First Impressions (Edenton 1)

She looked up at Jared. “I don’t know. I designed one garden over twenty years ago, and since then I’ve done a thousand other jobs. It’s hard for me to remember everything that I knew.”

“It’s not like you’re not used to using your brain. You got your college degree while holding down a full-time job, remember?”

She looked at him suspiciously. “And what was my degree in?”

“American history, minor in English lit.”

She looked at the eraser on her pencil. “I guess I have a file at the FBI.”

“It’s more like a whole cabinet.”

Eden groaned.

“Come on, it’s not that bad,” Jared said, pulling out a dining-room chair and sitting down across from her. “I made a few calls and found out some things. Wanta hear?”

“Maybe,” she said cautiously. “Is it bad?”

“Not to me,” he said cheerfully.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “You found out something bad about Brad, didn’t you? So help me, McBride, if you—”

“Did you know that McBride isn’t my real name?”

“Whatever your real name is, I don’t want to hear it. What did you find out? Other than everything there is to know about Minnie Norfleet, that is.”

He ignored her remark. “Tess Brewster—that was the name of the agent who was killed—lived—”

“Did you know her?”

“Yes,” Jared said succinctly, letting Eden know that he didn’t want to talk about that. “Tess rented a house just down the road from here. A converted—”

“Overseer’s house,” Eden said. “I know the place well.”

“Overseer?” he asked, one eyebrow raised. “Like in Uncle Tom’s Cabin?”

“Don’t give me that Yankee look,” she said. “Nearly all the overseers for Farrington Manor were African-American, and I know. I did the research, remember? That house used to belong to Farrington Manor, but it was sold many years ago. Mrs. Farrington told me that at one point it was derelict and cows wandered through it, but one of the—” She opened her eyes wide.

“Right,” he said. “One of the Granvilles bought it. It now belongs to your Mr. Slick.”

“Brad,” she said, ignoring the disparaging nickname. “That’s good. I’ll ask Brad about the woman and the accident this afternoon.”

“Think he’ll tell you anything?”

“No, of course not. I think Brad killed the woman and will want to cover it up. You’re disgusting, you know that?”

“You’re the first woman who has ever thought that.”

“Why don’t you go outside and talk to one of the men skulking out there? And if any of them smoke, tell them not to throw their butts in my garden. At least I think it’s my garden,” she said under her breath. ?

?I don’t seem to have time to go outside to even look at it. There are probably weeds taller than I am.”

“That’s easy,” Jared said, smiling at her.

“Go! Get away from me! I have to work.”

But Jared didn’t move out of the chair across from her. He opened one of her books and looked at a photo of red tulips surrounded by a trim boxwood hedge. “I thought your idea of making those people beg you to create a garden for them was great. So what constitutes an eighteenth-century garden?”

“Pattern, symmetry. And they need outbuildings,” she said, distracted.