There was a loud banging on the back door. “Could you unlock that?”
“Sure.” Lois dumped the books she was holding back into my arms and went to flirt with the UPS guy.
I hurried to my desk, found a semiclear space for the books, and called Marina. “What are you thinking?” I whispered fiercely. “You’re getting death threats, and you’re
“Quit worrying,” she said over a background noise of toddler-sized shrieks. “I can only be safe when Agnes’s murderer is locked up and the key thrown away. What better way to speed the process than to help the police? I’m sure they’re reading WisconSINs. Everyone is.”
I rubbed my forehead. “You read that e-mail Friday night. You were scared. Scared silly. Did you forget about that?”
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” she said airily. “If General MacArthur wasn’t afraid, I’m not going to be.”
“That was Franklin Roosevelt’s quote, and both he and Douglas MacArthur are dead.”
I banged down the receiver. “This is so stupid,” I muttered. “How can I help her if she’s going to ignore everything I say? Let her stew.”
“In her own juice?”
I jumped and looked up—way up—at Evan Garrett. When had he come in? It was just now ten o’clock; I hadn’t even realized we’d unlocked the front door. “Yes,” I said. “In a big pot, in lots of her own juice. A big fire might tenderize her. Make her easier to deal with.”
“Possible.” He looked thoughtful. “Or she might just get hot. And cranky.”
Suddenly, though the sky outside was October gray, the day felt bright.
“What do you say to a coffee break?” Evan asked. “Doughnut included.”
Lois was nearby, alphabetizing an end cap display of Harry Potter books, something I knew she’d already done.
“Lois?”
“Oh!” She gave a very fake jump. “Yes?”
“I’m going to show Mr. Garrett here the cookies at you-know-where. Would you like anything?”
In a few short minutes we were seated at a small round wooden table that had lived the best years of its life in the Rynwood Pharmacy. A few years ago new owners had taken out the pharmacy soda fountain, and Alice and Alan, owners of the cleverly named Rynwood Antique Mall, bought the furniture so Alice could sell the cookies she made instead of eating them all. “Getting big as a house,” she’d told me, thumping her hips with her fists. “Time to do something about it.”
I perched on the front edge of the chair, not wanting to lean against the stunningly uncomfortable wire- backed soda fountain chair.
Evan was on his second chocolate-chip cookie. I was almost done with my oatmeal and was debating whether to eat raisin next or go for the peanut butter. But I was finding it hard to make a decision because concern for Marina was taking up most of the space in my brain.
“What’s going on up there?” Evan asked. He tapped my head, just above my ear.
I twitched away, then smiled, but it was a weak attempt. “Sorry. I’m a little preoccupied these days.”
“Work? Kids? Parents?” He didn’t seem offended that I’d backed off from his touch.
“Um, not exactly.” The cookies sat there, getting stale.
“You’re my oldest friend, Beth.” Evan’s voice was soft. “Let me help.”
The blue eyes were close enough for me to drown in them. My breaths grew short, and before I fell onto the floor in a hyperventilation faint, I tore my gaze away and grabbed a cookie. “What would you do,” I said around small bits of peanut, “if your really stubborn, um, sister was doing something you considered dangerous?”
He considered the question. At least he wasn’t laughing out loud. “Can I assume she isn’t listening to the wise counsel of siblings?”
I waved the last half of the cookie at him. “Assume away.”
“Is what she doing illegal?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“But dangerous, you said. Dangerous only to her, or will her actions endanger others?”
The phrase rang oddly in my ear, and I suddenly remembered that, until recently, Evan had been a lawyer—a big-shot lawyer who’d probably charged more per hour than I made in a week. “Right now it’s just Ma . . . my theoretical sister.”
“But there is a possibility of future endangerment to others.” He made it a statement.
If the bad guy decided to kidnap Zach, yes. If the bad guy decided to burn down Marina’s house and all who were in it. If, if, if. “I suppose.”
“How will you feel if you do nothing?” Evan asked.
“Depends. If nothing happens to her, none of this matters.” I shrugged. “But if something does happen . . .” Friday’s e-mail came back in a rush, with its promise of pain and blood. I looked straight at Evan. “If something does happen, I’ll never forgive myself.”
“Then you have to do what you can,” he said.
“Why did I have a feeling you were going to say that?”
“Because in addition to your being my oldest friend, I’m yours.” He leaned forward. My eyes closed and his lips, feeling soft and warm as an August evening, touched mine.
The feel of Evan’s kiss lingered long after we went back to our respective stores. I found myself touching my mouth from time to time, reliving the moment, until Lois asked, “Getting chapped lips, huh? Have you tried that Burt’s stuff?”
I locked the door promptly at closing time and left the banking chores for the next morning. This evening, I had a Thing to Do.
Hot tomato sauce and garlic scented the parking lot and was positively overwhelming when I opened the door to Sabatini’s. “Hi!” chirped the teenager at the counter. Her plastic name tag gave her the unlikely name of Valley. “I’ll be with you in a sec, okay?” She handed change to a man standing in front of me. “Here you go, sir. Have a good night.”
The man picked up his pizza and turned. It took me a long second to come up with his name. Recognizing people out of their normal environment didn’t come easy to me. “Hi, Harry,” I said. “How are you?”
Tarver’s security guard and janitor looked at me over the top of the cardboard box. “Hello, Mrs. Kennedy.”
Harry’s eyes looked even darker and more sunken than normal. His hair was longer than I’d ever seen it, and grime was crusted underneath his fingernails. He was the embodiment of grief, sliding ever so slowly into depression. But at least he was eating. That had to be a good sign.
“The police were asking me if I did it,” he said. “They kept asking and asking, and nothing I told them mattered.”
Poor Harry. “Didn’t they believe you?”
“They wanted an alibi, and I was waxing the floors at the school. I usually do it Saturdays, but that Saturday the machine was broken, and I couldn’t do it on Monday because of the meeting, so I did it Tuesday.”
It was an ironclad alibi. Everyone knew how Harry was about the floors—everybody, that is, except the sheriff’s department.
“It’ll be okay.” I put a light hand on his arm. “Take care of yourself, Harry.”
“Yes.” He nodded slowly and left.
I sighed and turned my attention back to the business at hand.
“Can I help you?” The clerk looked positively perky.
I gestured at her name tag. “You’re probably tired of answering this, but . . . Valley?”
She crossed her eyes. “If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me about my name, I could buy my car instead of making all these stupid payments.” She heaved a world-class sigh. “My mom and dad are big skiers. I was born nine months after a trip to Sun Valley.”
So original, yet so banal. “At least they didn’t name you Sunny.”
Her grimace eased. “I never thought of that. At least Valley isn’t, like, gag-me cutesy.”
