and shifted her grip in a valiant effort to straighten the tray. But she was too late. One after another, four platefuls of roast beef with all the trimmings inscribed graceful arcs in the air and landed on the carpet, the food with an uncouth squelch, the plates with a loud clatter. A Yorkshire pudding rolled under the table, coming to rest by a guest’s sandal. The broccoli, Luke noticed, was the same shade as the carpet.
There was a moment of dead silence. If Katrin’s cheeks a moment ago had been white as paper, they were now as red as the sails on her boat. She put the empty tray down on the dumbwaiter and looked helplessly at the congealed mass of gravy and rare roast beef at her feet. It was quite clear that she had no idea what to do next.
Luke stood up. Into the silence he said, “You didn’t hurt your wrist?”
His voice sounded like it was coming from another man, one who had nothing to do with him. Discovering that his one urge was to pick her up, carry her bodily out of the room and put her on the first plane to San Francisco, he added without any tact whatsoever, “You don’t look so hot…what’s the matter?”
“What are you doing here?” Katrin croaked.
She’d asked the one question to which, basically, he didn’t have an answer. As he sought for words, Olaf arrived on the scene with two waiters in tow, equipped with brooms, cloths and a pail of soapy water.
“Our apologies, ladies and gentlemen,” Olaf said smoothly to the four people whose roast beef was on the floor rather than on the table, and who had been listening in fascinated silence to the exchange between Katrin and Luke. “Your meals will be replaced as quickly as possible,” he went on, “and they will be, of course, compliments of the chef.” Subtly his voice changed. “Katrin, perhaps you could take the plates back to the kitchen and reorder immediately…Katrin?”
She gave Luke a hunted look, then bent to pick up the plates. Plunking them on the empty tray, she almost ran across the dining room. As throughout the room the hum of conversation resumed, Olaf and his crew cleaned up the mess with remarkable efficiency. Then Olaf walked over to Luke’s table. “Perhaps I could take your order, sir?”
Luke hadn’t even looked at the menu. “Soup of the day and whatever fresh fish you have,” he said.
“Wine, sir?”
“Perrier, thanks.” He needed all his wits about him if he was going to talk to Katrin tonight. He should have phoned her yesterday evening and told her he was coming. But deep down he’d been afraid that if he did so, she’d vanish.
Very soon one of the waiters brought the second round of roast beef, passing a plate to each of the four guests. Then Katrin came out of the kitchen carrying Luke’s soup. She walked straight toward him. With a quiver of inner laughter, Luke could tell that she’d progressed from shock and embarrassment to rage. All her movements jerky, like a wind-up toy, she put a basket of rolls on his table and the bowl of soup. Spinach soup, by the look of it. He’d never liked spinach.
He supposed it served him right. He said, trying not to sound overly familiar, and as a result sounding indifferent, “I’m sorry I startled you.”
Between her teeth, she gritted, “Why are you here?”
“To see you,” Luke said.
Her lashes flickered. Once again her cheeks paled, until they matched the white linen cloth on his table. She whispered, “You know. About Donald. Don’t you?”
“You didn’t do it,” Luke said, putting all the force he could behind his words. “You were totally innocent. I knew that the moment I heard about it.”
“I inherited all his money,” she said flatly.
“I don’t care if you inherited a billion dollars—you had nothing to do with his death.”
To his horror Luke saw tears flood Katrin’s eyes and tremble on her lashes. “Oh God,” she said, “I’ve got to get out of here.”
With a huge effort Luke stayed sitting in his chair, his fingers wrapped like manacles around the arms. “I’m really sorry,” he said, and this time could hear the emotion in his voice. “Taking you by surprise like this was about the dumbest move I could have made.”
She drew a long, shaky breath. “For once we’re in complete agreement.”
“Well, that’s something. And now you’d better go back to the kitchen…Olaf’s glaring at me. He probably thinks we’re having a rip-roaring affair.”
“There’s not a chance in the world of that,” she retorted with a trace of her usual spirit. Then she pivoted and hurried back to the kitchen, ignoring Olaf as if he were just one more oak chair.
Hoping she didn’t mean it, Luke buttered a slice of crusty French bread and took the first mouthful of soup. It smelled like and tasted of spinach. Naturally. Trying to think of it as penance, he unfolded his newspaper.
Why had Katrin been so shaken up by her first sight of him?
The fish was excellent. He followed it with a maple syrup mousse that more than made up for the soup, and two cups of coffee. After she’d poured the second one, Katrin said politely, “Can I get you anything else, sir?”
The four guests who’d had the roast beef had just left. Luke said forthrightly, “Can I meet you somewhere after work? Do you have your car here?”
“My bike. Why do you want to meet me?”
“I need to talk to you!”
She looked at him coldly, rather as if he were a fly she’d just discovered in his spinach soup. “You came all this way to talk to me? You expect me to believe that?”
“Yes, I did. And yes, I do.”
“I’d have thought you had better things to do with your time. More profitable, anyway.”
“I came here to see you, Katrin,” Luke repeated, his voice rising in spite of himself.
“Short of hiring a bouncer, I’m not going to get rid of you, am I?”
“Not before you and I sit down and discuss everything I found out.”
“You’re boxing me in!”
“I know I’m not doing this right,” Luke said in exasperation. “Please, Katrin, let me come to your place later on, will you do that much?”
For a moment it hung in the balance. Then she snapped, “No earlier than ten-thirty.”
Her eyes were now filled with a mixture of hostility and terror; Luke wasn’t sure which he disliked more. “I’ll be there,” he said. “Tell Olaf to jump in the lake if he gives you a hard time.”
“My pay gets docked the price of four plates of roast beef,” she said. “C’est la vie.”
“That’s disgraceful—the resort shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it.”
“I’m not a labor lawyer,” Katrin said sweetly, “I’m a stockbroker. See you later.”
Somehow—once again—Luke was quite sure she was telling the truth. Guy had known her background; that’s why he’d goaded her with talk about investments. She’d be very good at her job, Luke would be willing to bet. Although most people might steer clear of a beautiful female broker who had a murder trial in her past.
Had he really categorized her as deadly dull the first time he’d laid eyes on her? He couldn’t have been more off base if he’d tried.
It was five to nine. He had an hour and a half to kill.
He went for a stroll along the lakeshore, listening to the shrill chorus of frogs and the soft lap of waves on the sand, the hands on his watch moving with agonizing slowness. He should have been on a jet to Whitehorse today, to look after a contract dispute; instead he’d delegated the job. Early this morning he ought to have been talking to a