Paint the Town Red (Fox & Oakby Murder Mysteries Book II)

The First Taste

Imogen had been running around her cottage, stuffing things where they didn't belong, and maneuvering between the furniture and her constantly moving children for the last half hour. Kathy and Brian for some reason decided that 'helping' her was the best game ever. On one hand, she was happy that they were such helpful little'uns and also that her freaking out didn't freak them out. On the other hand, her cottage looked no neater or cleaner that it had been when she started.

"Will we order pizza?" Kathy asked rushing by Imogen, inexplicably with sofa cushions in her hands.

Imogen didn't even want to know where those would now end up.

"He loves pizza. He told me so himself," Kathy continued, "When we stayed in the Headmistress' house."

"No, we shouldn't. I should probably cook," Imogen muttered and grabbed her Mom's favourite vase out of Brian's hands. "This stays on the coffee table, love."

"I think we should order pizza," Kathy said once again appearing out of the kitchen, again with the cushions in her hands.

Imogen snatched them and placed them back on the sofa.

"Or maybe fish and chips," Brian said, beaming.

Imogen gasped and pulled at her laptop he was precariously balancing on his head.

"I'll take this," she mumbled and rushed to her bedroom.

It wasn't her bedroom anymore, though. These days Imogen slept on the sofa, having given up the bed to the children. And now every morning her breakfast was accompanied by the children's whining about who'd kicked whom more last night, and how the blankets were too thick, or alternatively too thin.

In the bedroom Imogen tripped over Kathy's backpack and almost stepped on Brian's tiny car. Thankfully, the mess in this room didn't matter. It's not like the Mayor would come here. Imogen shortly thought of the good old days when she had a bedroom, and how she lay in her bed, and read books, or daydreamed of having a male in her life, a male who looked suspiciously like the Mayor in her fantasies. And now she sort of had the Mayor, but no bed. Life is a funny thing, Imogen thought.

"Will you order pizza?" Kathy yelled from the drawing room, and Imogen groaned.

"I will order pizza," she shouted back and heavily sat on - not - her bed.

The whole thing with him coming for dinner was fishy. A. He'd never come here. He'd been in her cottage once, after she'd been locked up in an ice house with Andrew, after those murders and in the middle of the story with the evil Americans. And they'd just declared their feelings for each other, and they'd needed to talk, and she'd needed a shower. Thus, the circumstances had been exceptional. Him casually coming for dinner was anxiety inducing.

B. Imogen and the Mayor had a lovely structure to their relationship. They worked together. And they worked together well. They spent their lunch hour together. That went well too. And then they would go down to their offices, actually had lunch, in most cases separately, and if together then talking about work. Work and 'lunches' - that's what their relationship consisted of.

And now he'd said they needed to talk, and for some reason Imogen had invited him for dinner.

***

The knock on the door came, and Imogen looked down at her watch. Expecting the pizza, she rushed to the door, with the same cursed sofa cushions in her hands.

It wasn't pizza.

"Evening," the Mayor said.

His tone was serious, there was no smile. Imogen squeezed the cushion.