by Paula Lester
Before Paige could say anything, Marco swept past her and strode up to Jordan. “You’ve upset my friend,” he said, his tone hard.
Jordan slowly raised his eyes from the book he held, and the expression on his face startled Paige. He looked like a man who was this close to snapping. She knew the past few days had probably been among the hardest of his life, and he’d seemed to be handling everything as well as could be expected. But it appeared as though Marco’s macho bravado might be the straw that tore through the handsome actor’s fragile thread of control and broke it.
When he answered Marco, his voice was low and strained. “Paige has been helping me. She’s my friend now too. She’s worried about me, I suppose.”
“So you’re putting your burdensomeness on her,” Marco said. “You are not a man. I could tell that by looking at you, and now I’m sure.” His tone was heavy on disgust.
Like a flash, Jordan reached out and shoved Marco’s shoulder. “Get away from me,” he snarled.
Dimly, Paige heard the bells over the front door tinkle, but she couldn’t spare any attention for customers right that second.
Marco stumbled backward at the contact but immediately got his footing and flew forward, pushing Jordan back. Paige saw the actor’s jaw and fist both clench, and she knew the two men would be throwing punches in her bookstore within seconds if she didn’t intervene.
Moving forward, Paige realized the customers who’d entered had their phones out and were snapping pictures of the scene. She quickened her steps, got between Marco and Jordan, and laid a hand on each of their chests. “Stop it! Right now.” She spoke between clenched teeth. “Marco, I’m fine. Jordan, he’s just watching out for me.” Both men grumbled, but she felt them relax and lean back. She turned to face the Italian. “You should go now. I’ll call you later.”
He nodded, keeping his eyes on Jordan until finally turning around to leave the shop. Paige breezily approached the customers, trying to lighten the mood and divert their attention from Jordan.
Once the shop was closed for lunch, Paige sat heavily on the stool behind the checkout counter and leaned forward, resting her head in her hands. A few moments later, Jordan approached her, his phone in his hand. He held it out to her. “We have another problem. I’m really sorry.”
Paige groaned, not wanting to hear the next issue she’d have to deal with. But she took the phone and looked at the screen. It was Jordan’s Twitter feed. And it was full of pictures of Beachside Books, her, and Jordan. They were standing close in one, heads bent over a book. In another, they laughed while looking at each other. In the most recent one, she had her hand on his chest. Her other hand, which she knew had been on Marco’s chest, was cropped out of the photo. She scanned the posts and looked up at Jordan, horrified. “They think you’re cheating on Vanessa,” she said weakly. “With me.”
Jordan scratched the side of his face. “I hope Audrey doesn’t see this. She might come after you.”
Chapter 13
After lunch, which was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, Paige tried to work on the shop’s financials, but her brain had trouble focusing. Numbers floated around the page in front of her eyes. An occasional clank from the pipes was a constant reminder of what was at stake if the bookshop didn’t get in the black.
She stewed about the rumors that she and Jordan were having a fling, and she felt irritated about being unable to get more information from Scott about the investigation. Finally, she slammed the ledger book shut and grabbed her purse. Jordan was in the storeroom, and she marched up to him. “I’m going out for a bit.”
At his questioning look, she sighed. “I’m going down to the station to talk to Scott. I didn’t get to tell him about Audrey this morning, and I think it’s an important piece of the puzzle that he should know about.”
Jordan looked down at the floor and nodded. “Be sure to tell him that she could be dangerous.”
“I will. Also, I don’t want you to have to deal with running the shop alone, so I’m going to close it up while I’m gone. Can you please dust the tops of all the bookshelves and unload that box of magazines that came earlier today?”
“Sure. Some exercise will be good to get my mind off things.” Quick as a flash, Jordan peeled his shirt off. The neck of Paige’s own shirt suddenly felt too tight, and she tugged at it, gulping in air.
As if her temper didn’t already have her feeling hot enough, Jordan’s half nakedness wasn’t cooling her down. She mumbled her thanks and fled the building through the back door. When it clicked shut behind her, she leaned against it and sucked in the salty, dense air. Of course, it was pretty hot outside, but at least Jordan’s chest wasn’t taking up her vision and increasing her body heat even more.
Paige heard the back door over at Just Baked open and close, and she watched Lucy take a few steps into the parking lot. The baker was fluffing her curly hair, and when she saw Paige, she turned toward her.
“Hi, Lucy,” Paige said. “Where are you off to?” Lucy didn’t leave the bakery for Betsy to run by herself too often, especially during the busy period after lunch when everyone came in for coffee to fight the two o’clock slump.
Lucy’s eyes bounced from Paige to the cars in the lot to the closed back doors of both their stores. “I have to go to the police station and talk to your brother.” Her hand fluttered from her hair to her purse, where it twisted one of the handles over and over. “He called and asked me to go down and answer some questions.”
“About the murder? Didn’t you already tell him everything you know the day it happened?”
Lucy nodded, her curls bouncing to and fro. “I have no idea what more I could tell him. Maybe he just wants me to repeat everything. I guess I’d better find out.” She took a step toward her minivan.
“I’m actually heading to the station too,” Paige said.
“Oh! Well, you’re welcome to ride with me. I don’t know how long I’ll be there, but I can’t imagine it will be more than twenty minutes. I don’t know very much.”
Paige hesitated. Maybe she should drive herself in case Lucy was detained for a while. She looked at her friend’s face, which was paler than normal, and realized how nervous she was. “Sure, I’d like to ride with you.” Maybe a little moral support would help calm Lucy down. “Thanks for offering.”
Paige couldn’t get in the passenger seat until Lucy moved a pile of newspapers, magazines, and loose flyers to the back seat, which was already nearly buried in stuff. “Sorry about the mess,” Lucy said absentmindedly. “Candy and Earl are as messy as can be.” She chuckled, but it was thin and nervous.
“It’s no problem.” Paige gingerly pushed fast food burger wrappers out of the way with her toe so she could put her feet directly on the floor mat. She didn’t want to get ketchup or something all over the bottoms of her shoes. She giggled to herself, imagining walking into the police station and leaving “bloody footprints” all over the place.
The moment Lucy pulled out of the parking lot by stepping on the gas and veering hard left, causing all the wrappers on the floor to fly back and cover Paige’s feet, Paige regretted accepting the invitation to ride in the minivan. She held on to the handle above the passenger window and gritted her teeth as Lucy lurched around, stomped on both the gas and the brake too hard, and generally made the trip feel like a crazy, off-track roller coaster ride.
Paige had ridden with Lucy before, and it had been a lot smoother, so she had to assume the wild driving was due to the baker being upset. Luckily, it was a short ride, and Paige leaped out of the car as soon as Lucy put it in park, happy to be alive.
Scott was in the lobby leaning on the front desk when the two women entered the police station. He focused on Paige, appearing surprised to see her. “Are you here for business or pleasure?”
“Business, I’m afraid.” One good thing about Lucy’s white-knuckle driving was it had managed to diffuse Paige’s temper. She felt calmer than when she’d marched out of Beachside Books. Seeing he
r life flash before her eyes had really put things in perspective.
Scott nodded. “Okay. You’ll need to wait here until I’m done talking to Lucy, though.” He held a hand out for the baker, who followed him out of the lobby toward Scott’s office with slow, shuffling steps.
Paige looked around. There were some beat-up old magazines on end tables next to ratty, torn chairs in the waiting area. She avoided both the seats and the reading material and stood gazing out the front window instead. Scenes from the past few days floated in front of her eyes: Vanessa’s smile when she popped her head into the bookstore, unaware that her poor boyfriend Cash would soon be lying dead on the beach; Jordan’s face when Paige told him about the murder; Audrey’s bitten-down fingernails and her Subaru gliding by the grocery store parking lot; Didi’s glare when Paige stood up to her; and Jordan’s Twitter feed full of Paige’s face. All those images went by like frames in a movie.
“Okay, I’m ready for you.” Scott’s voice pulled Paige back to the current moment. It didn’t seem like he’d been talking with Lucy for long. Paige followed her brother to his office. Lucy was still there, sitting in one of the two chairs across from Scott’s desk. He motioned to the empty chair. “Do you mind if Lucy stays while we talk?”
Paige shook her head. “She already knows what I’m going to tell you, which is that Jordan has a stalker. Audrey Lanton. You can check police records and see he has a restraining order against her, but she’s in Comfort Cove anyway. She’s been to Beachside Books asking about Jordan, and I’ve seen her driving past while I was with him. She went to that reporter, Jane with Net News, and said Jordan was with her when Cash was murdered, but he says that isn’t true. She’s trying to help him by giving him an alibi, and I think it’s possible she might have killed Cash as part of her obsession with Jordan.”
Scott was nodding as Paige spoke, scribbling in his small notebook. She was mildly surprised that he didn’t seem to think her news was anything too exciting, but she shrugged the feeling off. She knew Scott was trained to hide his thoughts and feelings during an investigation, and he was good at it.
“I’ll look into this,” he said when Paige stopped talking. He closed his notebook and stood up.
“And don’t forget the other thing,” Lucy added. “Jordan thinks Audrey might be dangerous and could go after Paige.”
Scott shot a look back at his sister. “You? Why?”
“Apparently the Twitter-sphere thinks Jordan and I are dating. Audrey is the psycho jealous type.” Paige noticed the telltale sign that Scott was worried. He clenched his jaw.
Scott stood and made a motion toward the door to dismiss his visitors. But Paige wasn’t finished. “I think you should interview Jordan again. He’s ready to come clean and tell you absolutely everything he knows, down to the tiniest detail. There might be something there he didn’t think to tell you before, like being in his motel room the night of the murder with Vanessa Flowers. They never left the room.”
“I might not need to do that.” Scott glanced at Lucy, and Paige felt an unspoken message pass between the two. “Now I’ve got work to do.”
Lucy walked ahead on the way back to the waiting room, and Paige murmured quietly to Scott, “Why did you bring Lucy in today?”
He shook his head. “I’m super busy. Gotta run. I’ll call you later.” Scott deposited her in the waiting room and hurried back toward his office.
Paige hesitated when they got back to the minivan. She wasn’t eager for another death-defying ride across town, but Lucy looked calmer. She wasn’t fluffing her hair obsessively anymore. Maybe her driving would be better. Paige got in, again shoving the fast food wrappers aside with her toe.
Lucy backed out of the parking space using all her mirrors and glancing over her shoulder, and Paige sighed with relief. Her friend was driving better. “So, are you going to tell me what Scott wanted?”
Lucy kept her eyes on the road and her hands at ten and two, the picture of a careful driver. “Old Pops identified someone. I guess he was freaked out, so he’s been hiding. He gave a detailed description to a sketch artist at the police station, and when the picture was done, it looked just like Bucky Grant—long, bushy sideburns, a big scar over his left eye, and huge buck teeth. The artist recognized him.”
“Bucky Grant the actor?” Paige hadn’t watched much TV and no movies in the past couple of years, but she knew of Bucky Grant, whose out-of-the-ordinary features made him a popular character actor.
“Yes. He’s here in town for Oz Wilder’s treasure hunt. I guess, in the early morning light, he looked kind of like a zombie to Old Pops. Scared him straight into hiding.”
Paige chewed her bottom lip, thinking about the scene on the beach that morning. Had Old Pops seen the killer and been able to ID him all along?
“Scott wanted to know if I’d seen Bucky Grant on the beach that morning or anytime that day. I didn’t, though. Just Pops, Cash, and the axe.” Lucy shivered.
But something about the story wasn’t sitting right with Paige. “I remember Old Pops from before I left Comfort Cove. Everyone knows he’s a conman. He chooses to be a vagrant—it isn’t that he’s down on his luck or anything. It’s just how he likes things. Easier for him to swindle tourists if he’s homeless.”
Lucy nodded. “I know. Your brother did seem a little skeptical about Pops’ story, but, of course, he didn’t say that.”
Paige bit her lip some more. Scott couldn’t risk getting this case wrong. It was the first investigation he was in charge of since making detective. She made a decision and leaned toward Lucy a little as the baker pulled the minivan to a stop in the lot behind their stores. “Will you go with me to find Old Pops? You can do a sniff test on him for me. Just to make sure Scott’s on the right track.”
Lucy’s nose wrinkled and she made a gagging motion. “I can’t imagine sniffing that dirty old man.”
Paige put on her best puppy dog face and stuck out her bottom lip, saying nothing.
Lucy sighed. “Okay. I’ll do it. Just so you know, strong odors seem to overpower my special sense sometimes. But I’ll try.”
Paige grinned and slapped Lucy lightly on the arm. “Yes! Thank you.”
Lucy nodded but she looked a little nervous. Seeing that, Paige thought about Lucy’s driving when she was upset and said quickly, “How about we switch to the Oldsmobile? I’ll drive.”
Chapter 14
Paige and Lucy both knew they needed to head to the Camp to find Old Pops. About five acres of wooded area off the beach just north of Comfort Cove, the Camp was a small tent city for homeless folks, and it was where Old Pops usually stayed. The cops knew about the Camp, of course, but they left the tents’ residents alone as long as they stayed quiet and didn’t bother the town’s tourists.
“My friend Clara works for social services,” Lucy said, gazing out the window as Paige approached the turn-off toward the Camp. “She comes out and checks on the people every so often, especially during the high heat of summer. She said they’ll intervene if someone with kids tries to take up residence.”
Paige nodded. She knew the shelter in town served breakfast and lunch every day too, but it wasn’t as well utilized as it could be. The occupants of the little settlement mostly seemed like they wanted to keep to and fend for themselves.
Paige parked on the shoulder of the dirt road she’d turned onto, and she and Lucy found the well-used trailhead that led back to the tents. As they approached the area, a mangy-looking dog barked halfheartedly at them without getting to his feet. Then he put his head back on his front paws and closed his eyes.
A couple of campfires smoked lazily here and there, and Paige could smell food.
Only a few people were around, tending fires or sitting in camp chairs outside their tents under the canopy of trees. Paige decided to head toward the only soul who’d bothered to greet them so far. When they got close, Paige could see that the dog was a hound mix, and his ears still touched the ground when he lifted his head aga
in at her approach. “Hi, buddy,” Paige said, holding her hand out. The dog stretched his neck to sniff it and then gave a slow tail wag.
“Razor’s getting old and lazy.” A female voice came from the mouth of the bright blue tent next to the dog. A woman came out wearing denim shorts that went almost to her knees and a white, ruffly, scoop-necked short-sleeved shirt with some dirt smudges on the front. Her cowboy boots were pink with tassels, and she had long dirty-blond hair with seven or eight bright silver ribbons braided into it.
“Hello. I’m Paige Murphy.”
“I’m Gypsy.” She appeared to be around sixty years old. It was unlikely that Gypsy was her real name. “What are you all doing out here?” she asked with a soft Southern drawl. “Did they hire new people at the soup kitchen to try and entice us downtown?”
“No, nothing like that.” Lucy shook her head. “We’re actually looking for someone.”
“Oh. Well, most folks aren’t here right now. The heat drives them out of the tents. Plus, there have been a lot of out-of-towners around lately and sometimes they help us.”
Paige nodded. “Do you know if Old Pops is around?”
“I don’t think so. I haven’t seen him today that I recall.” The woman crossed to an old picnic table with rotting wooden slats and sat on it gingerly. She must have known where the only sturdy spot on the thing was located.
“Can you show us which tent is his?” Paige asked boldly.
Gypsy narrowed her eyes and crossed, uncrossed, and recrossed her legs. “I’m not sure about that. I don’t know you two at all. You could be cops for all I know.” Her eyes narrowed even further, and she peered first at Paige and then at Lucy. “Are you cops?”
Paige glanced at her friend, whose eyes were as wide as her own, and they both shook their heads furiously.
“Not cops, huh?” Gypsy tipped her head to the side, the silver ribbons in her hair catching the sunlight. She was silent for so long that Paige began to wonder if the woman could sleep with her eyes open. Then she blinked several times. “I’ll tell you what,” she drawled. “I’m a fortune teller by trade. It’s how I make my living.”
