Shayla added.
“Anyway, it sounds like Rafe might not be guilty. All we have to do is figure out if someone here is still related to William Astor and has his diary.” I smiled at her.
“Sounds like fun,” she said. “Give me a call when you’re done. See you, Dae.”
Chapter 32
I decided to go to Missing Pieces and spend some time alone to think about everything. Being alone meant Rafe could be in the shop with me—according to our agreement—but I was hoping to persuade him otherwise. I thought of several convincing reasons why I needed some time without him.
But it turned out he had other plans anyway. Without any explanation, he vanished down a set of concrete stairs that led into the sound. Watching him disappear into the water gave me shivers.
Gramps had told me once that those stairs had been part of a pier that was destroyed during a hurricane years before I was born. No one had ever bothered to pull them up—they made for interesting stories to tell children and tourists.
Maybe hearing about his past from Mark Samson had left the old pirate in need of some time alone too, I speculated as I opened the door to Missing Pieces. I certainly wasn’t complaining. I sat down on my burgundy brocade sofa with a relieved sigh.
There was always something about the days following a bad storm—as though time stood still for a while as we recovered from the assault. Life,
I took a hand cloth and began dusting and rearranging all my treasures. This was one of my favorite chores. I was surprised and pleased to be interrupted by a customer.
“I’m looking for a birthday present for my sister back home,” the woman told me. She was tall, thin, very blond, and dressed expensively. “I was supposed to be home already, but the storm stranded me here for a few more days. She’s picking me up at the airport when I leave next week. I thought it might be a nice surprise if I came back with something for her.”
“Where’s home?” I asked with a smile, quickly hiding my dust cloth.
“St. Louis. All my family is there. But I’ve had a wonderful time down here. My friend who comes every summer with her family recommended Duck—and your shop.”
“I’m glad you’ve had a good time, despite the storm. And I’m glad you stopped by. What did you have in mind?”
“I don’t know. She likes antiques.” She shrugged and looked around like she was lost. “I don’t know anything about them. I’d love it if there was something that has a story. She’s a writer and she loves history.”
“Really? What does she write?”
The woman laughed, showing perfect white teeth in her tanned face. “She writes murder mysteries set in the past. Crazy, huh? But she’s successful at it. My brother and I tease her all the time about it. She doesn’t care. She’s happy.”
I thought about the gold makeup case and dug it out. Apparently my previous buyer had changed her mind, since I hadn’t heard from her. “This belonged to Lady Suzanne Forester, and there is a story that goes with it. She spent some time here off and on with her uncle during the late 1700s and early 1800s. She was a writer too.”
“Murder mysteries?” The woman carefully examined the case.
“No, I’m afraid not. She wrote wonderful journals about her life and the people around her—what it was like to spend time in this area when it was still basically a wilderness then return to England and her life there. She was an early suffragette. She was very accomplished as an artist too. A Renaissance woman. Your sister can probably find some background material about her in books.”
“Really? How fascinating!” She turned the makeup case over, opened it and peered inside at the old mirror. “I think you’re right. I think she’ll love it.”
The woman had already successfully passed several of my tests for buying my real treasures—like this makeup case. I wanted my important items to go to people who’d really appreciate them. And I charged a steep price when anyone asked how much they cost.
She not only didn’t ask before she pulled out her Visa card, she also didn’t blink when I told her how much. She was the perfect buyer.
“Can you gift wrap?” she asked.
“Of course.” I pulled out a sheet of pirate-themed wrapping paper. “What do you think?”
“Perfect! Thank you so much.”
I waved to her as she left, amazed and thrilled to make any money at all this week. I was even more pleased to have sold the makeup case to someone like her. As sad as I always was to see my treasures leave, I knew this one was going to a good home. I picked up the dust rag again and hummed as I finished straightening and dusting everything in the shop.
After I was finished, I sat down with a cup of tea and tried to work out what could have happened to Sandi and Matthew. It seemed obvious to me that Sandi’s husband made the perfect suspect—like my perfect customer. Unless Shawn Foxx had a remarkable alibi, I knew Chief Michaels would be thinking the same thing. What man would continue looking the other way as his wife had affair after affair?
Of course, that didn’t make Shawn a killer. Jealousy and anger were powerful emotions, but it was only two days ago that we thought Matthew Wright had killed Sandi. Not every hypothesis proved true.
But who else could do something like this? I knew from listening to the chief talk that he thought it was possible the two murders were committed with the same gun—the one I’d found at the park. Part of me wished I’d had the opportunity to touch the gun, but most of me was glad I didn’t.
My gift of seeing events by touching articles connected to those events came with a terrible price sometimes. Even the gift I was born with—finding missing items by touching people—could be painful. I’d learned to live with these abilities, but it was difficult.
I admired and envied Shayla’s calm acceptance of her abilities. She never questioned if what she saw was right or wrong. She never doubted herself. We were raised similarly, with family and friends accepting our abilities. But there the resemblance ended. I don’t know why I didn’t have her confidence. She was so cool and laid-back about what she could do that I often wondered if it affected her at all.
Finally tired of being alone and realizing that sitting here wasn’t getting me any answers at all, I closed up shop around five P.M. and headed back to the Blue Whale. I wasn’t ready to spend much quality time with Gramps —another sore point in my life. We were so close. It broke my heart to hide things from him and distrust his word. But that’s the way it was, at least for right now. I knew we’d find some way to work it out.
I was surprised to see that town hall was closed as I walked by. Glad, too, because it meant Nancy had gone home. She worked too hard for the small salary we could pay her. She was really too good for us—but I didn’t know what we would do without her.
The boardwalk and parking lot seemed strangely empty to me. Even though this time of year was normally quiet, I never really got used to it. After a storm was even worse than normal. Next week, things would be better. Shops would be open again and people would be out walking around, visiting friends and buying. It would stay busy until the Jazz Festival in November. After that, it would be empty again until spring.
Phil De Angelo, who owned the Coffeehouse and Bookstore, was inspecting the damage to his place. The little shop was very popular and sat off to one side in the Duck Shoppes parking lot.
“Mayor.” He nodded when he saw me. “I’m getting too old for this. I don’t know how you people go through it all your lives.”
By “you people” he meant people from Duck. Phil was a recent transplant from New York. He’d chosen to retire here after many years serving the city of Buffalo.
“It doesn’t look so bad,” I commented. “This wasn’t even a real hurricane. There’s a lot of damage, but we’ll be fine.”
