The Ladies of the Secret Circus Constance Sayers (e books free to read .TXT) 📖

that she was interested in being more than a onetime fling. At the gala last week, she’d cornered him at the bar and pressed him about him spending time with Lara. He’d been trying to steer their relationship back to the professional, but he groaned every time he saw her phone number pop up on his mobile.

He walked the two blocks to the diner to find Kim scanning the lunch menu in a prime booth near the window. An institution since 1941, the historic Kerrigan Falls Diner was known for its red velvet cake and wide array of pancakes, which it served all day. One of Ben’s great pleasures in life was eating buttermilk pancakes at eight in the evening. While the food wasn’t always great, the location across from City Hall ensured it was always bustling.

“Don’t get the croque monsieur.” He slid into the booth.

“That’s exactly what I was going to get.” She looked up, perplexed. Kim Landau was a beautiful woman with dark-auburn hair, blue eyes, and an upturned nose. She reminded him of Ginger from Gilligan’s Island. There was an intensity about her, though, that had always unsettled him. The day after they’d slept together, she’d called him six times. He’d felt trapped, pursued, and as a man who was just getting out of one relationship he wasn’t in a hurry to tie himself down to another—at least not then.

He turned the menu toward her and pointed. “Stay away from the tuna, too.”

“What are you getting, then?” She folded her arms in front of her.

“Cobb salad, maybe the onion soup if it’s good today.”

She glanced down at the menu. “Grilled chicken sandwich?”

He shrugged. “It’s okay, not great. So, what was so urgent?” He didn’t mean to sound harsh, but he also didn’t want to lead her on. Getting to the point was the best strategy.

She gave him a sly smile. “I hear Lara is in Paris with Gaston Boucher.”

He put his arm up on the booth. “Yes, they went to see someone at the Sorbonne about a painting that’s been in her family for years.”

She raised her eyebrow and gave him a pitying glance. “Is that what she told you?”

What was going on today? He laughed, loudly, placing his folded hands on the table. “She didn’t tell me anything, Kim. I talked to her last night. And Gaston is dating Audrey.”

Cocking her head, she looked at him like he was pathetic. “Oh, Ben.”

This was going to be a short lunch. Flagging the waitress down, he ordered drinks and food together with encouragement to hurry because he had a meeting in thirty minutes. The waitress winked at him. Within minutes, she’d brought them a Heinz Ketchup bottle, a Diet Coke for Ben, and a sweet iced tea for Kim as well as a soup spoon and some crackers.

He crushed the cracker pack in advance of the soup. “Kim, what was so was urgent?” To his delight, the waitress plunked the onion soup down in front of him.

“Well.” She leaned in. “In preparation for Miss Hixson’s visit, I was looking through some old files on Peter Beaumont’s disappearance.”

“She thinks we’re hillbillies, by the way.” Ben opened the crackers and then dumped them in the soup. He tasted it. As expected, it was tepid. “She kept talking about my one deputy. We’ll be made fools in the pages of the Washington Post again; I just know it.”

She rested her hand on his. He stared down at it before sliding it away. “Do you remember Paul Oglethorpe?”

“The old guy? The one who covered the town council meetings?”

She tugged at her black twinset, arranging herself. “The one. Back in 1974, he was the main news reporter. One of the notes he left in Peter Beaumont’s file was for your father.”

“Really?”

She reached in her pocket, pulled out a weathered piece of paper, and slid it across the table. It was the kind of paper that came from a tablet they issued to kids at school, now turned a caramel color from age. Written in pencil was: Tell Ben Archer to look into the other case. Connected.

“It was in the Peter Beaumont file. On top.” She tapped the table with a perfectly manicured fingernail. “No one had been in that file since the 1970s.”

“Thank you,” said Ben, sliding the paper across the table. “I’ll check my father’s files again.”

“So.” Kim leaned in, whispering. “Since you’re alone this week, you could take me to dinner to thank me. Maybe the fireworks tomorrow?”

“I’m on duty tomorrow.” It wasn’t a lie. He and Doyle would be working the Fourth of July parade on Main Street.

“Well,” she said. “I didn’t tell Michelle Hixson about the lead, you know… out of loyalty to you.”

“Kim—”

She cut him off. “Is this where you tell me it’s not me, it’s you?” She was a beautiful woman, there was no doubt, but there was something off about her that had always unsettled him. It felt like a feral neediness that he just wanted no part of. He took four bites of the Cobb salad and began itching for the check, trying to catch the waitress’s eye.

“Look,” he said. “We’ve known each other a long time. What happened between us was nice, but…” And then he stumbled over what to say next.

She leaned in like she was expecting him to finish the sentence.

“I’m with Lara now.” This wasn’t entirely true—in fact, it was a damned lie—but he wished it were true so that had to count for something. The other night on her porch when she’d told him she thought she’d seen Todd Sutton, he felt like an idiot to wish for anything more. He wasn’t sure when things had changed for him from Lara just being a case—a phone number he called because it was part of the job—to someone whose voice he couldn’t wait to hear. That wonderful rough, gravelly voice. And the way Lara laughed, a full laugh. “I’m sorry if I led you to believe anything else. Truly, I am.”

Her