The Ghost and Mrs. McClure

shouting. “You got a problem with that, take it up with the fire chief!”

Deirdre Franken, hearing about the latecomers, hurried to the front door, where she passed the word to Seymour.

“Good news, folks!” Seymour yelled to the throng still gathering outside. “Mr. Franken has agreed to do a second signing, at nine-thirty. Come back in two hours, and we’ll let you in on a first-come, first-served basis.”

Kenneth Franken was just finishing up the national tour to promote Shield of Justice. Salient House had stood behind him, booking him on major television shows to talk about the infamous Bookstore Murder and the bombshell that he was the real ghostwriter behind the last three critically praised Jack Shield books.

Now Hollywood was not only bidding for the rights to a Jack Shield feature film, they also wanted rights to the separate story of Brennan’s Bookstore Murder. It looked as though Seymour’s “crackpot” idea to promote the store and the town might actually come true.

Of course, that meant more business for all the Cranberry Street Quibblers, too. I sighed. More business meant more profit, but our parking problems still weren’t resolved. And judging from the present throng, the night was going to be another late one—and my feet hurt already.

Yeah, baby, said Jack. But I like your gams in those pumps.

I fought off a flush as I saw Spencer giving Sadie a big hug near the front door. He looked the copper-headed cutie in his dark suit—how could a kid be a heartbreaker in only third grade? By looking like my brother Pete, I thought. That’s how.

Outside, I heard the short burst of a car horn, and I noticed the McClures’ driver waving as he pulled the Mercedes away from the curb. Ashley had insisted that Spencer travel to Newport this evening to dine with his grandmother. Now that the summer season had ended, the McClure clan had moved back into their New York City residences. Theater season was on for the ladies who lunch, and their children had returned to their private schools, but this weekend they’d come back up with the tourists to see the fall foliage.

“Mom!” cried Spencer, rushing up to me for a hug. I knelt down and pulled him in. When he broke free, he said, “Aunt Ashley wanted me to call you and tell you that I wanted to stay the night, but I didn’t.”

“Oh, really? Why not?”

“I told her I had to get home for your big night, and if her driver didn’t take me, I was calling you to send me a cab. Boy, that really steamed her up!”

I licked my thumb and smoothed away a smudge of something, probably a French sauce, from Spence’s cheek. “But did you have fun?” I asked.

Spencer shrugged. “For a while . . . then Aunt Ashley started bugging me about living in New York City with her again, going back to my old school.”

So my sister-in-law was still at it, I thought. Well, I shouldn’t have been surprised. When “the princessa” and her mother wanted something, they were used to getting it.

“And what did you tell Aunt Ashley?”

“I told her nix to that! There’s no way I’m going back to New York. I like my new teacher. And I’m having too much fun selling books.”

Nix to that? I thought.

“I mean, come on,” said Spence, “how would I finish reading all the rest of the books in this store if I wasn’t living here? And besides . . .”

“Yes?”

“You’re here. And I’d never leave you, Mom.”

I smiled. Round One to the defending champ of motherhood. But I knew the boxing wasn’t over. As Spencer got older, Ashley would find new, more intriguing temptations to lure my son out of my sphere.

Well, I was ready for her now. Since I’d met Jack, I was learning how to fight in whole new ways.

“Pen,” Sadie called, “the Shield of Justice display is empty again.”

“Fear not, Mother! Spenser for Hire is here!” Then my boy was off, racing toward the stockroom with all the vigor of summer green.

I rose, dusted off my nude stockings and black skirt, and wound my way through the crowd to get to the main store counter. I touched the shoulder of our new part-time employee—a freshman from St. Francis College, the school where Brainert taught.

“How’s it going, Mina?” I asked.

“Great, Mrs. McClure!” She smiled through braces as she bagged a customer’s purchase. “This is so cool! I didn’t know working in a bookstore could be so . . . exciting.”

Freckles doesn’t glam the half of it, said Jack.

I ran my hands through my copper curls. I’d used an iron to add some bounce, put contacts in for the night, and makeup, too—Linda even helped me find a shade of peach lip gloss to match my new silk blouse. Still, I was truly surprised to see men turn their heads as I walked by.

Don’t be, sweetheart. Didn’t I say you were whistle bait?

I walked back to the events room, where the crowd—sans Jack Shield costumes, thank you very much!—had become restless. My old friend Brainert waved me to the reserved empty chair next to him in the front row.

I wasn’t sitting a minute when the room exploded with applause as they greeted Kenneth Franken, who entered with Deirdre by his side. The author and his wife walked together to the podium, then Deirdre took the reserved seat next to me in the front row. Fiona Finch, Bud Napp, and the Logans were seated right behind us.

George Young, the store’s longtime Salient House sales representative, back from his cruise, introduced Kenneth Franken as the ghostwriter for the last three Jack Shield novels—and the author of record on Shield of Fate, a new Jack Shield novel due to hit stores next fall.

During a second round of cheers, Deirdre took my hand and squeezed. She and Kenneth hadn’t stopped expressing their undying gratitude to me since Shelby Cabot was arrested. . . .

THE DAY AFTER I’d provoked Shelby into a confession, the Frankens had insisted on taking me out to Newport for an extravagant dinner to celebrate Deirdre’s release. We’d become fast friends ever since.

According to the Frankens, Shelby had been a college student of Kenneth’s back in the days when he’d been a teacher. She’d always had a terrible crush on him, even made aggressive passes during that period. But Kenneth had rebuffed her.

Years later, they met again, through Shelby’s work for Salient House and Kenneth’s work for Timothy Brennan. In Kenneth’s words, he felt demoralized by his father-in-law’s treatment, so he’d been stupidly vulnerable to Shelby’s advances. He slept with Shelby for about four weeks and then, as he put it at our dinner that night, “I came to my senses.”

He said he realized that he loved his wife “deeply and utterly.” As he put it, “I realized I was throwing away something lasting for something ephemeral.”

But Shelby didn’t see it that way.

She began to plead with him, stalk him, and even threaten him. Kenneth thought ignoring her was the best way to handle it. And by the time the six-week promotional tour came up for Shield of Justice, Kenneth honestly thought Shelby was over him. Instead, Shelby had hatched a plan she thought would get her everything she wanted—Kenneth, riches, prestige, professional acclaim.

“Things didn’t exactly work out the way she planned,” I noted that night at our Newport dinner.

“No,” said Deirdre. “Now she’s facing the murder charge I was facing.”

“If there’s anything I can ever do for you, Mrs. McClure,” said Kenneth, “you let me know.”

“Let us know,” said Deirdre.

AS THE APPLAUSE died, Deirdre released my hand, and I gave her a nod and a smile. She nodded back at me, then gazed up at her husband, who returned her gaze with what looked to me like abiding love.

I’d never seen anyone look at me that way, not even my late husband. And I couldn’t help wondering about Shelby Cabot—the pain she must have felt in seeing the object of her adoration giving his love to someone else. It must have been like looking into the abyss, I thought.

Don’t get existential on me, sweet cheeks. The abyss ain’t so bad.