A Wee Dose of Death by Fran Stewart

It’s one thing to bop around town, but all the way to Winooski? Think of your stitches.”
    â€œThose stitches are completely healed. Anyway, we’realmost out of the mountains, and from there it’s a straight shot up to Burlington.”
    â€œI don’t want you out of my sight,” I said. “I don’t know where Kittredge is. And what if you get another cramp?”
    Karaline gave in with surprisingly good grace. “If I get a cramp, I’ll pull over.” What was she up to? “Give me your address, Mrs. Wantstring. I’ll pop it in my GPS, and we’ll go there first. I’ll lead the way.”
    â€œThat wasn’t what I had in mind.”
    â€œI know.” She jotted down Emily’s address and headed for her car. “See you in Burlington.”
    â€œRight,” I said, and tried not to sound venomous.
    To top it all off, Karaline opened the door to her SUV and Dirk hopped in and slid over to the passenger seat. He wasn’t coming with me? What kind of ghost would do a thing like that? Was he mad at me? Of course, she had the shawl. And I was the one who’d crumpled him up. It may have been an accident, but he’d still been sent to a place where he didn’t want to be.
    I made sure Emily had her seat belt fastened and followed Karaline—the traitor—out of the scenic overview.
    *   *   *
    What a lovely
young woman
, Emily thought.
If Mark and I had ever had a daughter . . .
She let that thought drift away and tried to keep from studying Peggy’s profile.
How kind of her to do the driving this way. I ought to invite the two of them in for coffee when we get to Burlington, but I really do
not
want them to see my house if it’s messed up
. She considered just serving them in the living room, but women tended to be drawn to kitchens, didn’t they?
    â€œI hope they didn’t destroy any of my china. I think Sandra would have noticed if they had. All she could tell wasthe missing laptop.” Emily paused for a quick breath. “Mark said it was just a spare. I don’t know why he needed it. He never took it to work with him.”
    *   *   *
    For the first ten miles I endured a recounting of what I’d already heard. I finally tuned out. I wondered if she’d ever told any of this to Harper. Harper. I let that thought linger, and Emily’s voice faded into mere background noise.
    As happy as I was to think about him, I had a feeling something was going on. Why hadn’t he called in all this time? I didn’t even know for sure where he was.
South America
covered a lot of territory. Well, if he ever came back, I’d ask him.
    The next few miles went by rather quickly, taken up as they were by my thoughts of just what might happen if Harper and I ever got a chance to be alone together. We’d never quite gotten anywhere. I’d thought, soon after I met Harper, that we might have had a chance, and there had been that one time he’d kissed my cheek, but then he’d left, and it seemed like our relationship—if you could call it that—had come up against the proverbial brick wall. Of course, then it occurred to me that Dirk would be prowling around making comments and probably getting rather incensed if Harper and I were supposedly alone. For some reason, it felt good to think of having two men competing for me—even if one of them didn’t know about the other one, and that other one just happened to be dead.
    Emily ground her narrative to a halt, and I took in a deep breath. The road straightened out for a short while, and I could feel myself relaxing. “You and Dr. Wantstring have been married for more than thirty years, right?”
    â€œThirty-seven to be exact.”
    â€œWow. Do you have any children?” I couldn’t remember if she’d ever mentioned any.
    â€œTwo sons. No daughters.” She paused. There was