Cooking Up Trouble by Joanne Pence

lit the fire. “There’s no cult involved here.”
    “That’s for sure,” Angie said, then chuckled. “These people don’t get along well enough to form a cult.”
    “Their not getting along might have something to do with Finley’s disappearance.”
    “Yes, poor Finley.” She sighed then, all traces of laughter gone. “You don’t think he’s just gone off to meditate, do you?”
    The fire was burning brightly. Still seated on the floor, he turned to face her. “No, not to meditate. He’s either gone away for some strange purpose he couldn’t let anyone know about, or something’s happened to him. Whatever it is, it isn’t right, and I don’t think you should be in the middle of it.”
    She studied his face. “Are you saying we should leave?”
    “Yes.”
    “Leave Finley?”
    He thought it was her job, the inn, she was concerned about walking away from, not her boss. “Finley?”
    “He’ll need me. When he comes back.”
    He frowned. “If he comes back.”
    He could see the shudder that rippled through her. “Do you want to leave tonight, then?” she asked. She should never play poker, he thought. Everything she felt showed in her big brown eyes, as clearly as if written in neon. Right now, he saw her disappointment.
    He ran his fingers through his hair, fighting off the need to console her. Every cop instinct he’d developed in over eleven years on the force told him to get Angie out of here immediately. But whenever he looked at her, all he’d learned flew right out of his head. He might as well have been a rookie.
    He remembered, too, what Butz said about the rains. Well, it was raining now. “I guess it’d be more dangerous finding our way down that narrow road in the dark,” he found himself saying, “than just staying here tonight.”
    “We’ll be comfortable here,” she said, her face brightening. “I mean, this room is really lovely, don’t you think?”
    It wasn’t the room that worried him.
    “It is nice,” he admitted.
    “This was Susannah Sempler’s room,” she said.
    “Who?”
    “Susannah Sempler. She was the daughter of Ezra Sempler, the man who built the house.”
    Angie walked over to the bay window and peered out at the rain. It was falling harder already, the steady beat on the windows drowning out the crash of the waves against the cliffs. Her voice grew wistful. “For over sixty years, Susannah lived here all alone. She never found anyone to love, no one to share her life with. It made me feel sorry, not only for her but also for the house. This could have been such a beautiful family home. But it’s never known love. Only loneliness.”
    He stood. “You think a house can know feelings, Angie?”
    “Absolutely. They’re like living, breathing things—perhaps because so much life goes on in them. Or should. I believe houses know a lot more than we give them credit for.”
    As she stood at the window, her face, reflected in the dark glass, was serious and contemplative, revealing a side she rarely let anyone see. “Finley will show up soon. He has to. Tomorrow, for sure.”
    “Perhaps,” was all he said.
    At the sight of her worried face, he went to her side.
    She leaned against him. “All these windows make me feel as if we’re afloat in the sky.” A gentle smile touched her lips. “Living in a cloud, perhaps.”
    His hand lightly caressed her face, her hair, her ear. He let the diamonds she wore drape over his fingertips a moment, then he cupped her face, nudging her chin toward him. He took in her dark brown eyes, serious yet filled with warmth, pleasure, and wonder. “This is how it should be with you. Not quite real, and high above the rest of the world.”
    She placed her hand over his large, strong one, scarcely able to believe that they were here, in this strange yet lovely room, alone. “But I am real, Paavo.”
    “Are you?” He bent to kiss her lightly, his eyes intent, his hand moving from her chin to the back of her head to