Dead Certain - Mariah Stewart [67]
“Me, too.” He popped two slices of bread into the toaster and slid several long strips of well-cooked bacon onto her plate. “Relax, Amanda. Pour yourself some orange juice if you like.”
She did so silently, still uncomfortable here. Sean’s presence only added to her discomfort.
“Here you go.” He handed her the plate with eggs and bacon. “Toast will be up in a minute.”
Having skipped dinner the night before in an attempt to get some sleep, Amanda felt her salivary glands go into overdrive as the aroma from the plate began to drift upward.
“It smells wonderful. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, one eye on the clock.
The toast popped and he piled it onto a small plate that he delivered to the table.
“There’s butter here and some strawberry jam that Greer claims to have made. It’s pretty good.” He stood with his hands in the pockets of his jeans, watching her eat for a long moment before refilling his coffee cup from the pot that was still plugged in on the counter. Greer waved a thank-you to him as she passed back through the kitchen on her way to the patio, the phone still attached to her ear as she chatted away.
“That’s Steve on the phone,” Sean told her.
“I figured.”
“I didn’t want you to think she was being rude by being on the phone while you were here.”
“I doubt Greer has a rude bone in her body, and since I’m the oddball out here, you don’t need to apologize to me on her behalf.” She pushed her eggs around on her plate after having taken several bites, her appetite waning.
“I just meant that she normally wouldn’t take a call while she had company.”
“I’m not really company.” She nibbled at a strip of salty bacon.
He sighed heavily as he sat back down at the table and, before she could comment, asked, “How are you?”
“I’m okay.” She put her fork down on the side of her plate and thought about it for a minute, her eyes stinging. “I want to be okay.”
“Were you able to get any sleep at all last night?”
“The bags under the eyes give me away?” She grimaced. “If you want to know the truth, I don’t feel much at all. Numb, more than anything. Dizzy in the pit of my stomach. I still can’t believe all of this has happened. Derek, now Marian. I can’t believe she’s dead now, too.”
“It’s hard to lose someone you love under the best of circumstances. Harder still to lose two in so short a time. Especially like this . . .”
“I guess you have no clues yet. About who did this, I mean.” She swallowed back the lump that had lodged itself in her throat and refused to budge.
“Nothing yet. We’re looking at the antiques angle, of course. I understand that you’ve signed off on the inventory of your shop? Nothing was missing—is that correct?”
“Right. Nothing out of place that I could see.”
“So we have the pottery that Derek bought in Italy, which, by the way, I’ve made arrangements for a professor at the University of Pennsylvania down in Philly to take a look at. Just to authenticate it.”
“I told you that Dr. McGowan already did that.” There was an unmistakable touch of starch to her voice. “Daria is extremely well known in the field and highly respected.”
“I understand that. And the professor at Penn is familiar with her work and speaks very highly of her. But I want someone with expertise to look at the piece—not a photo—and inspect it carefully to confirm that it’s not a fake.”
She digested this for a moment, then nodded. “Okay, right. Make sure that we do have the original. If it turned out to be a fake, it would alert the authorities to counterfeit objects being sold on the black market as new. Not that that’s a new concept, but I understand the need to keep track of where the bogus stuff is coming from and how many pieces are entering the market. And someone would have to be very familiar with the originals in order to duplicate them in a credible manner, which would narrow the field of possible forgers considerably. Plus, if it is counterfeit, that could maybe tie into the motive for killing Derek somehow.