Jasper suddenly started barking frantically.
"Not again Jasper," I said, frustrated. "What has gotten into you today—"
I stopped.
There, standing right in front of me, absolutely, completely, one hundred percent was Adam.
Chapter 2
He was a little grayer, but his hair was still as thick and curly as it had been in his early twenties. Darn it. For some reason that annoyed me more than anything else at that moment. Aren't men supposed to be balding by the time they hit their forties? The wind flicked the dark, salt and pepper-streaked curls around his face and it reminded me, just for a second, why I had fallen in love with him in another lifetime.
Jasper was desperate to run over to him, like he was trying to greet an old friend.
"Sit, Jasper," I commanded, making him behave. He sat, but he was still whimpering and I knew if I gave him the all clear, he would leap into Adam’s arms. I shook my head. Dogs were too trusting. Far too easy to win over.
"Don't I even get a hello?" Adam asked, holding his arms out as though I might run into them, given the chance.
I shook my head in slow disbelief. “A hello? More like a what the heck are you doing here, Adam?" I said.
"It's your birthday tomorrow, isn't it?" he said with an easy grin, as though that was the most normal explanation in the world. "Forty-one, is that right?"
I silently groaned. He'd never missed a chance, when we were married, to point out that he was a year younger than me. I wondered how he'd react when he found out that the young man I had a flirtation with was fourteen years younger than me. Not that I cared about making Adam jealous. As soon as I found out what he was doing in Pottsville, I intended to bid him farewell—for good.
"Right. So after sixteen years, you just happen to turn up to wish me a happy birthday? I didn't even get a card from you for the last sixteen."
Adam shrugged again, irritating me with the causal confidence that had once been so attractive to me. "It's always good to celebrate with an old friend."
Friend?
I shook my head.
"What are you really doing here, Adam?"
He picked up a knapsack that had been laying on the ground, which I hadn't even noticed up till that point. I also hadn't noticed that people had slowed down, stopping to look at our conversation, and suddenly realized, with my angry tone and look of confrontation, that I was only providing grist for the gossip mill.
"Do you have somewhere I can rest up for a while?" Adam asked with a wide grin. And, hating myself for a second while I said it, I invited him back to my home.
Jasper wouldn't stop barking. "I know, I know, there's a stranger in the house. Well, don't worry. He definitely won't be staying the night here." I threw a bone out onto the lawn and while Jasper sprinted to get it, I closed the glass sliding doors.
I composed myself before I turned around, taking a deep breath. He'll be gone soon. He'll be gone soon.
"There are plenty of motels and B&Bs in town," I said, trying to smile. I could feel my red lipstick cracking as I made the effort. "This is a tourist town so you won't have a problem finding a place to stay."
"Actually, I'm kind of out of cash," Adam said. He was already sprawled across the sofa, getting comfortable as he picked up the TV remote.
I sighed. "Of course you are." No big surprise there. "Well, there's always the empty field near the lake. That's free. Even though you aren't technically supposed to camp there without paying. But I'm sure one night won't hurt..."
I walked over, took the remote out of his hand, and turned off the TV. I'd already given him a drink of water and allowed himself to make a sandwich from the leftover food in the fridge. "I think you've more than outstayed your welcome," I said, pulling him off the sofa.
"George..." he pleaded as I tried to push him out the front door. On the other side of the open-plan room, Jasper jumped up against the glass and scratched at the window. He didn't want his new friend to leave. "Come on, let me stay for just one night. I won't make a peep. You won't even know I'm here."
When I still showed no sign of relenting, he said, "Come on, you're not really going to make your ex-husband sleep in the dirt, are you?"
"I can lend you a sleeping bag," I said flatly. "You can return it in the morning on your way out of town."
He titled his head to the side and pleaded with me, using those puppy dog eyes which I now hated as much as I used to love.
"Fine. One night only. And I don't want to hear a sound, Adam. Not a sound."
Oh, goodness. How can it be morning already? I glanced at the clock. I had to open the shop doors in twenty minutes.
"Jasper?" I called as I climbed out of bed and threw on my silk robe. He was usually at the end of my bed first thing in the morning, looking for some attention and food.
I rolled my eyes when I heard the sound of Adam and Jasper playing together downstairs. "Good boy!" I heard Adam call and as I descended the stairs, I saw Jasper running around the living room after his new favorite person.
I pouted a little as I watched them playing. For some reason, it really irked me to see them getting along so well. I thought Jasper was a better judge of character than that. Couldn't he sense that Adam was bad news? That his intentions, his motivation for being in town, couldn't possibly be good.
"Good morning," I said loudly as I moved through to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee. Jasper didn't even look up. I tried not to be too insulted.
"Morning, George," Adam called out with a grin. "Happy birthday! You don't look a day over forty." I could see from the mess he'd made on the sofa and coffee table that he'd already made himself totally at home. The cushions and blankets made it look like a well slept in bed and the table was strewn with the remnants of a late night snack. And the crumbs. Jasper ran to the coffee table and started licking at the plate and leftover scraps.
I poured myself a coffee and Adam asked where his was. "You can make one yourself," I said. "I see you already know your way around the kitchen."
I mean, it wasn’t like he hadn't had his good qualities. If he hadn't, I'd never have married him in the first place. He was charming, and good looking, and kind of dangerous in an attractive way, and the perfect sort of boyfriend to have in your early twenties. I'd just made the mistake of marrying him, instead of keeping him as just a boyfriend.
I opened the sliding glass doors and let my other beloved dog, a small white terrier named Casper, inside after doing her business. At least Adam had been thoughtful enough to let her out. Or maybe it was just another example of how at home he was making himself...
"Well, at least you're keeping a level head," I said, kneeling down to pick up Casper, who, unlike her brother, was little enough that I could easily scoop her up. She was far more cautious and had been hiding behind my ankles ever since Adam had shown up uninvited and, basically, unwanted. Unwanted by everyone except Jasper, that was, who was still excitedly jumping up and clawing against Adam's chest.
"I guess you won't be coming in to work with me today, Jasper?" I called. I raised my eyebrows at Adam. "Well, if you're going to be my unwanted houseguest, you can at least dog-sit for free."
There was a strange vibe in town, and it wasn't just due to the strong winds that seemed to blow the wrong way. Everyone was looking at everyone else with suspicion. Are you the one who did it? Are you the one who killed Julie Williams?
"No dog today?" Brenda asked. She'd already opened the shop for me. I'd been fairly naive to think that I was capable of getting myself dressed, made up, and into town in under twenty minutes. But one hour later, I was there. "Good. I am starting to think I am allergic, you know. And it isn't good to have a dog on the premises all the time. It isn't professional."
I hung up my coat and tried not to roll my eyes. Brenda wasn't allergic. She just enjoyed complaining, and getting the final say about everything related to the store, even though I was the one who actually owned it and paid the rent, not her.
&nbs
p; "It's just for one day," I said flatly. "Jasper will be back with me tomorrow. After..." I didn't finish my sentence. I didn't need Brenda in my business any more than she already was.
"It's terrible news, what happened yesterday, isn't it?" Brenda murmured, trying to sound casual when she knew the subject was anything but. "I was there at Julie's Craft Shop when it happened, you know."
I spun around to face her. "What do you know, Brenda?" I asked.
She was curling ribbon for gift-wrapping and there was a little smug smile on her face that she was trying to suppress. "Oh, wouldn't you like to know?"
"Yes. That's why I asked." I sighed and pulled the ribbon right out of her hands, causing it to lie flatly on the glass counter. "Come on, spill."
"The police already have a suspect," she said, her nose suddenly in the air. "Thanks to me and my keen eyes. And I can't say I'm surprised at who it is either. He's a real good for nothing..."
"Who is?" I asked.
Brenda shook his head. "You're still too new in this town, aren't you, Georgina. You ever hear of the name Gem Dawes?"
The name wasn't familiar. I shook my head.
"Of course you haven't," Brenda replied far too smugly. "But his name—the Dawes name, especially—is infamous in this town. If you were a real resident, you would know all about them." She picked the scissors and ribbon up and went back to work.
I groaned. She really loved rubbing in how 'fresh' and out of place I was in this close-knit community. Well, I wasn't going to let her lord it over me again right then. "Fine, if you don't want to tell me, don't. I'm not even interested."
Unsurprisingly, that got her to spill everything. Brenda loved hoarding information, but she also hated not feeling like the most important, most knowledgeable person in the town. And if not the town, at least the shop.
"The Dawes are a family that have lived here in Pottsville for generations, unfortunately," Brenda said right as a big gush of wind blew the front door shut with a bang. She barely even looked up, or noticed, she was so eager to continue her story. "They’re one of the founding families; they first settled here in the eighteen-seventies during the gold rush." Brenda let out a shrill, judgmental laugh. "They were thieves and scavengers then and nothing has changed."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Just that half the family has been to prison and the other half are on their way there," Brenda said with a heavy judgmental tone. I didn't want to have to remind her that she had a family member who was on her way to prison—for murder, no less. I literally lived in a glass house, and I know not to throw stones. I wasn’t sure Brenda knew not to from her metaphorical one.
"They all live up the hill together," Brenda continued, shaking her head. "No one with an ounce of class would choose to live up there. The land was sold off for cheap decades ago and the Dawes snapped it up. People say those hills are haunted, you know."
I sighed and tried to ignore that part. "What about this Gem Dawes you mentioned? Why him?"
"Gem is the youngest brother of the lot. I suppose we all held out some hopes for him. He was a good kid at school, attended the same high school as my nephew. He'd be about twenty-four, twenty-five now. Gem wasn't like the rest of them...or at least, so we thought." Brenda raised her eyebrows. "Soon after he turned twenty, he began committing petty crimes like the rest of his family. I guess that kind of thing is bred."
Brenda's expression turned even more serious, and even more judgmental. "And now he's graduated from small petty crimes to murder. He should have been locked up years ago."
Something about the whole tale perturbed me. "Is there any real evidence that Gem is the one to blame?”
"I saw him at the scene of the crime!" Brenda said, as though that was it, case closed, gavel banged down on the bench, sentence handed out.
"That's it?" I asked in disbelief. "Brenda, people's eyes can be mistaken. You can think that you see something, or someone, and be totally wrong."
Brenda looked at me with narrowed eyes. "And what about that person you thought you'd spotted yesterday? Did that turn out to be who you thought it was? Or were your eyes mistaken?"
My cheeks felt a little flushed. "That was...that was...okay, yes, that did turn out to be who I thought it was, I’m very dismayed to report."
Brenda raised an eyebrow. "And who is this mysterious visitor who has got you so flustered, Georgina?"
"That’s none of your business." And I meant it to. Only problem was, I was bursting to tell someone and friends in Pottsville were still hard to come by.
"Fine, if you don't want to tell me, I don't care. I'm not interested," Brenda said, lying as she threw my own words back at me.
"He's my ex-husband," I blurted out.
Brenda's mouth opened wide, presented with a bit of this juicy piece of gossip. "Which one?" she asked.
"My first." I shook my head. "It was a long, long time ago." I actually smiled as I started to tell the story, about how Adam and I had first met while on vacation on Greece, how I'd been in my final year in college and he—having never attended college—was there on a holiday visa that had long ago expired. When I'd returned to the US, he'd come with me and, much to the dismay of both sets of parents, we'd gotten married when I was just twenty-one and Adam just twenty. "But we made it work. At least, for a little while."
But Brenda wasn't interested in listening to me reminiscing, or gabbing about old relationships.
"Don't you think his timing is a little suspicious?" Brenda asked, butting in while I was still talking.
Well, I thought a lot of things about Adam's sudden reappearance in my life was suspicious, but I hadn't given that much thought toward the timing. "What are you getting at, Brenda?" I asked, narrowing my eyes. She was always working some kind of angle. I just had to find out which one.
"He turned up the same day that Julie was killed." She thought about it for a second. "In fact, he must have arrived in town right before she died."
Now it was time for my mouth to drop right open. "You have got to be kidding me, Brenda." I really, really hoped she was.
But she shrugged and picked up her stupid ribbon again, the sound of it scraping against the scissor blade getting right on my last nerve.
"So it's just a coincidence, is it, that the same day as your no-good husband turns up—"
"Ex-husband."
"The same day your no-good ex-husband turns up is the same day an innocent woman is killed?"
I threw my hands into the air. "Five minutes ago, you were sure that this Gem Dawes person was to blame! Brenda, I believe that you just like to think the worst of people," I shouted before storming to the front door. "Make up your mind before you go blaming every last innocent person in this town. And one other thing—get some actual reliable evidence!"
I stormed out the door and down the road. I was so mad at Brenda that I couldn't even stand to be in the same room as her. She always had a way of winding people up, but usually I could laugh her manner off. Usually her rudeness and judgmental nature was like water off a duck's back to me. Brenda was always harmless enough. Or so I'd always thought.
Why am I taking this accusation so seriously? I wondered as I stomped my way down the pavement. Why am I taking it so much to heart?
But as I continued to storm my way out of town, I realized I was heading straight back to my house and I knew exactly why Brenda's accusations had irked me so much.
Because they echoed my own fears.
I needed to ask Adam a few questions of my own.
The pink-frosted monstrosity in front of me had two candles sitting on top of it. A 4 and a 1. Below the candles "Happy Birthday" had been piped in large white bumps. "I know you said it's not a big birthday, but I know you can't resist a slice of cake," Adam said, grabbing a knife from the knife block. He really had made himself at home. "And I know you don't like pink but this is the only birthday cake that the cake shop had."
I thought Adam didn’t have any money?
I sighed as I looked down at the cake. "I don't feel much like celebrating," I said, folding myself up into a seat at the table. Jasper finally remembered that he loved me and that I was the one who fed him and he came and curled up at the legs of the chair.
"You always loved celebrating your birthday," Adam said, looking concerned.
"It's been a long time since you were in any position to say what I 'always' love doing," I said wryly. "I've changed, Adam." But had he?
Adam pushed the cake to the side and sat down next to me. "I know that your love of cake must have remained the same. You couldn’t have changed that much."
I pushed the cake even further away, just to one-up him. My appetite had totally soured. "Forty-one isn’t even a big birthday. It's not worth celebrating."
"Sure it is," Adam said, refusing to take the hint. He'd always been like that though, self-absorbed, happy-go-lucky when things were going his way and then a petulant child when things weren't so rosy for him.
"You know a woman was killed yesterday, don't you?" I asked. "It seems in bad taste to break out the cake and balloons."
I watched Adam's face carefully while he answered. "Yes, I know, George. It's a terrible thing to have happened."
"Terrible that it happened right as you arrived in town, isn't it? Must make you think that this isn't quite the quaint small town you must have assumed it was."
"I try not to make assumptions about places," Adam answered. "All towns and cities have their dark secrets."
Yes. And so did the people in them.
"I'm just saying. It seems funny timing, you arriving right as Julie was killed." I paused for a second, wondering if I should say what I was thinking or bite my tongue. "Especially considering what happened sixteen years ago."
Adam’s face turned white as he leaned back and pushed his seat back from the table. "I had nothing to do with what happened sixteen years ago, George. Wow." He shook his head and picked up the cake. As he walked away with it back to the kitchen, I almost thought he was going to throw it in the trash, but he changed his mind and it landed on the counter with a small thud as he let it drop.
Craft Circle Cozy Mystery Boxed Set Page 19
