by S. E. Babin
"Rex Collings," I murmured. My finger landed on the copyright date. "1972." I flipped a few more pages and realized the book was signed. My goodness. This family had some extremely valuable literary works in their possession. My nose tickled as a strange smell filtered up from the book. Something nudged at the back of my mind at the scent, but I couldn't place it.
I flipped through all the pages and noted the book was in really good condition. "With a cursory glance, I'd say this is probably worth at least four grand."
Carrie's eyes gleamed with avarice. "Really?" she asked and snatched it out of my hand before I could close the book.
"Really," I said shortly. "But it smells a little strange. Do you notice that?"
Carrie's face went blank. "I hadn't noticed," she said, her words short and clipped.
Poppy chose that moment to hop up on the counter next to me. She sat perfectly still, pinning Carrie with her intense golden eyes. I reached over to give her a scratch on the head, but Poppy didn’t move an inch or even acknowledge my presence. All her attention was on the woman in front of me.
Carrie looked away first and cleared her throat, uncomfortable with the scrutiny she was under.
I slipped off the gloves and put them back where I found them. "Good luck with it," I said and left her standing there with Harper. That was probably rude, but I still wasn't convinced she was innocent. I headed back to the office where I had a salad waiting for me in the fridge. It was karma for all those cupcakes I'd been eating lately.
* * *
I'd just locked the doors when a soft knock on the window alerted me to another visitor. Harper had already gone for the day. "We're closed!" I called, not bothering to look to see who it was.
The knock came again and when I peeked around, Cole's handsome face was at the window. He waved urgently. My shoulders slumped, but I went to unlock the door for him.
"Dakota!" he said. "I have some news." He didn't bother to unbutton his coat as he stepped inside.
"I don't want to hear it." I did, but I didn't want to hear it from Cole. He was fast becoming a pain in my backside.
"You're going to want to hear this." His face grim, he walked over and collapsed into one of the seats. "One of my sources was able to take a peek at Marcy's death certificate."
My brows rose high. I took the seat next to him.
"Interested now?" Cole chuckled and peeled his gloves off. "Formaldehyde poisoning."
I rocked back in my chair; brow furrowed. "Formaldehyde..." I murmured. My eyes widened, and I inhaled sharply. "That's what that smell was!" I slammed my palms down on the table. "I smelled it when I went into her house and when she brought a book over."
Cole leaned forward, his gaze sharp with concern. "Carrie was here?"
"A few hours ago." I waved off his concern. "There's formaldehyde present in the ink used on books. Could it be what was making Marcy sick?"
The journalist was staring at me, his mouth wide open. "Formaldehyde in printing ink?"
"Yes. It's present in a lot of household things." I thought back to the sheer amount of books in that house. "Cole, do you know any of the symptoms Marcy was experiencing before she died?"
He blinked and sat back. "Umm, some, I guess. Interviews with people who knew her said she was tired all the time. She had vision trouble and symptoms of a common cold. Low blood pressure." He shrugged. "I can't remember them all, but I have it back in the office."
I tapped my chin. "I wonder how long she'd had those books in her house."
"Her father passed away five years ago, I think. I can only assume around that long." Cole scrubbed a hand over his face before he sat straight up, his spine rigid. "Dakota." He turned wide eyes to me. "Carrie has a degree in chemistry. She was fired from a lab in Bangor for unauthorized experimentation."
A crash shattered our hushed words. Cole reached for me and pulled me against him, knocking over the chairs. I stumbled against him and landed in his lap.
Something thudded on the floor of the store. Cole stood, pulling me with him and looked down at the ground. A small metal canister rested on the floor.
"We have to get out," Cole said, urgency in his tone.
The canister started to tremble and hiss. White smoke poured out of it from both ends.
"Use your shirt to cover your nose!"
Terror rang through my bones. I pulled my shirt over my nose and mouth and let him lead me to the back. His steps were sure and fast. "Window?" he called as he turned back to look at me.
My eyes watered and tears ran down my face. I wordlessly pointed to the back.
Cole led me down the maze of shelving and to the back. With two solid kicks, he broke one of the windows. He took his jacket off, wrapped part of it around his hand and punched out the rest of the glass.
A horrible thought occurred to me. I pulled away from him and stumbled back into the main area of the shop. “Poppy!”
My gaze swung wildly as I tried to find the Persian. A loud cry to the left had me lurching forward. The cat sat there, eyes wide, and voice yowling. I scooped her up quickly and rushed back to the window. I gently pushed Poppy toward the window. Without a look back, Poppy bounded out of the window.
"Go," Cole said as he looked behind us to make sure no one else was in the shop.
I hunched down and crawled out of Tattered Pages, dropping a few feet to the frigid ground below me. Poppy immediately hopped into my lap and put her tail right into my face.
“Okay, cat. I get it. You’re happy to see me.”
Poppy yowled again, and I held her in front of me to make sure whatever was in that canister hadn’t affected her. I couldn’t see anything wrong with her eyes and she seemed okay.
“That was close, Poppy.” I hugged her to me before setting her down beside me.
She butted her head against my waist in apparent agreement.
The sound of sirens echoed through the quiet evening. Cole thumped down on the ground beside me, his eyes watering. He’d stayed in for a hair longer than I had, and the gas must have finally reached him.
I looked out at the back of the strip mall and stilled as I saw a figure running away. I growled under my breath and lurched to my feet. “Stop!” I yelled. I took off after the figure. Logic told me there was no way I’d catch up to the person, but I wanted to do my best. Whoever it was could have killed my cat and me. And Cole. Depending on what was in that canister.
My feet pounded against the concrete and my breath poured out in frigid puffs of air. “Stop!” I called again.
The person running looked back, and I caught a flash of long hair pooling out of the hoodie they wore. It was a woman! Her speed slowed as she turned back around. I pumped my arms and legs, ruing the day I stopped going to the gym, but I was gaining on her.
Someone called my name from behind, but I didn’t stop. I wanted this to be over. Right now.
The woman cut through the grass. I gasped as I watched her arms pinwheel around her as she started to slip in the grass. I ran even faster and caught up to her just as she went down, her arms and legs all akimbo.
The hood slid off.
“Carrie!” I shouted.
She squirmed around and tried to get up to run again, but I tackled her as soon as she got one leg up.
Carrie grunted and tried to elbow me in the stomach, but I dodged just in the nick of time. I grunted with pain. No matter where an elbow landed it hurt.
When she finally realized I wasn’t letting go, she started to sob hysterically. “I didn’t kill her! It was an accident.”
Sirens screamed around the corner. I held on tight to Carrie and let out a sigh of relief when I saw a familiar Toyota Avalon come to an abrupt stop a few feet away. Detective Cavanaugh’s door flew open, and he rushed over to us, gun drawn.
“Get up, Dakota,” he said, his voice menacing.
I turned wide eyes up to him. Fear froze me to the spot. I’d never had a gun pointed at me before and I hoped it would never happen again. Cavanaugh j
erked his head to the side, motioning for me to get off of her. I slowly let go and crab walked several feet away before I felt comfortable enough to get up.
“It was Harvey!” she screamed. “Harvey bought the flooring.”
My brow wrinkled. What did flooring have to do with it? I glanced around only to see Cole a few feet away giving me a curious look. He raised his hand in a halfhearted wave. I returned it, then squatted down and put my head in my hands.
It took about ten minutes before Hardy came over. By then I was sitting on the cold concrete. He slung his jacket, still warm from his body heat, over my shoulders and sat down beside me.
“I’d like to lecture you about how stupid it was to go after her, but I won’t.”
A snort escaped me. “Thanks, I guess?”
“Carrie didn’t murder her sister,” he said. A long sigh escaped him.
“Then who did?”
He spread his feet out in front of him. The sirens on the police cruisers were off now, but the red and blue lights lit up the entire downtown area. Police milled all over the place. Cole was sitting in the back of an ambulance, a green blanket slung across his shoulders. His brows knitted together, and his mouth was a thin slash against his face.
He was saying something, his hands making abrupt motions. An unbidden smile rose on my lips. Cole didn’t want to be there anymore than I did. At least he’d have a good story after this. What would I have? A trashed bookstore most likely.
“She set off something in my store. Some kind of gas canister.” I rubbed my eyes to wipe away the tears starting to form. “When will I be able to go back into the store?”
He shrugged. “Maybe tomorrow or the next day. Carrie admitted to lacing the books with additional formaldehyde. She figured she could get away with it since printing ink has it in small doses anyway.” Hardy tilted his head back to look up at the night sky. His throat worked as he swallowed. “When Marcy got sicker, Carrie was able to get her to sign the power of attorney. But then she got involved with the owner of the investor company.”
“She said it was an accident.” I pulled Hardy’s jacket closer and shuddered in the cold, night air.
“He found out what she had done. When Marcy wanted to put in new laminate flooring, he was able to slide in and underbid the company she initially wanted to use.”
Sick realization fluttered in me. “The laminate had additional formaldehyde. I knew it had to be more than the books. Carrie has a degree in chemistry.”
Hardy’s head jerked down. He stared at me in disbelief. “What a horrible way to go.”
“She probably slipped into a coma,” I said. I’d briefly studied the effects of formaldehyde in books when I was being certified as an expert in rare books. It happened so little it was just a brief blip in our course. But I remembered now the effects formaldehyde poisoning could have.
“He bought the cheapest laminate he could and had it tested to make sure the levels were harmful before he brought it into the house.” Hardy shook his head, a sneer of disgust on his face.
“Carrie wasn’t moving fast enough with the deal and if Marcy died, she’d never be able to contest it if she got better.”
I hugged myself around the middle, disturbed more than I could communicate with words. Poor Marcy. She never had any control over it and would have never realized what was happening to her. I bet Carrie laced the cheapest books she could while saving all the really valuable ones for herself. But I couldn’t be without empathy for Carrie either. She’d been trapped by a man who only wanted money and who blackmailed her to get it.
The entire thing was sickening. “When can I leave?” I asked Hardy.
“Have the EMT’s give you an all clear and I’ll drop by your house tomorrow for a statement, if that’s okay.” Hardy’s look was one of empathy. “You can file a civil suit for your shop if anything is damaged.” He pressed his lips together. “It’s going to take a while, but you could get a judgment.”
I sighed as he stood up and offered me a hand. I took it, marveling at the warmth of it in this weather. “I have insurance,” I said. “I’ll think about it.”
He clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Good job, Dakota. I hope next time we don’t have to meet like this.” Hardy left me standing there still clutching his jacket around my shoulders. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but it sounded like he wanted to meet me again, away from all of this. A smile peeked out from my mouth as I straightened and made my way over to Cole.
When he saw me, his face brightened, and he held out his blanket as an offering to share his warmth. I hopped up on the back of the ambulance and let him wrap an arm around me.
“Thanks for getting us out of there.” I hadn’t seen Poppy since I’d chased after Carrie, but I knew she was around here somewhere, probably getting into mischief.
Cole ducked his head awkwardly. Even through the flashing lights, I could see his face color. It was surprisingly cute.
“It was nothing.” Cole’s shoulders dropped. “This is kind of crazy, right?”
I looked out at the overwhelming police force and shrugged. “Murders rarely happen in Silverwood Hollow, right?”
Cole’s gaze was thoughtful. “Let’s hope not,” he said.
I shivered at the ominous tone of his words. Let’s hope not, indeed.
Epilogue
Corky was tipsy already, her wrinkled face flushed with color and a wide, happy grin on her face. Trudy sat beside her, her hair done up in a messy bun and her hands wrapped around a large mug with steam curling from the top.
I sat beside them, enjoying a sip of mulled wine, a recipe made by a local. It was fruit and spicy and probably spiked with a hair too much brandy.
Harper stood by Jeff a few feet away, their heads together discussing something intently. I still wasn’t sure how I felt about those two, but it wasn’t my business. Harper was a grown woman and Jeff seemed less annoying with her in his life, so I’d wait and watch.
The main street of Silverwood Hollow was shut down to traffic. Every shop, even the old knife seller’s, was decorated to the hilt with fall colors. Brown and orange fairy lights bathed the town in a soft dewy glow and the gray clouds had lifted for a glorious few hours.
Mom and Gran were somewhere around here. Gran mentioned moving back here and I was half delighted, half terrified. She’d cornered Hardy when she got here this morning and gleefully berated him for several minutes about why he didn’t want to date her granddaughter. I grinned at him and waggled my fingers before I’d left him to her mercy.
Every time I thought about the look of homicide in his eyes as they begged me not to leave him, I laughed. Gran traipsed by after that laughing as he stood by watching her back wearing a bemused expression. That was Gran for you.
Cole was somewhere around, too. He’d been subdued when I congratulated him on the front-page story that came out the day after I’d tackled Carrie. You would have thought with how hard he hounded me to get information, he’d be ecstatic, but something about it was bothering him.
They’d arrested Harvey Crouch for first-degree murder, though none of us were sure the charges would stick considering how he’d done it. If they could prove he knew the laminate was contaminated along with the books, they might have a chance. I’d run into Hardy a few days afterward and his viewpoint was grim. He was confident he’d find something to stick, but he didn’t know how long of a sentence it would net.
Carrie was released on bond and required to stay in her house. I hadn’t seen her since and I didn’t want to. The entire thing was still keeping me up at night. She was still the sole heir of their fortune and it was maddening to see her, in essence, being rewarded for it.
When I expressed my concerns to Hardy, he’d smiled, though it didn’t look happy. He assured me a large chunk of it would be going to legal fees. It was a small comfort.
I took another sip of the boozy mulled wine and smiled as I looked out at the bustling town. The air was even colder now, forcing me to don
my wool hat, best coat, and most insulated gloves. It wasn’t snowing yet, but the bite in the air told me it wasn’t far away.
The sound of a voice clearing startled me. I looked to my right and Cole stood there. He held a mug of something steaming and was pulling a chair to sit down beside me.
“You’re going to be volunteered as a pie taster if you sit here for too long,” I quipped. “One of the judges woke up with a stomach virus and couldn’t make it.”
An endearing grin split his face at the thought. “Sign me up! As long as there’s apple pie.”
I scoffed. “Of course, there is.”
He sat close enough for our arms to brush together. I didn’t know what I thought about Cole after everything that happened. He’d protected me in a heated moment, even if he’d been a thorn in my side before that.
Maybe we could be friends.
Cole noticed my scrutiny and clinked his mug against mine gently. “Friends?” he asked hopefully.
I nodded. “Friends.” I looked away; the comforting presence of the journalist-made-friend beside me.
A warm, cozy feeling grew in my body as I watched my friends and family having a wonderful time. Laughter and conversation bubbled around me and a sense of contentment filled me.
This was my home. I had a place here and I couldn’t wait to see what the future held.
The second Shelf Indulgence mystery is now available! For more Dakota and Poppy, click HERE!
Also by S.E. Babin
Want more Dakota & Poppy? Check out the first two Shelf Indulgence Mysteries and preorder the third now!
Hardback Homicide
Foreword Fraud
Copycat Killer
* * *
Want cozy paranormal hijinks? Check out S.E. Babin’s Magical Soapmaker Mysteries!
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