As the osprey settled onto its nest, I added flour and salt to the bowl of creamed sugar and butter, then sprinkled brown sugar on a sheet of wax paper, my eyes drifting once more to the beach outside the window. I had just finished rolling the dough in the wax paper and popped it into the fridge when I spotted a woman walking the beach—not near the waterline, where the finds usually are, but further up the shoreline, in an area that was above the tide mark. Something about her was familiar, and there was a furtive aspect to her movement that caught my attention. After squatting down to peer at something on the ground, she turned, staring up at the shop from behind dark glasses before resuming her scan of the beach. As I watched, she stooped and plucked something that resembled a scrap of paper from the rocks, looking at it for a moment before tucking it into her pocket, then glanced up at the store and hurried back the way she'd come.
Abandoning my cookies, I opened the door and rushed down the stairs outside. I got to the end of the walkway and ran onto the beach just as she slipped through the woods several dozen yards down the beach. She wore a black hooded jacket and jeans, along with large sunglasses that obscured her face. I hurried after her and found the narrow path she'd gone up between two large houses. I followed her all the way to Cottage Street, but by the time I got there, she had either ducked into another building or gotten into a car. Although I stood there for a few minutes, scanning passersby, there was no sign of her.
Still thinking, I headed back to Seaside Cottage Books. Was the woman I'd seen just someone out for a walk on the beach, stooping down for a piece of sea glass? Was it the intruder of a few nights past?
Or was it Cal Parker's murderer?
I had been able to tell it was a woman by the flare of her hips; but who? Cal’s ex-wife Gretchen? Or the mystery woman from Windswept? Someone had texted him about meeting him; I didn't want to tell the police I'd seen the text, but I knew he'd been late to something. Was it a rendezvous at the beach, or something else? And if she had picked up a piece of paper, was it something that the investigators had missed?
The wheels of my mind were still turning as I returned to my cookie baking. Odds were good the woman wasn't coming back—she appeared to have found what she'd been looking for—but my eyes kept drifting to the shoreline as I washed the bowl and started a batch of raspberry meltaways; I'd let them bake while the shortbread chilled. I mixed up the sweet vanilla batter and dropped rounds onto two cookie sheets, then made the buttery raspberry filling while the cookies baked in the oven. Finally, when the buttery cookies had cooled enough, I sandwiched them with raspberry cream filling, arranged them on a cake plate, and glanced outside one more time before heading downstairs to the shop, Winston at my heels.
"Progress?" Bethany asked, looking up from the desk, where she was poring over a psychology textbook.
"I've got a batch of cookies done and dough in the fridge, but I've got to do an errand, and I can't take Winston." I looked down at the little white Bichon mix, who was wagging his tail at me hopefully. "Can you keep an eye on him and take the cookies out when the timer goes off? I put a cooling rack on the counter; the other pans are ready to go. You can put them in for 8 minutes or wait for me to get back, whatever works for you.”
"I think I can handle it," she said. "Thank goodness you put the bell on the door!"
I looked up at the ship's bell I'd bought from an antique store in town; it tolled every time someone opened the door. Handy if I was upstairs when a customer came in. Maybe I should put one on the back door to scare off intruders, too, I thought to myself.
"Thanks," I said, feeling confident about leaving the store in her hands as I headed out the door to visit the bane of my existence in Snug Harbor.
If Scooter Dempsey had a copy of a will deeding half of Seaside Cottage Books to Loretta, I wanted to see it.
13
The afternoon had warmed up, and although I felt a stab of guilt leaving Winston behind, I knew he'd be in good hands with Bethany.
As I walked up Cottage Street, admiring the shop windows of Snug Harbor Souvenirs and Coastal Potters and savoring the feel of the cool ocean breeze on my face, tinged with (once again) that tantalizing whiff of fried clams from the Salty Dog, I checked my phone for Scooter Dempsey's address and oriented myself.
His office was only two blocks off the town green, and it only took ten minutes of walking before I was standing on the sidewalk outside of a brown house with a sign bearing the words DEMPSEY DEVELOPMENT.
Squaring my shoulders and taking a deep breath, I walked through the front door, which opened into a small reception area lined with pictures of horses. Beyond it was a narrow hallway flanked with doors. A small, dented mahogany desk with a bored-looking young man sitting behind it stood to my left. The
