Sifting Through Clues Page 11

  The moment I lifted the lid, the screen illuminated to reveal the Internet browser home page.

  “This isn’t right,” I whispered. “The Internet shouldn’t be open.” I checked the Internet history. Nothing. Just as I’d left it. Weird.

  “Maybe your aunt came over to use it,” he suggested. “Call her.”

  “She’s on a date with Appleby and his children.” The deputy had grown kids. They adored my aunt. “Rhett, remember how Cinnamon said Ivy’s computer had been hacked?”

  “Actually, Bucky said it, and Cinnamon confirmed it.”

  “Is it possible my computer has been tampered with?”

  “Why would you assume that? What would someone want off of it?”

  “Nothing. That’s just it. All the vital information for the Cookbook Nook is on the computer at the shop.”

  He cocked his head. “Did you make notes about Ivy’s murder?”

  “What are you suggesting, that the murderer came to check out my theories?”

  “No,” he said too quickly.

  I shivered. A killer had invaded my cottage in the past. Shoot. I did my best to summon up courage. Or pluck, at the very least. “According to Cinnamon, I won’t need to make notes.”

  “You mean she doesn’t want you to.”

  “Don’t split hairs.” I knuckled him. “Besides, I jot notes on three-by-five cards.” When I worked in advertising, I used to storyboard ad campaigns that way.

  A dog barked outside. I raced to the front door and caught sight of Crusibella standing on her porch in a filmy nightgown. A halo of light outlined her body. Her poodle squirmed in her arms.

  “Rhett,” I whispered, “come here. Look.”

  Crusibella was staring directly at me, or rather, through me. Was she sleepwalking? If I yelled to her, would the sudden sound startle her? The dog settled down, and Crusibella glided into her house. Like a wraith.

  As she disappeared, another shiver ran down my spine. Had she stolen into my cottage? If so, why?

  Chapter 13

  Rhett stayed the night. His presence was nice, but it didn’t keep me from tossing and turning and dreaming of Crusibella and quartz shards and eyestones. And hats. Lots and lots of hats. Including a striped bass wearing a boater and dancing in the bay.

  I awoke in a sweat and took a quick run on the beach to clear my head. When I returned, Rhett fed me a protein-heavy breakfast. Having skipped dinner, I was starved and ate every bite. Before he headed off to work, he calmed me with kisses. How lucky was I?

  After dressing in a cheery peach top, white jeans, and seashell-adorned sandals, I felt better. Soon, my wicked dream faded.

  As I was setting Tigger in my VW, I spotted Crusibella working in her garden. Her poodle, which was perched on a teensy director’s chair, yapped. She hushed him and said loudly, “Trouble is in the air, sweetie. Beware.”

  Was she warning the dog or me? A vision of her sneaking into my house and tampering with my computer played in my mind. Had she been the culprit? If not her, who?

  I started to call Cinnamon to tell her about the possible break-in but thought better of it. I didn’t want her to think I was imagining things, despite Rhett’s eyewitness account. Instead, I left her a message apologizing for my rude behavior at dinner. Hopefully, that would earn me a few Brownie points.

  When I pulled into the parking lot at Fisherman’s Village, Pepper was standing outside her shop conversing with a man dressed in a tan jacket, shirt, and slacks. She didn’t look happy. Even though all I could see was the man’s back, I recognized him as the person who had ducked out of the parking lot the day Pepper and Crusibella had exchanged words about appetizers for the book club. It hadn’t been Ivy in disguise. The man’s shaggy brown hair was the giveaway.

  “Everything okay, Pepper?” I shouted as I climbed out of the car.

  She peered around the man, her eyes blinking wildly. Was she trying to send me a message by Morse code? I popped into the Cookbook Nook, dropped off Tigger, alerted Tina and Bailey I’d be right back, and hurried to Beaders of Paradise. I came alongside the man and jutted out my hand. “Hi, there. I’m Jenna Hart, and you are . . .” I studied his face, trying to memorize every detail in case he chose to flee.

  “Jenna,” Pepper said, her voice trembling, her hand fiddling with the beaded collar of her lilac sweater. “This is my ex-husband, Noah Pritchett.”

  I noted the resemblance to Cinnamon. Strong forehead. Strong nose. Full mouth. They didn’t have the same eyes. His were narrow and shifty and bracketed with crow’s-feet.

  “Pleased to meet you.” He didn’t shake my hand because the cell phone he was holding jangled.

  “Are you here for Book Club Bonanza?” I asked.

  “No.” His cell phone rang again. “Got to answer this, ladies. Excuse me.” He edged away from us.

  “What does he want?” I put a reassuring hand on Pepper’s shoulder.

  “He wants to meet Cinnamon.” She plucked at the hem of her sweater. “I’m worried sick. What will she say? She’s never met him, but she’s always hated him.”

  “She might already sense he’s here,” I said. “That could explain why she’s overeating.”

  “No, I spoke to Katie, too. My daughter is binge eating because of my predicament. I used to do the same when I was worried. It’s a bad habit. Ultimately, I went to therapy to get it under control.” She glanced at her ex. “Noah said he heard about the murder and sensed I was in trouble. Supposedly, he wants to lend support. Personally, I think he’s hoping to swoop in like a white knight for Cinnamon if I go to jail.”

  I thought of Crusibella’s warning earlier: Trouble is in the air, sweetie. Beware. “Pepper, I think you should—”

  Noah rejoined us and pocketed his cell phone. “Sorry, business.” His mouth was tight. The left corner twitched imperceptibly.

  “What kind of business?” Pepper asked, her tone laced with recrimination. “What are you doing nowadays?”

  “I manage a garden shop.” To me he said, “I owned a nursery before. When I lived here.” He turned back to Pepper. “It’s an annex of a home improvement store. In the Bay Area. I had some orders that I had to—”

  “I don’t need details.” Pepper rolled her lower lip between her teeth, looking for all intents and purposes like a nervous young woman on a first date. Did she still pine for Noah? She glanced at his left hand and gasped. “You’re wearing a wedding ring.”

  “Yeah.” He massaged the back of his neck. “I’ve, uh, remarried.”

  “Oho!” Pepper barked out a laugh. “When you left, you said you’d never marry again.”

  “I was young. Foolish.”

  “You were a heel.”

  “Pepper, c’mon.” Noah huffed. “You know as well as I do that I would have been a horrible husband to you and a worse father to Cinnamon. I had a temper.”

  Pepper nodded. “He did. He could fly off the handle at the littlest thing. He said he blamed me for trapping him.”

  “I did not.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  Noah shrugged. “Fine. History always gets rewritten. Look, I needed time to grow up. To get my act together. Which I did more than twenty years ago.”

  She scowled. “Why didn’t you come back then?”

  “Because I knew you wouldn’t want me. You wouldn’t have trusted that I’d changed.”

  “Liar. You’re still gambling, aren’t you?” She turned to me. “He was a notorious gambler. Mainly poker. But given the chance, he’d bet a stranger which way the wind was blowing.”

  Noah worked his tongue inside his cheek, obviously trying hard not to utter a retort. After a long moment, he muttered, “I didn’t deserve you.”

  “Cinnamon needed a father.”

  “Not like me.”

  “Do you have other children?” I asked.

  Noah hesitated. He filled his cheeks with air and let it out slowly.

  “Well, do you?” Pepper demanded.

  “Yes. T
wo girls. They’re young women now.” Noah scrolled through photographs on his cell phone and held one up for inspection.

  “Do they have college funds?” Pepper asked.

  “Both have graduated college, but yes, they had them.”

  “Unlike your first daughter. Heaven forbid you invest in her.”

  “Pepper.” He grunted.

  Her eyes pooled with tears. She turned away to mop them in private.

  I glanced at the photographs of his daughters. “They’re quite pretty.” I wondered how Cinnamon would feel when she learned she had half sisters.

  “Their mother is”—Noah hesitated—“nothing like you, Pepper.”

  She whirled around. “You mean caustic and toxic? That’s what he used to say about me. That I was a pox on society.”

  “I never said—”

  “You did. Repeatedly. You didn’t like me harping on you about money. Or your career. Or the gambling.”

  Noah scrunched his nose. “What man would?”

  “You’re not the only one who’s changed, Noah.” Pepper jammed her fists against her hips. “I’ve changed, too. I’m kind and giving, and I’m an excellent beading teacher and a devoted mother. Tell him, Jenna.”

  I smiled fondly at her. “She is all of those things as well as a loyal friend.”

  “You saddled me with major trust issues when you left,” Pepper said to her ex.

  He hung his head. “I’m sorry. What else can I say?”

  Drill bits couldn’t have done as good a job as Pepper’s gaze at searing through flesh. “Out with it! You’re hiding something, Noah Pritchett.”

  “No—”

  “You’re not here to meet your daughter, are you? You’re in town to do something shady. I can feel it.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “Are you here to gamble, Noah?” She eyed me. “Do you know of any gambling games in town, Jenna?”

  I shook my head. I didn’t have a clue.

  “I’m no longer gambling,” Noah said. “I toe the line.”

  Pepper was right. He was lying. His gaze darted back and forth.

  “Look, Pepper . . .” He rolled his head on his neck. His spine cracked with a pop-pop. With great deliberation, he removed a business card from his shirt pocket and offered it to Pepper. “I’m staying at the Crystal Cove Inn. If you’re open to a chat—”

  “How can you afford that place?”

  “I’m doing well financially. Everything I do is on the up and up.”

  Pepper sniffed. “He couldn’t afford alimony. He ran off like a thief in the night and left us with nothing. Nothing.”

  “A house.”

  “A mortgage.” She folded her arms.

  Noah drew in another deep breath and let it out, and then sagged as if the exhalation had deflated him. “Like I said, if you’re open to a chat—a civil chat—call me.” He started toward a burnt orange Toyota Celica and paused. After a long moment, he spun on his heel. “I want to meet Cinnamon. Make it happen.”

  “Make it happen yourself.” Pepper hurled his card on the ground and stomped inside her store. When the door slammed, the glass rattled with a vengeance.

  Chapter 14

  I fled into the Cookbook Nook, negative vibes swirling inside me. Poor Pepper. I couldn’t imagine what she was feeling. The moment I slipped behind the sales counter, I called Cinnamon again. She wasn’t in. Was she ever? I considered leaving her another voice mail but hung up. Let her hear about her father from her mother. Or from him. It wasn’t my responsibility to buffer the shock.

  Midafternoon, as I was setting out copies of Let’s Have a Tea Party!: Special Celebrations for Little Girls, an adorable book designed for eight to ten-year-olds who wanted to learn how to make tea, design invitations, and have fun, Crusibella swept into the Cookbook Nook. She was dressed in a sheer blue dress with capelets that split into two fluttering scarf-like tails in the back.

  “I’m here,” she trilled. She bent to kiss Aunt Vera on the cheek and said, “I can’t wait for my palm reading.” Aunt Vera had read tarot for Crusibella on numerous occasions, but she’d never read her palm. “Once the children are gone, of course.”

  How many fortunes did she need to hear in a week? I’d forgotten to ask my aunt what she had foreseen the other day.

  “Where will I be doing my presentation?” Crusibella asked.

  A couple of weeks ago, she had invited middle-grade children to form a book club. To cross-promote, she suggested we order the book and host the club. Next month, we would do a cooking demonstration at her shop. She would sell cookbooks related to the demonstration. It was a win-win, she assured us. Today, she would read from Legend of the Star Runner, which she described as a mix between Indiana Jones and Goonies. Goofy but fun. The story required young readers to use their puzzle-solving skills. After she read the first chapter, she and the children would discuss the book with questions she had designed.

  Moving toward the rear of the store, Crusibella said, “Hello-o-o, Jenna. Don’t you look adorable?”

  She didn’t reiterate that trouble was brewing. In fact, she didn’t say anything about this morning’s exchange. Perhaps I’d overreacted about the computer issue. Maybe I’d closed my laptop and had forgotten to lock the front door.

  “Where’s Tina?” Crusibella asked. “Tina! Sweetie. Yoo-hoo!” She peered into the stockroom and then over her shoulder at me. “Hasn’t she arrived? She was supposed to print out my book club questions. I emailed it to the shop yesterday.”

  “I’ll do it.”

  “Crusibella!” Zoey Zeller blazed into the shop struggling with the strap of her briefcase. “A word.” She scurried to the rear of the shop and clutched Crusibella’s elbow, drawing her into a private conversation.

  I moved to the computer by the sales register and scrolled through email.

  Bailey stopped straightening books on the shelves and waddled to me, her baby belly pressing at the seams of her stretchy orange dress. “Ahem,” she whispered. “Does Crusibella seem unusually perky today?”

  “I think she’s excited about expanding her audience.” We had taped Spellbinder Book Shop posters near the children’s table. If one of our customers didn’t know about the store, they would after today. “Where is Tina, by the way?”

  “Helping Katie with today’s treats. Katie downloaded images of the characters in Star Runner. Tina wanted to learn how to spray-paint the images on the frosted cookies. I told her it was okay.”

  “Absolutely.” I browsed email and saw the one from Crusibella. I opened it, double-clicked on the attachment, and suddenly the computer emitted a loud beep. “What the heck?”

  The email vanished. So did three more. Zap, zap, zap. Then another. And another.

  I tapped a back arrow trying to stop whatever I’d started. “Bailey, help.”

  She hurried behind the counter and nudged me out of the way. With a few keystrokes, she stopped the vanishing act, closed email, and then shut down the computer. “What did you do?” she asked, concerned.

  “I opened an email.”

  “From someone you know?”

  “From Crusibella.” I peeked in her direction; she and Z.Z. were in rapt conversation, unaware that the chairs we’d set out for the event were nearly filled with children and adults. “Bailey”—I drew her close—“is it possible this email from Crusibella was a ruse?”

  “A ruse?”

  “Were we hacked?”

  “You mean by a Trojan horse? No, it’s a glitch, that’s all. Emails go poof all the time. It’s a wonder the Internet works at all. Why would you think we were hacked?”

  I explained last night’s event with my computer.

  “If it was Crusibella, how did she get in?” Bailey asked.

  “I might have forgotten to lock the front door. It was windy. The door was open when I arrived home.” I shared the story about seeing Crusibella standing on her doorstep in a sort of trance. “I think whoever used my computer browsed the Internet
.”

  “Looking for what?”

  “I don’t know. The history had been cleared.”

  “Maybe Crusibella’s computer was on the fritz and she saw an opportunity,” Bailey suggested. “She is looking to buy Dreamcatcher, after all. Maybe she was looking up comps.” Comps was the abbreviated word for comparables—what realtors used to evaluate property. She nodded toward Crusibella. “I’ll bet that’s what she and Z.Z. are talking about.”

  Z.Z. looked quite somber in a black suit, her forehead pinched in concentration. Crusibella was nodding, a slight smile on her face, as if whatever information Z.Z. was imparting was promising.

  “You’re probably right,” I said. “This email snafu was just a coincidence.”

  Bailey squeezed my shoulder. “I’m going to check on the cookies.”

  “And send Tina out. Maybe she made a copy of Crusibella’s attachment already.” I shuffled through papers by the printer but didn’t see it.

  “Will do.”

  Crusibella shook hands with Z.Z., after which the mayor flew out of the shop, a woman on a mission.

  Signaling the crowd, Crusibella said, “All right, everyone, let’s get started.” She eyed me. I raised my hands in frustration and mouthed: Just a minute. She frowned but quickly replaced it with a smile. “Who loves to solve puzzles?”

  Children under the age of twelve made up half the crowd. They cheered. The accompanying adults raised their hands.

  “Sorry, Jenna. Sorry!” With spray paint adorning her cheeks and hands and flour dust gracing the front of her red knit dress, Tina rushed behind the counter. “I did print it out. Let me find it.” She pulled a sheet of paper from beneath a pile of preorder forms by the cash register. “Here it is. I’ll make copies.”

  As she hurried to the stockroom to complete the task, I breathed easier. Maybe clicking on the email attachment had nothing to do with the hiccup. Our computer probably needed a tune-up. I jotted a note to contact our local geek.

  For forty-five minutes, Crusibella enthusiastically led the children in a discussion. Most had read the book. All of them loved the illustrations. When the session ended and the children were devouring cookies and the adults were roaming the shop for purchases, she joined Aunt Vera and me at the vintage table. To calm my nerves, I’d been putting together the upper corner of the bookshop-themed jigsaw puzzle.