-ended.”

Not sure of the condition of the shoulder, Grimshaw eased the right-side tires off the road and turned on the cruiser’s flashing lights.

Julian punched a number into his mobile phone. Grimshaw was surprised that it worked, but the storm was spent and would be cleared out by morning.

“This is Julian Farrow. Grimshaw and I were at The Jumble and we’re heading back to Sproing. I need to see you. Now.”

He waited until Julian finished the call. “Before you put that away, call Ineke and see if she’s got a room.”

Julian stared out the window for a minute, then called Ineke and arranged to stay at the boardinghouse overnight.

Grimshaw didn’t see another car on the road, didn’t see anything approach his car. But a few minutes after Julian made the first call, the back door opened and Ilya Sanguinati slipped inside.

“Is this a typical kind of meeting for humans?” Ilya asked.

“Sometimes,” Julian replied. “When there is a need for secrecy.”

“And what secrets are we sharing?”

Julian turned in his seat in order to look at Ilya. “What happened tonight has never happened to me before, so I can’t give you any assurances that what I sensed is accurate.”

“Understood.”

No questions from the Sanguinati about how or why Julian sensing something would be significant. Which meant Ilya, at least, knew Julian was an Intuit.

“A predator in a business suit is going to come to The Jumble,” Julian said. “Maybe more than one. When that happens, you need to get Vicki DeVine out of there. Not just have her stay with you or at Ineke’s while she fights to hold on to that place. You have to go along with whatever scam the predators are going to play and make them believe they succeeded in taking The Jumble away from her.”

Silence. His eyes fixed on the rearview mirror, Grimshaw saw the cold look on Ilya’s face and wondered if Julian realized how close he was to being killed. How close they both were.

“And why should I do that?” the Sanguinati finally asked.

Julian looked Ilya in the eyes. “If you don’t, Vicki DeVine is going to die.”

CHAPTER 38

Vicki

Windsday, Juin 28

I sat in Ineke’s kitchen and watched her cut up carrots for the Sproingers while I sorted out the order of the things I wanted to discuss. Should I start with the good news that had some concerns or the development that had me more than a little concerned?

Good news could wait. “Julian and Grimshaw are acting weird.”

“They’re men,” Ineke replied. “That’s normal.”

Clearly she hadn’t seen Julian in the past couple of days and didn’t appreciate the depth of my concern. And she probably hadn’t seen much of Grimshaw except for meals, and maybe not even then since Paige and Dominique usually served the guests in the dining room. “Weirder than normal.”

“Oh.” Ineke set the knife on the cutting board. “Well, that’s disturbing.”

“Ever since we played the terra indigene version of Murder—which, according to Aggie, changes from place to place—the men have been acting like Maxwell when he sees a duckling that has strayed too far from its mother.”

She raised her eyebrows. “They want to snatch you and hide you under the porch?”

“Okay, not like Maxwell.” The border collie was fine with the duck family that lived in the pond on Ineke’s property as long as the ducklings stayed close to their mama. But if one got so much as a collie-length away from mama, Maxwell snatched it and took it to the nest he’d made for himself under the porch, sure that the duckling was now orphaned and wouldn’t survive without his intervention. Of course, that resulted in skirmishes with mama duck on an almost daily basis.

I knew Maxwell could count at least up to ten; that’s how he knew when one of his people-sheep needed to be rounded up. Turned out the ducklings’ mama knew how to count too and didn’t approve of a dog being a duck-sitter.

Since Ineke had found dog, duck, and ducklings under the porch after the storm, snuggled together on the old quilt Maxwell had appropriated from the clothesline a few months ago, it was felt that the mama’s squawking was more for form’s sake than because she thought Maxwell would harm her little ones. And any duckling he did borrow he would herd back to the pond the next morning.

It was understood that if Maxwell didn’t come when called, Paige or Dominique would check under the porch.

“But they are acting weird,” I said. “And the weirdest thing is that Julian is rubbish when it comes to playing Murder, and this time it was like he was tuned to a different channel.” I thought about that and what I knew about Julian. “No. More like he was tuned between two channels; like he was seeing the picture of one show and hearing another, but the shows were close enough in story line that he reacted as if they were one and the same.”

Ineke finished cutting the carrots, put them in a container and the knife in the sink. Then she sat down across from me.

“You know what Julian is,” she said, not quite a question.

“An Intuit? Yes. And I wondered if he had sensed something about The Jumble and that’s why he’s been acting weird, calling a couple of times a day just to see how things are going, like something should be different. He’s never done that before.” Sometimes he had invited me to lunch when I’d been running errands in the village, and talking to him then had felt friendly and enjoyable. The phone calls didn’t feel like a friend wanting to chat. The phone calls felt . . . smothering, as if Julian no longer trusted me to be competent and able to take care of myself. And that was too strong a reminder of living with Yorick, who would review my list of plans for the day and then correct something to reinforce the belief in my inability to function on my own, despite my being the person who had the job that supported both of us for most of our marriage.

Had Yorick given up The Jumble because he expected me to fail, to be too incompetent to restore the buildings enough to receive paying guests?

Ineke reached across the table and touched my hand, pulling my thoughts back to the here and now. “If Julian did sense something and told Grimshaw, maybe that’s the reason our police chief is also acting weird.”

Did Grimshaw know about his verbal promotion? Officially he might be a Bristol highway patrol officer on loan to the village of Sproing, but a whole lot of people now referred to him as the chief. Not to his face, of course. They didn’t want to spook him with the idea that his position was permanent before he had a chance to get used to the possibility. And there was a contingent of residents who wanted to see the back of him, blaming him for the Sanguinati ousting the bank manager and taking over the bank. Which wasn’t his doing.