Curiosity Thrilled the Cat (36 page)

The concert was sold out. That was because composer, conductor and brilliant pianist Michel Demarque had stepped in as guest clinician.

I wasn’t sure what she was talking about when Lita had called to thank me and pass on the festival committee’s thanks to my mother—my mother—for convincing Demarque to step in. Baffled, I’d called Boston.

“You know Michel Demarque?” I’d asked.

“Yes,” she’d said. “So do you.”

“I do?”

“You remember Uncle Mickey.”

I’d had to search my memory. Vermont. A Stephen Sondheim musical. A blond Hugh Jackman look-alike who slow danced with my mom while my father seethed with jealousy.

“Uncle Mickey is Michel Demarque?” I said.

“Yes.”

“Oh. Well, thank you,” I said. “You didn’t have to do this.”

“If it matters to you, Katydid, it matters to me,” she said.

An usher showed me to my seat in the theater. Oren had finished working at the Stratton just days before the first performance. The building looked wonderful. At Everett’s request Oren was supervising the rest of the library renovations.

I looked at the empty seat beside me. Where was Maggie? I spotted Everett and Rebecca on the other side of the theater. Rebecca hadn’t been charged with anything connected to Gregor Easton’s death. As a member of the centennial committee, she had a right to be in the library and she’d clearly been defending herself from Easton when he’d injured his head. No one believed she’d planned to hurt the man when she’d sent him the note asking him to meet her, even though she’d been pretending to be me. Violet, however, had been arrested. Everyone expected she’d take a deal to avoid a trial. It was clear she had some serious psychological problems, and I hoped she’d get the help she needed.

The overhead lights flashed—five minutes until the concert began. Where the heck was Maggie?

“Excuse me,” a voice said from the aisle. I looked up to see Marcus Gordon standing there. He pointed to the empty seat. “I think that’s my seat,” he said.

I shook my head. “No, that’s Maggie’s seat,” I said. “She’ll be here any minute.”

“No, I think it’s mine,” he said, holding out his ticket. He was right.

I stood up to let him pass.
I’m going to kill Maggie,
I decided. It wasn’t enough that Matt Lauer had won the coveted
Gotta Dance
crystal trophy over the divine Kevin Sorbo; now she was trying to set me up with Marcus.

Yes, he looked very nice in an open-neck blue shirt and tan jacket. And he smelled yummy. But he wasn’t my type. Not. At. All.

“How’s your arm?” he whispered, bending his head close to mine.

When I’d finally gotten to the clinic, I’d discovered my wrist was broken. Now I had a cast from my fingers halfway to my elbow. “The cast comes off in a couple of weeks,” I said. “And at least it doesn’t hurt.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” he said.

He had a nice smile. Not that it made any difference to me. He wasn’t my type. He didn’t have a library card, I’d noticed. The man had never borrowed a single library book, as far as I could tell.

“Rumor has it you had a lot to do with the festival getting this conductor,” he whispered in my ear as the lights went down.

“I really didn’t do anything,” I whispered back. Which was true. I hadn’t.

“What other superpowers do you have?” he said softly. I could see his grin, even in the dark. “Can you walk through walls or magically disappear?”

The curtain rose and Uncle Mickey lifted his baton. I looked at the detective, put my finger to my lips and just smiled.

Sofie Kelly
is an author and mixed-media artist who lives on the East Coast with her husband and daughter. In her spare time she practices Wu-style tai chi and likes to prowl around thrift stores. And she admits to having a small crush on Matt Lauer.