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wanted to giggle so badly her throat tickled with it. Nice was not how she’d describe her day so far. Nice had nothing to do with dead bodies shot through the heart, with police teams, with wondering if she’d ever forget the sight of that gray, slack-skinned face that had stared sightlessly up at her.
    Ever seen him before? Detective Remco had asked her as Duncan had.
Being a woman who was always careful with facts, and who believed passionately in the importance of careful research and the truth, she’d taken an extra minute to study the dead man’s face, but all her extra study only confirmed what she’d known at first glance. The man was a stranger.
    “Having a day off?” Harold asked as he poured the wine.
    A beat passed. If she told him the news it would end the relative peace of this place. “We’re just in for a late lunch,” she said. She watched the rich, red liquid fill the glass, deep and sparkly as garnets and decided there were times when a glass of wine at lunch was a very good idea.
    She sipped and sipped again. “This tastes expensive.”
    “You know wines?”
    “I’m no oenophile, but I managed to graduate from wine in a box.”
    He touched his glass to hers. “Drink up.” He watched until she’d downed more of the wine. “I’m still waiting for the answer to a very simple question. Is there a man in your life?”
    Not since Grandpa died, she thought with a pang, wondering when she’d stop missing the man who’d taken the place of her father in many ways, who’d given her a stable home, who’d taught her about art and antiques, about history. They’d been friends and recently they’d become colleagues. But of course, Duncan Forbes wasn’t interested in her relationship with her ninety-two-year-old grandfather.
    “No. I’m not involved with anyone. And, so we’re clear, I’m not interested in getting involved.”
    Those blue, blue eyes studied her and she had to force herself not to lick her lips. God, he was gorgeous in that rumpled, intellectual way. There was a craggy line between his eyebrows as though he’d ruminated over plenty of thorny scholastic puzzles in his time. “Why not? Don’t you like men?”
    His arrogance staggered her. And made her blunt. “I don’t like you.”
    He didn’t beat his chest, storm out, or even look hurt. He sipped his wine, his gaze never leaving her face. “Maybe I’ll grow on you.”
Maybe she’d get gangrene.
    Their food arrived and she could have kissed Harold for his timing. She sliced into her steak and found it as sizzlingly perfect as always.
    Like her, Duncan ignored the salad and went for the meat. After an enormous bite which he demolished rapidly, he said, “You were right. This is great.”
    “Best steaks in town.”
    “Did you know him”
    Him, today, could only refer to one person. The recently deceased.
    Her brows pulled together. “I told you I didn’t know him. I never saw him before today.”
    “Well, you told the police that.”
    If he wasn’t careful, Duncan Forbes was going to wear his far-too-expensive wine all over his rumpled cream denim shirt. “I have no reason to lie to the police, or you, or anyone. I did not know that poor man.”
    “Okay. Then why do you think somebody put him there for you to find?”
    She shook her head. In the back of her mind, like a dull headache, the same question had plagued her for hours.
    Why?
    “I wish I knew.” She gazed up at him, not wanting to trust him, but feeling at least on some level she could talk to him. He barely knew her, had arrived in Swiftcurrent all of one day earlier, and yet his assessment of the situation exactly coincided with hers. “You think whoever put him there knew I’d find him?”
    “It’s the logical conclusion. From what you told Dudley Do-Right in there—”
    “Sergeant Tom Perkins.” And she would not even smile at the uncomfortably exact comparison Forbes had made between their local sergeant and the upright cartoon