Cat Playing Cupid by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

convenient for late-night fits of inspiration, but I can have a small setup here, in a corner of the study. I really do need the apartment’s downstairs garage for equipment storage. If I don’t have that, I’ll have to rent space somewhere.”
    She pulled a blueprint from a stack of papers on Clyde’s bookshelf and unrolled it on the desk; as Mike looked over the studio’s floor plan, she studied her dad. “You had a little tiff with Dallas?”
    He looked at her and shrugged. “A small difference of opinion, nothing important.”
    She waited.
    â€œSomething about the Carson Chappell cold case,” he said.
    Ryan hid a smile. “Lindsey Wolf is lovely.”
    Ignoring that, he studied the blueprint intently, looking over the interior elevations, nodding with approval at the high, slanted ceiling with its long skylights and the small, raised fireplace in the far corner between the glass walls, its stone matching that in the bedroom.
    â€œPlenty of room for my drafting table,” she said, amused by her dad, “for file cabinets, computer, and a deep storage closet here for drawings and blueprints.” Was he getting serious again about Lindsey? Ryan thought Lindsey was the only woman he had ever really cared about since her mother died.
    â€œThe plan’s perfect,” Mike said, “and it would be nice to be able to work at home. Not to mention my being able to keep the apartment,” he teased. “I’ll think good thoughts.”
    â€œMaybe the construction gods will smile. Maybe, by the time Clyde and I get back from our honeymoon, the permit will be waiting for us. But I’m not holding my breath.” Her green eyes searched his. “Are you okay with staying here while we’re gone, taking care of Rock and the cats? I could take Rock up to the Harpers’.”
    â€œI’m looking forward to having a dog again, even if he is only on loan. Looking forward to long runs on the beach, walks around the village, taking our meals at the patio restaurants. With that handsome fellow at my side, I can pick up any good-looking woman I choose.”
    â€œYou’re an old rounder, you know that? Tell me more about the cold case.” Watching him, she curled up comfortably on the leather couch, sipping her beer.
    Mike stretched out in the club chair, his long, lanky frame easy in his worn jeans and faded T-shirt. “You’re pumping me, but okay.”
    He felt uncomfortable telling her about meeting Lindsey on the street earlier that evening. “I’d already read the file,” he said. “I wasn’t sure I wanted to work this case, but it has the best contacts. Not only Lindsey, but her sister and some of the crowd they ran with when Chappell disappeared, quite a few of their friends still in the village.”
    â€œI always thought that was a strange thing to do,” she said, “to go off camping just before his wedding.” Glancing down at her engagement ring, she frowned.
    â€œThat won’t happen to you and Clyde—you couldn’t drive Clyde away with a club.”
    â€œI know,” she said, smiling smugly. But still a coldness held her, a sudden sense of misfortune, and she saw again the day of Charlie and Max’s wedding. The explosion in the church, debris suddenly hanging in the sky then starting to fall in slow motion, and a split second later the deafening boom of the blast. Parts of the church walls flying everywhere, mixed with white flower petals floating down and bits of silver fluttering all around her, silver foil that forensics would later identify as the elegant wrapping paper in which a “wedding gift” had been detonated remotely.
    She thought, shivering, about her own wedding day tomorrow, about the gathering at the Harpers’ house—so many law enforcement people in the wedding party, so many prime targets. And for a long moment, an unreasonable wave of