Kiki Lowenstein Books 1-3 & Cara Mia Delgatto Books 1-3: The Perfect Series for Crafters, Pet Lovers, and Readers Who Like Upbeat Books!

by Joanna Campbell Slan

  EveLynn had me trapped between the two cars and the back wall of the store. Meanwhile, Honora stepped out and began to struggle with a piece of luggage in the back seat. MJ ran over to help. “More miniatures,” she said, answering my unspoken questions.

  “You need to get that rewritten,” said EveLynn, not noticing my preoccupation. I was still trying to figure out where the Highway man paintings should go. If we stacked them in the trunk, they could rub against each other. They were far too precious to risk damaging.

  “Customers want to know how much cotton content the fabric has,” EveLynn said. “Or whether it’s hand-dyed.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said, but I’d already tuned her out. She kept rattling off all the information I'd mangled when describing her soft goods.

  “You have to get it fixed!” she said, fisting her hands on her hips. Her voice had gone up a notch. Her lower lip trembled. Tears formed in her eyes. Her face twisted into the sort of grimace a toddler makes before letting loose with a blood-curdling scream.

  Any second, she would blow her cool.

  But there was no way I could have kept track of all her changes, much less applied them with precision to her merchandise.

  Then it dawned on me. I had a printout of the descriptions on my desk.

  “EveLynn, I’ve got a copy of the website page. How about if I let you make the corrections on it? That way I can't possibly make any mistakes, can I? It’s in my desk.”

  She sighed. “I guess.”

  That crisis averted, I led the way and all of us went inside the store. EveLynn followed right behind me, nearly stepping on my heels.

  After introducing Honora and EveLynn to Nathan, I asked Sid to move so I could reach my in-box. I was rummaging through papers, when Nathan held up a picture. “Cara, do you recognize this headscarf and raincoat? Is this exactly what Kathy Simmons wore to your media event?”

  I took it from him.

  I could feel EveLynn literally breathing down my neck. She had no compunction about invading my personal space—and she was starting to get on my nerves. I turned to ask her to back off.

  With a quick jerk, she pulled the picture out of my hands.

  “That’s not Kathy Simmons,” EveLynn said.

  63

  ~Cara~

  “Kathy was five-seven,” said EveLynn. Repeating herself, she added, “The woman in the picture is not Kathy Simmons.”

  “How do you know?” asked Nathan.

  “I know. First, I never forget numbers. Second, my ability to estimate measurements is exceptional. For example, you are five-nine and you weigh 165. Cara is five-three, and she weighs—”

  “Stop right there,” I said. “Do not share my weight, EveLynn.”

  “But if you’re estimating the height of the woman in the photo, you could be wrong,” said Nathan.

  “I’m not wrong. I can show you how I know that’s not Kathy,” EveLynn said as she grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil and began to write down numbers.

  Although she was short on people skills, her mathematical ability was truly awe inspiring. She was confident she knew the height of the rest stop door.

  “She never forgets a measurement,” said her mother, who had joined us and was standing on the threshold of my office.

  Starting with the height of the door and estimating the distance the woman in the photo was standing from that door, EveLynn systematically worked her way through the Pythagorean theorem.

  When she was done, she shoved her calculations toward Nathan and said, “The numbers prove that I’m right. The person in that picture is not Kathy Simmons. Kathy was five-seven. She came to my mother’s house on April 20, last year, at three p.m. She stayed four hours and asked thirty-two questions.”

  "Could that be Kathy’s roommate, Darcy?" I wondered out loud.

  “According to their drivers’ licenses, Darcy Lahti and Kathy Simmons are—or were—approximately the same height,” said Nathan.

  “Yes,” I murmured, thinking back on Darcy’s visit.

  “So who is the woman in our photo? More importantly, why was she wearing Kathy’s things? This is big. Really big.” Nathan dialed his cell phone. “Valerie? I need you to do something for me. In Lou’s top desk drawer there’s a USB stick labeled KS. Send those files to me at my email address. I need them right now, please.”

  “EveLynn, are you planning to stick around? I want to show you a few more pictures and see if you can tell me whether they are Kathy Simmons or not.”

  “Unfortunately, I am forced to stay here long enough to fix the mistakes Cara made when she listed my merchandise.”

  I cringed.

  Her mother said, “What EveLynn's trying to say is that she’ll be happy to help you, Captain Davidson, won't you dear?”

  EveLynn shrugged.

  “Cara? Did you say you have that photo? The one that Kathy bought from you? Could I have it before I forget?” Nathan smiled at me.

  Because all of us were crammed together in my office, I asked Honora to grab the picture. “It’s tacked to the bulletin board over by MJ’s desk,” I said.

  Honora did as I asked. In the process of handing the picture to Nathan she glanced down at the black and white. “Well, my stars and bars. This is a photo of Josiah Wentworth.”

  “It is? Are you sure?” I asked her.

  “Yes, this is the Senator in his younger days,” she said as Nathan took the picture.

  “Which one is Josiah Wentworth?”

  “The grown man in the middle.”

  “And you are positive?”

  “Absolutely. I’ve known Josiah all of my life,” said Honora.

  64

  ~Cara~

  I still needed the papers with the descriptions of EveLynn’s merchandise. Once I found them, we left Nathan and Sid working in my office. Although the new information was clearly helpful to the police captain, it also insured that I wouldn’t be getting any work done on my computer for quite a while. Honora went about the task of displaying the new merchandise she’d brought. EveLynn plopped herself down in the middle of the sales floor. There she sprawled like a teenager on a chair that Skye had reupholstered. I thought about reprimanding her for making herself at home in a place of business, but it hardly seemed worth the effort.

  I felt frustrated because all my plans had gone out with the tide.

  “Get a grip, Cara,” I told myself. “There’s plenty to do.”

  Nothing makes me feel better than to turn trash into treasure, so I turned my attention to salvaging six wrought irons stands. These had once been the bases for six treadle sewing machines. When discovered in a local high school’s storage unit, they were missing the actual Singer Sewing Machines, Skye and I were happy to take them.

  “All we need is to paint them and add wooden tops,” she’d said.

  I had agreed. With a little imagination they could make cute occasional tables. We’d brought them back to the store so I could remove the rust and old paint. Keeping an eye open for customers, I opened a new package of sandpaper and began the laborious job of sanding.

  A little later, EveLynn returned the printouts, shoving them under my nose. “Your accuracy leaves a lot to be desired, Cara.”

  From across the sales floor, where she’d been arranging a tiny beach scene on a shelf, Honora clapped a hand over her mouth in horror. She shook her head, and began to mouth an apology, but I cut her off with a dismissive gesture.

  “EveLynn,” I said, “I’m glad you corrected this. From now on, please include a printed copy of your descriptions along with your merchandise. Better yet, email your descriptions directly to Sid so we don’t need to retype your work. He can put them directly on the website and we can avoid this problem.”

  “But you should know what these fabrics are,” she protested.

  “No,” I stopped her. “That’s not my job. It's yours.”

  “If you insist,” she said. With that, she turned and marched toward the door.

  As I w
atched her go, I counted my lucky stars that she was Honora’s child and not mine. Despite her fantastic talents with fabric, EveLynn had the social maturity of a pre-teen. Worst of all, it would never change. This wasn’t a phase; this was forever.

  “You handled that brilliantly, Cara, dear,” Honora said. "I am sorry—"

  "Don't apologize for her," I interrupted. "Her behavior is not your fault. Don’t worry about it. That’s the way she is, and we both know she’s not going to change."

  Honora gave me a hug. “Thank you, for being so understanding.”

  "I need a bottle of water," I told the older woman. "Can I get anything for you?"

  On my way to the refrigerator, I checked on the men huddled over my computer. Despite the difference in their ages, Sid and Davidson got along like two friends. Back and forth they went, discussing options and concerns, hitting keys, and staring at the screen.

  “I took Jack outside,” said Davidson proudly. "He had to go while you were working on the sales floor."

  My dog might not be a champion in the show ring, but he was a world beater at cajoling people into taking him outside for a potty stop. Or for a prance around in the alley. What a little booger.

  “Thanks. Where is he now?” Jack’s crate was empty.

  “In Sid’s lap." Davidson pointed to a space I couldn’t see because it was blocked by my desk. "He’s asleep.”

  Sid looked up from the keyboard. “Luna is in Captain Davidson’s lap. She’s asleep, too.”

  “Pet sitters anonymous, hey?” I said with a laugh. “By the way, Nathan, any progress on my burglary? I know I asked you the same question less than twenty-four hours ago, but still…”

  “Nothing yet,” he said.

  “Wasn’t it weird that the burglar only took pictures that had people in them?” Sid asked.

  “Excuse me?” I frowned at Sid. “What do you mean?”

  “Remember? Right before the VIP Open House? Skye noticed that all of the photos of people were missing. From the box of extras.”

  “Yes,” I said. “But she also said she needed to go through the box more carefully to be sure. They might have simply been mislabeled.”

  “She did do that, later. The morning you and Honora went for your drive. She didn’t find any pictures of people. That got me thinking,” and Sid rose to his feet. “Come look.”

  Davidson and I followed him to the sales floor. Sid pointed to the framed pictures on display. “There aren’t any people here either. But you had to replace some, right? After the burglary? And all of those must have been of people because there aren’t any here now.”

  I gawped at the display. “You are right, Sid. I’ve been walking past this for days, but I didn’t notice that the subjects had changed.”

  “There were photos of people on display before?” asked Davidson. “You mean before the VIP Open House, right?

  “Right,” I said. “There were also extra photos of people in the box in the back. If Sid is right, they’re all gone. Every last one of them.”

  65

  ~Cara~

  Although I looked at the wall display of photos every day, I had quit seeing them, really seeing them and letting their subject matter register on me. How easy it is to take your world for granted.

  “Sid, you are a very observant young man,” I said.

  “I try to be,” he answered. “But that’s not helping any.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t seem to be able to help Captain Davidson.”

  “It was a long shot, Sid,” said Nathan, clapping a friendly hand on the boy’s shoulder. The policeman stepped closer to the display wall, to study the framed photos. “You’ve done your best. We know that Kathy opened that cloud storage account right before she disappeared. The chances of us finding the password to that account were slim. But it was worth a try. I can go through official channels and see if they’ll grant me access, but that’ll take time. I figured that the least we could do we would be to try a few combinations. I hoped we’d get lucky.”

  “I can see why you’d be hopeful. In the movies, the computer guy always comes up with the password,” I said.

  “Yeah,” said Sid, “but that isn’t real life. In real life, you mess up the password and you get locked out. Sometimes permanently. Besides, most people choose something easy, like their pet’s name and a date.”

  “Luna was Kathy’s cat,” I said.

  “But Luna is only four letters,” said Sid, “and Kathy Simmons’ password is sixteen characters long. This chick was serious about keeping people out.”

  “So close and yet so far,” said Nathan. “But the morning wasn’t a total waste. Now we know that someone pretending to be Kathy Simmons drove up and down the turnpike the evening that Kathy disappeared. We also know that your burglar was only interested in photos of people.”

  “You also have the photo that Kathy bought from me,” I said.

  “Right. I’ll see if our lab can work any magic with it. Maybe there’s a message there that can’t be seen with the naked eyes. Or a part of the image that could be enhanced.”

  “Are you thinking that photo is a clue in Kathy Simmons’ murder? Somehow it wound up in Darcy’s hands, because she’s the one who gave it to me.”

  “It’s certainly a loose end, and loose ends bother me. Especially in a murder investigation.”

  “Sounds like you need to figure out what Kathy Simmons did between the time she left the store and when she died,” said Sid.

  “That should be easy, shouldn’t it?” Nathan gave Sid a wry smile.

  “No,” said Sid. “It doesn’t sound easy at all.”

  66

  ~Cara~

  Police Captain Davidson thanked me for letting him borrow Sid and my computer. “May I speak to you in private?” he asked.

  I suggested that we walked outside so I could work on the flowers in the urns. It was a task I’d been putting off. What I called “vinca,” the locals called “periwinkle.” Whatever you called them, the flowers definitely needed to be cut back. I planned to put the severed stems in water, let them send out roots, and pot them up. A cheery cluster of red and pink periwinkles would be a nice start toward making my apartment more inviting.

  “Cara, I have two ongoing murder investigations, and you’re at the center of both of them.” Nathan smiled and leaned against the door jam.

  "Is this some sort of a joke?"

  "Not at all," he said in a lazy tone of voice.

  "You know I had nothing to do with Kathy Simmons' death. I wish I'd never sold her that stupid picture."

  "No good deed goes unpunished," he said.

  Then it hit me. "Two murders? Are you telling me that the Senator didn’t die of natural causes?”

  “You can’t talk to anyone about this. Not yet. We haven’t even confirmed it to his widow.”

  “But you're blaming me, right? Telling me you consider me a suspect?” I could tell I was on the brink of getting hysterical. And yes, I felt disappointed. Tricked. Here I’d let Nathan use Sid’s time. Okay, and worse luck, I thought the man liked me. I seemed to have nothing but bad luck when it came to men!

  “No, I’m not telling you that you are a suspect,” he said. "What I’m saying is that this is a spider’s web, and it’s wrapped around you. You’re in the middle of the trap. It’s too sticky for you to walk away.”

  “Quit talking in riddles,” I said, suddenly angry. I’d let my guard down over dinner and really enjoyed myself. Why was it that every relationship I had with a man ended in disaster? Heck, Nathan Davidson and I hadn’t even gotten to the relationship stage! What was I, the Typhoid Mary of the single set?

  “I’m not being clear,” he said, as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry. Here's the thing: I’m worried about your safety. What we have here is a cunning murderer. Our killer is watching you, maybe even using you. Might even be attempting to frame you. We had an anonymous tip this morning. Someone suggesting you were to blame for Jo
siah Wentworth’s death. It was a man who called in.”

  “How do I defend myself against that? What do I do?” Panic awakened every cell in my body. This was wearing me down. The nasty pranks I’d suffered were taking a toll on me, and this new threat proved that someone was willing to up the ante. I swallowed the lump in my throat and told Nathan about the letters I'd been receiving.

  "Did you save any of them?"

  "Of course not," I said. After clearing my throat, I asked, "What can I do?"

  “You can’t do anything. Nothing. It’s up to us.”

  “Great, and you’re short-handed.”

  In a flash, he moved forward and gripped my shoulders. His hold was tight, but not hurtful. His eyes clear and direct. “Cara, I might be short-handed, but I promise you that you are safe on my watch. I won’t let you get blamed for something you didn’t do.”

  The vehemence of his announcement shocked both of us. He let go of me with his hands, but his eyes held mine. “I take care of the people who matter to me,” he said.

  A tingle started low and sparkled upwards.

  Nathan cared about me?

  What different did it make? I still had to look out for myself.

  “Okay, but I’m not going to sit back and hope you can keep me safe. Not with two people already dead. What do I need to do?”

  “Are you planning to attend Kathy’s funeral on Monday?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you going alone?”

  “No.” I explained about Jason Robbins’s invitation.

  “Good. Stick close to him. Don’t go wandering off on your own. I’ll be there. Lou will be there. You should be fine. Do you have your cell phone on you?”

  I handed it over.

  “I’m typing in my personal cell phone number. To get me, all you need to do is push the number nine and hold it. If you see or hear anything, if anyone approaches you in the store, or if something just doesn’t feel right, call me. Any time of the day or night.”