“I give her more than that, eh?” he said with a devilish grin. “But no from you.”
I laughed. “You do that.”
I left the bookstore, feeling remarkably lighter than I had when going in.
I was going to see Allison Kearney again.
BY THE END OF THE NEXT day, my excitement had waned somewhat. Neither Allison nor her sister had called for an appointment. Had they changed their minds? I knew Allison was only in town for a short while, and the clock was ticking down.
By Wednesday morning, I was feeling downright cranky. Not just because I hadn’t heard from Allison or her sister, but also because nothing was going right. I’d nearly missed a court appearance because I’d overslept after working until three a.m. Again.
I didn’t know how long I could keep up the pace. I wasn’t getting enough sleep. I couldn’t make heads or tails of Stella’s filing system. I wasn’t making enough of a dent in my to-do list. Allison hadn’t called. And Irene, the woman who kept my office running like a well-oiled machine for several hours each day, was home with a sick grandkid and probably would be for the rest of the week.
To make matters worse, in Irene’s absence, Stella was acting like a teenager whose parents had gone away for the weekend. Her clothes were racier, her behavior flirtier.
I really needed to do something about that.
I finally made it to the office around midday, only to find Stella at the front desk, doing ... nothing. She put down her phone and stood the moment I walked in.
“How’d it go?” she asked.
“It went.” I glanced at Irene’s normally pristine work area and frowned.
Stella had apparently claimed it for her own. Irene’s #1 Grandma mug had been pushed to the side and takeout food and drink containers littered the surface.
It bothered me.
“Shouldn’t you be working on the Di Miglio case?”
“I thought it was more important to have someone out here. You know, to greet clients and answer the phones and stuff.”
It was a valid point. Sometimes, we had walk-ins, and I wanted clients and potential clients to be able to speak to a real, live person when they called during normal business hours. Still, she could have been doing something in between. Irene knitted scarves and donated them to homeless shelters.
“Do you have anything for me?”
“Like what?”
I waved at the phone and called upon my quickly waning patience. “Messages. Requests. Updates.”
“Oh, right.” She grabbed several slips of paper and held them out to me. One message was written on a lipstick-stained napkin.
I took them and made for the peace and solitude of my office to sit down, drink my coffee, and sort through them. Hopefully, I would find one from Allison Kearney or her sister among them.
When I sat down in my chair, however, I realized that Stella had followed me.
She leaned against my desk, showing a bit more leg than was appropriate, and sipped from her glittery insulated tumbler. “So, what are we doing today?”
“You are going to go through everything we have on the Di Miglio case and create a to-do list of action items. I am going to drink this double espresso and triage my inbox.”
Her lips turned downward. “You want me to do that right now?”
“Yes. Right now.”
“Someone’s grumpy today.”
I gave her my best serious-boss glare, swiftly conveying that I was not in a mood to argue. She made a hmmph sound and strolled out of my office.
I exhaled when she crossed over the threshold. Gina had been right. I was being played, and it was high time I did something about it. But not before I was fully caffeinated.
Chapter Seven: Allison
“Have you heard anything yet?” I asked Miriam as I slid the plate of scrambled eggs in front of her.
It was nearly noon, but I figured it qualified as breakfast because she’d just woken up. I took every opportunity I could to ply her with proteins and healthy carbs. With her creative brain free and firing, mundane things like eating regularly sometimes took a backseat. A brief inventory of her small kitchen had revealed six open boxes of crackers, a crusty-tipped can of imitation cheese, and an assortment of frozen dinners, so I’d felt fully justified in running to the grocery store for eggs, bread, butter, and juice.
She shook her head and put down her phone. “I’m sure he’s very busy.”
I thought about the state of Paul Cerasino’s office and had to agree. However, he had said to make an appointment. I’d called first thing yesterday morning and been told that someone would get back to us. No one had. Busy or not, my time in Cecilton was running out. I was due back in Boston soon and wanted this resolved or at least in motion before I left.
I made up my mind. If we didn’t hear anything by the time Miriam left for the bookstore, I was going to go back to his office.
“Don’t even think of going back there,” Miriam warned. She knew me so well.
I focused on slathering my toast with whipped butter and said nothing because, one, I was not going to lie to my sister, and two, I didn’t make promises I couldn’t keep.
“I’m serious, Ally. Don’t be a pest. He’ll answer if and when he can.”
I sat up. “You think I’m a pest?”
“You can be”—she hesitated, as if searching for the right word—“determined when you set your mind on something.”
Determined, driven, goal-oriented, focused—those were words people used when describing me and my work ethic. I didn’t see them as negatives.
“You need to be prepared, just in case.”
“I know. It’s just not as high on my priority list as it is on yours. Things have been quiet. I really think we’ve turned a corner.” Her eyes widened, and I swore, if we were cartoon characters, a lightbulb would have appeared over her head. “Unless, of course, you have an ulterior motive for going to see him.”
“What ulterior motive
