Mind Over Murder

by Allison Kingsley

  “You were bawling so hard you couldn’t hear anything Dan was saying.” George sent her a look of concern. “You’re not going to start again, are you?”

  She managed a weak “No.”

  “Good. It won’t do Clara much good to see you like this.”

  “So tell me what happened.” She hunted for dry tissues while he told her the few details Dan had told him. “Dan said it could have been a lot worse. Apparently, Clara did everything right and kept her head.”

  “Clara always keeps her head. I wish I could be like her.”

  George smiled. “Well, kitten, I’m glad you’re not. I happen to like you just the way you are.”

  “Oh, George. You always know the right thing to say.” Warmed by his words, she blew her nose for the last time. She wouldn’t feel better until she had actually seen for herself that her cousin was okay, but she had to admit, she was beginning to feel a little less devastated. At least Clara hadn’t been clubbed over the head by a murderous villain. Now that would really have been something to worry about.

  Dan met them in the foyer when they arrived at the hospital, his expression even more grave than usual.

  At first, Stephanie thought that Clara was more badly hurt than Dan had told her, but she relaxed a bit when Dan assured her that Clara was sleeping, and the doctor expected to release her the next morning.

  “I would like a word with you, though, before you go in there.” Dan glanced at the nurse’s station. “That’s if they let you go in.”

  “Just let them try and stop me.” Stephanie sent a fierce glance at the nurse behind the desk.

  Dan’s face softened a little, though he stopped short of an actual smile. “Well, it’s about Clara’s car. I had Tim check it out before it was towed away.” He shifted his weight and glanced around the foyer as if making sure he wouldn’t be overheard. “The thing is, it looks as if someone might have cut the brake lines. We can’t say for sure at this point, but if we’re right, someone out there wanted Clara to wreck her car.”

  Stephanie thrust a hand over her mouth to prevent her cry of dismay, while George uttered a grunt of disbelief. “Who in hell would want to do that?”

  Dan shrugged. “I was hoping you guys might be able to help with that. You know of anyone who might want to hurt her?”

  Stephanie tried to look innocent while she struggled with indecision. If she told Dan that Ana’s murderer was probably responsible for the wreck, then she’d have to admit they were trying to track him down. The last thing she wanted was to get them both in trouble for interfering in police business.

  On the other hand, she couldn’t just ignore the fact that Clara was in danger and Dan should know about it. Before she could say anything, however, a piercing cry erupted from the doorway.

  Jessie Quinn tottered toward them on her skinny high heels, her makeup overpowering on her white face. “My baby! Where is she? I must see her right now!”

  Stephanie darted over to her and grabbed her arm. “She’s all right, Aunt Jess. Just a slight concussion. She’s sleeping and—”

  Jessie’s howling drowned out her words. Behind her, the nurse called out, “Ma’am? Could you please keep it down?”

  “Come on,” Stephanie said, dragging on her aunt’s arm. “We’ll go to the waiting room and wait for the doctor. George? Ask the nurse to send Clara’s doctor in when he’s got time.”

  “That could take hours,” Jessie wailed.

  “I’m sure it won’t.” Stephanie rolled her eyes at Dan, and he beckoned her over.

  Leaving Jessie’s side for a moment, Stephanie hurried over to him.

  “Don’t repeat any of what I said to anyone,” Dan said quietly. “I’ll talk to you both tomorrow.” He raised a hand to George and crossed the foyer to the door.

  “What’s he doing here?” Jessie demanded, as she watched Dan leave. “Clara wasn’t doing anything wrong, was she?”

  “No, of course not.” Stephanie led the way to the waiting room, wishing she hadn’t eaten pizza for dinner. It wasn’t sitting too well on her stomach.

  Jessie refused her offer to get coffee and sat rocking back and forth, complaining about car manufacturers and the shoddy work they put out. “She just bought that car two months ago, when she knew she was moving back here,” she said, dabbing at her red-rimmed eyes. “Now the brakes fail? Disgusting. Those people should be imprisoned for life.”

  Stephanie agreed with her and assured her over and over again that Clara was going to be fine and would be coming home the next day. It wasn’t until the doctor arrived and repeated the same news that Jessie finally stopped gnawing on her nails and appeared to accept the fact that her daughter was not on her deathbed.

  Stephanie could find little relief in that, however. Someone had tried to kill Clara. The same someone, presumably, who had killed Ana. It was getting uncomfortably obvious that neither of them would be safe until the killer was caught and put away. So far, it seemed unlikely that would be any time soon.

  It was not a comforting thought.

  Clara woke up with a start, her mind still reeling from the frightening dream. It was dark in her cubicle, with just a dim light filtering through the curtains. Hushed voices murmuring farther down the ward and the soft squeak of wheels told her the hospital staff were nearby.

  It was comforting to a degree, but she couldn’t shake off the fear she’d felt when Dan had told her someone had cut the brake lines of her car. Someone wanted her dead.

  She turned over, wincing as once more pain stabbed her in the forehead. She had to be getting close to Ana’s killer, though she wished she knew whatever it was the killer thought she knew. She tried to focus on the last few days, going over everything she could remember.

  John Halloran and his sinister comments, with so much reason to hate Ana. Molly’s lies. Roberta Prince and her obsession with Rick Sanders. Rick himself—agreeable and just a little intriguing. Could she trust him? She wanted to, but—

  The flash of memory hit her hard enough to take her breath away. She started to sit up, but the pain sent her head back on the pillow. The parking lot the night before. The red pickup taking off in the dark, just before she’d reached her car.

  The same red pickup that had followed her out of the parking lot in Sealwich Bay, with Rick behind the wheel? What was it he’d said last night?

  I’d stopped off at the post office to mail some bills, and I heard your horn.

  Coincidence? Or had he been waiting for her at the bottom of the hill? Waiting to see if his little hatchet job had worked?

  No! You’re on the wrong track!

  She closed her eyes. Oh, how she wanted to believe that. Was it the Sense telling her or her own instincts? How could she tell the difference anymore?

  The curtain swished aside, making her jump. The pleasant face of the doctor who’d treated her the night before smiled down at her. “Ah, you’re awake. How do you feel? How’s the headache?”

  “Almost gone.” She would have told him that no matter how bad it was. She wanted out of there. Even her mother’s house seemed like a sanctuary right then.

  “Good. I’ll have the nurse check you out in a little while, but you should be good to go home this morning. You’ll have to take it easy for a few days. No aerobics or sports. If the headache comes back, check in with us right away, okay?”

  “I will.” She eased herself up on the pillow. “What time shall I tell someone to pick me up?”

  “Oh, you should be out of here by nine or so.” He scribbled something on her chart, put it back on the bottom of her bed and turned to leave. “I’ll give you a prescription for pain, but go easy with it. Only use it when really necessary.”

  He was gone before she could thank him. She called Stephanie, forgetting how early it was until her cousin’s sleepy voice told her they were still in bed.

  The next two hours crawled by while she waited for the nurse to check her vital statistics. She played with the breakfast a smiling nurse brought
her and abandoned it the moment Stephanie finally appeared.

  By then she was dressed and pacing back and forth in front of the wheelchair that was supposed to carry her to the main doors.

  “Well, you look perky, all things considered,” Stephanie said, eyeing the wheelchair. “Are you going to ride in that thing?”

  “No, I’m not.” Clara looked down at her torn pants. “I look like a bag lady.”

  “You look like you’ve been in an accident.” Stephanie threw a bag on the bed. “Here, I brought you some clean clothes.”

  “I’m going home in these.” Clara shuddered. “I’m not spending another moment in this place. Let’s go.”

  She led the way toward the door, surprised at how shaky her knees felt. It hurt to walk, and the lights bothered her eyes, but once she was outside in the fresh air, she began to feel better.

  “The car’s over here.” Stephanie took her arm, and she was happy to lean on her as she made her way across the parking lot.

  “I guess Dan called my mother last night,” Clara said, as she eased herself onto the seat.

  “Yes, he did. She was at the hospital last night. They wouldn’t let us see you. They said you were sleeping.” Stephanie started the engine. “You know what this means, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, I’ll have to tell my mother all the gory details over and over again.”

  “No, I mean . . . the accident and everything.”

  Clara hesitated, unsure how much her cousin knew. “I’ll have to get my brakes checked more often?”

  Stephanie threw her an impatient glance. “Dan met us at the hospital last night. He told us someone cut your brake lines.”

  “Oh, great. Please tell me he didn’t tell my mother.”

  “No, I don’t think so. He left just as she got there.”

  “You’re not to tell her, either. In fact, Dan didn’t want me to tell anyone.”

  “I know. He told me.” Stephanie paused, obviously unhappy. “You know we’re in danger. I guess you’re right. We should tell Dan everything we know.”

  “Which is practically nothing. Most of what we know Dan knows already. We know a lot of people had good reason to hate Ana, but that’s common knowledge.”

  “We also know that Roberta Prince had a contract with Ana that gave her the store if something happened to Ana.”

  Clara sighed. “I guess we could tell him that, but he’d want to know how we knew.”

  “We’ll tell him Frannie was gossiping.”

  Clara shifted to a more comfortable position. “The problem with that is that Frannie might know something that could put her in danger. Dragging her into this could only make it worse for her.”

  “So you’re going to put yourself in jeopardy to protect Frannie?”

  “Even if we told Dan what we know, there’s no guarantee it will help him solve the case. So far, the killer hasn’t tried to hurt Frannie, so he probably doesn’t know she knows anything.”

  “That’s if it is a he and not a she.”

  Clara gave her a sharp look. “You think Roberta killed Ana, don’t you?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I don’t know what to think.” Clara passed a hand across her aching forehead. “I do feel strongly that Ana’s killer was someone she knew. I just can’t see someone dragging her kicking and screaming into the bookstore.”

  “Exactly what I think.”

  “I suppose Roberta could have done it, but we still don’t know if she was even in town on Friday night.”

  “She was here on Saturday night.” Stephanie pulled up outside Clara’s house. “You told me that yourself.”

  Clara opened her eyes. “Well, I guess we’ll have to find out where she was on Friday night. Though even if she was in town, I don’t know what that would prove.”

  Stephanie looked annoyed. “All of this would have been a lot easier if you hadn’t shut off the Quinn Sense. Without it, we’re paddling around in circles going nowhere. Someone out there is trying to hurt you now, and we have no idea who it could be.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m doing my best.” Clara felt ridiculously close to tears and climbed out of the car before she made an utter fool of herself. “I’ll see you at noon,” she muttered and started for the house.

  “Hey, wait a minute!” Stephanie hung out the window. “You’re not coming in to the store today!”

  “Yes, I am.” Clara held on to the fence to steady herself. “I’ll go nuts if I have to stay in that house all day.”

  “But the doctor—”

  “Said I had to take it easy, that’s all. I’ll be fine. I’ll be there in a couple of hours.” She turned her back and marched a little unsteadily up the drive to the front steps.

  To her relief, she heard her cousin’s car pull away from the curb. An hour or so of rest in her bedroom and she’d be fine, she told herself. Good thing her mother wasn’t home to bug her.

  After making sure all the doors and windows were locked, she took a shower, her heart thumping at every little sound. Lying on her bed, she tried to convince herself that no one was going to try to murder her in broad daylight. Still, she felt too uneasy to sleep.

  Her head still ached, and she made a mental note to have the prescription the doctor gave her filled at the pharmacy next to Rick’s hardware store.

  Thinking of Rick brought back all her doubts about him. She couldn’t get the memory out of her mind of the red pickup leaving the parking lot just a minute or two before she got to her car.

  He was the first one to reach her after the crash. To make sure she was dead? Was that why he smashed the window? To finish the job before the medics got there?

  She closed her eyes. It hurt to think. It hurt to believe that Rick might be a cold-blooded killer. Yet if she were to survive long enough to find out who killed Ana Jordan, she would have to stay on her toes. If that meant treating Rick as a possible suspect, then so be it. From now on, she couldn’t trust anyone. And that was frightening.

  12

  Clara awoke to the jazzy sound of her cell phone and silently cursed as she reached for it. How stupid of her not to turn it off. Glancing at the clock, she caught her breath. She’d been asleep after all, for more than an hour. She’d have to hurry to make it to the store by noon.

  Her mother’s voice answered her tentative “Hello?”

  “Oh, there you are. Thank the Lord. I called the hospital, and they said you’d left over two hours ago. Why didn’t you call me?”

  Clara slid out of bed, grabbing the bedside table as the room shifted around her. “I came home and fell asleep.” She blinked, twice, and the room stopped spinning. “Sorry.”

  “I should think so. I was worried about you. Who brought you home?”

  “Stephanie.” She glanced at the clock again. “I have to go, Mom. I’m supposed to be at the Raven’s Nest in half an hour.”

  “How are you going to get there? I could come home and take you. They can do without me here for a little while.”

  “No, it’s okay, Mom. I’ll take the bus. I’ll see about renting a car later, at least until I get the insurance on the other one.”

  It took her another five minutes to convince her mother she was well enough to go to work, and she had to scramble to shower and dress. She heard her mother’s phone ringing as she was heading for the door.

  She paused for a second, decided it was probably a survey or one of her mother’s friends and left it ringing as she closed the door behind her.

  At the bookstore, she found it full of customers, most of whom were in the Reading Nook enjoying coffee and scones. Stephanie greeted her with a look that clearly expressed her worry over her cousin’s condition. She said nothing, however, though Molly rushed over and gave her a hug.

  “Are you all right?” Molly peered up at her, her eyes full of concern. “Steph said your car was totaled. It must have been horrible when you realized your brakes weren’t working.”

  Clara managed a brief smile. “It
was. But I’m fine, except for a crashing headache.” She glanced at her cousin. “I’m going over to the pharmacy to get this filled. Can you do without me until I get back?”

  Stephanie nodded. “Take your time.”

  “Thanks.” Clara stepped out into the street, blinking as the sunlight stabbed her eyes.

  “I just heard the news. How are you?”

  The voice seemed to come from nowhere, and she had to blink several times to focus before she recognized Frannie.

  “I’m doing all right.” She turned her back to the sun.

  Frannie wore a pair of sunglasses that just about hid her whole face. “Roberta told me what happened,” she said, her fingers twisting the strap of her shoulder bag. “How awful. You could have been killed.”

  “But I wasn’t.” Clara did her best to smile. “A night in the hospital and I’m as good as new.”

  “Well, I’m glad to hear it.” Frannie looked down the street, and then back at her again. “Be careful, Clara. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you.” She walked off, leaving Clara staring after her.

  Was that a warning? What is it Frannie knows? Damn it, Sense, where are you?

  Shaking her head, Clara headed for the pharmacy just as Roberta stormed out of the hardware store, her face dark with annoyance.

  She looked at Clara as if she were something nasty she’d found in her sandwich and stalked across the road with complete disregard for the motorist who had to abruptly brake for her.

  Clara would have given anything to go into the hardware store to find out what had upset Jordan’s new owner, but no matter what excuse she came up with, Rick would probably catch on right away that she was simply being nosy.

  When she came out of the pharmacy with the pills the doctor had prescribed, Rick was stacking rakes and shovels in the wooden barrel outside his store. After a mental battle with herself, she gave in to the impulse and walked up to him.

  She spoke his name, and he spun around, brandishing the rake like a weapon. His expression changed when he saw her. “Clara! I thought for a moment you were the spider woman.”