Dead Even by Mariah Stewart Page A

Barrie Lee and Miranda at the same time. “I have some reading to do. Guess I’ll see you tomorrow. . . .” With a smile that was meant equally for both women, he climbed the steps.
    “I’ll take that table, Mrs. Duffy,” Miranda told her as she slipped out of her jacket.
    “Right this way.” The innkeeper took the jacket from Miranda’s hands and led her to a small table midway between a tall window and the fireplace.
    Miranda smiled and took the chair offered to her. “Perfect.”
    “Did you want dinner, Ms. Cahill?”
    “I want a cup of your wonderful coffee and a slice of that divine-looking chocolate something that I saw on the cake plate over there.” Miranda grinned and nodded in the direction of a tea cart that held all manner of tempting confections.
    “Excellent choice on the dessert. I’ll be right back with your coffee.”
    Leaning back in the chair, Miranda studied her surroundings. The room was wide and airy and warmed by the glow of the fire. Over the mantel hung a painting that appeared to be a historic battle scene. She rose from her seat to take a closer look.
    “That’s a scene from the Battle of Gettysburg.” Barrie Lee said as she placed Miranda’s coffee on the table. “The man there on the black horse, that’s Captain James Brady. Some ancestor of my late husband’s.”
    “Your husband . . . ?”
    “He died last year. Drunk driver ran him off the road.” Barrie Lee turned her back and pretended to straighten the cloth on a nearby table.
    “I’m so sorry.”
    “This inn has been in his family for over a hundred years. He really wanted to keep it going. It really meant a lot to him.” She turned back to Miranda with a fixed smile.
    “I’m sorry.”
    “Thank you. So am I. Your dessert will be right over.”
    Miranda returned to her table and sat down, feeling more depressed than she had in a while. She’d just started to stir her coffee when she looked up to see Will enter the room, a file under his arm.
    “I had a few thoughts,” Will said, as he joined her without waiting for an invitation, “including one about our friend Archer.”
    “And what might that be?”
    “I think you may be right about him not planning on going along with whatever deal he’d made with the devil. Or in his case, devils.”
    “You couldn’t have read that entire file in fifteen minutes.”
    “No. But I’m looking at the whole picture. His profile aside, as already established, he has no car. He has no job, so unless he was planning on stealing a car, which is also unlikely, since he knows he’s being watched, he won’t have any means of transportation. Chances are, any potential victims named by Channing would not be local, right? Since Channing was from Ohio, originally. His tracks are going to be hard to pick up between the time he left home after he graduated from high school, and the time you saw him six years ago and questioned him.” He paused, then asked, “Do you think he remembered you, when your paths crossed last year?”
    “We didn’t come face-to-face last year. I met with Giordano a couple of times, but not Channing. I doubt he’d have remembered me, though. Rookie agent, fumbling through my first field interviews. I probably didn’t make much of an impression on him.”
    “Well, there’s really no way of knowing one way or another now, is there?” Will suspected that any man who’d come in contact with her over the years would have had some recollection of the meeting. She was one of those women who made a lasting impression.
    Miranda smiled past him, and he looked over his shoulder in time to see Mrs. Duffy approaching with a china plate, upon which rested a chocolate concoction.
    “Flourless chocolate cake with raspberries and just the tiniest bit of cinnamon whipped cream,” Barrie Lee announced.
    “Oh, my God, it looks perfect.” Miranda beamed, admiring her choice.
    Will made the mistake of picking up a spoon and tilting it in the direction of her