Not that I thought I was some great beauty, but there was nothing between Jagger and me. Okay, a few rogue kisses, but possession apparently was not nine-tenths of the law when it came to men.

Lilla looked toward Jagger and mumbled, “Attaboy!”

He hadn’t done a thing to warrant any congratulations and the way she’d said it sounded more like a “wow.” I looked at Adele, who in fact mouthed the word “wow.”

Apparently French Canadian wasn’t that difficult to interpret.

“Okay, Adele, if you couldn’t find anything out about Olivia, that must mean she wasn’t around anywhere.” I tapped a nail to my tooth. “Hm. You think she’s not real?”

Jagger looked at me. “Ask Lydia.”

“I know she’s a real person, but is she really who she says she is? And why, if she isn’t, is she pretending to be who she is?”

The entire room gave me a well-deserved collective look of confusion.

I raised my hands. “Okay. Okay. That didn’t come out right, but you all know what I mean.”

“If she is an imposter,” Lilla said, “ça suce.”

This time Jagger mouthed, That sucks.

I made a mental note to buy a French dictionary on my way back to Newport. Then again, I think the Canadians probably had a different version. And speaking of Newport, I stood up. “I really have to get going and back to my job. Goldie’s surgery is tomorrow.”

Adele gasped. “Oh, chéri, take good care of our Goldie. I know you will.”

After hugging Adele and telling Lilla it was great to meet her, she walked us out to her “machine” (car) to have a smoke. When I looked inside the old gray Buick, I wondered just how long she’d been living in it, and why it took her that long to come to her mother.

Then again, this was Adele I was talking about. Not exactly Mother Goose mixed with Stella Sokol.

A woman should never sleep in her childhood bed when Jagger is in the next room.

I learned this hard lesson after getting my mother settled for the night and declaring that she was fit and well-adjusted to her pink cast, after spending the entire weekend working with her, so I could leave in the morning. But on my way to my old room, I happened to walk by my brother Peter’s old room and there in one of the twin beds-was Jagger.

Dark hair slightly tousled. Yikes.

Softly snoring. Ah.

Pheromones dancing in the doorway. Wow.

Thus the sleepless night.

“Hey, sleepyhead.” The voice seemed to come from a distance.

I turned over, ready to look at the clock to see if it was still the middle of the night. But the sun glowed on the numbers, and I could tell it was already Sunday morning.

The day I got to leave.

And Jagger was standing in my doorway watching me sleep!

My blonde hair looking very Rod Stewart. Oh damn.

Probably sawing wood like a three hundred pound man. Ah, shit.

And even while semiconscious, hormones at high alert for those stupid pheromones.

I rubbed my eyes, yanked the covers higher, although I was fully clothed in a jogging suit beneath, and said, “Oh, hey. Morning.” Please leave. “I’ll be up and ready in a few.”

“We need to make it quicker, Sherlock.”

“Oh.” I yawned. “Okay. What’s the rush?”

“The lieutenant from Newport called. They found out who killed Mr. Baines.”

“Ian?” I said. “Ian?” I shouted, then yanked on the sleeve of Jagger’s leather jacket. For springtime, it was still cool in the mornings.

“Maybe you need your hearing checked, Sherlock. Yes, Ian.”

“Ian James killed Mr. Baines?” The horrifying thought still hadn’t sunk in as Jagger took a right turn off the Newport Bridge ramp.

I’d asked pretty much the same question the entire two-hour trip but still said, “I can’t believe it. Ian? Ian killed someone?”

“Mr. Baines.”

We turned when the light changed, and Jagger weaved in and out of one-way streets through the narrow roads of Newport.

“You sound as if you are placating me with that tone.”

At the next stop sign he turned and merely looked at me.

“Okay, so I’m having a hard time with this one. He was such a nice guy. He really had fallen for Goldie.” Damn! Could my dear friend have been in any danger? Naw. Obviously there was more to this fraud stuff than I knew about, and Ian never would have hurt Goldie.

But Ian was dead and the question remained: Who killed him?

And why? What did Ian know about the fraud?

Well, I could rest easier since obviously it was Ian who had knocked me down. At least that was what I was going to tell myself over and over so I could do my job.

As we pulled into the driveway of the lodge, I looked at Jagger. “Why? Why would Ian kill Mr. Baines? Did he even know him? I find it hard to believe.”

“Weren’t you the one who saw him running from the scene of the crime, Sherlock?”

Oops. I sat silent for a second. Not that I was so shocked at what Jagger had said, but I was trying my damnedest to try to remember if I had told him about the possible Ian sighting. I couldn’t remember. Then how the hell did Jagger know?

Before I could ask, he was out of the car, took his duffel bag from the backseat and was walking along the front path. I figured anyone who wouldn’t tell me the truth about his name was not giving away crime-related secrets.

I got out, grabbed my stuff and followed, but when I got inside, Jagger was nowhere to be seen, and Arlene was at the front desk doing some kind of paperwork.

Oh well, I figured, might as well get back to work as soon as I could. When I got closer, I said, “Morning, Arlene.”

She kept her head down and didn’t answer.

At first I thought she didn’t hear me, and then, with all the death and murder lately, suddenly I worried that something might have happened to her! I reached over the counter and gently tapped her arm.

Arlene flew up, smacked me in the face (accidentally, I told myself) and screamed.

All of a sudden my arms were flailing about and that cold wind encircled us-while the doors and windows were tightly shut. “It’s me! Arlene, it’s Pauline.”

She stopped screaming, looked at me and in the eeriest of tones calmly said, “Oh, hi, Pauline,” as if we’d just shared a morning cup of coffee and nice chat. Never saw anyone snap out of fright that quickly.

I knew Sam was around but had no intention of feeding into his actions. There was way too much to do on my case and two murders so far for me to deal with the paranormal. “Sorry I startled you. I guess you didn’t hear me. Anyway, did you know Mr. Baines?”

She gave me an odd look-which I was getting very used to in this business. “Know him?”

I nodded. Seemed like a pretty cut and dried question to me, but maybe she was still recovering from ghostly sightings.

“I knew of him.”

I shook my head and waited for her to expound on that statement, but she merely sat back down and stuck her nose in her paperwork. This case was getting tougher and tougher to work.

“Um, Arlene? About knowing of Mr. Baines. Could you tell me more?”

She seemed perturbed but that was another thing I was getting used to ignoring. People got angry with me. People shouted at me. People ignored me, and yet I had a job to do and was not going to let hurt feelings stop me.

Arlene got up, went to the stove and took the hot water pot. Then she refilled her teacup, which was next to her papers. Without offering me a drop-guess she figured I could get my own in the guest’s dining room-she sat back down and stirred the used tea bag around a few times.

“Mr. Baines?” I repeated, getting anxious to go unpack and change, but I didn’t want to lose Arlene to her paperwork.

“Real estate. The Baines family has been in Newport real estate for ages. Lots of money with the skyrocketing prices. They actually owned a fair bit of land themselves which was used to build condos near the water.” She took a few sips of tea.