It was bad enough when Jenna said that, but now Oliver was picking it up. I’d long ago decided that forbidding them from using the phrase wasn’t a battle worth fighting, so I wrenched myself away from the theory that Violet became an Innocent Behind Bars volunteer to compensate for the secret she was keeping and smiled at my son. “Yes, dear?”

He looked at the waiter, who was poised, pen in hand. “He asked what you want.”

“Twice,” Jenna said.

I glanced at Evan, who was trying not to smile. “Sorry,” I said to the waiter.

“No problem, ma’am. Would you like me to repeat tonight’s specials?”

Evan chuckled and I repressed an urge to kick him under the table. The linen tablecloth would hide most of the movement, but Jenna’s legs were getting long enough to be anywhere at any given moment, and I didn’t want to hit the wrong person. “No, thank you,” I told the waiter. “The trout will be fine. Rice instead of potato, please, and low-fat Italian dressing on the salad. Thank you.”

I watched as Jenna ordered a steak, baked potato with sour cream, salad with ranch dressing, and nodded approvingly when she ended her order with a please and thank you. Oliver stumbled over the almandine part of his trout request, but sailed easily into a switch from potato to French fries and got a smile from the waiter when he requested “bluey cheese crumbles” on his salad. After Evan ordered his meal and we handed over the menus, the kids leaned toward me.

“Did I do it right?” Oliver whispered.

“You did fine.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have asked for sour cream,” Jenna said in a low voice. “I don’t want to get fat.”

Evan opened his mouth, but I jumped in first. “Honey, do you trust me?”

She gave me a look. “Most of the time.”

“No, way down in your stomach”—I pointed at my own—“do you trust me? Do you believe that I want you to grow up strong and smart and fast? Do you believe that I’ll do whatever I can to make sure you’re the best goalie ever?”

“I guess so.”

“Then believe me when I say you can have all the sour cream you want.”

Her smile wiped all anxiety from her face. “Okay. Thanks, Mom.”

I wanted to pull her close and give her a hard mothering hug, but the restaurant’s ambiance didn’t encourage such behavior. Instead I gave her a warm mom smile. “You’re very welcome.”

The waiter came by with crayons and heavy pieces of blank white paper for the kids. Jenna curled her lip briefly at such childish things, but when Oliver called for the blue crayon, she called for the red, and they were off.

“So I hear you took Violet Demps to the doctor the other day,” Evan said.

“Um . . . that’s right. We did.” There were two reasons I hadn’t told Evan about the incident. Number one, he’d have asked why I was there in the first place. Number two, he’d ask why I was there in the first place. “Beth,” he’d say in that serious voice. “Remember what happened last time you got yourself involved in a murder investigation.” I couldn’t stand the serious voice; it reminded me of Richard.

“We?” Evan asked. “You and who else?” His mouth quirked up. “Let me guess. Marina.”

“And Yvonne,” I said.

He raised his eyebrows. “The woman from California? The one who—”

I cut in. “Yes. She knows Violet and . . . and wanted to introduce us to her.” Not a complete lie, but I could feel my earlobes warming up. Maybe Evan wouldn’t notice. But if the speculative look on his face was any indication, he already had and was in the process of formulating his next question.

“Hey, Beth.”

I looked at the stranger standing next to the table, then something went click. “Hey, Pete.”

Pete Peterson, almost unrecognizable in suit and tie, smiled at me and nodded at Evan. “Last time I saw you, you were in a tux.”

I introduced the two men and started to ask Pete a vague social question about the weather, but Oliver started squabbling with Jenna over the crayons. “Let me have the brown.”

“I’m using it.”

“You are not!”

“I will in a second. Leave it alone.”

Oliver’s hand snaked out and I reached over to tap his knuckles. “What did we talk about at home?” I asked quietly.

“No fighting in the restaurant,” he said to the tablecloth.

“And are you?”

“All I want is—”

“Oliver,” I said, “no fighting means no fighting. Okay?”

He nodded. I gave Jenna a stern warning look, and turned back to Pete. “Sorry. What are—” But I was talking to air. Pete was on the other side of the room, escorting a woman to a quiet table in a dark corner.

I watched him wave away the waiter and pull out a chair for his date. Though I couldn’t see her face, she was slim and tanned. From here I couldn’t tell if it was from a tanning booth or from an extended visit to sunny climates. Marina would be able to analyze such a thing at half a mile, but all I could tell was that I felt sickly white by comparison.

“How do you know him?” Evan was watching me watch Pete.

“What? Who?” A thought that was only half a thought flew away and was free, gone forever. “Pete? He runs Cleaner-Than-Pete’s. I hired him last year.”

“Before we met?” Evan smiled and reached for my hand.

As his warm skin touched mine, my cell phone started chirping. “Sorry.” I reached for my purse. “Forgot. I’ll turn it off.” But I couldn’t help looking at the display. I stood up. “Be right back. Kids, be good.”

I hurried to the women’s restroom and punched number 5 on my speed dial.

“Hey, sis,” Darlene said. “Took you long enough.”

“What’s the matter?” She’d texted me with a call-soon-urgent message. “Are you all right? Is Mom okay?”

She laughed. “Why do you always assume the worst?”

“Because then I’ll be prepared when it happens. What’s so urgent that I had to leave my children alone with Evan in a restaurant with white tablecloths?”

Darlene whistled. “Is he going to propose?”

“Don’t be silly.”

“Don’t be so sure. You’re smart, funny, still relatively young, and almost pretty. I’m surprised he hasn’t proposed already. Let’s plan for a June wedding. I’ll drive Mom down after Christmas and we can go to Chicago for your dress.”

I raised my eyes heavenward. Sisters. “Darlene, I’m kind of busy. What do you want?”

She sighed. “I can’t make it to Thanksgiving.”

“You . . . what?” She couldn’t have said what I thought she said. No way could every single member of my family have backed out on Thanksgiving dinner. It wasn’t possible.

“Sorry, kiddo. I really am. But I just brought Roger home from the med center. He’s got that horrible flu and they say it runs for at least a week. He’s a mess.” She paused. “Beth, are you there?”

I wanted to understand, and most of me did. But there was also a part of me that was hurt very badly. Words I wanted to say crowded into my mouth, and I put my hand over my lips to keep them inside, because saying them would burn wounds that might take years to heal.

It was then that my half-formed thought circled around and came home to roost.

“No,” I said slowly. “I’m not mad. Much.”

She blew a big sigh into the phone. “Look, I want to be there, you know I do. And maybe we can get together for Christmas. I’ll make a big batch of Grandma Emmerling’s cookies; those were always your favorites.” She talked on and on, but I wasn’t listening.

Because I had an idea. And I was making a plan.

“Hi, Mrs. Kennedy!” Devon’s smile was wide. “I hear your Jenna had an awesome game Saturday afternoon. Four to zero, that’s so great.”

“Shutout,” I said proudly. “Her first ever.” At dinner, Evan had proposed a toast to Jenna, and she’d blushed a brighter red than I’d thought possible. “The other day she asked if I thought she could get a college scholarship.”

“Bet she could,” Devon said.

“Really?”

“Sure. I’ve seen her in action. She’s got natural instincts. Anticipates like crazy. She could go a long way.”

Visions of Olympic medals danced in my head. “Are you sure?”

She grinned. “I’m assistant coach for the Madison Skippers. Believe me, I know Jenna’s good.”

I clutched the edge of the counter and fake gasped. “The enemy!”

Her laughter filled the lobby. “No, you’re the enemy. Didn’t you know?”

Her next question would be what could she do for me. Time to put the Plan into action. “When I stopped by the other day,” I said, “I didn’t tell you I own the Children’s Bookshelf. I was wondering if Stull Systems would consider writing children’s bookstore software. What we use is geared to full-range bookstores and we could use a new product.”

Not a complete lie; we could use something different than the fifteen-year-old software running on rapidly aging computers. Of course, I didn’t see how specialized software would help the store in any way, shape, or form, but it was a reason to talk to Devon.

“Oh, wow. I don’t know.” She opened a three-ring binder and started flipping pages. “This is the catalog. Everything Stull does is medical. Wait. Here’s a . . . No, that’s for veterinarians.” She hummed as she turned pages. “No, nothing like that. Tell you what—”

The phone rang and she excused herself to answer. After she’d written a message, she put the slip atop a pile of similar slips, which was next to a towering pile of papers, which was next to another stack of papers. “There. Now, I was saying—” The phone rang again. She rolled her eyes, picked up the phone, and wrote down a message.

During my phone call with Darlene, the tiny lightbulb that occasionally blinked on in my brain had gone bright white. Devon had hockey knowledge that Jenna could use. Devon needed help with organization, help that I could provide, and in providing such, could gain knowledge that I could use.

Ostentatiously, I looked left and right, then leaned over the counter and beckoned her close. “Devon,” I said softly. “How about a trade?”

She made a face. “I’m not supposed to touch anything in there.”

“You wouldn’t,” I said soothingly. “And I won’t. But that way I could see how he files things, and he made up the filing system, right?” Without waiting for an answer, I headed back down the hallway. “This is his office, isn’t it?” I set the pile down carefully on the corner of Eric’s empty desk and pulled up the guest chair. “All I’ll do is peek into his files.”

“Well, I suppose it might be okay.”

“It’ll be fine.” I put on the special mom smile that was guaranteed to comfort and console. There’s nothing less threatening than a mom in calming mode. The knowledge is one of our secret weapons. “What harm can I do?”

“That’s true.” Devon nodded. “Thanks a zillion for helping me out. I’ll ask around for someone who’ll give goalie lessons.”

I smiled. The barter system was alive and well.

The phone rang. “Oh, rats,” Devon said. “Got to go.”

As soon as I saw the light on Eric’s phone turn from blinking white to solid red, I jumped out of the chair and hurried around the large expanse of desktop. Eric’s chair was tall-backed and leather and I felt like an imposter in it. Which I was, but I didn’t like feeling that way.

I opened the large file drawer on the lower right side of the desk and rifled through its contents. Everything I could read had to do with clients or conferences or shareholders. Everything I couldn’t read was in Spanish.

“Oh, dear.” The only time I came close to using my three years of high school Spanish was at an ATM when I accidentally pressed the ESPAÑOL button instead of the ENGLISH one.

I opened the rest of the drawers and found office supplies, a pile of coins, and some empty candy wrappers. “Now what, smarty-pants?” I glanced at the phone. The light was still red, and there was another light winking away, so I ventured deeper into Eric territory.

The wall behind his desk was lined with bookshelves and cabinetry. The bookshelves were full of textbooks, software documentation, and three-ring binders filled with software coding. Behind the door of cabinet number one were stacks of paper much like the stack I’d put on his desk. Behind door number two was more paper, but also a framed photo of a man and two young girls.

I looked at the telephone—one red light, two white—and picked up the picture. It was taken on a lakeshore and all three were in swimsuits and life jackets. The man had his arms around the girls and they were all grinning hugely.

“So that’s Eric Stull,” I said quietly. It was the man at the dance who’d been in line in front of Jenna and me. The man who’d slapped down a hundred-dollar bill and then another fifty. His dark blond hair was cut short and his stomach was flatter than most men’s his age. I studied the photo, trying to look into his head, read his thoughts, and analyze his personality, but all I saw was a father and his daughters after an afternoon of inner tubing.

As I put the photo back from whence it came, I realized there weren’t any pictures of Rosie, his wife. Strange. Or not?

“What are you doing?” Devon stood in the doorway. “I thought you weren’t going to touch anything.” There was a note of censure in her voice.

I put on a reassuring smile and shut the cabinet door. “Just looking for some paper clips. It’ll make sorting those papers easier if I have a way to keep similar topics together. Unless you want me to use a stapler.”

“No staples. Mr. Stull says so. Paper clips are good, though. I’ll be right back.”

Mr. Stull had a lot of rules. I sat myself back in the guest chair. To meet my end of the bargain, I had to sort these papers into some semblance of order. I’d convinced Devon of my capabilities when I’d mentioned how much lists helped me organize my life.

“Mr. Stull loves lists,” she’d said eagerly. “You must think like him. Let’s give this a try.”

Her confidence in me was heartening, and probably misplaced. But I couldn’t tell her that, so I settled down and was busy sorting papers when she came back with a box of paper clips. She hovered, then went back out front when the phone rang.

Anything with a lot of numbers went into one pile. Anything in Spanish went into another. Phone notes here, mail there. Junk faxes I tossed into a recycling pile. No possible way could Mr. Stull want to know about a $99 cruise to the Bahamas. Order now for four days and three nights!

Half an hour later, I’d sorted through the main pile. I got up, stretched, and started in on the stack of numbers. I spread the sheets out across the large desk and tried to make sense of it all. Bills here, statements there. Undecipherable printouts from spreadsheets way over there.

I looked at it all from the point of view of a business owner and saw nothing out of the ordinary, other than some statements from banks with Spanish names. I tried to see it as a law enforcement officer—suspicious and looking for wrongdoing—and didn’t see anything. But since I wasn’t a member of the police force, maybe I wouldn’t have known suspicious activity if it was in bright red letters.

Sighing, I paper-clipped the differentiated piles and stacked them to one side.

When the phone light was red, I got up and turned on Eric’s computer. As I’d expected, it was password protected, and all the combinations I tried got me nowhere but nervous. What if he’d programmed the thing to take surreptitious pictures of someone trying to access his computer? I gave up and shut it down.

Next was the Spanish pile. Hadn’t I seen . . . yes, there it was. A Spanish-English dictionary. Hooray for Beth’s habit of examining all book titles in a room! With the dictionary and about two weeks of time, I’d be able to decipher every paper in the pile.

I scanned a few sentences of each sheet, then opened the dictionary and started searching for key words. I soon found out that Eric’s dictionary didn’t contain any of the words I wanted it to.

“Silly thing,” I told it, and turned to the copyright page: 1989. Which could explain a lot if the words I was trying to translate were software-type words. I tried the same thing with other letters in the pile, and got as far as figuring out that somebody was trying to sell Eric a ranch in a remote location in an undisclosed country.

“Sure,” I murmured. “I’ll buy, too, if the price is right.”

On to the phone messages. First I arranged them in chronological order, then I went through them slowly, looking for patterns, names, anything.

“Eva called.” 10:15 a.m., Wednesday.

“Eva called.” 11:05 a.m., Wednesday.

“Eva called.” 11:25 a.m., Wednesday.

These I set aside. Some unfortunate soul must have been struggling with a tragic software problem. Poor woman.

I continued to sort. There were messages from computer dealers and messages from clients. There were lots of messages from salespeople, a couple of messages from Rosie, and a couple from the girls, Amelia and Chelsea, and a couple from someone named Chago.

I repressed an urge to toss all the slips into the air and run away before they landed.

“There has to be something here,” I said.

Not true, of course. I just wanted there to be something. I needed something tangible, some slip of proof, some indication of . . . something.

Fatigue was creeping up my back. I stretched, gazing at the sorted piles of phone messages. There was a secret; Violet had said so. And I had it on good authority— mine—that anything said in the midst of morning sickness was the absolute truth.

There was a secret here. All I had to do was find it.

“Right,” I said. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

“Are you okay?” Devon asked.

No, I wasn’t. I was hungry, tired of looking at papers, scared for Yvonne, nervous for my finances, and terrified about the future in general. “Fine, thanks.” I glanced at my watch. “If you wanted to run to get some lunch, I’ll pay.”

“Really?” Her eyes lit up. “Fast food or the Tractor?”

We settled on the Tractor. Soup and salad for me, burger and fries for her. I handed over a twenty-dollar bill. “Be right back,” she said, and left me in Eric’s office, where I’d be alone for a solid fifteen minutes.

I stood. If I was a secret, where would I hide? In a locked drawer, probably, but there weren’t any here. Maybe it was a purloined secret, and all I had to do was open my eyes. I swept my gaze over walls, desk, and cabinetry. Nothing. The only thing on the walls were two framed Ansel Adams prints. In the name of being thorough, I looked at the backs of the prints. Nothing. The desk, when I’d arrived, had been empty of everything except a desk blotter–sized calendar.

Hmm.

I restacked the papers and exposed the month of November. The first and last weeks had red lines through them with the letters SA written at the left side. The rest of the weekdays were filled with cryptic notes. “NC mtg, 10.” “Cnf cl, 2.” “Stf mtg, 8.”

Some of those I understood. Conference call. Staff meeting. But NC meeting could be a meeting in North Carolina, or it could be a new client meeting, or it could be a no charge meeting, or it could be a new code meeting for the company’s programmers.

“Nothing, nothing, nothing,” I muttered, restacking the papers. The breeze my frustration created sent a message twirling to the floor.

“Got it.” Devon lunged and snatched it one-handed before it hit carpet. “Uh-oh. Purple. I’m supposed to shred all the purple ones.” She set my lunch on the corner of the desk and laid the change on top of the white foam container.

A clue, Watson, a clue! “What’s so special about the purples?”

She looked at the paper. “No idea. The whole color thing is goofy, if you ask me.”

Yesterday she’d mentioned the color coding and I’d forgotten all about it. Bad Beth. “How do you know what color to use? Did Violet leave you directions?”

She shook her head. “Nothing on paper. Mr. Stull kept saying if I have to write things down, I wasn’t right for the job. But, geez, how am I supposed to keep track of all this stuff?” She threw out her hands. “Red for billing. Black or blue for vendors. Green for . . . oh, shoot, what’s green for? Oh, yeah. Clients. Purple is for people who don’t leave a company name. Brown for nonpaying clients, and orange when anyone from the government calls.”

“And what colors get shredded?”

“All of them,” she said promptly. “Just at different times. Red at the end of the month. Green, when they’re a week old. Purple, when they’re older than one day. And I don’t remember for brown and orange, I just don’t.” Her hair was coming down out of its braid. She shoved a strand back behind her ear, but it came right back out. “The last time I put a box out for Mr. Helmstetter, I’m sure some stuff went out that shouldn’t have.” She pushed at her hair. “I was so scared that something really important got shredded that I almost got sick. Mr. Stull seemed really mad until I said it was all stuff in Spanish.”

My heart thumped hard against my rib cage. “Can you read Spanish?”

“Mr. Stull asked me that. I don’t know any Spanish other than uno, dos, tres. I thought it might cost me the job, but he seemed okay with it.”

Devon didn’t read Spanish, but Sam did. Sam had often talked up the benefits of learning a second language. Sam’s minor in college was Spanish. Sam had been featured in the newspaper annually for leading mission trips to Mexico. Everybody in town knew Sam could speak fluent Spanish.

And now Sam was dead.

“When is Mr. Stull expected back?” I asked. “According to his calendar he should be here today.”

But Devon was shaking her head. “That’s just the calendar he figures ahead with. Most of his appointments he doesn’t even write down. Says they’re safer in here.” She tapped her temple with her index finger.

“Where is he?”

“At home. He said his wife was sick. And I think they’re going away for Thanksgiving.” She stood there, looking at the piles of papers. “Do you think he’ll be mad at me? There’s an awful lot I’m doing wrong.”

Welcome to the club.

“You’re doing your best,” I said. “No one can fault you for trying your hardest.”

“I am trying.” She brightened a bit. “Really hard.”

“Then you might as well stop worrying.”

“Okay.” She grinned. “Worrying doesn’t do any good, anyway. I mean, if you can do something, go ahead and do it, right? If you can’t do anything, what’s the point of making yourself all nuts with worry?” She cocked her head. “Phone. Gotta go.”

What was the point indeed? Devon was a lot smarter than I was.

I picked up the purple message she’d left behind. Red, black, blue, green, purple, brown, orange. With a mind empty of ideas, I sorted the messages into piles of colored pens, then spread out the purple ones, one by one.

Why would purple messages want to be shredded after a day? I closed my eyes and thought of possibilities.

Because they weren’t important.

Because they were top secret.

Because they were important and the calls would have been returned immediately.

Try as I might, I couldn’t come up with any other reasons. I opened my eyes and looked at the purple names, none of which came with a last name or a company name. Rosie. Chago. Eva. Amelia. Chelsea. Rafael.

Rosie Stull, Eric’s wife. No reason for her to leave a last name. Amelia and Chelsea, Eric’s daughters. Same thing.

But who was Eva? And Chago and Rafael?

None of the slips from Rosie or the girls had a phone number, which made sense. Only one of Eva’s slips had a number, and it had an extra set of digits at the front. An international call then, but since the only foreign country I’d ever set foot in was Canada, the number didn’t mean anything to me.

Eva, Chago, and Rafael.

They could be South American clients. But if so, why wouldn’t they leave a company name and a phone number?

Because they were really good clients and didn’t feel the need?

I was never going to figure this out. Never.

“Eat,” I told myself. “Food will help.”

I slid the change Devon had returned into my purse and flipped up the white lid. A coin I hadn’t noticed rolled off, onto the desk, and down onto the floor. The quarter rolled and rolled and rolled.

If it had been a penny, I wouldn’t have moved. A nickel probably wouldn’t have inspired me to action, either, or even a dime. But a quarter? That was real money.

I went down on my hands and knees. Where had the little bugger gone? Ah. There. Waaaay over, directly under the middle of the desk. Naturally.

I turned to a sitting position, held the edge of the desk with one hand to keep my back off the floor, and stretched as far as my arm would stretch. “The things I’d do for a quarter.” I stretched a little more.

My hand started to slip off the desk and I made a quick double grab. But instead of solidifying my grip, I latched on to Eric’s calendar and pulled the whole thing onto the top of my head.

Papers that I’d just carefully organized came cascading down, and the two months left in the calendar fluttered like wings.

I sat there, papers surrounding me, and thought about joining the circus. Nothing bad ever happened in a circus. I could take tickets. The kids could learn acrobatics. A win-win situation for all.

“Are you okay?” Devon hurried in. “Oh, my goodness! What happened?”

“Um, I was reaching for . . .” The quarter, firmly caught between thumb and index finger mere seconds ago, was gone. “For something. And I fell.” I gave her a sheepish smile. “Slid right off the edge of the chair. Silly, huh?”

Devon was already picking up the loose papers. “I did that once in the middle of biology class. Thought I was going to die of embarrassment.”

“Everyone has . . .” Between the calendar’s November and December pages, tucked in at the top, was a photo. I whisked it out of view. “Everyone has a moment like that in their life. With any luck you’re already done.”

“Hope so.” Devon helped me to my feet. “Are you sure you’re okay? You look a little red.” She tapped her cheeks.

“Embarrassment will do that to you.”

“Yeah. Give me a yell if you need anything.” She ran off to answer the phone.

I slid the snapshot out from under the calendar and took a long, slow look at the people in the picture. Looked at the back. “Eva and the boys,” someone had written. I laid the photo down next to Eric’s calendar notes and studied them both. Same handwriting, no question.

Violet had said there was a secret here. I thought again about the purple message slips. Who wouldn’t bother leaving a last name? A long-term client, a good friend, or a family member.

But clients were green.

I spread out the slips from Eva. She’d called every twenty minutes. What good friend would call that often? None. What family member would? Only a wife. A wife . . .

Eva and the boys.

“Oh . . .”

Things went click in my head.

Eric Stull ran an international software company.

The company was doing business in South America.

Eric had a second family there.

Sam was killed because he could have read about Eric’s South American wife and children.

Eric’s schedule said he was headed to South America next week.

And one last, solid click.

“He’s never coming back,” I said out loud.