I thought of Neal, Jagger, Neal, Jagger, and decided nothing indeed had happened.

I took a sip of my clam chowder while I looked at Jagger across the table at The Market. If Neal popped into my head one more time I’d dive into my chowder and drown myself. Even though I’d had the same menu over and over here, I still hadn’t gotten tired of it yet.

“So, what do you think about the letters?” I asked him after telling him in great detail all about them, including my opinion. Were his eyes always that glassy?

He took a bit of his beef tenderloin, chewed, swallowed, sipped at his bottled water then said, “Interesting.”

I set my spoon down rather abruptly. “Interesting? That’s it? What the hell does that mean?”

“Look, Sherlock, I think it’s great that you found them and thought they might help your case, but do they?”

Shit. “No,” I said in a whiny tone. “No, they don’t. But they could have.”

He shook his head. “Yes, Pauline, they could have. Now how do you plan to put them back?”

Yikes. I hadn’t exactly worked that one out in my head. Maybe I should have thought it through a bit better. But what I did get was Jagger’s “lesson” not to take the evidence-or possible evidence-next time, but to leave everything as is and snoop…investigate on the spot.

Jagger lesson number one million learned.

We finished our meal and headed back to the lodge. I half expected Samuel to be waiting for us in the lobby, or at the very least to see Arlene puttering around behind the desk. However, the place was empty. Eerily empty.

“Good night,” I said and turned toward the steps.

Jagger stepped forward.

Oh, boy. Another kiss!

There was something so sensual about Newport.

I positioned myself against the banister and waited.

“I stopped in to see Goldie today,” he said. “Olivia is having a fund-raiser at her home tonight. She’s funding a scholarship in Ian’s name. Your buddy Doc Neal made a point of telling Goldie and me about it. Might be a good place to check out. I’ll meet you back down here in fifteen.”

My jaw did its thing.

“What? You waited until now to tell me that? I’m exhausted. I’m going to sleep.” I turned to go.

“This gig is upper crust. Wear something nice,” he said, and sprinted up the stairs.

“Samuel, if you don’t kill him. I will.”

The front door swung open, the breeze blew my hair into my face, and I turned toward the stairs. “Okay, I’ll do it then.”

“I feel like a fish out of freaking water, Jagger,” I said as we walked into the foyer of Olivia Wheaton-Chandler’s home. Home? It really had to be about forty rooms, decorated in gold and silk, and even the dust bunnies looked elegant. Since I hadn’t planned to attend any social functions, I only had a plain little black dress in my wardrobe that Goldie had made me pack. Something about dating the wealthy and how simplicity would make me look less obvious.

Obvious about what?

Knowing Gold, he probably meant obvious about snagging myself a billionaire. I shook my head this time and smiled inside, knowing dear Goldie had meant well and that after I’d called Highcliff and had spoken to Kerie Cetin, Goldie’s post-op recovery course was running smoothly.

Of course, hearing him snoring in the background helped to allay any fears or worries from me.

Jagger took my arm and led me into a gigantic ballroom where the crowd had gathered.

“You act as if you’ve been here before,” I whispered, and then thought, He probably has. I was talking Jagger here.

No response except for me to stay put as he walked away to get us something to drink. I looked around the room and after noting the grandeur of the ballroom from the wood floors to the mural of clouds and angels on the ceiling, I realized I knew no one there. Probably even Lydia was holed up in her room.

Charity events did not seem up a teen’s alley.

While waiters walked around, offering silver trays of fabulous hors d’oeuvres to the crowd, Mrs. Wheaton-Chandler took center stage. Of course there was no real stage, but she stood near a set up area next to a white baby grand piano, potted palms and gigantic white flowered arrangements.

“Thank you all so much for coming,” she started, as I scanned the room for Jagger.

Knowing him, he might have hightailed it out of the place and left me to my investigating all alone. Half of the time I think Jagger actually liked teaching me the ropes and the other half I think he felt obligated and probably annoyed at coming to save me when I hung myself on one of those ropes.

“Here.”

I swung around to see Jagger standing there with a glass of champagne held out toward me.

“Where the hell did you go?” I took the champagne, sipped it, and wrinkled my face. “Ick. Do they have any sugar I can stick in this stuff?”

He shook his head.

“What? So I don’t like expensive champagne.”

“They don’t have Coors in bottles at these things. And I was working before, Sherlock,” he said, looked me in the eye and then walked away.

Walked away!

While Olivia went on about what a wonderful cause this was in the name of her past employee, Ian James, I moved about the guests. As she sang Ian’s praise, I scanned the crowd. No one even looked familiar until I got close enough to two women. From behind they could have passed for twins.

Daphne Baines and Babette LaPierre.

For a second I debated sneaking away before they noticed me. Then I decided, what the hell? Maybe I’d learn something from them. “Ladies,” I said, causing them to turn around.

Both gave me a “who the hell are you” kind of look until Babette said, “Oh, the nurse.”

Daphne added, “What are you doing here? I can’t imagine you make a good enough salary to win any auction tonight.”

After squeezing my champagne goblet so tight I thought it would shatter in my grasp, I smiled and said, “I’m not into antiques anyway.”

“Then you wouldn’t want to bid on old Doc Harrington, the heart specialist,” Babette said.

Both women laughed hysterically.

I was ready to say that I’d noted a few new laugh lines on each of them, but my Catholic-school-induced conscience wouldn’t let me. Shit. What the hell was Babette talking about anyway?

Before I could ask, I heard a man say, “First bachelor of the night. A fantastic catch ladies and certainly going to be our biggest moneymaker.”

I followed both Babette’s and Daphne’s drooling stares to the podium to come eye-to-eye with…Dr. Neal Forsyth.

Neal? Neal? Neal was up for auction? Apparently so, as the gentleman who’d introduced Neal started taking bids-starting at ten grand!

Wow. Last night I’d nearly gotten a real bargain, I thought, and would have loved to shove that in the perfect man-made faces of the two women…who were no longer next to me.

“Fifteen thousand!” Babette yelled out.

Suddenly she and Daphne were way up front bidding against each other along with plenty of other women in the room. Make that every woman in the room. However, one of the voices from the back sounded rather deep, and kept outbidding everyone.

I sipped my champagne, decided it actually tasted delicious and laughed and enjoyed the festivities, as everyone else in the room seemed to be doing.

“Going once, twice, three times,” the auctioneer said, finishing with, “Two hundred fifty-five thousand to the anonymous bidder in the rear.”

Everyone in the room turned around. No one was there except two waiters with half empty trays.

The auctioneer laughed. “Of course we won’t take that bid out of those gentlemen’s salaries. No, the bidding is complete and anonymous, however the bidder informed us that I am to announce who the winner is right now.”