Dangerous Alterations (18 page)

She shook her head. “No. And I used that very same outlet not more than a week or so ago. I wanted to make sure that old tape player I gave Lulu still worked before I got her hopes up. There was no spark, no fire then.”

Margaret Louise’s smile returned ever so briefly, the mere mention of one of her grandchildren enough to weather any storm. “It works like a champ. Why, Lulu’s been usin’ it to play school with Sally and they’ve been havin’ a grand time with it.”

“If the outlet worked fine then, that tells me the device must not have been there at that time.” Georgina stopped in the middle of the driveway and turned around, determination evident where frustration had been just moments earlier. “Knowing that you used that same outlet within the past week or so should provide the investigator with a time line at the very least. That alone will give them a starting point.”

A starting point … For figuring out who tried to sabotage the library.

“It’ll be nearly impossible to figure out,” Margaret Louise mused.

Georgina scowled. “Why is that?”

Tori looked to Margaret Louise for confirmation of the reasons that had occurred to her as well. “Because the hallway that leads to my office is the same hallway that takes patrons and delivery personnel to the children’s room … the bathrooms … and the back parking lot.”

A groan escaped Georgina’s lips. “But someone must have seen something.”

“We can certainly hope.” But even as the words left her lips, Tori knew she wouldn’t be that someone.

She’d been much too distracted in the days leading up to the fire—her thoughts, her energy, her daydreams centered around virtually one thing and one thing only.

Jeff.

What an idiot she’d been.

Jeff had ceased being her problem the moment she found him in the coat closet with Julia. Why she’d let his presence in Sweet Briar ruffle her feathers so much that she could have missed someone in her office was nothing short of shameful.

“Chief Dallas is going to have to figure this one out on his own,” she mumbled.

“Oh no, the arson investigator, Chief Granderson—they’re
all
going to be involved in finding out who did this.”

Tori raked a hand through her shoulder-length brown hair and exhaled loudly. “I don’t mean the fire. I mean Jeff’s murder.”

Margaret Louise gasped. “So it’s true? That cheatin’ lyin’ ex of yours was murdered?”

She shrugged. “According to Chief Dallas it’s certainly a consideration.”

“What does that have to do with you?” Georgina asked.

“I guess the chief feels my history with Jeff might be useful in figuring out the who and why.” She raised her arms above her head as if pushing at an invisible weight that threatened to blanket her very being. “But it isn’t. I haven’t known Jeff for over two years. Who he hurt, who he wronged since then can’t and isn’t my concern any longer. My focus, my attention has to be on the library.”

“Amen.” Margaret Louise linked her left arm through Tori’s and reached for Georgina with her right. “Now nothin’ is gonna be figured out standin’ here. Let’s go inside, work on some of those comfort pillows Rose wants us makin’ and get everyone caught up. I know that I, for one, am nearly burstin’ at the seams waitin’ to hear how the children’s room fared.”

“It fared amazingly well.” Arson or not, that, at least, was a fact. A fact she found herself anxious to say aloud—as if sharing it would restore the hope that had been ripped from her chest the second she learned the fire had been deliberate.

“The dress-up clothes? The stage? The murals? It’s all okay?”

“Nothing some dryers and a few power fans can’t fix.” Georgina fell into step beside Margaret Louise, her no-nonsense demeanor back where it belonged. “Other than Victoria’s office, the library itself suffered very little damage.”

“That’s good news. Tremendous, actually,” Margaret Louise said, casting a sideways glance in Tori’s direction. “Though hearin’ that almost makes you wonder whether the person responsible was truly after the
library
or just
Victoria
, don’t it?”

Relaxation was Tori’s for the taking. All she had to do was jump in on any number of conversations that were alive and well around the room. She could talk recipes with Margaret Louise and Debbie, or the latest children’s titles making the rounds of the elementary school set with Beatrice and Melissa. She could debate the town council’s decision to add yet another festival to the calendar with Georgina and Dixie, or help Leona hash out a suitable diet for Paris. And, if none of those struck her fancy, she could get to the bottom of all the worried looks Rose kept casting in her direction.

But try as she might, she couldn’t get Margaret Louise’s comment out of her thoughts. Because, quite frankly, there was a ring of truth to the woman’s musing that had taken hold of her stomach and twisted it into knots.

If someone had been intent on setting the library on fire, why wouldn’t they have put their little outlet-shorting device into the main room? She supposed it could be a simple matter of opportunity—more people translated to more watchful eyes—but slipping into a personal office during work hours seemed just as risky. Maybe even more so.

She glanced up from the case she was making for her comfort pillow and took in Dixie’s reformed demeanor. Gone was the woe-is-me attitude she’d worn like a badge of honor in the car ride. Gone were the additional lines around her eyes that had been so prevalent the night before. In their place was a woman who was not only animated in her discussion with Georgina, but also happy.

There were so many questions she wanted to fire her predecessor’s way, questions that might yield helpful answers.

Had Dixie given anyone permission to use the phone in Tori’s office recently?

Did she remember seeing anything unusual?

Did she know of anyone who might hold a measure of animosity toward the library or the board … besides herself, of course?

She sucked in her breath.

Was it possible? Could Dixie have finally exacted revenge on the board for ousting her from her beloved job two years ago?

She certainly had access with Nina on bed rest.

Tori shook the thought from her head as quickly as it surfaced. No. Dixie loved the library. Any anger the elderly woman still carried about her forced retirement was aimed at the board.

And, perhaps, still Tori to some degree—

“… almost makes you wonder whether the person responsible was truly after the library or just Victoria, don’t it?”

She felt her mouth go dry.

“Victoria?” Leona’s voice emerged from behind her travel magazine. “Are you okay?”

“Huh? What?”

The woman’s cluck of disgust made her sit up tall.

“Must you talk like such a—such a commoner, dear?” Leona set her magazine to the side, then leaned forward and wrapped her arms around a sleeping Paris. “A simple yes or no would have been fine.”

“Huh?”

Leona glared at Tori over the top of her glasses. “Your Chicago is showing.”

“And you’ve never been distracted, Leona?” Rose mumbled from her spot behind one of the portable sewing machines that had made the trip from Sweet Briar for the weekend.

“What could I possibly have to be distracted by?”

One by one, Rose began ticking away at the fingers on her left hand. “A designer suit in a store window, a travel deal to Paris or London or wherever you’re salivating to go, whatever young man happens to walk by in a uniform at any given moment for starters.”

Leona took pause over the last item then merely shook it off. “Distraction is for old goats like you, Rose.”

Rose’s eyes narrowed.

Leona’s chin lifted.

The battle lines were drawn and Tori was smack-dab in the middle. “Hold on you two. Let’s not start, okay? Yes, I’m a little distracted. No, I didn’t use proper grammar when I answered you, Leona, and for that I’m sorry. I guess I just have a lot on my mind.”

Rose pulled her focus from Leona and fixed it, instead, on Tori. “The library will be fine, Victoria. There’s not a person in this town who won’t move heaven and earth to make sure that building is good as new in no time.”

Leona nodded. “I’ve been after you to make that office of yours more romantic since day one. Perhaps this turn of events will provide the fire to make it happen.”

“No pun intended, of course,” Rose countered.

“Pun?” Leona closed her eyes, bobbed her head, and then opened them again, a slight smile lifting the corners of her mouth upward. “Ahhh. I am rather clever, aren’t I?”

“That’s not a word I’d use to describe you, Leona.” Rose wiggled out from behind the sewing machine. “I’d choose something more fitting—something like shallow, or egotistical, or desperate, or—”

“Desperate?” Leona gasped. “Desperate?”

“That’s what they call women who feel the need to have a man by their side twenty-four/seven, isn’t it?” A hush fell over the room as Rose continued. “Because they’re desperate for attention, desperate for validation, desperate for love.”

Leona sprang to her feet, Paris’s ears in full sensory mode. “I am not, nor will I
ever
be, desperate for a man.”

“Oh no?” Rose snapped. “What about in the past? Were you ever desperate for a man in your past?”

Beatrice’s shoulders slumped behind her machine as the tension mounted in the room.

Melissa cast a nervous glance over the edge of Molly Sue’s travel crib.

Margaret Louise moved to rest a gentle hand on her sister’s shoulder and whisper something in her ear.

Leona jerked away. “Paris and I are going to bed. Victoria, you know where my room is should you want to talk.” One by one, Leona looked at everyone in the room except Rose. “Good night, everyone. Or should I say,
almost
everyone.”

Rose snorted.

“Rose!” Debbie reprimanded. “Must you poke at Leona all the time?”

“Yes.”

Conversation volleyed around the room as Tori mentally replayed the heated exchange. There was more to Leona and her behavior, of that she was certain. The trick, though, was smoking it out of a woman who had a lot to say about others yet very little to say about herself.

Sure, there was a part of her that thought it best to let Leona keep whatever hurt she’d experienced to herself. It was Leona’s right and, obviously, her preference.

But the part of Tori that had come to love and treasure Leona as a friend wanted to help. Even if that help could only be a pair of ears. Lord knew Leona had been that and then some for Tori on many occasions.

She glanced up to find Margaret Louise staring at her. “What?”

“You should go talk to her.”

“To Leona? Me? Why? She’s not going to talk to me.” But even as the words left her mouth, she knew Margaret Louise was right. The woman was always right.

She rose to her feet and moved in beside Leona’s twin sister. “We’ve been friends for two years now and I had no idea she’d been hurt by love until just the other day. And even then it was because I put it together, not because she told me.”

“The wound is deep.”

Her heart broke for Leona. “But how do I get her to tell me?”

Margaret Louise shrugged. “I’m not sure she will. But that whole thing with Rose just now happened because she was in a worried snit ’bout you.”

She felt her own shoulders slump. “I can’t control what Rose says.”

“Of course you can’t. None of us can. And that sister of mine is hardly an innocent party where their constant feu-din’ is concerned. I know that. You know that. Everyone knows that. But you bring out a nurturin’ side in my sister I haven’t seen in years. So let her nurture. Maybe it’ll bring those walls she’s fancied ’round her heart tumblin’ down once and for all.”

Reaching out, Tori gave her friend’s arm a gentle squeeze. “I’ll see what I can do.”

She slipped from the room, her departure virtually unnoticed as the members of the Sweet Briar Ladies Society Sewing Circle did what they did best—sew, gossip, and eat. Though, if she were a betting woman, she’d plunk down a few extra bucks on Rose being aware of both her exit and her destination.

The wood-paneled hallway that branched off the main room splintered off in two more directions as she approached the midway point. The right would take her to the room where she was bunking with Rose as well as the rooms shared by Debbie and Melissa, and Georgina, Beatrice, and now Dixie. She took the hallway to the left, stopping at the closed door that served as a gatekeeper for the woman inside.

Tori knocked softly. “Leona? It’s Tori. Can we talk?”

“Are you alone?”

“Yes.”

“That hateful old woman isn’t with you?”

She stifled the urge to laugh. “No. It’s just me. Victoria.”

“Come in.”

With a quick flick of her wrist, she pushed the door open and stepped inside, the only light in the room coming from a series of votive candles flickering on a side table. Beside them, sat Leona, rocking, a far-off look in her eyes.

Tori crossed to the bed and sat on the edge closest to Leona. “Are you okay?”

Leona’s false eyelashes fluttered and then closed. “I’m worried about Paris.”

Her gaze jumped to the wide-eyed bunny in the cushioned dog bed nestled beside the rocking chair. “He looks okay. Just not very tired.”

Leona opened her eyes and pointed at the bunny. “Watch his sides. He seems to be having difficulty breathing.”

Lowering herself from the bed, Tori looked closely at Paris. Leona was right. “Has he been doing this all day?”

“No.” Leona’s mouth twisted in grief. “Just since I brought him in here.”

“Maybe he’s just reacting to the smell of the candles.”

The woman shook her head. “I brought them from home. It’s his normal bedtime scent.”

She looked up at Leona. “Bedtime scent?”