Murder Is Binding

another influx of customers. A patient Mike had settled into the nook, thumbing through Mystery Scene Magazine. Tricia knew she only had minutes before the store would be flooded with potential customers again.

'I'm sorry it took so long,' she apologized, taking the seat opposite him.

'No, I'm sorry. I should've called; but then I wouldn't have gotten to see you.'

Tricia felt her cheeks redden. 'I wanted to thank you for your call yesterday. I didn't grab it because-'

'If it was me, I'd have been screening my calls after that hatchet job in the Stoneham Weekly News.'

'I'm afraid that's exactly what I was doing. Unfortunately some people believed every word. A few even came here to gawk at me.'

'Don't judge the whole village by a couple of jerks.' He changed the subject. 'We still on for tomorrow?'

'I wouldn't miss it. Just give me the time and place.'

'I know you need to open at noon. Is nine o'clock too early?'

'Not at all.'

'Great.' Mike pulled a piece of paper from his jacket pocket. 'Here's the address. Do you need directions?'

Tricia glanced at the paper. 'No, I've driven through this neighborhood before. Very nice houses.'

Mike's smile was wistful. 'Yes. It's a shame I have to sell it. But Mother's care comes first.'

Tricia nodded, remembering the pain of losing Christopher's father to dementia.

The bell over the door jangled as a fresh wave of customers entered the shop.

Mike stood. 'I'd better make room for the onslaught.' They stood for a moment, looking into each other's eyes, then Mike clasped her hands and drew her close, kissed her cheek. 'See you tomorrow.'

Surprised but pleased, Tricia watched Mike depart, even going so far as to follow his progress as he crossed the street to his new office and campaign headquarters. She did, however, move away from the window in case he turned. She didn't want him to know she'd been watching him.

At the coffee station, Ginny motioned for Tricia, then proffered the pot. 'It isn't even two o'clock and this is the last of the coffee. We're already out of cookies. Want me to go get more?'

Tricia shook her head. 'Most of our sales today have been via credit card; we haven't got much cash in the till. I'll go get the supplies and be back within half an hour. Can you manage?'

'I'd be glad to help out if you need me?' said Mr. Everett, coming up behind Tricia.

'I can't keep imposing on you.'

'I like to feel useful,' said the older gentleman.

'Go on,' Ginny encouraged. 'We'll be fine.'

Tricia grabbed her purse, raincoat, and umbrella and ducked past the hoard of customers for a hasty exit. She waited for traffic to pass before crossing the street. Mr. Everett's help these last few days had been a blessing. As he was at the store on a daily basis, she wondered if she should offer him a part-time job. Her balance sheet was already in better shape than what she'd initially projected and as Ginny had Sundays off, he might be willing to help out then. Granted, it was a slow day, but she could always use his help for shelving new stock. It made perfect sense, and why hadn't she thought of it before?

The Coffee Bean was just as busy as Haven't Got a Clue, and Tricia took a number, noting there were at least eight customers ahead of her. Stoneham was really hopping on this bleak, late-summer afternoon.

To pass the time, Tricia distracted herself by examining the store's stock: coffee cups that ran the gamut from artful to sublimely silly, packets of gourmet cookies, petit fours, and chocolate in colorful wrappings, everything so beautifully packaged it enticed customers to spend. But she'd get her cookies from the village bakery-if they had anything left this late in the afternoon.

As Tricia read the list of ingredients on a box of Green Mountain chocolates, she began to feel closed in. Looking up, she saw editor Russ Smith was standing well within her personal space. 'Excuse me,' she said, stepping aside.

'I understand you weren't happy with my article,' he said without preamble.

'Who would be?'

'I owe it to my readers to-'

'Act like a tabloid journalist?'

His eyes flashed. 'That's uncalled for.'

'So was painting me as a murderer-and without even circumstantial evidence.' Heads turned at her words. She lowered her voice. 'I don't think this is the place to discuss this.'

'Then how about dinner. Are you free tonight?'

Tricia blinked. 'You've got to be kidding.'

Smith's gaze was level. 'No, I'm not. We could discuss the story, and perhaps a follow-up-among other things.'

Tricia replaced the box of chocolates on the shelf. 'I don't think so.'

'I'm not your enemy.'

'And after what you wrote about me, you're not my friend, either.'

'Number forty-seven,' the salesclerk called out.

Tricia glanced down at the crushed ticket in her hand. 'If you'll excuse me, Mr. Smith.' She elbowed her way through the other customers and placed her order, all the time feeling Russ Smith's gaze on her back.

Dodging the raindrops, Tricia clutched her bags of coffee and cookies and hurried down the sidewalk. The big, green Kelly Realty FOR RENT sign was gone from the front window of the Cookery. The door stood ajar and the lights blazed. Poking her head inside, Tricia called, 'Deirdre?' A woman in a baggy red flannel shirt and dark slacks, with a blue bandana tied around her hair, turned from her perch on a ten-foot ladder. In her hand she clasped a soapy sponge. A six-foot-square patch of wall had already been scrubbed of soot, showing creamy yellow paint once again.

'You shouldn't be doing that,' Tricia admonished. A fall for a woman Deirdre's age could send her to a nursing home-or worse.

'It's got to be done,' Deirdre said, in the same no-nonsense voice as her dead sister.

'But surely Bob Kelly ought to be paying someone to do it.'

Deirdre dropped the sponge into a bucket and carefully stepped down off the ladder. 'We came to an agreement on other more important things.' The hint of a smile played at her lips. Perhaps she was a harder bargainer than Doris had been, which had been the reason for Bob's sour mood the evening before.

'How soon do you think you'll reopen?'

'Possibly a week. Then I think I'll hold a grand reopening the first week in October. Doris had already lined up an author signing for that week. It should work out nicely.'

'But what about the smoke-damaged stock? It'll take weeks to restore them, and surely some of them won't be salvageable.'

'I've got an expert coming in on Monday. Meanwhile there're hundreds of boxes in the storeroom upstairs, which thankfully Mr. Kelly neglected to clear out, and there's a room of excess stock at Doris's house. We'll start with that and fill in with newer titles until we replenish our supply of rare and used books.'

'We?' Tricia asked.

Deirdre frowned, her gaze dipping. 'Excuse me. I can't help talking about Doris and myself as though we'll always be together. She was my twin. When we were younger we were so very close she used to swear we could read each other's minds.'

Tricia felt a pang of envy laced with guilt. She'd never felt that way about Angelica. 'It sounds like you've had experience running a shop before.'

'I was an accountant until last winter, but I heard so much about the Cookery from Doris I always felt I could step into her shoes and run it at a moment's notice. And now I have.' She pursed her lips and swallowed.

Tricia considered carefully before voicing her next question. 'Have you made any arrangements for Doris?'

Deirdre's expression hardened. 'There will be no service, if that's what you mean. She told me she had no