the office view had been restricted by high shrubs, the library windows looked on a used-brick patio and a wide green lawn rimmed with flower beds.
“So, do you spend a lot of time here?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said simply.
She walked over and ran her hand along some of the spines of the books. “You must haunt the bookstores in New Orleans.”
“No. I used to get catalogues from various bookshops. Now I mostly order online.”
“Oh.”
More books were piled on a polished library table. His recent acquisitions. Or maybe they were volumes he had taken out and hadn’t put back yet.
She picked up a slender book on Fermat’s Last Theorem and flipped it open. It was full of math equations. “You understand this?”
He laughed. “Barely.”
“But you find it interesting?”
“Yes.”
She examined other books, amazed by the diversity. Everything from alternate energy sources to auto repair to something called The Myth of the Werewolf.
“Why are you reading this?” she asked, thinking she wasn’t going to tell him about some of the men who worked for Frank Decorah.
He made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “It sounded interesting, so I bought it.” Picking up another volume, called The Great Sailing Ships, he flipped it open. “About the same level of interest as this.”
“You’ve never seen a werewolf, have you?”
He stiffened. “That’s an odd question.”
“Your swamp would be the perfect place for one,” she heard herself saying.
“I’ve never encountered one there—or a sailing ship, either.”
She laughed, trying to get a handle on the man. He was a mystery. For all she knew, he had caused the problems with the town, and she had stepped into the middle of the mess he’d made. Now he was counting on her to bail him out
She didn’t want to believe that. She wanted to be on his side. Because she was living at his estate? Because she was attracted to him?
“What are you thinking?” he asked suddenly.
She felt her face heat. “Why do you ask?”
“You looked like you were working on an important problem.”
“Just thinking about the case,” she managed, then scrambled for another subject. “So, you love books and gardening. How do you make a living?” It was a pretty personal question, but not out of bounds—considering that she was working as an investigator for him.
It seemed he didn’t mind answering. “I inherited a substantial investment portfolio. I studied the market carefully, made some good buys, diversified. I have a pretty good feel for what’s going to do well and what will tank. Sometimes I make a mistake. But my picks are above average. And before the market went down a couple of years ago, I had pulled some of my money out of stocks and shifted them to bonds.”
She nodded, impressed. Her own family was middle class. Her father had been a mail carrier with his government retirement his only investment. Her mom had been a grocery clerk. If she hadn’t won a scholarship, she probably wouldn’t have gone to college. What she knew about finances would fit into a teacup, but she did have some guesses about the upkeep on a large estate.
She looked around. “Doesn’t it take a considerable amount of capital to keep Belle Vista in such beautiful shape?”
“Yes, even when I do most of the work myself. I’ve been tempted to sell off some of my land, but I’ve always been able to keep going without turning to that alternative.”
“The land is important to you?”
“It’s my heritage,” he said simply. He was shifting the books on the table, but his eyes were focused on the scene outside. When he drew in a strangled breath, she followed his gaze. “What?”
Without answering, he strode to the door, unlocked it and leaped outside—then hurried to a spot about halfway across the patio.
She followed him, stopping short when he squatted down to examine something.
Resting on the bricks was an object that made her breath catch. The thing looked like evil personified—a sticky mass of tar, with stuff studding the surface. She saw orange animal hairs, seeds, strands of grass, and a glass ball that looked like a marble. The whole mass was elongated, and if she squinted when she looked at it, she could see the shape of an animal. A cat?
“Did you leave this here?” she asked.
His gaze shot to her face. “You think this is mine? Why would I put something disgusting on my own patio?”
“I don’t know . . . to scare me,” she heard herself saying.
“Scaring you was never my intention,” he said in