Mind Over Murder (4 page)

Her last word was delivered on a wail, and Clara said quickly, “We know how you feel. It was a shock to us, too.”

“What about the store?” Stephanie nodded at the entrance to Jordan’s Stationer’s, where people hovered uneasily, talking to each other in low whispers.

“It’s locked up.” Frannie sniffed. “That’s when I first knew something was wrong. Ana always gets here early to open up, and when I found the door locked I knew something must have happened to her.” She started crying again. “I never imagined it would be this.”

“Well, I think you should go home.” Stephanie looked around. “Did you ride your bike to work?”

Frannie nodded and blew her nose on a wad of tissues.

“I can give you a ride home,” Clara offered. “My car is down the hill in the parking lot.”

“Thank you, but I’d rather bike home. The fresh air will help clear my head.”

She tried to smile, failed, and walked off quickly, the tissues clamped firmly to her nose.

“I feel so sorry for her,” Stephanie said, as she watched the frail woman turn the corner of the building. “She’s worked here forever. I wonder what she’ll do now?”

“I guess that depends on what happens with the store.” Clara looked past her cousin’s shoulder at the few people left outside the bookstore. “Where did Molly go?”

“She took off.” Stephanie sighed. “The last I saw of her she was running down the street thumbing numbers into her cell phone. I’ve forgotten how it feels to be that young and have a life.”

“I should think with a husband and three young kids you have plenty of life.”

“You know what I mean.” Stephanie returned a wave as the last of the spectators walked away. “A life with dates and boyfriends and an exciting future just around the corner. Sometimes I miss that.”

Clara’s stomach churned. “If you ask me, we’ve had more than enough excitement for one day.”

“That’s different. Don’t remind me. I’m trying to put it out of my mind for a while.” Stephanie heaved a long sigh. “What about you? Won’t you miss your exciting life in New York? It must be hard coming back to a sleepy little town like Finn’s Harbor.”

Clara avoided looking at her. “It’s home. Besides, New York isn’t nearly as exciting as you might think.” She glanced across the street. “There’s that guy again.”

Stephanie turned her head to look. “What guy?”

“The guy across the street.” Clara jerked her head. “There, outside the hardware store.”

“Oh, that’s Rick.” Stephanie turned back and studied her cousin. “Rick Sanders. He’s the new owner of Parson’s Hardware. Fairly new, anyway. Come to think about it, he’s been there a few months now. I wonder when he’s going to change the name of the store.”

Clara watched the man dump a barrel full of brooms, rakes and shovels outside the store. “He’s got muscle power; I’ll give him that.”

“Clara Quinn! Are you interested? He’s single you know, and he’s certainly tall enough for you. Good looking, too.”

Clara scowled at her cousin. “No, I’m not interested. I’m done with men for good.”

Stephanie looked taken aback. “For good? You’re never going to get married and have kids?”

“Not if I can help it.” Clara decided it was a good time to change the subject. “By the way, I’m only five ten, so you can quit the tall cracks.”

Stephanie looked repentant. “Sorry, but I’ve spent my entire life literally looking up at you. Seven inches difference between us is hard to ignore. Remember how we got teased in high school? They called us Lofty and Shorty.”

Clara pulled a face. “How can I forget? You keep reminding me.”

“Sorry again.” Stephanie jumped as her cell phone sang out its annoying little tune. She answered it, frowning, spoke briefly, then snapped it shut and dropped it in her purse with a resigned expression on her face. “That was my mom. She heard about the murder and she’s freaking out.”

Clara felt a twinge of uneasiness. “My mom’s probably heard about it by now, too. I imagine the whole town knows. We’d better get home.” She had about three hours before her mother would be home from her job at the local library. She wasn’t looking forward to having to recount the whole horrible experience. She needed those hours to be alone and get herself together again.

She set off, with Stephanie on her heels, and together they made their way to the parking lot, where they parted company.

After she let herself into the house, Clara rushed straight to her room and closed the door. She wanted to throw herself on the bed and bury her head under a pillow, but she resisted the urge. She had e-mails to write to the few people she wanted to keep in touch with in New York. It would help keep her mind off the horrible events of the morning.

It was an hour or so later when Stephanie called. The minute she began to speak, Clara could tell she was upset. “You’re not going to believe this,” Stephanie said, sounding angry and tearful. “Those idiots at the police station are holding Molly for questioning in Ana’s murder.”

“
What
?” For an instant Clara remembered the soft voice trying to tell her something when Molly was talking. Impatiently brushing the memory aside, she asked sharply, “Have they charged her?”

“Not yet. She asked Tim Rossi—the officer with Dan this morning—to let me know she might not be at work tomorrow.” Stephanie sounded close to tears. “Oh, Clara, I know Molly didn’t kill Ana. I just know it. We’ve got to help her.”

Clara blinked. “Us? How can we help her? We’re not lawyers.”

“We have to find out who did kill Ana. Until we do, everyone will think Molly did it. Even if the cops can’t prove it. It will destroy her.”

Clara gripped the phone, praying that Stephanie didn’t mean what she thought she meant. “Just how are we going to do that?”

The dreaded words echoed in her ear like the sound of doom.

“You can do it, Clara. You have to use the Quinn Sense and find out who killed Ana Jordan.”

“You’ve got to be kidding!” Clara struggled to keep her tone calm. “Stephanie, I don’t have any control over the Quinn Sense. It comes and goes, and I never know when it’s going to pop up, and even when it does, most of the time I have no idea what it’s trying to tell me. It’s never there when I need it, and it’s totally, utterly unreliable.”

She must have sounded more adamant than she’d intended, as there was a long pause on the other end of the line. Finally, Stephanie’s voice mumbled in her ear. “I know you hate it, and I’ll never understand why, but we have to do something to help Molly, and you’re the only one—”

“Molly will be fine. If she’s innocent, then Dan will know it, and she’ll be home any time now. He’s just trying to find out as much as he can.”

“Then why did he have her brought to the station? Why didn’t he just question her at the bookstore when he was there?”

Clara hesitated. “Maybe he thought she’d tell him more if she felt intimidated.”

“Like what?” Stephanie paused, then added, “You think she did it, don’t you?”

Closing her eyes, Clara remembered Molly’s fierce voice.
If you won’t do anything, then I will.
“No, of course not—”

“Well, I know she didn’t, and I’ll find some way to help her. I have to go now. I’ll see you at the store tomorrow.”

Clara winced as the line went dead. Her cousin’s accusing voice still rung in her ears. Sighing, she replaced the receiver. It wasn’t as if she didn’t want to help Molly, but Stephanie was expecting too much if she thought the Quinn Sense was going to solve the case.

For one thing, she’d spent too many years trying to shut the annoying voices down forever. It must have worked. The one time she’d desperately needed the Sense it had let her down. She suspected that the Quinn family’s unusual talents were like muscles. The less you used them, the less effective they were.

She was about to return to her e-mails when she heard the front door snap shut. A couple of minutes later, her mother flung open the bedroom door without knocking, her eyes wide and disbelieving. “Is it true?”

Clara bit back the hasty words forming in her mind. Her mother still treated her like a schoolkid, and one of these days, she’d have a conversation about respecting privacy. Right now, though, there was a more important issue to talk about. “Yes,” she said quietly. “It’s true. Someone killed Ana Jordan in the stockroom of Stephanie’s bookstore.”

Her mother’s gasp of horror seemed to echo around the room. “That poor child! How did she take it?” She rushed into the room and flung herself down on the bed. “She must be absolutely devastated!”

“She’s kind of shook up, yes.” Clara regarded her mother with an air of resignation. Jessica Quinn had always looked and dressed younger than her years. Now that she’d had her short hair colored and added false eyelashes, she could easily pass for a woman in her early forties instead of fifty-five.

If she didn’t know better, Clara might have suspected that her mother was looking to replace her dead husband. In spite of the glamorous image, though, Clara knew Jessie was still grieving. They both were, and her mother’s new look was simply a defense against the pain that still lingered after more than two years.

“By the way,” she said, with just a hint of reproach, “I was a little upset, too, since I was the one who found her.”

“Oh, yes, I did hear that.” Jessie looked repentant. “How are you doing?”

“I’m okay.” Clara looked at her watch. “You’re home early.”

“I left early.” Jessie got up from the bed and smoothed her skirt over her slim hips. “As soon as I heard the news, I felt I had to get home and find out what happened. I’m going to make some tea, so let’s go into the kitchen and you can fill me in on all the details.”

Clara sent a reluctant glance at her laptop, then closed the lid. She wouldn’t get any peace until she’d told her mother everything she knew, so she might as well get it over with, and maybe she’d still have enough energy left over to finish her e-mails.

Across town, Stephanie set up the ironing board in her kitchen, grabbed a shirt from the basket, and started slapping the iron back and forth so hard it shot out a cloud of steam in protest.

She still couldn’t believe that Clara had refused to help clear Molly’s name. Her cousin had never refused her anything before. She’d only had to ask, and Clara had been there, ready and willing to take whatever risks were involved.

Stephanie slammed the iron down on the collar of the shirt. Clara had changed, that much was obvious. That crack about being done with men, for instance. Clara had mentioned a boyfriend more than once but had refused to go into details. Not like the old days when they’d shared every thought and dream. The longer Clara had stayed in New York, the more secretive and reserved she’d become. Unlike her cousin—blurting out everything as it came to mind.

She’d been so looking forward to Clara coming back to Finn’s Harbor to live. She’d envisioned the two of them just as they’d been in the past—eager daredevils ready to take on the world. Sure, she was married now and had three kids to take care of, and she was happy being a wife and mother, but deep down she was still Steffie, looking for excitement around every corner.

Stephanie let out a wistful sigh. It had been a long time since Clara had called her Steffie. It had been a very long time since she and Clara had exchanged secrets.

She shook out the shirt and hung it on a hanger, giving it a gentle pat before reaching in the laundry basket for another shirt to iron. Not that she’d trade her life with George and the kids for any kind of adventure.

Still, there was no one else she could share her deepest, most intimate hopes and fears with the way she had with Clara, and she missed that. She missed it a lot.

A forlorn tear splashed onto her fingers, and she jabbed an impatient hand at her cheek. Lifting the iron, she flattened a sleeve and was about to tackle it when the soft click of a closing door froze her hand.

Her quick glance at the clock confirmed that it was way too early for her mother to be bringing the kids home. George never got home before dinnertime, and it was still only the middle of the afternoon.

Her thoughts flew to the still form underneath the sheet on the gurney. Clara hadn’t let her near the stockroom after she’d found Ana’s body, but Stephanie’s imagination filled in a pretty good picture.
What if she were next?

Her heart pounded so hard it shook her entire body. She grabbed hold of the iron, pulled out the plug, then crept over to the fridge. If the person who entered her house came into the kitchen, he was going to get a nasty headache.

Ears straining and arm raised, she waited. Maybe she’d imagined the door closing. Her arm ached, and she lowered the iron. Perhaps she should just take a look.

She took a step forward then froze again.
That creak
. She knew it well. It was the third stair from the top. She’d caught her kids sneaking downstairs more than once because of it.
He was going up to the bedrooms
.