He’d had to resort to a far less reliable source this time. However, she was certain in her assertions that Betsy was a mess. Some things he already knew: Betsy had shut out people trying to help her and had arranged the cheapest funeral she could for her sister. Now she was hysterical over a sick cat. That wasn’t all: she had told her landlord he couldn’t reclaim his property and at the same time she refused to listen to an offer that would get her out from under a business she didn’t know how to run. And, possibly weirdest of all, Betsy had hinted that her sister’s death was not just a burglary gone wrong.

He remembered the witty woman with the happy eyes at Christopher Inn. This sure didn’t sound like her.

Though it did kind of sound like the wounded person he had seen at the funeral. Poor broken thing, obviously in need of comfort.

Maybe he should give her a call. They could discuss ... the fund-raiser, sure.

To hell with Margot’s warning him off—she was dead. And to hell with his rules. What were rules for, if not to be broken?

And maybe he could be of some help to her.

Mickels sat at his desk in his office. He could have afforded a bigger desk in a large, well-lit comer office in a downtown Minneapolis tower. But why spend the money when he was just as comfortable in this little second-floor suite in Excelsior? Here he had three rooms, one with a window that overlooked Water Street. Years ago, at the bankruptcy auction of a business rival, he had bought an old, solid oak desk and matching armchair (on casters, not upholstered) and they had served him ever since. His personal assistant (as she styled herself, though he called her his secretary) had her own small windowless office. The third room, whose only entrance was through his office, was a reinforced and alarmed walk-in closet in which he kept his records. There were other employees, of course, who ran some of his other properties. Many people thought these employees were the owners, which suited Mickels just fine. They never came to this office, and Mickels himself rarely spent an entire day at this desk.

He was there this morning because he needed to think.