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eyes, but discovered to her dismay the marks were natural, the telltale signs of fatigue. Her face was chalk white, but there was nothing to be done about it. She didn't wear much makeup as a rule and carried nothing with her.
    No matter, she told herself as she glanced around the restaurant. This wasn't a date, it was a business dinner. She wasn't out to impress Mitch Holt as a woman, but as a cop.
    The restaurant was crowded and noisy, the air thick with conversation and the warm, spicy smell of home cooking. Waitresses in ruffled muslin aprons and high-necked blouses with puffed sleeves wound through the array of mismatched wooden tables with heavy stoneware plates and trays laden with the special of the day. Grandma's was housed in a section of a renovated woolen mill. Its walls were time-worn brick, the floors scarred wood, and the ceiling beams exposed. A row of tall, arched windows had been installed on the street side of the main dining room. Lush ferns in brass pots hung from an old pipe that ran from wall to wall parallel to the windows.
    Household antiques decorated every available spot—copper kettles, graniteware coffeepots, china teapots, kitchen utensils, butter churns and wooden butter molds, salt boxes and blue Mason jars. Steamer trunks were strategically located around the dining room to be used by the waitresses as serving tables. In addition to the more mundane items, there was a marvelous collection of ladies' hats that dated back a century. Broad-brimmed hats wound and draped with yards of sheer fabric. Pillbox hats and hats trimmed with ostrich plumes. Driving hats and riding hats and hats with black lace veils.
    Megan took it all in with a sense of delight. She loved old things. She enjoyed hunting through flea markets for items that might have been heirlooms, things passed down from one generation of women to another. There were no such things in her family. She had nothing of her mother's. Her father had burned all of Maureen O'Malley's things a month after she had abandoned the family when Megan was six.
    The hostess greeted Mitch by name, eyed Megan with interest, and led them back to a booth in a raised section of dining room where things appeared less hectic and the noise level was cut by the high walls of the booths.
    “It's the usual madness,” she said, smiling warmly at Mitch. She looked mid-forties and attractive, her pale blond hair cut in a pageboy she tucked behind her ears. “And then some, with everybody gearing up for Snowdaze. Denise said she might come for the weekend.”
    Mitch accepted a menu. “How's she doing at design school?”
    “She loves it. She said to tell you thanks again for encouraging her to go back—and to look her up sometime when you're in the Cities. She's dating an architect, but it isn't serious,” she hastened to add, her gaze darting Megan's way with a gleam of sly speculation.
    “Nnnn,” Mitch said through his teeth. “Darlene, this is Megan O'Malley, our new agent from the BCA. She's taking over Leo Kozlowski's job. It's her first night in town, and I thought I'd introduce her to Grandma's. Megan, Darlene Hallstrom.”
    “Oo-oh!” Darlene cooed, the exclamation spanning an octave as she gave Megan a plastic smile and a once-over that scanned for signs of matrimony. “How nice to have someone new in town. Is your husband working in Deer Lake as well?”
    “I'm not married.”
    “We-ell, isn't that interesting.” She ground the words through the smile as she thrust a menu out. “We all sure liked Leo. Have a nice dinner.”
    Mitch heaved a sigh as Darlene swept away, skirt twitching.
    “Who's Denise?” Megan asked.
    “Darlene's sister. Her
divorced
sister. Darlene had ideas.”
    “Really? What did your wife have to say about that?”
    “My—?”
    Her gaze pointed a straight line to the hands that held the menu. The gold band on his left ring finger gleamed in the soft light. He wore it for a variety of reasons—because it helped to ward