“On a package of Oreos?” Caitlin said under her breath.
Meghan bit back a protest long enough to glare at Caitlin. When she turned back to Evie, she pasted a smile on her face. No need to upset the bride on her wedding day. “Dad and I will be fine, Evie. Don’t worry about a thing.”
“Megs is right. It’s not like Dad is a toddler who’s going to get into trouble the minute your back is turned.”
Evie didn’t look convinced. “I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” she said darkly. “Remember what happened last summer.”
“The entire Cutter family became believers. Sophie and Jacob got engaged. And you met Sam.” Meghan believed in looking at the positives. If she didn’t, she’d never have been able to gather the courage to launch her own photography business.
“That’s true.” Evie gnawed on her lower lip. “But he’s up to something. I can always tell. He and Jacob were in a huddle earlier this afternoon and he’s been spending a lot of time online lately.”
Caitlin opened her mouth but Meghan shot her a warning look and looped an arm around Evie’s slim shoulders. “I’ll watch out for Dad. And I’ve got one word for you. Honeymoon. Now go. Sam’s probably waiting in the car.”
Evie’s cheeks turned as pink as the miniature roses in her bouquet. “I’m going. And I’ll call—”
“When you get back,” Caitlin interrupted.
“When I get back,” Evie promised.
Meghan didn’t believe it for a second. Judging from the skeptical look on Caitlin’s face, she didn’t, either.
“Evie?” Sam poked his head in the doorway and his pewter gaze zeroed in on his wife. “Are you ready?”
“Just hugging my sisters before we leave.”
“There’s always time for that.” Sam’s warm smile encompassed all three women and once again Meghan found herself thanking God that He’d brought Sam and Evie together.
You wouldn’t happen to have another Sam hidden somewhere, would you, Lord?
Caitlin cleared her throat. “Go on, you two. The sooner you get out of here, the sooner I get my postcard of the Eiffel Tower.”
“I taped a backup list to Caitlin’s mirror in case you lose yours,” Evie called over her shoulder.
Evie and Sam disappeared and Meghan felt the weight of the sudden silence, knowing that no matter how happy they were for Evie, things would be different now.
“I wish I could stay with you and Dad a few extra days, but I’m booked from now until September.” Caitlin broke the silence.
“Dad and I will be fine,” Meghan said. “You know Evie. She has a tendency to worry, that’s all. Like you said, what kind of trouble can a retired English teacher get into?”
Chapter One
Dad, you are in so much trouble.
Meghan surveyed the papers fanned out on her father’s desk. The ones she’d discovered when she’d shouldered her way into the study to deliver his afternoon cup of green tea and plate of Oreos. Evie’s list had specified fig bars—in capital letters, no less—but over the course of the week Meghan had fed those to an adorable family of gray squirrels. That the discovery the squirrels liked fig bars had taken place after she’d dumped the cookies out the window was entirely coincidental.
She picked up a stack of photos, every one of them depicting a work by a well-known artist named Joseph Ferris. Either her dad had shifted his interest from antiques to art or else he was planning to become an art thief.
Which could also explain the blueprints of what looked to be a sizable estate fanned out on the desk blotter.
She’d gotten suspicious when she’d seen the light glowing under the door of her father’s study two nights in a row. At midnight. Patrick always went to bed promptly after the ten o’clock news. Both times she’d ignored it, not wanting to draw attention to her late-night forays into the kitchen for leftover wedding cake.
But the night before she’d heard the phone ring a few minutes after twelve and then her father’s muffled voice on the other side of the door as she padded down the hallway. She’d assumed he was talking to Evie, but when she’d asked about it at breakfast, her father had almost choked on his whole-grain bagel and mumbled something vague about talking to a friend.
Right. Suspicious, she’d pushed a special code on the phone and listened to a nice little robotic voice recite the number of the last incoming call. From an area code somewhere in upstate New York.
Meghan had to face the truth. Evie’s list had turned her into…Evie. But there was no going back now. She had to find out what he was up to.
Ever since Patrick had discovered the whereabouts of the Noble, a ship Lake Superior had claimed in the late 1800s, and solved the mystery behind a century-old scandal that had plagued Sophie’s family, random people had started to contact him. Some asked for help researching their genealogy while others wanted to hire him to locate missing family heirlooms.
In spite of his daughters’ initial misgivings, Patrick had actually taken on some “clients” over the winter and, judging from the growing number of inquiries, his reputation must have spread.
Meghan blew out a sigh. She didn’t want to be the wet blanket that snuffed out the fire of enthusiasm in her dad’s new hobby, but a person couldn’t be too careful nowadays. Hadn’t Patrick learned that lesson the summer before, when a man he’d thought he could trust had turned on him and Jacob Cutter while they’d searched for the Noble?
She put down a photo of Joseph Ferris’s haunting watercolor Momentum and pivoted toward the door. And came nose to nose with her father.
“Meghan.”
“Dad.” Meghan crossed her arms and did her best imitation of Caitlin. It must have worked, because a deep red stain crept out from under the collar of her father’s oxford shirt and worked its way to his cheekbones.
Patrick coughed. “Ah…I was wondering where you were.”
I’ll bet you were.
“It’s three o’clock. Tea and cookie time.”
“My watch must be slow,” Patrick muttered.
Meghan sighed and decided to stop being Evie. And Caitlin. Especially Caitlin. Her suspicions were ridiculous. This was her father. Patrick McBride. The absentminded professor. Mr. Integrity himself.
“Why the sudden interest in Joseph Ferris, Dad? And please tell me that you aren’t planning to supplement your retirement income by becoming an art thief.” Meghan laughed.
Patrick didn’t. Instead he gave her a thoughtful look. “Do you think it falls under the label of stealing if a person is taking something back that technically belonged to them in the first place?”
Meghan groped for the plate of Oreos she’d set on the desk. “Does the something that technically belongs to someone else happen to be a work by Ferris?”
“Yes.”
Meghan shoved a cookie in her mouth. Never mind twisting the two sides apart and delicately scraping out the cream center. “You’re going to…to steal a Joseph Ferris?”
Patrick smiled. “Of course not. I wouldn’t begin to know what an authentic Ferris even looks like.”
“Well, that’s a relief—”
“That’s why I was hoping you’d do it.”
“Let